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| − | Mein Kampf
| + | <span class="noprint plainlinks purgelink">[{{fullurl:{{{page|{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}}|action=purge}} {{{1|Purge}}}]</span> |
| − | Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
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| − | Translated into English by James Murphy (died 1946).
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| − | INTRODUCTION
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| − | | |
| − | VOLUME I: A RETROSPECT
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| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER I IN THE HOME OF MY PARENTS
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| − | CHAPTER II YEARS OF STUDY AND SUFFERING IN VIENNA
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| − | CHAPTER III POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING OUT OF MY SOJOURN IN VIENNA
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| − | CHAPTER IV MUNICH
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| − | CHAPTER V THE WORLD WAR
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| − | CHAPTER VI WAR PROPAGANDA
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| − | CHAPTER VII THE REVOLUTION
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| − | CHAPTER VIII THE BEGINNING OF MY POLITICAL ACTIVITIES
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| − | CHAPTER IX THE GERMAN LABOUR PARTY
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| − | CHAPTER X WHY THE SECOND REICH COLLAPSED
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| − | CHAPTER XI RACE AND PEOPLE
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| − | CHAPTER XII THE FIRST STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY
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| − | | |
| − | VOLUME II: THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT
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| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER I WELTANSCHAUUNG AND PARTY
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| − | CHAPTER II THE STATE
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| − | CHAPTER III CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS OF THE STATE
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| − | CHAPTER IV PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE PEOPLE'S STATE
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| − | CHAPTER V WELTANSCHAUUNG AND ORGANIZATION
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| − | CHAPTER VI THE FIRST PERIOD OF OUR STRUGGLE
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| − | CHAPTER VII THE CONFLICT WITH THE RED FORCES
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| − | CHAPTER VIII THE STRONG IS STRONGEST WHEN ALONE
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| − | CHAPTER IX FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS REGARDING THE NATURE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STORM TROOPS
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| − | CHAPTER X THE MASK OF FEDERALISM
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| − | CHAPTER XI PROPAGANDA AND ORGANIZATION
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| − | CHAPTER XII THE PROBLEM OF THE TRADE UNIONS
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| − | CHAPTER XIII THE GERMAN POST-WAR POLICY OF ALLIANCES
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| − | CHAPTER XIV GERMANY'S POLICY IN EASTERN EUROPE
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| − | CHAPTER XV THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE
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| − | EPILOGUE
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| − | INTRODUCTION
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| − | AUTHOR'S PREFACE
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| − | On April 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the
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| − | Fortress of Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict of the Munich
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| − | People's Court of that time.
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| − | | |
| − | After years of uninterrupted labour it was now possible for the first
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| − | time to begin a work which many had asked for and which I myself felt
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| − | would be profitable for the Movement. So I decided to devote two volumes
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| − | to a description not only of the aims of our Movement but also of its
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| − | development. There is more to be learned from this than from any purely
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| − | doctrinaire treatise.
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| − | | |
| − | This has also given me the opportunity of describing my own development
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| − | in so far as such a description is necessary to the understanding of the
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| − | first as well as the second volume and to destroy the legendary
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| − | fabrications which the Jewish Press have circulated about me.
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| − | | |
| − | In this work I turn not to strangers but to those followers of the
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| − | Movement whose hearts belong to it and who wish to study it more
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| − | profoundly. I know that fewer people are won over by the written word
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| − | than by the spoken word and that every great movement on this earth owes
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| − | its growth to great speakers and not to great writers.
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| − | | |
| − | Nevertheless, in order to produce more equality and uniformity in the
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| − | defence of any doctrine, its fundamental principles must be committed to
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| − | writing. May these two volumes therefore serve as the building stones
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| − | which I contribute to the joint work.
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| − | | |
| − | The Fortress, Landsberg am Lech.
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| − | At half-past twelve in the afternoon of November 9th, 1923, those whose
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| − | names are given below fell in front of the FELDHERRNHALLE and in the
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| − | forecourt of the former War Ministry in Munich for their loyal faith in
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| − | the resurrection of their people:
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| − | | |
| − | Alfarth, Felix, Merchant, born July 5th, 1901
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| − | Bauriedl, Andreas, Hatmaker, born May 4th, 1879
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| − | Casella, Theodor, Bank Official, born August 8th, 1900
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| − | Ehrlich, Wilhelm, Bank Official, born August 19th, 1894
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| − | Faust, Martin, Bank Official, born January 27th, 1901
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| − | Hechenberger, Anton, Locksmith, born September 28th, 1902
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| − | Koerner, Oskar, Merchant, born January 4th, 1875
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| − | Kuhn, Karl, Head Waiter, born July 25th, 1897
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| − | Laforce, Karl, Student of Engineering, born October 28th, 1904
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| − | Neubauer, Kurt, Waiter, born March 27th, 1899
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| − | Pape, Claus von, Merchant, born August 16th, 1904
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| − | Pfordten, Theodor von der, Councillor to the Superior Provincial Court,
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| − | born May 14th, 1873
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| − | Rickmers, Johann, retired Cavalry Captain, born May 7th, 1881
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| − | Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, Dr. of Engineering, born January 9th,
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| − | 1884
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| − | Stransky, Lorenz Ritter von, Engineer, born March 14th, 1899
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| − | Wolf, Wilhelm, Merchant, born October 19th, 1898
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| − | | |
| − | So-called national officials refused to allow the dead heroes a common
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| − | burial. So I dedicate the first volume of this work to them as a common
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| − | memorial, that the memory of those martyrs may be a permanent source of
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| − | light for the followers of our Movement.
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| − | | |
| − | The Fortress, Landsberg a/L.,
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| − | October 16th, 1924
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| − | TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
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| − | | |
| − | In placing before the reader this unabridged translation of Adolf
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| − | Hitler's book, MEIN KAMPF, I feel it my duty to call attention to
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| − | certain historical facts which must be borne in mind if the reader would
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| − | form a fair judgment of what is written in this extraordinary work.
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| − | | |
| − | The first volume of MEIN KAMPF was written while the author was
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| − | imprisoned in a Bavarian fortress. How did he get there and why? The
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| − | answer to that question is important, because the book deals with the
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| − | events which brought the author into this plight and because he wrote
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| − | under the emotional stress caused by the historical happenings of the
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| − | time. It was the hour of Germany's deepest humiliation, somewhat
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| − | parallel to that of a little over a century before, when Napoleon had
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| − | dismembered the old German Empire and French soldiers occupied almost
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| − | the whole of Germany.
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| − | | |
| − | In the beginning of 1923 the French invaded Germany, occupied the Ruhr
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| − | district and seized several German towns in the Rhineland. This was a
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| − | flagrant breach of international law and was protested against by every
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| − | section of British political opinion at that time. The Germans could not
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| − | effectively defend themselves, as they had been already disarmed under
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| − | the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. To make the situation more
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| − | fraught with disaster for Germany, and therefore more appalling in its
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| − | prospect, the French carried on an intensive propaganda for the
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| − | separation of the Rhineland from the German Republic and the
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| − | establishment of an independent Rhenania. Money was poured out lavishly
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| − | to bribe agitators to carry on this work, and some of the most insidious
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| − | elements of the German population became active in the pay of the
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| − | invader. At the same time a vigorous movement was being carried on in
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| − | Bavaria for the secession of that country and the establishment of an
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| − | independent Catholic monarchy there, under vassalage to France, as
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| − | Napoleon had done when he made Maximilian the first King of Bavaria in
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| − | 1805.
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| − | | |
| − | The separatist movement in the Rhineland went so far that some leading
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| − | German politicians came out in favour of it, suggesting that if the
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| − | Rhineland were thus ceded it might be possible for the German Republic
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| − | to strike a bargain with the French in regard to Reparations. But in
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| − | Bavaria the movement went even farther. And it was more far-reaching in
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| − | its implications; for, if an independent Catholic monarchy could be set
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| − | up in Bavaria, the next move would have been a union with Catholic
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| − | German-Austria. possibly under a Habsburg King. Thus a Catholic BLOC
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| − | would have been created which would extend from the Rhineland through
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| − | Bavaria and Austria into the Danube Valley and would have been at least
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| − | under the moral and military, if not the full political, hegemony of
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| − | France. The dream seems fantastic now, but it was considered quite a
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| − | practical thing in those fantastic times. The effect of putting such a
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| − | plan into action would have meant the complete dismemberment of Germany;
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| − | and that is what French diplomacy aimed at. Of course such an aim no
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| − | longer exists. And I should not recall what must now seem "old, unhappy,
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| − | far-off things" to the modern generation, were it not that they were
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| − | very near and actual at the time MEIN KAMPF was written and were more
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| − | unhappy then than we can even imagine now.
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| − | | |
| − | By the autumn of 1923 the separatist movement in Bavaria was on the
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| − | point of becoming an accomplished fact. General von Lossow, the Bavarian
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| − | chief of the REICHSWEHR no longer took orders from Berlin. The flag of
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| − | the German Republic was rarely to be seen, Finally, the Bavarian Prime
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| − | Minister decided to proclaim an independent Bavaria and its secession
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| − | from the German Republic. This was to have taken place on the eve of the
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| − | Fifth Anniversary of the establishment of the German Republic (November
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| − | 9th, 1918.)
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| − | | |
| − | Hitler staged a counter-stroke. For several days he had been mobilizing
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| − | his storm battalions in the neighbourhood of Munich, intending to make a
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| − | national demonstration and hoping that the REICHSWEHR would stand by him
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| − | to prevent secession. Ludendorff was with him. And he thought that the
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| − | prestige of the great German Commander in the World War would be
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| − | sufficient to win the allegiance of the professional army.
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| − | | |
| − | A meeting had been announced to take place in the Bürgerbräu Keller on
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| − | the night of November 8th. The Bavarian patriotic societies were
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| − | gathered there, and the Prime Minister, Dr. von Kahr, started to read
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| − | his official PRONUNCIAMENTO, which practically amounted to a
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| − | proclamation of Bavarian independence and secession from the Republic.
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| − | While von Kahr was speaking Hitler entered the hall, followed by
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| − | Ludendorff. And the meeting was broken up.
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| − | | |
| − | Next day the Nazi battalions took the street for the purpose of making a
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| − | mass demonstration in favour of national union. They marched in massed
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| − | formation, led by Hitler and Ludendorff. As they reached one of the
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| − | central squares of the city the army opened fire on them. Sixteen of the
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| − | marchers were instantly killed, and two died of their wounds in the
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| − | local barracks of the REICHSWEHR. Several others were wounded also.
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| − | Hitler fell on the pavement and broke a collar-bone. Ludendorff marched
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| − | straight up to the soldiers who were firing from the barricade, but not
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| − | a man dared draw a trigger on his old Commander.
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| − | | |
| − | Hitler was arrested with several of his comrades and imprisoned in the
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| − | fortress of Landsberg on the River Lech. On February 26th, 1924, he was
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| − | brought to trial before the VOLKSGERICHT, or People's Court in Munich.
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| − | He was sentenced to detention in a fortress for five years. With several
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| − | companions, who had been also sentenced to various periods of
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| − | imprisonment, he returned to Landsberg am Lech and remained there until
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| − | the 20th of the following December, when he was released. In all he
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| − | spent about thirteen months in prison. It was during this period that he
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| − | wrote the first volume of MEIN KAMPF.
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| − | | |
| − | If we bear all this in mind we can account for the emotional stress
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| − | under which MEIN KAMPF was written. Hitler was naturally incensed
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| − | against the Bavarian government authorities, against the footling
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| − | patriotic societies who were pawns in the French game, though often
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| − | unconsciously so, and of course against the French. That he should write
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| − | harshly of the French was only natural in the circumstances. At that
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| − | time there was no exaggeration whatsoever in calling France the
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| − | implacable and mortal enemy of Germany. Such language was being used by
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| − | even the pacifists themselves, not only in Germany but abroad. And even
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| − | though the second volume of MEIN KAMPF was written after Hitler's
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| − | release from prison and was published after the French had left the
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| − | Ruhr, the tramp of the invading armies still echoed in German ears, and
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| − | the terrible ravages that had been wrought in the industrial and
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| − | financial life of Germany, as a consequence of the French invasion, had
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| − | plunged the country into a state of social and economic chaos. In France
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| − | itself the franc fell to fifty per cent of its previous value. Indeed,
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| − | the whole of Europe had been brought to the brink of ruin, following the
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| − | French invasion of the Ruhr and Rhineland.
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| − | | |
| − | But, as those things belong to the limbo of a dead past that nobody
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| − | wishes to have remembered now, it is often asked: Why doesn't Hitler
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| − | revise MEIN KAMPF? The answer, as I think, which would immediately come
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| − | into the mind of an impartial critic is that MEIN KAMPF is an historical
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| − | document which bears the imprint of its own time. To revise it would
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| − | involve taking it out of its historical context. Moreover Hitler has
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| − | declared that his acts and public statements constitute a partial
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| − | revision of his book and are to be taken as such. This refers especially
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| − | to the statements in MEIN KAMPF regarding France and those German
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| − | kinsfolk that have not yet been incorporated in the REICH. On behalf of
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| − | Germany he has definitely acknowledged the German portion of South Tyrol
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| − | as permanently belonging to Italy and, in regard to France, he has again
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| − | and again declared that no grounds now exist for a conflict of political
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| − | interests between Germany and France and that Germany has no territorial
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| − | claims against France. Finally, I may note here that Hitler has also
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| − | declared that, as he was only a political leader and not yet a statesman
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| − | in a position of official responsibility, when he wrote this book, what
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| − | he stated in MEIN KAMPF does not implicate him as Chancellor of the
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| − | REICH.
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| − | | |
| − | I now come to some references in the text which are frequently recurring
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| − | and which may not always be clear to every reader. For instance, Hitler
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| − | speaks indiscriminately of the German REICH. Sometimes he means to refer
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| − | to the first REICH, or Empire, and sometimes to the German Empire as
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| − | founded under William I in 1871. Incidentally the regime which he
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| − | inaugurated in 1933 is generally known as the THIRD REICH, though this
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| − | expression is not used in MEIN KAMPF. Hitler also speaks of the Austrian
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| − | REICH and the East Mark, without always explicitly distinguishing
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| − | between the Habsburg Empire and Austria proper. If the reader will bear
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| − | the following historical outline in mind, he will understand the
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| − | references as they occur.
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| − | | |
| − | The word REICH, which is a German form of the Latin word REGNUM, does
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| − | not mean Kingdom or Empire or Republic. It is a sort of basic word that
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| − | may apply to any form of Constitution. Perhaps our word, Realm, would be
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| − | the best translation, though the word Empire can be used when the REICH
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| − | was actually an Empire. The forerunner of the first German Empire was
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| − | the Holy Roman Empire which Charlemagne founded in A.D. 800. Charlemagne
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| − | was King of the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes that subsequently
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| − | became Romanized. In the tenth century Charlemagne's Empire passed into
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| − | German hands when Otto I (936-973) became Emperor. As the Holy Roman
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| − | Empire of the German Nation, its formal appellation, it continued to
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| − | exist under German Emperors until Napoleon overran and dismembered
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| − | Germany during the first decade of the last century. On August 6th,
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| − | 1806, the last Emperor, Francis II, formally resigned the German crown.
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| − | In the following October Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph, after the
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| − | Battle of Jena.
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| − | | |
| − | After the fall of Napoleon a movement set in for the reunion of the
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| − | German states in one Empire. But the first decisive step towards that
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| − | end was the foundation of the Second German Empire in 1871, after the
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| − | Franco-Prussian War. This Empire, however, did not include the German
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| − | lands which remained under the Habsburg Crown. These were known as
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| − | German Austria. It was Bismarck's dream to unite German Austria with the
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| − | German Empire; but it remained only a dream until Hitler turned it into
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| − | a reality in 1938'. It is well to bear that point in mind, because this
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| − | dream of reuniting all the German states in one REICH has been a
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| − | dominant feature of German patriotism and statesmanship for over a
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| − | century and has been one of Hitler's ideals since his childhood.
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| − | | |
| − | In MEIN KAMPF Hitler often speaks of the East Mark. This East Mark--i.e.
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| − | eastern frontier land--was founded by Charlemagne as the eastern bulwark
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| − | of the Empire. It was inhabited principally by Germano-Celtic tribes
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| − | called Bajuvari and stood for centuries as the firm bulwark of Western
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| − | Christendom against invasion from the East, especially against the
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| − | Turks. Geographically it was almost identical with German Austria.
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| − | | |
| − | There are a few points more that I wish to mention in this introductory
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| − | note. For instance, I have let the word WELTANSCHAUUNG stand in its
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| − | original form very often. We have no one English word to convey the same
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| − | meaning as the German word, and it would have burdened the text too much
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| − | if I were to use a circumlocution each time the word occurs.
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| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG literally means "Outlook-on-the World". But as generally
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| − | used in German this outlook on the world means a whole system of ideas
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| − | associated together in an organic unity--ideas of human life, human
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| − | values, cultural and religious ideas, politics, economics, etc., in fact
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| − | a totalitarian view of human existence. Thus Christianity could be
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| − | called a WELTANSCHAUUNG, and Mohammedanism could be called a
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| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG, and Socialism could be called a WELTANSCHAUUNG,
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| − | especially as preached in Russia. National Socialism claims definitely
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| − | to be a WELTANSCHAUUNG.
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| − | | |
| − | Another word I have often left standing in the original is VÖLKISCH. The
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| − | basic word here is VOLK, which is sometimes translated as PEOPLE; but
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| − | the German word, VOLK, means the whole body of the PEOPLE without any
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| − | distinction of class or caste. It is a primary word also that suggests
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| − | what might be called the basic national stock. Now, after the defeat in
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| − | 1918, the downfall of the Monarchy and the destruction of the
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| − | aristocracy and the upper classes, the concept of DAS VOLK came into
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| − | prominence as the unifying co-efficient which would embrace the whole
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| − | German people. Hence the large number of VÖLKISCH societies that arose
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| − | after the war and hence also the National Socialist concept of
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| − | unification which is expressed by the word VOLKSGEMEINSCHAFT, or folk
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| − | community. This is used in contradistinction to the Socialist concept of
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| − | the nation as being divided into classes. Hitler's ideal is the
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| − | VÖLKISCHER STAAT, which I have translated as the People's State.
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| − | | |
| − | Finally, I would point out that the term Social Democracy may be
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| − | misleading in English, as it has not a democratic connotation in our
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| − | sense. It was the name given to the Socialist Party in Germany. And that
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| − | Party was purely Marxist; but it adopted the name Social Democrat in
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| − | order to appeal to the democratic sections of the German people.
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| − | | |
| − | JAMES MURPHY.
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| − | | |
| − | Abbots Langley, February, 1939
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | VOLUME I: A RETROSPECT
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER I
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | IN THE HOME OF MY PARENTS
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | It has turned out fortunate for me to-day that destiny appointed
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| − | Braunau-on-the-Inn to be my birthplace. For that little town is situated
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| − | just on the frontier between those two States the reunion of which
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| − | seems, at least to us of the younger generation, a task to which we
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| − | should devote our lives and in the pursuit of which every possible means
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| − | should be employed.
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| − | | |
| − | German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland. And not
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| − | indeed on any grounds of economic calculation whatsoever. No, no. Even
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| − | if the union were a matter of economic indifference, and even if it were
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| − | to be disadvantageous from the economic standpoint, still it ought to
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| − | take place. People of the same blood should be in the same REICH. The
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| − | German people will have no right to engage in a colonial policy until
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| − | they shall have brought all their children together in the one State.
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| − | When the territory of the REICH embraces all the Germans and finds
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| − | itself unable to assure them a livelihood, only then can the moral right
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| − | arise, from the need of the people to acquire foreign territory. The
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| − | plough is then the sword; and the tears of war will produce the daily
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| − | bread for the generations to come.
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| − | | |
| − | And so this little frontier town appeared to me as the symbol of a great
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| − | task. But in another regard also it points to a lesson that is
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| − | applicable to our day. Over a hundred years ago this sequestered spot
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| − | was the scene of a tragic calamity which affected the whole German
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| − | nation and will be remembered for ever, at least in the annals of German
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| − | history. At the time of our Fatherland's deepest humiliation a
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| − | bookseller, Johannes Palm, uncompromising nationalist and enemy of the
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| − | French, was put to death here because he had the misfortune to have
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| − | loved Germany well. He obstinately refused to disclose the names of his
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| − | associates, or rather the principals who were chiefly responsible for
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| − | the affair. Just as it happened with Leo Schlageter. The former, like
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| − | the latter, was denounced to the French by a Government agent. It was a
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| − | director of police from Augsburg who won an ignoble renown on that
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| − | occasion and set the example which was to be copied at a later date by
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| − | the neo-German officials of the REICH under Herr Severing's
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| − | regime (Note 1).
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| − | | |
| − | [Note 1. In order to understand the reference here, and similar
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| − | references in later portions of MEIN KAMPF, the following must be borne
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| − | in mind:
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| − | | |
| − | From 1792 to 1814 the French Revolutionary Armies overran Germany. In
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| − | 1800 Bavaria shared in the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden and the French
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| − | occupied Munich. In 1805 the Bavarian Elector was made King of Bavaria by
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| − | Napoleon and stipulated to back up Napoleon in all his wars with a force
| |
| − | of 30,000 men. Thus Bavaria became the absolute vassal of the French.
| |
| − | This was 'TheTime of Germany's Deepest Humiliation', Which is referred
| |
| − | to again and again by Hitler.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In 1806 a pamphlet entitled 'Germany's Deepest Humiliation' was
| |
| − | published in South Germany. Amnng those who helped to circulate the
| |
| − | pamphlet was the Nürnberg bookseller, Johannes Philipp Palm. He was
| |
| − | denounced to the French by a Bavarian police agent. At his trial he
| |
| − | refused to disclose thename of the author. By Napoleon's orders, he was
| |
| − | shot at Braunau-on-the-Innon August 26th, 1806. A monument erected to
| |
| − | him on the site of the executionwas one of the first public objects that
| |
| − | made an impression on Hitler asa little boy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Leo Schlageter's case was in many respects parallel to that of Johannes
| |
| − | Palm. Schlageter was a German theological student who volunteered for
| |
| − | service in 1914. He became an artillery officer and won the Iron Cross of
| |
| − | both classes. When the French occupied the Ruhr in 1923 Schlageter helped
| |
| − | to organize the passive resistance on the German side. He and his
| |
| − | companions blew up a railway bridge for the purpose of making the
| |
| − | transport of coal to France more difficult.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those who took part in the affair were denounced to the French by a
| |
| − | German informer. Schlageter took the whole responsibility on his own
| |
| − | shoulders and was condemned to death, his companions being sentenced to
| |
| − | various terms of imprisonment and penal servitude by the French Court.
| |
| − | Schlageter refused to disclose the identity of those who issued the order
| |
| − | to blow up the railway bridge and he would not plead for mercy before a
| |
| − | French Court. He was shot by a French firing-squad on May 26th, 1923.
| |
| − | Severing was at that time German Minister of the Interior. It is said
| |
| − | that representations were made, to himon Schlageter's behalf and that he
| |
| − | refused to interfere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Schlageter has become the chief martyr of the German resistancc to the
| |
| − | French occupation of the Ruhr and also one of the great heroes of the
| |
| − | National Socialist Movement. He had joined the Movement at a very early
| |
| − | stage, his card of membership bearing the number 61.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this little town on the Inn, haloed by the memory of a German martyr,
| |
| − | a town that was Bavarian by blood but under the rule of the Austrian
| |
| − | State, my parents were domiciled towards the end of the last century. My
| |
| − | father was a civil servant who fulfilled his duties very
| |
| − | conscientiously. My mother looked after the household and lovingly
| |
| − | devoted herself to the care of her children. From that period I have not
| |
| − | retained very much in my memory; because after a few years my father had
| |
| − | to leave that frontier town which I had come to love so much and take up
| |
| − | a new post farther down the Inn valley, at Passau, therefore actually in
| |
| − | Germany itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In those days it was the usual lot of an Austrian civil servant to be
| |
| − | transferred periodically from one post to another. Not long after coming
| |
| − | to Passau my father was transferred to Linz, and while there he retired
| |
| − | finally to live on his pension. But this did not mean that the old
| |
| − | gentleman would now rest from his labours.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He was the son of a poor cottager, and while still a boy he grew
| |
| − | restless and left home. When he was barely thirteen years old he buckled
| |
| − | on his satchel and set forth from his native woodland parish. Despite
| |
| − | the dissuasion of villagers who could speak from 'experience,' he went
| |
| − | to Vienna to learn a trade there. This was in the fiftieth year of the
| |
| − | last century. It was a sore trial, that of deciding to leave home and
| |
| − | face the unknown, with three gulden in his pocket. By when the boy of
| |
| − | thirteen was a lad of seventeen and had passed his apprenticeship
| |
| − | examination as a craftsman he was not content. Quite the contrary. The
| |
| − | persistent economic depression of that period and the constant want and
| |
| − | misery strengthened his resolution to give up working at a trade and
| |
| − | strive for 'something higher.' As a boy it had seemed to him that the
| |
| − | position of the parish priest in his native village was the highest in
| |
| − | the scale of human attainment; but now that the big city had enlarged
| |
| − | his outlook the young man looked up to the dignity of a State official
| |
| − | as the highest of all. With the tenacity of one whom misery and trouble
| |
| − | had already made old when only half-way through his youth the young man
| |
| − | of seventeen obstinately set out on his new project and stuck to it
| |
| − | until he won through. He became a civil servant. He was about
| |
| − | twenty-three years old, I think, when he succeeded in making himself
| |
| − | what he had resolved to become. Thus he was able to fulfil the promise
| |
| − | he had made as a poor boy not to return to his native village until he
| |
| − | was 'somebody.'
| |
| − | | |
| − | He had gained his end. But in the village there was nobody who had
| |
| − | remembered him as a little boy, and the village itself had become
| |
| − | strange to him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now at last, when he was fifty-six years old, he gave up his active
| |
| − | career; but he could not bear to be idle for a single day. On the
| |
| − | outskirts of the small market town of Lambach in Upper Austria he bought
| |
| − | a farm and tilled it himself. Thus, at the end of a long and
| |
| − | hard-working career, he came back to the life which his father had led.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was at this period that I first began to have ideals of my own. I
| |
| − | spent a good deal of time scampering about in the open, on the long road
| |
| − | from school, and mixing up with some of the roughest of the boys, which
| |
| − | caused my mother many anxious moments. All this tended to make me
| |
| − | something quite the reverse of a stay-at-home. I gave scarcely any
| |
| − | serious thought to the question of choosing a vocation in life; but I
| |
| − | was certainly quite out of sympathy with the kind of career which my
| |
| − | father had followed. I think that an inborn talent for speaking now
| |
| − | began to develop and take shape during the more or less strenuous
| |
| − | arguments which I used to have with my comrades. I had become a juvenile
| |
| − | ringleader who learned well and easily at school but was rather
| |
| − | difficult to manage. In my freetime I practised singing in the choir of
| |
| − | the monastery church at Lambach, and thus it happened that I was placed
| |
| − | in a very favourable position to be emotionally impressed again and
| |
| − | again by the magnificent splendour of ecclesiastical ceremonial. What
| |
| − | could be more natural for me than to look upon the Abbot as representing
| |
| − | the highest human ideal worth striving for, just as the position of the
| |
| − | humble village priest had appeared to my father in his own boyhood days?
| |
| − | At least, that was my idea for a while. But the juvenile disputes I had
| |
| − | with my father did not lead him to appreciate his son's oratorical gifts
| |
| − | in such a way as to see in them a favourable promise for such a career,
| |
| − | and so he naturally could not understand the boyish ideas I had in my
| |
| − | head at that time. This contradiction in my character made him feel
| |
| − | somewhat anxious.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a matter of fact, that transitory yearning after such a vocation soon
| |
| − | gave way to hopes that were better suited to my temperament. Browsing
| |
| − | through my father's books, I chanced to come across some publications
| |
| − | that dealt with military subjects. One of these publications was a
| |
| − | popular history of the Franco-German War of 1870-71. It consisted of two
| |
| − | volumes of an illustrated periodical dating from those years. These
| |
| − | became my favourite reading. In a little while that great and heroic
| |
| − | conflict began to take first place in my mind. And from that time
| |
| − | onwards I became more and more enthusiastic about everything that was in
| |
| − | any way connected with war or military affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But this story of the Franco-German War had a special significance for
| |
| − | me on other grounds also. For the first time, and as yet only in quite a
| |
| − | vague way, the question began to present itself: Is there a
| |
| − | difference--and if there be, what is it--between the Germans who fought
| |
| − | that war and the other Germans? Why did not Austria also take part in
| |
| − | it? Why did not my father and all the others fight in that struggle? Are
| |
| − | we not the same as the other Germans? Do we not all belong together?
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was the first time that this problem began to agitate my small
| |
| − | brain. And from the replies that were given to the questions which I
| |
| − | asked very tentatively, I was forced to accept the fact, though with a
| |
| − | secret envy, that not all Germans had the good luck to belong to
| |
| − | Bismarck's Empire. This was something that I could not understand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was decided that I should study. Considering my character as a whole,
| |
| − | and especially my temperament, my father decided that the classical
| |
| − | subjects studied at the Lyceum were not suited to my natural talents. He
| |
| − | thought that the REALSCHULE (Note 2) would suit me better. My obvious
| |
| − | talent for drawing confirmed him in that view; for in his opinion drawing
| |
| − | was a subject too much neglected in the Austrian GYMNASIUM. Probably also
| |
| − | the memory of the hard road which he himself had travelled contributed to
| |
| − | make him look upon classical studies as unpractical and accordingly to
| |
| − | set little value on them. At the back of his mind he had the idea that
| |
| − | his son also should become an official of the Government. Indeed he had
| |
| − | decided on that career for me. The difficulties through which he had to
| |
| − | struggle in making his own career led him to overestimate what he had
| |
| − | achieved, because this was exclusively the result of his own
| |
| − | indefatigable industry and energy. The characteristic pride of the
| |
| − | self-made man urged him towards the idea that his son should follow the
| |
| − | same calling and if possible rise to a higher position in it. Moreover,
| |
| − | this idea was strengthened by the consideration that the results of his
| |
| − | own life's industry had placed him in a position to facilitate his son's
| |
| − | advancement in the same career.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 2. Non-classical secondary school. The Lyceum and GYMNASIUM were
| |
| − | classical or semi-classical secondary schools.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | He was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had meant
| |
| − | everything in life to him. My father's decision was simple, definite,
| |
| − | clear and, in his eyes, it was something to be taken for granted. A man
| |
| − | of such a nature who had become an autocrat by reason of his own hard
| |
| − | struggle for existence, could not think of allowing 'inexperienced' and
| |
| − | irresponsible young fellows to choose their own careers. To act in such
| |
| − | a way, where the future of his own son was concerned, would have been a
| |
| − | grave and reprehensible weakness in the exercise of parental authority
| |
| − | and responsibility, something utterly incompatible with his
| |
| − | characteristic sense of duty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And yet it had to be otherwise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the first time in my life--I was then eleven years old--I felt
| |
| − | myself forced into open opposition. No matter how hard and determined my
| |
| − | father might be about putting his own plans and opinions into action,
| |
| − | his son was no less obstinate in refusing to accept ideas on which he
| |
| − | set little or no value.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I would not become a civil servant.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No amount of persuasion and no amount of 'grave' warnings could break
| |
| − | down that opposition. I would not become a State official, not on any
| |
| − | account. All the attempts which my father made to arouse in me a love or
| |
| − | liking for that profession, by picturing his own career for me, had only
| |
| − | the opposite effect. It nauseated me to think that one day I might be
| |
| − | fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my own time but
| |
| − | would be forced to spend the whole of my life filling out forms.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One can imagine what kind of thoughts such a prospect awakened in the
| |
| − | mind of a young fellow who was by no means what is called a 'good boy'
| |
| − | in the current sense of that term. The ridiculously easy school tasks
| |
| − | which we were given made it possible for me to spend far more time in
| |
| − | the open air than at home. To-day, when my political opponents pry into
| |
| − | my life with diligent scrutiny, as far back as the days of my boyhood,
| |
| − | so as finally to be able to prove what disreputable tricks this Hitler
| |
| − | was accustomed to in his young days, I thank heaven that I can look back
| |
| − | to those happy days and find the memory of them helpful. The fields and
| |
| − | the woods were then the terrain on which all disputes were fought out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even attendance at the REALSCHULE could not alter my way of spending my
| |
| − | time. But I had now another battle to fight.
| |
| − | | |
| − | So long as the paternal plan to make a State functionary contradicted my
| |
| − | own inclinations only in the abstract, the conflict was easy to bear. I
| |
| − | could be discreet about expressing my personal views and thus avoid
| |
| − | constantly recurrent disputes. My own resolution not to become a
| |
| − | Government official was sufficient for the time being to put my mind
| |
| − | completely at rest. I held on to that resolution inexorably. But the
| |
| − | situation became more difficult once I had a positive plan of my own
| |
| − | which I might present to my father as a counter-suggestion. This
| |
| − | happened when I was twelve years old. How it came about I cannot exactly
| |
| − | say now; but one day it became clear to me that I would be a painter--I
| |
| − | mean an artist. That I had an aptitude for drawing was an admitted fact.
| |
| − | It was even one of the reasons why my father had sent me to the
| |
| − | REALSCHULE; but he had never thought of having that talent developed in
| |
| − | such a way that I could take up painting as a professional career. Quite
| |
| − | the contrary. When, as a result of my renewed refusal to adopt his
| |
| − | favourite plan, my father asked me for the first time what I myself
| |
| − | really wished to be, the resolution that I had already formed expressed
| |
| − | itself almost automatically. For a while my father was speechless. "A
| |
| − | painter? An artist-painter?" he exclaimed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He wondered whether I was in a sound state of mind. He thought that he
| |
| − | might not have caught my words rightly, or that he had misunderstood
| |
| − | what I meant. But when I had explained my ideas to him and he saw how
| |
| − | seriously I took them, he opposed them with that full determination
| |
| − | which was characteristic of him. His decision was exceedingly simple and
| |
| − | could not be deflected from its course by any consideration of what my
| |
| − | own natural qualifications really were.
| |
| − | | |
| − | "Artist! Not as long as I live, never." As the son had inherited some of
| |
| − | the father's obstinacy, besides having other qualities of his own, my
| |
| − | reply was equally energetic. But it stated something quite the contrary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that our struggle became stalemate. The father would not abandon his
| |
| − | 'Never', and I became all the more consolidated in my 'Nevertheless'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally the resulting situation was not pleasant. The old gentleman
| |
| − | was bitterly annoyed; and indeed so was I, although I really loved him.
| |
| − | My father forbade me to entertain any hopes of taking up the art of
| |
| − | painting as a profession. I went a step further and declared that I
| |
| − | would not study anything else. With such declarations the situation
| |
| − | became still more strained, so that the old gentleman irrevocably
| |
| − | decided to assert his parental authority at all costs. That led me to
| |
| − | adopt an attitude of circumspect silence, but I put my threat into
| |
| − | execution. I thought that, once it became clear to my father that I was
| |
| − | making no progress at the REALSCHULE, for weal or for woe, he would be
| |
| − | forced to allow me to follow the happy career I had dreamed of.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I do not know whether I calculated rightly or not. Certainly my failure
| |
| − | to make progress became quite visible in the school. I studied just the
| |
| − | subjects that appealed to me, especially those which I thought might be
| |
| − | of advantage to me later on as a painter. What did not appear to have
| |
| − | any importance from this point of view, or what did not otherwise appeal
| |
| − | to me favourably, I completely sabotaged. My school reports of that time
| |
| − | were always in the extremes of good or bad, according to the subject and
| |
| − | the interest it had for me. In one column my qualification read 'very
| |
| − | good' or 'excellent'. In another it read 'average' or even 'below
| |
| − | average'. By far my best subjects were geography and, even more so,
| |
| − | general history. These were my two favourite subjects, and I led the
| |
| − | class in them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I look back over so many years and try to judge the results of that
| |
| − | experience I find two very significant facts standing out clearly before
| |
| − | my mind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | First, I became a nationalist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Second, I learned to understand and grasp the true meaning of history.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The old Austria was a multi-national State. In those days at least the
| |
| − | citizens of the German Empire, taken through and through, could not
| |
| − | understand what that fact meant in the everyday life of the individuals
| |
| − | within such a State. After the magnificent triumphant march of the
| |
| − | victorious armies in the Franco-German War the Germans in the REICH
| |
| − | became steadily more and more estranged from the Germans beyond their
| |
| − | frontiers, partly because they did not deign to appreciate those other
| |
| − | Germans at their true value or simply because they were incapable of
| |
| − | doing so.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Germans of the REICH did not realize that if the Germans in Austria
| |
| − | had not been of the best racial stock they could never have given the
| |
| − | stamp of their own character to an Empire of 52 millions, so definitely
| |
| − | that in Germany itself the idea arose--though quite an erroneous
| |
| − | one--that Austria was a German State. That was an error which led to
| |
| − | dire consequences; but all the same it was a magnificent testimony to
| |
| − | the character of the ten million Germans in that East Mark. (Note 3)
| |
| − | Only very few of the Germans in the REICH itself had an idea of the bitter
| |
| − | struggle which those Eastern Germans had to carry on daily for the
| |
| − | preservation of their German language, their German schools and their
| |
| − | German character. Only to-day, when a tragic fate has torn several
| |
| − | millions of our kinsfolk away from the REICH and has forced them to live
| |
| − | under the rule of the stranger, dreaming of that common fatherland
| |
| − | towards which all their yearnings are directed and struggling to uphold
| |
| − | at least the sacred right of using their mother tongue--only now have
| |
| − | the wider circles of the German population come to realize what it means
| |
| − | to have to fight for the traditions of one's race. And so at last
| |
| − | perhaps there are people here and there who can assess the greatness of
| |
| − | that German spirit which animated the old East Mark and enabled those
| |
| − | people, left entirely dependent on their own resources, to defend the
| |
| − | Empire against the Orient for several centuries and subsequently to hold
| |
| − | fast the frontiers of the German language through a guerilla warfare of
| |
| − | attrition, at a time when the German Empire was sedulously cultivating
| |
| − | an interest for colonies but not for its own flesh and blood before the
| |
| − | threshold of its own door.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 3. See Translator's Introduction.] | |
| − | | |
| − | What has happened always and everywhere, in every kind of struggle,
| |
| − | happened also in the language fight which was carried on in the old
| |
| − | Austria. There were three groups--the fighters, the hedgers and the
| |
| − | traitors. Even in the schools this sifting already began to take place.
| |
| − | And it is worth noting that the struggle for the language was waged
| |
| − | perhaps in its bitterest form around the school; because this was the
| |
| − | nursery where the seeds had to be watered which were to spring up and
| |
| − | form the future generation. The tactical objective of the fight was the
| |
| − | winning over of the child, and it was to the child that the first
| |
| − | rallying cry was addressed:
| |
| − | | |
| − | "German youth, do not forget that you are a German," and "Remember,
| |
| − | little girl, that one day you must be a German mother."
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those who know something of the juvenile spirit can understand how youth
| |
| − | will always lend a glad ear to such a rallying cry. Under many forms the
| |
| − | young people led the struggle, fighting in their own way and with their
| |
| − | own weapons. They refused to sing non-German songs. The greater the
| |
| − | efforts made to win them away from their German allegiance, the more
| |
| − | they exalted the glory of their German heroes. They stinted themselves
| |
| − | in buying things to eat, so that they might spare their pennies to help
| |
| − | the war chest of their elders. They were incredibly alert in the
| |
| − | significance of what the non-German teachers said and they contradicted
| |
| − | in unison. They wore the forbidden emblems of their own kinsfolk and
| |
| − | were happy when penalised for doing so, or even physically punished. In
| |
| − | miniature they were mirrors of loyalty from which the older people might
| |
| − | learn a lesson.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And thus it was that at a comparatively early age I took part in the
| |
| − | struggle which the nationalities were waging against one another in the
| |
| − | old Austria. When meetings were held for the South Mark German League
| |
| − | and the School League we wore cornflowers and black-red-gold colours to
| |
| − | express our loyalty. We greeted one another with HEIL! and instead of
| |
| − | the Austrian anthem we sang our own DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES, despite
| |
| − | warnings and penalties. Thus the youth were educated politically at a
| |
| − | time when the citizens of a so-called national State for the most part
| |
| − | knew little of their own nationality except the language. Of course, I
| |
| − | did not belong to the hedgers. Within a little while I had become an
| |
| − | ardent 'German National', which has a different meaning from the party
| |
| − | significance attached to that phrase to-day.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I developed very rapidly in the nationalist direction, and by the time I
| |
| − | was 15 years old I had come to understand the distinction between
| |
| − | dynastic patriotism and nationalism based on the concept of folk, or
| |
| − | people, my inclination being entirely in favour of the latter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a preference may not perhaps be clearly intelligible to those who
| |
| − | have never taken the trouble to study the internal conditions that
| |
| − | prevailed under the Habsburg Monarchy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Among historical studies universal history was the subject almost
| |
| − | exclusively taught in the Austrian schools, for of specific Austrian
| |
| − | history there was only very little. The fate of this State was closely
| |
| − | bound up with the existence and development of Germany as a whole; so a
| |
| − | division of history into German history and Austrian history would be
| |
| − | practically inconceivable. And indeed it was only when the German people
| |
| − | came to be divided between two States that this division of German
| |
| − | history began to take place.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The insignia (Note 4) of a former imperial sovereignty which were still
| |
| − | preserved in Vienna appeared to act as magical relics rather than as the
| |
| − | visible guarantee of an everlasting bond of union.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 4. When Francis II had laid down his title as Emperor of the Holy
| |
| − | Roman Empireof the German Nation, which he did at the command of Napoleon,
| |
| − | the Crownand Mace, as the Imperial Insignia, were kept in Vienna. After
| |
| − | the German Empire was refounded, in 1871, under William I, there were many
| |
| − | demands tohave the Insignia transferred to Berlin. But these went
| |
| − | unheeded. Hitler had them brought to Germany after the Austrian Anschluss
| |
| − | and displayed at Nuremberg during the Party Congress in September 1938.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the Habsburg State crumbled to pieces in 1918 the Austrian Germans
| |
| − | instinctively raised an outcry for union with their German fatherland.
| |
| − | That was the voice of a unanimous yearning in the hearts of the whole
| |
| − | people for a return to the unforgotten home of their fathers. But such a
| |
| − | general yearning could not be explained except by attributing the cause
| |
| − | of it to the historical training through which the individual Austrian
| |
| − | Germans had passed. Therein lay a spring that never dried up. Especially
| |
| − | in times of distraction and forgetfulness its quiet voice was a reminder
| |
| − | of the past, bidding the people to look out beyond the mere welfare of
| |
| − | the moment to a new future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The teaching of universal history in what are called the middle schools
| |
| − | is still very unsatisfactory. Few teachers realize that the purpose of
| |
| − | teaching history is not the memorizing of some dates and facts, that the
| |
| − | student is not interested in knowing the exact date of a battle or the
| |
| − | birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all--or at least only very
| |
| − | insignificantly--interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers was
| |
| − | placed on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon
| |
| − | as important matters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are
| |
| − | the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical
| |
| − | events. The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the
| |
| − | essentials and forgetting what is not essential.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Probably my whole future life was determined by the fact that I had a
| |
| − | professor of history who understood, as few others understand, how to
| |
| − | make this viewpoint prevail in teaching and in examining. This teacher
| |
| − | was Dr. Leopold Poetsch, of the REALSCHULE at Linz. He was the ideal
| |
| − | personification of the qualities necessary to a teacher of history in
| |
| − | the sense I have mentioned above. An elderly gentleman with a decisive
| |
| − | manner but a kindly heart, he was a very attractive speaker and was able
| |
| − | to inspire us with his own enthusiasm. Even to-day I cannot recall
| |
| − | without emotion that venerable personality whose enthusiastic exposition
| |
| − | of history so often made us entirely forget the present and allow
| |
| − | ourselves to be transported as if by magic into the past. He penetrated
| |
| − | through the dim mist of thousands of years and transformed the
| |
| − | historical memory of the dead past into a living reality. When we
| |
| − | listened to him we became afire with enthusiasm and we were sometimes
| |
| − | moved even to tears.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was still more fortunate that this professor was able not only to
| |
| − | illustrate the past by examples from the present but from the past he
| |
| − | was also able to draw a lesson for the present. He understood better
| |
| − | than any other the everyday problems that were then agitating our minds.
| |
| − | The national fervour which we felt in our own small way was utilized by
| |
| − | him as an instrument of our education, inasmuch as he often appealed to
| |
| − | our national sense of honour; for in that way he maintained order and
| |
| − | held our attention much more easily than he could have done by any other
| |
| − | means. It was because I had such a professor that history became my
| |
| − | favourite subject. As a natural consequence, but without the conscious
| |
| − | connivance of my professor, I then and there became a young rebel. But
| |
| − | who could have studied German history under such a teacher and not
| |
| − | become an enemy of that State whose rulers exercised such a disastrous
| |
| − | influence on the destinies of the German nation? Finally, how could one
| |
| − | remain the faithful subject of the House of Habsburg, whose past history
| |
| − | and present conduct proved it to be ready ever and always to betray the
| |
| − | interests of the German people for the sake of paltry personal
| |
| − | interests? Did not we as youngsters fully realize that the House of
| |
| − | Habsburg did not, and could not, have any love for us Germans?
| |
| − | | |
| − | What history taught us about the policy followed by the House of
| |
| − | Habsburg was corroborated by our own everyday experiences. In the north
| |
| − | and in the south the poison of foreign races was eating into the body of
| |
| − | our people, and even Vienna was steadily becoming more and more a
| |
| − | non-German city. The 'Imperial House' favoured the Czechs on every
| |
| − | possible occasion. Indeed it was the hand of the goddess of eternal
| |
| − | justice and inexorable retribution that caused the most deadly enemy of
| |
| − | Germanism in Austria, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to fall by the very
| |
| − | bullets which he himself had helped to cast. Working from above
| |
| − | downwards, he was the chief patron of the movement to make Austria a
| |
| − | Slav State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The burdens laid on the shoulders of the German people were enormous and
| |
| − | the sacrifices of money and blood which they had to make were incredibly
| |
| − | heavy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet anybody who was not quite blind must have seen that it was all in
| |
| − | vain. What affected us most bitterly was the consciousness of the fact
| |
| − | that this whole system was morally shielded by the alliance with
| |
| − | Germany, whereby the slow extirpation of Germanism in the old Austrian
| |
| − | Monarchy seemed in some way to be more or less sanctioned by Germany
| |
| − | herself. Habsburg hypocrisy, which endeavoured outwardly to make the
| |
| − | people believe that Austria still remained a German State, increased the
| |
| − | feeling of hatred against the Imperial House and at the same time
| |
| − | aroused a spirit of rebellion and contempt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But in the German Empire itself those who were then its rulers saw
| |
| − | nothing of what all this meant. As if struck blind, they stood beside a
| |
| − | corpse and in the very symptoms of decomposition they believed that they
| |
| − | recognized the signs of a renewed vitality. In that unhappy alliance
| |
| − | between the young German Empire and the illusory Austrian State lay the
| |
| − | germ of the World War and also of the final collapse.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the subsequent pages of this book I shall go to the root of the
| |
| − | problem. Suffice it to say here that in the very early years of my youth
| |
| − | I came to certain conclusions which I have never abandoned. Indeed I
| |
| − | became more profoundly convinced of them as the years passed. They were:
| |
| − | That the dissolution of the Austrian Empire is a preliminary condition
| |
| − | for the defence of Germany; further, that national feeling is by no
| |
| − | means identical with dynastic patriotism; finally, and above all, that
| |
| − | the House of Habsburg was destined to bring misfortune to the German
| |
| − | nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a logical consequence of these convictions, there arose in me a
| |
| − | feeling of intense love for my German-Austrian home and a profound
| |
| − | hatred for the Austrian State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That kind of historical thinking which was developed in me through my
| |
| − | study of history at school never left me afterwards. World history
| |
| − | became more and more an inexhaustible source for the understanding of
| |
| − | contemporary historical events, which means politics. Therefore I will
| |
| − | not "learn" politics but let politics teach me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A precocious revolutionary in politics I was no less a precocious
| |
| − | revolutionary in art. At that time the provincial capital of Upper
| |
| − | Austria had a theatre which, relatively speaking, was not bad. Almost
| |
| − | everything was played there. When I was twelve years old I saw William
| |
| − | Tell performed. That was my first experience of the theatre. Some months
| |
| − | later I attended a performance of LOHENGRIN, the first opera I had ever
| |
| − | heard. I was fascinated at once. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth
| |
| − | Master knew no limits. Again and again I was drawn to hear his operas;
| |
| − | and to-day I consider it a great piece of luck that these modest
| |
| − | productions in the little provincial city prepared the way and made it
| |
| − | possible for me to appreciate the better productions later on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But all this helped to intensify my profound aversion for the career
| |
| − | that my father had chosen for me; and this dislike became especially
| |
| − | strong as the rough corners of youthful boorishness became worn off, a
| |
| − | process which in my case caused a good deal of pain. I became more and
| |
| − | more convinced that I should never be happy as a State official. And now
| |
| − | that the REALSCHULE had recognized and acknowledged my aptitude for
| |
| − | drawing, my own resolution became all the stronger. Imprecations and
| |
| − | threats had no longer any chance of changing it. I wanted to become a
| |
| − | painter and no power in the world could force me to become a civil
| |
| − | servant. The only peculiar feature of the situation now was that as I
| |
| − | grew bigger I became more and more interested in architecture. I
| |
| − | considered this fact as a natural development of my flair for painting
| |
| − | and I rejoiced inwardly that the sphere of my artistic interests was
| |
| − | thus enlarged. I had no notion that one day it would have to be
| |
| − | otherwise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question of my career was decided much sooner than I could have
| |
| − | expected.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I was in my thirteenth year my father was suddenly taken from us.
| |
| − | He was still in robust health when a stroke of apoplexy painlessly ended
| |
| − | his earthly wanderings and left us all deeply bereaved. His most ardent
| |
| − | longing was to be able to help his son to advance in a career and thus
| |
| − | save me from the harsh ordeal that he himself had to go through. But it
| |
| − | appeared to him then as if that longing were all in vain. And yet,
| |
| − | though he himself was not conscious of it, he had sown the seeds of a
| |
| − | future which neither of us foresaw at that time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first nothing changed outwardly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My mother felt it her duty to continue my education in accordance with
| |
| − | my father's wishes, which meant that she would have me study for the
| |
| − | civil service. For my own part I was even more firmly determined than
| |
| − | ever before that under no circumstances would I become an official of
| |
| − | the State. The curriculum and teaching methods followed in the middle
| |
| − | school were so far removed from my ideals that I became profoundly
| |
| − | indifferent. Illness suddenly came to my assistance. Within a few weeks
| |
| − | it decided my future and put an end to the long-standing family
| |
| − | conflict. My lungs became so seriously affected that the doctor advised
| |
| − | my mother very strongly not under any circumstances to allow me to take
| |
| − | up a career which would necessitate working in an office. He ordered
| |
| − | that I should give up attendance at the REALSCHULE for a year at least.
| |
| − | What I had secretly desired for such a long time, and had persistently
| |
| − | fought for, now became a reality almost at one stroke.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Influenced by my illness, my mother agreed that I should leave the
| |
| − | REALSCHULE and attend the Academy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those were happy days, which appeared to me almost as a dream; but they
| |
| − | were bound to remain only a dream. Two years later my mother's death put
| |
| − | a brutal end to all my fine projects. She succumbed to a long and
| |
| − | painful illness which from the very beginning permitted little hope of
| |
| − | recovery. Though expected, her death came as a terrible blow to me. I
| |
| − | respected my father, but I loved my mother.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Poverty and stern reality forced me to decide promptly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The meagre resources of the family had been almost entirely used up
| |
| − | through my mother's severe illness. The allowance which came to me as an
| |
| − | orphan was not enough for the bare necessities of life. Somehow or other
| |
| − | I would have to earn my own bread.
| |
| − | | |
| − | With my clothes and linen packed in a valise and with an indomitable
| |
| − | resolution in my heart, I left for Vienna. I hoped to forestall fate, as
| |
| − | my father had done fifty years before. I was determined to become
| |
| − | 'something'--but certainly not a civil servant.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER II
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | YEARS OF STUDY AND SUFFERING IN VIENNA
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | When my mother died my fate had already been decided in one respect.
| |
| − | During the last months of her illness I went to Vienna to take the
| |
| − | entrance examination for the Academy of Fine Arts. Armed with a bulky
| |
| − | packet of sketches, I felt convinced that I should pass the examination
| |
| − | quite easily. At the REALSCHULE I was by far the best student in the
| |
| − | drawing class, and since that time I had made more than ordinary
| |
| − | progress in the practice of drawing. Therefore I was pleased with myself
| |
| − | and was proud and happy at the prospect of what I considered an assured
| |
| − | success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But there was one misgiving: It seemed to me that I was better qualified
| |
| − | for drawing than for painting, especially in the various branches of
| |
| − | architectural drawing. At the same time my interest in architecture was
| |
| − | constantly increasing. And I advanced in this direction at a still more
| |
| − | rapid pace after my first visit to Vienna, which lasted two weeks. I was
| |
| − | not yet sixteen years old. I went to the Hof Museum to study the
| |
| − | paintings in the art gallery there; but the building itself captured
| |
| − | almost all my interest, from early morning until late at night I spent
| |
| − | all my time visiting the various public buildings. And it was the
| |
| − | buildings themselves that were always the principal attraction for me.
| |
| − | For hours and hours I could stand in wonderment before the Opera and the
| |
| − | Parliament. The whole Ring Strasse had a magic effect upon me, as if it
| |
| − | were a scene from the Thousand-and-one-Nights.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And now I was here for the second time in this beautiful city,
| |
| − | impatiently waiting to hear the result of the entrance examination but
| |
| − | proudly confident that I had got through. I was so convinced of my
| |
| − | success that when the news that I had failed to pass was brought to me
| |
| − | it struck me like a bolt from the skies. Yet the fact was that I had
| |
| − | failed. I went to see the Rector and asked him to explain the reasons
| |
| − | why they refused to accept me as a student in the general School of
| |
| − | Painting, which was part of the Academy. He said that the sketches which
| |
| − | I had brought with me unquestionably showed that painting was not what I
| |
| − | was suited for but that the same sketches gave clear indications of my
| |
| − | aptitude for architectural designing. Therefore the School of Painting
| |
| − | did not come into question for me but rather the School of Architecture,
| |
| − | which also formed part of the Academy. At first it was impossible to
| |
| − | understand how this could be so, seeing that I had never been to a
| |
| − | school for architecture and had never received any instruction in
| |
| − | architectural designing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I left the Hansen Palace, on the SCHILLER PLATZ, I was quite
| |
| − | crestfallen. I felt out of sorts with myself for the first time in my
| |
| − | young life. For what I had heard about my capabilities now appeared to
| |
| − | me as a lightning flash which clearly revealed a dualism under which I
| |
| − | had been suffering for a long time, but hitherto I could give no clear
| |
| − | account whatsoever of the why and wherefore.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Within a few days I myself also knew that I ought to become an
| |
| − | architect. But of course the way was very difficult. I was now forced
| |
| − | bitterly to rue my former conduct in neglecting and despising certain
| |
| − | subjects at the REALSCHULE. Before taking up the courses at the School
| |
| − | of Architecture in the Academy it was necessary to attend the Technical
| |
| − | Building School; but a necessary qualification for entrance into this
| |
| − | school was a Leaving Certificate from the Middle School. And this I
| |
| − | simply did not have. According to the human measure of things my dream
| |
| − | of following an artistic calling seemed beyond the limits of
| |
| − | possibility.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After the death of my mother I came to Vienna for the third time. This
| |
| − | visit was destined to last several years. Since I had been there before
| |
| − | I had recovered my old calm and resoluteness. The former self-assurance
| |
| − | had come back, and I had my eyes steadily fixed on the goal. I would be
| |
| − | an architect. Obstacles are placed across our path in life, not to be
| |
| − | boggled at but to be surmounted. And I was fully determined to surmount
| |
| − | these obstacles, having the picture of my father constantly before my
| |
| − | mind, who had raised himself by his own efforts to the position of a
| |
| − | civil servant though he was the poor son of a village shoemaker. I had a
| |
| − | better start, and the possibilities of struggling through were better.
| |
| − | At that time my lot in life seemed to me a harsh one; but to-day I see
| |
| − | in it the wise workings of Providence. The Goddess of Fate clutched me
| |
| − | in her hands and often threatened to smash me; but the will grew
| |
| − | stronger as the obstacles increased, and finally the will triumphed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I am thankful for that period of my life, because it hardened me and
| |
| − | enabled me to be as tough as I now am. And I am even more thankful
| |
| − | because I appreciate the fact that I was thus saved from the emptiness
| |
| − | of a life of ease and that a mother's darling was taken from tender arms
| |
| − | and handed over to Adversity as to a new mother. Though I then rebelled
| |
| − | against it as too hard a fate, I am grateful that I was thrown into a
| |
| − | world of misery and poverty and thus came to know the people for whom I
| |
| − | was afterwards to fight.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was during this period that my eyes were opened to two perils, the
| |
| − | names of which I scarcely knew hitherto and had no notion whatsoever of
| |
| − | their terrible significance for the existence of the German people.
| |
| − | These two perils were Marxism and Judaism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For many people the name of Vienna signifies innocent jollity, a festive
| |
| − | place for happy mortals. For me, alas, it is a living memory of the
| |
| − | saddest period in my life. Even to-day the mention of that city arouses
| |
| − | only gloomy thoughts in my mind. Five years of poverty in that Phaecian
| |
| − | (Note 5) town. Five years in which, first as a casual labourer and then as
| |
| − | a painter of little trifles, I had to earn my daily bread. And a meagre
| |
| − | morsel indeed it was, not even sufficient to still the hunger which I
| |
| − | constantly felt. That hunger was the faithful guardian which never left
| |
| − | me but took part in everything I did. Every book that I bought meant
| |
| − | renewed hunger, and every visit I paid to the opera meant the intrusion
| |
| − | of that inalienabl companion during the following days. I was always
| |
| − | struggling with my unsympathic friend. And yet during that time I
| |
| − | learned more than I had ever learned before. Outside my architectural
| |
| − | studies and rare visits to the opera, for which I had to deny myself
| |
| − | food, I had no other pleasure in life except my books.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 5. The Phaecians were a legendary people, mentioned in Homer's
| |
| − | Odyssey. They were supposed to live on some unknown island in the Eastern
| |
| − | Mediterranean, sometimes suggested to be Corcyra, the modern Corfu. They
| |
| − | loved good living more than work, and so the name Phaecian has come to be
| |
| − | a synonym for parasite.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | I read a great deal then, and I pondered deeply over what I read. All
| |
| − | the free time after work was devoted exclusively to study. Thus within a
| |
| − | few years I was able to acquire a stock of knowledge which I find useful
| |
| − | even to-day.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But more than that. During those years a view of life and a definite
| |
| − | outlook on the world took shape in my mind. These became the granite
| |
| − | basis of my conduct at that time. Since then I have extended that
| |
| − | foundation only very little, and I have changed nothing in it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the contrary: I am firmly convinced to-day that, generally speaking,
| |
| − | it is in youth that men lay the essential groundwork of their creative
| |
| − | thought, wherever that creative thought exists. I make a distinction
| |
| − | between the wisdom of age--which can only arise from the greater
| |
| − | profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long
| |
| − | life--and the creative genius of youth, which blossoms out in thought
| |
| − | and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these
| |
| − | into practice immediately, because of their very superabundance. These
| |
| − | furnish the building materials and plans for the future; and it is from
| |
| − | them that age takes the stones and builds the edifice, unless the
| |
| − | so-called wisdom of the years may have smothered the creative genius of
| |
| − | youth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The life which I had hitherto led at home with my parents differed in
| |
| − | little or nothing from that of all the others. I looked forward without
| |
| − | apprehension to the morrow, and there was no such thing as a social
| |
| − | problem to be faced. Those among whom I passed my young days belonged to
| |
| − | the small bourgeois class. Therefore it was a world that had very little
| |
| − | contact with the world of genuine manual labourers. For, though at first
| |
| − | this may appear astonishing, the ditch which separates that class, which
| |
| − | is by no means economically well-off; from the manual labouring class is
| |
| − | often deeper than people think. The reason for this division, which we
| |
| − | may almost call enmity, lies in the fear that dominates a social group
| |
| − | which has only just risen above the level of the manual labourer--a fear
| |
| − | lest it may fall back into its old condition or at least be classed with
| |
| − | the labourers. Moreover, there is something repulsive in remembering the
| |
| − | cultural indigence of that lower class and their rough manners with one
| |
| − | another; so that people who are only on the first rung of the social
| |
| − | ladder find it unbearable to be forced to have any contact with the
| |
| − | cultural level and standard of living out of which they have passed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so it happens that very often those who belong to what can really be
| |
| − | called the upper classes find it much easier than do the upstarts to
| |
| − | descend to and intermingle with their fellow beings on the lowest social
| |
| − | level. For by the word upstart I mean everyone who has raised himself
| |
| − | through his own efforts to a social level higher than that to which he
| |
| − | formerly belonged. In the case of such a person the hard struggle
| |
| − | through which he passes often destroys his normal human sympathy. His
| |
| − | own fight for existence kills his sensibility for the misery of those
| |
| − | who have been left behind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From this point of view fate had been kind to me. Circumstances forced
| |
| − | me to return to that world of poverty and economic insecurity above
| |
| − | which my father had raised himself in his early days; and thus the
| |
| − | blinkers of a narrow PETIT BOURGEOIS education were torn from my eyes.
| |
| − | Now for the first time I learned to know men and I learned to
| |
| − | distinguish between empty appearances or brutal manners and the real
| |
| − | inner nature of the people who outwardly appeared thus.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the beginning of the century Vienna had already taken rank among
| |
| − | those cities where social conditions are iniquitous. Dazzling riches and
| |
| − | loathsome destitution were intermingled in violent contrast. In the
| |
| − | centre and in the Inner City one felt the pulse-beat of an Empire which
| |
| − | had a population of fifty-two millions, with all the perilous charm of a
| |
| − | State made up of multiple nationalities. The dazzling splendour of the
| |
| − | Court acted like a magnet on the wealth and intelligence of the whole
| |
| − | Empire. And this attraction was further strengthened by the dynastic
| |
| − | policy of the Habsburg Monarchy in centralizing everything in itself and
| |
| − | for itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This centralizing policy was necessary in order to hold together that
| |
| − | hotchpotch of heterogeneous nationalities. But the result of it was an
| |
| − | extraordinary concentration of higher officials in the city, which was
| |
| − | at one and the same time the metropolis and imperial residence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But Vienna was not merely the political and intellectual centre of the
| |
| − | Danubian Monarchy; it was also the commercial centre. Besides the horde
| |
| − | of military officers of high rank, State officials, artists and
| |
| − | scientists, there was the still vaster horde of workers. Abject poverty
| |
| − | confronted the wealth of the aristocracy and the merchant class face to
| |
| − | face. Thousands of unemployed loitered in front of the palaces on the
| |
| − | Ring Strasse; and below that VIA TRIUMPHALIS of the old Austria the
| |
| − | homeless huddled together in the murk and filth of the canals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There was hardly any other German city in which the social problem could
| |
| − | be studied better than in Vienna. But here I must utter a warning
| |
| − | against the illusion that this problem can be 'studied' from above
| |
| − | downwards. The man who has never been in the clutches of that crushing
| |
| − | viper can never know what its poison is. An attempt to study it in any
| |
| − | other way will result only in superficial talk and sentimental
| |
| − | delusions. Both are harmful. The first because it can never go to the
| |
| − | root of the question, the second because it evades the question
| |
| − | entirely. I do not know which is the more nefarious: to ignore social
| |
| − | distress, as do the majority of those who have been favoured by fortune
| |
| − | and those who have risen in the social scale through their own routine
| |
| − | labour, or the equally supercilious and often tactless but always
| |
| − | genteel condescension displayed by people who make a fad of being
| |
| − | charitable and who plume themselves on 'sympathising with the people.'
| |
| − | Of course such persons sin more than they can imagine from lack of
| |
| − | instinctive understanding. And thus they are astonished to find that the
| |
| − | 'social conscience' on which they pride themselves never produces any
| |
| − | results, but often causes their good intentions to be resented; and then
| |
| − | they talk of the ingratitude of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such persons are slow to learn that here there is no place for merely
| |
| − | social activities and that there can be no expectation of gratitude; for
| |
| − | in this connection there is no question at all of distributing favours
| |
| − | but essentially a matter of retributive justice. I was protected against
| |
| − | the temptation to study the social question in the way just mentioned,
| |
| − | for the simple reason that I was forced to live in the midst of
| |
| − | poverty-stricken people. Therefore it was not a question of studying the
| |
| − | problem objectively, but rather one of testing its effects on myself.
| |
| − | Though the rabbit came through the ordeal of the experiment, this must
| |
| − | not be taken as evidence of its harmlessness.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I try to-day to recall the succession of impressions received
| |
| − | during that time I find that I can do so only with approximate
| |
| − | completeness. Here I shall describe only the more essential impressions
| |
| − | and those which personally affected me and often staggered me. And I
| |
| − | shall mention the few lessons I then learned from this experience.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time it was for the most part not very difficult to find work,
| |
| − | because I had to seek work not as a skilled tradesman but as a so-called
| |
| − | extra-hand ready to take any job that turned up by chance, just for the
| |
| − | sake of earning my daily bread.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus I found myself in the same situation as all those emigrants who
| |
| − | shake the dust of Europe from their feet, with the cast-iron
| |
| − | determination to lay the foundations of a new existence in the New World
| |
| − | and acquire for themselves a new home. Liberated from all the paralysing
| |
| − | prejudices of class and calling, environment and tradition, they enter
| |
| − | any service that opens its doors to them, accepting any work that comes
| |
| − | their way, filled more and more with the idea that honest work never
| |
| − | disgraced anybody, no matter what kind it may be. And so I was resolved
| |
| − | to set both feet in what was for me a new world and push forward on my
| |
| − | own road.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I soon found out that there was some kind of work always to be got, but
| |
| − | I also learned that it could just as quickly and easily be lost. The
| |
| − | uncertainty of being able to earn a regular daily livelihood soon
| |
| − | appeared to me as the gloomiest feature in this new life that I had
| |
| − | entered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Although the skilled worker was not so frequently thrown idle on the
| |
| − | streets as the unskilled worker, yet the former was by no means
| |
| − | protected against the same fate; because though he may not have to face
| |
| − | hunger as a result of unemployment due to the lack of demand in the
| |
| − | labour market, the lock-out and the strike deprived the skilled worker
| |
| − | of the chance to earn his bread. Here the element of uncertainty in
| |
| − | steadily earning one's daily bread was the bitterest feature of the
| |
| − | whole social-economic system itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The country lad who migrates to the big city feels attracted by what has
| |
| − | been described as easy work--which it may be in reality--and few working
| |
| − | hours. He is especially entranced by the magic glimmer spread over the
| |
| − | big cities. Accustomed in the country to earn a steady wage, he has been
| |
| − | taught not to quit his former post until a new one is at least in sight.
| |
| − | As there is a great scarcity of agricultural labour, the probability of
| |
| − | long unemployment in the country has been very small. It is a mistake to
| |
| − | presume that the lad who leaves the countryside for the town is not made
| |
| − | of such sound material as those who remain at home to work on the land.
| |
| − | On the contrary, experience shows that it is the more healthy and more
| |
| − | vigorous that emigrate, and not the reverse. Among these emigrants I
| |
| − | include not merely those who emigrate to America, but also the servant
| |
| − | boy in the country who decides to leave his native village and migrate
| |
| − | to the big city where he will be a stranger. He is ready to take the
| |
| − | risk of an uncertain fate. In most cases he comes to town with a little
| |
| − | money in his pocket and for the first few days he is not discouraged if
| |
| − | he should not have the good fortune to find work. But if he finds a job
| |
| − | and then loses it in a little while, the case is much worse. To find
| |
| − | work anew, especially in winter, is often difficult and indeed sometimes
| |
| − | impossible. For the first few weeks life is still bearable He receives
| |
| − | his out-of-work money from his trade union and is thus enabled to carry
| |
| − | on. But when the last of his own money is gone and his trade union
| |
| − | ceases to pay out because of the prolonged unemployment, then comes the
| |
| − | real distress. He now loiters about and is hungry. Often he pawns or
| |
| − | sells the last of his belongings. His clothes begin to get shabby and
| |
| − | with the increasing poverty of his outward appearance he descends to a
| |
| − | lower social level and mixes up with a class of human beings through
| |
| − | whom his mind is now poisoned, in addition to his physical misery. Then
| |
| − | he has nowhere to sleep and if that happens in winter, which is very
| |
| − | often the case, he is in dire distress. Finally he gets work. But the
| |
| − | old story repeats itself. A second time the same thing happens. Then a
| |
| − | third time; and now it is probably much worse. Little by little he
| |
| − | becomes indifferent to this everlasting insecurity. Finally he grows
| |
| − | used to the repetition. Thus even a man who is normally of industrious
| |
| − | habits grows careless in his whole attitude towards life and gradually
| |
| − | becomes an instrument in the hands of unscrupulous people who exploit
| |
| − | him for the sake of their own ignoble aims. He has been so often thrown
| |
| − | out of employment through no fault of his own that he is now more or
| |
| − | less indifferent whether the strike in which he takes part be for the
| |
| − | purpose of securing his economic rights or be aimed at the destruction
| |
| − | of the State, the whole social order and even civilization itself.
| |
| − | Though the idea of going on strike may not be to his natural liking, yet
| |
| − | he joins in it out of sheer indifference.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I saw this process exemplified before my eyes in thousands of cases. And
| |
| − | the longer I observed it the greater became my dislike for that mammoth
| |
| − | city which greedily attracts men to its bosom, in order to break them
| |
| − | mercilessly in the end. When they came they still felt themselves in
| |
| − | communion with their own people at home; if they remained that tie was
| |
| − | broken.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was thrown about so much in the life of the metropolis that I
| |
| − | experienced the workings of this fate in my own person and felt the
| |
| − | effects of it in my own soul. One thing stood out clearly before my
| |
| − | eyes: It was the sudden changes from work to idleness and vice versa; so
| |
| − | that the constant fluctuations thus caused by earnings and expenditure
| |
| − | finally destroyed the 'sense of thrift for many people and also the
| |
| − | habit of regulating expenditure in an intelligent way. The body appeared
| |
| − | to grow accustomed to the vicissitudes of food and hunger, eating
| |
| − | heartily in good times and going hungry in bad. Indeed hunger shatters
| |
| − | all plans for rationing expenditure on a regular scale in better times
| |
| − | when employment is again found. The reason for this is that the
| |
| − | deprivations which the unemployed worker has to endure must be
| |
| − | compensated for psychologically by a persistent mental mirage in which
| |
| − | he imagines himself eating heartily once again. And this dream develops
| |
| − | into such a longing that it turns into a morbid impulse to cast off all
| |
| − | self-restraint when work and wages turn up again. Therefore the moment
| |
| − | work is found anew he forgets to regulate the expenditure of his
| |
| − | earnings but spends them to the full without thinking of to-morrow. This
| |
| − | leads to confusion in the little weekly housekeeping budget, because the
| |
| − | expenditure is not rationally planned. When the phenomenon which I have
| |
| − | mentioned first happens, the earnings will last perhaps for five days
| |
| − | instead of seven; on subsequent occasions they will last only for three
| |
| − | days; as the habit recurs, the earnings will last scarcely for a day;
| |
| − | and finally they will disappear in one night of feasting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Often there are wife and children at home. And in many cases it happens
| |
| − | that these become infected by such a way of living, especially if the
| |
| − | husband is good to them and wants to do the best he can for them and
| |
| − | loves them in his own way and according to his own lights. Then the
| |
| − | week's earnings are spent in common at home within two or three days.
| |
| − | The family eat and drink together as long as the money lasts and at the
| |
| − | end of the week they hunger together. Then the wife wanders about
| |
| − | furtively in the neighbourhood, borrows a little, and runs up small
| |
| − | debts with the shopkeepers in an effort to pull through the lean days
| |
| − | towards the end of the week. They sit down together to the midday meal
| |
| − | with only meagre fare on the table, and often even nothing to eat. They
| |
| − | wait for the coming payday, talking of it and making plans; and while
| |
| − | they are thus hungry they dream of the plenty that is to come. And so
| |
| − | the little children become acquainted with misery in their early years.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the evil culminates when the husband goes his own way from the
| |
| − | beginning of the week and the wife protests, simply out of love for the
| |
| − | children. Then there are quarrels and bad feeling and the husband takes
| |
| − | to drink according as he becomes estranged from his wife. He now becomes
| |
| − | drunk every Saturday. Fighting for her own existence and that of the
| |
| − | children, the wife has to hound him along the road from the factory to
| |
| − | the tavern in order to get a few shillings from him on payday. Then when
| |
| − | he finally comes home, maybe on the Sunday or the Monday, having parted
| |
| − | with his last shillings and pence, pitiable scenes follow, scenes that
| |
| − | cry out for God's mercy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I have had actual experience of all this in hundreds of cases. At first
| |
| − | I was disgusted and indignant; but later on I came to recognize the
| |
| − | whole tragedy of their misfortune and to understand the profound causes
| |
| − | of it. They were the unhappy victims of evil circumstances.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Housing conditions were very bad at that time. The Vienna manual
| |
| − | labourers lived in surroundings of appalling misery. I shudder even
| |
| − | to-day when I think of the woeful dens in which people dwelt, the night
| |
| − | shelters and the slums, and all the tenebrous spectacles of ordure,
| |
| − | loathsome filth and wickedness.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What will happen one day when hordes of emancipated slaves come forth
| |
| − | from these dens of misery to swoop down on their unsuspecting fellow
| |
| − | men? For this other world does not think about such a possibility. They
| |
| − | have allowed these things to go on without caring and even without
| |
| − | suspecting--in their total lack of instinctive understanding--that
| |
| − | sooner or later destiny will take its vengeance unless it will have been
| |
| − | appeased in time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day I fervidly thank Providence for having sent me to such a school.
| |
| − | There I could not refuse to take an interest in matters that did not
| |
| − | please me. This school soon taught me a profound lesson.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order not to despair completely of the people among whom I then lived
| |
| − | I had to set on one side the outward appearances of their lives and on
| |
| − | the other the reasons why they had developed in that way. Then I could
| |
| − | hear everything without discouragement; for those who emerged from all
| |
| − | this misfortune and misery, from this filth and outward degradation,
| |
| − | were not human beings as such but rather lamentable results of
| |
| − | lamentable laws. In my own life similar hardships prevented me from
| |
| − | giving way to a pitying sentimentality at the sight of these degraded
| |
| − | products which had finally resulted from the pressure of circumstances.
| |
| − | No, the sentimental attitude would be the wrong one to adopt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even in those days I already saw that there was a two-fold method by
| |
| − | which alone it would be possible to bring about an amelioration of these
| |
| − | conditions. This method is: first, to create better fundamental
| |
| − | conditions of social development by establishing a profound feeling for
| |
| − | social responsibilities among the public; second, to combine this
| |
| − | feeling for social responsibilities with a ruthless determination to
| |
| − | prune away all excrescences which are incapable of being improved.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as Nature concentrates its greatest attention, not to the
| |
| − | maintenance of what already exists but on the selective breeding of
| |
| − | offspring in order to carry on the species, so in human life also it is
| |
| − | less a matter of artificially improving the existing generation--which,
| |
| − | owing to human characteristics, is impossible in ninety-nine cases out
| |
| − | of a hundred--and more a matter of securing from the very start a better
| |
| − | road for future development.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During my struggle for existence in Vienna I perceived very clearly that
| |
| − | the aim of all social activity must never be merely charitable relief,
| |
| − | which is ridiculous and useless, but it must rather be a means to find a
| |
| − | way of eliminating the fundamental deficiencies in our economic and
| |
| − | cultural life--deficiencies which necessarily bring about the
| |
| − | degradation of the individual or at least lead him towards such
| |
| − | degradation. The difficulty of employing every means, even the most
| |
| − | drastic, to eradicate the hostility prevailing among the working classes
| |
| − | towards the State is largely due to an attitude of uncertainty in
| |
| − | deciding upon the inner motives and causes of this contemporary
| |
| − | phenomenon. The grounds of this uncertainty are to be found exclusively
| |
| − | in the sense of guilt which each individual feels for having permitted
| |
| − | this tragedy of degradation. For that feeling paralyses every effort at
| |
| − | making a serious and firm decision to act. And thus because the people
| |
| − | whom it concerns are vacillating they are timid and half-hearted in
| |
| − | putting into effect even the measures which are indispensable for
| |
| − | self-preservation. When the individual is no longer burdened with his
| |
| − | own consciousness of blame in this regard, then and only then will he
| |
| − | have that inner tranquillity and outer force to cut off drastically and
| |
| − | ruthlessly all the parasite growth and root out the weeds.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But because the Austrian State had almost no sense of social rights or
| |
| − | social legislation its inability to abolish those evil excrescences was
| |
| − | manifest.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I do not know what it was that appalled me most at that time: the
| |
| − | economic misery of those who were then my companions, their crude
| |
| − | customs and morals, or the low level of their intellectual culture.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How often our bourgeoisie rises up in moral indignation on hearing from
| |
| − | the mouth of some pitiable tramp that it is all the same to him whether
| |
| − | he be a German or not and that he will find himself at home wherever he
| |
| − | can get enough to keep body and soul together. They protest sternly
| |
| − | against such a lack of 'national pride' and strongly express their
| |
| − | horror at such sentiments.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But how many people really ask themselves why it is that their own
| |
| − | sentiments are better? How many of them understand that their natural
| |
| − | pride in being members of so favoured a nation arises from the
| |
| − | innumerable succession of instances they have encountered which remind
| |
| − | them of the greatness of the Fatherland and the Nation in all spheres of
| |
| − | artistic and cultural life? How many of them realize that pride in the
| |
| − | Fatherland is largely dependent on knowledge of its greatness in all
| |
| − | those spheres? Do our bourgeois circles ever think what a ridiculously
| |
| − | meagre share the people have in that knowledge which is a necessary
| |
| − | prerequisite for the feeling of pride in one's fatherland?
| |
| − | | |
| − | It cannot be objected here that in other countries similar conditions
| |
| − | exist and that nevertheless the working classes in those countries have
| |
| − | remained patriotic. Even if that were so, it would be no excuse for our
| |
| − | negligent attitude. But it is not so. What we call chauvinistic
| |
| − | education--in the case of the French people, for example--is only the
| |
| − | excessive exaltation of the greatness of France in all spheres of
| |
| − | culture or, as the French say, civilization. The French boy is not
| |
| − | educated on purely objective principles. Wherever the importance of the
| |
| − | political and cultural greatness of his country is concerned he is
| |
| − | taught in the most subjective way that one can imagine.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This education will always have to be confined to general ideas in a
| |
| − | large perspective and these ought to be deeply engraven, by constant
| |
| − | repetition if necessary, on the memories and feelings of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our case, however, we are not merely guilty of negative sins of
| |
| − | omission but also of positively perverting the little which some
| |
| − | individuals had the luck to learn at school. The rats that poison our
| |
| − | body-politic gnaw from the hearts and memories of the broad masses even
| |
| − | that little which distress and misery have left.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let the reader try to picture the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is a lodging in a cellar and this lodging consists of two damp
| |
| − | rooms. In these rooms a workman and his family live--seven people in
| |
| − | all. Let us assume that one of the children is a boy of three years.
| |
| − | That is the age at which children first become conscious of the
| |
| − | impressions which they receive. In the case of highly gifted people
| |
| − | traces of the impressions received in those early years last in the
| |
| − | memory up to an advanced age. Now the narrowness and congestion of those
| |
| − | living quarters do not conduce to pleasant inter-relations. Thus
| |
| − | quarrels and fits of mutual anger arise. These people can hardly be said
| |
| − | to live with one another, but rather down on top of one another. The
| |
| − | small misunderstandings which disappear of themselves in a home where
| |
| − | there is enough space for people to go apart from one another for a
| |
| − | while, here become the source of chronic disputes. As far as the
| |
| − | children are concerned the situation is tolerable from this point of
| |
| − | view. In such conditions they are constantly quarrelling with one
| |
| − | another, but the quarrels are quickly and entirely forgotten. But when
| |
| − | the parents fall out with one another these daily bickerings often
| |
| − | descend to rudeness such as cannot be adequately imagined. The results
| |
| − | of such experiences must become apparent later on in the children. One
| |
| − | must have practical experience of such a MILIEU so as to be able to
| |
| − | picture the state of affairs that arises from these mutual
| |
| − | recriminations when the father physically assaults the mother and
| |
| − | maltreats her in a fit of drunken rage. At the age of six the child can
| |
| − | no longer ignore those sordid details which even an adult would find
| |
| − | revolting. Infected with moral poison, bodily undernourished, and the
| |
| − | poor little head filled with vermin, the young 'citizen' goes to the
| |
| − | primary school. With difficulty he barely learns to read and write.
| |
| − | There is no possibility of learning any lessons at home. Quite the
| |
| − | contrary. The father and mother themselves talk before the children in
| |
| − | the most disparaging way about the teacher and the school and they are
| |
| − | much more inclined to insult the teachers than to put their offspring
| |
| − | across the knee and knock sound reason into him. What the little fellow
| |
| − | hears at home does not tend to increase respect for his human
| |
| − | surroundings. Here nothing good is said of human nature as a whole and
| |
| − | every institution, from the school to the government, is reviled.
| |
| − | Whether religion and morals are concerned or the State and the social
| |
| − | order, it is all the same; they are all scoffed at. When the young lad
| |
| − | leaves school, at the age of fourteen, it would be difficult to say what
| |
| − | are the most striking features of his character, incredible ignorance in
| |
| − | so far as real knowledge is concerned or cynical impudence combined with
| |
| − | an attitude towards morality which is really startling at so young an
| |
| − | age.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What station in life can such a person fill, to whom nothing is sacred,
| |
| − | who has never experienced anything noble but, on the contrary, has been
| |
| − | intimately acquainted with the lowest kind of human existence? This
| |
| − | child of three has got into the habit of reviling all authority by the
| |
| − | time he is fifteen. He has been acquainted only with moral filth and
| |
| − | vileness, everything being excluded that might stimulate his thought
| |
| − | towards higher things. And now this young specimen of humanity enters
| |
| − | the school of life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He leads the same kind of life which was exemplified for him by his
| |
| − | father during his childhood. He loiters about and comes home at all
| |
| − | hours. He now even black-guards that broken-hearted being who gave him
| |
| − | birth. He curses God and the world and finally ends up in a House of
| |
| − | Correction for young people. There he gets the final polish.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And his bourgeois contemporaries are astonished at the lack of
| |
| − | 'patriotic enthusiasm' which this young 'citizen' manifests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Day after day the bourgeois world are witnesses to the phenomenon of
| |
| − | spreading poison among the people through the instrumentality of the
| |
| − | theatre and the cinema, gutter journalism and obscene books; and yet
| |
| − | they are astonished at the deplorable 'moral standards' and 'national
| |
| − | indifference' of the masses. As if the cinema bilge and the gutter press
| |
| − | and suchlike could inculcate knowledge of the greatness of one's
| |
| − | country, apart entirely from the earlier education of the individual.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I then came to understand, quickly and thoroughly, what I had never been
| |
| − | aware of before. It was the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question of 'nationalizing' a people is first and foremost one of
| |
| − | establishing healthy social conditions which will furnish the grounds
| |
| − | that are necessary for the education of the individual. For only when
| |
| − | family upbringing and school education have inculcated in the individual
| |
| − | a knowledge of the cultural and economic and, above all, the political
| |
| − | greatness of his own country--then, and then only, will it be possible
| |
| − | for him to feel proud of being a citizen of such a country. I can fight
| |
| − | only for something that I love. I can love only what I respect. And in
| |
| − | order to respect a thing I must at least have some knowledge of it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as my interest in social questions was once awakened I began to
| |
| − | study them in a fundamental way. A new and hitherto unknown world was
| |
| − | thus revealed to me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the years 1909-10 I had so far improved my, position that I no longer
| |
| − | had to earn my daily bread as a manual labourer. I was now working
| |
| − | independently as draughtsman, and painter in water colours. This MÉTIER
| |
| − | was a poor one indeed as far as earnings were concerned; for these were
| |
| − | only sufficient to meet the bare exigencies of life. Yet it had an
| |
| − | interest for me in view of the profession to which I aspired. Moreover,
| |
| − | when I came home in the evenings I was now no longer dead-tired as
| |
| − | formerly, when I used to be unable to look into a book without falling
| |
| − | asleep almost immediately. My present occupation therefore was in line
| |
| − | with the profession I aimed at for the future. Moreover, I was master of
| |
| − | my own time and could distribute my working-hours now better than
| |
| − | formerly. I painted in order to earn my bread, and I studied because I
| |
| − | liked it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus I was able to acquire that theoretical knowledge of the social
| |
| − | problem which was a necessary complement to what I was learning through
| |
| − | actual experience. I studied all the books which I could find that dealt
| |
| − | with this question and I thought deeply on what I read. I think that the
| |
| − | MILIEU in which I then lived considered me an eccentric person.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Besides my interest in the social question I naturally devoted myself
| |
| − | with enthusiasm to the study of architecture. Side by side with music, I
| |
| − | considered it queen of the arts. To study it was for me not work but
| |
| − | pleasure. I could read or draw until the small hours of the morning
| |
| − | without ever getting tired. And I became more and more confident that my
| |
| − | dream of a brilliant future would become true, even though I should have
| |
| − | to wait long years for its fulfilment. I was firmly convinced that one
| |
| − | day I should make a name for myself as an architect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that, side by side with my professional studies, I took the
| |
| − | greatest interest in everything that had to do with politics did not
| |
| − | seem to me to signify anything of great importance. On the contrary: I
| |
| − | looked upon this practical interest in politics merely as part of an
| |
| − | elementary obligation that devolves on every thinking man. Those who
| |
| − | have no understanding of the political world around them have no right
| |
| − | to criticize or complain. On political questions therefore I still
| |
| − | continued to read and study a great deal. But reading had probably a
| |
| − | different significance for me from that which it has for the average run
| |
| − | of our so-called 'intellectuals'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page,
| |
| − | and yet I should not call them 'well-read people'. Of course they 'know'
| |
| − | an immense amount; but their brain seems incapable of assorting and
| |
| − | classifying the material which they have gathered from books. They have
| |
| − | not the faculty of distinguishing between what is useful and useless in
| |
| − | a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds and if
| |
| − | possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible,
| |
| − | then--when once read--throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is
| |
| − | not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to
| |
| − | help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents
| |
| − | and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures
| |
| − | for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfilment of
| |
| − | his calling in life, no matter whether this be the elementary task of
| |
| − | earning one's daily bread or a calling that responds to higher human
| |
| − | aspirations. Such is the first purpose of reading. And the second
| |
| − | purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live. In
| |
| − | both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading
| |
| − | must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the
| |
| − | successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus
| |
| − | gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into
| |
| − | a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces
| |
| − | and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of
| |
| − | the reader. Otherwise only a confused jumble of chaotic notions will
| |
| − | result from all this reading. That jumble is not merely useless, but it
| |
| − | also tends to make the unfortunate possessor of it conceited. For he
| |
| − | seriously considers himself a well-educated person and thinks that he
| |
| − | understands something of life. He believes that he has acquired
| |
| − | knowledge, whereas the truth is that every increase in such 'knowledge'
| |
| − | draws him more and more away from real life, until he finally ends up in
| |
| − | some sanatorium or takes to politics and becomes a parliamentary deputy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a person never succeeds in turning his knowledge to practical
| |
| − | account when the opportune moment arrives; for his mental equipment is
| |
| − | not ordered with a view to meeting the demands of everyday life. His
| |
| − | knowledge is stored in his brain as a literal transcript of the books he
| |
| − | has read and the order of succession in which he has read them. And if
| |
| − | Fate should one day call upon him to use some of his book-knowledge for
| |
| − | certain practical ends in life that very call will have to name the book
| |
| − | and give the number of the page; for the poor noodle himself would never
| |
| − | be able to find the spot where he gathered the information now called
| |
| − | for. But if the page is not mentioned at the critical moment the
| |
| − | widely-read intellectual will find himself in a state of hopeless
| |
| − | embarrassment. In a high state of agitation he searches for analogous
| |
| − | cases and it is almost a dead certainty that he will finally deliver the
| |
| − | wrong prescription.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If that is not a correct description, then how can we explain the
| |
| − | political achievements of our Parliamentary heroes who hold the highest
| |
| − | positions in the government of the country? Otherwise we should have to
| |
| − | attribute the doings of such political leaders, not to pathological
| |
| − | conditions but simply to malice and chicanery.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the other hand, one who has cultivated the art of reading will
| |
| − | instantly discern, in a book or journal or pamphlet, what ought to be
| |
| − | remembered because it meets one's personal needs or is of value as
| |
| − | general knowledge. What he thus learns is incorporated in his mental
| |
| − | analogue of this or that problem or thing, further correcting the mental
| |
| − | picture or enlarging it so that it becomes more exact and precise.
| |
| − | Should some practical problem suddenly demand examination or solution,
| |
| − | memory will immediately select the opportune information from the mass
| |
| − | that has been acquired through years of reading and will place this
| |
| − | information at the service of one's powers of judgment so as to get a
| |
| − | new and clearer view of the problem in question or produce a definitive
| |
| − | solution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only thus can reading have any meaning or be worth while.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The speaker, for example, who has not the sources of information ready
| |
| − | to hand which are necessary to a proper treatment of his subject is
| |
| − | unable to defend his opinions against an opponent, even though those
| |
| − | opinions be perfectly sound and true. In every discussion his memory
| |
| − | will leave him shamefully in the lurch. He cannot summon up arguments to
| |
| − | support his statements or to refute his opponent. So long as the speaker
| |
| − | has only to defend himself on his own personal account, the situation is
| |
| − | not serious; but the evil comes when Chance places at the head of public
| |
| − | affairs such a soi-disant know-it-all, who in reality knows nothing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From early youth I endeavoured to read books in the right way and I was
| |
| − | fortunate in having a good memory and intelligence to assist me. From
| |
| − | that point of view my sojourn in Vienna was particularly useful and
| |
| − | profitable. My experiences of everyday life there were a constant
| |
| − | stimulus to study the most diverse problems from new angles. Inasmuch as
| |
| − | I was in a position to put theory to the test of reality and reality to
| |
| − | the test of theory, I was safe from the danger of pedantic theorizing on
| |
| − | the one hand and, on the other, from being too impressed by the
| |
| − | superficial aspects of reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The experience of everyday life at that time determined me to make a
| |
| − | fundamental theoretical study of two most important questions outside of
| |
| − | the social question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is impossible to say when I might have started to make a thorough
| |
| − | study of the doctrine and characteristics of Marxism were it not for the
| |
| − | fact that I then literally ran head foremost into the problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What I knew of Social Democracy in my youth was precious little and that
| |
| − | little was for the most part wrong. The fact that it led the struggle
| |
| − | for universal suffrage and the secret ballot gave me an inner
| |
| − | satisfaction; for my reason then told me that this would weaken the
| |
| − | Habsburg regime, which I so thoroughly detested. I was convinced that
| |
| − | even if it should sacrifice the German element the Danubian State could
| |
| − | not continue to exist. Even at the price of a long and slow Slaviz-ation
| |
| − | of the Austrian Germans the State would secure no guarantee of a really
| |
| − | durable Empire; because it was very questionable if and how far the
| |
| − | Slavs possessed the necessary capacity for constructive politics.
| |
| − | Therefore I welcomed every movement that might lead towards the final
| |
| − | disruption of that impossible State which had decreed that it would
| |
| − | stamp out the German character in ten millions of people. The more this
| |
| − | babel of tongues wrought discord and disruption, even in the Parliament,
| |
| − | the nearer the hour approached for the dissolution of this Babylonian
| |
| − | Empire. That would mean the liberation of my German Austrian people, and
| |
| − | only then would it become possible for them to be re-united to the
| |
| − | Motherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Accordingly I had no feelings of antipathy towards the actual policy of
| |
| − | the Social Democrats. That its avowed purpose was to raise the level of
| |
| − | the working classes--which in my ignorance I then foolishly
| |
| − | believed--was a further reason why I should speak in favour of Social
| |
| − | Democracy rather than against it. But the features that contributed most
| |
| − | to estrange me from the Social Democratic movement was its hostile
| |
| − | attitude towards the struggle for the conservation of Germanism in
| |
| − | Austria, its lamentable cocotting with the Slav 'comrades', who received
| |
| − | these approaches favourably as long as any practical advantages were
| |
| − | forthcoming but otherwise maintained a haughty reserve, thus giving the
| |
| − | importunate mendicants the sort of answer their behaviour deserved.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so at the age of seventeen the word 'Marxism' was very little known
| |
| − | to me, while I looked on 'Social Democracy' and 'Socialism' as
| |
| − | synonymous expressions. It was only as the result of a sudden blow from
| |
| − | the rough hand of Fate that my eyes were opened to the nature of this
| |
| − | unparalleled system for duping the public.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hitherto my acquaintance with the Social Democratic Party was only that
| |
| − | of a mere spectator at some of their mass meetings. I had not the
| |
| − | slightest idea of the social-democratic teaching or the mentality of its
| |
| − | partisans. All of a sudden I was brought face to face with the products
| |
| − | of their teaching and what they called their WELTANSCHAUUNG. In this
| |
| − | way a few months sufficed for me to learn something which under other
| |
| − | circumstances might have necessitated decades of study--namely, that
| |
| − | under the cloak of social virtue and love of one's neighbour a veritable
| |
| − | pestilence was spreading abroad and that if this pestilence be not
| |
| − | stamped out of the world without delay it may eventually succeed in
| |
| − | exterminating the human race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I first came into contact with the Social Democrats while working in the
| |
| − | building trade.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the very time that I started work the situation was not very
| |
| − | pleasant for me. My clothes were still rather decent. I was careful of
| |
| − | my speech and I was reserved in manner. I was so occupied with thinking
| |
| − | of my own present lot and future possibilities that I did not take much
| |
| − | of an interest in my immediate surroundings. I had sought work so that I
| |
| − | shouldn't starve and at the same time so as to be able to make further
| |
| − | headway with my studies, though this headway might be slow. Possibly I
| |
| − | should not have bothered to be interested in my companions were it not
| |
| − | that on the third or fourth day an event occurred which forced me to
| |
| − | take a definite stand. I was ordered to join the trade union.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time I knew nothing about the trades unions. I had had no
| |
| − | opportunity of forming an opinion on their utility or inutility, as the
| |
| − | case might be. But when I was told that I must join the union I refused.
| |
| − | The grounds which I gave for my refusal were simply that I knew nothing
| |
| − | about the matter and that anyhow I would not allow myself to be forced
| |
| − | into anything. Probably the former reason saved me from being thrown out
| |
| − | right away. They probably thought that within a few days I might be
| |
| − | converted' and become more docile. But if they thought that they were
| |
| − | profoundly mistaken. After two weeks I found it utterly impossible for
| |
| − | me to take such a step, even if I had been willing to take it at first.
| |
| − | During those fourteen days I came to know my fellow workmen better, and
| |
| − | no power in the world could have moved me to join an organization whose
| |
| − | representatives had meanwhile shown themselves in a light which I found
| |
| − | so unfavourable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the first days my resentment was aroused.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At midday some of my fellow workers used to adjourn to the nearest
| |
| − | tavern, while the others remained on the building premises and there ate
| |
| − | their midday meal, which in most cases was a very scanty one. These were
| |
| − | married men. Their wives brought them the midday soup in dilapidated
| |
| − | vessels. Towards the end of the week there was a gradual increase in the
| |
| − | number of those who remained to eat their midday meal on the building
| |
| − | premises. I understood the reason for this afterwards. They now talked
| |
| − | politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I drank my bottle of milk and ate my morsel of bread somewhere on the
| |
| − | outskirts, while I circumspectly studied my environment or else fell to
| |
| − | meditating on my own harsh lot. Yet I heard more than enough. And I
| |
| − | often thought that some of what they said was meant for my ears, in the
| |
| − | hope of bringing me to a decision. But all that I heard had the effect
| |
| − | of arousing the strongest antagonism in me. Everything was
| |
| − | disparaged--the nation, because it was held to be an invention of the
| |
| − | 'capitalist' class (how often I had to listen to that phrase!); the
| |
| − | Fatherland, because it was held to be an instrument in the hands of the
| |
| − | bourgeoisie for the exploitation of' the working masses; the authority
| |
| − | of the law, because that was a means of holding down the proletariat;
| |
| − | religion, as a means of doping the people, so as to exploit them
| |
| − | afterwards; morality, as a badge of stupid and sheepish docility. There
| |
| − | was nothing that they did not drag in the mud.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first I remained silent; but that could not last very long. Then I
| |
| − | began to take part in the discussion and to reply to their statements. I
| |
| − | had to recognize, however, that this was bound to be entirely fruitless,
| |
| − | as long as I did not have at least a certain amount of definite
| |
| − | information about the questions that were discussed. So I decided to
| |
| − | consult the source from which my interlocutors claimed to have drawn
| |
| − | their so-called wisdom. I devoured book after book, pamphlet after
| |
| − | pamphlet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Meanwhile, we argued with one another on the building premises. From day
| |
| − | to day I was becoming better informed than my companions in the subjects
| |
| − | on which they claimed to be experts. Then a day came when the more
| |
| − | redoubtable of my adversaries resorted to the most effective weapon they
| |
| − | had to replace the force of reason. This was intimidation and physical
| |
| − | force. Some of the leaders among my adversaries ordered me to leave the
| |
| − | building or else get flung down from the scaffolding. As I was quite
| |
| − | alone I could not put up any physical resistance; so I chose the first
| |
| − | alternative and departed, richer however by an experience.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I went away full of disgust; but at the same time so deeply moved that
| |
| − | it was quite impossible for me to turn my back on the whole situation
| |
| − | and think no more about it. When my anger began to calm down the spirit
| |
| − | of obstinacy got the upper hand and I decided that at all costs I would
| |
| − | get back to work again in the building trade. This decision became all
| |
| − | the stronger a few weeks later, when my little savings had entirely run
| |
| − | out and hunger clutched me once again in its merciless arms. No
| |
| − | alternative was left to me. I got work again and had to leave it for the
| |
| − | same reasons as before.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then I asked myself: Are these men worthy of belonging to a great
| |
| − | people? The question was profoundly disturbing; for if the answer were
| |
| − | 'Yes', then the struggle to defend one's nationality is no longer worth
| |
| − | all the trouble and sacrifice we demand of our best elements if it be in
| |
| − | the interests of such a rabble. On the other hand, if the answer had to
| |
| − | be 'No--these men are not worthy of the nation', then our nation is poor
| |
| − | indeed in men. During those days of mental anguish and deep meditation I
| |
| − | saw before my mind the ever-increasing and menacing army of people who
| |
| − | could no longer be reckoned as belonging to their own nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was with quite a different feeling, some days later, that I gazed on
| |
| − | the interminable ranks, four abreast, of Viennese workmen parading at a
| |
| − | mass demonstration. I stood dumbfounded for almost two hours, watching
| |
| − | that enormous human dragon which slowly uncoiled itself there before me.
| |
| − | When I finally left the square and wandered in the direction of my
| |
| − | lodgings I felt dismayed and depressed. On my way I noticed the
| |
| − | ARBEITERZEITUNG (The Workman's Journal) in a tobacco shop. This was the
| |
| − | chief press-organ of the old Austrian Social Democracy. In a cheap café,
| |
| − | where the common people used to foregather and where I often went to
| |
| − | read the papers, the ARBEITERZEITUNG was also displayed. But hitherto I
| |
| − | could not bring myself to do more than glance at the wretched thing for
| |
| − | a couple of minutes: for its whole tone was a sort of mental vitriol to
| |
| − | me. Under the depressing influence of the demonstration I had witnessed,
| |
| − | some interior voice urged me to buy the paper in that tobacco shop and
| |
| − | read it through. So I brought it home with me and spent the whole
| |
| − | evening reading it, despite the steadily mounting rage provoked by this
| |
| − | ceaseless outpouring of falsehoods.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I now found that in the social democratic daily papers I could study the
| |
| − | inner character of this politico-philosophic system much better than in
| |
| − | all their theoretical literature.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For there was a striking discrepancy between the two. In the literary
| |
| − | effusions which dealt with the theory of Social Democracy there was a
| |
| − | display of high-sounding phraseology about liberty and human dignity and
| |
| − | beauty, all promulgated with an air of profound wisdom and serene
| |
| − | prophetic assurance; a meticulously-woven glitter of words to dazzle and
| |
| − | mislead the reader. On the other hand, the daily Press inculcated this
| |
| − | new doctrine of human redemption in the most brutal fashion. No means
| |
| − | were too base, provided they could be exploited in the campaign of
| |
| − | slander. These journalists were real virtuosos in the art of twisting
| |
| − | facts and presenting them in a deceptive form. The theoretical
| |
| − | literature was intended for the simpletons of the soi-disant
| |
| − | intellectuals belonging to the middle and, naturally, the upper classes.
| |
| − | The newspaper propaganda was intended for the masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This probing into books and newspapers and studying the teachings of
| |
| − | Social Democracy reawakened my love for my own people. And thus what at
| |
| − | first seemed an impassable chasm became the occasion of a closer
| |
| − | affection.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Having once understood the working of the colossal system for poisoning
| |
| − | the popular mind, only a fool could blame the victims of it. During the
| |
| − | years that followed I became more independent and, as I did so, I became
| |
| − | better able to understand the inner cause of the success achieved by
| |
| − | this Social Democratic gospel. I now realized the meaning and purpose of
| |
| − | those brutal orders which prohibited the reading of all books and
| |
| − | newspapers that were not 'red' and at the same time demanded that only
| |
| − | the 'red' meetings should be attended. In the clear light of brutal
| |
| − | reality I was able to see what must have been the inevitable
| |
| − | consequences of that intolerant teaching.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The PSYCHE of the broad masses is accessible only to what is strong and
| |
| − | uncompromising. Like a woman whose inner sensibilities are not so much
| |
| − | under the sway of abstract reasoning but are always subject to the
| |
| − | influence of a vague emotional longing for the strength that completes
| |
| − | her being, and who would rather bow to the strong man than dominate the
| |
| − | weakling--in like manner the masses of the people prefer the ruler to
| |
| − | the suppliant and are filled with a stronger sense of mental security by
| |
| − | a teaching that brooks no rival than by a teaching which offers them a
| |
| − | liberal choice. They have very little idea of how to make such a choice
| |
| − | and thus they are prone to feel that they have been abandoned. They feel
| |
| − | very little shame at being terrorized intellectually and they are
| |
| − | scarcely conscious of the fact that their freedom as human beings is
| |
| − | impudently abused; and thus they have not the slightest suspicion of the
| |
| − | intrinsic fallacy of the whole doctrine. They see only the ruthless
| |
| − | force and brutality of its determined utterances, to which they always
| |
| − | submit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | IF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY SHOULD BE OPPOSED BY A MORE TRUTHFUL TEACHING, THEN
| |
| − | EVEN, THOUGH THE STRUGGLE BE OF THE BITTEREST KIND, THIS TRUTHFUL
| |
| − | TEACHING WILL FINALLY PREVAIL PROVIDED IT BE ENFORCED WITH EQUAL
| |
| − | RUTHLESSNESS.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Within less than two years I had gained a clear understanding of Social
| |
| − | Democracy, in its teaching and the technique of its operations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I recognized the infamy of that technique whereby the movement carried
| |
| − | on a campaign of mental terrorism against the bourgeoisie, who are
| |
| − | neither morally nor spiritually equipped to withstand such attacks. The
| |
| − | tactics of Social Democracy consisted in opening, at a given signal, a
| |
| − | veritable drum-fire of lies and calumnies against the man whom they
| |
| − | believed to be the most redoubtable of their adversaries, until the
| |
| − | nerves of the latter gave way and they sacrificed the man who was
| |
| − | attacked, simply in the hope of being allowed to live in peace. But the
| |
| − | hope proved always to be a foolish one, for they were never left in
| |
| − | peace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The same tactics are repeated again and again, until fear of these mad
| |
| − | dogs exercises, through suggestion, a paralysing effect on their
| |
| − | Victims.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Through its own experience Social Democracy learned the value of
| |
| − | strength, and for that reason it attacks mostly those in whom it scents
| |
| − | stuff of the more stalwart kind, which is indeed a very rare possession.
| |
| − | On the other hand it praises every weakling among its adversaries, more
| |
| − | or less cautiously, according to the measure of his mental qualities
| |
| − | known or presumed. They have less fear of a man of genius who lacks
| |
| − | will-power than of a vigorous character with mediocre intelligence and
| |
| − | at the same time they highly commend those who are devoid of
| |
| − | intelligence and will-power.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Social Democrats know how to create the impression that they alone
| |
| − | are the protectors of peace. In this way, acting very circumspectly but
| |
| − | never losing sight of their ultimate goal, they conquer one position
| |
| − | after another, at one time by methods of quiet intimidation and at
| |
| − | another time by sheer daylight robbery, employing these latter tactics
| |
| − | at those moments when public attention is turned towards other matters
| |
| − | from which it does not wish to be diverted, or when the public considers
| |
| − | an incident too trivial to create a scandal about it and thus provoke
| |
| − | the anger of a malignant opponent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human frailties and
| |
| − | must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the
| |
| − | other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The
| |
| − | weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to
| |
| − | be.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I also came to understand that physical intimidation has its
| |
| − | significance for the mass as well as for the individual. Here again the
| |
| − | Socialists had calculated accurately on the psychological effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Intimidation in workshops and in factories, in assembly halls and at
| |
| − | mass demonstrations, will always meet with success as long as it does
| |
| − | not have to encounter the same kind of terror in a stronger form.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then of course the Party will raise a horrified outcry, yelling blue
| |
| − | murder and appealing to the authority of the State, which they have just
| |
| − | repudiated. In doing this their aim generally is to add to the general
| |
| − | confusion, so that they may have a better opportunity of reaching their
| |
| − | own goal unobserved. Their idea is to find among the higher government
| |
| − | officials some bovine creature who, in the stupid hope that he may win
| |
| − | the good graces of these awe-inspiring opponents so that they may
| |
| − | remember him in case of future eventualities, will help them now to
| |
| − | break all those who may oppose this world pest.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The impression which such successful tactics make on the minds of the
| |
| − | broad masses, whether they be adherents or opponents, can be estimated
| |
| − | only by one who knows the popular mind, not from books but from
| |
| − | practical life. For the successes which are thus obtained are taken by
| |
| − | the adherents of Social Democracy as a triumphant symbol of the
| |
| − | righteousness of their own cause; on the other hand the beaten opponent
| |
| − | very often loses faith in the effectiveness of any further resistance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more I understood the methods of physical intimidation that were
| |
| − | employed, the more sympathy I had for the multitude that had succumbed
| |
| − | to it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I am thankful now for the ordeal which I had to go through at that time;
| |
| − | for it was the means of bringing me to think kindly again of my own
| |
| − | people, inasmuch as the experience enabled me to distinguish between the
| |
| − | false leaders and the victims who have been led astray.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We must look upon the latter simply as victims. I have just now tried to
| |
| − | depict a few traits which express the mentality of those on the lowest
| |
| − | rung of the social ladder; but my picture would be disproportionate if I
| |
| − | do not add that amid the social depths I still found light; for I
| |
| − | experienced a rare spirit of self-sacrifice and loyal comradeship among
| |
| − | those men, who demanded little from life and were content amid their
| |
| − | modest surroundings. This was true especially of the older generation of
| |
| − | workmen. And although these qualities were disappearing more and more in
| |
| − | the younger generation, owing to the all-pervading influence of the big
| |
| − | city, yet among the younger generation also there were many who were
| |
| − | sound at the core and who were able to maintain themselves
| |
| − | uncontaminated amid the sordid surroundings of their everyday existence.
| |
| − | If these men, who in many cases meant well and were upright in
| |
| − | themselves, gave the support to the political activities carried on by
| |
| − | the common enemies of our people, that was because those decent
| |
| − | workpeople did not and could not grasp the downright infamy of the
| |
| − | doctrine taught by the socialist agitators. Furthermore, it was because
| |
| − | no other section of the community bothered itself about the lot of the
| |
| − | working classes. Finally, the social conditions became such that men who
| |
| − | otherwise would have acted differently were forced to submit to them,
| |
| − | even though unwillingly at first. A day came when poverty gained the
| |
| − | upper hand and drove those workmen into the Social Democratic ranks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On innumerable occasions the bourgeoisie took a definite stand against
| |
| − | even the most legitimate human demands of the working classes. That
| |
| − | conduct was ill-judged and indeed immoral and could bring no gain
| |
| − | whatsoever to the bourgeois class. The result was that the honest
| |
| − | workman abandoned the original concept of the trades union organization
| |
| − | and was dragged into politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There were millions and millions of workmen who began by being hostile
| |
| − | to the Social Democratic Party; but their defences were repeatedly
| |
| − | stormed and finally they had to surrender. Yet this defeat was due to
| |
| − | the stupidity of the bourgeois parties, who had opposed every social
| |
| − | demand put forward by the working class. The short-sighted refusal to
| |
| − | make an effort towards improving labour conditions, the refusal to adopt
| |
| − | measures which would insure the workman in case of accidents in the
| |
| − | factories, the refusal to forbid child labour, the refusal to consider
| |
| − | protective measures for female workers, especially expectant
| |
| − | mothers--all this was of assistance to the Social Democratic leaders,
| |
| − | who were thankful for every opportunity which they could exploit for
| |
| − | forcing the masses into their net. Our bourgeois parties can never
| |
| − | repair the damage that resulted from the mistake they then made. For
| |
| − | they sowed the seeds of hatred when they opposed all efforts at social
| |
| − | reform. And thus they gave, at least, apparent grounds to justify the
| |
| − | claim put forward by the Social Democrats--namely, that they alone stand
| |
| − | up for the interests of the working class.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And this became the principal ground for the moral justification of the
| |
| − | actual existence of the Trades Unions, so that the labour organization
| |
| − | became from that time onwards the chief political recruiting ground to
| |
| − | swell the ranks of the Social Democratic Party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While thus studying the social conditions around me I was forced,
| |
| − | whether I liked it or not, to decide on the attitude I should take
| |
| − | towards the Trades Unions. Because I looked upon them as inseparable
| |
| − | from the Social Democratic Party, my decision was hasty--and mistaken. I
| |
| − | repudiated them as a matter of course. But on this essential question
| |
| − | also Fate intervened and gave me a lesson, with the result that I
| |
| − | changed the opinion which I had first formed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I was twenty years old I had learned to distinguish between the
| |
| − | Trades Union as a means of defending the social rights of the employees
| |
| − | and fighting for better living conditions for them and, on the other
| |
| − | hand, the Trades Union as a political instrument used by the Party in
| |
| − | the class struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Social Democrats understood the enormous importance of the Trades
| |
| − | Union movement. They appropriated it as an instrument and used it with
| |
| − | success, while the bourgeois parties failed to understand it and thus
| |
| − | lost their political prestige. They thought that their own arrogant VETO
| |
| − | would arrest the logical development of the movement and force it into
| |
| − | an illogical position. But it is absurd and also untrue to say that the
| |
| − | Trades Union movement is in itself hostile to the nation. The opposite
| |
| − | is the more correct view. If the activities of the Trades Union are
| |
| − | directed towards improving the condition of a class, and succeed in
| |
| − | doing so, such activities are not against the Fatherland or the State
| |
| − | but are, in the truest sense of the word, national. In that way the
| |
| − | trades union organization helps to create the social conditions which
| |
| − | are indispensable in a general system of national education. It deserves
| |
| − | high recognition when it destroys the psychological and physical germs
| |
| − | of social disease and thus fosters the general welfare of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is superfluous to ask whether the Trades Union is indispensable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | So long as there are employers who attack social understanding and have
| |
| − | wrong ideas of justice and fair play it is not only the right but also
| |
| − | the duty of their employees--who are, after all, an integral part of our
| |
| − | people--to protect the general interests against the greed and unreason
| |
| − | of the individual. For to safeguard the loyalty and confidence of the
| |
| − | people is as much in the interests of the nation as to safeguard public
| |
| − | health.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Both are seriously menaced by dishonourable employers who are not
| |
| − | conscious of their duty as members of the national community. Their
| |
| − | personal avidity or irresponsibility sows the seeds of future trouble.
| |
| − | To eliminate the causes of such a development is an action that surely
| |
| − | deserves well of the country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must not be answered here that the individual workman is free at any
| |
| − | time to escape from the consequences of an injustice which he has
| |
| − | actually suffered at the hands of an employer, or which he thinks he has
| |
| − | suffered--in other words, he can leave. No. That argument is only a ruse
| |
| − | to detract attention from the question at issue. Is it, or is it not, in
| |
| − | the interests of the nation to remove the causes of social unrest? If it
| |
| − | is, then the fight must be carried on with the only weapons that promise
| |
| − | success. But the individual workman is never in a position to stand up
| |
| − | against the might of the big employer; for the question here is not one
| |
| − | that concerns the triumph of right. If in such a relation right had been
| |
| − | recognized as the guiding principle, then the conflict could not have
| |
| − | arisen at all. But here it is a question of who is the stronger. If the
| |
| − | case were otherwise, the sentiment of justice alone would solve the
| |
| − | dispute in an honourable way; or, to put the case more correctly,
| |
| − | matters would not have come to such a dispute at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. If unsocial and dishonourable treatment of men provokes resistance,
| |
| − | then the stronger party can impose its decision in the conflict until
| |
| − | the constitutional legislative authorities do away with the evil through
| |
| − | legislation. Therefore it is evident that if the individual workman is
| |
| − | to have any chance at all of winning through in the struggle he must be
| |
| − | grouped with his fellow workmen and present a united front before the
| |
| − | individual employer, who incorporates in his own person the massed
| |
| − | strength of the vested interests in the industrial or commercial
| |
| − | undertaking which he conducts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the trades unions can hope to inculcate and strengthen a sense of
| |
| − | social responsibility in workaday life and open the road to practical
| |
| − | results. In doing this they tend to remove those causes of friction
| |
| − | which are a continual source of discontent and complaint.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Blame for the fact that the trades unions do not fulfil this
| |
| − | much-desired function must be laid at the doors of those who barred the
| |
| − | road to legislative social reform, or rendered such a reform ineffective
| |
| − | by sabotaging it through their political influence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The political bourgeoisie failed to understand--or, rather, they did not
| |
| − | wish to understand--the importance of the trades union movement. The
| |
| − | Social Democrats accordingly seized the advantage offered them by this
| |
| − | mistaken policy and took the labour movement under their exclusive
| |
| − | protection, without any protest from the other side. In this way they
| |
| − | established for themselves a solid bulwark behind which they could
| |
| − | safely retire whenever the struggle assumed a critical aspect. Thus the
| |
| − | genuine purpose of the movement gradually fell into oblivion, and was
| |
| − | replaced by new objectives. For the Social Democrats never troubled
| |
| − | themselves to respect and uphold the original purpose for which the
| |
| − | trade unionist movement was founded. They simply took over the Movement,
| |
| − | lock, stock and barrel, to serve their own political ends.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Within a few decades the Trades Union Movement was transformed, by the
| |
| − | expert hand of Social Democracy, from an instrument which had been
| |
| − | originally fashioned for the defence of human rights into an instrument
| |
| − | for the destruction of the national economic structure. The interests of
| |
| − | the working class were not allowed for a moment to cross the path of
| |
| − | this purpose; for in politics the application of economic pressure is
| |
| − | always possible if the one side be sufficiently unscrupulous and the
| |
| − | other sufficiently inert and docile. In this case both conditions were
| |
| − | fulfilled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By the beginning of the present century the Trades Unionist Movement had
| |
| − | already ceased to recognize the purpose for which it had been founded.
| |
| − | From year to year it fell more and more under the political control of
| |
| − | the Social Democrats, until it finally came to be used as a
| |
| − | battering-ram in the class struggle. The plan was to shatter, by means
| |
| − | of constantly repeated blows, the economic edifice in the building of
| |
| − | which so much time and care had been expended. Once this objective had
| |
| − | been reached, the destruction of the State would become a matter of
| |
| − | course, because the State would already have been deprived of its
| |
| − | economic foundations. Attention to the real interests of the
| |
| − | working-classes, on the part of the Social Democrats, steadily decreased
| |
| − | until the cunning leaders saw that it would be in their immediate
| |
| − | political interests if the social and cultural demands of the broad
| |
| − | masses remained unheeded; for there was a danger that if these masses
| |
| − | once felt content they could no longer be employed as mere passive
| |
| − | material in the political struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The gloomy prospect which presented itself to the eyes of the
| |
| − | CONDOTTIERI of the class warfare, if the discontent of the masses were
| |
| − | no longer available as a war weapon, created so much anxiety among them
| |
| − | that they suppressed and opposed even the most elementary measures of
| |
| − | social reform. And conditions were such that those leaders did not have
| |
| − | to trouble about attempting to justify such an illogical policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As the masses were taught to increase and heighten their demands the
| |
| − | possibility of satisfying them dwindled and whatever ameliorative
| |
| − | measures were taken became less and less significant; so that it was at
| |
| − | that time possible to persuade the masses that this ridiculous measure
| |
| − | in which the most sacred claims of the working-classes were being
| |
| − | granted represented a diabolical plan to weaken their fighting power in
| |
| − | this easy way and, if possible, to paralyse it. One will not be
| |
| − | astonished at the success of these allegations if one remembers what a
| |
| − | small measure of thinking power the broad masses possess.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the bourgeois camp there was high indignation over the bad faith of
| |
| − | the Social Democratic tactics; but nothing was done to draw a practical
| |
| − | conclusion and organize a counter attack from the bourgeois side. The
| |
| − | fear of the Social Democrats, to improve the miserable conditions of the
| |
| − | working-classes ought to have induced the bourgeois parties to make the
| |
| − | most energetic efforts in this direction and thus snatch from the hands
| |
| − | of the class-warfare leaders their most important weapon; but nothing of
| |
| − | this kind happened.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Instead of attacking the position of their adversaries the bourgeoisie
| |
| − | allowed itself to be pressed and harried. Finally it adopted means that
| |
| − | were so tardy and so insignificant that they were ineffective and were
| |
| − | repudiated. So the whole situation remained just as it had been before
| |
| − | the bourgeois intervention; but the discontent had thereby become more
| |
| − | serious.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Like a threatening storm, the 'Free Trades Union' hovered above the
| |
| − | political horizon and above the life of each individual. It was one of
| |
| − | the most frightful instruments of terror that threatened the security
| |
| − | and independence of the national economic structure, the foundations of
| |
| − | the State and the liberty of the individual. Above all, it was the 'Free
| |
| − | Trades Union' that turned democracy into a ridiculous and scorned
| |
| − | phrase, insulted the ideal of liberty and stigmatized that of fraternity
| |
| − | with the slogan 'If you will not become our comrade we shall crack your
| |
| − | skull'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was thus that I then came to know this friend of humanity. During the
| |
| − | years that followed my knowledge of it became wider and deeper; but I
| |
| − | have never changed anything in that regard.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more I became acquainted with the external forms of Social
| |
| − | Democracy, the greater became my desire to understand the inner nature
| |
| − | of its doctrines.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this purpose the official literature of the Party could not help
| |
| − | very much. In discussing economic questions its statements were false
| |
| − | and its proofs unsound. In treating of political aims its attitude was
| |
| − | insincere. Furthermore, its modern methods of chicanery in the
| |
| − | presentation of its arguments were profoundly repugnant to me. Its
| |
| − | flamboyant sentences, its obscure and incomprehensible phrases,
| |
| − | pretended to contain great thoughts, but they were devoid of thought,
| |
| − | and meaningless. One would have to be a decadent Bohemian in one of our
| |
| − | modern cities in order to feel at home in that labyrinth of mental
| |
| − | aberration, so that he might discover 'intimate experiences' amid the
| |
| − | stinking fumes of this literary Dadism. These writers were obviously
| |
| − | counting on the proverbial humility of a certain section of our people,
| |
| − | who believe that a person who is incomprehensible must be profoundly
| |
| − | wise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In confronting the theoretical falsity and absurdity of that doctrine
| |
| − | with the reality of its external manifestations, I gradually came to
| |
| − | have a clear idea of the ends at which it aimed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During such moments I had dark presentiments and feared something evil.
| |
| − | I had before me a teaching inspired by egoism and hatred, mathematically
| |
| − | calculated to win its victory, but the triumph of which would be a
| |
| − | mortal blow to humanity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Meanwhile I had discovered the relations existing between this
| |
| − | destructive teaching and the specific character of a people, who up to
| |
| − | that time had been to me almost unknown.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Knowledge of the Jews is the only key whereby one may understand the
| |
| − | inner nature and therefore the real aims of Social Democracy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The man who has come to know this race has succeeded in removing from
| |
| − | his eyes the veil through which he had seen the aims and meaning of his
| |
| − | Party in a false light; and then, out of the murk and fog of social
| |
| − | phrases rises the grimacing figure of Marxism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day it is hard and almost impossible for me to say when the word
| |
| − | 'Jew' first began to raise any particular thought in my mind. I do not
| |
| − | remember even having heard the word at home during my father's lifetime.
| |
| − | If this name were mentioned in a derogatory sense I think the old
| |
| − | gentleman would just have considered those who used it in this way as
| |
| − | being uneducated reactionaries. In the course of his career he had come
| |
| − | to be more or less a cosmopolitan, with strong views on nationalism,
| |
| − | which had its effect on me as well. In school, too, I found no reason to
| |
| − | alter the picture of things I had formed at home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the REALSCHULE I knew one Jewish boy. We were all on our guard in our
| |
| − | relations with him, but only because his reticence and certain actions
| |
| − | of his warned us to be discreet. Beyond that my companions and myself
| |
| − | formed no particular opinions in regard to him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was not until I was fourteen or fifteen years old that I frequently
| |
| − | ran up against the word 'Jew', partly in connection with political
| |
| − | controversies. These references aroused a slight aversion in me, and I
| |
| − | could not avoid an uncomfortable feeling which always came over me when
| |
| − | I had to listen to religious disputes. But at that time I had no other
| |
| − | feelings about the Jewish question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews
| |
| − | who lived there had become Europeanized in external appearance and were
| |
| − | so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans.
| |
| − | The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion
| |
| − | was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing
| |
| − | them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought
| |
| − | that they were persecuted on account of their Faith my aversion to
| |
| − | hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I
| |
| − | did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a
| |
| − | systematic anti-Semitism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then I came to Vienna.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Confused by the mass of impressions I received from the architectural
| |
| − | surroundings and depressed by my own troubles, I did not at first
| |
| − | distinguish between the different social strata of which the population
| |
| − | of that mammoth city was composed. Although Vienna then had about two
| |
| − | hundred thousand Jews among its population of two millions, I did not
| |
| − | notice them. During the first weeks of my sojourn my eyes and my mind
| |
| − | were unable to cope with the onrush of new ideas and values. Not until I
| |
| − | gradually settled down to my surroundings, and the confused picture
| |
| − | began to grow clearer, did I acquire a more discriminating view of my
| |
| − | new world. And with that I came up against the Jewish problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I will not say that the manner in which I first became acquainted with
| |
| − | it was particularly unpleasant for me. In the Jew I still saw only a man
| |
| − | who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human
| |
| − | tolerance, I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he
| |
| − | had a different faith. And so I considered that the tone adopted by the
| |
| − | anti-Semitic Press in Vienna was unworthy of the cultural traditions of
| |
| − | a great people. The memory of certain events which happened in the
| |
| − | middle ages came into my mind, and I felt that I should not like to see
| |
| − | them repeated. Generally speaking, these anti-Semitic newspapers did not
| |
| − | belong to the first rank--but I did not then understand the reason of
| |
| − | this--and so I regarded them more as the products of jealousy and envy
| |
| − | rather than the expression of a sincere, though wrong-headed, feeling.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My own opinions were confirmed by what I considered to be the infinitely
| |
| − | more dignified manner in which the really great Press replied to those
| |
| − | attacks or simply ignored them, which latter seemed to me the most
| |
| − | respectable way.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I diligently read what was generally called the World Press--NEUE FREIE
| |
| − | PRESSE, WIENER TAGEBLATT, etc.--and I was astonished by the abundance of
| |
| − | information they gave their readers and the impartial way in which they
| |
| − | presented particular problems. I appreciated their dignified tone; but
| |
| − | sometimes the flamboyancy of the style was unconvincing, and I did not
| |
| − | like it. But I attributed all this to the overpowering influence of the
| |
| − | world metropolis.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since I considered Vienna at that time as such a world metropolis, I
| |
| − | thought this constituted sufficient grounds to excuse these shortcomings
| |
| − | of the Press. But I was frequently disgusted by the grovelling way in
| |
| − | which the Vienna Press played lackey to the Court. Scarcely a move took
| |
| − | place at the Hofburg which was not presented in glorified colours to the
| |
| − | readers. It was a foolish practice, which, especially when it had to do
| |
| − | with 'The Wisest Monarch of all Times', reminded one almost of the dance
| |
| − | which the mountain cock performs at pairing time to woo his mate. It was
| |
| − | all empty nonsense. And I thought that such a policy was a stain on the
| |
| − | ideal of liberal democracy. I thought that this way of currying favour
| |
| − | at the Court was unworthy of the people. And that was the first blot
| |
| − | that fell on my appreciation of the great Vienna Press.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While in Vienna I continued to follow with a vivid interest all the
| |
| − | events that were taking place in Germany, whether connected with
| |
| − | political or cultural question. I had a feeling of pride and admiration
| |
| − | when I compared the rise of the young German Empire with the decline of
| |
| − | the Austrian State. But, although the foreign policy of that Empire was
| |
| − | a source of real pleasure on the whole, the internal political
| |
| − | happenings were not always so satisfactory. I did not approve of the
| |
| − | campaign which at that time was being carried on against William II. I
| |
| − | looked upon him not only as the German Emperor but, above all, as the
| |
| − | creator of the German Navy. The fact that the Emperor was prohibited
| |
| − | from speaking in the Reichstag made me very angry, because the
| |
| − | prohibition came from a side which in my eyes had no authority to make
| |
| − | it. For at a single sitting those same parliamentary ganders did more
| |
| − | cackling together than the whole dynasty of Emperors, comprising even
| |
| − | the weakest, had done in the course of centuries.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It annoyed me to have to acknowledge that in a nation where any
| |
| − | half-witted fellow could claim for himself the right to criticize and
| |
| − | might even be let loose on the people as a 'Legislator' in the
| |
| − | Reichstag, the bearer of the Imperial Crown could be the subject of a
| |
| − | 'reprimand' on the part of the most miserable assembly of drivellers
| |
| − | that had ever existed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was even more disgusted at the way in which this same Vienna Press
| |
| − | salaamed obsequiously before the meanest steed belonging to the Habsburg
| |
| − | royal equipage and went off into wild ecstacies of delight if the nag
| |
| − | wagged its tail in response. And at the same time these newspapers took
| |
| − | up an attitude of anxiety in matters that concerned the German Emperor,
| |
| − | trying to cloak their enmity by the serious air they gave themselves.
| |
| − | But in my eyes that enmity appeared to be only poorly cloaked. Naturally
| |
| − | they protested that they had no intention of mixing in Germany's
| |
| − | internal affairs--God forbid! They pretended that by touching a delicate
| |
| − | spot in such a friendly way they were fulfilling a duty that devolved
| |
| − | upon them by reason of the mutual alliance between the two countries and
| |
| − | at the same time discharging their obligations of journalistic
| |
| − | truthfulness. Having thus excused themselves about tenderly touching a
| |
| − | sore spot, they bored with the finger ruthlessly into the wound.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That sort of thing made my blood boil. And now I began to be more and
| |
| − | more on my guard when reading the great Vienna Press.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I had to acknowledge, however, that on such subjects one of the
| |
| − | anti-Semitic papers--the DEUTSCHE VOLKSBLATT--acted more decently.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What got still more on my nerves was the repugnant manner in which the
| |
| − | big newspapers cultivated admiration for France. One really had to feel
| |
| − | ashamed of being a German when confronted by those mellifluous hymns of
| |
| − | praise for 'the great culture-nation'. This wretched Gallomania more
| |
| − | often than once made me throw away one of those 'world newspapers'. I
| |
| − | now often turned to the VOLKSBLATT, which was much smaller in size but
| |
| − | which treated such subjects more decently. I was not in accord with its
| |
| − | sharp anti-Semitic tone; but again and again I found that its arguments
| |
| − | gave me grounds for serious thought.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyhow, it was as a result of such reading that I came to know the man
| |
| − | and the movement which then determined the fate of Vienna. These were
| |
| − | Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Socialist Movement. At the time I came
| |
| − | to Vienna I felt opposed to both. I looked on the man and the movement
| |
| − | as 'reactionary'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But even an elementary sense of justice enforced me to change my opinion
| |
| − | when I had the opportunity of knowing the man and his work, and slowly
| |
| − | that opinion grew into outspoken admiration when I had better grounds
| |
| − | for forming a judgment. To-day, as well as then, I hold Dr. Karl Lueger
| |
| − | as the most eminent type of German Burgermeister. How many prejudices
| |
| − | were thrown over through such a change in my attitude towards the
| |
| − | Christian-Socialist Movement!
| |
| − | | |
| − | My ideas about anti-Semitism changed also in the course of time, but
| |
| − | that was the change which I found most difficult. It cost me a greater
| |
| − | internal conflict with myself, and it was only after a struggle between
| |
| − | reason and sentiment that victory began to be decided in favour of the
| |
| − | former. Two years later sentiment rallied to the side of reasons and
| |
| − | became a faithful guardian and counsellor.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the time of this bitter struggle, between calm reason and the
| |
| − | sentiments in which I had been brought up, the lessons that I learned on
| |
| − | the streets of Vienna rendered me invaluable assistance. A time came
| |
| − | when I no longer passed blindly along the street of the mighty city, as
| |
| − | I had done in the early days, but now with my eyes open not only to
| |
| − | study the buildings but also the human beings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a
| |
| − | phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first
| |
| − | thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance
| |
| − | in Linz. I watched the man stealthily and cautiously; but the longer I
| |
| − | gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the
| |
| − | more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?
| |
| − | | |
| − | As was always my habit with such experiences, I turned to books for help
| |
| − | in removing my doubts. For the first time in my life I bought myself
| |
| − | some anti-Semitic pamphlets for a few pence. But unfortunately they all
| |
| − | began with the assumption that in principle the reader had at least a
| |
| − | certain degree of information on the Jewish question or was even
| |
| − | familiar with it. Moreover, the tone of most of these pamphlets was such
| |
| − | that I became doubtful again, because the statements made were partly
| |
| − | superficial and the proofs extraordinarily unscientific. For weeks, and
| |
| − | indeed for months, I returned to my old way of thinking. The subject
| |
| − | appeared so enormous and the accusations were so far-reaching that I was
| |
| − | afraid of dealing with it unjustly and so I became again anxious and
| |
| − | uncertain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally I could no longer doubt that here there was not a question of
| |
| − | Germans who happened to be of a different religion but rather that there
| |
| − | was question of an entirely different people. For as soon as I began to
| |
| − | investigate the matter and observe the Jews, then Vienna appeared to me
| |
| − | in a different light. Wherever I now went I saw Jews, and the more I saw
| |
| − | of them the more strikingly and clearly they stood out as a different
| |
| − | people from the other citizens. Especially the Inner City and the
| |
| − | district northwards from the Danube Canal swarmed with a people who,
| |
| − | even in outer appearance, bore no similarity to the Germans.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But any indecision which I may still have felt about that point was
| |
| − | finally removed by the activities of a certain section of the Jews
| |
| − | themselves. A great movement, called Zionism, arose among them. Its aim
| |
| − | was to assert the national character of Judaism, and the movement was
| |
| − | strongly represented in Vienna.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To outward appearances it seemed as if only one group of Jews championed
| |
| − | this movement, while the great majority disapproved of it, or even
| |
| − | repudiated it. But an investigation of the situation showed that those
| |
| − | outward appearances were purposely misleading. These outward appearances
| |
| − | emerged from a mist of theories which had been produced for reasons of
| |
| − | expediency, if not for purposes of downright deception. For that part of
| |
| − | Jewry which was styled Liberal did not disown the Zionists as if they
| |
| − | were not members of their race but rather as brother Jews who publicly
| |
| − | professed their faith in an unpractical way, so as to create a danger
| |
| − | for Jewry itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus there was no real rift in their internal solidarity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This fictitious conflict between the Zionists and the Liberal Jews soon
| |
| − | disgusted me; for it was false through and through and in direct
| |
| − | contradiction to the moral dignity and immaculate character on which
| |
| − | that race had always prided itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Cleanliness, whether moral or of another kind, had its own peculiar
| |
| − | meaning for these people. That they were water-shy was obvious on
| |
| − | looking at them and, unfortunately, very often also when not looking at
| |
| − | them at all. The odour of those people in caftans often used to make me
| |
| − | feel ill. Beyond that there were the unkempt clothes and the ignoble
| |
| − | exterior.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All these details were certainly not attractive; but the revolting
| |
| − | feature was that beneath their unclean exterior one suddenly perceived
| |
| − | the moral mildew of the chosen race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What soon gave me cause for very serious consideration were the
| |
| − | activities of the Jews in certain branches of life, into the mystery of
| |
| − | which I penetrated little by little. Was there any shady undertaking,
| |
| − | any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one
| |
| − | Jew did not participate? On putting the probing knife carefully to that
| |
| − | kind of abscess one immediately discovered, like a maggot in a
| |
| − | putrescent body, a little Jew who was often blinded by the sudden light.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In my eyes the charge against Judaism became a grave one the moment I
| |
| − | discovered the Jewish activities in the Press, in art, in literature and
| |
| − | the theatre. All unctuous protests were now more or less futile. One
| |
| − | needed only to look at the posters announcing the hideous productions of
| |
| − | the cinema and theatre, and study the names of the authors who were
| |
| − | highly lauded there in order to become permanently adamant on Jewish
| |
| − | questions. Here was a pestilence, a moral pestilence, with which the
| |
| − | public was being infected. It was worse than the Black Plague of long
| |
| − | ago. And in what mighty doses this poison was manufactured and
| |
| − | distributed. Naturally, the lower the moral and intellectual level of
| |
| − | such an author of artistic products the more inexhaustible his
| |
| − | fecundity. Sometimes it went so far that one of these fellows, acting
| |
| − | like a sewage pump, would shoot his filth directly in the face of other
| |
| − | members of the human race. In this connection we must remember there is
| |
| − | no limit to the number of such people. One ought to realize that for
| |
| − | one, Goethe, Nature may bring into existence ten thousand such
| |
| − | despoilers who act as the worst kind of germ-carriers in poisoning human
| |
| − | souls. It was a terrible thought, and yet it could not be avoided, that
| |
| − | the greater number of the Jews seemed specially destined by Nature to
| |
| − | play this shameful part.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And is it for this reason that they can be called the chosen people?
| |
| − | | |
| − | I began then to investigate carefully the names of all the fabricators
| |
| − | of these unclean products in public cultural life. The result of that
| |
| − | inquiry was still more disfavourable to the attitude which I had
| |
| − | hitherto held in regard to the Jews. Though my feelings might rebel a
| |
| − | thousand time, reason now had to draw its own conclusions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that nine-tenths of all the smutty literature, artistic tripe
| |
| − | and theatrical banalities, had to be charged to the account of people
| |
| − | who formed scarcely one per cent. of the nation--that fact could not be
| |
| − | gainsaid. It was there, and had to be admitted. Then I began to examine
| |
| − | my favourite 'World Press', with that fact before my mind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The deeper my soundings went the lesser grew my respect for that Press
| |
| − | which I formerly admired. Its style became still more repellent and I
| |
| − | was forced to reject its ideas as entirely shallow and superficial. To
| |
| − | claim that in the presentation of facts and views its attitude was
| |
| − | impartial seemed to me to contain more falsehood than truth. The writers
| |
| − | were--Jews.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thousands of details that I had scarcely noticed before seemed to me now
| |
| − | to deserve attention. I began to grasp and understand things which I had
| |
| − | formerly looked at in a different light.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I saw the Liberal policy of that Press in another light. Its dignified
| |
| − | tone in replying to the attacks of its adversaries and its dead silence
| |
| − | in other cases now became clear to me as part of a cunning and
| |
| − | despicable way of deceiving the readers. Its brilliant theatrical
| |
| − | criticisms always praised the Jewish authors and its adverse, criticism
| |
| − | was reserved exclusively for the Germans.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The light pin-pricks against William II showed the persistency of its
| |
| − | policy, just as did its systematic commendation of French culture and
| |
| − | civilization. The subject matter of the feuilletons was trivial and
| |
| − | often pornographic. The language of this Press as a whole had the accent
| |
| − | of a foreign people. The general tone was openly derogatory to the
| |
| − | Germans and this must have been definitely intentional.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What were the interests that urged the Vienna Press to adopt such a
| |
| − | policy? Or did they do so merely by chance? In attempting to find an
| |
| − | answer to those questions I gradually became more and more dubious.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then something happened which helped me to come to an early decision. I
| |
| − | began to see through the meaning of a whole series of events that were
| |
| − | taking place in other branches of Viennese life. All these were inspired
| |
| − | by a general concept of manners and morals which was openly put into
| |
| − | practice by a large section of the Jews and could be established as
| |
| − | attributable to them. Here, again, the life which I observed on the
| |
| − | streets taught me what evil really is.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The part which the Jews played in the social phenomenon of prostitution,
| |
| − | and more especially in the white slave traffic, could be studied here
| |
| − | better than in any other West-European city, with the possible exception
| |
| − | of certain ports in Southern France. Walking by night along the streets
| |
| − | of the Leopoldstadt, almost at every turn whether one wished it or not,
| |
| − | one witnessed certain happenings of whose existence the Germans knew
| |
| − | nothing until the War made it possible and indeed inevitable for the
| |
| − | soldiers to see such things on the Eastern front.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A cold shiver ran down my spine when I first ascertained that it was the
| |
| − | same kind of cold-blooded, thick-skinned and shameless Jew who showed
| |
| − | his consummate skill in conducting that revolting exploitation of the
| |
| − | dregs of the big city. Then I became fired with wrath.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I had now no more hesitation about bringing the Jewish problem to light
| |
| − | in all its details. No. Henceforth I was determined to do so. But as I
| |
| − | learned to track down the Jew in all the different spheres of cultural
| |
| − | and artistic life, and in the various manifestations of this life
| |
| − | everywhere, I suddenly came upon him in a position where I had least
| |
| − | expected to find him. I now realized that the Jews were the leaders of
| |
| − | Social Democracy. In face of that revelation the scales fell from my
| |
| − | eyes. My long inner struggle was at an end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In my relations with my fellow workmen I was often astonished to find
| |
| − | how easily and often they changed their opinions on the same questions,
| |
| − | sometimes within a few days and sometimes even within the course of a
| |
| − | few hours. I found it difficult to understand how men who always had
| |
| − | reasonable ideas when they spoke as individuals with one another
| |
| − | suddenly lost this reasonableness the moment they acted in the mass.
| |
| − | That phenomenon often tempted one almost to despair. I used to dispute
| |
| − | with them for hours and when I succeeded in bringing them to what I
| |
| − | considered a reasonable way of thinking I rejoiced at my success. But
| |
| − | next day I would find that it had been all in vain. It was saddening to
| |
| − | think I had to begin it all over again. Like a pendulum in its eternal
| |
| − | sway, they would fall back into their absurd opinions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was able to understand their position fully. They were dissatisfied
| |
| − | with their lot and cursed the fate which had hit them so hard. They
| |
| − | hated their employers, whom they looked upon as the heartless
| |
| − | administrators of their cruel destiny. Often they used abusive language
| |
| − | against the public officials, whom they accused of having no sympathy
| |
| − | with the situation of the working people. They made public protests
| |
| − | against the cost of living and paraded through the streets in defence of
| |
| − | their claims. At least all this could be explained on reasonable
| |
| − | grounds. But what was impossible to understand was the boundless hatred
| |
| − | they expressed against their own fellow citizens, how they disparaged
| |
| − | their own nation, mocked at its greatness, reviled its history and
| |
| − | dragged the names of its most illustrious men in the gutter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This hostility towards their own kith and kin, their own native land and
| |
| − | home was as irrational as it was incomprehensible. It was against
| |
| − | Nature.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One could cure that malady temporarily, but only for some days or at
| |
| − | least some weeks. But on meeting those whom one believed to have been
| |
| − | converted one found that they had become as they were before. That
| |
| − | malady against Nature held them once again in its clutches.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I gradually discovered that the Social Democratic Press was
| |
| − | predominantly controlled by Jews. But I did not attach special
| |
| − | importance to this circumstance, for the same state of affairs existed
| |
| − | also in other newspapers. But there was one striking fact in this
| |
| − | connection. It was that there was not a single newspaper with which Jews
| |
| − | were connected that could be spoken of as National, in the meaning that
| |
| − | my education and convictions attached to that word.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Making an effort to overcome my natural reluctance, I tried to read
| |
| − | articles of this nature published in the Marxist Press; but in doing so
| |
| − | my aversion increased all the more. And then I set about learning
| |
| − | something of the people who wrote and published this mischievous stuff.
| |
| − | From the publisher downwards, all of them were Jews. I recalled to mind
| |
| − | the names of the public leaders of Marxism, and then I realized that
| |
| − | most of them belonged to the Chosen Race--the Social Democratic
| |
| − | representatives in the Imperial Cabinet as well as the secretaries of
| |
| − | the Trades Unions and the street agitators. Everywhere the same sinister
| |
| − | picture presented itself. I shall never forget the row of
| |
| − | names--Austerlitz, David, Adler, Ellenbogen, and others. One fact became
| |
| − | quite evident to me. It was that this alien race held in its hands the
| |
| − | leadership of that Social Democratic Party with whose minor
| |
| − | representatives I had been disputing for months past. I was happy at
| |
| − | last to know for certain that the Jew is not a German.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus I finally discovered who were the evil spirits leading our people
| |
| − | astray. The sojourn in Vienna for one year had proved long enough to
| |
| − | convince me that no worker is so rooted in his preconceived notions that
| |
| − | he will not surrender them in face of better and clearer arguments and
| |
| − | explanations. Gradually I became an expert in the doctrine of the
| |
| − | Marxists and used this knowledge as an instrument to drive home my own
| |
| − | firm convictions. I was successful in nearly every case. The great
| |
| − | masses can be rescued, but a lot of time and a large share of human
| |
| − | patience must be devoted to such work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But a Jew can never be rescued from his fixed notions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was then simple enough to attempt to show them the absurdity of their
| |
| − | teaching. Within my small circle I talked to them until my throat ached
| |
| − | and my voice grew hoarse. I believed that I could finally convince them
| |
| − | of the danger inherent in the Marxist follies. But I only achieved the
| |
| − | contrary result. It seemed to me that immediately the disastrous effects
| |
| − | of the Marxist Theory and its application in practice became evident,
| |
| − | the stronger became their obstinacy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more I debated with them the more familiar I became with their
| |
| − | argumentative tactics. At the outset they counted upon the stupidity of
| |
| − | their opponents, but when they got so entangled that they could not find
| |
| − | a way out they played the trick of acting as innocent simpletons. Should
| |
| − | they fail, in spite of their tricks of logic, they acted as if they
| |
| − | could not understand the counter arguments and bolted away to another
| |
| − | field of discussion. They would lay down truisms and platitudes; and, if
| |
| − | you accepted these, then they were applied to other problems and matters
| |
| − | of an essentially different nature from the original theme. If you faced
| |
| − | them with this point they would escape again, and you could not bring
| |
| − | them to make any precise statement. Whenever one tried to get a firm
| |
| − | grip on any of these apostles one's hand grasped only jelly and slime
| |
| − | which slipped through the fingers and combined again into a solid mass a
| |
| − | moment afterwards. If your adversary felt forced to give in to your
| |
| − | argument, on account of the observers present, and if you then thought
| |
| − | that at last you had gained ground, a surprise was in store for you on
| |
| − | the following day. The Jew would be utterly oblivious to what had
| |
| − | happened the day before, and he would start once again by repeating his
| |
| − | former absurdities, as if nothing had happened. Should you become
| |
| − | indignant and remind him of yesterday's defeat, he pretended
| |
| − | astonishment and could not remember anything, except that on the
| |
| − | previous day he had proved that his statements were correct. Sometimes I
| |
| − | was dumbfounded. I do not know what amazed me the more--the abundance of
| |
| − | their verbiage or the artful way in which they dressed up their
| |
| − | falsehoods. I gradually came to hate them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet all this had its good side; because the more I came to know the
| |
| − | individual leaders, or at least the propagandists, of Social Democracy,
| |
| − | my love for my own people increased correspondingly. Considering the
| |
| − | Satanic skill which these evil counsellors displayed, how could their
| |
| − | unfortunate victims be blamed? Indeed, I found it extremely difficult
| |
| − | myself to be a match for the dialectical perfidy of that race. How
| |
| − | futile it was to try to win over such people with argument, seeing that
| |
| − | their very mouths distorted the truth, disowning the very words they had
| |
| − | just used and adopting them again a few moments afterwards to serve
| |
| − | their own ends in the argument! No. The more I came to know the Jew, the
| |
| − | easier it was to excuse the workers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In my opinion the most culpable were not to be found among the workers
| |
| − | but rather among those who did not think it worth while to take the
| |
| − | trouble to sympathize with their own kinsfolk and give to the
| |
| − | hard-working son of the national family what was his by the iron logic
| |
| − | of justice, while at the same time placing his seducer and corrupter
| |
| − | against the wall.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Urged by my own daily experiences, I now began to investigate more
| |
| − | thoroughly the sources of the Marxist teaching itself. Its effects were
| |
| − | well known to me in detail. As a result of careful observation, its
| |
| − | daily progress had become obvious to me. And one needed only a little
| |
| − | imagination in order to be able to forecast the consequences which must
| |
| − | result from it. The only question now was: Did the founders foresee the
| |
| − | effects of their work in the form which those effects have shown
| |
| − | themselves to-day, or were the founders themselves the victims of an
| |
| − | error? To my mind both alternatives were possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the second question must be answered in the affirmative, then it was
| |
| − | the duty of every thinking person to oppose this sinister movement with
| |
| − | a view to preventing it from producing its worst results. But if the
| |
| − | first question must be answered in the affirmative, then it must be
| |
| − | admitted that the original authors of this evil which has infected the
| |
| − | nations were devils incarnate. For only in the brain of a monster, and
| |
| − | not that of a man, could the plan of this organization take shape whose
| |
| − | workings must finally bring about the collapse of human civilization and
| |
| − | turn this world into a desert waste.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such being the case the only alternative left was to fight, and in that
| |
| − | fight to employ all the weapons which the human spirit and intellect and
| |
| − | will could furnish leaving it to Fate to decide in whose favour the
| |
| − | balance should fall.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so I began to gather information about the authors of this teaching,
| |
| − | with a view to studying the principles of the movement. The fact that I
| |
| − | attained my object sooner than I could have anticipated was due to the
| |
| − | deeper insight into the Jewish question which I then gained, my
| |
| − | knowledge of this question being hitherto rather superficial. This newly
| |
| − | acquired knowledge alone enabled me to make a practical comparison
| |
| − | between the real content and the theoretical pretentiousness of the
| |
| − | teaching laid down by the apostolic founders of Social Democracy;
| |
| − | because I now understood the language of the Jew. I realized that the
| |
| − | Jew uses language for the purpose of dissimulating his thought or at
| |
| − | least veiling it, so that his real aim cannot be discovered by what he
| |
| − | says but rather by reading between the lines. This knowledge was the
| |
| − | occasion of the greatest inner revolution that I had yet experienced.
| |
| − | From being a soft-hearted cosmopolitan I became an out-and-out
| |
| − | anti-Semite.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only on one further occasion, and that for the last time, did I give way
| |
| − | to oppressing thoughts which caused me some moments of profound anxiety.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I critically reviewed the activities of the Jewish people throughout
| |
| − | long periods of history I became anxious and asked myself whether for
| |
| − | some inscrutable reasons beyond the comprehension of poor mortals such
| |
| − | as ourselves, Destiny may not have irrevocably decreed that the final
| |
| − | victory must go to this small nation? May it not be that this people
| |
| − | which has lived only for the earth has been promised the earth as a
| |
| − | recompense? is our right to struggle for our own self-preservation based
| |
| − | on reality, or is it a merely subjective thing? Fate answered the
| |
| − | question for me inasmuch as it led me to make a detached and exhaustive
| |
| − | inquiry into the Marxist teaching and the activities of the Jewish
| |
| − | people in connection with it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jewish doctrine of Marxism repudiates the aristocratic principle of
| |
| − | Nature and substitutes for it the eternal privilege of force and energy,
| |
| − | numerical mass and its dead weight. Thus it denies the individual worth
| |
| − | of the human personality, impugns the teaching that nationhood and race
| |
| − | have a primary significance, and by doing this it takes away the very
| |
| − | foundations of human existence and human civilization. If the Marxist
| |
| − | teaching were to be accepted as the foundation of the life of the
| |
| − | universe, it would lead to the disappearance of all order that is
| |
| − | conceivable to the human mind. And thus the adoption of such a law would
| |
| − | provoke chaos in the structure of the greatest organism that we know,
| |
| − | with the result that the inhabitants of this earthly planet would
| |
| − | finally disappear.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the
| |
| − | people of this world, his Crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind,
| |
| − | and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without
| |
| − | any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will
| |
| − | of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am
| |
| − | defending the handiwork of the Lord.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER III
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING OUT OF MY SOJOURN IN VIENNA
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking a man should not publicly take part in politics
| |
| − | before he has reached the age of thirty, though, of course, exceptions
| |
| − | must be made in the case of those who are naturally gifted with
| |
| − | extraordinary political abilities. That at least is my opinion to-day.
| |
| − | And the reason for it is that until he reaches his thirtieth year or
| |
| − | thereabouts a man's mental development will mostly consist in acquiring
| |
| − | and sifting such knowledge as is necessary for the groundwork of a
| |
| − | general platform from which he can examine the different political
| |
| − | problems that arise from day to day and be able to adopt a definite
| |
| − | attitude towards each. A man must first acquire a fund of general ideas
| |
| − | and fit them together so as to form an organic structure of personal
| |
| − | thought or outlook on life--a WELTANSCHAUUNG. Then he will have that
| |
| − | mental equipment without which he cannot form his own judgments on
| |
| − | particular questions of the day, and he will have acquired those
| |
| − | qualities that are necessary for consistency and steadfastness in the
| |
| − | formation of political opinions. Such a man is now qualified, at least
| |
| − | subjectively, to take his part in the political conduct of public
| |
| − | affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If these pre-requisite conditions are not fulfilled, and if a man should
| |
| − | enter political life without this equipment, he will run a twofold risk.
| |
| − | In the first place, he may find during the course of events that the
| |
| − | stand which he originally took in regard to some essential question was
| |
| − | wrong. He will now have to abandon his former position or else stick to
| |
| − | it against his better knowledge and riper wisdom and after his reason
| |
| − | and convictions have already proved it untenable. If he adopt the former
| |
| − | line of action he will find himself in a difficult personal situation;
| |
| − | because in giving up a position hitherto maintained he will appear
| |
| − | inconsistent and will have no right to expect his followers to remain as
| |
| − | loyal to his leadership as they were before. And, as regards the
| |
| − | followers themselves, they may easily look upon their leader's change of
| |
| − | policy as showing a lack of judgment inherent in his character.
| |
| − | Moreover, the change must cause in them a certain feeling of
| |
| − | discomfiture VIS-À-VIS those whom the leader formerly opposed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If he adopts the second alternative--which so very frequently happens
| |
| − | to-day--then public pronouncements of the leader have no longer his
| |
| − | personal persuasion to support them. And the more that is the case the
| |
| − | defence of his cause will be all the more hollow and superficial. He now
| |
| − | descends to the adoption of vulgar means in his defence. While he
| |
| − | himself no longer dreams seriously of standing by his political
| |
| − | protestations to the last--for no man will die in defence of something
| |
| − | in which he does not believe--he makes increasing demands on his
| |
| − | followers. Indeed, the greater be the measure of his own insincerity,
| |
| − | the more unfortunate and inconsiderate become his claims on his party
| |
| − | adherents. Finally, he throws aside the last vestiges of true leadership
| |
| − | and begins to play politics. This means that he becomes one of those
| |
| − | whose only consistency is their inconsistency, associated with
| |
| − | overbearing insolence and oftentimes an artful mendacity developed to a
| |
| − | shamelessly high degree.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Should such a person, to the misfortune of all decent people, succeed in
| |
| − | becoming a parliamentary deputy it will be clear from the outset that
| |
| − | for him the essence of political activity consists in a heroic struggle
| |
| − | to keep permanent hold on this milk-bottle as a source of livelihood for
| |
| − | himself and his family. The more his wife and children are dependent on
| |
| − | him, the more stubbornly will he fight to maintain for himself the
| |
| − | representation of his parliamentary constituency. For that reason any
| |
| − | other person who gives evidence of political capacity is his personal
| |
| − | enemy. In every new movement he will apprehend the possible beginning of
| |
| − | his own downfall. And everyone who is a better man than himself will
| |
| − | appear to him in the light of a menace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I shall subsequently deal more fully with the problem to which this kind
| |
| − | of parliamentary vermin give rise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When a man has reached his thirtieth year he has still a great deal to
| |
| − | learn. That is obvious. But henceforward what he learns will principally
| |
| − | be an amplification of his basic ideas; it will be fitted in with them
| |
| − | organically so as to fill up the framework of the fundamental
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG which he already possesses. What he learns anew will not
| |
| − | imply the abandonment of principles already held, but rather a deeper
| |
| − | knowledge of those principles. And thus his colleagues will never have
| |
| − | the discomforting feeling that they have been hitherto falsely led by
| |
| − | him. On the contrary, their confidence is increased when they perceive
| |
| − | that their leader's qualities are steadily developing along the lines of
| |
| − | an organic growth which results from the constant assimilation of new
| |
| − | ideas; so that the followers look upon this process as signifying an
| |
| − | enrichment of the doctrines in which they themselves believe, in their
| |
| − | eyes every such development is a new witness to the correctness of that
| |
| − | whole body of opinion which has hitherto been held.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A leader who has to abandon the platform founded on his general
| |
| − | principles, because he recognizes the foundation as false, can act with
| |
| − | honour only when he declares his readiness to accept the final
| |
| − | consequences of his erroneous views. In such a case he ought to refrain
| |
| − | from taking public part in any further political activity. Having once
| |
| − | gone astray on essential things he may possibly go astray a second time.
| |
| − | But, anyhow, he has no right whatsoever to expect or demand that his
| |
| − | fellow citizens should continue to give him their support.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How little such a line of conduct commends itself to our public leaders
| |
| − | nowadays is proved by the general corruption prevalent among the cabal
| |
| − | which at the present moment feels itself called to political leadership.
| |
| − | In the whole cabal there is scarcely one who is properly equipped for
| |
| − | this task.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Although in those days I used to give more time than most others to the
| |
| − | consideration of political question, yet I carefully refrained from
| |
| − | taking an open part in politics. Only to a small circle did I speak of
| |
| − | those things which agitated my mind or were the cause of constant
| |
| − | preoccupation for me. The habit of discussing matters within such a
| |
| − | restricted group had many advantages in itself. Rather than talk at
| |
| − | them, I learned to feel my way into the modes of thought and views of
| |
| − | those men around me. Oftentimes such ways of thinking and such views
| |
| − | were quite primitive. Thus I took every possible occasion to increase my
| |
| − | knowledge of men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nowhere among the German people was the opportunity for making such a
| |
| − | study so favourable as in Vienna.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the old Danubian Monarchy political thought was wider in its range
| |
| − | and had a richer variety of interests than in the Germany of that
| |
| − | epoch--excepting certain parts of Prussia, Hamburg and the districts
| |
| − | bordering on the North Sea. When I speak of Austria here I mean that
| |
| − | part of the great Habsburg Empire which, by reason of its German
| |
| − | population, furnished not only the historic basis for the formation of
| |
| − | this State but whose population was for several centuries also the
| |
| − | exclusive source of cultural life in that political system whose
| |
| − | structure was so artificial. As time went on the stability of the
| |
| − | Austrian State and the guarantee of its continued existence depended
| |
| − | more and more on the maintenance of this germ-cell of that Habsburg
| |
| − | Empire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The hereditary imperial provinces constituted the heart of the Empire.
| |
| − | And it was this heart that constantly sent the blood of life pulsating
| |
| − | through the whole political and cultural system. Corresponding to the
| |
| − | heart of the Empire, Vienna signified the brain and the will. At that
| |
| − | time Vienna presented an appearance which made one think of her as an
| |
| − | enthroned queen whose authoritative sway united the conglomeration of
| |
| − | heterogenous nationalities that lived under the Habsburg sceptre. The
| |
| − | radiant beauty of the capital city made one forget the sad symptoms of
| |
| − | senile decay which the State manifested as a whole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though the Empire was internally rickety because of the terrific
| |
| − | conflict going on between the various nationalities, the outside
| |
| − | world--and Germany in particular--saw only that lovely picture of the
| |
| − | city. The illusion was all the greater because at that time Vienna
| |
| − | seemed to have risen to its highest pitch of splendour. Under a Mayor,
| |
| − | who had the true stamp of administrative genius, the venerable
| |
| − | residential City of the Emperors of the old Empire seemed to have the
| |
| − | glory of its youth renewed. The last great German who sprang from the
| |
| − | ranks of the people that had colonized the East Mark was not a
| |
| − | 'statesman', in the official sense. This Dr. Luegar, however, in his
| |
| − | rôle as Mayor of 'the Imperial Capital and Residential City', had
| |
| − | achieved so much in almost all spheres of municipal activity, whether
| |
| − | economic or cultural, that the heart of the whole Empire throbbed with
| |
| − | renewed vigour. He thus proved himself a much greater statesman than the
| |
| − | so-called 'diplomats' of that period.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that this political system of heterogeneous races called
| |
| − | AUSTRIA, finally broke down is no evidence whatsoever of political
| |
| − | incapacity on the part of the German element in the old East Mark. The
| |
| − | collapse was the inevitable result of an impossible situation. Ten
| |
| − | million people cannot permanently hold together a State of fifty
| |
| − | millions, composed of different and convicting nationalities, unless
| |
| − | certain definite pre-requisite conditions are at hand while there is
| |
| − | still time to avail of them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German-Austrian had very big ways of thinking. Accustomed to live in
| |
| − | a great Empire, he had a keen sense of the obligations incumbent on him
| |
| − | in such a situation. He was the only member of the Austrian State who
| |
| − | looked beyond the borders of the narrow lands belonging to the Crown and
| |
| − | took in all the frontiers of the Empire in the sweep of his mind. Indeed
| |
| − | when destiny severed him from the common Fatherland he tried to master
| |
| − | the tremendous task which was set before him as a consequence. This task
| |
| − | was to maintain for the German-Austrians that patrimony which, through
| |
| − | innumerable struggles, their ancestors had originally wrested from the
| |
| − | East. It must be remembered that the German-Austrians could not put
| |
| − | their undivided strength into this effort, because the hearts and minds
| |
| − | of the best among them were constantly turning back towards their
| |
| − | kinsfolk in the Motherland, so that only a fraction of their energy
| |
| − | remained to be employed at home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The mental horizon of the German-Austrian was comparatively broad. His
| |
| − | commercial interests comprised almost every section of the heterogeneous
| |
| − | Empire. The conduct of almost all important undertakings was in his
| |
| − | hands. He provided the State, for the most part, with its leading
| |
| − | technical experts and civil servants. He was responsible for carrying on
| |
| − | the foreign trade of the country, as far as that sphere of activity was
| |
| − | not under Jewish control, The German-Austrian exclusively represented
| |
| − | the political cement that held the State together. His military duties
| |
| − | carried him far beyond the narrow frontiers of his homeland. Though the
| |
| − | recruit might join a regiment made up of the German element, the
| |
| − | regiment itself might be stationed in Herzegovina as well as in Vienna
| |
| − | or Galicia. The officers in the Habsburg armies were still Germans and
| |
| − | so was the predominating element in the higher branches of the civil
| |
| − | service. Art and science were in German hands. Apart from the new
| |
| − | artistic trash, which might easily have been produced by a negro tribe,
| |
| − | all genuine artistic inspiration came from the German section of the
| |
| − | population. In music, architecture, sculpture and painting, Vienna
| |
| − | abundantly supplied the entire Dual Monarchy. And the source never
| |
| − | seemed to show signs of a possible exhaustion. Finally, it was the
| |
| − | German element that determined the conduct of foreign policy, though a
| |
| − | small number of Hungarians were also active in that field.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All efforts, however, to save the unity of the State were doomed to end
| |
| − | in failure, because the essential pre-requisites were missing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There was only one possible way to control and hold in check the
| |
| − | centrifugal forces of the different and differing nationalities. This
| |
| − | way was: to govern the Austrian State and organize it internally on the
| |
| − | principle of centralization. In no other way imaginable could the
| |
| − | existence of that State be assured.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now and again there were lucid intervals in the higher ruling quarters
| |
| − | when this truth was recognized. But it was soon forgotten again, or else
| |
| − | deliberately ignored, because of the difficulties to be overcome in
| |
| − | putting it into practice. Every project which aimed at giving the Empire
| |
| − | a more federal shape was bound to be ineffective because there was no
| |
| − | strong central authority which could exercise sufficient power within
| |
| − | the State to hold the federal elements together. It must be remembered
| |
| − | in this connection that conditions in Austria were quite different from
| |
| − | those which characterized the German State as founded by Bismarck.
| |
| − | Germany was faced with only one difficulty, which was that of
| |
| − | transforming the purely political traditions, because throughout the
| |
| − | whole of Bismarck's Germany there was a common cultural basis. The
| |
| − | German Empire contained only members of one and the same racial or
| |
| − | national stock, with the exception of a few minor foreign fragments.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Demographic conditions in Austria were quite the reverse. With the
| |
| − | exception of Hungary there was no political tradition, coming down from
| |
| − | a great past, in any of the various affiliated countries. If there had
| |
| − | been, time had either wiped out all traces of it, or at least, rendered
| |
| − | them obscure. Moreover, this was the epoch when the principle of
| |
| − | nationality began to be in ascendant; and that phenomenon awakened the
| |
| − | national instincts in the various countries affiliated under the
| |
| − | Habsburg sceptre. It was difficult to control the action of these newly
| |
| − | awakened national forces; because, adjacent to the frontiers of the Dual
| |
| − | Monarchy, new national States were springing up whose people were of the
| |
| − | same or kindred racial stock as the respective nationalities that
| |
| − | constituted the Habsburg Empire. These new States were able to exercise
| |
| − | a greater influence than the German element.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even Vienna could not hold out for a lengthy period in this conflict.
| |
| − | When Budapest had developed into a metropolis a rival had grown up whose
| |
| − | mission was, not to help in holding together the various divergent parts
| |
| − | of the Empire, but rather to strengthen one part. Within a short time
| |
| − | Prague followed the example of Budapest; and later on came Lemberg,
| |
| − | Laibach and others. By raising these places which had formerly been
| |
| − | provincial towns to the rank of national cities, rallying centres were
| |
| − | provided for an independent cultural life. Through this the local
| |
| − | national instincts acquired a spiritual foundation and therewith gained
| |
| − | a more profound hold on the people. The time was bound to come when the
| |
| − | particularist interests of those various countries would become stronger
| |
| − | than their common imperial interests. Once that stage had been reached,
| |
| − | Austria's doom was sealed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The course of this development was clearly perceptible since the death
| |
| − | of Joseph II. Its rapidity depended on a number of factors, some of
| |
| − | which had their source in the Monarchy itself; while others resulted
| |
| − | from the position which the Empire had taken in foreign politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was impossible to make anything like a successful effort for the
| |
| − | permanent consolidation of the Austrian State unless a firm and
| |
| − | persistent policy of centralization were put into force. Before
| |
| − | everything else the principle should have been adopted that only one
| |
| − | common language could be used as the official language of the State.
| |
| − | Thus it would be possible to emphasize the formal unity of that imperial
| |
| − | commonwealth. And thus the administration would have in its hands a
| |
| − | technical instrument without which the State could not endure as a
| |
| − | political unity. In the same way the school and other forms of education
| |
| − | should have been used to inculcate a feeling of common citizenship. Such
| |
| − | an objective could not be reached within ten or twenty years. The effort
| |
| − | would have to be envisaged in terms of centuries; just as in all
| |
| − | problems of colonization, steady perseverance is a far more important
| |
| − | element than the output of energetic effort at the moment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It goes without saying that in such circumstances the country must be
| |
| − | governed and administered by strictly adhering to the principle of
| |
| − | uniformity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For me it was quite instructive to discover why this did not take place,
| |
| − | or rather why it was not done. Those who were guilty of the omission
| |
| − | must be held responsible for the break-up of the Habsburg Empire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | More than any other State, the existence of the old Austria depended on
| |
| − | a strong and capable Government. The Habsburg Empire lacked ethnical
| |
| − | uniformity, which constitutes the fundamental basis of a national State
| |
| − | and will preserve the existence of such a State even though the ruling
| |
| − | power should be grossly inefficient. When a State is composed of a
| |
| − | homogeneous population, the natural inertia of such a population will
| |
| − | hold the Stage together and maintain its existence through astonishingly
| |
| − | long periods of misgovernment and maladministration. It may often seem
| |
| − | as if the principle of life had died out in such a body-politic; but a
| |
| − | time comes when the apparent corpse rises up and displays before the
| |
| − | world an astonishing manifestation of its indestructible vitality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the situation is utterly different in a country where the population
| |
| − | is not homogeneous, where there is no bond of common blood but only that
| |
| − | of one ruling hand. Should the ruling hand show signs of weakness in
| |
| − | such a State the result will not be to cause a kind of hibernation of
| |
| − | the State but rather to awaken the individualist instincts which are
| |
| − | slumbering in the ethnological groups. These instincts do not make
| |
| − | themselves felt as long as these groups are dominated by a strong
| |
| − | central will-to-govern. The danger which exists in these slumbering
| |
| − | separatist instincts can be rendered more or less innocuous only through
| |
| − | centuries of common education, common traditions and common interests.
| |
| − | The younger such States are, the more their existence will depend on the
| |
| − | ability and strength of the central government. If their foundation was
| |
| − | due only to the work of a strong personality or a leader who is a man of
| |
| − | genius, in many cases they will break up as soon as the founder
| |
| − | disappears; because, though great, he stood alone. But even after
| |
| − | centuries of a common education and experiences these separatist
| |
| − | instincts I have spoken of are not always completely overcome. They may
| |
| − | be only dormant and may suddenly awaken when the central government
| |
| − | shows weakness and the force of a common education as well as the
| |
| − | prestige of a common tradition prove unable to withstand the vital
| |
| − | energies of separatist nationalities forging ahead towards the shaping
| |
| − | of their own individual existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The failure to see the truth of all this constituted what may be called
| |
| − | the tragic crime of the Habsburg rulers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only before the eyes of one Habsburg ruler, and that for the last time,
| |
| − | did the hand of Destiny hold aloft the torch that threw light on the
| |
| − | future of his country. But the torch was then extinguished for ever.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Joseph II, Roman Emperor of the German nation, was filled with a growing
| |
| − | anxiety when he realized the fact that his House was removed to an
| |
| − | outlying frontier of his Empire and that the time would soon be at hand
| |
| − | when it would be overturned and engulfed in the whirlpool caused by that
| |
| − | Babylon of nationalities, unless something was done at the eleventh hour
| |
| − | to overcome the dire consequences resulting from the negligence of his
| |
| − | ancestors. With superhuman energy this 'Friend of Mankind' made every
| |
| − | possible effort to counteract the effects of the carelessness and
| |
| − | thoughtlessness of his predecessors. Within one decade he strove to
| |
| − | repair the damage that had been done through centuries. If Destiny had
| |
| − | only granted him forty years for his labours, and if only two
| |
| − | generations had carried on the work which he had started, the miracle
| |
| − | might have been performed. But when he died, broken in body and spirit
| |
| − | after ten years of rulership, his work sank with him into the grave and
| |
| − | rests with him there in the Capucin Crypt, sleeping its eternal sleep,
| |
| − | having never again showed signs of awakening.
| |
| − | | |
| − | His successors had neither the ability nor the will-power necessary for
| |
| − | the task they had to face.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the first signs of a new revolutionary epoch appeared in Europe
| |
| − | they gradually scattered the fire throughout Austria. And when the fire
| |
| − | began to glow steadily it was fed and fanned not by the social or
| |
| − | political conditions but by forces that had their origin in the
| |
| − | nationalist yearnings of the various ethnic groups.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The European revolutionary movement of 1848 primarily took the form of a
| |
| − | class conflict in almost every other country, but in Austria it took the
| |
| − | form of a new racial struggle. In so far as the German-Austrians there
| |
| − | forgot the origins of the movement, or perhaps had failed to recognize
| |
| − | them at the start and consequently took part in the revolutionary
| |
| − | uprising, they sealed their own fate. For they thus helped to awaken the
| |
| − | spirit of Western Democracy which, within a short while, shattered the
| |
| − | foundations of their own existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The setting up of a representative parliamentary body, without insisting
| |
| − | on the preliminary that only one language should be used in all public
| |
| − | intercourse under the State, was the first great blow to the
| |
| − | predominance of the German element in the Dual Monarchy. From that
| |
| − | moment the State was also doomed to collapse sooner or later. All that
| |
| − | followed was nothing but the historical liquidation of an Empire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To watch that process of progressive disintegration was a tragic and at
| |
| − | the same time an instructive experience. The execution of history's
| |
| − | decree was carried out in thousands of details. The fact that great
| |
| − | numbers of people went about blindfolded amid the manifest signs of
| |
| − | dissolution only proves that the gods had decreed the destruction of
| |
| − | Austria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I do not wish to dwell on details because that would lie outside the
| |
| − | scope of this book. I want to treat in detail only those events which
| |
| − | are typical among the causes that lead to the decline of nations and
| |
| − | States and which are therefore of importance to our present age.
| |
| − | Moreover, the study of these events helped to furnish the basis of my
| |
| − | own political outlook.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Among the institutions which most clearly manifested unmistakable signs
| |
| − | of decay, even to the weak-sighted Philistine, was that which, of all
| |
| − | the institutions of State, ought to have been the most firmly founded--I
| |
| − | mean the Parliament, or the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) as it was
| |
| − | called in Austria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The pattern for this corporate body was obviously that which existed in
| |
| − | England, the land of classic democracy. The whole of that excellent
| |
| − | organization was bodily transferred to Austria with as little alteration
| |
| − | as possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As the Austrian counterpart to the British two-chamber system a Chamber
| |
| − | of Deputies and a House of Lords (HERRENHAUS) were established in
| |
| − | Vienna. The Houses themselves, considered as buildings were somewhat
| |
| − | different. When Barry built his palaces, or, as we say the Houses of
| |
| − | Parliament, on the shore of the Thames, he could look to the history of
| |
| − | the British Empire for the inspiration of his work. In that history he
| |
| − | found sufficient material to fill and decorate the 1,200 niches,
| |
| − | brackets, and pillars of his magnificent edifice. His statues and
| |
| − | paintings made the House of Lords and the House of Commons temples
| |
| − | dedicated to the glory of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There it was that Vienna encountered the first difficulty. When Hansen,
| |
| − | the Danish architect, had completed the last gable of the marble palace
| |
| − | in which the new body of popular representatives was to be housed he had
| |
| − | to turn to the ancient classical world for subjects to fill out his
| |
| − | decorative plan. This theatrical shrine of 'Western Democracy' was
| |
| − | adorned with the statues and portraits of Greek and Roman statesmen and
| |
| − | philosophers. As if it were meant for a symbol of irony, the horses of
| |
| − | the quadriga that surmounts the two Houses are pulling apart from one
| |
| − | another towards all four quarters of the globe. There could be no better
| |
| − | symbol for the kind of activity going on within the walls of that same
| |
| − | building.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The 'nationalities' were opposed to any kind of glorification of
| |
| − | Austrian history in the decoration of this building, insisting that such
| |
| − | would constitute an offence to them and a provocation. Much the same
| |
| − | happened in Germany, where the Reich-stag, built by Wallot, was not
| |
| − | dedicated to the German people until the cannons were thundering in the
| |
| − | World War. And then it was dedicated by an inscription.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was not yet twenty years of age when I first entered the Palace on the
| |
| − | Franzens-ring to watch and listen in the Chamber of Deputies. That first
| |
| − | experience aroused in me a profound feeling of repugnance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I had always hated the Parliament, but not as an institution in itself.
| |
| − | Quite the contrary. As one who cherished ideals of political freedom I
| |
| − | could not even imagine any other form of government. In the light of my
| |
| − | attitude towards the House of Habsburg I should then have considered it
| |
| − | a crime against liberty and reason to think of any kind of dictatorship
| |
| − | as a possible form of government.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A certain admiration which I had for the British Parliament contributed
| |
| − | towards the formation of this opinion. I became imbued with that feeling
| |
| − | of admiration almost without my being conscious of the effect of it
| |
| − | through so much reading of newspapers while I was yet quite young. I
| |
| − | could not discard that admiration all in a moment. The dignified way in
| |
| − | which the British House of Commons fulfilled its function impressed me
| |
| − | greatly, thanks largely to the glowing terms in which the Austrian Press
| |
| − | reported these events. I used to ask myself whether there could be any
| |
| − | nobler form of government than self-government by the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But these considerations furnished the very motives of my hostility to
| |
| − | the Austrian Parliament. The form in which parliamentary government was
| |
| − | here represented seemed unworthy of its great prototype. The following
| |
| − | considerations also influenced my attitude:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fate of the German element in the Austrian State depended on its
| |
| − | position in Parliament. Up to the time that universal suffrage by secret
| |
| − | ballot was introduced the German representatives had a majority in the
| |
| − | Parliament, though that majority was not a very substantial one. This
| |
| − | situation gave cause for anxiety because the Social-Democratic fraction
| |
| − | of the German element could not be relied upon when national questions
| |
| − | were at stake. In matters that were of critical concern for the German
| |
| − | element, the Social-Democrats always took up an anti-German stand
| |
| − | because they were afraid of losing their followers among the other
| |
| − | national groups. Already at that time--before the introduction of
| |
| − | universal suffrage--the Social-Democratic Party could no longer be
| |
| − | considered as a German Party. The introduction of universal suffrage put
| |
| − | an end even to the purely numerical predominance of the German element.
| |
| − | The way was now clear for the further 'de-Germanization' of the Austrian
| |
| − | State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The national instinct of self-preservation made it impossible for me to
| |
| − | welcome a representative system in which the German element was not
| |
| − | really represented as such, but always betrayed by the Social-Democratic
| |
| − | fraction. Yet all these, and many others, were defects which could not
| |
| − | be attributed to the parliamentary system as such, but rather to the
| |
| − | Austrian State in particular. I still believed that if the German
| |
| − | majority could be restored in the representative body there would be no
| |
| − | occasion to oppose such a system as long as the old Austrian State
| |
| − | continued to exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such was my general attitude at the time when I first entered those
| |
| − | sacred and contentious halls. For me they were sacred only because of
| |
| − | the radiant beauty of that majestic edifice. A Greek wonder on German
| |
| − | soil.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But I soon became enraged by the hideous spectacle that met my eyes.
| |
| − | Several hundred representatives were there to discuss a problem of great
| |
| − | economical importance and each representative had the right to have his
| |
| − | say.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That experience of a day was enough to supply me with food for thought
| |
| − | during several weeks afterwards.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The intellectual level of the debate was quite low. Some times the
| |
| − | debaters did not make themselves intelligible at all. Several of those
| |
| − | present did not speak German but only their Slav vernaculars or
| |
| − | dialects. Thus I had the opportunity of hearing with my own ears what I
| |
| − | had been hitherto acquainted with only through reading the newspapers. A
| |
| − | turbulent mass of people, all gesticulating and bawling against one
| |
| − | another, with a pathetic old man shaking his bell and making frantic
| |
| − | efforts to call the House to a sense of its dignity by friendly appeals,
| |
| − | exhortations, and grave warnings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I could not refrain from laughing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Several weeks later I paid a second visit. This time the House presented
| |
| − | an entirely different picture, so much so that one could hardly
| |
| − | recognize it as the same place. The hall was practically empty. They
| |
| − | were sleeping in the other rooms below. Only a few deputies were in
| |
| − | their places, yawning in each other's faces. One was speechifying. A
| |
| − | deputy speaker was in the chair. When he looked round it was quite plain
| |
| − | that he felt bored.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then I began to reflect seriously on the whole thing. I went to the
| |
| − | Parliament whenever I had any time to spare and watched the spectacle
| |
| − | silently but attentively. I listened to the debates, as far as they
| |
| − | could be understood, and I studied the more or less intelligent features
| |
| − | of those 'elect' representatives of the various nationalities which
| |
| − | composed that motley State. Gradually I formed my own ideas about what I
| |
| − | saw.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A year of such quiet observation was sufficient to transform or
| |
| − | completely destroy my former convictions as to the character of this
| |
| − | parliamentary institution. I no longer opposed merely the perverted form
| |
| − | which the principle of parliamentary representation had assumed in
| |
| − | Austria. No. It had become impossible for me to accept the system in
| |
| − | itself. Up to that time I had believed that the disastrous deficiencies
| |
| − | of the Austrian Parliament were due to the lack of a German majority,
| |
| − | but now I recognized that the institution itself was wrong in its very
| |
| − | essence and form.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A number of problems presented themselves before my mind. I studied more
| |
| − | closely the democratic principle of 'decision by the majority vote', and
| |
| − | I scrutinized no less carefully the intellectual and moral worth of the
| |
| − | gentlemen who, as the chosen representatives of the nation, were
| |
| − | entrusted with the task of making this institution function.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus it happened that at one and the same time I came to know the
| |
| − | institution itself and those of whom it was composed. And it was thus
| |
| − | that, within the course of a few years, I came to form a clear and vivid
| |
| − | picture of the average type of that most lightly worshipped phenomenon
| |
| − | of our time--the parliamentary deputy. The picture of him which I then
| |
| − | formed became deeply engraved on my mind and I have never altered it
| |
| − | since, at least as far as essentials go.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once again these object-lessons taken from real life saved me from
| |
| − | getting firmly entangled by a theory which at first sight seems so
| |
| − | alluring to many people, though that theory itself is a symptom of human
| |
| − | decadence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Democracy, as practised in Western Europe to-day, is the fore-runner of
| |
| − | Marxism. In fact, the latter would not be conceivable without the
| |
| − | former. Democracy is the breeding-ground in which the bacilli of the
| |
| − | Marxist world pest can grow and spread. By the introduction of
| |
| − | parliamentarianism, democracy produced an abortion of filth and fire
| |
| − | (Note 6), the creative fire of which, however, seems to have died out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 6. SPOTTGEBURT VON DRECK UND FEUER. This is the epithet that Faust
| |
| − | hurls at Mephistopheles as the latter intrudes on the conversation
| |
| − | between Faust and Martha in the garden:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Mephistopheles: Thou, full of sensual, super-sensual desire,
| |
| − | A girl by the nose is leading thee.
| |
| − | Faust: Abortion, thou of filth and fire.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | I am more than grateful to Fate that this problem came to my notice when
| |
| − | I was still in Vienna; for if I had been in Germany at that time I might
| |
| − | easily have found only a superficial solution. If I had been in Berlin
| |
| − | when I first discovered what an illogical thing this institution is
| |
| − | which we call Parliament, I might easily have gone to the other extreme
| |
| − | and believed--as many people believed, and apparently not without good
| |
| − | reason--that the salvation of the people and the Empire could be secured
| |
| − | only by restrengthening the principle of imperial authority. Those who
| |
| − | had this belief did not discern the tendencies of their time and were
| |
| − | blind to the aspirations of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In Austria one could not be so easily misled. There it was impossible to
| |
| − | fall from one error into another. If the Parliament were worthless, the
| |
| − | Habsburgs were worse; or at least not in the slightest degree better.
| |
| − | The problem was not solved by rejecting the parliamentary system.
| |
| − | Immediately the question arose: What then? To repudiate and abolish the
| |
| − | Vienna Parliament would have resulted in leaving all power in the hands
| |
| − | of the Habsburgs. For me, especially, that idea was impossible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since this problem was specially difficult in regard to Austria, I was
| |
| − | forced while still quite young to go into the essentials of the whole
| |
| − | question more thoroughly than I otherwise should have done.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The aspect of the situation that first made the most striking impression
| |
| − | on me and gave me grounds for serious reflection was the manifest lack
| |
| − | of any individual responsibility in the representative body.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The parliament passes some acts or decree which may have the most
| |
| − | devastating consequences, yet nobody bears the responsibility for it.
| |
| − | Nobody can be called to account. For surely one cannot say that a
| |
| − | Cabinet discharges its responsibility when it retires after having
| |
| − | brought about a catastrophe. Or can we say that the responsibility is
| |
| − | fully discharged when a new coalition is formed or parliament dissolved?
| |
| − | Can the principle of responsibility mean anything else than the
| |
| − | responsibility of a definite person?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Is it at all possible actually to call to account the leaders of a
| |
| − | parliamentary government for any kind of action which originated in the
| |
| − | wishes of the whole multitude of deputies and was carried out under
| |
| − | their orders or sanction? Instead of developing constructive ideas and
| |
| − | plans, does the business of a statesman consist in the art of making a
| |
| − | whole pack of blockheads understand his projects? Is it his business to
| |
| − | entreat and coach them so that they will grant him their generous
| |
| − | consent?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Is it an indispensable quality in a statesman that he should possess a
| |
| − | gift of persuasion commensurate with the statesman's ability to conceive
| |
| − | great political measures and carry them through into practice?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Does it really prove that a statesman is incompetent if he should fail
| |
| − | to win over a majority of votes to support his policy in an assembly
| |
| − | which has been called together as the chance result of an electoral
| |
| − | system that is not always honestly administered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Has there ever been a case where such an assembly has worthily appraised
| |
| − | a great political concept before that concept was put into practice and
| |
| − | its greatness openly demonstrated through its success?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this world is not the creative act of the genius always a protest
| |
| − | against the inertia of the mass?
| |
| − | | |
| − | What shall the statesman do if he does not succeed in coaxing the
| |
| − | parliamentary multitude to give its consent to his policy? Shall he
| |
| − | purchase that consent for some sort of consideration?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Or, when confronted with the obstinate stupidity of his fellow citizens,
| |
| − | should he then refrain from pushing forward the measures which he deems
| |
| − | to be of vital necessity to the life of the nation? Should he retire or
| |
| − | remain in power?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In such circumstances does not a man of character find himself face to
| |
| − | face with an insoluble contradiction between his own political insight
| |
| − | on the one hand and, on the other, his moral integrity, or, better
| |
| − | still, his sense of honesty?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Where can we draw the line between public duty and personal honour?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Must not every genuine leader renounce the idea of degrading himself to
| |
| − | the level of a political jobber?
| |
| − | | |
| − | And, on the other hand, does not every jobber feel the itch to 'play
| |
| − | politics', seeing that the final responsibility will never rest with him
| |
| − | personally but with an anonymous mass which can never be called to
| |
| − | account for their deeds?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Must not our parliamentary principle of government by numerical majority
| |
| − | necessarily lead to the destruction of the principle of leadership?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Does anybody honestly believe that human progress originates in the
| |
| − | composite brain of the majority and not in the brain of the individual
| |
| − | personality?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Or may it be presumed that for the future human civilization will be
| |
| − | able to dispense with this as a condition of its existence?
| |
| − | | |
| − | But may it not be that, to-day, more than ever before, the creative
| |
| − | brain of the individual is indispensable?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The parliamentary principle of vesting legislative power in the decision
| |
| − | of the majority rejects the authority of the individual and puts a
| |
| − | numerical quota of anonymous heads in its place. In doing so it
| |
| − | contradicts the aristrocratic principle, which is a fundamental law of
| |
| − | nature; but, of course, we must remember that in this decadent era of
| |
| − | ours the aristrocratic principle need not be thought of as incorporated
| |
| − | in the upper ten thousand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The devastating influence of this parliamentary institution might not
| |
| − | easily be recognized by those who read the Jewish Press, unless the
| |
| − | reader has learned how to think independently and examine the facts for
| |
| − | himself. This institution is primarily responsible for the crowded
| |
| − | inrush of mediocre people into the field of politics. Confronted with
| |
| − | such a phenomenon, a man who is endowed with real qualities of
| |
| − | leadership will be tempted to refrain from taking part in political
| |
| − | life; because under these circumstances the situation does not call for
| |
| − | a man who has a capacity for constructive statesmanship but rather for a
| |
| − | man who is capable of bargaining for the favour of the majority. Thus
| |
| − | the situation will appeal to small minds and will attract them
| |
| − | accordingly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The narrower the mental outlook and the more meagre the amount of
| |
| − | knowledge in a political jobber, the more accurate is his estimate of
| |
| − | his own political stock, and thus he will be all the more inclined to
| |
| − | appreciate a system which does not demand creative genius or even
| |
| − | high-class talent; but rather that crafty kind of sagacity which makes
| |
| − | an efficient town clerk. Indeed, he values this kind of small craftiness
| |
| − | more than the political genius of a Pericles. Such a mediocrity does not
| |
| − | even have to worry about responsibility for what he does. From the
| |
| − | beginning he knows that whatever be the results of his 'statesmanship'
| |
| − | his end is already prescribed by the stars; he will one day have to
| |
| − | clear out and make room for another who is of similar mental calibre.
| |
| − | For it is another sign of our decadent times that the number of eminent
| |
| − | statesmen grows according as the calibre of individual personality
| |
| − | dwindles. That calibre will become smaller and smaller the more the
| |
| − | individual politician has to depend upon parliamentary majorities. A man
| |
| − | of real political ability will refuse to be the beadle for a bevy of
| |
| − | footling cacklers; and they in their turn, being the representatives of
| |
| − | the majority--which means the dunder-headed multitude--hate nothing so
| |
| − | much as a superior brain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For footling deputies it is always quite a consolation to be led by a
| |
| − | person whose intellectual stature is on a level with their own. Thus
| |
| − | each one may have the opportunity to shine in debate among such compeers
| |
| − | and, above all, each one feels that he may one day rise to the top. If
| |
| − | Peter be boss to-day, then why not Paul tomorrow?
| |
| − | | |
| − | This new invention of democracy is very closely connected with a
| |
| − | peculiar phenomenon which has recently spread to a pernicious extent,
| |
| − | namely the cowardice of a large section of our so-called political
| |
| − | leaders. Whenever important decisions have to be made they always find
| |
| − | themselves fortunate in being able to hide behind the backs of what they
| |
| − | call the majority.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In observing one of these political manipulators one notices how he
| |
| − | wheedles the majority in order to get their sanction for whatever action
| |
| − | he takes. He has to have accomplices in order to be able to shift
| |
| − | responsibility to other shoulders whenever it is opportune to do so.
| |
| − | That is the main reason why this kind of political activity is abhorrent
| |
| − | to men of character and courage, while at the same time it attracts
| |
| − | inferior types; for a person who is not willing to accept responsibility
| |
| − | for his own actions, but is always seeking to be covered by something,
| |
| − | must be classed among the knaves and the rascals. If a national leader
| |
| − | should come from that lower class of politicians the evil consequences
| |
| − | will soon manifest themselves. Nobody will then have the courage to take
| |
| − | a decisive step. They will submit to abuse and defamation rather than
| |
| − | pluck up courage to take a definite stand. And thus nobody is left who
| |
| − | is willing to risk his position and his career, if needs be, in support
| |
| − | of a determined line of policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One truth which must always be borne in mind is that the majority can
| |
| − | never replace the man. The majority represents not only ignorance but
| |
| − | also cowardice. And just as a hundred blockheads do not equal one man of
| |
| − | wisdom, so a hundred poltroons are incapable of any political line of
| |
| − | action that requires moral strength and fortitude.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The lighter the burden of responsibility on each individual leader, the
| |
| − | greater will be the number of those who, in spite of their sorry
| |
| − | mediocrity, will feel the call to place their immortal energies at the
| |
| − | disposal of the nation. They are so much on the tip-toe of expectation
| |
| − | that they find it hard to wait their turn. They stand in a long queue,
| |
| − | painfully and sadly counting the number of those ahead of them and
| |
| − | calculating the hours until they may eventually come forward. They watch
| |
| − | every change that takes place in the personnel of the office towards
| |
| − | which their hopes are directed, and they are grateful for every scandal
| |
| − | which removes one of the aspirants waiting ahead of them in the queue.
| |
| − | If somebody sticks too long to his office stool they consider this as
| |
| − | almost a breach of a sacred understanding based on their mutual
| |
| − | solidarity. They grow furious and give no peace until that inconsiderate
| |
| − | person is finally driven out and forced to hand over his cosy berth for
| |
| − | public disposal. After that he will have little chance of getting
| |
| − | another opportunity. Usually those placemen who have been forced to give
| |
| − | up their posts push themselves again into the waiting queue unless they
| |
| − | are hounded away by the protestations of the other aspirants.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The result of all this is that, in such a State, the succession of
| |
| − | sudden changes in public positions and public offices has a very
| |
| − | disquieting effect in general, which may easily lead to disaster when an
| |
| − | adverse crisis arises. It is not only the ignorant and the incompetent
| |
| − | person who may fall victim to those parliamentary conditions, for the
| |
| − | genuine leader may be affected just as much as the others, if not more
| |
| − | so, whenever Fate has chanced to place a capable man in the position of
| |
| − | leader. Let the superior quality of such a leader be once recognized and
| |
| − | the result will be that a joint front will be organized against him,
| |
| − | particularly if that leader, though not coming from their ranks, should
| |
| − | fall into the habit of intermingling with these illustrious nincompoops
| |
| − | on their own level. They want to have only their own company and will
| |
| − | quickly take a hostile attitude towards any man who might show himself
| |
| − | obviously above and beyond them when he mingles in their ranks. Their
| |
| − | instinct, which is so blind in other directions, is very sharp in this
| |
| − | particular.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The inevitable result is that the intellectual level of the ruling class
| |
| − | sinks steadily. One can easily forecast how much the nation and State
| |
| − | are bound to suffer from such a condition of affairs, provided one does
| |
| − | not belong to that same class of 'leaders'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The parliamentary régime in the old Austria was the very archetype of
| |
| − | the institution as I have described it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though the Austrian Prime Minister was appointed by the King-Emperor,
| |
| − | this act of appointment merely gave practical effect to the will of the
| |
| − | parliament. The huckstering and bargaining that went on in regard to
| |
| − | every ministerial position showed all the typical marks of Western
| |
| − | Democracy. The results that followed were in keeping with the principles
| |
| − | applied. The intervals between the replacement of one person by another
| |
| − | gradually became shorter, finally ending up in a wild relay chase. With
| |
| − | each change the quality of the 'statesman' in question deteriorated,
| |
| − | until finally only the petty type of political huckster remained. In
| |
| − | such people the qualities of statesmanship were measured and valued
| |
| − | according to the adroitness with which they pieced together one
| |
| − | coalition after another; in other words, their craftiness in
| |
| − | manipulating the pettiest political transactions, which is the only kind
| |
| − | of practical activity suited to the aptitudes of these representatives.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this sphere Vienna was the school which offered the most impressive
| |
| − | examples.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Another feature that engaged my attention quite as much as the features
| |
| − | I have already spoken of was the contrast between the talents and
| |
| − | knowledge of these representatives of the people on the one hand and, on
| |
| − | the other, the nature of the tasks they had to face. Willingly or
| |
| − | unwillingly, one could not help thinking seriously of the narrow
| |
| − | intellectual outlook of these chosen representatives of the various
| |
| − | constituent nationalities, and one could not avoid pondering on the
| |
| − | methods through which these noble figures in our public life were first
| |
| − | discovered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was worth while to make a thorough study and examination of the way
| |
| − | in which the real talents of these gentlemen were devoted to the service
| |
| − | of their country; in other words, to analyse thoroughly the technical
| |
| − | procedure of their activities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The whole spectacle of parliamentary life became more and more desolate
| |
| − | the more one penetrated into its intimate structure and studied the
| |
| − | persons and principles of the system in a spirit of ruthless
| |
| − | objectivity. Indeed, it is very necessary to be strictly objective in
| |
| − | the study of the institution whose sponsors talk of 'objectivity' in
| |
| − | every other sentence as the only fair basis of examination and judgment.
| |
| − | If one studied these gentlemen and the laws of their strenuous existence
| |
| − | the results were surprising.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is no other principle which turns out to be quite so ill-conceived
| |
| − | as the parliamentary principle, if we examine it objectively.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our examination of it we may pass over the methods according to which
| |
| − | the election of the representatives takes place, as well as the ways
| |
| − | which bring them into office and bestow new titles on them. It is quite
| |
| − | evident that only to a tiny degree are public wishes or public
| |
| − | necessities satisfied by the manner in which an election takes place;
| |
| − | for everybody who properly estimates the political intelligence of the
| |
| − | masses can easily see that this is not sufficiently developed to enable
| |
| − | them to form general political judgments on their own account, or to
| |
| − | select the men who might be competent to carry out their ideas in
| |
| − | practice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whatever definition we may give of the term 'public opinion', only a
| |
| − | very small part of it originates from personal experience or individual
| |
| − | insight. The greater portion of it results from the manner in which
| |
| − | public matters have been presented to the people through an
| |
| − | overwhelmingly impressive and persistent system of 'information'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the religious sphere the profession of a denominational belief is
| |
| − | largely the result of education, while the religious yearning itself
| |
| − | slumbers in the soul; so too the political opinions of the masses are
| |
| − | the final result of influences systematically operating on human
| |
| − | sentiment and intelligence in virtue of a method which is applied
| |
| − | sometimes with almost-incredible thoroughness and perseverance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By far the most effective branch of political education, which in this
| |
| − | connection is best expressed by the word 'propaganda', is carried on by
| |
| − | the Press. The Press is the chief means employed in the process of
| |
| − | political 'enlightenment'. It represents a kind of school for adults.
| |
| − | This educational activity, however, is not in the hands of the State but
| |
| − | in the clutches of powers which are partly of a very inferior character.
| |
| − | While still a young man in Vienna I had excellent opportunities for
| |
| − | coming to know the men who owned this machine for mass instruction, as
| |
| − | well as those who supplied it with the ideas it distributed. At first I
| |
| − | was quite surprised when I realized how little time was necessary for
| |
| − | this dangerous Great Power within the State to produce a certain belief
| |
| − | among the public; and in doing so the genuine will and convictions of
| |
| − | the public were often completely misconstrued. It took the Press only a
| |
| − | few days to transform some ridiculously trivial matter into an issue of
| |
| − | national importance, while vital problems were completely ignored or
| |
| − | filched and hidden away from public attention.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Press succeeded in the magical art of producing names from nowhere
| |
| − | within the course of a few weeks. They made it appear that the great
| |
| − | hopes of the masses were bound up with those names. And so they made
| |
| − | those names more popular than any man of real ability could ever hope to
| |
| − | be in a long lifetime. All this was done, despite the fact that such
| |
| − | names were utterly unknown and indeed had never been heard of even up to
| |
| − | a month before the Press publicly emblazoned them. At the same time old
| |
| − | and tried figures in the political and other spheres of life quickly
| |
| − | faded from the public memory and were forgotten as if they were dead,
| |
| − | though still healthy and in the enjoyment of their full viguour. Or
| |
| − | sometimes such men were so vilely abused that it looked as if their
| |
| − | names would soon stand as permanent symbols of the worst kind of
| |
| − | baseness. In order to estimate properly the really pernicious influence
| |
| − | which the Press can exercise one had to study this infamous Jewish
| |
| − | method whereby honourable and decent people were besmirched with mud and
| |
| − | filth, in the form of low abuse and slander, from hundreds and hundreds
| |
| − | of quarters simultaneously, as if commanded by some magic formula.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These highway robbers would grab at anything which might serve their
| |
| − | evil ends.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They would poke their noses into the most intimate family affairs and
| |
| − | would not rest until they had sniffed out some petty item which could be
| |
| − | used to destroy the reputation of their victim. But if the result of all
| |
| − | this sniffing should be that nothing derogatory was discovered in the
| |
| − | private or public life of the victim, they continued to hurl abuse at
| |
| − | him, in the belief that some of their animadversions would stick even
| |
| − | though refuted a thousand times. In most cases it finally turned out
| |
| − | impossible for the victim to continue his defence, because the accuser
| |
| − | worked together with so many accomplices that his slanders were
| |
| − | re-echoed interminably. But these slanderers would never own that they
| |
| − | were acting from motives which influence the common run of humanity or
| |
| − | are understood by them. Oh, no. The scoundrel who defamed his
| |
| − | contemporaries in this villainous way would crown himself with a halo of
| |
| − | heroic probity fashioned of unctuous phraseology and twaddle about his
| |
| − | 'duties as a journalist' and other mouldy nonsense of that kind. When
| |
| − | these cuttle-fishes gathered together in large shoals at meetings and
| |
| − | congresses they would give out a lot of slimy talk about a special kind
| |
| − | of honour which they called the professional honour of the journalist.
| |
| − | Then the assembled species would bow their respects to one another.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These are the kind of beings that fabricate more than two-thirds of what
| |
| − | is called public opinion, from the foam of which the parliamentary
| |
| − | Aphrodite eventually arises.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Several volumes would be needed if one were to give an adequate account
| |
| − | of the whole procedure and fully describe all its hollow fallacies. But
| |
| − | if we pass over the details and look at the product itself while it is
| |
| − | in operation I think this alone will be sufficient to open the eyes of
| |
| − | even the most innocent and credulous person, so that he may recognize
| |
| − | the absurdity of this institution by looking at it objectively.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order to realize how this human aberration is as harmful as it is
| |
| − | absurd, the test and easiest method is to compare democratic
| |
| − | parliamentarianism with a genuine German democracy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The remarkable characteristic of the parliamentary form of democracy is
| |
| − | the fact that a number of persons, let us say five hundred--including,
| |
| − | in recent time, women also--are elected to parliament and invested with
| |
| − | authority to give final judgment on anything and everything. In practice
| |
| − | they alone are the governing body; for although they may appoint a
| |
| − | Cabinet, which seems outwardly to direct the affairs of state, this
| |
| − | Cabinet has not a real existence of its own. In reality the so-called
| |
| − | Government cannot do anything against the will of the assembly. It can
| |
| − | never be called to account for anything, since the right of decision is
| |
| − | not vested in the Cabinet but in the parliamentary majority. The Cabinet
| |
| − | always functions only as the executor of the will of the majority. Its
| |
| − | political ability can be judged only according to how far it succeeds in
| |
| − | adjusting itself to the will of the majority or in persuading the
| |
| − | majority to agree to its proposals. But this means that it must descend
| |
| − | from the level of a real governing power to that of a mendicant who has
| |
| − | to beg the approval of a majority that may be got together for the time
| |
| − | being. Indeed, the chief preoccupation of the Cabinet must be to secure
| |
| − | for itself, in the case of' each individual measure, the favour of the
| |
| − | majority then in power or, failing that, to form a new majority that
| |
| − | will be more favourably disposed. If it should succeed in either of
| |
| − | these efforts it may go on 'governing' for a little while. If it should
| |
| − | fail to win or form a majority it must retire. The question whether its
| |
| − | policy as such has been right or wrong does not matter at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thereby all responsibility is abolished in practice. To what
| |
| − | consequences such a state of affairs can lead may easily be understood
| |
| − | from the following simple considerations:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those five hundred deputies who have been elected by the people come
| |
| − | from various dissimilar callings in life and show very varying degrees
| |
| − | of political capacity, with the result that the whole combination is
| |
| − | disjointed and sometimes presents quite a sorry picture. Surely nobody
| |
| − | believes that these chosen representatives of the nation are the choice
| |
| − | spirits or first-class intellects. Nobody, I hope, is foolish enough to
| |
| − | pretend that hundreds of statesmen can emerge from papers placed in the
| |
| − | ballot box by electors who are anything else but averagely intelligent.
| |
| − | The absurd notion that men of genius are born out of universal suffrage
| |
| − | cannot be too strongly repudiated. In the first place, those times may
| |
| − | be really called blessed when one genuine statesman makes his appearance
| |
| − | among a people. Such statesmen do not appear all at once in hundreds or
| |
| − | more. Secondly, among the broad masses there is instinctively a definite
| |
| − | antipathy towards every outstanding genius. There is a better chance of
| |
| − | seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really
| |
| − | great man 'discovered' through an election.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whatever has happened in history above the level of the average of the
| |
| − | broad public has mostly been due to the driving force of an individual
| |
| − | personality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But here five hundred persons of less than modest intellectual qualities
| |
| − | pass judgment on the most important problems affecting the nation. They
| |
| − | form governments which in turn learn to win the approval of the
| |
| − | illustrious assembly for every legislative step that may be taken, which
| |
| − | means that the policy to be carried out is actually the policy of the
| |
| − | five hundred.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And indeed, generally speaking, the policy bears the stamp of its
| |
| − | origin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But let us pass over the intellectual qualities of these representatives
| |
| − | and ask what is the nature of the task set before them. If we consider
| |
| − | the fact that the problems which have to be discussed and solved belong
| |
| − | to the most varied and diverse fields we can very well realize how
| |
| − | inefficient a governing system must be which entrusts the right of
| |
| − | decision to a mass assembly in which only very few possess the knowledge
| |
| − | and experience such as would qualify them to deal with the matters that
| |
| − | have to be settled. The most important economic measures are submitted
| |
| − | to a tribunal in which not more than one-tenth of the members have
| |
| − | studied the elements of economics. This means that final authority is
| |
| − | vested in men who are utterly devoid of any preparatory training which
| |
| − | might make them competent to decide on the questions at issue.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The same holds true of every other problem. It is always a majority of
| |
| − | ignorant and incompetent people who decide on each measure; for the
| |
| − | composition of the institution does not vary, while the problems to be
| |
| − | dealt with come from the most varied spheres of public life. An
| |
| − | intelligent judgment would be possible only if different deputies had
| |
| − | the authority to deal with different issues. It is out of the question
| |
| − | to think that the same people are fitted to decide on transport
| |
| − | questions as well as, let us say, on questions of foreign policy, unless
| |
| − | each of them be a universal genius. But scarcely more than one genius
| |
| − | appears in a century. Here we are scarcely ever dealing with real
| |
| − | brains, but only with dilettanti who are as narrow-minded as they are
| |
| − | conceited and arrogant, intellectual DEMI-MONDES of the worst kind. This
| |
| − | is why these honourable gentlemen show such astonishing levity in
| |
| − | discussing and deciding on matters that would demand the most
| |
| − | painstaking consideration even from great minds. Measures of momentous
| |
| − | importance for the future existence of the State are framed and
| |
| − | discussed in an atmosphere more suited to the card-table. Indeed the
| |
| − | latter suggests a much more fitting occupation for these gentlemen than
| |
| − | that of deciding the destinies of a people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course it would be unfair to assume that each member in such a
| |
| − | parliament was endowed by nature with such a small sense of
| |
| − | responsibility. That is out of the question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But this system, by forcing the individual to pass judgment on questions
| |
| − | for which he is not competent gradually debases his moral character.
| |
| − | Nobody will have the courage to say: "Gentlemen, I am afraid we know
| |
| − | nothing about what we are talking about. I for one have no competency in
| |
| − | the matter at all." Anyhow if such a declaration were made it would not
| |
| − | change matters very much; for such outspoken honesty would not be
| |
| − | understood. The person who made the declaration would be deemed an
| |
| − | honourable ass who ought not to be allowed to spoil the game. Those who
| |
| − | have a knowledge of human nature know that nobody likes to be considered
| |
| − | a fool among his associates; and in certain circles honesty is taken as
| |
| − | an index of stupidity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus it happens that a naturally upright man, once he finds himself
| |
| − | elected to parliament, may eventually be induced by the force of
| |
| − | circumstances to acquiesce in a general line of conduct which is base in
| |
| − | itself and amounts to a betrayal of the public trust. That feeling that
| |
| − | if the individual refrained from taking part in a certain decision his
| |
| − | attitude would not alter the situation in the least, destroys every real
| |
| − | sense of honour which might occasionally arouse the conscience of one
| |
| − | person or another. Finally, the otherwise upright deputy will succeed in
| |
| − | persuading himself that he is by no means the worst of the lot and that
| |
| − | by taking part in a certain line of action he may prevent something
| |
| − | worse from happening.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A counter argument may be put forward here. It may be said that of
| |
| − | course the individual member may not have the knowledge which is
| |
| − | requisite for the treatment of this or that question, yet his attitude
| |
| − | towards it is taken on the advice of his Party as the guiding authority
| |
| − | in each political matter; and it may further be said that the Party sets
| |
| − | up special committees of experts who have even more than the requisite
| |
| − | knowledge for dealing with the questions placed before them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first sight, that argument seems sound. But then another question
| |
| − | arises--namely, why are five hundred persons elected if only a few have
| |
| − | the wisdom which is required to deal with the more important problems?
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not the aim of our modern democratic parliamentary system to bring
| |
| − | together an assembly of intelligent and well-informed deputies. Not at
| |
| − | all. The aim rather is to bring together a group of nonentities who are
| |
| − | dependent on others for their views and who can be all the more easily
| |
| − | led, the narrower the mental outlook of each individual is. That is the
| |
| − | only way in which a party policy, according to the evil meaning it has
| |
| − | to-day, can be put into effect. And by this method alone it is possible
| |
| − | for the wirepuller, who exercises the real control, to remain in the
| |
| − | dark, so that personally he can never be brought to account for his
| |
| − | actions. For under such circumstances none of the decisions taken, no
| |
| − | matter how disastrous they may turn out for the nation as a whole, can
| |
| − | be laid at the door of the individual whom everybody knows to be the
| |
| − | evil genius responsible for the whole affair. All responsibility is
| |
| − | shifted to the shoulders of the Party as a whole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In practice no actual responsibility remains. For responsibility arises
| |
| − | only from personal duty and not from the obligations that rest with a
| |
| − | parliamentary assembly of empty talkers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The parliamentary institution attracts people of the badger type, who do
| |
| − | not like the open light. No upright man, who is ready to accept personal
| |
| − | responsibility for his acts, will be attracted to such an institution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is the reason why this brand of democracy has become a tool in the
| |
| − | hand of that race which, because of the inner purposes it wishes to
| |
| − | attain, must shun the open light, as it has always done and always will
| |
| − | do. Only a Jew can praise an institution which is as corrupt and false
| |
| − | as himself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a contrast to this kind of democracy we have the German democracy,
| |
| − | which is a true democracy; for here the leader is freely chosen and is
| |
| − | obliged to accept full responsibility for all his actions and omissions.
| |
| − | The problems to be dealt with are not put to the vote of the majority;
| |
| − | but they are decided upon by the individual, and as a guarantee of
| |
| − | responsibility for those decisions he pledges all he has in the world
| |
| − | and even his life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The objection may be raised here that under such conditions it would be
| |
| − | very difficult to find a man who would be ready to devote himself to so
| |
| − | fateful a task. The answer to that objection is as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | We thank God that the inner spirit of our German democracy will of
| |
| − | itself prevent the chance careerist, who may be intellectually worthless
| |
| − | and a moral twister, from coming by devious ways to a position in which
| |
| − | he may govern his fellow-citizens. The fear of undertaking such
| |
| − | far-reaching responsibilities, under German democracy, will scare off
| |
| − | the ignorant and the feckless.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But should it happen that such a person might creep in surreptitiously
| |
| − | it will be easy enough to identify him and apostrophize him ruthlessly.
| |
| − | somewhat thus: "Be off, you scoundrel. Don't soil these steps with your
| |
| − | feet; because these are the steps that lead to the portals of the
| |
| − | Pantheon of History, and they are not meant for place-hunters but for
| |
| − | men of noble character."
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such were the views I formed after two years of attendance at the
| |
| − | sessions of the Viennese Parliament. Then I went there no more.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The parliamentary regime became one of the causes why the strength of
| |
| − | the Habsburg State steadily declined during the last years of its
| |
| − | existence. The more the predominance of the German element was whittled
| |
| − | away through parliamentary procedure, the more prominent became the
| |
| − | system of playing off one of the various constituent nationalities
| |
| − | against the other. In the Imperial Parliament it was always the German
| |
| − | element that suffered through the system, which meant that the results
| |
| − | were detrimental to the Empire as a whole; for at the close of the
| |
| − | century even the most simple-minded people could recognize that the
| |
| − | cohesive forces within the Dual Monarchy no longer sufficed to
| |
| − | counterbalance the separatist tendencies of the provincial
| |
| − | nationalities. On the contrary!
| |
| − | | |
| − | The measures which the State adopted for its own maintenance became more
| |
| − | and more mean spirited and in a like degree the general disrespect for
| |
| − | the State increased. Not only Hungary but also the various Slav
| |
| − | provinces gradually ceased to identify themselves with the monarchy
| |
| − | which embraced them all, and accordingly they did not feel its weakness
| |
| − | as in any way detrimental to themselves. They rather welcomed those
| |
| − | manifestations of senile decay. They looked forward to the final
| |
| − | dissolution of the State, and not to its recovery.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The complete collapse was still forestalled in Parliament by the
| |
| − | humiliating concessions that were made to every kind of importunate
| |
| − | demands, at the cost of the German element. Throughout the country the
| |
| − | defence of the State rested on playing off the various nationalities
| |
| − | against one another. But the general trend of this development was
| |
| − | directed against the Germans. Especially since the right of succession
| |
| − | to the throne conferred certain influence on the Archduke Franz
| |
| − | Ferdinand, the policy of increasing the power of the Czechs was carried
| |
| − | out systematically from the upper grades of the administration down to
| |
| − | the lower. With all the means at his command the heir to the Dual
| |
| − | Monarchy personally furthered the policy that aimed at eliminating the
| |
| − | influence of the German element, or at least he acted as protector of
| |
| − | that policy. By the use of State officials as tools, purely German
| |
| − | districts were gradually but decisively brought within the danger zone
| |
| − | of the mixed languages. Even in Lower Austria this process began to make
| |
| − | headway with a constantly increasing tempo and Vienna was looked upon by
| |
| − | the Czechs as their biggest city.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the family circle of this new Habsburger the Czech language was
| |
| − | favoured. The wife of the Archduke had formerly been a Czech Countess
| |
| − | and was wedded to the Prince by a morganatic marriage. She came from an
| |
| − | environment where hostility to the Germans had been traditional. The
| |
| − | leading idea in the mind of the Archduke was to establish a Slav State
| |
| − | in Central Europe, which was to be constructed on a purely Catholic
| |
| − | basis, so as to serve as a bulwark against Orthodox Russia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As had happened often in Habsburg history, religion was thus exploited
| |
| − | to serve a purely political policy, and in this case a fatal policy, at
| |
| − | least as far as German interests were concerned. The result was
| |
| − | lamentable in many respects.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Neither the House of Habsburg nor the Catholic Church received the
| |
| − | reward which they expected. Habsburg lost the throne and the Church lost
| |
| − | a great State. By employing religious motives in the service of
| |
| − | politics, a spirit was aroused which the instigators of that policy had
| |
| − | never thought possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the attempt to exterminate Germanism in the old monarchy by every
| |
| − | available means arose the Pan-German Movement in Austria, as a response.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the 'eighties of the last century Manchester Liberalism, which was
| |
| − | Jewish in its fundamental ideas, had reached the zenith of its influence
| |
| − | in the Dual Monarchy, or had already passed that point. The reaction
| |
| − | which set in did not arise from social but from nationalistic
| |
| − | tendencies, as was always the case in the old Austria. The instinct of
| |
| − | self-preservation drove the German element to defend itself
| |
| − | energetically. Economic considerations only slowly began to gain an
| |
| − | important influence; but they were of secondary concern. But of the
| |
| − | general political chaos two party organizations emerged. The one was
| |
| − | more of a national, and the other more of a social, character; but both
| |
| − | were highly interesting and instructive for the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After the war of 1866, which had resulted in the humiliation of Austria,
| |
| − | the House of Habsburg contemplated a REVANCHE on the battlefield. Only
| |
| − | the tragic end of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico prevented a still
| |
| − | closer collaboration with France. The chief blame for Maximilian's
| |
| − | disastrous expedition was attributed to Napoleon III and the fact that
| |
| − | the Frenchman left him in the lurch aroused a general feeling of
| |
| − | indignation. Yet the Habsburgs were still lying in wait for their
| |
| − | opportunity. If the war of 1870-71 had not been such a singular triumph,
| |
| − | the Viennese Court might have chanced the game of blood in order to get
| |
| − | its revenge for Sadowa. But when the first reports arrived from the
| |
| − | Franco-German battlefield, which, though true, seemed miraculous and
| |
| − | almost incredible, the 'most wise' of all monarchs recognized that the
| |
| − | moment was inopportune and tried to accept the unfavourable situation
| |
| − | with as good a grace as possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The heroic conflict of those two years (1870-71) produced a still
| |
| − | greater miracle; for with the Habsburgs the change of attitude never
| |
| − | came from an inner heartfelt urge but only from the pressure of
| |
| − | circumstances. The German people of the East Mark, however, were
| |
| − | entranced by the triumphant glory of the newly established German Empire
| |
| − | and were profoundly moved when they saw the dream of their fathers
| |
| − | resurgent in a magnificent reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For--let us make no mistake about it--the true German-Austrian realized
| |
| − | from this time onward, that Königgrätz was the tragic, though necessary,
| |
| − | pre-condition for the re-establishment of an Empire which should no
| |
| − | longer be burdened with the palsy of the old alliance and which indeed
| |
| − | had no share in that morbid decay. Above all, the German-Austrian had
| |
| − | come to feel in the very depths of his own being that the historical
| |
| − | mission of the House of Habsburg had come to an end and that the new
| |
| − | Empire could choose only an Emperor who was of heroic mould and was
| |
| − | therefore worthy to wear the 'Crown of the Rhine'. It was right and just
| |
| − | that Destiny should be praised for having chosen a scion of that House
| |
| − | of which Frederick the Great had in past times given the nation an
| |
| − | elevated and resplendent symbol for all time to come.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After the great war of 1870-71 the House of Habsburg set to work with
| |
| − | all its determination to exterminate the dangerous German element--about
| |
| − | whose inner feelings and attitude there could be no doubt--slowly but
| |
| − | deliberately. I use the word exterminate, because that alone expresses
| |
| − | what must have been the final result of the Slavophile policy. Then it
| |
| − | was that the fire of rebellion blazed up among the people whose
| |
| − | extermination had been decreed. That fire was such as had never been
| |
| − | witnessed in modern German history.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the first time nationalists and patriots were transformed into
| |
| − | rebels.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not rebels against the nation or the State as such but rebels against
| |
| − | that form of government which they were convinced, would inevitably
| |
| − | bring about the ruin of their own people. For the first time in modern
| |
| − | history the traditional dynastic patriotism and national love of
| |
| − | fatherland and people were in open conflict.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was to the merit of the Pan-German movement in Austria during the
| |
| − | closing decade of the last century that it pointed out clearly and
| |
| − | unequivocally that a State is entitled to demand respect and protection
| |
| − | for its authority only when such authority is administered in accordance
| |
| − | with the interests of the nation, or at least not in a manner
| |
| − | detrimental to those interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The authority of the State can never be an end in itself; for, if that
| |
| − | were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the
| |
| − | purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the
| |
| − | right but also the duty of every individual citizen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question of whether and when such a situation exists cannot be
| |
| − | answered by theoretical dissertations but only by the exercise of force,
| |
| − | and it is success that decides the issue.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Every government, even though it may be the worst possible and even
| |
| − | though it may have betrayed the nation's trust in thousands of ways,
| |
| − | will claim that its duty is to uphold the authority of the State. Its
| |
| − | adversaries, who are fighting for national self-preservation, must use
| |
| − | the same weapons which the government uses if they are to prevail
| |
| − | against such a rule and secure their own freedom and independence.
| |
| − | Therefore the conflict will be fought out with 'legal' means as long as
| |
| − | the power which is to be overthrown uses them; but the insurgents will
| |
| − | not hesitate to apply illegal means if the oppressor himself employs
| |
| − | them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human
| |
| − | existence is not the maintenance of a State of Government but rather the
| |
| − | conservation of the race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the race is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated the
| |
| − | question of legality is only of secondary importance. The established
| |
| − | power may in such a case employ only those means which are recognized as
| |
| − | 'legal'. yet the instinct of self-preservation on the part of the
| |
| − | oppressed will always justify, to the highest degree, the employment of
| |
| − | all possible resources.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only on the recognition of this principle was it possible for those
| |
| − | struggles to be carried through, of which history furnishes magnificent
| |
| − | examples in abundance, against foreign bondage or oppression at home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Human rights are above the rights of the State. But if a people be
| |
| − | defeated in the struggle for its human rights this means that its weight
| |
| − | has proved too light in the scale of Destiny to have the luck of being
| |
| − | able to endure in this terrestrial world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The world is not there to be possessed by the faint-hearted races.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Austria affords a very clear and striking example of how easy it is for
| |
| − | tyranny to hide its head under the cloak of what is called 'legality'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The legal exercise of power in the Habsburg State was then based on the
| |
| − | anti-German attitude of the parliament, with its non-German majorities,
| |
| − | and on the dynastic House, which was also hostile to the German element.
| |
| − | The whole authority of the State was incorporated in these two factors.
| |
| − | To attempt to alter the lot of the German element through these two
| |
| − | factors would have been senseless. Those who advised the 'legal' way as
| |
| − | the only possible way, and also obedience to the State authority, could
| |
| − | offer no resistance; because a policy of resistance could not have been
| |
| − | put into effect through legal measures. To follow the advice of the
| |
| − | legalist counsellors would have meant the inevitable ruin of the German
| |
| − | element within the Monarchy, and this disaster would not have taken long
| |
| − | to come. The German element has actually been saved only because the
| |
| − | State as such collapsed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The spectacled theorist would have given his life for his doctrine
| |
| − | rather than for his people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Because man has made laws he subsequently comes to think that he exists
| |
| − | for the sake of the laws.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A great service rendered by the pan-German movement then was that it
| |
| − | abolished all such nonsense, though the doctrinaire theorists and other
| |
| − | fetish worshippers were shocked.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the Habsburgs attempted to come to close quarters with the German
| |
| − | element, by the employment of all the means of attack which they had at
| |
| − | their command, the Pan-German Party hit out ruthlessly against the
| |
| − | 'illustrious' dynasty. This Party was the first to probe into and expose
| |
| − | the corrupt condition of the State; and in doing so they opened the eyes
| |
| − | of hundreds of thousands. To have liberated the high ideal of love for
| |
| − | one's country from the embrace of this deplorable dynasty was one of the
| |
| − | great services rendered by the Pan-German movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When that Party first made its appearance it secured a large
| |
| − | following--indeed, the movement threatened to become almost an
| |
| − | avalanche. But the first successes were not maintained. At the time I
| |
| − | came to Vienna the pan-German Party had been eclipsed by the
| |
| − | Christian-Socialist Party, which had come into power in the meantime.
| |
| − | Indeed, the Pan-German Party had sunk to a level of almost complete
| |
| − | insignificance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The rise and decline of the Pan-German movement on the one hand and the
| |
| − | marvellous progress of the Christian-Socialist Party on the other,
| |
| − | became a classic object of study for me, and as such they played an
| |
| − | important part in the development of my own views.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I came to Vienna all my sympathies were exclusively with the
| |
| − | Pan-German Movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was just as much impressed by the fact that they had the courage to
| |
| − | shout HEIL HOHENZOLLERN as I rejoiced at their determination to consider
| |
| − | themselves an integral part of the German Empire, from which they were
| |
| − | separated only provisionally. They never missed an opportunity to
| |
| − | explain their attitude in public, which raised my enthusiasm and
| |
| − | confidence. To avow one's principles publicly on every problem that
| |
| − | concerned Germanism, and never to make any compromises, seemed to me the
| |
| − | only way of saving our people. What I could not understand was how this
| |
| − | movement broke down so soon after such a magnificent start; and it was
| |
| − | no less incomprehensible that the Christian-Socialists should gain such
| |
| − | tremendous power within such a short time. They had just reached the
| |
| − | pinnacle of their popularity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I began to compare those two movements Fate placed before me the
| |
| − | best means of understanding the causes of this puzzling problem. The
| |
| − | action of Fate in this case was hastened by my own straitened
| |
| − | circumstances.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I shall begin my analysis with an account of the two men who must be
| |
| − | regarded as the founders and leaders of the two movements. These were
| |
| − | George von Schönerer and Dr. Karl Lueger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As far as personality goes, both were far above the level and stature of
| |
| − | the so-called parliamentary figures. They lived lives of immaculate and
| |
| − | irreproachable probity amidst the miasma of all-round political
| |
| − | corruption. Personally I first liked the Pan-German representative,
| |
| − | Schönerer, and it was only afterwards and gradually that I felt an equal
| |
| − | liking for the Christian-Socialist leader.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I compared their respective abilities Schönerer seemed to me a
| |
| − | better and more profound thinker on fundamental problems. He foresaw the
| |
| − | inevitable downfall of the Austrian State more clearly and accurately
| |
| − | than anyone else. If this warning in regard to the Habsburg Empire had
| |
| − | been heeded in Germany the disastrous world war, which involved Germany
| |
| − | against the whole of Europe, would never have taken place.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But though Schönerer succeeded in penetrating to the essentials of a
| |
| − | problem he was very often much mistaken in his judgment of men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And herein lay Dr. Lueger's special talent. He had a rare gift of
| |
| − | insight into human nature and he was very careful not to take men as
| |
| − | something better than they were in reality. He based his plans on the
| |
| − | practical possibilities which human life offered him, whereas Schönerer
| |
| − | had only little discrimination in that respect. All ideas that this
| |
| − | Pan-German had were right in the abstract, but he did not have the
| |
| − | forcefulness or understanding necessary to put his ideas across to the
| |
| − | broad masses. He was not able to formulate them so that they could be
| |
| − | easily grasped by the masses, whose powers of comprehension are limited
| |
| − | and will always remain so. Therefore all Schönerer's knowledge was only
| |
| − | the wisdom of a prophet and he never could succeed in having it put into
| |
| − | practice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This lack of insight into human nature led him to form a wrong estimate
| |
| − | of the forces behind certain movements and the inherent strength of old
| |
| − | institutions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Schönerer indeed realized that the problems he had to deal with were in
| |
| − | the nature of a WELTANSCHAUUNG; but he did not understand that only the
| |
| − | broad masses of a nation can make such convictions prevail, which are
| |
| − | almost of a religious nature.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Unfortunately he understood only very imperfectly how feeble is the
| |
| − | fighting spirit of the so-called bourgeoisie. That weakness is due to
| |
| − | their business interests, which individuals are too much afraid of
| |
| − | risking and which therefore deter them from taking action. And,
| |
| − | generally speaking, a WELTANSCHAUUNG can have no prospect of success
| |
| − | unless the broad masses declare themselves ready to act as its
| |
| − | standard-bearers and to fight on its behalf wherever and to whatever
| |
| − | extent that may be necessary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This failure to understand the importance of the lower strata of the
| |
| − | population resulted in a very inadequate concept of the social problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In all this Dr. Lueger was the opposite of Schönerer. His profound
| |
| − | knowledge of human nature enabled him to form a correct estimate of the
| |
| − | various social forces and it saved him from under-rating the power of
| |
| − | existing institutions. And it was perhaps this very quality which
| |
| − | enabled him to utilize those institutions as a means to serve the
| |
| − | purposes of his policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He saw only too clearly that, in our epoch, the political fighting power
| |
| − | of the upper classes is quite insignificant and not at all capable of
| |
| − | fighting for a great new movement until the triumph of that movement be
| |
| − | secured. Thus he devoted the greatest part of his political activity to
| |
| − | the task of winning over those sections of the population whose
| |
| − | existence was in danger and fostering the militant spirit in them rather
| |
| − | than attempting to paralyse it. He was also quick to adopt all available
| |
| − | means for winning the support of long-established institutions, so as to
| |
| − | be able to derive the greatest possible advantage for his movement from
| |
| − | those old sources of power.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus it was that, first of all, he chose as the social basis of his new
| |
| − | Party that middle class which was threatened with extinction. In this
| |
| − | way he secured a solid following which was willing to make great
| |
| − | sacrifices and had good fighting stamina. His extremely wise attitude
| |
| − | towards the Catholic Church rapidly won over the younger clergy in such
| |
| − | large numbers that the old Clerical Party was forced to retire from the
| |
| − | field of action or else, which was the wiser course, join the new Party,
| |
| − | in the hope of gradually winning back one position after another.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But it would be a serious injustice to the man if we were to regard this
| |
| − | as his essential characteristic. For he possessed the qualities of an
| |
| − | able tactician, and had the true genius of a great reformer; but all
| |
| − | these were limited by his exact perception of the possibilities at hand
| |
| − | and also of his own capabilities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The aims which this really eminent man decided to pursue were intensely
| |
| − | practical. He wished to conquer Vienna, the heart of the Monarchy. It
| |
| − | was from Vienna that the last pulses of life beat through the diseased
| |
| − | and worn-out body of the decrepit Empire. If the heart could be made
| |
| − | healthier the others parts of the body were bound to revive. That idea
| |
| − | was correct in principle; but the time within which it could be applied
| |
| − | in practice was strictly limited. And that was the man's weak point.
| |
| − | | |
| − | His achievements as Burgomaster of the City of Vienna are immortal, in
| |
| − | the best sense of the word. But all that could not save the Monarchy. It
| |
| − | came too late.
| |
| − | | |
| − | His rival, Schönerer, saw this more clearly. What Dr. Lueger undertook
| |
| − | to put into practice turned out marvellously successful. But the results
| |
| − | which he expected to follow these achievements did not come. Schönerer
| |
| − | did not attain the ends he had proposed to himself; but his fears were
| |
| − | realized, alas, in a terrible fashion. Thus both these men failed to
| |
| − | attain their further objectives. Lueger could not save Austria and
| |
| − | Schönerer could not prevent the downfall of the German people in
| |
| − | Austria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To study the causes of failure in the case of these two parties is to
| |
| − | learn a lesson that is highly instructive for our own epoch. This is
| |
| − | specially useful for my friends, because in many points the
| |
| − | circumstances of our own day are similar to those of that time.
| |
| − | Therefore such a lesson may help us to guard against the mistakes which
| |
| − | brought one of those movements to an end and rendered the other barren
| |
| − | of results.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In my opinion, the wreck of the Pan-German Movement in Austria must be
| |
| − | attributed to three causes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first of these consisted in the fact that the leaders did not have a
| |
| − | clear concept of the importance of the social problem, particularly for
| |
| − | a new movement which had an essentially revolutionary character.
| |
| − | Schönerer and his followers directed their attention principally to the
| |
| − | bourgeois classes. For that reason their movement was bound to turn out
| |
| − | mediocre and tame. The German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper
| |
| − | circles, is pacifist even to the point of complete
| |
| − | self-abnegation--though the individual may not be aware of
| |
| − | this--wherever the internal affairs of the nation or State are
| |
| − | concerned. In good times, which in this case means times of good
| |
| − | government, such a psychological attitude makes this social layer
| |
| − | extraordinarily valuable to the State. But when there is a bad
| |
| − | government, such a quality has a destructive effect. In order to assure
| |
| − | the possibility of carrying through a really strenuous struggle, the
| |
| − | Pan-German Movement should have devoted its efforts to winning over the
| |
| − | masses. The failure to do this left the movement from the very beginning
| |
| − | without the elementary impulse which such a wave needs if it is not to
| |
| − | ebb within a short while.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In failing to see the truth of this principle clearly at the very outset
| |
| − | of the movement and in neglecting to put it into practice the new Party
| |
| − | made an initial mistake which could not possibly be rectified
| |
| − | afterwards. For the numerous moderate bourgeois elements admitted into
| |
| − | the movements increasingly determined its internal orientation and thus
| |
| − | forestalled all further prospects of gaining any appreciable support
| |
| − | among the masses of the people. Under such conditions such a movement
| |
| − | could not get beyond mere discussion and criticism. Quasi-religious
| |
| − | faith and the spirit of sacrifice were not to be found in the movement
| |
| − | any more. Their place was taken by the effort towards 'positive'
| |
| − | collaboration, which in this case meant the acknowledgment of the
| |
| − | existing state of affairs, gradually whittling away the rough corners of
| |
| − | the questions in dispute, and ending up with the making of a
| |
| − | dishonourable peace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such was the fate of the Pan-German Movement, because at the start the
| |
| − | leaders did not realize that the most important condition of success was
| |
| − | that they should recruit their following from the broad masses of the
| |
| − | people. The Movement thus became bourgeois and respectable and radical
| |
| − | only in moderation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From this failure resulted the second cause of its rapid decline.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The position of the Germans in Austria was already desperate when
| |
| − | Pan-Germanism arose. Year after year Parliament was being used more and
| |
| − | more as an instrument for the gradual extinction of the German-Austrian
| |
| − | population. The only hope for any eleventh-hour effort to save it lay in
| |
| − | the overthrow of the parliamentary system; but there was very little
| |
| − | prospect of this happening.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therewith the Pan-German Movement was confronted with a question of
| |
| − | primary importance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To overthrow the Parliament, should the Pan-Germanists have entered it
| |
| − | 'to undermine it from within', as the current phrase was? Or should they
| |
| − | have assailed the institution as such from the outside?
| |
| − | | |
| − | They entered the Parliament and came out defeated. But they had found
| |
| − | themselves obliged to enter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For in order to wage an effective war against such a power from the
| |
| − | outside, indomitable courage and a ready spirit of sacrifice were
| |
| − | necessary weapons. In such cases the bull must be seized by the horns.
| |
| − | Furious drives may bring the assailant to the ground again and again;
| |
| − | but if he has a stout heart he will stand up, even though some bones may
| |
| − | be broken, and only after a long and tough struggle will he achieve his
| |
| − | triumph. New champions are attracted to a cause by the appeal of great
| |
| − | sacrifices made for its sake, until that indomitable spirit is finally
| |
| − | crowned with success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For such a result, however, the children of the people from the great
| |
| − | masses are necessary. They alone have the requisite determination and
| |
| − | tenacity to fight a sanguinary issue through to the end. But the
| |
| − | Pan-German Movement did not have these broad masses as its champions,
| |
| − | and so no other means of solution could be tried out except that of
| |
| − | entering Parliamcnt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would be a mistake to think that this decision resulted from a long
| |
| − | series of internal hesitations of a moral kind, or that it was the
| |
| − | outcome of careful calculation. No. They did not even think of another
| |
| − | solution. Those who participated in this blunder were actuated by
| |
| − | general considerations and vague notions as to what would be the
| |
| − | significance and effect of taking part in such a special way in that
| |
| − | institution which they had condemned on principle. In general they hoped
| |
| − | that they would thus have the means of expounding their cause to the
| |
| − | great masses of the people, because they would be able to speak before
| |
| − | 'the forum of the whole nation'. Also, it seemed reasonable to believe
| |
| − | that by attacking the evil in the root they would be more effective than
| |
| − | if the attack came from outside. They believed that, if protected by the
| |
| − | immunity of Parliament, the position of the individual protagonists
| |
| − | would be strengthened and that thus the force of their attacks would be
| |
| − | enhanced.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In reality everything turned out quite otherwise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Forum before which the Pan-German representatives spoke had not
| |
| − | grown greater, but had actually become smaller; for each spoke only to
| |
| − | the circle that was ready to listen to him or could read the report of
| |
| − | his speech in the newspapers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the greater forum of immediate listeners is not the parliamentary
| |
| − | auditorium: it is the large public meeting. For here alone will there be
| |
| − | thousands of men who have come simply to hear what a speaker has to say,
| |
| − | whereas in the parliamentary sittings only a few hundred are present;
| |
| − | and for the most part these are there only to earn their daily allowance
| |
| − | for attendance and not to be enlightened by the wisdom of one or other
| |
| − | of the 'representatives of the people'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most important consideration is that the same public is always
| |
| − | present and that this public does not wish to learn anything new;
| |
| − | because, setting aside the question of its intelligence, it lacks even
| |
| − | that modest quantum of will-power which is necessary for the effort of
| |
| − | learning.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not one of the representatives of the people will pay homage to a
| |
| − | superior truth and devote himself to its service. No. Not one of these
| |
| − | gentry will act thus, except he has grounds for hoping that by such a
| |
| − | conversion he may be able to retain the representation of his
| |
| − | constituency in the coming legislature. Therefore, only when it becomes
| |
| − | quite clear that the old party is likely to have a bad time of it at the
| |
| − | forthcoming elections--only then will those models of manly virtue set
| |
| − | out in search of a new party or a new policy which may have better
| |
| − | electoral prospects; but of course this change of position will be
| |
| − | accompanied by a veritable deluge of high moral motives to justify it.
| |
| − | And thus it always happens that when an existing Party has incurred such
| |
| − | general disfavour among the public that it is threatened with the
| |
| − | probability of a crushing defeat, then a great migration commences. The
| |
| − | parliamentary rats leave the Party ship.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All this happens not because the individuals in the case have become
| |
| − | better informed on the questions at issue and have resolved to act
| |
| − | accordingly. These changes of front are evidence only of that gift of
| |
| − | clairvoyance which warns the parliamentary flea at the right moment and
| |
| − | enables him to hop into another warm Party bed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To speak before such a forum signifies casting pearls before certain
| |
| − | animals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Verily it does not repay the pains taken; for the result must always be
| |
| − | negative.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And that is actually what happened. The Pan-German representatives might
| |
| − | have talked themselves hoarse, but to no effect whatsoever.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Press either ignored them totally or so mutilated their speeches
| |
| − | that the logical consistency was destroyed or the meaning twisted round
| |
| − | in such a way that the public got only a very wrong impression regarding
| |
| − | the aims of the new movement. What the individual members said was not
| |
| − | of importance. The important matter was what people read as coming from
| |
| − | them. This consisted of mere extracts which had been torn out of the
| |
| − | context of the speeches and gave an impression of incoherent nonsense,
| |
| − | which indeed was purposely meant. Thus the only public before which they
| |
| − | really spoke consisted merely of five hundred parliamentarians; and that
| |
| − | says enough.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The worst was the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Pan-German Movement could hope for success only if the leaders
| |
| − | realized from the very first moment that here there was no question so
| |
| − | much of a new Party as of a new WELTANSCHAUUNG. This alone could arouse
| |
| − | the inner moral forces that were necessary for such a gigantic struggle.
| |
| − | And for this struggle the leaders must be men of first-class brains and
| |
| − | indomitable courage. If the struggle on behalf of a WELTANSCHAUUNG is
| |
| − | not conducted by men of heroic spirit who are ready to sacrifice,
| |
| − | everything, within a short while it will become impossible to find real
| |
| − | fighting followers who are ready to lay down their lives for the cause.
| |
| − | A man who fights only for his own existence has not much left over for
| |
| − | the service of the community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order to secure the conditions that are necessary for success,
| |
| − | everybody concerned must be made to understand that the new movement
| |
| − | looks to posterity for its honour and glory but that it has no
| |
| − | recompense to offer to the present-day members. If a movement should
| |
| − | offer a large number of positions and offices that are easily accessible
| |
| − | the number of unworthy candidates admitted to membership will be
| |
| − | constantly on the increase and eventually a day will come when there
| |
| − | will be such a preponderance of political profiteers among the
| |
| − | membership of a successful Party that the combatants who bore the brunt
| |
| − | of the battle in the earlier stages of the movement can now scarcely
| |
| − | recognize their own Party and may be ejected by the later arrivals as
| |
| − | unwanted ballast. Therewith the movement will no longer have a mission
| |
| − | to fulfil.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once the Pan-Germanists decided to collaborate with Parliament they were
| |
| − | no longer leaders and combatants in a popular movement, but merely
| |
| − | parliamentarians. Thus the Movement sank to the common political party
| |
| − | level of the day and no longer had the strength to face a hostile fate
| |
| − | and defy the risk of martyrdom. Instead of fighting, the Pan-German
| |
| − | leaders fell into the habit of talking and negotiating. The new
| |
| − | parliamentarians soon found that it was a more satisfactory, because
| |
| − | less risky, way of fulfilling their task if they would defend the new
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG with the spiritual weapon of parliamentary rhetoric
| |
| − | rather than take up a fight in which they placed their lives in danger,
| |
| − | the outcome of which also was uncertain and even at the best could offer
| |
| − | no prospect of personal gain for themselves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When they had taken their seats in Parliament their adherents outside
| |
| − | hoped and waited for miracles to happen. Naturally no such miracles
| |
| − | happened or could happen. Whereupon the adherents of the movement soon
| |
| − | grew impatient, because reports they read about their own deputies did
| |
| − | not in the least come up to what had been expected when they voted for
| |
| − | these deputies at the elections. The reason for this was not far to
| |
| − | seek. It was due to the fact that an unfriendly Press refrained from
| |
| − | giving a true account of what the Pan-German representatives of the
| |
| − | people were actually doing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | According as the new deputies got to like this mild form of
| |
| − | 'revolutionary' struggle in Parliament and in the provincial diets they
| |
| − | gradually became reluctant to resume the more hazardous work of
| |
| − | expounding the principles of the movement before the broad masses of the
| |
| − | people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Mass meetings in public became more and more rare, though these are the
| |
| − | only means of exercising a really effective influence on the people;
| |
| − | because here the influence comes from direct personal contact and in
| |
| − | this way the support of large sections of the people can be obtained.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the tables on which the speakers used to stand in the great
| |
| − | beer-halls, addressing an assembly of thousands, were deserted for the
| |
| − | parliamentary tribune and the speeches were no longer addressed to the
| |
| − | people directly but to the so-called 'chosen' representatives, the
| |
| − | Pan-German Movement lost its popular character and in a little while
| |
| − | degenerated to the level of a more or less serious club where problems
| |
| − | of the day are discussed academically.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The wrong impression created by the Press was no longer corrected by
| |
| − | personal contact with the people through public meetings, whereby the
| |
| − | individual representatives might have given a true account of their
| |
| − | activities. The final result of this neglect was that the word
| |
| − | 'Pan-German' came to have an unpleasant sound in the ears of the masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The knights of the pen and the literary snobs of to-day should be made
| |
| − | to realize that the great transformations which have taken place in this
| |
| − | world were never conducted by a goosequill. No. The task of the pen must
| |
| − | always be that of presenting the theoretical concepts which motivate
| |
| − | such changes. The force which has ever and always set in motion great
| |
| − | historical avalanches of religious and political movements is the magic
| |
| − | power of the spoken word.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of
| |
| − | rhetoric than to any other force. All great movements are popular
| |
| − | movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and
| |
| − | emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or
| |
| − | by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. In no
| |
| − | case have great movements been set afoot by the syrupy effusions of
| |
| − | aesthetic littérateurs and drawing-room heroes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of glowing passion;
| |
| − | but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in
| |
| − | others. It is only through the capacity for passionate feeling that
| |
| − | chosen leaders can wield the power of the word which, like hammer blows,
| |
| − | will open the door to the hearts of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He who is not capable of passionate feeling and speech was never chosen
| |
| − | by Providence to be the herald of its will. Therefore a writer should
| |
| − | stick to his ink-bottle and busy himself with theoretical questions if
| |
| − | he has the requisite ability and knowledge. He has not been born or
| |
| − | chosen to be a leader.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A movement which has great ends to achieve must carefully guard against
| |
| − | the danger of losing contact with the masses of the people. Every
| |
| − | problem encountered must be examined from this viewpoint first of all
| |
| − | and the decision to be made must always be in harmony with this
| |
| − | principle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The movement must avoid everything which might lessen or weaken its
| |
| − | power of influencing the masses; not from demagogical motives but
| |
| − | because of the simple fact that no great idea, no matter how sublime and
| |
| − | exalted it may appear, can be realized in practice without the effective
| |
| − | power which resides in the popular masses. Stern reality alone must mark
| |
| − | the way to the goal. To be unwilling to walk the road of hardship means,
| |
| − | only too often in this world, the total renunciation of our aims and
| |
| − | purposes, whether that renunciation be consciously willed or not.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The moment the Pan-German leaders, in virtue of their acceptance of the
| |
| − | parliamentary principle, moved the centre of their activities away from
| |
| − | the people and into Parliament, in that moment they sacrificed the
| |
| − | future for the sake of a cheap momentary success. They chose the easier
| |
| − | way in the struggle and in doing so rendered themselves unworthy of the
| |
| − | final victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While in Vienna I used to ponder seriously over these two questions, and
| |
| − | I saw that the main reason for the collapse of the Pan-German Movement
| |
| − | lay in the fact that these very questions were not rightly appreciated.
| |
| − | To my mind at that time the Movement seemed chosen to take in its hands
| |
| − | the leadership of the German element in Austria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These first two blunders which led to the downfall of the Pan-German
| |
| − | Movement were very closely connected with one another. Faulty
| |
| − | recognition of the inner driving forces that urge great movements
| |
| − | forward led to an inadequate appreciation of the part which the broad
| |
| − | masses play in bringing about such changes. The result was that too
| |
| − | little attention was given to the social problem and that the attempts
| |
| − | made by the movement to capture the minds of the lower classes were too
| |
| − | few and too weak. Another result was the acceptance of the parliamentary
| |
| − | policy, which had a similar effect in regard to the importance of the
| |
| − | masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If there had been a proper appreciation of the tremendous powers of
| |
| − | endurance always shown by the masses in revolutionary movements a
| |
| − | different attitude towards the social problem would have been taken, and
| |
| − | also a different policy in the matter of propaganda. Then the centre of
| |
| − | gravity of the movement would not have been transferred to the
| |
| − | Parliament but would have remained in the workshops and in the streets.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There was a third mistake, which also had its roots in the failure to
| |
| − | understand the worth of the masses. The masses are first set in motion,
| |
| − | along a definite direction, by men of superior talents; but then these
| |
| − | masses once in motion are like a flywheel inasmuch as they sustain the
| |
| − | momentum and steady balance of the offensive.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The policy of the Pan-German leaders in deciding to carry through a
| |
| − | difficult fight against the Catholic Church can be explained only by
| |
| − | attributing it to an inadequate understanding of the spiritual character
| |
| − | of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The reasons why the new Party engaged in a violent campaign against Rome
| |
| − | were as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as the House of Habsburg had definitely decided to transform
| |
| − | Austria into a Slav State all sorts of means were adopted which seemed
| |
| − | in any way serviceable for that purpose. The Habsburg rulers had no
| |
| − | scruples of conscience about exploiting even religious institutions in
| |
| − | the service of this new 'State Idea'. One of the many methods thus
| |
| − | employed was the use of Czech parishes and their clergy as instruments
| |
| − | for spreading Slav hegemony throughout Austria. This proceeding was
| |
| − | carried out as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Parish priests of Czech nationality were appointed in purely German
| |
| − | districts. Gradually but steadily pushing forward the interests of the
| |
| − | Czech people before those of the Church, the parishes and their priests
| |
| − | became generative cells in the process of de-Germanization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Unfortunately the German-Austrian clergy completely failed to counter
| |
| − | this procedure. Not only were they incapable of taking a similar
| |
| − | initiative on the German side, but they showed themselves unable to meet
| |
| − | the Czech offensive with adequate resistance. The German element was
| |
| − | accordingly pushed backwards, slowly but steadily, through the
| |
| − | perversion of religious belief for political ends on the one side, and
| |
| − | the Jack of proper resistance on the other side. Such were the tactics
| |
| − | used in dealing with the smaller problems; but those used in dealing
| |
| − | with the larger problems were not very different.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The anti-German aims pursued by the Habsburgs, especially through the
| |
| − | instrumentality of the higher clergy, did not meet with any vigorous
| |
| − | resistance, while the clerical representatives of the German interests
| |
| − | withdrew completely to the rear. The general impression created could
| |
| − | not be other than that the Catholic clergy as such were grossly
| |
| − | neglecting the rights of the German population.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore it looked as if the Catholic Church was not in sympathy with
| |
| − | the German people but that it unjustly supported their adversaries. The
| |
| − | root of the whole evil, especially according to Schönerer's opinion, lay
| |
| − | in the fact that the leadership of the Catholic Church was not in
| |
| − | Germany, and that this fact alone was sufficient reason for the hostile
| |
| − | attitude of the Church towards the demands of our people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The so-called cultural problem receded almost completely into the
| |
| − | background, as was generally the case everywhere throughout Austria at
| |
| − | that time. In assuming a hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church,
| |
| − | the Pan-German leaders were influenced not so much by the Church's
| |
| − | position in questions of science but principally by the fact that the
| |
| − | Church did not defend German rights, as it should have done, but always
| |
| − | supported those who encroached on these rights, especially then Slavs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | George Schönerer was not a man who did things by halves. He went into
| |
| − | battle against the Church because he was convinced that this was the
| |
| − | only way in which the German people could be saved. The LOS-VON-ROM
| |
| − | (Away from Rome) Movement seemed the most formidable, but at the same
| |
| − | time most difficult, method of attacking and destroying the adversary's
| |
| − | citadel. Schönerer believed that if this movement could be carried
| |
| − | through successfully the unfortunate division between the two great
| |
| − | religious denominations in Germany would be wiped out and that the inner
| |
| − | forces of the German Empire and Nation would be enormously enhanced by
| |
| − | such a victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the premises as well as the conclusions in this case were both
| |
| − | erroneous.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was undoubtedly true that the national powers of resistance, in
| |
| − | everything concerning Germanism as such, were much weaker among the
| |
| − | German Catholic clergy than among their non-German confrères, especially
| |
| − | the Czechs. And only an ignorant person could be unaware of the fact
| |
| − | that it scarcely ever entered the mind of the German clergy to take the
| |
| − | offensive on behalf of German interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But at the same time everybody who is not blind to facts must admit that
| |
| − | all this should be attributed to a characteristic under which we Germans
| |
| − | have all been doomed to suffer. This characteristic shows itself in our
| |
| − | objective way of regarding our own nationality, as if it were something
| |
| − | that lay outside of us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While the Czech priest adopted a subjective attitude towards his own
| |
| − | people and only an objective attitude towards the Church, the German
| |
| − | parish priest showed a subjective devotion to his Church and remained
| |
| − | objective in regard to his nation. It is a phenomenon which,
| |
| − | unfortunately for us, can be observed occurring in exactly the same way
| |
| − | in thousands of other cases.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is by no means a peculiar inheritance from Catholicism; but it is
| |
| − | something in us which does not take long to gnaw the vitals of almost
| |
| − | every institution, especially institutions of State and those which have
| |
| − | ideal aims. Take, for example, the attitude of our State officials in
| |
| − | regard to the efforts made for bringing about a national resurgence and
| |
| − | compare that attitude with the stand which the public officials of any
| |
| − | other nation would have taken in such a case. Or is it to be believed
| |
| − | that the military officers of any other country in the world would
| |
| − | refuse to come forward on behalf of the national aspirations, but would
| |
| − | rather hide behind the phrase 'Authority of the State', as has been the
| |
| − | case in our country during the last five years and has even been deemed
| |
| − | a meritorious attitude? Or let us take another example. In regard to the
| |
| − | Jewish problem, do not the two Christian denominations take up a
| |
| − | standpoint to-day which does not respond to the national exigencies or
| |
| − | even the interests of religion? Consider the attitude of a Jewish Rabbi
| |
| − | towards any question, even one of quite insignificant importance,
| |
| − | concerning the Jews as a race, and compare his attitude with that of the
| |
| − | majority of our clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We observe the same phenomenon wherever it is a matter of standing up
| |
| − | for some abstract idea.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 'Authority of the State', 'Democracy', 'Pacifism', 'International
| |
| − | Solidarity', etc., all such notions become rigid, dogmatic concepts with
| |
| − | us; and the more vital the general necessities of the nation, the more
| |
| − | will they be judged exclusively in the light of those concepts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This unfortunate habit of looking at all national demands from the
| |
| − | viewpoint of a pre-conceived notion makes it impossible for us to see
| |
| − | the subjective side of a thing which objectively contradicts one's own
| |
| − | doctrine. It finally leads to a complete reversion in the relation of
| |
| − | means to an end. Any attempt at a national revival will be opposed if
| |
| − | the preliminary condition of such a revival be that a bad and pernicious
| |
| − | regime must first of all be overthrown; because such an action will be
| |
| − | considered as a violation of the 'Authority of the State'. In the eyes
| |
| − | of those who take that standpoint, the 'Authority of the State' is not a
| |
| − | means which is there to serve an end but rather, to the mind of the
| |
| − | dogmatic believer in objectivity, it is an end in itself; and he looks
| |
| − | upon that as sufficient apology for his own miserable existence. Such
| |
| − | people would raise an outcry, if, for instance, anyone should attempt to
| |
| − | set up a dictatorship, even though the man responsible for it were
| |
| − | Frederick the Great and even though the politicians for the time being,
| |
| − | who constituted the parliamentary majority, were small and incompetent
| |
| − | men or maybe even on a lower grade of inferiority; because to such
| |
| − | sticklers for abstract principles the law of democracy is more sacred
| |
| − | than the welfare of the nation. In accordance with his principles, one
| |
| − | of these gentry will defend the worst kind of tyranny, though it may be
| |
| − | leading a people to ruin, because it is the fleeting embodiment of the
| |
| − | 'Authority of the State', and another will reject even a highly
| |
| − | beneficent government if it should happen not to be in accord with his
| |
| − | notion of 'democracy'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the same way our German pacifist will remain silent while the nation
| |
| − | is groaning under an oppression which is being exercised by a sanguinary
| |
| − | military power, when this state of affairs gives rise to active
| |
| − | resistance; because such resistance means the employment of physical
| |
| − | force, which is against the spirit of the pacifist associations. The
| |
| − | German International Socialist may be rooked and plundered by his
| |
| − | comrades in all the other countries of the world in the name of
| |
| − | 'solidarity', but he responds with fraternal kindness and never thinks
| |
| − | of trying to get his own back, or even of defending himself. And why?
| |
| − | Because he is a--German.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may be unpleasant to dwell on such truths, but if something is to be
| |
| − | changed we must start by diagnosing the disease.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The phenomenon which I have just described also accounts for the feeble
| |
| − | manner in which German interests are promoted and defended by a section
| |
| − | of the clergy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such conduct is not the manifestation of a malicious intent, nor is it
| |
| − | the outcome of orders given from 'above', as we say; but such a lack of
| |
| − | national grit and determination is due to defects in our educational
| |
| − | system. For, instead of inculcating in the youth a lively sense of their
| |
| − | German nationality, the aim of the educational system is to make the
| |
| − | youth prostrate themselves in homage to the idea, as if the idea were an
| |
| − | idol.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The education which makes them the devotees of such abstract notions as
| |
| − | 'Democracy', 'International Socialism', 'Pacifism', etc., is so
| |
| − | hard-and-fast and exclusive and, operating as it does from within
| |
| − | outwards, is so purely subjective that in forming their general picture
| |
| − | of outside life as a whole they are fundamentally influenced by these
| |
| − | A PRIORI notions. But, on the other hand, the attitude towards their own
| |
| − | German nationality has been very objective from youth upwards. The
| |
| − | Pacifist--in so far as he is a German--who surrenders himself
| |
| − | subjectively, body and soul, to the dictates of his dogmatic principles,
| |
| − | will always first consider the objective right or wrong of a situation
| |
| − | when danger threatens his own people, even though that danger be grave
| |
| − | and unjustly wrought from outside. But he will never take his stand in
| |
| − | the ranks of his own people and fight for and with them from the sheer
| |
| − | instinct of self-preservation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Another example may further illustrate how far this applies to the
| |
| − | different religious denominations. In so far as its origin and tradition
| |
| − | are based on German ideals, Protestantism of itself defends those ideals
| |
| − | better. But it fails the moment it is called upon to defend national
| |
| − | interests which do not belong to the sphere of its ideals and
| |
| − | traditional development, or which, for some reason or other, may be
| |
| − | rejected by that sphere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore Protestantism will always take its part in promoting German
| |
| − | ideals as far as concerns moral integrity or national education, when
| |
| − | the German spiritual being or language or spiritual freedom are to be
| |
| − | defended: because these represent the principles on which Protestantism
| |
| − | itself is grounded. But this same Protestantism violently opposes every
| |
| − | attempt to rescue the nation from the clutches of its mortal enemy;
| |
| − | because the Protestant attitude towards the Jews is more or less rigidly
| |
| − | and dogmatically fixed. And yet this is the first problem which has to
| |
| − | be solved, unless all attempts to bring about a German resurgence or to
| |
| − | raise the level of the nation's standing are doomed to turn out
| |
| − | nonsensical and impossible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During my sojourn in Vienna I had ample leisure and opportunity to study
| |
| − | this problem without allowing any prejudices to intervene; and in my
| |
| − | daily intercourse with people I was able to establish the correctness of
| |
| − | the opinion I formed by the test of thousands of instances.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this focus where the greatest varieties of nationality had converged
| |
| − | it was quite clear and open to everybody to see that the German pacifist
| |
| − | was always and exclusively the one who tried to consider the interests
| |
| − | of his own nation objectively; but you could never find a Jew who took a
| |
| − | similar attitude towards his own race. Furthermore, I found that only
| |
| − | the German Socialist is 'international' in the sense that he feels
| |
| − | himself obliged not to demand justice for his own people in any other
| |
| − | manner than by whining and wailing to his international comrades. Nobody
| |
| − | could ever reproach Czechs or Poles or other nations with such conduct.
| |
| − | In short, even at that time, already I recognized that this evil is only
| |
| − | partly a result of the doctrines taught by Socialism, Pacifism, etc.,
| |
| − | but mainly the result of our totally inadequate system of education, the
| |
| − | defects of which are responsible for the lack of devotion to our own
| |
| − | national ideals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the first theoretical argument advanced by the Pan-German
| |
| − | leaders as the basis of their offensive against Catholicism was quite
| |
| − | entenable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The only way to remedy the evil I have been speaking of is to train the
| |
| − | Germans from youth upwards to an absolute recognition of the rights of
| |
| − | their own people, instead of poisoning their minds, while they are still
| |
| − | only children, with the virus of this curbed 'objectivity', even in
| |
| − | matters concerning the very maintenance of our own existence. The result
| |
| − | of this would be that the Catholic in Germany, just as in Ireland,
| |
| − | Poland or France, will be a German first and foremost. But all this
| |
| − | presupposes a radical change in the national government.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The strongest proof in support of my contention is furnished by what
| |
| − | took place at that historical juncture when our people were called for
| |
| − | the last time before the tribunal of History to defend their own
| |
| − | existence, in a life-or-death struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As long as there was no lack of leadership in the higher circles, the
| |
| − | people fulfilled their duty and obligations to an overwhelming extent.
| |
| − | Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, each did his very utmost
| |
| − | in helping our powers of resistance to hold out, not only in the
| |
| − | trenches but also, and even more so, at home. During those years, and
| |
| − | especially during the first outburst of enthusiasm, in both religious
| |
| − | camps there was one undivided and sacred German Empire for whose
| |
| − | preservation and future existence they all prayed to Heaven.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Pan-German Movement in Austria ought to have asked itself this one
| |
| − | question: Is the maintenance of the German element in Austria possible
| |
| − | or not, as long as that element remains within the fold of the Catholic
| |
| − | Faith? If that question should have been answered in the affirmative,
| |
| − | then the political Party should not have meddled in religious and
| |
| − | denominational questions. But if the question had to be answered in the
| |
| − | negative, then a religious reformation should have been started and not
| |
| − | a political party movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyone who believes that a religious reformation can be achieved through
| |
| − | the agency of a political organization shows that he has no idea of the
| |
| − | development of religious conceptions and doctrines of faith and how
| |
| − | these are given practical effect by the Church.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No man can serve two masters. And I hold that the foundation or
| |
| − | overthrow of a religion has far greater consequences than the foundation
| |
| − | or overthrow of a State, to say nothing of a Party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is no argument to the contrary to say that the attacks were only
| |
| − | defensive measures against attacks from the other side.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Undoubtedly there have always been unscrupulous rogues who did not
| |
| − | hesitate to degrade religion to the base uses of politics. Nearly always
| |
| − | such a people had nothing else in their minds except to make a business
| |
| − | of religions and politics. But on the other hand it would be wrong to
| |
| − | hold religion itself, or a religious denomination, responsible for a
| |
| − | number of rascals who exploit the Church for their own base interests
| |
| − | just as they would exploit anything else in which they had a part.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nothing could be more to the taste of one of these parliamentary
| |
| − | loungers and tricksters than to be able to find a scapegoat for his
| |
| − | political sharp-practice--after the event, of course. The moment
| |
| − | religion or a religious denomination is attacked and made responsible
| |
| − | for his personal misdeeds this shrewd fellow will raise a row at once
| |
| − | and call the world to witness how justified he was in acting as he did,
| |
| − | proclaiming that he and his eloquence alone have saved religion and the
| |
| − | Church. The public, which is mostly stupid and has a very short memory,
| |
| − | is not capable of recognizing the real instigator of the quarrel in the
| |
| − | midst of the turmoil that has been raised. Frequently it does not
| |
| − | remember the beginning of the fight and so the rogue gets by with his
| |
| − | stunt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A cunning fellow of that sort is quite well aware that his misdeeds have
| |
| − | nothing to do with religion. And so he will laugh up his sleeve all the
| |
| − | more heartily when his honest but artless adversary loses the game and,
| |
| − | one day losing all faith in humanity, retires from the activities of
| |
| − | public life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But from another viewpoint also it would be wrong to make religion, or
| |
| − | the Church as such, responsible for the misdeeds of individuals. If one
| |
| − | compares the magnitude of the organization, as it stands visible to
| |
| − | every eye, with the average weakness of human nature we shall have to
| |
| − | admit that the proportion of good to bad is more favourable here than
| |
| − | anywhere else. Among the priests there may, of course, be some who use
| |
| − | their sacred calling to further their political ambitions. There are
| |
| − | clergy who unfortunately forget that in the political mêlée they ought
| |
| − | to be the paladins of the more sublime truths and not the abettors of
| |
| − | falsehood and slander. But for each one of these unworthy specimens we
| |
| − | can find a thousand or more who fulfil their mission nobly as the
| |
| − | trustworthy guardians of souls and who tower above the level of our
| |
| − | corrupt epoch, as little islands above the seaswamp.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I cannot condemn the Church as such, and I should feel quite as little
| |
| − | justified in doing so if some depraved person in the robe of a priest
| |
| − | commits some offence against the moral law. Nor should I for a moment
| |
| − | think of blaming the Church if one of its innumerable members betrays
| |
| − | and besmirches his compatriots, especially not in epochs when such
| |
| − | conduct is quite common. We must not forget, particularly in our day,
| |
| − | that for one such Ephialtes (Note 7) there are a thousand whose hearts
| |
| − | bleed in sympathy with their people during these years of misfortune and
| |
| − | who, together with the best of our nation, yearn for the hour when fortune
| |
| − | will smile on us again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 7. Herodotus (Book VII, 213-218) tells the story of how a Greek
| |
| − | traitor, Ephialtes, helped the Persian invaders at the Battle of
| |
| − | Thermopylae (480 B.C.) When the Persian King, Xerxes, had begun to
| |
| − | despair of being able tobreak through the Greek defence, Ephialtes came
| |
| − | to him and, on being promiseda definite payment, told the King of a
| |
| − | pathway over the shoulder of the mountainto the Greek end of the Pass.
| |
| − | The bargain being clinched, Ephialtes led adetachment of the Persian
| |
| − | troops under General Hydarnes over the mountainpathway. Thus taken in
| |
| − | the rear, the Greek defenders, under Leonidas, King of Sparta, had to
| |
| − | fight in two opposite directions within the narrow pass. Terrible
| |
| − | slaughter ensued and Leonidas fell in the thick of the fighting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The bravery of Leonidas and the treason of Ephialtes impressed Hitler,
| |
| − | asit does almost every schoolboy. The incident is referred to again in
| |
| − | MEIN KAMPF (Chap. VIII, Vol. I), where Hitler compares the German troops
| |
| − | thatfell in France and Flanders to the Greeks at Thermopylae, the
| |
| − | treachery of Ephialtes being suggested as the prototype of the defeatist
| |
| − | policy of the German politicians towards the end of the Great War.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | If it be objected that here we are concerned not with the petty problems
| |
| − | of everyday life but principally with fundamental truths and questions
| |
| − | of dogma, the only way of answering that objection is to ask a question:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Do you feel that Providence has called you to proclaim the Truth to the
| |
| − | world? If so, then go and do it. But you ought to have the courage to do
| |
| − | it directly and not use some political party as your mouthpiece; for in
| |
| − | this way you shirk your vocation. In the place of something that now
| |
| − | exists and is bad put something else that is better and will last into
| |
| − | the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If you lack the requisite courage or if you yourself do not know clearly
| |
| − | what your better substitute ought to be, leave the whole thing alone.
| |
| − | But, whatever happens, do not try to reach the goal by the roundabout
| |
| − | way of a political party if you are not brave enough to fight with your
| |
| − | visor lifted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Political parties have no right to meddle in religious questions except
| |
| − | when these relate to something that is alien to the national well-being
| |
| − | and thus calculated to undermine racial customs and morals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If some ecclesiastical dignitaries should misuse religious ceremonies or
| |
| − | religious teaching to injure their own nation their opponents ought
| |
| − | never to take the same road and fight them with the same weapons.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To a political leader the religious teachings and practices of his
| |
| − | people should be sacred and inviolable. Otherwise he should not be a
| |
| − | statesman but a reformer, if he has the necessary qualities for such a
| |
| − | mission.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Any other line of conduct will lead to disaster, especially in Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In studying the Pan-German Movement and its conflict with Rome I was
| |
| − | then firmly persuaded, and especially in the course of later years, that
| |
| − | by their failure to understand the importance of the social problem the
| |
| − | Pan-Germanists lost the support of the broad masses, who are the
| |
| − | indispensable combatants in such a movement. By entering Parliament the
| |
| − | Pan-German leaders deprived themselves of the great driving force which
| |
| − | resides in the masses and at the same time they laid on their own
| |
| − | shoulders all the defects of the parliamentary institution. Their
| |
| − | struggle against the Church made their position impossible in numerous
| |
| − | circles of the lower and middle class, while at the same time it robbed
| |
| − | them of innumerable high-class elements--some of the best indeed that
| |
| − | the nation possessed. The practical outcome of the Austrian Kulturkampf
| |
| − | was negative.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Although they succeeded in winning 100,000 members away from the Church,
| |
| − | that did not do much harm to the latter. The Church did not really need
| |
| − | to shed any tears over these lost sheep, for it lost only those who had
| |
| − | for a long time ceased to belong to it in their inner hearts. The
| |
| − | difference between this new reformation and the great Reformation was
| |
| − | that in the historic epoch of the great Reformation some of the best
| |
| − | members left the Church because of religious convictions, whereas in
| |
| − | this new reformation only those left who had been indifferent before and
| |
| − | who were now influenced by political considerations. From the political
| |
| − | point of view alone the result was as ridiculous as it was deplorable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once again a political movement which had promised so much for the
| |
| − | German nation collapsed, because it was not conducted in a spirit of
| |
| − | unflinching adherence to naked reality, but lost itself in fields where
| |
| − | it was bound to get broken up.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Pan-German Movement would never have made this mistake if it had
| |
| − | properly understood the PSYCHE of the broad masses. If the leaders had
| |
| − | known that, for psychological reasons alone, it is not expedient to
| |
| − | place two or more sets of adversaries before the masses--since that
| |
| − | leads to a complete splitting up of their fighting strength--they would
| |
| − | have concentrated the full and undivided force of their attack against a
| |
| − | single adversary. Nothing in the policy of a political party is so
| |
| − | fraught with danger as to allow its decisions to be directed by people
| |
| − | who want to have their fingers in every pie though they do not know how
| |
| − | to cook the simplest dish.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But even though there is much that can really be said against the
| |
| − | various religious denominations, political leaders must not forget that
| |
| − | the experience of history teaches us that no purely political party in
| |
| − | similar circumstances ever succeeded in bringing about a religious
| |
| − | reformation. One does not study history for the purpose of forgetting or
| |
| − | mistrusting its lessons afterwards, when the time comes to apply these
| |
| − | lessons in practice. It would be a mistake to believe that in this
| |
| − | particular case things were different, so that the eternal truths of
| |
| − | history were no longer applicable. One learns history in order to be
| |
| − | able to apply its lessons to the present time and whoever fails to do
| |
| − | this cannot pretend to be a political leader. In reality he is quite a
| |
| − | superficial person or, as is mostly the case, a conceited simpleton
| |
| − | whose good intentions cannot make up for his incompetence in practical
| |
| − | affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The art of leadership, as displayed by really great popular leaders in
| |
| − | all ages, consists in consolidating the attention of the people against
| |
| − | a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that
| |
| − | attention into sections. The more the militant energies of the people
| |
| − | are directed towards one objective the more will new recruits join the
| |
| − | movement, attracted by the magnetism of its unified action, and thus the
| |
| − | striking power will be all the more enhanced. The leader of genius must
| |
| − | have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged
| |
| − | to the one category; for weak and wavering natures among a leader's
| |
| − | following may easily begin to be dubious about the justice of their own
| |
| − | cause if they have to face different enemies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as the vacillating masses find themselves facing an opposition
| |
| − | that is made up of different groups of enemies their sense of
| |
| − | objectivity will be aroused and they will ask how is it that all the
| |
| − | others can be in the wrong and they themselves, and their movement,
| |
| − | alone in the right.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a feeling would be the first step towards a paralysis of their
| |
| − | fighting vigour. Where there are various enemies who are split up into
| |
| − | divergent groups it will be necessary to block them all together as
| |
| − | forming one solid front, so that the mass of followers in a popular
| |
| − | movement may see only one common enemy against whom they have to fight.
| |
| − | Such uniformity intensifies their belief in the justice of their own
| |
| − | cause and strengthens their feeling of hostility towards the opponent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Pan-German Movement was unsuccessful because the leaders did not
| |
| − | grasp the significance of that truth. They saw the goal clearly and
| |
| − | their intentions were right; but they took the wrong road. Their action
| |
| − | may be compared to that of an Alpine climber who never loses sight of
| |
| − | the peak he wants to reach, who has set out with the greatest
| |
| − | determination and energy, but pays no attention to the road beneath his
| |
| − | feet. With his eye always fixed firmly on the goal he does not think
| |
| − | over or notice the nature of the ascent and finally he fails.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The manner in which the great rival of the Pan-German Party set out to
| |
| − | attain its goal was quite different. The way it took was well and
| |
| − | shrewdly chosen; but it did not have a clear vision of the goal. In
| |
| − | almost all the questions where the Pan-German Movement failed, the
| |
| − | policy of the Christian-Socialist Party was correct and systematic.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They assessed the importance of the masses correctly, and thus they
| |
| − | gained the support of large numbers of the popular masses by emphasizing
| |
| − | the social character of the Movement from the very start. By directing
| |
| − | their appeal especially to the lower middle class and the artisans, they
| |
| − | gained adherents who were faithful, persevering and self-sacrificing.
| |
| − | The Christian-Socialist leaders took care to avoid all controversy with
| |
| − | the institutions of religion and thus they secured the support of that
| |
| − | mighty organization, the Catholic Church. Those leaders recognized the
| |
| − | value of propaganda on a large scale and they were veritable virtuosos
| |
| − | in working up the spiritual instincts of the broad masses of their
| |
| − | adherents.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The failure of this Party to carry into effect the dream of saving
| |
| − | Austria from dissolution must be attributed to two main defects in the
| |
| − | means they employed and also the lack of a clear perception of the ends
| |
| − | they wished to reach.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The anti-Semitism of the Christian-Socialists was based on religious
| |
| − | instead of racial principles. The reason for this mistake gave rise to
| |
| − | the second error also.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The founders of the Christian-Socialist Party were of the opinion that
| |
| − | they could not base their position on the racial principle if they
| |
| − | wished to save Austria, because they felt that a general disintegration
| |
| − | of the State might quickly result from the adoption of such a policy. In
| |
| − | the opinion of the Party chiefs the situation in Vienna demanded that
| |
| − | all factors which tended to estrange the nationalities from one another
| |
| − | should be carefully avoided and that all factors making for unity should
| |
| − | be encouraged.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time Vienna was so honeycombed with foreign elements, especially
| |
| − | the Czechs, that the greatest amount of tolerance was necessary if these
| |
| − | elements were to be enlisted in the ranks of any party that was not
| |
| − | anti-German on principle. If Austria was to be saved those elements were
| |
| − | indispensable. And so attempts were made to win the support of the small
| |
| − | traders, a great number of whom were Czechs, by combating the liberalism
| |
| − | of the Manchester School; and they believed that by adopting this
| |
| − | attitude they had found a slogan against Jewry which, because of its
| |
| − | religious implications, would unite all the different nationalities
| |
| − | which made up the population of the old Austria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was obvious, however, that this kind of anti-Semitism did not upset
| |
| − | the Jews very much, simply because it had a purely religious foundation.
| |
| − | If the worst came to the worst a few drops of baptismal water would
| |
| − | settle the matter, hereupon the Jew could still carry on his business
| |
| − | safely and at the same time retain his Jewish nationality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On such superficial grounds it was impossible to deal with the whole
| |
| − | problem in an earnest and rational way. The consequence was that many
| |
| − | people could not understand this kind of anti-Semitism and therefore
| |
| − | refused to take part in it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The attractive force of the idea was thus restricted exclusively to
| |
| − | narrow-minded circles, because the leaders failed to go beyond the mere
| |
| − | emotional appeal and did not ground their position on a truly rational
| |
| − | basis. The intellectuals were opposed to such a policy on principle. It
| |
| − | looked more and more as if the whole movement was a new attempt to
| |
| − | proselytize the Jews, or, on the other hand, as if it were merely
| |
| − | organized from the wish to compete with other contemporary movements.
| |
| − | Thus the struggle lost all traces of having been organized for a
| |
| − | spiritual and sublime mission. Indeed, it seemed to some people--and
| |
| − | these were by no means worthless elements--to be immoral and
| |
| − | reprehensible. The movement failed to awaken a belief that here there
| |
| − | was a problem of vital importance for the whole of humanity and on the
| |
| − | solution of which the destiny of the whole Gentile world depended.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Through this shilly-shally way of dealing with the problem the
| |
| − | anti-Semitism of the Christian-Socialists turned out to be quite
| |
| − | ineffective.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was anti-Semitic only in outward appearance. And this was worse than
| |
| − | if it had made no pretences at all to anti-Semitism; for the pretence
| |
| − | gave rise to a false sense of security among people who believed that
| |
| − | the enemy had been taken by the ears; but, as a matter of fact, the
| |
| − | people themselves were being led by the nose.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jew readily adjusted himself to this form of anti-Semitism and found
| |
| − | its continuance more profitable to him than its abolition would be.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This whole movement led to great sacrifices being made for the sake of
| |
| − | that State which was composed of many heterogeneous nationalities; but
| |
| − | much greater sacrifices had to be made by the trustees of the German
| |
| − | element.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One did not dare to be 'nationalist', even in Vienna, lest the ground
| |
| − | should fall away from under one's feet. It was hoped that the Habsburg
| |
| − | State might be saved by a silent evasion of the nationalist question;
| |
| − | but this policy led that State to ruin. The same policy also led to the
| |
| − | collapse of Christian Socialism, for thus the Movement was deprived of
| |
| − | the only source of energy from which a political party can draw the
| |
| − | necessary driving force.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During those years I carefully followed the two movements and observed
| |
| − | how they developed, one because my heart was with it and the other
| |
| − | because of my admiration for that remarkable man who then appeared to me
| |
| − | as a bitter symbol of the whole German population in Austria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the imposing funeral CORTÈGE of the dead Burgomaster wound its way
| |
| − | from the City Hall towards the Ring Strasse I stood among the hundreds
| |
| − | of thousands who watched the solemn procession pass by. As I stood there
| |
| − | I felt deeply moved, and my instinct clearly told me that the work of
| |
| − | this man was all in vain, because a sinister Fate was inexorably leading
| |
| − | this State to its downfall. If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany he
| |
| − | would have been ranked among the great leaders of our people. It was a
| |
| − | misfortune for his work and for himseif that he had to live in this
| |
| − | impossible State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When he died the fire had already been enkindled in the Balkans and was
| |
| − | spreading month by month. Fate had been merciful in sparing him the
| |
| − | sight of what, even to the last, he had hoped to prevent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I endeavoured to analyse the cause which rendered one of those movements
| |
| − | futile and wrecked the progress of the other. The result of this
| |
| − | investigation was the profound conviction that, apart from the inherent
| |
| − | impossibility of consolidating the position of the State in the old
| |
| − | Austria, the two parties made the following fatal mistake:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Pan-German Party was perfectly right in its fundamental ideas
| |
| − | regarding the aim of the Movement, which was to bring about a German
| |
| − | restoration, but it was unfortunate in its choice of means. It was
| |
| − | nationalist, but unfortunately it paid too little heed to the social
| |
| − | problem, and thus it failed to gain the support of the masses. Its
| |
| − | anti-Jewish policy, however, was grounded on a correct perception of the
| |
| − | significance of the racial problem and not on religious principles. But
| |
| − | it was mistaken in its assessment of facts and adopted the wrong tactics
| |
| − | when it made war against one of the religious denominations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Christian-Socialist Movement had only a vague concept of a German
| |
| − | revival as part of its object, but it was intelligent and fortunate in
| |
| − | the choice of means to carry out its policy as a Party. The
| |
| − | Christian-Socialists grasped the significance of the social question;
| |
| − | but they adopted the wrong principles in their struggle against Jewry,
| |
| − | and they utterly failed to appreciate the value of the national idea as
| |
| − | a source of political energy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the Christian-Socialist Party, together with its shrewd judgment in
| |
| − | regard to the worth of the popular masses, had only judged rightly also
| |
| − | on the importance of the racial problem--which was properly grasped by
| |
| − | the Pan-German Movement--and if this party had been really nationalist;
| |
| − | or if the Pan-German leaders, on the other hand, in addition to their
| |
| − | correct judgment of the Jewish problem and of the national idea, had
| |
| − | adopted the practical wisdom of the Christian-Socialist Party, and
| |
| − | particularly their attitude towards Socialism--then a movement would
| |
| − | have developed which, in my opinion, might at that time have
| |
| − | successfully altered the course of German destiny.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If things did not turn out thus, the fault lay for the most part in the
| |
| − | inherent nature of the Austrian State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I did not find my own convictions upheld by any party then in existence,
| |
| − | and so I could not bring myself to enlist as a member in any of the
| |
| − | existing organizations or even lend a hand in their struggle. Even at
| |
| − | that time all those organizations seemed to me to be already jaded in
| |
| − | their energies and were therefore incapable of bringing about a national
| |
| − | revival of the German people in a really profound way, not merely
| |
| − | outwardly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My inner aversion to the Habsburg State was increasing daily.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more I paid special attention to questions of foreign policy, the
| |
| − | more the conviction grew upon me that this phantom State would surely
| |
| − | bring misfortune on the Germans. I realized more and more that the
| |
| − | destiny of the German nation could not be decisively influenced from
| |
| − | here but only in the German Empire itself. And this was true not only in
| |
| − | regard to general political questions but also--and in no less a
| |
| − | degree--in regard to the whole sphere of cultural life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here, also, in all matters affecting the national culture and art, the
| |
| − | Austrian State showed all the signs of senile decrepitude, or at least
| |
| − | it was ceasing to be of any consequence to the German nation, as far as
| |
| − | these matters were concerned. This was especially true of its
| |
| − | architecture. Modern architecture could not produce any great results in
| |
| − | Austria because, since the building of the Ring Strasse--at least in
| |
| − | Vienna--architectural activities had become insignificant when compared
| |
| − | with the progressive plans which were being thought out in Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so I came more and more to lead what may be called a twofold
| |
| − | existence. Reason and reality forced me to continue my harsh
| |
| − | apprenticeship in Austria, though I must now say that this
| |
| − | apprenticeship turned out fortunate in the end. But my heart was
| |
| − | elsewhere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A feeling of discontent grew upon me and made me depressed the more I
| |
| − | came to realize the inside hollowness of this State and the
| |
| − | impossibility of saving it from collapse. At the same time I felt
| |
| − | perfectly certain that it would bring all kinds of misfortune to the
| |
| − | German people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was convinced that the Habsburg State would balk and hinder every
| |
| − | German who might show signs of real greatness, while at the same time it
| |
| − | would aid and abet every non-German activity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This conglomerate spectacle of heterogeneous races which the capital of
| |
| − | the Dual Monarchy presented, this motley of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians,
| |
| − | Ruthenians, Serbs and Croats, etc., and always that bacillus which is
| |
| − | the solvent of human society, the Jew, here and there and
| |
| − | everywhere--the whole spectacle was repugnant to me. The gigantic city
| |
| − | seemed to be the incarnation of mongrel depravity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German language, which I had spoken from the time of my boyhood, was
| |
| − | the vernacular idiom of Lower Bavaria. I never forgot that particular
| |
| − | style of speech, and I could never learn the Viennese dialect. The
| |
| − | longer I lived in that city the stronger became my hatred for the
| |
| − | promiscuous swarm of foreign peoples which had begun to batten on that
| |
| − | old nursery ground of German culture. The idea that this State could
| |
| − | maintain its further existence for any considerable time was quite
| |
| − | absurd.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Austria was then like a piece of ancient mosaic in which the cohesive
| |
| − | cement had dried up and become old and friable. As long as such a work
| |
| − | of art remains untouched it may hold together and continue to exist; but
| |
| − | the moment some blow is struck on it then it breaks up into thousands of
| |
| − | fragments. Therefore it was now only a question of when the blow would
| |
| − | come.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Because my heart was always with the German Empire and not with the
| |
| − | Austrian Monarchy, the hour of Austria's dissolution as a State appeared
| |
| − | to me only as the first step towards the emancipation of the German
| |
| − | nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All these considerations intensified my yearning to depart for that
| |
| − | country for which my heart had been secretly longing since the days of
| |
| − | my youth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I hoped that one day I might be able to make my mark as an architect and
| |
| − | that I could devote my talents to the service of my country on a large
| |
| − | or small scale, according to the will of Fate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A final reason was that I longed to be among those who lived and worked
| |
| − | in that land from which the movement should be launched, the object of
| |
| − | which would be the fulfilment of what my heart had always longed for,
| |
| − | namely, the union of the country in which I was born with our common
| |
| − | fatherland, the German Empire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There are many who may not understand how such a yearning can be so
| |
| − | strong; but I appeal especially to two groups of people. The first
| |
| − | includes all those who are still denied the happiness I have spoken of,
| |
| − | and the second embraces those who once enjoyed that happiness but had it
| |
| − | torn from them by a harsh fate. I turn to all those who have been torn
| |
| − | from their motherland and who have to struggle for the preservation of
| |
| − | their most sacred patrimony, their native language, persecuted and
| |
| − | harried because of their loyalty and love for the homeland, yearning
| |
| − | sadly for the hour when they will be allowed to return to the bosom of
| |
| − | their father's household. To these I address my words, and I know that
| |
| − | they will understand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only he who has experienced in his own inner life what it means to be
| |
| − | German and yet to be denied the right of belonging to his fatherland can
| |
| − | appreciate the profound nostalgia which that enforced exile causes. It
| |
| − | is a perpetual heartache, and there is no place for joy and contentment
| |
| − | until the doors of paternal home are thrown open and all those through
| |
| − | whose veins kindred blood is flowing will find peace and rest in their
| |
| − | common REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Vienna was a hard school for me; but it taught me the most profound
| |
| − | lessons of my life. I was scarcely more than a boy when I came to live
| |
| − | there, and when I left it I had grown to be a man of a grave and pensive
| |
| − | nature. In Vienna I acquired the foundations of a WELTANSCHAUUNG in
| |
| − | general and developed a faculty for analysing political questions in
| |
| − | particular. That WELTANSCHAUUNG and the political ideas then formed
| |
| − | have never been abandoned, though they were expanded later on in some
| |
| − | directions. It is only now that I can fully appreciate how valuable
| |
| − | those years of apprenticeship were for me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why I have given a detailed account of this period. There, in
| |
| − | Vienna, stark reality taught me the truths that now form the fundamental
| |
| − | principles of the Party which within the course of five years has grown
| |
| − | from modest beginnings to a great mass movement. I do not know what my
| |
| − | attitude towards Jewry, Social-Democracy, or rather Marxism in general,
| |
| − | to the social problem, etc., would be to-day if I had not acquired a
| |
| − | stock of personal beliefs at such an early age, by dint of hard study
| |
| − | and under the duress of Fate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For, although the misfortunes of the Fatherland may have stimulated
| |
| − | thousands and thousands to ponder over the inner causes of the collapse,
| |
| − | that could not lead to such a thorough knowledge and deep insight as a
| |
| − | man may develop who has fought a hard struggle for many years so that he
| |
| − | might be master of his own fate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER IV
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | MUNICH
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | At last I came to Munich, in the spring of 1912.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The city itself was as familiar to me as if I had lived for years within
| |
| − | its walls.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was because my studies in architecture had been constantly turning
| |
| − | my attention to the metropolis of German art. One must know Munich if
| |
| − | one would know Germany, and it is impossible to acquire a knowledge of
| |
| − | German art without seeing Munich.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All things considered, this pre-war sojourn was by far the happiest and
| |
| − | most contented time of my life. My earnings were very slender; but after
| |
| − | all I did not live for the sake of painting. I painted in order to get
| |
| − | the bare necessities of existence while I continued my studies. I was
| |
| − | firmly convinced that I should finally succeed in reaching the goal I
| |
| − | had marked out for myself. And this conviction alone was strong enough
| |
| − | to enable me to bear the petty hardships of everyday life without
| |
| − | worrying very much about them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Moreover, almost from the very first moment of my sojourn there I came
| |
| − | to love that city more than any other place known to me. A German city!
| |
| − | I said to myself. How different to Vienna. It was with a feeling of
| |
| − | disgust that my imagination reverted to that Babylon of races. Another
| |
| − | pleasant feature here was the way the people spoke German, which was
| |
| − | much nearer my own way of speaking than the Viennese idiom. The Munich
| |
| − | idiom recalled the days of my youth, especially when I spoke with those
| |
| − | who had come to Munich from Lower Bavaria. There were a thousand or more
| |
| − | things which I inwardly loved or which I came to love during the course
| |
| − | of my stay. But what attracted me most was the marvellous wedlock of
| |
| − | native folk-energy with the fine artistic spirit of the city, that
| |
| − | unique harmony from the Hofbräuhaus to the Odeon, from the October
| |
| − | Festival to the PINAKOTHEK, etc. The reason why my heart's strings are
| |
| − | entwined around this city as around no other spot in this world is
| |
| − | probably because Munich is and will remain inseparably connected with
| |
| − | the development of my own career; and the fact that from the beginning
| |
| − | of my visit I felt inwardly happy and contented is to be attributed to
| |
| − | the charm of the marvellous Wittelsbach Capital, which has attracted
| |
| − | probably everybody who is blessed with a feeling for beauty instead of
| |
| − | commercial instincts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Apart from my professional work, I was most interested in the study of
| |
| − | current political events, particularly those which were connected with
| |
| − | foreign relations. I approached these by way of the German policy of
| |
| − | alliances which, ever since my Austrian days, I had considered to be an
| |
| − | utterly mistaken one. But in Vienna I had not yet seen quite clearly how
| |
| − | far the German Empire had gone in the process of' self-delusion. In
| |
| − | Vienna I was inclined to assume, or probably I persuaded myself to do so
| |
| − | in order to excuse the German mistake, that possibly the authorities in
| |
| − | Berlin knew how weak and unreliable their ally would prove to be when
| |
| − | brought face to face with realities, but that, for more or less
| |
| − | mysterious reasons, they refrained from allowing their opinions on this
| |
| − | point to be known in public. Their idea was that they should support the
| |
| − | policy of alliances which Bismarck had initiated and the sudden
| |
| − | discontinuance of which might be undesirable, if for no other reason
| |
| − | than that it might arouse those foreign countries which were lying in
| |
| − | wait for their chance or might alarm the Philistines at home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But my contact with the people soon taught me, to my horror, that my
| |
| − | assumptions were wrong. I was amazed to find everywhere, even in circles
| |
| − | otherwise well informed, that nobody had the slightest intimation of the
| |
| − | real character of the Habsburg Monarchy. Among the common people in
| |
| − | particular there was a prevalent illusion that the Austrian ally was a
| |
| − | Power which would have to be seriously reckoned with and would rally its
| |
| − | man-power in the hour of need. The mass of the people continued to look
| |
| − | upon the Dual Monarchy as a 'German State' and believed that it could be
| |
| − | relied upon. They assumed that its strength could be measured by the
| |
| − | millions of its subjects, as was the case in Germany. First of all, they
| |
| − | did not realize that Austria had ceased to be a German State and,
| |
| − | secondly, that the conditions prevailing within the Austrian Empire were
| |
| − | steadily pushing it headlong to the brink of disaster.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time I knew the condition of affairs in the Austrian State
| |
| − | better than the professional diplomats. Blindfolded, as nearly always,
| |
| − | these diplomats stumbled along on their way to disaster. The opinions
| |
| − | prevailing among the bulk of the people reflected only what had been
| |
| − | drummed into them from official quarters above. And these higher
| |
| − | authorities grovelled before the 'Ally', as the people of old bowed down
| |
| − | before the Golden Calf. They probably thought that by being polite and
| |
| − | amiable they might balance the lack of honesty on the other side. Thus
| |
| − | they took every declaration at its full face value.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even while in Vienna I used to be annoyed again and again by the
| |
| − | discrepancy between the speeches of the official statesmen and the
| |
| − | contents of the Viennese Press. And yet Vienna was still a German city,
| |
| − | at least as far as appearances went. But one encountered an utterly
| |
| − | different state of things on leaving Vienna, or rather German-Austria,
| |
| − | and coming into the Slav provinces. It needed only a glance at the
| |
| − | Prague newspapers in order to see how the whole exalted hocus-pocus of
| |
| − | the Triple Alliance was judged from there. In Prague there was nothing
| |
| − | but gibes and sneers for that masterpiece of statesmanship. Even in the
| |
| − | piping times of peace, when the two emperors kissed each other on the
| |
| − | brow in token of friendship, those papers did not cloak their belief
| |
| − | that the alliance would be liquidated the moment a first attempt was
| |
| − | made to bring it down from the shimmering glory of a Nibelungen ideal to
| |
| − | the plane of practical affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Great indignation was aroused a few years later, when the alliances were
| |
| − | put to the first practical test. Italy not only withdrew from the Triple
| |
| − | Alliance, leaving the other two members to march by themselves. but she
| |
| − | even joined their enemies. That anybody should believe even for a moment
| |
| − | in the possibility of such a miracle as that of Italy fighting on the
| |
| − | same side as Austria would be simply incredible to anyone who did not
| |
| − | suffer from the blindness of official diplomacy. And that was just how
| |
| − | people felt in Austria also.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In Austria only the Habsburgs and the German-Austrians supported the
| |
| − | alliance. The Habsburgs did so from shrewd calculation of their own
| |
| − | interests and from necessity. The Germans did it out of good faith and
| |
| − | political ignorance. They acted in good faith inasmuch as they believed
| |
| − | that by establishing the Triple Alliance they were doing a great service
| |
| − | to the German Empire and were thus helping to strengthen it and
| |
| − | consolidate its defence. They showed their political ignorance, however,
| |
| − | in holding such ideas, because, instead of helping the German Empire
| |
| − | they really chained it to a moribund State which might bring its
| |
| − | associate into the grave with itself; and, above all, by championing
| |
| − | this alliance they fell more and more a prey to the Habsburg policy of
| |
| − | de-Germanization. For the alliance gave the Habsburgs good grounds for
| |
| − | believing that the German Empire would not interfere in their domestic
| |
| − | affairs and thus they were in a position to carry into effect, with more
| |
| − | ease and less risk, their domestic policy of gradually eliminating the
| |
| − | German element. Not only could the 'objectiveness' of the German
| |
| − | Government be counted upon, and thus there need be no fear of protest
| |
| − | from that quarter, but one could always remind the German-Austrians of
| |
| − | the alliance and thus silence them in case they should ever object to
| |
| − | the reprehensible means that were being employed to establish a Slav
| |
| − | hegemony in the Dual Monarchy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What could the German-Austrians do, when the people of the German Empire
| |
| − | itself had openly proclaimed their trust and confidence in the Habsburg
| |
| − | régime?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Should they resist, and thus be branded openly before their kinsfolk in
| |
| − | the REICH as traitors to their own national interests? They, who for so
| |
| − | many decades had sacrificed so much for the sake of their German
| |
| − | tradition!
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once the influence of the Germans in Austria had been wiped out, what
| |
| − | then would be the value of the alliance? If the Triple Alliance were to
| |
| − | be advantageous to Germany, was it not a necessary condition that the
| |
| − | predominance of the German element in Austria should be maintained? Or
| |
| − | did anyone really believe that Germany could continue to be the ally of
| |
| − | a Habsburg Empire under the hegemony of the Slavs?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The official attitude of German diplomacy, as well as that of the
| |
| − | general public towards internal problems affecting the Austrian
| |
| − | nationalities was not merely stupid, it was insane. On the alliance, as
| |
| − | on a solid foundation, they grounded the security and future existence
| |
| − | of a nation of seventy millions, while at the same time they allowed
| |
| − | their partner to continue his policy of undermining the sole foundation
| |
| − | of that alliance methodically and resolutely, from year to year. A day
| |
| − | must come when nothing but a formal contract with Viennese diplomats
| |
| − | would be left. The alliance itself, as an effective support, would be
| |
| − | lost to Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As far as concerned Italy, such had been the case from the outset.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If people in Germany had studied history and the psychology of nations a
| |
| − | little more carefully not one of them could have believed for a single
| |
| − | hour that the Quirinal and the Viennese Hofburg could ever stand
| |
| − | shoulder to shoulder on a common battle front. Italy would have exploded
| |
| − | like a volcano if any Italian government had dared to send a single
| |
| − | Italian soldier to fight for the Habsburg State. So fanatically hated
| |
| − | was this State that the Italians could stand in no other relation to it
| |
| − | on a battle front except as enemies. More than once in Vienna I have
| |
| − | witnessed explosions of the contempt and profound hatred which 'allied'
| |
| − | the Italian to the Austrian State. The crimes which the House of
| |
| − | Habsburg committed against Italian freedom and independence during
| |
| − | several centuries were too grave to be forgiven, even with the best of
| |
| − | goodwill. But this goodwill did not exist, either among the rank and
| |
| − | file of the population or in the government. Therefore for Italy there
| |
| − | were only two ways of co-existing with Austria--alliance or war. By
| |
| − | choosing the first it was possible to prepare leisurely for the second.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Especially since relations between Russia and Austria tended more and
| |
| − | more towards the arbitrament of war, the German policy of alliances was
| |
| − | as senseless as it was dangerous. Here was a classical instance which
| |
| − | demonstrated the lack of any broad or logical lines of thought.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what was the reason for forming the alliance at all? It could not
| |
| − | have been other than the wish to secure the future of the REICH better
| |
| − | than if it were to depend exclusively on its own resources. But the
| |
| − | future of the REICH could not have meant anything else than the problem
| |
| − | of securing the means of existence for the German people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The only questions therefore were the following: What form shall the
| |
| − | life of the nation assume in the near future--that is to say within such
| |
| − | a period as we can forecast? And by what means can the necessary
| |
| − | foundation and security be guaranteed for this development within the
| |
| − | framework of the general distribution of power among the European
| |
| − | nations? A clear analysis of the principles on which the foreign policy
| |
| − | of German statecraft were to be based should have led to the following
| |
| − | conclusions:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The annual increase of population in Germany amounts to almost 900,000
| |
| − | souls. The difficulties of providing for this army of new citizens must
| |
| − | grow from year to year and must finally lead to a catastrophe, unless
| |
| − | ways and means are found which will forestall the danger of misery and
| |
| − | hunger. There were four ways of providing against this terrible
| |
| − | calamity:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) It was possible to adopt the French example and artificially
| |
| − | restrict the number of births, thus avoiding an excess of population.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Under certain circumstances, in periods of distress or under bad
| |
| − | climatic condition, or if the soil yields too poor a return, Nature
| |
| − | herself tends to check the increase of population in some countries and
| |
| − | among some races, but by a method which is quite as ruthless as it is
| |
| − | wise. It does not impede the procreative faculty as such; but it does
| |
| − | impede the further existence of the offspring by submitting it to such
| |
| − | tests and privations that everything which is less strong or less
| |
| − | healthy is forced to retreat into the bosom of tile unknown. Whatever
| |
| − | survives these hardships of existence has been tested and tried a
| |
| − | thousandfold, hardened and renders fit to continue the process of
| |
| − | procreation; so that the same thorough selection will begin all over
| |
| − | again. By thus dealing brutally with the individual and recalling him
| |
| − | the very moment he shows that he is not fitted for the trials of life,
| |
| − | Nature preserves the strength of the race and the species and raises it
| |
| − | to the highest degree of efficiency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The decrease in numbers therefore implies an increase of strength, as
| |
| − | far as the individual is concerned, and this finally means the
| |
| − | invigoration of the species.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the case is different when man himself starts the process of
| |
| − | numerical restriction. Man is not carved from Nature's wood. He is made
| |
| − | of 'human' material. He knows more than the ruthless Queen of Wisdom. He
| |
| − | does not impede the preservation of the individual but prevents
| |
| − | procreation itself. To the individual, who always sees only himself and
| |
| − | not the race, this line of action seems more humane and just than the
| |
| − | opposite way. But, unfortunately, the consequences are also the
| |
| − | opposite.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By leaving the process of procreation unchecked and by submitting the
| |
| − | individual to the hardest preparatory tests in life, Nature selects the
| |
| − | best from an abundance of single elements and stamps them as fit to live
| |
| − | and carry on the conservation of the species. But man restricts the
| |
| − | procreative faculty and strives obstinately to keep alive at any cost
| |
| − | whatever has once been born. This correction of the Divine Will seems to
| |
| − | him to be wise and humane, and he rejoices at having trumped Nature's
| |
| − | card in one game at least and thus proved that she is not entirely
| |
| − | reliable. The dear little ape of an all-mighty father is delighted to
| |
| − | see and hear that he has succeeded in effecting a numerical restriction;
| |
| − | but he would be very displeased if told that this, his system, brings
| |
| − | about a degeneration in personal quality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of
| |
| − | births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which allows only
| |
| − | healthy and strong individuals to survive is replaced by a sheer craze
| |
| − | to 'save' feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus the
| |
| − | seeds are sown for a human progeny which will become more and more
| |
| − | miserable from one generation to another, as long as Nature's will is
| |
| − | scorned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But if that policy be carried out the final results must be that such a
| |
| − | nation will eventually terminate its own existence on this earth; for
| |
| − | though man may defy the eternal laws of procreation during a certain
| |
| − | period, vengeance will follow sooner or later. A stronger race will oust
| |
| − | that which has grown weak; for the vital urge, in its ultimate form,
| |
| − | will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so-called humane
| |
| − | consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity
| |
| − | of Nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the
| |
| − | strong.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Any policy which aims at securing the existence of a nation by
| |
| − | restricting the birth-rate robs that nation of its future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) A second solution is that of internal colonization. This is a
| |
| − | proposal which is frequently made in our own time and one hears it
| |
| − | lauded a good deal. It is a suggestion that is well-meant but it is
| |
| − | misunderstood by most people, so that it is the source of more mischief
| |
| − | than can be imagined.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is certainly true that the productivity of the soil can be increased
| |
| − | within certain limits; but only within defined limits and not
| |
| − | indefinitely. By increasing the productive powers of the soil it will be
| |
| − | possible to balance the effect of a surplus birth-rate in Germany for a
| |
| − | certain period of time, without running any danger of hunger. But we
| |
| − | have to face the fact that the general standard of living is rising more
| |
| − | quickly than even the birth rate. The requirements of food and clothing
| |
| − | are becoming greater from year to year and are out of proportion to
| |
| − | those of our ancestors of, let us say, a hundred years ago. It would,
| |
| − | therefore, be a mistaken view that every increase in the productive
| |
| − | powers of the soil will supply the requisite conditions for an increase
| |
| − | in the population. No. That is true up to a certain point only, for at
| |
| − | least a portion of the increased produce of the soil will be consumed by
| |
| − | the margin of increased demands caused by the steady rise in the
| |
| − | standard of living. But even if these demands were to be curtailed to
| |
| − | the narrowest limits possible and if at the same time we were to use all
| |
| − | our available energies in the intenser cultivation, we should here reach
| |
| − | a definite limit which is conditioned by the inherent nature of the soil
| |
| − | itself. No matter how industriously we may labour we cannot increase
| |
| − | agricultural production beyond this limit. Therefore, though we may
| |
| − | postpone the evil hour of distress for a certain time, it will arrive at
| |
| − | last. The first phenomenon will be the recurrence of famine periods from
| |
| − | time to time, after bad harvests, etc. The intervals between these
| |
| − | famines will become shorter and shorter the more the population
| |
| − | increases; and, finally, the famine times will disappear only in those
| |
| − | rare years of plenty when the granaries are full. And a time will
| |
| − | ultimately come when even in those years of plenty there will not be
| |
| − | enough to go round; so that hunger will dog the footsteps of the nation.
| |
| − | Nature must now step in once more and select those who are to survive,
| |
| − | or else man will help himself by artificially preventing his own
| |
| − | increase, with all the fatal consequences for the race and the species
| |
| − | which have been already mentioned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may be objected here that, in one form or another, this future is in
| |
| − | store for all mankind and that the individual nation or race cannot
| |
| − | escape the general fate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first glance, that objection seems logical enough; but we have to
| |
| − | take the following into account:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to
| |
| − | check the augmentation of the human species, because there will be no
| |
| − | further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the
| |
| − | perpetual increase in the population. Nature must then be allowed to use
| |
| − | her own methods or man may possibly take the task of regulation into his
| |
| − | own hands and establish the necessary equilibrium by the application of
| |
| − | better means than we have at our disposal to-day. But then it will be a
| |
| − | problem for mankind as a whole, whereas now only those races have to
| |
| − | suffer from want which no longer have the strength and daring to acquire
| |
| − | sufficient soil to fulfil their needs. For, as things stand to-day, vast
| |
| − | spaces still lie uncultivated all over the surface of the globe. Those
| |
| − | spaces are only waiting for the ploughshare. And it is quite certain
| |
| − | that Nature did not set those territories apart as the exclusive
| |
| − | pastures of any one nation or race to be held unutilized in reserve for
| |
| − | the future. Such land awaits the people who have the strength to acquire
| |
| − | it and the diligence to cultivate it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on
| |
| − | this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the
| |
| − | greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart and
| |
| − | they will be granted the sovereign right of existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If a nation confines itself to 'internal colonization' while other races
| |
| − | are perpetually increasing their territorial annexations all over the
| |
| − | globe, that nation will be forced to restrict the numerical growth of
| |
| − | its population at a time when the other nations are increasing theirs.
| |
| − | This situation must eventually arrive. It will arrive soon if the
| |
| − | territory which the nation has at its disposal be small. Now it is
| |
| − | unfortunately true that only too often the best nations--or, to speak
| |
| − | more exactly, the only really cultured nations, who at the same time are
| |
| − | the chief bearers of human progress--have decided, in their blind
| |
| − | pacifism, to refrain from the acquisition of new territory and to be
| |
| − | content with 'internal colonization.' But at the same time nations of
| |
| − | inferior quality succeed in getting hold of large spaces for
| |
| − | colonization all over the globe. The state of affairs which must result
| |
| − | from this contrast is the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Races which are culturally superior but less ruthless would be forced to
| |
| − | restrict their increase, because of insufficient territory to support
| |
| − | the population, while less civilized races could increase indefinitely,
| |
| − | owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words: should
| |
| − | that state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed
| |
| − | by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior but more active
| |
| − | and energetic.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A time will come, even though in the distant future, when there can be
| |
| − | only two alternatives: Either the world will be ruled according to our
| |
| − | modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favour
| |
| − | of the numerically stronger races; or the world will be governed by the
| |
| − | law of natural distribution of power, and then those nations will be
| |
| − | victorious who are of more brutal will and are not the nations who have
| |
| − | practised self-denial.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful
| |
| − | struggles for existence on the part of mankind. In the end the instinct
| |
| − | of self-preservation alone will triumph. Before its consuming fire this
| |
| − | so-called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous
| |
| − | timidity and self-conceit, will melt away as under the March sunshine.
| |
| − | Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace his
| |
| − | greatness must decline.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For us Germans, the slogan of 'internal colonization' is fatal, because
| |
| − | it encourages the belief that we have discovered a means which is in
| |
| − | accordance with our innate pacifism and which will enable us to work for
| |
| − | our livelihood in a half slumbering existence. Such a teaching, once it
| |
| − | were taken seriously by our people, would mean the end of all effort to
| |
| − | acquire for ourselves that place in the world which we deserve. If. the
| |
| − | average German were once convinced that by this measure he has the
| |
| − | chance of ensuring his livelihood and guaranteeing his future, any
| |
| − | attempt to take an active and profitable part in sustaining the vital
| |
| − | demands of his country would be out of the question. Should the nation
| |
| − | agree to such an attitude then any really useful foreign policy might be
| |
| − | looked upon as dead and buried, together with all hope for the future of
| |
| − | the German people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once we know what the consequences of this 'internal colonization'
| |
| − | theory would be we can no longer consider as a mere accident the fact
| |
| − | that among those who inculcate this quite pernicious mentality among our
| |
| − | people the Jew is always in the first line. He knows his softies only
| |
| − | too well not to know that they are ready to be the grateful victims of
| |
| − | every swindle which promises them a gold-block in the shape of a
| |
| − | discovery that will enable them to outwit Nature and thus render
| |
| − | superfluous the hard and inexorable struggle for existence; so that
| |
| − | finally they may become lords of the planet partly by sheer DOLCE FAR
| |
| − | NIENTE and partly by working when a pleasing opportunity arises.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It cannot be too strongly emphasised that any German 'internal
| |
| − | colonization' must first of all be considered as suited only for the
| |
| − | relief of social grievances. To carry out a system of internal
| |
| − | colonization, the most important preliminary measure would be to free
| |
| − | the soil from the grip of the speculator and assure that freedom. But
| |
| − | such a system could never suffice to assure the future of the nation
| |
| − | without the acquisition of new territory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we adopt a different plan we shall soon reach a point beyond which
| |
| − | the resources of our soil can no longer be exploited, and at the same
| |
| − | time we shall reach a point beyond which our man-power cannot develop.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In conclusion, the following must be said:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that only up to a limited extent can internal colonization be
| |
| − | practised in a national territory which is of definitely small area and
| |
| − | the restriction of the procreative faculty which follows as a result of
| |
| − | such conditions--these two factors have a very unfavourable effect on
| |
| − | the military and political standing of a nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The extent of the national territory is a determining factor in the
| |
| − | external security of the nation. The larger the territory which a people
| |
| − | has at its disposal the stronger are the national defences of that
| |
| − | people. Military decisions are more quickly, more easily, more
| |
| − | completely and more effectively gained against a people occupying a
| |
| − | national territory which is restricted in area, than against States
| |
| − | which have extensive territories. Moreover, the magnitude of a national
| |
| − | territory is in itself a certain assurance that an outside Power will
| |
| − | not hastily risk the adventure of an invasion; for in that case the
| |
| − | struggle would have to be long and exhausting before victory could be
| |
| − | hoped for. The risk being so great. there would have to be extraordinary
| |
| − | reasons for such an aggressive adventure. Hence it is that the
| |
| − | territorial magnitude of a State furnishes a basis whereon national
| |
| − | liberty and independence can be maintained with relative ease; while, on
| |
| − | the contrary, a State whose territory is small offers a natural
| |
| − | temptation to the invader.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a matter of fact, so-called national circles in the German REICH
| |
| − | rejected those first two possibilities of establishing a balance between
| |
| − | the constant numerical increase in the population and a national
| |
| − | territory which could not expand proportionately. But the reasons given
| |
| − | for that rejection were different from those which I have just
| |
| − | expounded. It was mainly on the basis of certain moral sentiments that
| |
| − | restriction of the birth-rate was objected to. Proposals for internal
| |
| − | colonization were rejected indignantly because it was suspected that
| |
| − | such a policy might mean an attack on the big landowners, and that this
| |
| − | attack might be the forerunner of a general assault against the
| |
| − | principle of private property as a whole. The form in which the latter
| |
| − | solution--internal colonization--was recommended justified the
| |
| − | misgivings of the big landowners.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the form in which the colonization proposal was rejected was not
| |
| − | very clever, as regards the impression which such rejection might be
| |
| − | calculated to make on the mass of the people, and anyhow it did not go
| |
| − | to the root of the problem at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only two further ways were left open in which work and bread could be
| |
| − | secured for the increasing population.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (3) It was possible to think of acquiring new territory on which a
| |
| − | certain portion of' the increasing population could be settled each
| |
| − | year; or else
| |
| − | | |
| − | (4) Our industry and commerce had to be organized in such a manner as to
| |
| − | secure an increase in the exports and thus be able to support our people
| |
| − | by the increased purchasing power accruing from the profits made on
| |
| − | foreign markets.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the problem was: A policy of territorial expansion or a
| |
| − | colonial and commercial policy. Both policies were taken into
| |
| − | consideration, examined, recommended and rejected, from various
| |
| − | standpoints, with the result that the second alternative was finally
| |
| − | adopted. The sounder alternative, however, was undoubtedly the first.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The principle of acquiring new territory, on which the surplus
| |
| − | population could be settled, has many advantages to recommend it,
| |
| − | especially if we take the future as well as the present into account.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first place, too much importance cannot be placed on the
| |
| − | necessity for adopting a policy which will make it possible to maintain
| |
| − | a healthy peasant class as the basis of the national community. Many of
| |
| − | our present evils have their origin exclusively in the disproportion
| |
| − | between the urban and rural portions of the population. A solid stock of
| |
| − | small and medium farmers has at all times been the best protection which
| |
| − | a nation could have against the social diseases that are prevalent
| |
| − | to-day. Moreover, that is the only solution which guarantees the daily
| |
| − | bread of a nation within the framework of its domestic national economy.
| |
| − | With this condition once guaranteed, industry and commerce would retire
| |
| − | from the unhealthy position of foremost importance which they hold
| |
| − | to-day and would take their due place within the general scheme of
| |
| − | national economy, adjusting the balance between demand and supply. Thus
| |
| − | industry and commerce would no longer constitute the basis of the
| |
| − | national subsistence, but would be auxiliary institutions. By fulfilling
| |
| − | their proper function, which is to adjust the balance between national
| |
| − | production and national consumption, they render the national
| |
| − | subsistence more or less independent of foreign countries and thus
| |
| − | assure the freedom and independence of the nation, especially at
| |
| − | critical junctures in its history.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a territorial policy, however, cannot find its fulfilment in the
| |
| − | Cameroons but almost exclusively here in Europe. One must calmly and
| |
| − | squarely face the truth that it certainly cannot be part of the
| |
| − | dispensation of Divine Providence to give a fifty times larger share of
| |
| − | the soil of this world to one nation than to another. In considering
| |
| − | this state of affairs to-day, one must not allow existing political
| |
| − | frontiers to distract attention from what ought to exist on principles
| |
| − | of strict justice. If this earth has sufficient room for all, then we
| |
| − | ought to have that share of the soil which is absolutely necessary for
| |
| − | our existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course people will not voluntarily make that accommodation. At this
| |
| − | point the right of self-preservation comes into effect. And when
| |
| − | attempts to settle the difficulty in an amicable way are rejected the
| |
| − | clenched hand must take by force that which was refused to the open hand
| |
| − | of friendship. If in the past our ancestors had based their political
| |
| − | decisions on similar pacifist nonsense as our present generation does,
| |
| − | we should not possess more than one-third of the national territory that
| |
| − | we possess to-day and probably there would be no German nation to worry
| |
| − | about its future in Europe. No. We owe the two Eastern Marks (Note 8) of
| |
| − | the Empire to the natural determination of our forefathers in their
| |
| − | struggle for existence, and thus it is to the same determined policy that
| |
| − | we owe the inner strength which is based on the extent of our political
| |
| − | and racial territories and which alone has made it possible for us to
| |
| − | exist up to now.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 8. German Austria was the East Mark on the South and East Prussia
| |
| − | was the East Mark on the North.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | And there is still another reason why that solution would have been the
| |
| − | correct one:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Many contemporary European States are like pyramids standing on their
| |
| − | apexes. The European territory which these States possess is
| |
| − | ridiculously small when compared with the enormous overhead weight of
| |
| − | their colonies, foreign trade, etc. It may be said that they have the
| |
| − | apex in Europe and the base of the pyramid all over the world; quite
| |
| − | different from the United States of America, which has its base on the
| |
| − | American Continent and is in contact with the rest of the world only
| |
| − | through its apex. Out of that situation arises the incomparable inner
| |
| − | strength of the U.S.A. and the contrary situation is responsible for the
| |
| − | weakness of most of the colonial European Powers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | England cannot be suggested as an argument against this assertion,
| |
| − | though in glancing casually over the map of the British Empire one is
| |
| − | inclined easily to overlook the existence of a whole Anglo-Saxon world.
| |
| − | England's position cannot be compared with that of any other State in
| |
| − | Europe, since it forms a vast community of language and culture together
| |
| − | with the U.S.A.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the only possibility which Germany had of carrying a sound
| |
| − | territorial policy into effect was that of acquiring new territory in
| |
| − | Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose as long as they are
| |
| − | not suited for settlement by Europeans on a large scale. In the
| |
| − | nineteenth century it was no longer possible to acquire such colonies by
| |
| − | peaceful means. Therefore any attempt at such a colonial expansion would
| |
| − | have meant an enormous military struggle. Consequently it would have
| |
| − | been more practical to undertake that military struggle for new
| |
| − | territory in Europe rather than to wage war for the acquisition of
| |
| − | possessions abroad.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a decision naturally demanded that the nation's undivided energies
| |
| − | should be devoted to it. A policy of that kind which requires for its
| |
| − | fulfilment every ounce of available energy on the part of everybody
| |
| − | concerned, cannot be carried into effect by half-measures or in a
| |
| − | hesitating manner. The political leadership of the German Empire should
| |
| − | then have been directed exclusively to this goal. No political step
| |
| − | should have been taken in response to other considerations than this
| |
| − | task and the means of accomplishing it. Germany should have been alive
| |
| − | to the fact that such a goal could have been reached only by war, and
| |
| − | the prospect of war should have been faced with calm and collected
| |
| − | determination.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The whole system of alliances should have been envisaged and valued from
| |
| − | that standpoint. If new territory were to be acquired in Europe it must
| |
| − | have been mainly at Russia's cost, and once again the new German Empire
| |
| − | should have set out on its march along the same road as was formerly
| |
| − | trodden by the Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil for the
| |
| − | German plough by means of the German sword and thus provide the nation
| |
| − | with its daily bread.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For such a policy, however, there was only one possible ally in Europe.
| |
| − | That was England.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only by alliance with England was it possible to safeguard the rear of
| |
| − | the new German crusade. The justification for undertaking such an
| |
| − | expedition was stronger than the justification which our forefathers had
| |
| − | for setting out on theirs. Not one of our pacifists refuses to eat the
| |
| − | bread made from the grain grown in the East; and yet the first plough
| |
| − | here was that called the 'Sword'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No sacrifice should have been considered too great if it was a necessary
| |
| − | means of gaining England's friendship. Colonial and naval ambitions
| |
| − | should have been abandoned and attempts should not have been made to
| |
| − | compete against British industries.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only a clear and definite policy could lead to such an achievement. Such
| |
| − | a policy would have demanded a renunciation of the endeavour to conquer
| |
| − | the world's markets, also a renunciation of colonial intentions and
| |
| − | naval power. All the means of power at the disposal of the State should
| |
| − | have been concentrated in the military forces on land. This policy would
| |
| − | have involved a period of temporary self-denial, for the sake of a great
| |
| − | and powerful future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There was a time when England might have entered into negotiations with
| |
| − | us, on the grounds of that proposal. For England would have well
| |
| − | understood that the problems arising from the steady increase in
| |
| − | population were forcing Germany to look for a solution either in Europe
| |
| − | with the help of England or, without England, in some other part of the
| |
| − | world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This outlook was probably the chief reason why London tried to draw
| |
| − | nearer to Germany about the turn of the century. For the first time in
| |
| − | Germany an attitude was then manifested which afterwards displayed
| |
| − | itself in a most tragic way. People then gave expression to an
| |
| − | unpleasant feeling that we might thus find ourselves obliged to pull
| |
| − | England's chestnuts out of the fire. As if an alliance could be based on
| |
| − | anything else than mutual give-and-take! And England would have become a
| |
| − | party to such a mutual bargain. British diplomats were still wise enough
| |
| − | to know that an equivalent must be forthcoming as a consideration for
| |
| − | any services rendered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let us suppose that in 1904 our German foreign policy was managed
| |
| − | astutely enough to enable us to take the part which Japan played. It is
| |
| − | not easy to measure the greatness of the results that might have accrued
| |
| − | to Germany from such a policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There would have been no world war. The blood which would have been shed
| |
| − | in 1904 would not have been a tenth of that shed from 1914 to 1918. And
| |
| − | what a position Germany would hold in the world to-day?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In any case the alliance with Austria was then an absurdity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this mummy of a State did not attach itself to Germany for the
| |
| − | purpose of carrying through a war, but rather to maintain a perpetual
| |
| − | state of peace which was meant to be exploited for the purpose of slowly
| |
| − | but persistently exterminating the German element in the Dual Monarchy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Another reason for the impossible character of this alliance was that
| |
| − | nobody could expect such a State to take an active part in defending
| |
| − | German national interests, seeing that it did not have sufficient
| |
| − | strength and determination to put an end to the policy of
| |
| − | de-Germanization within its own frontiers. If Germany herself was not
| |
| − | moved by a sufficiently powerful national sentiment and was not
| |
| − | sufficiently ruthless to take away from that absurd Habsburg State the
| |
| − | right to decide the destinies of ten million inhabitants who were of the
| |
| − | same nationality as the Germans themselves, surely it was out of the
| |
| − | question to expect the Habsburg State to be a collaborating party in any
| |
| − | great and courageous German undertaking. The attitude of the old REICH
| |
| − | towards the Austrian question might have been taken as a test of its
| |
| − | stamina for the struggle where the destinies of the whole nation were at
| |
| − | stake.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In any case, the policy of oppression against the German population in
| |
| − | Austria should not have been allowed to be carried on and to grow
| |
| − | stronger from year to year; for the value of Austria as an ally could be
| |
| − | assured only by upholding the German element there. But that course was
| |
| − | not followed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nothing was dreaded so much as the possibility of an armed conflict; but
| |
| − | finally, and at a most unfavourable moment, the conflict had to be faced
| |
| − | and accepted. They thought to cut loose from the cords of destiny, but
| |
| − | destiny held them fast.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They dreamt of maintaining a world peace and woke up to find themselves
| |
| − | in a world war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And that dream of peace was a most significant reason why the
| |
| − | above-mentioned third alternative for the future development of Germany
| |
| − | was not even taken into consideration. The fact was recognized that new
| |
| − | territory could be gained only in the East; but this meant that there
| |
| − | would be fighting ahead, whereas they wanted peace at any cost. The
| |
| − | slogan of German foreign policy at one time used to be: The use of all
| |
| − | possible means for the maintenance of the German nation. Now it was
| |
| − | changed to: Maintenance of world peace by all possible means. We know
| |
| − | what the result was. I shall resume the discussion of this point in
| |
| − | detail later on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There remained still another alternative, which we may call the fourth.
| |
| − | This was: Industry and world trade, naval power and colonies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a development might certainly have been attained more easily and
| |
| − | more rapidly. To colonize a territory is a slow process, often extending
| |
| − | over centuries. Yet this fact is the source of its inner strength, for
| |
| − | it is not through a sudden burst of enthusiasm that it can be put into
| |
| − | effect, but rather through a gradual and enduring process of growth
| |
| − | quite different from industrial progress, which can be urged on by
| |
| − | advertisement within a few years. The result thus achieved, however, is
| |
| − | not of lasting quality but something frail, like a soap-bubble. It is
| |
| − | much easier to build quickly than to carry through the tough task of
| |
| − | settling a territory with farmers and establishing farmsteads. But the
| |
| − | former is more quickly destroyed than the latter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In adopting such a course Germany must have known that to follow it out
| |
| − | would necessarily mean war sooner or later. Only children could believe
| |
| − | that sweet and unctuous expressions of goodness and persistent avowals
| |
| − | of peaceful intentions could get them their bananas through this
| |
| − | 'friendly competition between the nations', with the prospect of never
| |
| − | having to fight for them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. Once we had taken this road, England was bound to be our enemy at
| |
| − | some time or other to come. Of course it fitted in nicely with our
| |
| − | innocent assumptions, but still it was absurd to grow indignant at the
| |
| − | fact that a day came when the English took the liberty of opposing our
| |
| − | peaceful penetration with the brutality of violent egoists.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally, we on our side would never have done such a thing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If a European territorial policy against Russia could have been put into
| |
| − | practice only in case we had England as our ally, on the other hand a
| |
| − | colonial and world-trade policy could have been carried into effect only
| |
| − | against English interests and with the support of Russia. But then this
| |
| − | policy should have been adopted in full consciousness of all the
| |
| − | consequences it involved and, above all things, Austria should have been
| |
| − | discarded as quickly as possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the turn of the century the alliance with Austria had become a
| |
| − | veritable absurdity from all points of view.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But nobody thought of forming an alliance with Russia against England,
| |
| − | just as nobody thought of making England an ally against Russia; for in
| |
| − | either case the final result would inevitably have meant war. And to
| |
| − | avoid war was the very reason why a commercial and industrial policy was
| |
| − | decided upon. It was believed that the peaceful conquest of the world by
| |
| − | commercial means provided a method which would permanently supplant the
| |
| − | policy of force. Occasionally, however, there were doubts about the
| |
| − | efficiency of this principle, especially when some quite
| |
| − | incomprehensible warnings came from England now and again. That was the
| |
| − | reason why the fleet was built. It was not for the purpose of attacking
| |
| − | or annihilating England but merely to defend the concept of world-peace,
| |
| − | mentioned above, and also to protect the principle of conquering the
| |
| − | world by 'peaceful' means. Therefore this fleet was kept within modest
| |
| − | limits, not only as regards the number and tonnage of the vessels but
| |
| − | also in regard to their armament, the idea being to furnish new proofs
| |
| − | of peaceful intentions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The chatter about the peaceful conquest of the world by commercial means
| |
| − | was probably the most completely nonsensical stuff ever raised to the
| |
| − | dignity of a guiding principle in the policy of a State, This nonsense
| |
| − | became even more foolish when England was pointed out as a typical
| |
| − | example to prove how the thing could be put into practice. Our doctrinal
| |
| − | way of regarding history and our professorial ideas in that domain have
| |
| − | done irreparable harm and offer a striking 'proof' of how people 'learn'
| |
| − | history without understanding anything of it. As a matter of fact,
| |
| − | England ought to have been looked upon as a convincing argument against
| |
| − | the theory of the pacific conquest of the world by commercial means. No
| |
| − | nation prepared the way for its commercial conquests more brutally than
| |
| − | England did by means of the sword, and no other nation has defended such
| |
| − | conquests more ruthlessly. Is it not a characteristic quality of British
| |
| − | statecraft that it knows how to use political power in order to gain
| |
| − | economic advantages and, inversely, to turn economic conquests into
| |
| − | political power? What an astounding error it was to believe that England
| |
| − | would not have the courage to give its own blood for the purposes of its
| |
| − | own economic expansion! The fact that England did not possess a national
| |
| − | army proved nothing; for it is not the actual military structure of the
| |
| − | moment that matters but rather the will and determination to use
| |
| − | whatever military strength is available. England has always had the
| |
| − | armament which she needed. She always fought with those weapons which
| |
| − | were necessary for success. She sent mercenary troops, to fight as long
| |
| − | as mercenaries sufficed; but she never hesitated to draw heavily and
| |
| − | deeply from the best blood of the whole nation when victory could be
| |
| − | obtained only by such a sacrifice. And in every case the fighting
| |
| − | spirit, dogged determination, and use of brutal means in conducting
| |
| − | military operations have always remained the same.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But in Germany, through the medium of the schools, the Press and the
| |
| − | comic papers, an idea of the Englishman was gradually formed which was
| |
| − | bound eventually to lead to the worst kind of self-deception. This
| |
| − | absurdity slowly but persistently spread into every quarter of German
| |
| − | life. The result was an undervaluation for which we have had to pay a
| |
| − | heavy penalty. The delusion was so profound that the Englishman was
| |
| − | looked upon as a shrewd business man, but personally a coward even to an
| |
| − | incredible degree. Unfortunately our lofty teachers of professorial
| |
| − | history did not bring home to the minds of their pupils the truth that
| |
| − | it is not possible to build up such a mighty organization as the British
| |
| − | Empire by mere swindle and fraud. The few who called attention to that
| |
| − | truth were either ignored or silenced. I can vividly recall to mind the
| |
| − | astonished looks of my comrades when they found themselves personally
| |
| − | face to face for the first time with the Tommies in Flanders. After a
| |
| − | few days of fighting the consciousness slowly dawned on our soldiers
| |
| − | that those Scotsmen were not like the ones we had seen described and
| |
| − | caricatured in the comic papers and mentioned in the communiqués.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was then that I formed my first ideas of the efficiency of various
| |
| − | forms of propaganda.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a falsification, however, served the purpose of those who had
| |
| − | fabricated it. This caricature of the Englishman, though false, could be
| |
| − | used to prove the possibility of conquering the world peacefully by
| |
| − | commercial means. Where the Englishman succeeded we should also succeed.
| |
| − | Our far greater honesty and our freedom from that specifically English
| |
| − | 'perfidy' would be assets on our side. Thereby it was hoped that the
| |
| − | sympathy of the smaller nations and the confidence of the greater
| |
| − | nations could be gained more easily.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We did not realize that our honesty was an object of profound aversion
| |
| − | for other people because we ourselves believed in it. The rest of the
| |
| − | world looked on our behaviour as the manifestation of a shrewd
| |
| − | deceitfulness; but when the revolution came, then they were amazed at
| |
| − | the deeper insight it gave them into our mentality, sincere even beyond
| |
| − | the limits of stupidity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once we understand the part played by that absurd notion of conquering
| |
| − | the world by peaceful commercial means we can clearly understand how
| |
| − | that other absurdity, the Triple Alliance, came to exist. With what
| |
| − | State then could an alliance have been made? In alliance with Austria we
| |
| − | could not acquire new territory by military means, even in Europe. And
| |
| − | this very fact was the real reason for the inner weakness of the Triple
| |
| − | Alliance. A Bismarck could permit himself such a makeshift for the
| |
| − | necessities of the moment, but certainly not any of his bungling
| |
| − | successors, and least of all when the foundations no longer existed on
| |
| − | which Bismarck had formed the Triple Alliance. In Bismarck's time
| |
| − | Austria could still be looked upon as a German State; but the gradual
| |
| − | introduction of universal suffrage turned the country into a
| |
| − | parliamentary Babel, in which the German voice was scarcely audible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the viewpoint of racial policy, this alliance with Austria was
| |
| − | simply disastrous. A new Slavic Great Power was allowed to grow up close
| |
| − | to the frontiers of the German Empire. Later on this Power was bound to
| |
| − | adopt towards Germany an attitude different from that of Russia, for
| |
| − | example. The Alliance was thus bound to become more empty and more
| |
| − | feeble, because the only supporters of it were losing their influence
| |
| − | and were being systematically pushed out of the more important public
| |
| − | offices.
| |
| − | | |
| − | About the year 1900 the Alliance with Austria had already entered the
| |
| − | same phase as the Alliance between Austria and Italy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here also only one alternative was possible: Either to take the side of
| |
| − | the Habsburg Monarchy or to raise a protest against the oppression of
| |
| − | the German element in Austria. But, generally speaking, when one takes
| |
| − | such a course it is bound eventually to lead to open conflict.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the psychological point of view also, the Triple decreases
| |
| − | according as such an alliance limits its object to the defence of the
| |
| − | STATUS QUO. But, on the other hand, an alliance will increase its
| |
| − | cohesive strength the more the parties concerned in it may hope to use
| |
| − | it as a means of reaching some practical goal of expansion. Here, as
| |
| − | everywhere else, strength does not lie in defence but in attack.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This truth was recognized in various quarters but, unfortunately, not by
| |
| − | the so-called elected representatives of the people. As early as 1912
| |
| − | Ludendorff, who was then Colonel and an Officer of the General Staff,
| |
| − | pointed out these weak features of the Alliance in a memorandum which he
| |
| − | then drew up. But of course the 'statesmen' did not attach any
| |
| − | importance or value to that document. In general it would seem as if
| |
| − | reason were a faculty that is active only in the case of ordinary
| |
| − | mortals but that it is entirely absent when we come to deal with that
| |
| − | branch of the species known as 'diplomats'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was lucky for Germany that the war of 1914 broke out with Austria as
| |
| − | its direct cause, for thus the Habsburgs were compelled to participate.
| |
| − | Had the origin of the War been otherwise, Germany would have been left
| |
| − | to her own resources. The Habsburg State would never have been ready or
| |
| − | willing to take part in a war for the origin of which Germany was
| |
| − | responsible. What was the object of so much obloquy later in the case of
| |
| − | Italy's decision would have taken place, only earlier, in the case of
| |
| − | Austria. In other words, if Germany had been forced to go to war for
| |
| − | some reason of its own, Austria would have remained 'neutral' in order
| |
| − | to safeguard the State against a revolution which might begin
| |
| − | immediately after the war had started. The Slav element would have
| |
| − | preferred to smash up the Dual Monarchy in 1914 rather than permit it to
| |
| − | come to the assistance of Germany. But at that time there were only a
| |
| − | few who understood all the dangers and aggravations which resulted from
| |
| − | the alliance with the Danubian Monarchy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first place, Austria had too many enemies who were eagerly
| |
| − | looking forward to obtain the heritage of that decrepit State, so that
| |
| − | these people gradually developed a certain animosity against Germany,
| |
| − | because Germany was an obstacle to their desires inasmuch as it kept the
| |
| − | Dual Monarchy from falling to pieces, a consummation that was hoped for
| |
| − | and yearned for on all sides. The conviction developed that Vienna could
| |
| − | be reached only by passing through Berlin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the second place, by adopting this policy Germany lost its best and
| |
| − | most promising chances of other alliances. In place of these
| |
| − | possibilities one now observed a growing tension in the relations with
| |
| − | Russia and even with Italy. And this in spite of the fact that the
| |
| − | general attitude in Rome was just as favourable to Germany as it was
| |
| − | hostile to Austria, a hostility which lay dormant in the individual
| |
| − | Italian and broke out violently on occasion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since a commercial and industrial policy had been adopted, no motive was
| |
| − | left for waging war against Russia. Only the enemies of the two
| |
| − | countries, Germany and Russia, could have an active interest in such a
| |
| − | war under these circumstances. As a matter of fact, it was only the Jews
| |
| − | and the Marxists who tried to stir up bad blood between the two States.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the third place, the Alliance constituted a permanent danger to
| |
| − | German security; for any great Power that was hostile to Bismarck's
| |
| − | Empire could mobilize a whole lot of other States in a war against
| |
| − | Germany by promising them tempting spoils at the expense of the Austrian
| |
| − | ally.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was possible to arouse the whole of Eastern Europe against Austria,
| |
| − | especially Russia, and Italy also. The world coalition which had
| |
| − | developed under the leadership of King Edward could never have become a
| |
| − | reality if Germany's ally, Austria, had not offered such an alluring
| |
| − | prospect of booty. It was this fact alone which made it possible to
| |
| − | combine so many heterogeneous States with divergent interests into one
| |
| − | common phalanx of attack. Every member could hope to enrich himself at
| |
| − | the expense of Austria if he joined in the general attack against
| |
| − | Germany. The fact that Turkey was also a tacit party to the unfortunate
| |
| − | alliance with Austria augmented Germany's peril to an extraordinary
| |
| − | degree.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Jewish international finance needed this bait of the Austrian heritage
| |
| − | in order to carry out its plans of ruining Germany; for Germany had not
| |
| − | yet surrendered to the general control which the international captains
| |
| − | of finance and trade exercised over the other States. Thus it was
| |
| − | possible to consolidate that coalition and make it strong enough and
| |
| − | brave enough, through the sheer weight of numbers, to join in bodily
| |
| − | conflict with the 'horned' Siegfried. (Note 9)
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 9. Carlyle explains the epithet thus: "First then, let no one from
| |
| − | the title GEHOERNTE (Horned, Behorned), fancy that our brave Siegfried,
| |
| − | who was the loveliest as well as the bravest of men, was actually
| |
| − | cornuted, and had hornson his brow, though like Michael Angelo's Moses; or
| |
| − | even that his skin, to which the epithet BEHORNED refers, was hard like a
| |
| − | crocodile's, and not softer than the softest shamey, for the truth is,
| |
| − | his Hornedness means only an Invulnerability, like that of Achilles..."]
| |
| − | | |
| − | The alliance with the Habsburg Monarchy, which I loathed while still in
| |
| − | Austria, was the subject of grave concern on my part and caused me to
| |
| − | meditate on it so persistently that finally I came to the conclusions
| |
| − | which I have mentioned above.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the small circles which I frequented at that time I did not conceal
| |
| − | my conviction that this sinister agreement with a State doomed to
| |
| − | collapse would also bring catastrophe to Germany if she did not free
| |
| − | herself from it in time. I never for a moment wavered in that firm
| |
| − | conviction, even when the tempest of the World War seemed to have made
| |
| − | shipwreck of the reasoning faculty itself and had put blind enthusiasm
| |
| − | in its place, even among those circles where the coolest and hardest
| |
| − | objective thinking ought to have held sway. In the trenches I voiced and
| |
| − | upheld my own opinion whenever these problems came under discussion. I
| |
| − | held that to abandon the Habsburg Monarchy would involve no sacrifice if
| |
| − | Germany could thereby reduce the number of her own enemies; for the
| |
| − | millions of Germans who had donned the steel helmet had done so not to
| |
| − | fight for the maintenance of a corrupt dynasty but rather for the
| |
| − | salvation of the German people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before the War there were occasions on which it seemed that at least one
| |
| − | section of the German public had some slight misgivings about the
| |
| − | political wisdom of the alliance with Austria. From time to time German
| |
| − | conservative circles issued warnings against being over-confident about
| |
| − | the worth of that alliance; but, like every other reasonable suggestion
| |
| − | made at that time, it was thrown to the winds. The general conviction
| |
| − | was that the right measures had been adopted to 'conquer' the world,
| |
| − | that the success of these measures would be enormous and the sacrifices
| |
| − | negligible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once again the 'uninitiated' layman could do nothing but observe how the
| |
| − | 'elect' were marching straight ahead towards disaster and enticing their
| |
| − | beloved people to follow them, as the rats followed the Pied Piper of
| |
| − | Hamelin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we would look for the deeper grounds which made it possible to foist
| |
| − | on the people this absurd notion of peacefully conquering the world
| |
| − | through commercial penetration, and how it was possible to put forward
| |
| − | the maintenance of world-peace as a national aim, we shall find that
| |
| − | these grounds lay in a general morbid condition that had pervaded the
| |
| − | whole body of German political thought.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The triumphant progress of technical science in Germany and the
| |
| − | marvellous development of German industries and commerce led us to
| |
| − | forget that a powerful State had been the necessary pre-requisite of
| |
| − | that success. On the contrary, certain circles went even so far as to
| |
| − | give vent to the theory that the State owed its very existence to these
| |
| − | phenomena; that it was, above all, an economic institution and should be
| |
| − | constituted in accordance with economic interests. Therefore, it was
| |
| − | held, the State was dependent on the economic structure. This condition
| |
| − | of things was looked upon and glorified as the soundest and most normal
| |
| − | arrangement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now, the truth is that the State in itself has nothing whatsoever to do
| |
| − | with any definite economic concept or a definite economic development.
| |
| − | It does not arise from a compact made between contracting parties,
| |
| − | within a certain delimited territory, for the purpose of serving
| |
| − | economic ends. The State is a community of living beings who have
| |
| − | kindred physical and spiritual natures, organized for the purpose of
| |
| − | assuring the conservation of their own kind and to help towards
| |
| − | fulfilling those ends which Providence has assigned to that particular
| |
| − | race or racial branch. Therein, and therein alone, lie the purpose and
| |
| − | meaning of a State. Economic activity is one of the many auxiliary means
| |
| − | which are necessary for the attainment of those aims. But economic
| |
| − | activity is never the origin or purpose of a State, except where a State
| |
| − | has been originally founded on a false and unnatural basis. And this
| |
| − | alone explains why a State as such does not necessarily need a certain
| |
| − | delimited territory as a condition of its establishment. This condition
| |
| − | becomes a necessary pre-requisite only among those people who would
| |
| − | provide and assure subsistence for their kinsfolk through their own
| |
| − | industry, which means that they are ready to carry on the struggle for
| |
| − | existence by means of their own work. People who can sneak their way,
| |
| − | like parasites, into the human body politic and make others work for
| |
| − | them under various pretences can form a State without possessing any
| |
| − | definite delimited territory. This is chiefly applicable to that
| |
| − | parasitic nation which, particularly at the present time preys upon the
| |
| − | honest portion of mankind; I mean the Jews.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jewish State has never been delimited in space. It has been spread
| |
| − | all over the world, without any frontiers whatsoever, and has always
| |
| − | been constituted from the membership of one race exclusively. That is
| |
| − | why the Jews have always formed a State within the State. One of the
| |
| − | most ingenious tricks ever devised has been that of sailing the Jewish
| |
| − | ship-of-state under the flag of Religion and thus securing that
| |
| − | tolerance which Aryans are always ready to grant to different religious
| |
| − | faiths. But the Mosaic Law is really nothing else than the doctrine of
| |
| − | the preservation of the Jewish race. Therefore this Law takes in all
| |
| − | spheres of sociological, political and economic science which have a
| |
| − | bearing on the main end in view.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The instinct for the preservation of one's own species is the primary
| |
| − | cause that leads to the formation of human communities. Hence the State
| |
| − | is a racial organism, and not an economic organization. The difference
| |
| − | between the two is so great as to be incomprehensible to our
| |
| − | contemporary so-called 'statesmen'. That is why they like to believe
| |
| − | that the State may be constituted as an economic structure, whereas the
| |
| − | truth is that it has always resulted from the exercise of those
| |
| − | qualities which are part of the will to preserve the species and the
| |
| − | race. But these qualities always exist and operate through the heroic
| |
| − | virtues and have nothing to do with commercial egoism; for the
| |
| − | conservation of the species always presupposes that the individual is
| |
| − | ready to sacrifice himself. Such is the meaning of the poet's lines:
| |
| − | | |
| − | UND SETZET IHR NICHT DAS LEBEN EIN,
| |
| − | NIE WIRD EUCH DAS LEBEN GEWONNEN SEIN.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (AND IF YOU DO NOT STAKE YOUR LIFE,
| |
| − | YOU WILL NEVER WIN LIFE FOR YOURSELF.)
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 10. Lines quoted from the Song of the Curassiers in Schiller's
| |
| − | WALLENSTEIN.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | The sacrifice of the individual existence is necessary in order to
| |
| − | assure the conservation of the race. Hence it is that the most essential
| |
| − | condition for the establishment and maintenance of a State is a certain
| |
| − | feeling of solidarity, wounded in an identity of character and race and
| |
| − | in a resolute readiness to defend these at all costs. With people who
| |
| − | live on their own territory this will result in a development of the
| |
| − | heroic virtues; with a parasitic people it will develop the arts of
| |
| − | subterfuge and gross perfidy unless we admit that these characteristics
| |
| − | are innate and that the varying political forms through which the
| |
| − | parasitic race expresses itself are only the outward manifestations of
| |
| − | innate characteristics. At least in the beginning, the formation of a
| |
| − | State can result only from a manifestation of the heroic qualities I
| |
| − | have spoken of. And the people who fail in the struggle for existence,
| |
| − | that is to say those, who become vassals and are thereby condemned to
| |
| − | disappear entirely sooner or later, are those who do not display the
| |
| − | heroic virtues in the struggle, or those who fall victims to the perfidy
| |
| − | of the parasites. And even in this latter case the failure is not so
| |
| − | much due to lack of intellectual powers, but rather to a lack of courage
| |
| − | and determination. An attempt is made to conceal the real nature of this
| |
| − | failing by saying that it is the humane feeling.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The qualities which are employed for the foundation and preservation of
| |
| − | a State have accordingly little or nothing to do with the economic
| |
| − | situation. And this is conspicuously demonstrated by the fact that the
| |
| − | inner strength of a State only very rarely coincides with what is called
| |
| − | its economic expansion. On the contrary, there are numerous examples to
| |
| − | show that a period of economic prosperity indicates the approaching
| |
| − | decline of a State. If it were correct to attribute the foundation of
| |
| − | human communities to economic forces, then the power of the State as
| |
| − | such would be at its highest pitch during periods of economic
| |
| − | prosperity, and not vice versa.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is specially difficult to understand how the belief that the State is
| |
| − | brought into being and preserved by economic forces could gain currency
| |
| − | in a country which has given proof of the opposite in every phase of its
| |
| − | history. The history of Prussia shows in a manner particularly clear and
| |
| − | distinct, that it is out of the moral virtues of the people and not from
| |
| − | their economic circumstances that a State is formed. It is only under
| |
| − | the protection of those virtues that economic activities can be
| |
| − | developed and the latter will continue to flourish until a time comes
| |
| − | when the creative political capacity declines. Therewith the economic
| |
| − | structure will also break down, a phenomenon which is now happening in
| |
| − | an alarming manner before our eyes. The material interest of mankind can
| |
| − | prosper only in the shade of the heroic virtues. The moment they become
| |
| − | the primary considerations of life they wreck the basis of their own
| |
| − | existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whenever the political power of Germany was specially strong the
| |
| − | economic situation also improved. But whenever economic interests alone
| |
| − | occupied the foremost place in the life of the people, and thrust
| |
| − | transcendent ideals into the back.-ground, the State collapsed and
| |
| − | economic ruin followed readily.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we consider the question of what those forces actually are which are
| |
| − | necessary to the creation and preservation of a State, we shall find
| |
| − | that they are: The capacity and readiness to sacrifice the individual to
| |
| − | the common welfare. That these qualities have nothing at all to do with
| |
| − | economics can be proved by referring to the simple fact that man does
| |
| − | not sacrifice himself for material interests. In other words, he will
| |
| − | die for an ideal but not for a business. The marvellous gift for public
| |
| − | psychology which the English have was never shown better than the way in
| |
| − | which they presented their case in the World War. We were fighting for
| |
| − | our bread; but the English declared that they were fighting for
| |
| − | 'freedom', and not at all for their own freedom. Oh, no, but for the
| |
| − | freedom of the small nations. German people laughed at that effrontery
| |
| − | and were angered by it; but in doing so they showed how political
| |
| − | thought had declined among our so-called diplomats in Germany even
| |
| − | before the War. These diplomatists did not have the slightest notion of
| |
| − | what that force was which brought men to face death of their own free
| |
| − | will and determination.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As long as the German people, in the War of 1914, continued to believe
| |
| − | that they were fighting for ideals they stood firm. As soon as they were
| |
| − | told that they were fighting only for their daily bread they began to
| |
| − | give up the struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our clever 'statesmen' were greatly amazed at this change of feeling.
| |
| − | They never understood that as soon as man is called upon to struggle for
| |
| − | purely material causes he will avoid death as best he can; for death and
| |
| − | the enjoyment of the material fruits of a victory are quite incompatible
| |
| − | concepts. The frailest woman will become a heroine when the life of her
| |
| − | own child is at stake. And only the will to save the race and native
| |
| − | land or the State, which offers protection to the race, has in all ages
| |
| − | been the urge which has forced men to face the weapons of their enemies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The following may be proclaimed as a truth that always holds good:
| |
| − | | |
| − | A State has never arisen from commercial causes for the purpose of
| |
| − | peacefully serving commercial ends; but States have always arisen from
| |
| − | the instinct to maintain the racial group, whether this instinct
| |
| − | manifest itself in the heroic sphere or in the sphere of cunning and
| |
| − | chicanery. In the first case we have the Aryan States, based on the
| |
| − | principles of work and cultural development. In the second case we have
| |
| − | the Jewish parasitic colonies. But as soon as economic interests begin
| |
| − | to predominate over the racial and cultural instincts in a people or a
| |
| − | State, these economic interests unloose the causes that lead to
| |
| − | subjugation and oppression.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The belief, which prevailed in Germany before the War, that the world
| |
| − | could be opened up and even conquered for Germany through a system of
| |
| − | peaceful commercial penetration and a colonial policy was a typical
| |
| − | symptom which indicated the decline of those real qualities whereby
| |
| − | States are created and preserved, and indicated also the decline of that
| |
| − | insight, will-power and practical determination which belong to those
| |
| − | qualities. The World War with its consequences, was the natural
| |
| − | liquidation of that decline.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To anyone who had not thought over the matter deeply, this attitude of
| |
| − | the German people--which was quite general--must have seemed an
| |
| − | insoluble enigma. After all, Germany herself was a magnificent example
| |
| − | of an empire that had been built up purely by a policy of power.
| |
| − | Prussia, which was the generative cell of the German Empire, had been
| |
| − | created by brilliant heroic deeds and not by a financial or commercial
| |
| − | compact. And the Empire itself was but the magnificent recompense for a
| |
| − | leadership that had been conducted on a policy of power and military
| |
| − | valour.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How then did it happen that the political instincts of this very same
| |
| − | German people became so degenerate? For it was not merely one isolated
| |
| − | phenomenon which pointed to this decadence, but morbid symptoms which
| |
| − | appeared in alarming numbers, now all over the body politic, or eating
| |
| − | into the body of the nation like a gangrenous ulcer. It seemed as if
| |
| − | some all-pervading poisonous fluid had been injected by some mysterious
| |
| − | hand into the bloodstream of this once heroic body, bringing about a
| |
| − | creeping paralysis that affected the reason and the elementary instinct
| |
| − | of self-preservation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the years 1912-1914 I used to ponder perpetually on those
| |
| − | problems which related to the policy of the Triple Alliance and the
| |
| − | economic policy then being pursued by the German Empire. Once again I
| |
| − | came to the conclusion that the only explanation of this enigma lay in
| |
| − | the operation of that force which I had already become acquainted with
| |
| − | in Vienna, though from a different angle of vision. The force to which I
| |
| − | refer was the Marxist teaching and WELTANSCHAUUNG and its organized
| |
| − | action throughout the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the second time in my life I plunged deep into the study of that
| |
| − | destructive teaching. This time, however, I was not urged by the study
| |
| − | of the question by the impressions and influences of my daily
| |
| − | environment, but directed rather by the observation of general phenomena
| |
| − | in the political life of Germany. In delving again into the theoretical
| |
| − | literature of this new world and endeavouring to get a clear view of the
| |
| − | possible consequences of its teaching, I compared the theoretical
| |
| − | principles of Marxism with the phenomena and happenings brought about by
| |
| − | its activities in the political, cultural, and economic spheres.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the first time in my life I now turned my attention to the efforts
| |
| − | that were being made to subdue this universal pest.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I studied Bismarck's exceptional legislation in its original concept,
| |
| − | its operation and its results. Gradually I formed a basis for my own
| |
| − | opinions, which has proved as solid as a rock, so that never since have
| |
| − | I had to change my attitude towards the general problem. I also made a
| |
| − | further and more thorough analysis of the relations between Marxism and
| |
| − | Jewry.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During my sojourn in Vienna I used to look upon Germany as an
| |
| − | imperturbable colossus; but even then serious doubts and misgivings
| |
| − | would often disturb me. In my own mind and in my conversation with my
| |
| − | small circle of acquaintances I used to criticize Germany's foreign
| |
| − | policy and the incredibly superficial way, according to my thinking, in
| |
| − | which Marxism was dealt with, though it was then the most important
| |
| − | problem in Germany. I could not understand how they could stumble
| |
| − | blindfolded into the midst of this peril, the effects of which would be
| |
| − | momentous if the openly declared aims of Marxism could be put into
| |
| − | practice. Even as early as that time I warned people around me, just as
| |
| − | I am warning a wider audience now, against that soothing slogan of all
| |
| − | indolent and feckless nature: NOTHING CAN HAPPEN TO US. A similar mental
| |
| − | contagion had already destroyed a mighty empire. Can Germany escape the
| |
| − | operation of those laws to which all other human communities are
| |
| − | subject?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the years 1913 and 1914 I expressed my opinion for the first time in
| |
| − | various circles, some of which are now members of the National Socialist
| |
| − | Movement, that the problem of how the future of the German nation can be
| |
| − | secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I considered the disastrous policy of the Triple Alliance as one of the
| |
| − | consequences resulting from the disintegrating effects of the Marxist
| |
| − | teaching; for the alarming feature was that this teaching was invisibly
| |
| − | corrupting the foundations of a healthy political and economic outlook.
| |
| − | Those who had been themselves contaminated frequently did not realise
| |
| − | that their aims and actions sprang from this WELTANSCHAUUNG, which they
| |
| − | otherwise openly repudiated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Long before then the spiritual and moral decline of the German people
| |
| − | had set in, though those who were affected by the morbid decadence were
| |
| − | frequently unaware--as often happens--of the forces which were breaking
| |
| − | up their very existence. Sometimes they tried to cure the disease by
| |
| − | doctoring the symptoms, which were taken as the cause. But since nobody
| |
| − | recognized, or wanted to recognize, the real cause of the disease this
| |
| − | way of combating Marxism was no more effective than the application of
| |
| − | some quack's ointment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER V
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE WORLD WAR
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | During the boisterous years of my youth nothing used to damp my wild
| |
| − | spirits so much as to think that I was born at a time when the world had
| |
| − | manifestly decided not to erect any more temples of fame except in
| |
| − | honour of business people and State officials. The tempest of historical
| |
| − | achievements seemed to have permanently subsided, so much so that the
| |
| − | future appeared to be irrevocably delivered over to what was called
| |
| − | peaceful competition between the nations. This simply meant a system of
| |
| − | mutual exploitation by fraudulent means, the principle of resorting to
| |
| − | the use of force in self-defence being formally excluded. Individual
| |
| − | countries increasingly assumed the appearance of commercial
| |
| − | undertakings, grabbing territory and clients and concessions from each
| |
| − | other under any and every kind of pretext. And it was all staged to an
| |
| − | accompaniment of loud but innocuous shouting. This trend of affairs
| |
| − | seemed destined to develop steadily and permanently. Having the support
| |
| − | of public approbation, it seemed bound eventually to transform the world
| |
| − | into a mammoth department store. In the vestibule of this emporium there
| |
| − | would be rows of monumental busts which would confer immortality on
| |
| − | those profiteers who had proved themselves the shrewdest at their trade
| |
| − | and those administrative officials who had shown themselves the most
| |
| − | innocuous. The salesmen could be represented by the English and the
| |
| − | administrative functionaries by the Germans; whereas the Jews would be
| |
| − | sacrificed to the unprofitable calling of proprietorship, for they are
| |
| − | constantly avowing that they make no profits and are always being called
| |
| − | upon to 'pay out'. Moreover they have the advantage of being versed in
| |
| − | the foreign languages.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Why could I not have been born a hundred years ago? I used to ask
| |
| − | myself. Somewhere about the time of the Wars of Liberation, when a man
| |
| − | was still of some value even though he had no 'business'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus I used to think it an ill-deserved stroke of bad luck that I had
| |
| − | arrived too late on this terrestrial globe, and I felt chagrined at the
| |
| − | idea that my life would have to run its course along peaceful and
| |
| − | orderly lines. As a boy I was anything but a pacifist and all attempts
| |
| − | to make me so turned out futile.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then the Boer War came, like a glow of lightning on the far horizon. Day
| |
| − | after day I used to gaze intently at the newspapers and I almost
| |
| − | 'devoured' the telegrams and COMMUNIQUES, overjoyed to think that I
| |
| − | could witness that heroic struggle, even though from so great a
| |
| − | distance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the Russo-Japanese War came I was older and better able to judge
| |
| − | for myself. For national reasons I then took the side of the Japanese in
| |
| − | our discussions. I looked upon the defeat of the Russians as a blow to
| |
| − | Austrian Slavism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Many years had passed between that time and my arrival in Munich. I now
| |
| − | realized that what I formerly believed to be a morbid decadence was only
| |
| − | the lull before the storm. During my Vienna days the Balkans were
| |
| − | already in the grip of that sultry pause which presages the violent
| |
| − | storm. Here and there a flash of lightning could be occasionally seen;
| |
| − | but it rapidly disappeared in sinister gloom. Then the Balkan War broke
| |
| − | out; and therewith the first gusts of the forthcoming tornado swept
| |
| − | across a highly-strung Europe. In the supervening calm men felt the
| |
| − | atmosphere oppressive and foreboding, so much so that the sense of an
| |
| − | impending catastrophe became transformed into a feeling of impatient
| |
| − | expectance. They wished that Heaven would give free rein to the fate
| |
| − | which could now no longer be curbed. Then the first great bolt of
| |
| − | lightning struck the earth. The storm broke and the thunder of the
| |
| − | heavens intermingled with the roar of the cannons in the World War.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the news came to Munich that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been
| |
| − | murdered, I had been at home all day and did not get the particulars of
| |
| − | how it happened. At first I feared that the shots may have been fired by
| |
| − | some German-Austrian students who had been aroused to a state of furious
| |
| − | indignation by the persistent pro-Slav activities of the Heir to the
| |
| − | Habsburg Throne and therefore wished to liberate the German population
| |
| − | from this internal enemy. It was quite easy to imagine what the result
| |
| − | of such a mistake would have been. It would have brought on a new wave
| |
| − | of persecution, the motives of which would have been 'justified' before
| |
| − | the whole world. But soon afterwards I heard the names of the presumed
| |
| − | assassins and also that they were known to be Serbs. I felt somewhat
| |
| − | dumbfounded in face of the inexorable vengeance which Destiny had
| |
| − | wrought. The greatest friend of the Slavs had fallen a victim to the
| |
| − | bullets of Slav patriots.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is unjust to the Vienna government of that time to blame it now for
| |
| − | the form and tenor of the ultimatum which was then presented. In a
| |
| − | similar position and under similar circumstances, no other Power in the
| |
| − | world would have acted otherwise. On her southern frontiers Austria had
| |
| − | a relentless mortal foe who indulged in acts of provocation against the
| |
| − | Dual Monarchy at intervals which were becoming more and more frequent.
| |
| − | This persistent line of conduct would not have been relaxed until the
| |
| − | arrival of the opportune moment for the destruction of the Empire. In
| |
| − | Austria there was good reason to fear that, at the latest, this moment
| |
| − | would come with the death of the old Emperor. Once that had taken place,
| |
| − | it was quite possible that the Monarchy would not be able to offer any
| |
| − | serious resistance. For some years past the State had been so completely
| |
| − | identified with the personality of Francis Joseph that, in the eyes of
| |
| − | the great mass of the people, the death of this venerable
| |
| − | personification of the Empire would be tantamount to the death of the
| |
| − | Empire itself. Indeed it was one of the clever artifices of Slav policy
| |
| − | to foster the impression that the Austrian State owed its very existence
| |
| − | exclusively to the prodigies and rare talents of that monarch. This kind
| |
| − | of flattery was particularly welcomed at the Hofburg, all the more
| |
| − | because it had no relation whatsoever to the services actually rendered
| |
| − | by the Emperor. No effort whatsoever was made to locate the carefully
| |
| − | prepared sting which lay hidden in this glorifying praise. One fact
| |
| − | which was entirely overlooked, perhaps intentionally, was that the more
| |
| − | the Empire remained dependent on the so-called administrative talents of
| |
| − | 'the wisest Monarch of all times', the more catastrophic would be the
| |
| − | situation when Fate came to knock at the door and demand its tribute.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Was it possible even to imagine the Austrian Empire without its
| |
| − | venerable ruler? Would not the tragedy which befell Maria Theresa be
| |
| − | repeated at once?
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is really unjust to the Vienna governmental circles to reproach them
| |
| − | with having instigated a war which might have been prevented. The war
| |
| − | was bound to come. Perhaps it might have been postponed for a year or
| |
| − | two at the most. But it had always been the misfortune of German, as
| |
| − | well as Austrian, diplomats that they endeavoured to put off the
| |
| − | inevitable day of reckoning, with the result that they were finally
| |
| − | compelled to deliver their blow at a most inopportune moment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. Those who did not wish this war ought to have had the courage to
| |
| − | take the consequences of the refusal upon themselves. Those consequences
| |
| − | must necessarily have meant the sacrifice of Austria. And even then war
| |
| − | would have come, not as a war in which all the nations would have been
| |
| − | banded against us but in the form of a dismemberment of the Habsburg
| |
| − | Monarchy. In that case we should have had to decide whether we should
| |
| − | come to the assistance of the Habsburg or stand aside as spectators,
| |
| − | with our arms folded, and thus allow Fate to run its course.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just those who are loudest in their imprecations to-day and make a great
| |
| − | parade of wisdom in judging the causes of the war are the very same
| |
| − | people whose collaboration was the most fatal factor in steering towards
| |
| − | the war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For several decades previously the German Social-Democrats had been
| |
| − | agitating in an underhand and knavish way for war against Russia;
| |
| − | whereas the German Centre Party, with religious ends in view, had worked
| |
| − | to make the Austrian State the chief centre and turning-point of German
| |
| − | policy. The consequences of this folly had now to be borne. What came
| |
| − | was bound to come and under no circumstances could it have been avoided.
| |
| − | The fault of the German Government lay in the fact that, merely for the
| |
| − | sake of preserving peace at all costs, it continued to miss the
| |
| − | occasions that were favourable for action, got entangled in an alliance
| |
| − | for the purpose of preserving the peace of the world, and thus finally
| |
| − | became the victim of a world coalition which opposed the German effort
| |
| − | for the maintenance of peace and was determined to bring about the world
| |
| − | war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Had the Vienna Government of that time formulated its ultimatum in less
| |
| − | drastic terms, that would not have altered the situation at all: but
| |
| − | such a course might have aroused public indignation. For, in the eyes of
| |
| − | the great masses, the ultimatum was too moderate and certainly not
| |
| − | excessive or brutal. Those who would deny this to-day are either
| |
| − | simpletons with feeble memories or else deliberate falsehood-mongers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The War of 1914 was certainly not forced on the masses; it was even
| |
| − | desired by the whole people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There was a desire to bring the general feeling of uncertainty to an end
| |
| − | once and for all. And it is only in the light of this fact that we can
| |
| − | understand how more than two million German men and youths voluntarily
| |
| − | joined the colours, ready to shed the last drop of their blood for the
| |
| − | cause.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For me these hours came as a deliverance from the distress that had
| |
| − | weighed upon me during the days of my youth. I am not ashamed to
| |
| − | acknowledge to-day that I was carried away by the enthusiasm of the
| |
| − | moment and that I sank down upon my knees and thanked Heaven out of the
| |
| − | fullness of my heart for the favour of having been permitted to live in
| |
| − | such a time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fight for freedom had broken out on an unparalleled scale in the
| |
| − | history of the world. From the moment that Fate took the helm in hand
| |
| − | the conviction grew among the mass of the people that now it was not a
| |
| − | question of deciding the destinies of Austria or Serbia but that the
| |
| − | very existence of the German nation itself was at stake.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At last, after many years of blindness, the people saw clearly into the
| |
| − | future. Therefore, almost immediately after the gigantic struggle had
| |
| − | begun, an excessive enthusiasm was replaced by a more earnest and more
| |
| − | fitting undertone, because the exaltation of the popular spirit was not
| |
| − | a mere passing frenzy. It was only too necessary that the gravity of the
| |
| − | situation should be recognized. At that time there was, generally
| |
| − | speaking, not the slightest presentiment or conception of how long the
| |
| − | war might last. People dreamed of the soldiers being home by Christmas
| |
| − | and that then they would resume their daily work in peace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whatever mankind desires, that it will hope for and believe in. The
| |
| − | overwhelming majority of the people had long since grown weary of the
| |
| − | perpetual insecurity in the general condition of public affairs. Hence
| |
| − | it was only natural that no one believed that the Austro-Serbian
| |
| − | conflict could be shelved. Therefore they looked forward to a radical
| |
| − | settlement of accounts. I also belonged to the millions that desired
| |
| − | this.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The moment the news of the Sarajevo outrage reached Munich two ideas
| |
| − | came into my mind: First, that war was absolutely inevitable and,
| |
| − | second, that the Habsburg State would now be forced to honour its
| |
| − | signature to the alliance. For what I had feared most was that one day
| |
| − | Germany herself, perhaps as a result of the Alliance, would become
| |
| − | involved in a conflict the first direct cause of which did not affect
| |
| − | Austria. In such a contingency, I feared that the Austrian State, for
| |
| − | domestic political reasons, would find itself unable to decide in favour
| |
| − | of its ally. But now this danger was removed. The old State was
| |
| − | compelled to fight, whether it wished to do so or not.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My own attitude towards the conflict was equally simple and clear. I
| |
| − | believed that it was not a case of Austria fighting to get satisfaction
| |
| − | from Serbia but rather a case of Germany fighting for her own
| |
| − | existence--the German nation for its own to-be-or-not-to-be, for its
| |
| − | freedom and for its future. The work of Bismarck must now be carried on.
| |
| − | Young Germany must show itself worthy of the blood shed by our fathers
| |
| − | on so many heroic fields of battle, from Weissenburg to Sedan and Paris.
| |
| − | And if this struggle should bring us victory our people will again rank
| |
| − | foremost among the great nations. Only then could the German Empire
| |
| − | assert itself as the mighty champion of peace, without the necessity of
| |
| − | restricting the daily bread of its children for the sake of maintaining
| |
| − | the peace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a boy and as a young man, I often longed for the occasion to prove
| |
| − | that my national enthusiasm was not mere vapouring. Hurrahing sometimes
| |
| − | seemed to me to be a kind of sinful indulgence, though I could not give
| |
| − | any justification for that feeling; for, after all, who has the right to
| |
| − | shout that triumphant word if he has not won the right to it there where
| |
| − | there is no play-acting and where the hand of the Goddess of Destiny
| |
| − | puts the truth and sincerity of nations and men through her inexorable
| |
| − | test? Just as millions of others, I felt a proud joy in being permitted
| |
| − | to go through this test. I had so often sung DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES and
| |
| − | so often roared 'HEIL' that I now thought it was as a kind of
| |
| − | retro-active grace that I was granted the right of appearing before the
| |
| − | Court of Eternal Justice to testify to the truth of those sentiments.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One thing was clear to me from the very beginning, namely, that in the
| |
| − | event of war, which now seemed inevitable, my books would have to be
| |
| − | thrown aside forthwith. I also realized that my place would have to be
| |
| − | there where the inner voice of conscience called me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I had left Austria principally for political reasons. What therefore
| |
| − | could be more rational than that I should put into practice the logical
| |
| − | consequences of my political opinions, now that the war had begun. I had
| |
| − | no desire to fight for the Habsburg cause, but I was prepared to die at
| |
| − | any time for my own kinsfolk and the Empire to which they really
| |
| − | belonged.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On August 3rd, 1914, I presented an urgent petition to His Majesty, King
| |
| − | Ludwig III, requesting to be allowed to serve in a Bavarian regiment. In
| |
| − | those days the Chancellery had its hands quite full and therefore I was
| |
| − | all the more pleased when I received the answer a day later, that my
| |
| − | request had been granted. I opened the document with trembling hands;
| |
| − | and no words of mine could now describe the satisfaction I felt on
| |
| − | reading that I was instructed to report to a Bavarian regiment. Within a
| |
| − | few days I was wearing that uniform which I was not to put oft again for
| |
| − | nearly six years.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For me, as for every German, the most memorable period of my life now
| |
| − | began. Face to face with that mighty struggle, all the past fell away
| |
| − | into oblivion. With a wistful pride I look back on those days,
| |
| − | especially because we are now approaching the tenth anniversary of that
| |
| − | memorable happening. I recall those early weeks of war when kind fortune
| |
| − | permitted me to take my place in that heroic struggle among the nations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As the scene unfolds itself before my mind, it seems only like
| |
| − | yesterday. I see myself among my young comrades on our first parade
| |
| − | drill, and so on until at last the day came on which we were to leave
| |
| − | for the front.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In common with the others, I had one worry during those days. This was a
| |
| − | fear that we might arrive too late for the fighting at the front. Time
| |
| − | and again that thought disturbed me and every announcement of a
| |
| − | victorious engagement left a bitter taste, which increased as the news
| |
| − | of further victories arrived.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At long last the day came when we left Munich on war service. For the
| |
| − | first time in my life I saw the Rhine, as we journeyed westwards to
| |
| − | stand guard before that historic German river against its traditional
| |
| − | and grasping enemy. As the first soft rays of the morning sun broke
| |
| − | through the light mist and disclosed to us the Niederwald Statue, with
| |
| − | one accord the whole troop train broke into the strains of DIE WACHT AM
| |
| − | RHEIN. I then felt as if my heart could not contain its spirit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And then followed a damp, cold night in Flanders. We marched in silence
| |
| − | throughout the night and as the morning sun came through the mist an
| |
| − | iron greeting suddenly burst above our heads. Shrapnel exploded in our
| |
| − | midst and spluttered in the damp ground. But before the smoke of the
| |
| − | explosion disappeared a wild 'Hurrah' was shouted from two hundred
| |
| − | throats, in response to this first greeting of Death. Then began the
| |
| − | whistling of bullets and the booming of cannons, the shouting and
| |
| − | singing of the combatants. With eyes straining feverishly, we pressed
| |
| − | forward, quicker and quicker, until we finally came to close-quarter
| |
| − | fighting, there beyond the beet-fields and the meadows. Soon the strains
| |
| − | of a song reached us from afar. Nearer and nearer, from company to
| |
| − | company, it came. And while Death began to make havoc in our ranks we
| |
| − | passed the song on to those beside us: DEUTSCHLAND, DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER
| |
| − | ALLES, ÜBER ALLES IN DER WELT.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After four days in the trenches we came back. Even our step was no
| |
| − | longer what it had been. Boys of seventeen looked now like grown men.
| |
| − | The rank and file of the List Regiment (Note 11) had not been properly
| |
| − | trained in the art of warfare, but they knew how to die like old soldiers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 11. The Second Infantry Bavarian Regiment, in which Hitler served
| |
| − | as a volunteer.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was the beginning. And thus we carried on from year to year. A
| |
| − | feeling of horror replaced the romantic fighting spirit. Enthusiasm
| |
| − | cooled down gradually and exuberant spirits were quelled by the fear of
| |
| − | the ever-present Death. A time came when there arose within each one of
| |
| − | us a conflict between the urge to self-preservation and the call of
| |
| − | duty. And I had to go through that conflict too. As Death sought its
| |
| − | prey everywhere and unrelentingly a nameless Something rebelled within
| |
| − | the weak body and tried to introduce itself under the name of Common
| |
| − | Sense; but in reality it was Fear, which had taken on this cloak in
| |
| − | order to impose itself on the individual. But the more the voice which
| |
| − | advised prudence increased its efforts and the more clear and persuasive
| |
| − | became its appeal, resistance became all the stronger; until finally the
| |
| − | internal strife was over and the call of duty was triumphant. Already in
| |
| − | the winter of 1915-16 I had come through that inner struggle. The will
| |
| − | had asserted its incontestable mastery. Whereas in the early days I went
| |
| − | into the fight with a cheer and a laugh, I was now habitually calm and
| |
| − | resolute. And that frame of mind endured. Fate might now put me through
| |
| − | the final test without my nerves or reason giving way. The young
| |
| − | volunteer had become an old soldier.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This same transformation took place throughout the whole army. Constant
| |
| − | fighting had aged and toughened it and hardened it, so that it stood
| |
| − | firm and dauntless against every assault.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only now was it possible to judge that army. After two and three years
| |
| − | of continuous fighting, having been thrown into one battle after
| |
| − | another, standing up stoutly against superior numbers and superior
| |
| − | armament, suffering hunger and privation, the time had come when one
| |
| − | could assess the value of that singular fighting force.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For a thousand years to come nobody will dare to speak of heroism
| |
| − | without recalling the German Army of the World War. And then from the
| |
| − | dim past will emerge the immortal vision of those solid ranks of steel
| |
| − | helmets that never flinched and never faltered. And as long as Germans
| |
| − | live they will be proud to remember that these men were the sons of
| |
| − | their forefathers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was then a soldier and did not wish to meddle in politics, all the
| |
| − | more so because the time was inopportune. I still believe that the most
| |
| − | modest stable-boy of those days served his country better than the best
| |
| − | of, let us say, the 'parliamentary deputies'. My hatred for those
| |
| − | footlers was never greater than in those days when all decent men who
| |
| − | had anything to say said it point-blank in the enemy's face; or, failing
| |
| − | this, kept their mouths shut and did their duty elsewhere. I despised
| |
| − | those political fellows and if I had had my way I would have formed them
| |
| − | into a Labour Battalion and given them the opportunity of babbling
| |
| − | amongst themselves to their hearts' content, without offence or harm to
| |
| − | decent people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In those days I cared nothing for politics; but I could not help forming
| |
| − | an opinion on certain manifestations which affected not only the whole
| |
| − | nation but also us soldiers in particular. There were two things which
| |
| − | caused me the greatest anxiety at that time and which I had come to
| |
| − | regard as detrimental to our interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Shortly after our first series of victories a certain section of the
| |
| − | Press already began to throw cold water, drip by drip, on the enthusiasm
| |
| − | of the public. At first this was not obvious to many people. It was done
| |
| − | under the mask of good intentions and a spirit of anxious care. The
| |
| − | public was told that big celebrations of victories were somewhat out of
| |
| − | place and were not worthy expressions of the spirit of a great nation.
| |
| − | The fortitude and valour of German soldiers were accepted facts which
| |
| − | did not necessarily call for outbursts of celebration. Furthermore, it
| |
| − | was asked, what would foreign opinion have to say about these
| |
| − | manifestations? Would not foreign opinion react more favourably to a
| |
| − | quiet and sober form of celebration rather than to all this wild
| |
| − | jubilation? Surely the time had come--so the Press declared--for us
| |
| − | Germans to remember that this war was not our work and that hence there
| |
| − | need be no feeling of shame in declaring our willingness to do our share
| |
| − | towards effecting an understanding among the nations. For this reason it
| |
| − | would not be wise to sully the radiant deeds of our army with unbecoming
| |
| − | jubilation; for the rest of the world would never understand this.
| |
| − | Furthermore, nothing is more appreciated than the modesty with which a
| |
| − | true hero quietly and unassumingly carries on and forgets. Such was the
| |
| − | gist of their warning.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Instead of catching these fellows by their long ears and dragging them
| |
| − | to some ditch and looping a cord around their necks, so that the
| |
| − | victorious enthusiasm of the nation should no longer offend the
| |
| − | aesthetic sensibilities of these knights of the pen, a general Press
| |
| − | campaign was now allowed to go on against what was called 'unbecoming'
| |
| − | and 'undignified' forms of victorious celebration.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No one seemed to have the faintest idea that when public enthusiasm is
| |
| − | once damped, nothing can enkindle it again, when the necessity arises.
| |
| − | This enthusiasm is an intoxication and must be kept up in that form.
| |
| − | Without the support of this enthusiastic spirit how would it be possible
| |
| − | to endure in a struggle which, according to human standards, made such
| |
| − | immense demands on the spiritual stamina of the nation?
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was only too well acquainted with the psychology of the broad masses
| |
| − | not to know that in such cases a magnaminous 'aestheticism' cannot fan
| |
| − | the fire which is needed to keep the iron hot. In my eyes it was even a
| |
| − | mistake not to have tried to raise the pitch of public enthusiasm still
| |
| − | higher. Therefore I could not at all understand why the contrary policy
| |
| − | was adopted, that is to say, the policy of damping the public spirit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Another thing which irritated me was the manner in which Marxism was
| |
| − | regarded and accepted. I thought that all this proved how little they
| |
| − | knew about the Marxist plague. It was believed in all seriousness that
| |
| − | the abolition of party distinctions during the War had made Marxism a
| |
| − | mild and moderate thing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But here there was no question of party. There was question of a
| |
| − | doctrine which was being expounded for the express purpose of leading
| |
| − | humanity to its destruction. The purport of this doctrine was not
| |
| − | understood because nothing was said about that side of the question in
| |
| − | our Jew-ridden universities and because our supercilious bureaucratic
| |
| − | officials did not think it worth while to read up a subject which had
| |
| − | not been prescribed in their university course. This mighty
| |
| − | revolutionary trend was going on beside them; but those 'intellectuals'
| |
| − | would not deign to give it their attention. That is why State enterprise
| |
| − | nearly always lags behind private enterprise. Of these gentry once can
| |
| − | truly say that their maxim is: What we don't know won't bother us. In
| |
| − | the August of 1914 the German worker was looked upon as an adherent of
| |
| − | Marxist socialism. That was a gross error. When those fateful hours
| |
| − | dawned the German worker shook off the poisonous clutches of that
| |
| − | plague; otherwise he would not have been so willing and ready to fight.
| |
| − | And people were stupid enough to imagine that Marxism had now become
| |
| − | 'national', another apt illustration of the fact that those in authority
| |
| − | had never taken the trouble to study the real tenor of the Marxist
| |
| − | teaching. If they had done so, such foolish errors would not have been
| |
| − | committed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Marxism, whose final objective was and is and will continue to be the
| |
| − | destruction of all non-Jewish national States, had to witness in those
| |
| − | days of July 1914 how the German working classes, which it had been
| |
| − | inveigling, were aroused by the national spirit and rapidly ranged
| |
| − | themselves on the side of the Fatherland. Within a few days the
| |
| − | deceptive smoke-screen of that infamous national betrayal had vanished
| |
| − | into thin air and the Jewish bosses suddenly found themselves alone and
| |
| − | deserted. It was as if not a vestige had been left of that folly and
| |
| − | madness with which the masses of the German people had been inoculated
| |
| − | for sixty years. That was indeed an evil day for the betrayers of German
| |
| − | Labour. The moment, however, that the leaders realized the danger which
| |
| − | threatened them they pulled the magic cap of deceit over their ears and,
| |
| − | without being identified, played the part of mimes in the national
| |
| − | reawakening.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The time seemed to have arrived for proceeding against the whole Jewish
| |
| − | gang of public pests. Then it was that action should have been taken
| |
| − | regardless of any consequent whining or protestation. At one stroke, in
| |
| − | the August of 1914, all the empty nonsense about international
| |
| − | solidarity was knocked out of the heads of the German working classes. A
| |
| − | few weeks later, instead of this stupid talk sounding in their ears,
| |
| − | they heard the noise of American-manufactured shrapnel bursting above
| |
| − | the heads of the marching columns, as a symbol of international
| |
| − | comradeship. Now that the German worker had rediscovered the road to
| |
| − | nationhood, it ought to have been the duty of any Government which had
| |
| − | the care of the people in its keeping, to take this opportunity of
| |
| − | mercilessly rooting out everything that was opposed to the national
| |
| − | spirit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While the flower of the nation's manhood was dying at the front, there
| |
| − | was time enough at home at least to exterminate this vermin. But,
| |
| − | instead of doing so, His Majesty the Kaiser held out his hand to these
| |
| − | hoary criminals, thus assuring them his protection and allowing them to
| |
| − | regain their mental composure.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so the viper could begin his work again. This time, however, more
| |
| − | carefully than before, but still more destructively. While honest people
| |
| − | dreamt of reconciliation these perjured criminals were making
| |
| − | preparations for a revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally I was distressed at the half-measures which were adopted at
| |
| − | that time; but I never thought it possible that the final consequences
| |
| − | could have been so disastrous?
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what should have been done then? Throw the ringleaders into gaol,
| |
| − | prosecute them and rid the nation of them? Uncompromising military
| |
| − | measures should have been adopted to root out the evil. Parties should
| |
| − | have been abolished and the Reichstag brought to its senses at the point
| |
| − | of the bayonet, if necessary. It would have been still better if the
| |
| − | Reichstag had been dissolved immediately. Just as the Republic to-day
| |
| − | dissolves the parties when it wants to, so in those days there was even
| |
| − | more justification for applying that measure, seeing that the very
| |
| − | existence of the nation was at stake. Of course this suggestion would
| |
| − | give rise to the question: Is it possible to eradicate ideas by force of
| |
| − | arms? Could a WELTANSCHAUUNG be attacked by means of physical force?
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time I turned these questions over and over again in my mind. By
| |
| − | studying analogous cases, exemplified in history, particularly those
| |
| − | which had arisen from religious circumstances, I came to the following
| |
| − | fundamental conclusion:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Ideas and philosophical systems as well as movements grounded on a
| |
| − | definite spiritual foundation, whether true or not, can never be broken
| |
| − | by the use of force after a certain stage, except on one condition:
| |
| − | namely, that this use of force is in the service of a new idea or
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG which burns with a new flame.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The application of force alone, without moral support based on a
| |
| − | spiritual concept, can never bring about the destruction of an idea or
| |
| − | arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able ruthlessly to
| |
| − | exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe
| |
| − | out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind. Now in the majority
| |
| − | of cases the result of such a course has been to exclude such a State,
| |
| − | either temporarily or for ever, from the comity of States that are of
| |
| − | political significance; but experience has also shown that such a
| |
| − | sanguinary method of extirpation arouses the better section of the
| |
| − | population under the persecuting power. As a matter of fact, every
| |
| − | persecution which has no spiritual motives to support it is morally
| |
| − | unjust and raises opposition among the best elements of the population;
| |
| − | so much so that these are driven more and more to champion the ideas
| |
| − | that are unjustly persecuted. With many individuals this arises from the
| |
| − | sheer spirit of opposition to every attempt at suppressing spiritual
| |
| − | things by brute force.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this way the number of convinced adherents of the persecuted doctrine
| |
| − | increases as the persecution progresses. Hence the total destruction of
| |
| − | a new doctrine can be accomplished only by a vast plan of extermination;
| |
| − | but this, in the final analysis, means the loss of some of the best
| |
| − | blood in a nation or State. And that blood is then avenged, because such
| |
| − | an internal and total clean-up brings about the collapse of the nation's
| |
| − | strength. And such a procedure is always condemned to futility from the
| |
| − | very start if the attacked doctrine should happen to have spread beyond
| |
| − | a small circle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why in this case, as with all other growths, the doctrine can be
| |
| − | exterminated in its earliest stages. As time goes on its powers of
| |
| − | resistance increase, until at the approach of age it gives way to
| |
| − | younger elements, but under another form and from other motives.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact remains that nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine,
| |
| − | without having some spiritual basis of attack against it, and also to
| |
| − | wipe out all the organizations it has created, have led in many cases to
| |
| − | the very opposite being achieved; and that for the following reasons:
| |
| − | | |
| − | When sheer force is used to combat the spread of a doctrine, then that
| |
| − | force must be employed systematically and persistently. This means that
| |
| − | the chances of success in the suppression of a doctrine lie only in the
| |
| − | persistent and uniform application of the methods chosen. The moment
| |
| − | hesitation is shown, and periods of tolerance alternate with the
| |
| − | application of force, the doctrine against which these measures are
| |
| − | directed will not only recover strength but every successive persecution
| |
| − | will bring to its support new adherents who have been shocked by the
| |
| − | oppressive methods employed. The old adherents will become more
| |
| − | embittered and their allegiance will thereby be strengthened. Therefore
| |
| − | when force is employed success is dependent on the consistent manner in
| |
| − | which it is used. This persistence, however, is nothing less than the
| |
| − | product of definite spiritual convictions. Every form of force that is
| |
| − | not supported by a spiritual backing will be always indecisive and
| |
| − | uncertain. Such a force lacks the stability that can be found only in a
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG which has devoted champions. Such a force is the
| |
| − | expression of the individual energies; therefore it is from time to time
| |
| − | dependent on the change of persons in whose hands it is employed and
| |
| − | also on their characters and capacities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But there is something else to be said: Every WELTANSCHAUUNG, whether
| |
| − | religious or political--and it is sometimes difficult to say where the
| |
| − | one ends and the other begins--fights not so much for the negative
| |
| − | destruction of the opposing world of ideas as for the positive
| |
| − | realization of its own ideas. Thus its struggle lies in attack rather
| |
| − | than in defence. It has the advantage of knowing where its objective
| |
| − | lies, as this objective represents the realization of its own ideas.
| |
| − | Inversely, it is difficult to say when the negative aim for the
| |
| − | destruction of a hostile doctrine is reached and secured. For this
| |
| − | reason alone a WELTANSCHAUUNG which is of an aggressive character is
| |
| − | more definite in plan and more powerful and decisive in action than a
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG which takes up a merely defensive attitude. If force be
| |
| − | used to combat a spiritual power, that force remains a defensive measure
| |
| − | only so long as the wielders of it are not the standard-bearers and
| |
| − | apostles of a new spiritual doctrine.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To sum up, the following must be borne in mind: That every attempt to
| |
| − | combat a WELTANSCHAUUNG by means of force will turn out futile in the
| |
| − | end if the struggle fails to take the form of an offensive for the
| |
| − | establishment of an entirely new spiritual order of' things. It is only
| |
| − | in the struggle between two Weltan-schauungen that physical force,
| |
| − | consistently and ruthlessly applied, will eventually turn the scales in
| |
| − | its own favour. It was here that the fight against Marxism had hitherto
| |
| − | failed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was also the reason why Bismarck's anti-socialist legislation
| |
| − | failed and was bound to fail in the long run, despite everything. It
| |
| − | lacked the basis of a new WELTANSCHAUUNG for whose development and
| |
| − | extension the struggle might have been taken up. To say that the serving
| |
| − | up of drivel about a so-called 'State-Authority' or 'Law-and-Order' was
| |
| − | an adequate foundation for the spiritual driving force in a
| |
| − | life-or-death struggle is only what one would expect to hear from the
| |
| − | wiseacres in high official positions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was because there were no adequate spiritual motives back of this
| |
| − | offensive that Bismarck was compelled to hand over the administration of
| |
| − | his socialist legislative measures to the judgment and approval of those
| |
| − | circles which were themselves the product of the Marxist teaching. Thus
| |
| − | a very ludicrous state of affairs prevailed when the Iron Chancellor
| |
| − | surrendered the fate of his struggle against Marxism to the goodwill of
| |
| − | the bourgeois democracy. He left the goat to take care of the garden.
| |
| − | But this was only the necessary result of the failure to find a
| |
| − | fundamentally new WELTANSCHAUUNG which would attract devoted champions
| |
| − | to its cause and could be established on the ground from which Marxism
| |
| − | had been driven out. And thus the result of the Bismarckian campaign was
| |
| − | deplorable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the World War, or at the beginning of it, were the conditions any
| |
| − | different? Unfortunately, they were not.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more I then pondered over the necessity for a change in the attitude
| |
| − | of the executive government towards Social-Democracy, as the
| |
| − | incorporation of contemporary Marxism, the more I realized the want of a
| |
| − | practical substitute for this doctrine. Supposing Social-Democracy were
| |
| − | overthrown, what had one to offer the masses in its stead? Not a single
| |
| − | movement existed which promised any success in attracting vast numbers
| |
| − | of workers who would be now more or less without leaders, and holding
| |
| − | these workers in its train. It is nonsensical to imagine that the
| |
| − | international fanatic who has just severed his connection with a class
| |
| − | party would forthwith join a bourgeois party, or, in other words,
| |
| − | another class organization. For however unsatisfactory these various
| |
| − | organizations may appear to be, it cannot be denied that bourgeois
| |
| − | politicians look on the distinction between classes as a very important
| |
| − | factor in social life, provided it does not turn out politically
| |
| − | disadvantageous to them. If they deny this fact they show themselves not
| |
| − | only impudent but also mendacious.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, one should guard against considering the broad
| |
| − | masses more stupid than they really are. In political matters it
| |
| − | frequently happens that feeling judges more correctly than intellect.
| |
| − | But the opinion that this feeling on the part of the masses is
| |
| − | sufficient proof of their stupid international attitude can be
| |
| − | immediately and definitely refuted by the simple fact that pacifist
| |
| − | democracy is no less fatuous, though it draws its supporters almost
| |
| − | exclusively from bourgeois circles. As long as millions of citizens
| |
| − | daily gulp down what the social-democratic Press tells them, it ill
| |
| − | becomes the 'Masters' to joke at the expense of the 'Comrades'; for in
| |
| − | the long run they all swallow the same hash, even though it be dished up
| |
| − | with different spices. In both cases the cook is one and the same--the
| |
| − | Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One should be careful about contradicting established facts. It is an
| |
| − | undeniable fact that the class question has nothing to do with questions
| |
| − | concerning ideals, though that dope is administered at election time.
| |
| − | Class arrogance among a large section of our people, as well as a
| |
| − | prevailing tendency to look down on the manual labourer, are obvious
| |
| − | facts and not the fancies of some day-dreamer. Nevertheless it only
| |
| − | illustrates the mentality of our so-called intellectual circles, that
| |
| − | they have not yet grasped the fact that circumstances which are
| |
| − | incapable of preventing the growth of such a plague as Marxism are
| |
| − | certainly not capable of restoring what has been lost.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The bourgeois' parties--a name coined by themselves--will never again be
| |
| − | able to win over and hold the proletarian masses in their train. That is
| |
| − | because two worlds stand opposed to one another here, in part naturally
| |
| − | and in part artificially divided. These two camps have one leading
| |
| − | thought, and that is that they must fight one another. But in such a
| |
| − | fight the younger will come off victorious; and that is Marxism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In 1914 a fight against Social-Democracy was indeed quite conceivable.
| |
| − | But the lack of any practical substitute made it doubtful how long the
| |
| − | fight could be kept up. In this respect there was a gaping void.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Long before the War I was of the same opinion and that was the reason
| |
| − | why I could not decide to join any of the parties then existing. During
| |
| − | the course of the World War my conviction was still further confirmed by
| |
| − | the manifest impossibility of fighting Social-Democracy in anything like
| |
| − | a thorough way: because for that purpose there should have been a
| |
| − | movement that was something more than a mere 'parliamentary' party, and
| |
| − | there was none such.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I frequently discussed that want with my intimate comrades. And it was
| |
| − | then that I first conceived the idea of taking up political work later
| |
| − | on. As I have often assured my friends, it was just this that induced me
| |
| − | to become active on the public hustings after the War, in addition to my
| |
| − | professional work. And I am sure that this decision was arrived at after
| |
| − | much earnest thought.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER VI
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | WAR PROPAGANDA
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | In watching the course of political events I was always struck by the
| |
| − | active part which propaganda played in them. I saw that it was an
| |
| − | instrument, which the Marxist Socialists knew how to handle in a
| |
| − | masterly way and how to put it to practical uses. Thus I soon came to
| |
| − | realize that the right use of propaganda was an art in itself and that
| |
| − | this art was practically unknown to our bourgeois parties. The
| |
| − | Christian-Socialist Party alone, especially in Lueger's time, showed a
| |
| − | certain efficiency in the employment of this instrument and owed much of
| |
| − | their success to it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was during the War, however, that we had the best chance of
| |
| − | estimating the tremendous results which could be obtained by a
| |
| − | propagandist system properly carried out. Here again, unfortunately,
| |
| − | everything was left to the other side, the work done on our side being
| |
| − | worse than insignificant. It was the total failure of the whole German
| |
| − | system of information--a failure which was perfectly obvious to every
| |
| − | soldier--that urged me to consider the problem of propaganda in a
| |
| − | comprehensive way. I had ample opportunity to learn a practical lesson
| |
| − | in this matter; for unfortunately it was only too well taught us by the
| |
| − | enemy. The lack on our side was exploited by the enemy in such an
| |
| − | efficient manner that one could say it showed itself as a real work of
| |
| − | genius. In that propaganda carried on by the enemy I found admirable
| |
| − | sources of instruction. The lesson to be learned from this had
| |
| − | unfortunately no attraction for the geniuses on our own side. They were
| |
| − | simply above all such things, too clever to accept any teaching. Anyhow
| |
| − | they did not honestly wish to learn anything.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Had we any propaganda at all? Alas, I can reply only in the negative.
| |
| − | All that was undertaken in this direction was so utterly inadequate and
| |
| − | misconceived from the very beginning that not only did it prove useless
| |
| − | but at times harmful. In substance it was insufficient. Psychologically
| |
| − | it was all wrong. Anybody who had carefully investigated the German
| |
| − | propaganda must have formed that judgment of it. Our people did not seem
| |
| − | to be clear even about the primary question itself: Whether propaganda
| |
| − | is a means or an end?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Propaganda is a means and must, therefore, be judged in relation to the
| |
| − | end it is intended to serve. It must be organized in such a way as to be
| |
| − | capable of attaining its objective. And, as it is quite clear that the
| |
| − | importance of the objective may vary from the standpoint of general
| |
| − | necessity, the essential internal character of the propaganda must vary
| |
| − | accordingly. The cause for which we fought during the War was the
| |
| − | noblest and highest that man could strive for. We were fighting for the
| |
| − | freedom and independence of our country, for the security of our future
| |
| − | welfare and the honour of the nation. Despite all views to the contrary,
| |
| − | this honour does actually exist, or rather it will have to exist; for a
| |
| − | nation without honour will sooner or later lose its freedom and
| |
| − | independence. This is in accordance with the ruling of a higher justice,
| |
| − | for a generation of poltroons is not entitled to freedom. He who would
| |
| − | be a slave cannot have honour; for such honour would soon become an
| |
| − | object of general scorn.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Germany was waging war for its very existence. The purpose of its war
| |
| − | propaganda should have been to strengthen the fighting spirit in that
| |
| − | struggle and help it to victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But when nations are fighting for their existence on this earth, when
| |
| − | the question of 'to be or not to be' has to be answered, then all humane
| |
| − | and aesthetic considerations must be set aside; for these ideals do not
| |
| − | exist of themselves somewhere in the air but are the product of man's
| |
| − | creative imagination and disappear when he disappears. Nature knows
| |
| − | nothing of them. Moreover, they are characteristic of only a small
| |
| − | number of nations, or rather of races, and their value depends on the
| |
| − | measure in which they spring from the racial feeling of the latter.
| |
| − | Humane and aesthetic ideals will disappear from the inhabited earth when
| |
| − | those races disappear which are the creators and standard-bearers of
| |
| − | them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All such ideals are only of secondary importance when a nation is
| |
| − | struggling for its existence. They must be prevented from entering into
| |
| − | the struggle the moment they threaten to weaken the stamina of the
| |
| − | nation that is waging war. That is always the only visible effect
| |
| − | whereby their place in the struggle is to be judged.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke stated that in
| |
| − | time of war the essential thing is to get a decision as quickly as
| |
| − | possible and that the most ruthless methods of fighting are at the same
| |
| − | time the most humane. When people attempt to answer this reasoning by
| |
| − | highfalutin talk about aesthetics, etc., only one answer can be given. It
| |
| − | is that the vital questions involved in the struggle of a nation for its
| |
| − | existence must not be subordinated to any aesthetic considerations. The
| |
| − | yoke of slavery is and always will remain the most unpleasant experience
| |
| − | that mankind can endure. Do the Schwabing (Note 12) decadents look upon
| |
| − | Germany's lot to-day as 'aesthetic'? Of course, one doesn't discuss such
| |
| − | a question with the Jews, because they are the modern inventors of this
| |
| − | cultural perfume. Their very existence is an incarnate denial of the
| |
| − | beauty of God's image in His creation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 12. Schwabing is the artistic quarter in Munich where artists have
| |
| − | their studios and litterateurs, especially of the Bohemian class,
| |
| − | foregather.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since these ideas of what is beautiful and humane have no place in
| |
| − | warfare, they are not to be used as standards of war propaganda.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the War, propaganda was a means to an end. And this end was the
| |
| − | struggle for existence of the German nation. Propaganda, therefore,
| |
| − | should have been regarded from the standpoint of its utility for that
| |
| − | purpose. The most cruel weapons were then the most humane, provided they
| |
| − | helped towards a speedier decision; and only those methods were good and
| |
| − | beautiful which helped towards securing the dignity and freedom of the
| |
| − | nation. Such was the only possible attitude to adopt towards war
| |
| − | propaganda in the life-or-death struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If those in what are called positions of authority had realized this
| |
| − | there would have been no uncertainty about the form and employment of
| |
| − | war propaganda as a weapon; for it is nothing but a weapon, and indeed a
| |
| − | most terrifying weapon in the hands of those who know how to use it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The second question of decisive importance is this: To whom should
| |
| − | propaganda be made to appeal? To the educated intellectual classes? Or
| |
| − | to the less intellectual?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people.
| |
| − | For the intellectual classes, or what are called the intellectual
| |
| − | classes to-day, propaganda is not suited, but only scientific
| |
| − | exposition. Propaganda has as little to do with science as an
| |
| − | advertisement poster has to do with art, as far as concerns the form in
| |
| − | which it presents its message. The art of the advertisement poster
| |
| − | consists in the ability of the designer to attract the attention of the
| |
| − | crowd through the form and colours he chooses. The advertisement poster
| |
| − | announcing an exhibition of art has no other aim than to convince the
| |
| − | public of the importance of the exhibition. The better it does that, the
| |
| − | better is the art of the poster as such. Being meant accordingly to
| |
| − | impress upon the public the meaning of the exposition, the poster can
| |
| − | never take the place of the artistic objects displayed in the exposition
| |
| − | hall. They are something entirely different. Therefore. those who wish
| |
| − | to study the artistic display must study something that is quite
| |
| − | different from the poster; indeed for that purpose a mere wandering
| |
| − | through the exhibition galleries is of no use. The student of art must
| |
| − | carefully and thoroughly study each exhibit in order slowly to form a
| |
| − | judicious opinion about it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The situation is the same in regard to what we understand by the word,
| |
| − | propaganda. The purpose of propaganda is not the personal instruction of
| |
| − | the individual, but rather to attract public attention to certain
| |
| − | things, the importance of which can be brought home to the masses only
| |
| − | by this means.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here the art of propaganda consists in putting a matter so clearly and
| |
| − | forcibly before the minds of the people as to create a general
| |
| − | conviction regarding the reality of a certain fact, the necessity of
| |
| − | certain things and the just character of something that is essential.
| |
| − | But as this art is not an end in itself and because its purpose must be
| |
| − | exactly that of the advertisement poster, to attract the attention of
| |
| − | the masses and not by any means to dispense individual instructions to
| |
| − | those who already have an educated opinion on things or who wish to form
| |
| − | such an opinion on grounds of objective study--because that is not the
| |
| − | purpose of propaganda, it must appeal to the feelings of the public
| |
| − | rather than to their reasoning powers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its
| |
| − | intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least
| |
| − | intellectual of those to whom it is directed. Thus its purely
| |
| − | intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common
| |
| − | denominator among the public it is desired to reach. When there is
| |
| − | question of bringing a whole nation within the circle of its influence,
| |
| − | as happens in the case of war propaganda, then too much attention cannot
| |
| − | be paid to the necessity of avoiding a high level, which presupposes a
| |
| − | relatively high degree of intelligence among the public.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more modest the scientific tenor of this propaganda and the more it
| |
| − | is addressed exclusively to public sentiment, the more decisive will be
| |
| − | its success. This is the best test of the value of a propaganda, and not
| |
| − | the approbation of a small group of intellectuals or artistic people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the
| |
| − | imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in
| |
| − | finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the
| |
| − | attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. That this is
| |
| − | not understood by those among us whose wits are supposed to have been
| |
| − | sharpened to the highest pitch is only another proof of their vanity or
| |
| − | mental inertia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once we have understood how necessary it is to concentrate the
| |
| − | persuasive forces of propaganda on the broad masses of the people, the
| |
| − | following lessons result therefrom:
| |
| − | | |
| − | That it is a mistake to organize the direct propaganda as if it were a
| |
| − | manifold system of scientific instruction.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their
| |
| − | understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such
| |
| − | being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare
| |
| − | essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped
| |
| − | formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very
| |
| − | last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. If
| |
| − | this principle be forgotten and if an attempt be made to be abstract and
| |
| − | general, the propaganda will turn out ineffective; for the public will
| |
| − | not be able to digest or retain what is offered to them in this way.
| |
| − | Therefore, the greater the scope of the message that has to be
| |
| − | presented, the more necessary it is for the propaganda to discover that
| |
| − | plan of action which is psychologically the most efficient.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was, for example, a fundamental mistake to ridicule the worth of the
| |
| − | enemy as the Austrian and German comic papers made a chief point of
| |
| − | doing in their propaganda. The very principle here is a mistaken one;
| |
| − | for, when they came face to face with the enemy, our soldiers had quite
| |
| − | a different impression. Therefore, the mistake had disastrous results.
| |
| − | Once the German soldier realised what a tough enemy he had to fight he
| |
| − | felt that he had been deceived by the manufacturers of the information
| |
| − | which had been given him. Therefore, instead of strengthening and
| |
| − | stimulating his fighting spirit, this information had quite the contrary
| |
| − | effect. Finally he lost heart.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the other hand, British and American war propaganda was
| |
| − | psychologically efficient. By picturing the Germans to their own people
| |
| − | as Barbarians and Huns, they were preparing their soldiers for the
| |
| − | horrors of war and safeguarding them against illusions. The most
| |
| − | terrific weapons which those soldiers encountered in the field merely
| |
| − | confirmed the information that they had already received and their
| |
| − | belief in the truth of the assertions made by their respective
| |
| − | governments was accordingly reinforced. Thus their rage and hatred
| |
| − | against the infamous foe was increased. The terrible havoc caused by the
| |
| − | German weapons of war was only another illustration of the Hunnish
| |
| − | brutality of those barbarians; whereas on the side of the Entente no
| |
| − | time was left the soldiers to meditate on the similar havoc which their
| |
| − | own weapons were capable of. Thus the British soldier was never allowed
| |
| − | to feel that the information which he received at home was untrue.
| |
| − | Unfortunately the opposite was the case with the Germans, who finally
| |
| − | wound up by rejecting everything from home as pure swindle and humbug.
| |
| − | This result was made possible because at home they thought that the work
| |
| − | of propaganda could be entrusted to the first ass that came along,
| |
| − | braying of his own special talents, and they had no conception of the
| |
| − | fact that propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the German war propaganda afforded us an incomparable example of
| |
| − | how the work of 'enlightenment' should not be done and how such an
| |
| − | example was the result of an entire failure to take any psychological
| |
| − | considerations whatsoever into account.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the enemy, however, a fund of valuable knowledge could be gained by
| |
| − | those who kept their eyes open, whose powers of perception had not yet
| |
| − | become sclerotic, and who during four-and-a-half years had to experience
| |
| − | the perpetual flood of enemy propaganda.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The worst of all was that our people did not understand the very first
| |
| − | condition which has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda; namely,
| |
| − | a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be
| |
| − | dealt with. In this regard so many errors were committed, even from the
| |
| − | very beginning of the war, that it was justifiable to doubt whether so
| |
| − | much folly could be attributed solely to the stupidity of people in
| |
| − | higher quarters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What, for example, should we say of a poster which purported to
| |
| − | advertise some new brand of soap by insisting on the excellent qualities
| |
| − | of the competitive brands? We should naturally shake our heads. And it
| |
| − | ought to be just the same in a similar kind of political advertisement.
| |
| − | The aim of propaganda is not to try to pass judgment on conflicting
| |
| − | rights, giving each its due, but exclusively to emphasize the right
| |
| − | which we are asserting. Propaganda must not investigate the truth
| |
| − | objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side,
| |
| − | present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must
| |
| − | present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own
| |
| − | side.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a fundamental mistake to discuss the question of who was
| |
| − | responsible for the outbreak of the war and declare that the sole
| |
| − | responsibility could not be attributed to Germany. The sole
| |
| − | responsibility should have been laid on the shoulders of the enemy,
| |
| − | without any discussion whatsoever.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And what was the consequence of these half-measures? The broad masses of
| |
| − | the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public
| |
| − | jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned
| |
| − | judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who
| |
| − | are constantly wavering between one idea and another. As soon as our own
| |
| − | propaganda made the slightest suggestion that the enemy had a certain
| |
| − | amount of justice on his side, then we laid down the basis on which the
| |
| − | justice of our own cause could be questioned. The masses are not in a
| |
| − | position to discern where the enemy's fault ends and where our own
| |
| − | begins. In such a case they become hesitant and distrustful, especially
| |
| − | when the enemy does not make the same mistake but heaps all the blame on
| |
| − | his adversary. Could there be any clearer proof of this than the fact
| |
| − | that finally our own people believed what was said by the enemy's
| |
| − | propaganda, which was uniform and consistent in its assertions, rather
| |
| − | than what our own propaganda said? And that, of course, was increased by
| |
| − | the mania for objectivity which addicts our people. Everybody began to
| |
| − | be careful about doing an injustice to the enemy, even at the cost of
| |
| − | seriously injuring, and even ruining his own people and State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally the masses were not conscious of the fact that those in
| |
| − | authority had failed to study the subject from this angle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and
| |
| − | outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than
| |
| − | by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple
| |
| − | and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the
| |
| − | negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth
| |
| − | and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that.
| |
| − | English propaganda especially understood this in a marvellous way and
| |
| − | put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half-measures
| |
| − | which might have given rise to some doubt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Proof of how brilliantly they understood that the feeling of the masses
| |
| − | is something primitive was shown in their policy of publishing tales of
| |
| − | horror and outrages which fitted in with the real horrors of the time,
| |
| − | thereby cleverly and ruthlessly preparing the ground for moral
| |
| − | solidarity at the front, even in times of great defeats. Further, the
| |
| − | way in which they pilloried the German enemy as solely responsible for
| |
| − | the war--which was a brutal and absolute falsehood--and the way in which
| |
| − | they proclaimed his guilt was excellently calculated to reach the
| |
| − | masses, realizing that these are always extremist in their feelings. And
| |
| − | thus it was that this atrocious lie was positively believed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda is well illustrated by the
| |
| − | fact that after four-and-a-half years, not only was the enemy still
| |
| − | carrying on his propagandist work, but it was already undermining the
| |
| − | stamina of our people at home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That our propaganda did not achieve similar results is not to be
| |
| − | wondered at, because it had the germs of inefficiency lodged in its very
| |
| − | being by reason of its ambiguity. And because of the very nature of its
| |
| − | content one could not expect it to make the necessary impression on the
| |
| − | masses. Only our feckless 'statesmen' could have imagined that on
| |
| − | pacifists slops of such a kind the enthusiasm could be nourished which
| |
| − | is necessary to enkindle that spirit which leads men to die for their
| |
| − | country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so this product of ours was not only worthless but detrimental.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No matter what an amount of talent employed in the organization of
| |
| − | propaganda, it will have no result if due account is not taken of these
| |
| − | fundamental principles. Propaganda must be limited to a few simple
| |
| − | themes and these must be represented again and again. Here, as in
| |
| − | innumerable other cases, perseverance is the first and most important
| |
| − | condition of success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Particularly in the field of propaganda, placid aesthetes and blase
| |
| − | intellectuals should never be allowed to take the lead. The former would
| |
| − | readily transform the impressive character of real propaganda into
| |
| − | something suitable only for literary tea parties. As to the second class
| |
| − | of people, one must always beware of this pest; for, in consequence of
| |
| − | their insensibility to normal impressions, they are constantly seeking
| |
| − | new excitements.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such people grow sick and tired of everything. They always long for
| |
| − | change and will always be incapable of putting themselves in the
| |
| − | position of picturing the wants of their less callous fellow-creatures
| |
| − | in their immediate neighbourhood, let alone trying to understand them.
| |
| − | The blase intellectuals are always the first to criticize propaganda, or
| |
| − | rather its message, because this appears to them to be outmoded and
| |
| − | trivial. They are always looking for something new, always yearning for
| |
| − | change; and thus they become the mortal enemies of every effort that may
| |
| − | be made to influence the masses in an effective way. The moment the
| |
| − | organization and message of a propagandist movement begins to be
| |
| − | orientated according to their tastes it becomes incoherent and
| |
| − | scattered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations in
| |
| − | sentiment with a view to pleasing these blase gentry. Its chief function
| |
| − | is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be
| |
| − | given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant
| |
| − | repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of
| |
| − | the crowd.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must
| |
| − | always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course
| |
| − | be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one
| |
| − | must always return to the assertion of the same formula. In this way
| |
| − | alone can propaganda be consistent and dynamic in its effects.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only by following these general lines and sticking to them steadfastly,
| |
| − | with uniform and concise emphasis, can final success be reached. Then
| |
| − | one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results
| |
| − | that such a persistent policy secures.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or political
| |
| − | nature, depends on the consistency and perseverance with which it is
| |
| − | employed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this respect also the propaganda organized by our enemies set us an
| |
| − | excellent example. It confined itself to a few themes, which were meant
| |
| − | exclusively for mass consumption, and it repeated these themes with
| |
| − | untiring perseverance. Once these fundamental themes and the manner of
| |
| − | placing them before the world were recognized as effective, they adhered
| |
| − | to them without the slightest alteration for the whole duration of the
| |
| − | War. At first all of it appeared to be idiotic in its impudent
| |
| − | assertiveness. Later on it was looked upon as disturbing, but finally it
| |
| − | was believed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But in England they came to understand something further: namely, that
| |
| − | the possibility of success in the use of this spiritual weapon consists
| |
| − | in the mass employment of it, and that when employed in this way it
| |
| − | brings full returns for the large expenses incurred.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In England propaganda was regarded as a weapon of the first order,
| |
| − | whereas with us it represented the last hope of a livelihood for our
| |
| − | unemployed politicians and a snug job for shirkers of the modest hero
| |
| − | type.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Taken all in all, its results were negative.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER VII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE REVOLUTION
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | In 1915 the enemy started his propaganda among our soldiers. From 1916
| |
| − | onwards it steadily became more intensive, and at the beginning of 1918
| |
| − | it had swollen into a storm flood. One could now judge the effects of
| |
| − | this proselytizing movement step by step. Gradually our soldiers began
| |
| − | to think just in the way the enemy wished them to think. On the German
| |
| − | side there was no counter-propaganda.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time the army authorities, under our able and resolute
| |
| − | Commander, were willing and ready to take up the fight in the propaganda
| |
| − | domain also, but unfortunately they did not have the necessary means to
| |
| − | carry that intention into effect. Moreover, the army authorities would
| |
| − | have made a psychological mistake had they undertaken this task of
| |
| − | mental training. To be efficacious it had come from the home front. For
| |
| − | only thus could it be successful among men who for nearly four years now
| |
| − | had been performing immortal deeds of heroism and undergoing all sorts
| |
| − | of privations for the sake of that home. But what were the people at
| |
| − | home doing? Was their failure to act merely due to unintelligence or bad
| |
| − | faith?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the midsummer of 1918, after the evacuation of the southern bank of
| |
| − | the hearne, the German Press adopted a policy which was so woefully
| |
| − | inopportune, and even criminally stupid, that I used to ask myself a
| |
| − | question which made me more and more furious day after day: Is it really
| |
| − | true that we have nobody who will dare to put an end to this process of
| |
| − | spiritual sabotage which is being carried on among our heroic troops?
| |
| − | | |
| − | What happened in France during those days of 1914, when our armies
| |
| − | invaded that country and were marching in triumph from one victory to
| |
| − | another? What happened in Italy when their armies collapsed on the
| |
| − | Isonzo front? What happened in France again during the spring of 1918,
| |
| − | when German divisions took the main French positions by storm and heavy
| |
| − | long-distance artillery bombarded Paris?
| |
| − | | |
| − | How they whipped up the flagging courage of those troops who were
| |
| − | retreating and fanned the fires of national enthusiasm among them! How
| |
| − | their propaganda and their marvellous aptitude in the exercise of
| |
| − | mass-influence reawakened the fighting spirit in that broken front and
| |
| − | hammered into the heads of the soldiers a, firm belief in final victory!
| |
| − | | |
| − | Meanwhile, what were our people doing in this sphere? Nothing, or even
| |
| − | worse than nothing. Again and again I used to become enraged and
| |
| − | indignant as I read the latest papers and realized the nature of the
| |
| − | mass-murder they were committing: through their influence on the minds
| |
| − | of the people and the soldiers. More than once I was tormented by the
| |
| − | thought that if Providence had put the conduct of German propaganda into
| |
| − | my hands, instead of into the hands of those incompetent and even
| |
| − | criminal ignoramuses and weaklings, the outcome of the struggle might
| |
| − | have been different.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During those months I felt for the first time that Fate was dealing
| |
| − | adversely with me in keeping me on the fighting front and in a position
| |
| − | where any chance bullet from some nigger or other might finish me,
| |
| − | whereas I could have done the Fatherland a real service in another
| |
| − | sphere. For I was then presumptuous enough to believe that I would have
| |
| − | been successful in managing the propaganda business.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But I was a being without a name, one among eight millions. Hence it was
| |
| − | better for me to keep my mouth shut and do my duty as well as I could in
| |
| − | the position to which I had been assigned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the summer of 1915 the first enemy leaflets were dropped on our
| |
| − | trenches. They all told more or less the same story, with some
| |
| − | variations in the form of it. The story was that distress was steadily
| |
| − | on the increase in Germany; that the War would last indefinitely; that
| |
| − | the prospect of victory for us was becoming fainter day after day; that
| |
| − | the people at home were yearning for peace, but that 'Militarism' and
| |
| − | the 'Kaiser' would not permit it; that the world--which knew this very
| |
| − | well--was not waging war against the German people but only against the
| |
| − | man who was exclusively responsible, the Kaiser; that until this enemy
| |
| − | of world-peace was removed there could be no end to the conflict; but
| |
| − | that when the War was over the liberal and democratic nations would
| |
| − | receive the Germans as colleagues in the League for World Peace. This
| |
| − | would be done the moment 'Prussian Militarism' had been finally
| |
| − | destroyed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To illustrate and substantiate all these statements, the leaflets very
| |
| − | often contained 'Letters from Home', the contents of which appeared to
| |
| − | confirm the enemy's propagandist message.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, we only laughed at all these efforts. The leaflets
| |
| − | were read, sent to base headquarters, then forgotten until a favourable
| |
| − | wind once again blew a fresh contingent into the trenches. These were
| |
| − | mostly dropped from aeroplanes which were used specially for that
| |
| − | purpose.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One feature of this propaganda was very striking. It was that in
| |
| − | sections where Bavarian troops were stationed every effort was made by
| |
| − | the enemy propagandists to stir up feeling against the Prussians,
| |
| − | assuring the soldiers that Prussia and Prussia alone was the guilty
| |
| − | party who was responsible for bringing on and continuing the War, and
| |
| − | that there was no hostility whatsoever towards the Bavarians; but that
| |
| − | there could be no possibility of coming to their assistance so long as
| |
| − | they continued to serve Prussian interests and helped to pull the
| |
| − | Prussian chestnuts out of the fire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This persistent propaganda began to have a real influence on our
| |
| − | soldiers in 1915. The feeling against Prussia grew quite noticeable
| |
| − | among the Bavarian troops, but those in authority did nothing to
| |
| − | counteract it. This was something more than a mere crime of omission;
| |
| − | for sooner or later not only the Prussians were bound to have to atone
| |
| − | severely for it but the whole German nation and consequently the
| |
| − | Bavarians themselves also.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this direction the enemy propaganda began to achieve undoubted
| |
| − | success from 1916 onwards.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In a similar way letters coming directly from home had long since been
| |
| − | exercising their effect. There was now no further necessity for the
| |
| − | enemy to broadcast such letters in leaflet form. And also against this
| |
| − | influence from home nothing was done except a few supremely stupid
| |
| − | 'warnings' uttered by the executive government. The whole front was
| |
| − | drenched in this poison which thoughtless women at home sent out,
| |
| − | without suspecting for a moment that the enemy's chances of final
| |
| − | victory were thus strengthened or that the sufferings of their own men
| |
| − | at the front were thus being prolonged and rendered more severe. These
| |
| − | stupid letters written by German women eventually cost the lives of
| |
| − | hundreds of thousands of our men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus in 1916 several distressing phenomena were already manifest. The
| |
| − | whole front was complaining and grousing, discontented over many things
| |
| − | and often justifiably so. While they were hungry and yet patient, and
| |
| − | their relatives at home were in distress, in other quarters there was
| |
| − | feasting and revelry. Yes; even on the front itself everything was not
| |
| − | as it ought to have been in this regard.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even in the early stages of the war the soldiers were sometimes prone to
| |
| − | complain; but such criticism was confined to 'internal affairs'. The man
| |
| − | who at one moment groused and grumbled ceased his murmur after a few
| |
| − | moments and went about his duty silently, as if everything were in
| |
| − | order. The company which had given signs of discontent a moment earlier
| |
| − | hung on now to its bit of trench, defending it tooth and nail, as if
| |
| − | Germany's fate depended on these few hundred yards of mud and
| |
| − | shell-holes. The glorious old army was still at its post. A sudden
| |
| − | change in my own fortunes soon placed me in a position where I had
| |
| − | first-hand experience of the contrast between this old army and the home
| |
| − | front. At the end of September 1916 my division was sent into the Battle
| |
| − | of the Somme. For us this was the first of a series of heavy
| |
| − | engagements, and the impression created was that of a veritable inferno,
| |
| − | rather than war. Through weeks of incessant artillery bombardment we
| |
| − | stood firm, at times ceding a little ground but then taking it back
| |
| − | again, and never giving way. On October 7th, 1916, I was wounded but had
| |
| − | the luck of being able to get back to our lines and was then ordered to
| |
| − | be sent by ambulance train to Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Two years had passed since I had left home, an almost endless period in
| |
| − | such circumstances. I could hardly imagine what Germans looked like
| |
| − | without uniforms. In the clearing hospital at Hermies I was startled
| |
| − | when I suddenly heard the voice of a German woman who was acting as
| |
| − | nursing sister and talking with one of the wounded men lying near me.
| |
| − | Two years! And then this voice for the first time!
| |
| − | | |
| − | The nearer our ambulance train approached the German frontier the more
| |
| − | restless each one of us became. En route we recognised all these places
| |
| − | through which we passed two years before as young volunteers--Brussels,
| |
| − | Louvain, Liège--and finally we thought we recognized the first German
| |
| − | homestead, with its familiar high gables and picturesque
| |
| − | window-shutters. Home!
| |
| − | | |
| − | What a change! From the mud of the Somme battlefields to the spotless
| |
| − | white beds in this wonderful building. One hesitated at first before
| |
| − | entering them. It was only by slow stages that one could grow accustomed
| |
| − | to this new world again. But unfortunately there were certain other
| |
| − | aspects also in which this new world was different.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The spirit of the army at the front appeared to be out of place here.
| |
| − | For the first time I encountered something which up to then was unknown
| |
| − | at the front: namely, boasting of one's own cowardice. For, though we
| |
| − | certainly heard complaining and grousing at the front, this was never in
| |
| − | the spirit of any agitation to insubordination and certainly not an
| |
| − | attempt to glorify one's fear. No; there at the front a coward was a
| |
| − | coward and nothing else, And the contempt which his weakness aroused in
| |
| − | the others was quite general, just as the real hero was admired all
| |
| − | round. But here in hospital the spirit was quite different in some
| |
| − | respects. Loudmouthed agitators were busy here in heaping ridicule on
| |
| − | the good soldier and painting the weak-kneed poltroon in glorious
| |
| − | colours. A couple of miserable human specimens were the ringleaders in
| |
| − | this process of defamation. One of them boasted of having intentionally
| |
| − | injured his hand in barbed-wire entanglements in order to get sent to
| |
| − | hospital. Although his wound was only a slight one, it appeared that he
| |
| − | had been here for a very long time and would be here interminably. Some
| |
| − | arrangement for him seemed to be worked by some sort of swindle, just as
| |
| − | he got sent here in the ambulance train through a swindle. This
| |
| − | pestilential specimen actually had the audacity to parade his knavery as
| |
| − | the manifestation of a courage which was superior to that of the brave
| |
| − | soldier who dies a hero's death. There were many who heard this talk in
| |
| − | silence; but there were others who expressed their assent to what the
| |
| − | fellow said.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Personally I was disgusted at the thought that a seditious agitator of
| |
| − | this kind should be allowed to remain in such an institution. What could
| |
| − | be done? The hospital authorities here must have known who and what he
| |
| − | was; and actually they did know. But still they did nothing about it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as I was able to walk once again I obtained leave to visit
| |
| − | Berlin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Bitter want was in evidence everywhere. The metropolis, with its teeming
| |
| − | millions, was suffering from hunger. The talk that was current in the
| |
| − | various places of refreshment and hospices visited by the soldiers was
| |
| − | much the same as that in our hospital. The impression given was that
| |
| − | these agitators purposely singled out such places in order to spread
| |
| − | their views.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But in Munich conditions were far worse. After my discharge from
| |
| − | hospital, I was sent to a reserve battalion there. I felt as in some
| |
| − | strange town. Anger, discontent, complaints met one's ears wherever one
| |
| − | went. To a certain extent this was due to the infinitely maladroit
| |
| − | manner in which the soldiers who had returned from the front were
| |
| − | treated by the non-commissioned officers who had never seen a day's
| |
| − | active service and who on that account were partly incapable of adopting
| |
| − | the proper attitude towards the old soldiers. Naturally those old
| |
| − | soldiers displayed certain characteristics which had been developed from
| |
| − | the experiences in the trenches. The officers of the reserve units could
| |
| − | not understand these peculiarities, whereas the officer home from active
| |
| − | service was at least in a position to understand them for himself. As a
| |
| − | result he received more respect from the men than officers at the home
| |
| − | headquarters. But, apart from all this, the general spirit was
| |
| − | deplorable. The art of shirking was looked upon as almost a proof of
| |
| − | higher intelligence, and devotion to duty was considered a sign of
| |
| − | weakness or bigotry. Government offices were staffed by Jews. Almost
| |
| − | every clerk was a Jew and every Jew was a clerk. I was amazed at this
| |
| − | multitude of combatants who belonged to the chosen people and could not
| |
| − | help comparing it with their slender numbers in the fighting lines.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the business world the situation was even worse. Here the Jews had
| |
| − | actually become 'indispensable'. Like leeches, they were slowly sucking
| |
| − | the blood from the pores of the national body. By means of newly floated
| |
| − | War Companies an instrument had been discovered whereby all national
| |
| − | trade was throttled so that no business could be carried on freely
| |
| − | | |
| − | Special emphasis was laid on the necessity for unhampered
| |
| − | centralization. Hence as early as 1916-17 practically all production was
| |
| − | under the control of Jewish finance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But against whom was the anger of the people directed? It was then that
| |
| − | I already saw the fateful day approaching which must finally bring the
| |
| − | DEBACLE, unless timely preventive measures were taken.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While Jewry was busy despoiling the nation and tightening the screws of
| |
| − | its despotism, the work of inciting the people against the Prussians
| |
| − | increased. And just as nothing was done at the front to put a stop to
| |
| − | the venomous propaganda, so here at home no official steps were taken
| |
| − | against it. Nobody seemed capable of understanding that the collapse of
| |
| − | Prussia could never bring about the rise of Bavaria. On the contrary,
| |
| − | the collapse of the one must necessarily drag the other down with it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This kind of behaviour affected me very deeply. In it I could see only a
| |
| − | clever Jewish trick for diverting public attention from themselves to
| |
| − | others. While Prussians and Bavarians were squabbling, the Jews were
| |
| − | taking away the sustenance of both from under their very noses. While
| |
| − | Prussians were being abused in Bavaria the Jews organized the revolution
| |
| − | and with one stroke smashed both Prussia and Bavaria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I could not tolerate this execrable squabbling among people of the same
| |
| − | German stock and preferred to be at the front once again. Therefore,
| |
| − | just after my arrival in Munich I reported myself for service again. At
| |
| − | the beginning of March 1917 I rejoined my old regiment at the front.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Towards the end of 1917 it seemed as if we had got over the worst phases
| |
| − | of moral depression at the front. After the Russian collapse the whole
| |
| − | army recovered its courage and hope, and all were gradually becoming
| |
| − | more and more convinced that the struggle would end in our favour. We
| |
| − | could sing once again. The ravens were ceasing to croak. Faith in the
| |
| − | future of the Fatherland was once more in the ascendant.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Italian collapse in the autumn of 1917 had a wonderful effect; for
| |
| − | this victory proved that it was possible to break through another front
| |
| − | besides the Russian. This inspiring thought now became dominant in the
| |
| − | minds of millions at the front and encouraged them to look forward with
| |
| − | confidence to the spring of 1918. It was quite obvious that the enemy
| |
| − | was in a state of depression. During this winter the front was somewhat
| |
| − | quieter than usual. But that was the calm before the storm.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just when preparations were being made to launch a final offensive which
| |
| − | would bring this seemingly eternal struggle to an end, while endless
| |
| − | columns of transports were bringing men and munitions to the front, and
| |
| − | while the men were being trained for that final onslaught, then it was
| |
| − | that the greatest act of treachery during the whole War was accomplished
| |
| − | in Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Germany must not win the War. At that moment when victory seemed ready
| |
| − | to alight on the German standards, a conspiracy was arranged for the
| |
| − | purpose of striking at the heart of the German spring offensive with one
| |
| − | blow from the rear and thus making victory impossible. A general strike
| |
| − | in the munition factories was organized.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If this conspiracy could achieve its purpose the German front would have
| |
| − | collapsed and the wishes of the VORWÄRTS (the organ of the
| |
| − | Social-Democratic Party) that this time victory should not take the side
| |
| − | of the German banners, would have been fulfilled. For want of munitions
| |
| − | the front would be broken through within a few weeks, the offensive
| |
| − | would be effectively stopped and the Entente saved. Then International
| |
| − | Finance would assume control over Germany and the internal objective of
| |
| − | the Marxist national betrayal would be achieved. That objective was the
| |
| − | destruction of the national economic system and the establishment of
| |
| − | international capitalistic domination in its stead. And this goal has
| |
| − | really been reached, thanks to the stupid credulity of the one side and
| |
| − | the unspeakable treachery of the other.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The munition strike, however, did not bring the final success that had
| |
| − | been hoped for: namely, to starve the front of ammunition. It lasted too
| |
| − | short a time for the lack of ammunitions as such to bring disaster to
| |
| − | the army, as was originally planned. But the moral damage was much more
| |
| − | terrible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first place. what was the army fighting for if the people at home
| |
| − | did not wish it to be victorious? For whom then were these enormous
| |
| − | sacrifices and privations being made and endured? Must the soldiers
| |
| − | fight for victory while the home front goes on strike against it?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the second place, what effect did this move have on the enemy?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the winter of 1917-18 dark clouds hovered in the firmament of the
| |
| − | Entente. For nearly four years onslaught after onslaught has been made
| |
| − | against the German giant, but they failed to bring him to the ground. He
| |
| − | had to keep them at bay with one arm that held the defensive shield
| |
| − | because his other arm had to be free to wield the sword against his
| |
| − | enemies, now in the East and now in the South. But at last these enemies
| |
| − | were overcome and his rear was now free for the conflict in the West.
| |
| − | Rivers of blood had been shed for the accomplishment of that task; but
| |
| − | now the sword was free to combine in battle with the shield on the
| |
| − | Western Front. And since the enemy had hitherto failed to break the
| |
| − | German defence here, the Germans themselves had now to launch the
| |
| − | attack. The enemy feared and trembled before the prospect of this German
| |
| − | victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At Paris and London conferences followed one another in unending series.
| |
| − | Even the enemy propaganda encountered difficulties. It was no longer so
| |
| − | easy to demonstrate that the prospect of a German victory was hopeless.
| |
| − | A prudent silence reigned at the front, even among the troops of the
| |
| − | Entente. The insolence of their masters had suddenly subsided. A
| |
| − | disturbing truth began to dawn on them. Their opinion of the German
| |
| − | soldier had changed. Hitherto they were able to picture him as a kind of
| |
| − | fool whose end would be destruction; but now they found themselves face
| |
| − | to face with the soldier who had overcome their Russian ally. The policy
| |
| − | of restricting the offensive to the East, which had been imposed on the
| |
| − | German military authorities by the necessities of the situation, now
| |
| − | seemed to the Entente as a tactical stroke of genius. For three years
| |
| − | these Germans had been battering away at the Russian front without any
| |
| − | apparent success at first. Those fruitless efforts were almost sneered
| |
| − | at; for it was thought that in the long run the Russian giant would
| |
| − | triumph through sheer force of numbers. Germany would be worn out
| |
| − | through shedding so much blood. And facts appeared to confirm this hope.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since the September days of 1914, when for the first time interminable
| |
| − | columns of Russian war prisoners poured into Germany after the Battle of
| |
| − | Tannenberg, it seemed as if the stream would never end but that as soon
| |
| − | as one army was defeated and routed another would take its place. The
| |
| − | supply of soldiers which the gigantic Empire placed at the disposal of
| |
| − | the Czar seemed inexhaustible; new victims were always at hand for the
| |
| − | holocaust of war. How long could Germany hold out in this competition?
| |
| − | Would not the day finally have to come when, after the last victory
| |
| − | which the Germans would achieve, there would still remain reserve armies
| |
| − | in Russia to be mustered for the final battle? And what then? According
| |
| − | to human standards a Russian victory over Germany might be delayed but
| |
| − | it would have to come in the long run.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All the hopes that had been based on Russia were now lost. The Ally who
| |
| − | had sacrificed the most blood on the altar of their mutual interests had
| |
| − | come to the end of his resources and lay prostrate before his
| |
| − | unrelenting foe. A feeling of terror and dismay came over the Entente
| |
| − | soldiers who had hitherto been buoyed up by blind faith. They feared the
| |
| − | coming spring. For, seeing that hitherto they had failed to break the
| |
| − | Germans when the latter could concentrate only part of the fighting
| |
| − | strength on the Western Front, how could they count on victory now that
| |
| − | the undivided forces of that amazing land of heroes appeared to be
| |
| − | gathered for a massed attack in the West?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The shadow of the events which had taken place in South Tyrol, the
| |
| − | spectre of General Cadorna's defeated armies, were reflected in the
| |
| − | gloomy faces of the Entente troops in Flanders. Faith in victory gave
| |
| − | way to fear of defeat to come.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then, on those cold nights, when one almost heard the tread of the
| |
| − | German armies advancing to the great assault, and the decision was being
| |
| − | awaited in fear and trembling, suddenly a lurid light was set aglow in
| |
| − | Germany and sent its rays into the last shell-hole on the enemy's front.
| |
| − | At the very moment when the German divisions were receiving their final
| |
| − | orders for the great offensive a general strike broke out in Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first the world was dumbfounded. Then the enemy propaganda began
| |
| − | activities once again and pounced on this theme at the eleventh hour.
| |
| − | All of a sudden a means had come which could be utilized to revive the
| |
| − | sinking confidence of the Entente soldiers. The probabilities of victory
| |
| − | could now be presented as certain, and the anxious foreboding in regard
| |
| − | to coming events could now be transformed into a feeling of resolute
| |
| − | assurance. The regiments that had to bear the brunt of the Greatest
| |
| − | German onslaught in history could now be inspired with the conviction
| |
| − | that the final decision in this war would not be won by the audacity of
| |
| − | the German assault but rather by the powers of endurance on the side of
| |
| − | the defence. Let the Germans now have whatever victories they liked, the
| |
| − | revolution and not the victorious army was welcomed in the Fatherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | British, French and American newspapers began to spread this belief
| |
| − | among their readers while a very ably managed propaganda encouraged the
| |
| − | morale of their troops at the front.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 'Germany Facing Revolution! An Allied Victory Inevitable!' That was the
| |
| − | best medicine to set the staggering Poilu and Tommy on their feet once
| |
| − | again. Our rifles and machine-guns could now open fire once again; but
| |
| − | instead of effecting a panic-stricken retreat they were now met with a
| |
| − | determined resistance that was full of confidence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was the result of the strike in the munitions factories. Throughout
| |
| − | the enemy countries faith in victory was thus revived and strengthened,
| |
| − | and that paralysing feeling of despair which had hitherto made itself
| |
| − | felt on the Entente front was banished. Consequently the strike cost the
| |
| − | lives of thousands of German soldiers. But the despicable instigators of
| |
| − | that dastardly strike were candidates for the highest public positions
| |
| − | in the Germany of the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first it was apparently possible to overcome the repercussion of
| |
| − | these events on the German soldiers, but on the enemy's side they had a
| |
| − | lasting effect. Here the resistance had lost all the character of an
| |
| − | army fighting for a lost cause. In its place there was now a grim
| |
| − | determination to struggle through to victory. For, according to all
| |
| − | human rules of judgment, victory would now be assured if the Western
| |
| − | front could hold out against the German offensive even for only a few
| |
| − | months. The Allied parliaments recognized the possibilities of a better
| |
| − | future and voted huge sums of money for the continuation of the
| |
| − | propaganda which was employed for the purpose of breaking up the
| |
| − | internal cohesion of Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was my luck that I was able to take part in the first two offensives
| |
| − | and in the final offensive. These have left on me the most stupendous
| |
| − | impressions of my life--stupendous, because now for the last time the
| |
| − | struggle lost its defensive character and assumed the character of an
| |
| − | offensive, just as it was in 1914. A sigh of relief went up from the
| |
| − | German trenches and dug-outs when finally, after three years of
| |
| − | endurance in that inferno, the day for the settling of accounts had
| |
| − | come. Once again the lusty cheering of victorious battalions was heard,
| |
| − | as they hung the last crowns of the immortal laurel on the standards
| |
| − | which they consecrated to Victory. Once again the strains of patriotic
| |
| − | songs soared upwards to the heavens above the endless columns of
| |
| − | marching troops, and for the last time the Lord smiled on his ungrateful
| |
| − | children.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the midsummer of 1918 a feeling of sultry oppression hung over the
| |
| − | front. At home they were quarrelling. About what? We heard a great deal
| |
| − | among various units at the front. The War was now a hopeless affair, and
| |
| − | only the foolhardy could think of victory. It was not the people but the
| |
| − | capitalists and the Monarchy who were interested in carrying on. Such
| |
| − | were the ideas that came from home and were discussed at the front.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first this gave rise to only very slight reaction. What did universal
| |
| − | suffrage matter to us? Is this what we had been fighting for during four
| |
| − | years? It was a dastardly piece of robbery thus to filch from the graves
| |
| − | of our heroes the ideals for which they had fallen. It was not to the
| |
| − | slogan, 'Long Live Universal Suffrage,' that our troops in Flanders once
| |
| − | faced certain death but with the cry, 'DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES IN DER
| |
| − | WELT'. A small but by no means an unimportant difference. And the
| |
| − | majority of those who were shouting for this suffrage were absent when
| |
| − | it came to fighting for it. All this political rabble were strangers to
| |
| − | us at the front. During those days only a fraction of these
| |
| − | parliamentarian gentry were to be seen where honest Germans
| |
| − | foregathered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The old soldiers who had fought at the front had little liking for those
| |
| − | new war aims of Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann, Barth, Liebknecht and
| |
| − | others. We could not understand why, all of a sudden, the shirkers
| |
| − | should abrogate all executive powers to themselves, without having any
| |
| − | regard to the army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the very beginning I had my own definite personal views. I
| |
| − | intensely loathed the whole gang of miserable party politicians who had
| |
| − | betrayed the people. I had long ago realized that the interests of the
| |
| − | nation played only a very small part with this disreputable crew and
| |
| − | that what counted with them was the possibility of filling their own
| |
| − | empty pockets. My opinion was that those people thoroughly deserved to
| |
| − | be hanged, because they were ready to sacrifice the peace and if
| |
| − | necessary allow Germany to be defeated just to serve their own ends. To
| |
| − | consider their wishes would mean to sacrifice the interests of the
| |
| − | working classes for the benefit of a gang of thieves. To meet their
| |
| − | wishes meant that one should agree to sacrifice Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such, too, was the opinion still held by the majority of the army. But
| |
| − | the reinforcements which came from home were fast becoming worse and
| |
| − | worse; so much so that their arrival was a source of weakness rather
| |
| − | than of strength to our fighting forces. The young recruits in
| |
| − | particular were for the most part useless. Sometimes it was hard to
| |
| − | believe that they were sons of the same nation that sent its youth into
| |
| − | the battles that were fought round Ypres.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In August and September the symptoms of moral disintegration increased
| |
| − | more and more rapidly, although the enemy's offensive was not at all
| |
| − | comparable to the frightfulness of our own former defensive battles. In
| |
| − | comparison with this offensive the battles fought on the Somme and in
| |
| − | Flanders remained in our memories as the most terrible of all horrors.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the end of September my division occupied, for the third time, those
| |
| − | positions which we had once taken by storm as young volunteers. What a
| |
| − | memory!
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here we had received our baptism of fire, in October and November 1914.
| |
| − | With a burning love of the homeland in their hearts and a song on their
| |
| − | lips, our young regiment went into action as if going to a dance. The
| |
| − | dearest blood was given freely here in the belief that it was shed to
| |
| − | protect the freedom and independence of the Fatherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In July 1917 we set foot for the second time on what we regarded as
| |
| − | sacred soil. Were not our best comrades at rest here, some of them
| |
| − | little more than boys--the soldiers who had rushed into death for their
| |
| − | country's sake, their eyes glowing with enthusiastic love.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The older ones among us, who had been with the regiment from the
| |
| − | beginning, were deeply moved as we stood on this sacred spot where we
| |
| − | had sworn 'Loyalty and Duty unto Death'. Three years ago the regiment
| |
| − | had taken this position by storm; now it was called upon to defend it in
| |
| − | a gruelling struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | With an artillery bombardment that lasted three weeks the English
| |
| − | prepared for their great offensive in Flanders. There the spirits of the
| |
| − | dead seemed to live again. The regiment dug itself into the mud, clung
| |
| − | to its shell-holes and craters, neither flinching nor wavering, but
| |
| − | growing smaller in numbers day after day. Finally the British launched
| |
| − | their attack on July 31st, 1917.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We were relieved in the beginning of August. The regiment had dwindled
| |
| − | down to a few companies, who staggered back, mud-crusted, more like
| |
| − | phantoms than human beings. Besides a few hundred yards of shell-holes,
| |
| − | death was the only reward which the English gained.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now in the autumn of 1918 we stood for the third time on the ground we
| |
| − | had stormed in 1914. The village of Comines, which formerly had served
| |
| − | us as a base, was now within the fighting zone. Although little had
| |
| − | changed in the surrounding district itself, yet the men had become
| |
| − | different, somehow or other. They now talked politics. Like everywhere
| |
| − | else, the poison from home was having its effect here also. The young
| |
| − | drafts succumbed to it completely. They had come directly from home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the night of October 13th-14th, the British opened an attack with
| |
| − | gas on the front south of Ypres. They used the yellow gas whose effect
| |
| − | was unknown to us, at least from personal experience. I was destined to
| |
| − | experience it that very night. On a hill south of Werwick, in the
| |
| − | evening of October 13th, we were subjected for several hours to a heavy
| |
| − | bombardment with gas bombs, which continued throughout the night with
| |
| − | more or less intensity. About midnight a number of us were put out of
| |
| − | action, some for ever. Towards morning I also began to feel pain. It
| |
| − | increased with every quarter of an hour; and about seven o'clock my eyes
| |
| − | were scorching as I staggered back and delivered the last dispatch I was
| |
| − | destined to carry in this war. A few hours later my eyes were like
| |
| − | glowing coals and all was darkness around me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was sent into hospital at Pasewalk in Pomerania, and there it was that
| |
| − | I had to hear of the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For a long time there had been something in the air which was
| |
| − | indefinable and repulsive. People were saying that something was bound
| |
| − | to happen within the next few weeks, although I could not imagine what
| |
| − | this meant. In the first instance I thought of a strike similar to the
| |
| − | one which had taken place in spring. Unfavourable rumours were
| |
| − | constantly coming from the Navy, which was said to be in a state of
| |
| − | ferment. But this seemed to be a fanciful creation of a few isolated
| |
| − | young people. It is true that at the hospital they were all talking abut
| |
| − | the end of the war and hoping that this was not far off, but nobody
| |
| − | thought that the decision would come immediately. I was not able to read
| |
| − | the newspapers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In November the general tension increased. Then one day disaster broke
| |
| − | in upon us suddenly and without warning. Sailors came in motor-lorries
| |
| − | and called on us to rise in revolt. A few Jew-boys were the leaders in
| |
| − | that combat for the 'Liberty, Beauty, and Dignity' of our National
| |
| − | Being. Not one of them had seen active service at the front. Through the
| |
| − | medium of a hospital for venereal diseases these three Orientals had
| |
| − | been sent back home. Now their red rags were being hoisted here.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the last few days I had begun to feel somewhat better. The
| |
| − | burning pain in the eye-sockets had become less severe. Gradually I was
| |
| − | able to distinguish the general outlines of my immediate surroundings.
| |
| − | And it was permissible to hope that at least I would recover my sight
| |
| − | sufficiently to be able to take up some profession later on. That I
| |
| − | would ever be able to draw or design once again was naturally out of the
| |
| − | question. Thus I was on the way to recovery when the frightful hour
| |
| − | came.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My first thought was that this outbreak of high treason was only a local
| |
| − | affair. I tried to enforce this belief among my comrades. My Bavarian
| |
| − | hospital mates, in particular, were readily responsive. Their
| |
| − | inclinations were anything but revolutionary. I could not imagine this
| |
| − | madness breaking out in Munich; for it seemed to me that loyalty to the
| |
| − | House of Wittelsbach was, after all, stronger than the will of a few
| |
| − | Jews. And so I could not help believing that this was merely a revolt in
| |
| − | the Navy and that it would be suppressed within the next few days.
| |
| − | | |
| − | With the next few days came the most astounding information of my life.
| |
| − | The rumours grew more and more persistent. I was told that what I had
| |
| − | considered to be a local affair was in reality a general revolution. In
| |
| − | addition to this, from the front came the shameful news that they wished
| |
| − | to capitulate! What! Was such a thing possible?
| |
| − | | |
| − | On November 10th the local pastor visited the hospital for the purpose
| |
| − | of delivering a short address. And that was how we came to know the
| |
| − | whole story.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was in a fever of excitement as I listened to the address. The
| |
| − | reverend old gentleman seemed to be trembling when he informed us that
| |
| − | the House of Hohen-zollern should no longer wear the Imperial Crown,
| |
| − | that the Fatherland had become a 'Republic', that we should pray to the
| |
| − | Almighty not to withhold His blessing from the new order of things and
| |
| − | not to abandon our people in the days to come. In delivering this
| |
| − | message he could not do more than briefly express appreciation of the
| |
| − | Royal House, its services to Pomerania, to Prussia, indeed, to the whole
| |
| − | of the German Fatherland, and--here he began to weep. A feeling of
| |
| − | profound dismay fell on the people in that assembly, and I do not think
| |
| − | there was a single eye that withheld its tears. As for myself, I broke
| |
| − | down completely when the old gentleman tried to resume his story by
| |
| − | informing us that we must now end this long war, because the war was
| |
| − | lost, he said, and we were at the mercy of the victor. The Fatherland
| |
| − | would have to bear heavy burdens in the future. We were to accept the
| |
| − | terms of the Armistice and trust to the magnanimity of our former
| |
| − | enemies. It was impossible for me to stay and listen any longer.
| |
| − | Darkness surrounded me as I staggered and stumbled back to my ward and
| |
| − | buried my aching head between the blankets and pillow.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I had not cried since the day that I stood beside my mother's grave.
| |
| − | Whenever Fate dealt cruelly with me in my young days the spirit of
| |
| − | determination within me grew stronger and stronger. During all those
| |
| − | long years of war, when Death claimed many a true friend and comrade
| |
| − | from our ranks, to me it would have appeared sinful to have uttered a
| |
| − | word of complaint. Did they not die for Germany? And, finally, almost in
| |
| − | the last few days of that titanic struggle, when the waves of poison gas
| |
| − | enveloped me and began to penetrate my eyes, the thought of becoming
| |
| − | permanently blind unnerved me; but the voice of conscience cried out
| |
| − | immediately: Poor miserable fellow, will you start howling when there
| |
| − | are thousands of others whose lot is a hundred times worse than yours?
| |
| − | And so I accepted my misfortune in silence, realizing that this was the
| |
| − | only thing to be done and that personal suffering was nothing when
| |
| − | compared with the misfortune of one's country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | So all had been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations, in
| |
| − | vain the hunger and thirst for endless months, in vain those hours that
| |
| − | we stuck to our posts though the fear of death gripped our souls, and in
| |
| − | vain the deaths of two millions who fell in discharging this duty. Think
| |
| − | of those hundreds of thousands who set out with hearts full of faith in
| |
| − | their fatherland, and never returned; ought not their graves to open, so
| |
| − | that the spirits of those heroes bespattered with mud and blood should
| |
| − | come home and take vengeance on those who had so despicably betrayed the
| |
| − | greatest sacrifice which a human being can make for his country? Was it
| |
| − | for this that the soldiers died in August and September 1914, for this
| |
| − | that the volunteer regiments followed the old comrades in the autumn of
| |
| − | the same year? Was it for this that those boys of seventeen years of age
| |
| − | were mingled with the earth of Flanders? Was this meant to be the fruits
| |
| − | of the sacrifice which German mothers made for their Fatherland when,
| |
| − | with heavy hearts, they said good-bye to their sons who never returned?
| |
| − | Has all this been done in order to enable a gang of despicable criminals
| |
| − | to lay hands on the Fatherland?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Was this then what the German soldier struggled for through sweltering
| |
| − | heat and blinding snowstorm, enduring hunger and thirst and cold,
| |
| − | fatigued from sleepless nights and endless marches? Was it for this that
| |
| − | he lived through an inferno of artillery bombardments, lay gasping and
| |
| − | choking during gas attacks, neither flinching nor faltering, but
| |
| − | remaining staunch to the thought of defending the Fatherland against the
| |
| − | enemy? Certainly these heroes also deserved the epitaph:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Traveller, when you come to Germany, tell the Homeland that we lie
| |
| − | here, true to the Fatherland and faithful to our duty. (Note 13)
| |
| − |
| |
| − | [Note 13. Here again we have the defenders of Thermopylae recalled as the
| |
| − | prototype of German valour in the Great War. Hitler's quotation is a
| |
| − | German variant of the couplet inscribed on the monument erected at
| |
| − | Thermopylae to the memory of Leonidas and his Spartan soldiers who fell
| |
| − | defending the Pass. As given by Herodotus, who claims that he saw the
| |
| − | inscription himself, the original text may be literally translated thus:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passeth by,
| |
| − | That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | And at Home? But--was this the only sacrifice that we had to consider?
| |
| − | Was the Germany of the past a country of little worth? Did she not owe a
| |
| − | certain duty to her own history? Were we still worthy to partake in the
| |
| − | glory of the past? How could we justify this act to future generations?
| |
| − | | |
| − | What a gang of despicable and depraved criminals!
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more I tried then to glean some definite information of the terrible
| |
| − | events that had happened the more my head became afire with rage and
| |
| − | shame. What was all the pain I suffered in my eyes compared with this
| |
| − | tragedy?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The following days were terrible to bear, and the nights still worse. To
| |
| − | depend on the mercy of the enemy was a precept which only fools or
| |
| − | criminal liars could recommend. During those nights my hatred
| |
| − | increased--hatred for the orignators of this dastardly crime.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the following days my own fate became clear to me. I was forced
| |
| − | now to scoff at the thought of my personal future, which hitherto had
| |
| − | been the cause of so much worry to me. Was it not ludicrous to think of
| |
| − | building up anything on such a foundation? Finally, it also became clear
| |
| − | to me that it was the inevitable that had happened, something which I
| |
| − | had feared for a long time, though I really did not have the heart to
| |
| − | believe it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Emperor William II was the first German Emperor to offer the hand of
| |
| − | friendship to the Marxist leaders, not suspecting that they were
| |
| − | scoundrels without any sense of honour. While they held the imperial
| |
| − | hand in theirs, the other hand was already feeling for the dagger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is no such thing as coming to an understanding with the Jews. It
| |
| − | must be the hard-and-fast 'Either-Or.'
| |
| − | | |
| − | For my part I then decided that I would take up political work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER VIII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE BEGINNING OF MY POLITICAL ACTIVITIES
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Towards the end of November I returned to Munich. I went to the depot of
| |
| − | my regiment, which was now in the hands of the 'Soldiers' Councils'. As
| |
| − | the whole administration was quite repulsive to me, I decided to leave
| |
| − | it as soon as I possibly could. With my faithful war-comrade,
| |
| − | Ernst-Schmidt, I came to Traunstein and remained there until the camp
| |
| − | was broken up. In March 1919 we were back again in Munich.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The situation there could not last as it was. It tended irresistibly to
| |
| − | a further extension of the Revolution. Eisner's death served only to
| |
| − | hasten this development and finally led to the dictatorship of the
| |
| − | Councils--or, to put it more correctly, to a Jewish hegemony, which
| |
| − | turned out to be transitory but which was the original aim of those who
| |
| − | had contrived the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that juncture innumerable plans took shape in my mind. I spent whole
| |
| − | days pondering on the problem of what could be done, but unfortunately
| |
| − | every project had to give way before the hard fact that I was quite
| |
| − | unknown and therefore did not have even the first pre-requisite
| |
| − | necessary for effective action. Later on I shall explain the reasons why
| |
| − | I could not decide to join any of the parties then in existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As the new Soviet Revolution began to run its course in Munich my first
| |
| − | activities drew upon me the ill-will of the Central Council. In the
| |
| − | early morning of April 27th, 1919, I was to have been arrested; but the
| |
| − | three fellows who came to arrest me did not have the courage to face my
| |
| − | rifle and withdrew just as they had arrived.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A few days after the liberation of Munich I was ordered to appear before
| |
| − | the Inquiry Commission which had been set up in the 2nd Infantry
| |
| − | Regiment for the purpose of watching revolutionary activities. That was
| |
| − | my first incursion into the more or less political field.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After another few weeks I received orders to attend a course of lectures
| |
| − | which were being given to members of the army. This course was meant to
| |
| − | inculcate certain fundamental principles on which the soldier could base
| |
| − | his political ideas. For me the advantage of this organization was that
| |
| − | it gave me a chance of meeting fellow soldiers who were of the same way
| |
| − | of thinking and with whom I could discuss the actual situation. We were
| |
| − | all more or less firmly convinced that Germany could not be saved from
| |
| − | imminent disaster by those who had participated in the November
| |
| − | treachery--that is to say, the Centre and the Social-Democrats; and also
| |
| − | that the so-called Bourgeois-National group could not make good the
| |
| − | damage that had been done, even if they had the best intentions. They
| |
| − | lacked a number of requisites without which such a task could never be
| |
| − | successfully undertaken. The years that followed have justified the
| |
| − | opinions which we held at that time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our small circle we discussed the project of forming a new party. The
| |
| − | leading ideas which we then proposed were the same as those which were
| |
| − | carried into effect afterwards, when the German Labour Party was
| |
| − | founded. The name of the new movement which was to be founded should be
| |
| − | such that of itself, it would appeal to the mass of the people; for all
| |
| − | our efforts would turn out vain and useless if this condition were
| |
| − | lacking. And that was the reason why we chose the name
| |
| − | 'Social-Revolutionary Party', particularly because the social principles
| |
| − | of our new organization were indeed revolutionary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But there was also a more fundamental reason. The attention which I had
| |
| − | given to economic problems during my earlier years was more or less
| |
| − | confined to considerations arising directly out of the social problem.
| |
| − | Subsequently this outlook broadened as I came to study the German policy
| |
| − | of the Triple Alliance. This policy was very largely the result of an
| |
| − | erroneous valuation of the economic situation, together with a confused
| |
| − | notion as to the basis on which the future subsistence of the German
| |
| − | people could be guaranteed. All these ideas were based on the principle
| |
| − | that capital is exclusively the product of labour and that, just like
| |
| − | labour, it was subject to all the factors which can hinder or promote
| |
| − | human activity. Hence, from the national standpoint, the significance of
| |
| − | capital depended on the greatness and freedom and power of the State,
| |
| − | that is to say, of the nation, and that it is this dependence alone
| |
| − | which leads capital to promote the interests of the State and the
| |
| − | nation, from the instinct of self-preservation and for the sake of its
| |
| − | own development.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On such principles the attitude of the State towards capital would be
| |
| − | comparatively simple and clear. Its only object would be to make sure
| |
| − | that capital remained subservient to the State and did not allocate to
| |
| − | itself the right to dominate national interests. Thus it could confine
| |
| − | its activities within the two following limits: on the one side, to
| |
| − | assure a vital and independent system of national economy and, on the
| |
| − | other, to safeguard the social rights of the workers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Previously I did not recognize with adequate clearness the difference
| |
| − | between capital which is purely the product of creative labour and the
| |
| − | existence and nature of capital which is exclusively the result of
| |
| − | financial speculation. Here I needed an impulse to set my mind thinking
| |
| − | in this direction; but that impulse had hitherto been lacking.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The requisite impulse now came from one of the men who delivered
| |
| − | lectures in the course I have already mentioned. This was Gottfried
| |
| − | Feder.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the first time in my life I heard a discussion which dealt with the
| |
| − | principles of stock-exchange capital and capital which was used for loan
| |
| − | activities. After hearing the first lecture delivered by Feder, the idea
| |
| − | immediately came into my head that I had now found a way to one of the
| |
| − | most essential pre-requisites for the founding of a new party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To my mind, Feder's merit consisted in the ruthless and trenchant way in
| |
| − | which he described the double character of the capital engaged in
| |
| − | stock-exchange and loan transaction, laying bare the fact that this
| |
| − | capital is ever and always dependent on the payment of interest. In
| |
| − | fundamental questions his statements were so full of common sense that
| |
| − | those who criticized him did not deny that AU FOND his ideas were sound
| |
| − | but they doubted whether it be possible to put these ideas into
| |
| − | practice. To me this seemed the strongest point in Feder's teaching,
| |
| − | though others considered it a weak point.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not the business of him who lays down a theoretical programme to
| |
| − | explain the various ways in which something can be put into practice.
| |
| − | His task is to deal with the problem as such; and, therefore, he has to
| |
| − | look to the end rather than the means. The important question is whether
| |
| − | an idea is fundamentally right or not. The question of whether or not it
| |
| − | may be difficult to carry it out in practice is quite another matter.
| |
| − | When a man whose task it is to lay down the principles of a programme or
| |
| − | policy begins to busy himself with the question as to whether it is
| |
| − | expedient and practical, instead of confining himself to the statement
| |
| − | of the absolute truth, his work will cease to be a guiding star to those
| |
| − | who are looking about for light and leading and will become merely a
| |
| − | recipe for every-day iife. The man who lays down the programme of a
| |
| − | movement must consider only the goal. It is for the political leader to
| |
| − | point out the way in which that goal may be reached. The thought of the
| |
| − | former will, therefore, be determined by those truths that are
| |
| − | everlasting, whereas the activity of the latter must always be guided by
| |
| − | taking practical account of the circumstances under which those truths
| |
| − | have to be carried into effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The greatness of the one will depend on the absolute truth of his idea,
| |
| − | considered in the abstract; whereas that of the other will depend on
| |
| − | whether or not he correctly judges the given realities and how they may
| |
| − | be utilized under the guidance of the truths established by the former.
| |
| − | The test of greatness as applied to a political leader is the success of
| |
| − | his plans and his enterprises, which means his ability to reach the goal
| |
| − | for which he sets out; whereas the final goal set up by the political
| |
| − | philosopher can never be reached; for human thought may grasp truths and
| |
| − | picture ends which it sees like clear crystal, though such ends can
| |
| − | never be completely fulfilled because human nature is weak and
| |
| − | imperfect. The more an idea is correct in the abstract, and, therefore,
| |
| − | all the more powerful, the smaller is the possibility of putting it into
| |
| − | practice, at least as far as this latter depends on human beings. The
| |
| − | significance of a political philosopher does not depend on the practical
| |
| − | success of the plans he lays down but rather on their absolute truth and
| |
| − | the influence they exert on the progress of mankind. If it were
| |
| − | otherwise, the founders of religions could not be considered as the
| |
| − | greatest men who have ever lived, because their moral aims will never be
| |
| − | completely or even approximately carried out in practice. Even that
| |
| − | religion which is called the Religion of Love is really no more than a
| |
| − | faint reflex of the will of its sublime Founder. But its significance
| |
| − | lies in the orientation which it endeavoured to give to human
| |
| − | civilization, and human virtue and morals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This very wide difference between the functions of a political
| |
| − | philosopher and a practical political leader is the reason why the
| |
| − | qualifications necessary for both functions are scarcely ever found
| |
| − | associated in the same person. This applies especially to the so-called
| |
| − | successful politician of the smaller kind, whose activity is indeed
| |
| − | hardly more than practising the art of doing the possible, as Bismarck
| |
| − | modestly defined the art of politics in general. If such a politician
| |
| − | resolutely avoids great ideas his success will be all the easier to
| |
| − | attain; it will be attained more expeditely and frequently will be more
| |
| − | tangible. By reason of this very fact, however, such success is doomed
| |
| − | to futility and sometimes does not even survive the death of its author.
| |
| − | Generally speaking, the work of politicians is without significance for
| |
| − | the following generation, because their temporary success was based on
| |
| − | the expediency of avoiding all really great decisive problems and ideas
| |
| − | which would be valid also for future generations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To pursue ideals which will still be of value and significance for the
| |
| − | future is generally not a very profitable undertaking and he who follows
| |
| − | such a course is only very rarely understood by the mass of the people,
| |
| − | who find beer and milk a more persuasive index of political values than
| |
| − | far-sighted plans for the future, the realization of which can only take
| |
| − | place later on and the advantages of which can be reaped only by
| |
| − | posterity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Because of a certain vanity, which is always one of the blood-relations
| |
| − | of unintelligence, the general run of politicians will always eschew
| |
| − | those schemes for the future which are really difficult to put into
| |
| − | practice; and they will practise this avoidance so that they may not
| |
| − | lose the immediate favour of the mob. The importance and the success of
| |
| − | such politicians belong exclusively to the present and will be of no
| |
| − | consequence for the future. But that does not worry small-minded people;
| |
| − | they are quite content with momentary results.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The position of the constructive political philosopher is quite
| |
| − | different. The importance of his work must always be judged from the
| |
| − | standpoint of the future; and he is frequently described by the word
| |
| − | WELTFREMD, or dreamer. While the ability of the politician consists in
| |
| − | mastering the art of the possible, the founder of a political system
| |
| − | belongs to those who are said to please the gods only because they wish
| |
| − | for and demand the impossible. They will always have to renounce
| |
| − | contemporary fame; but if their ideas be immortal, posterity will grant
| |
| − | them its acknowledgment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Within long spans of human progress it may occasionally happen that the
| |
| − | practical politician and political philosopher are one. The more
| |
| − | intimate this union is, the greater will be the obstacles which the
| |
| − | activity of the politician will have to encounter. Such a man does not
| |
| − | labour for the purpose of satisfying demands that are obvious to every
| |
| − | philistine, but he reaches out towards ends which can be understood only
| |
| − | by the few. His life is torn asunder by hatred and love. The protest of
| |
| − | his contemporaries, who do not understand the man, is in conflict with
| |
| − | the recognition of posterity, for whom he also works.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the greater the work which a man does for the future, the less will
| |
| − | he be appreciated by his contemporaries. His struggle will accordingly
| |
| − | be all the more severe, and his success all the rarer. When, in the
| |
| − | course of centuries, such a man appears who is blessed with success
| |
| − | then, towards the end of his days, he may have a faint prevision of his
| |
| − | future fame. But such great men are only the Marathon runners of
| |
| − | history. The laurels of contemporary fame are only for the brow of the
| |
| − | dying hero.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The great protagonists are those who fight for their ideas and ideals
| |
| − | despite the fact that they receive no recognition at the hands of their
| |
| − | contemporaries. They are the men whose memories will be enshrined in the
| |
| − | hearts of the future generations. It seems then as if each individual
| |
| − | felt it his duty to make retroactive atonement for the wrong which great
| |
| − | men have suffered at the hands of their contemporaries. Their lives and
| |
| − | their work are then studied with touching and grateful admiration.
| |
| − | Especially in dark days of distress, such men have the power of healing
| |
| − | broken hearts and elevating the despairing spirit of a people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To this group belong not only the genuinely great statesmen but all the
| |
| − | great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great we have such men as
| |
| − | Martin Luther and Richard Wagner.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I heard Gottfried Feder's first lecture on 'The Abolition of the
| |
| − | Interest-Servitude', I understood immediately that here was a truth of
| |
| − | transcendental importance for the future of the German people. The
| |
| − | absolute separation of stock-exchange capital from the economic life of
| |
| − | the nation would make it possible to oppose the process of
| |
| − | internationalization in German business without at the same time
| |
| − | attacking capital as such, for to do this would jeopardize the
| |
| − | foundations of our national independence. I clearly saw what was
| |
| − | developing in Germany and I realized then that the stiffest fight we
| |
| − | would have to wage would not be against the enemy nations but against
| |
| − | international capital. In Feder's speech I found an effective
| |
| − | rallying-cry for our coming struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here, again, later events proved how correct was the impression we then
| |
| − | had. The fools among our bourgeois politicians do not mock at us on this
| |
| − | point any more; for even those politicians now see--if they would speak
| |
| − | the truth--that international stock-exchange capital was not only the
| |
| − | chief instigating factor in bringing on the War but that now when the
| |
| − | War is over it turns the peace into a hell.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The struggle against international finance capital and loan-capital has
| |
| − | become one of the most important points in the programme on which the
| |
| − | German nation has based its fight for economic freedom and independence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Regarding the objections raised by so-called practical people, the
| |
| − | following answer must suffice: All apprehensions concerning the fearful
| |
| − | economic consequences that would follow the abolition of the servitude
| |
| − | that results from interest-capital are ill-timed; for, in the first
| |
| − | place, the economic principles hitherto followed have proved quite fatal
| |
| − | to the interests of the German people. The attitude adopted when the
| |
| − | question of maintaining our national existence arose vividly recalls
| |
| − | similar advice once given by experts--the Bavarian Medical College, for
| |
| − | example--on the question of introducing railroads. The fears expressed
| |
| − | by that august body of experts were not realized. Those who travelled in
| |
| − | the coaches of the new 'Steam-horse' did not suffer from vertigo. Those
| |
| − | who looked on did not become ill and the hoardings which had been
| |
| − | erected to conceal the new invention were eventually taken down. Only
| |
| − | those blinds which obscure the vision of the would-be 'experts', have
| |
| − | remained. And that will be always so.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the second place, the following must be borne in mind: Any idea may
| |
| − | be a source of danger if it be looked upon as an end in itself, when
| |
| − | really it is only the means to an end. For me and for all genuine
| |
| − | National-Socialists there is only one doctrine. PEOPLE AND FATHERLAND.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence
| |
| − | and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and
| |
| − | the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and
| |
| − | independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to
| |
| − | fulfil the mission assigned to it by the Creator.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All ideas and ideals, all teaching and all knowledge, must serve these
| |
| − | ends. It is from this standpoint that everything must be examined and
| |
| − | turned to practical uses or else discarded. Thus a theory can never
| |
| − | become a mere dead dogma since everything will have to serve the
| |
| − | practical ends of everyday life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the judgment arrived at by Gottfried Feder determined me to make a
| |
| − | fundamental study of a question with which I had hitherto not been very
| |
| − | familiar.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I began to study again and thus it was that I first came to understand
| |
| − | perfectly what was the substance and purpose of the life-work of the
| |
| − | Jew, Karl Marx. His CAPITAL became intelligible to me now for the first
| |
| − | time. And in the light of it I now exactly understood the fight of the
| |
| − | Social-Democrats against national economics, a fight which was to
| |
| − | prepare the ground for the hegemony of a real international and
| |
| − | stock-exchange capital.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In another direction also this course of lectures had important
| |
| − | consequences for me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One day I put my name down as wishing to take part in the discussion.
| |
| − | Another of the participants thought that he would break a lance for the
| |
| − | Jews and entered into a lengthy defence of them. This aroused my
| |
| − | opposition. An overwhelming number of those who attended the lecture
| |
| − | course supported my views. The consequence of it all was that, a few
| |
| − | days later, I was assigned to a regiment then stationed at Munich and
| |
| − | given a position there as 'instruction officer'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time the spirit of discipline was rather weak among those
| |
| − | troops. It was still suffering from the after-effects of the period when
| |
| − | the Soldiers' Councils were in control. Only gradually and carefully
| |
| − | could a new spirit of military discipline and obedience be introduced in
| |
| − | place of 'voluntary obedience', a term which had been used to express
| |
| − | the ideal of military discipline under Kurt Eisner's higgledy-piggledy
| |
| − | regime. The soldiers had to be taught to think and feel in a national
| |
| − | and patriotic way. In these two directions lay my future line of action.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I took up my work with the greatest delight and devotion. Here I was
| |
| − | presented with an opportunity of speaking before quite a large audience.
| |
| − | I was now able to confirm what I had hitherto merely felt, namely, that
| |
| − | I had a talent for public speaking. My voice had become so much better
| |
| − | that I could be well understood, at least in all parts of the small hall
| |
| − | where the soldiers assembled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No task could have been more pleasing to me than this one; for now,
| |
| − | before being demobilized, I was in a position to render useful service
| |
| − | to an institution which had been infinitely dear to my heart: namely,
| |
| − | the army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I am able to state that my talks were successful. During the course of
| |
| − | my lectures I have led back hundreds and even thousands of my fellow
| |
| − | countrymen to their people and their fatherland. I 'nationalized' these
| |
| − | troops and by so doing I helped to restore general discipline.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here again I made the acquaintance of several comrades whose thought ran
| |
| − | along the same lines as my own and who later became members of the first
| |
| − | group out of which the new movement developed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER IX
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE GERMAN LABOUR PARTY
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | One day I received an order from my superiors to investigate the nature
| |
| − | of an association which was apparently political. It called itself 'The
| |
| − | German Labour Party' and was soon to hold a meeting at which Gottfried
| |
| − | Feder would speak. I was ordered to attend this meeting and report on
| |
| − | the situation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The spirit of curiosity in which the army authorities then regarded
| |
| − | political parties can be very well understood. The Revolution had
| |
| − | granted the soldiers the right to take an active part in politics and it
| |
| − | was particularly those with the smallest experience who had availed
| |
| − | themselves of this right. But not until the Centre and the
| |
| − | Social-Democratic parties were reluctantly forced to recognize that the
| |
| − | sympathies of the soldiers had turned away from the revolutionary
| |
| − | parties towards the national movement and the national reawakening, did
| |
| − | they feel obliged to withdraw from the army the right to vote and to
| |
| − | forbid it all political activity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that the Centre and Marxism had adopted this policy was
| |
| − | instructive, because if they had not thus curtailed the 'rights of the
| |
| − | citizen'--as they described the political rights of the soldiers after
| |
| − | the Revolution--the government which had been established in November
| |
| − | 1918 would have been overthrown within a few years and the dishonour and
| |
| − | disgrace of the nation would not have been further prolonged. At that
| |
| − | time the soldiers were on the point of taking the best way to rid the
| |
| − | nation of the vampires and valets who served the cause of the Entente in
| |
| − | the interior of the country. But the fact that the so-called 'national'
| |
| − | parties voted enthusiastically for the doctrinaire policy of the
| |
| − | criminals who organized the Revolution in November (1918) helped also to
| |
| − | render the army ineffective as an instrument of national restoration and
| |
| − | thus showed once again where men might be led by the purely abstract
| |
| − | notions accepted by these most gullible people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The minds of the bourgeois middle classes had become so fossilized that
| |
| − | they sincerely believed the army could once again become what it had
| |
| − | previously been, namely, a rampart of German valour; while the Centre
| |
| − | Party and the Marxists intended only to extract the poisonous tooth of
| |
| − | nationalism, without which an army must always remain just a police
| |
| − | force but can never be in the position of a military organization
| |
| − | capable of fighting against the outside enemy. This truth was
| |
| − | sufficiently proved by subsequent events.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Or did our 'national' politicians believe, after all, that the
| |
| − | development of our army could be other than national? This belief might
| |
| − | be possible and could be explained by the fact that during the War they
| |
| − | were not soldiers but merely talkers. In other words, they were
| |
| − | parliamentarians, and, as such, they did not have the slightest idea of
| |
| − | what was passing in the hearts of those men who remembered the greatness
| |
| − | of their own past and also remembered that they had once been the first
| |
| − | soldiers in the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I decided to attend the meeting of this Party, which had hitherto been
| |
| − | entirely unknown to me. When I arrived that evening in the guest room of
| |
| − | the former Sternecker Brewery--which has now become a place of
| |
| − | historical significance for us--I found approximately 20-25 persons
| |
| − | present, most of them belonging to the lower classes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The theme of Feder's lecture was already familiar to me; for I had heard
| |
| − | it in the lecture course I have spoken of. Therefore, I could
| |
| − | concentrate my attention on studying the society itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The impression it made upon me was neither good nor bad. I felt that
| |
| − | here was just another one of these many new societies which were being
| |
| − | formed at that time. In those days everybody felt called upon to found a
| |
| − | new Party whenever he felt displeased with the course of events and had
| |
| − | lost confidence in all the parties already existing. Thus it was that
| |
| − | new associations sprouted up all round, to disappear just as quickly,
| |
| − | without exercising any effect or making any noise whatsoever. Generally
| |
| − | speaking, the founders of such associations did not have the slightest
| |
| − | idea of what it means to bring together a number of people for the
| |
| − | foundations of a party or a movement. Therefore these associations
| |
| − | disappeared because of their woeful lack of anything like an adequate
| |
| − | grasp of the necessities of the situation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My opinion of the 'German Labour Party' was not very different after I
| |
| − | had listened to their proceedings for about two hours. I was glad when
| |
| − | Feder finally came to a close. I had observed enough and was just about
| |
| − | to leave when it was announced that anybody who wished was free to open
| |
| − | a discussion. Thereupon, I decided to remain. But the discussion seemed
| |
| − | to proceed without anything of vital importance being mentioned, when
| |
| − | suddenly a 'professor' commenced to speak. He opened by throwing doubt
| |
| − | on the accuracy of what Feder had said, and then. after Feder had
| |
| − | replied very effectively, the professor suddenly took up his position on
| |
| − | what he called 'the basis of facts,' but before this he recommended the
| |
| − | young party most urgently to introduce the secession of Bavaria from
| |
| − | Prussia as one of the leading proposals in its programme. In the most
| |
| − | self-assured way, this man kept on insisting that German-Austria would
| |
| − | join Bavaria and that the peace would then function much better. He made
| |
| − | other similarly extravagant statements. At this juncture I felt bound to
| |
| − | ask for permission to speak and to tell the learned gentleman what I
| |
| − | thought. The result was that the honourable gentleman who had last
| |
| − | spoken slipped out of his place, like a whipped cur, without uttering a
| |
| − | sound. While I was speaking the audience listened with an expression of
| |
| − | surprise on their faces. When I was just about to say good-night to the
| |
| − | assembly and to leave, a man came after me quickly and introduced
| |
| − | himself. I did not grasp the name correctly; but he placed a little book
| |
| − | in my hand, which was obviously a political pamphlet, and asked me very
| |
| − | earnestly to read it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was quite pleased; because in this way, I could come to know about
| |
| − | this association without having to attend its tiresome meetings.
| |
| − | Moreover, this man, who had the appearance of a workman, made a good
| |
| − | impression on me. Thereupon, I left the hall.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time I was living in one of the barracks of the 2nd Infantry
| |
| − | Regiment. I had a little room which still bore the unmistakable traces
| |
| − | of the Revolution. During the day I was mostly out, at the quarters of
| |
| − | Light Infantry No. 41 or else attending meetings or lectures, held at
| |
| − | some other branch of the army. I spent only the night at the quarters
| |
| − | where I lodged. Since I usually woke up about five o'clock every morning
| |
| − | I got into the habit of amusing myself with watching little mice which
| |
| − | played around in my small room. I used to place a few pieces of hard
| |
| − | bread or crust on the floor and watch the funny little beasts playing
| |
| − | around and enjoying themselves with these delicacies. I had suffered so
| |
| − | many privations in my own life that I well knew what hunger was and
| |
| − | could only too well picture to myself the pleasure these little
| |
| − | creatures were experiencing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | So on the morning after the meeting I have mentioned, it happened that
| |
| − | about five o'clock I lay fully awake in bed, watching the mice playing
| |
| − | and vying with each other. As I was not able to go to sleep again, I
| |
| − | suddenly remembered the pamphlet that one of the workers had given me at
| |
| − | the meeting. It was a small pamphlet of which this worker was the
| |
| − | author. In his little book he described how his mind had thrown off the
| |
| − | shackles of the Marxist and trades-union phraseology, and that he had
| |
| − | come back to the nationalist ideals. That was the reason why he had
| |
| − | entitled his little book: "My Political Awakening". The pamphlet secured
| |
| − | my attention the moment I began to read, and I read it with interest to
| |
| − | the end. The process here described was similar to that which I had
| |
| − | experienced in my own case ten years previously. Unconsciously my own
| |
| − | experiences began to stir again in my mind. During that day my thoughts
| |
| − | returned several times to what I had read; but I finally decided to give
| |
| − | the matter no further attention. A week or so later, however, I received
| |
| − | a postcard which informed me, to my astonishment, that I had been
| |
| − | admitted into the German Labour Party. I was asked to answer this
| |
| − | communication and to attend a meeting of the Party Committee on
| |
| − | Wednesday next.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This manner of getting members rather amazed me, and I did not know
| |
| − | whether to be angry or laugh at it. Hitherto I had not any idea of
| |
| − | entering a party already in existence but wanted to found one of my own.
| |
| − | Such an invitation as I now had received I looked upon as entirely out
| |
| − | of the question for me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was about to send a written reply when my curiosity got the better of
| |
| − | me, and I decided to attend the gathering at the date assigned, so that
| |
| − | I might expound my principles to these gentlemen in person.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Wednesday came. The tavern in which the meeting was to take place was
| |
| − | the 'Alte Rosenbad' in the Herrnstrasse, into which apparently only an
| |
| − | occasional guest wandered. This was not very surprising in the year
| |
| − | 1919, when the bills of fare even at the larger restaurants were only
| |
| − | very modest and scanty in their pretensions and thus not very attractive
| |
| − | to clients. But I had never before heard of this restaurant.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I went through the badly-lighted guest-room, where not a single guest
| |
| − | was to be seen, and searched for the door which led to the side room;
| |
| − | and there I was face-to-face with the 'Congress'. Under the dim light
| |
| − | shed by a grimy gas-lamp I could see four young people sitting around a
| |
| − | table, one of them the author of the pamphlet. He greeted me cordially
| |
| − | and welcomed me as a new member of the German Labour Party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was taken somewhat aback on being informed that actually the National
| |
| − | President of the Party had not yet come; so I decided that I would keep
| |
| − | back my own exposition for the time being. Finally the President
| |
| − | appeared. He was the man who had been chairman of the meeting held in
| |
| − | the Sternecker Brewery, when Feder spoke.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My curiosity was stimulated anew and I sat waiting for what was going to
| |
| − | happen. Now I got at least as far as learning the names of the gentlemen
| |
| − | who had been parties to the whole affair. The REICH National President
| |
| − | of the Association was a certain Herr Harrer and the President for the
| |
| − | Munich district was Anton Drexler.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The minutes of the previous meeting were read out and a vote of
| |
| − | confidence in the secretary was passed. Then came the treasurer's
| |
| − | report. The Society possessed a total fund of seven marks and fifty
| |
| − | pfennigs (a sum corresponding to 7s. 6d. in English money at par),
| |
| − | whereupon the treasurer was assured that he had the confidence of the
| |
| − | members. This was now inserted in the minutes. Then letters of reply
| |
| − | which had been written by the Chairman were read; first, to a letter
| |
| − | received from Kiel, then to one from Düsseldorf and finally to one from
| |
| − | Berlin. All three replies received the approval of all present. Then the
| |
| − | incoming letters were read--one from Berlin, one from Düsseldorf and one
| |
| − | from Kiel. The reception of these letters seemed to cause great
| |
| − | satisfaction. This increasing bulk of correspondence was taken as the
| |
| − | best and most obvious sign of the growing importance of the German
| |
| − | Labour Party. And then? Well, there followed a long discussion of the
| |
| − | replies which would be given to these newly-received letters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was all very awful. This was the worst kind of parish-pump clubbism.
| |
| − | And was I supposed to become a member of such a club?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question of new members was next discussed--that is to say, the
| |
| − | question of catching myself in the trap.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I now began to ask questions. But I found that, apart from a few general
| |
| − | principles, there was nothing--no programme, no pamphlet, nothing at all
| |
| − | in print, no card of membership, not even a party stamp, nothing but
| |
| − | obvious good faith and good intentions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I no longer felt inclined to laugh; for what else was all this but a
| |
| − | typical sign of the most complete perplexity and deepest despair in
| |
| − | regard to all political parties, their programmes and views and
| |
| − | activities? The feeling which had induced those few young people to join
| |
| − | in what seemed such a ridiculous enterprise was nothing but the call of
| |
| − | the inner voice which told them--though more intuitively than
| |
| − | consciously--that the whole party system as it had hitherto existed was
| |
| − | not the kind of force that could restore the German nation or repair the
| |
| − | damages that had been done to the German people by those who hitherto
| |
| − | controlled the internal affairs of the nation. I quickly read through
| |
| − | the list of principles that formed the platform of the party. These
| |
| − | principles were stated on typewritten sheets. Here again I found
| |
| − | evidence of the spirit of longing and searching, but no sign whatever of
| |
| − | a knowledge of the conflict that had to be fought. I myself had
| |
| − | experienced the feelings which inspired those people. It was the longing
| |
| − | for a movement which should be more than a party, in the hitherto
| |
| − | accepted meaning of that word.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I returned to my room in the barracks that evening I had formed a
| |
| − | definite opinion on this association and I was facing the most difficult
| |
| − | problem of my life. Should I join this party or refuse?
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the side of the intellect alone, every consideration urged me to
| |
| − | refuse; but my feelings troubled me. The more I tried to prove to myself
| |
| − | how senseless this club was, on the whole, the more did my feelings
| |
| − | incline me to favour it. During the following days I was restless.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I began to consider all the pros and cons. I had long ago decided to
| |
| − | take an active part in politics. The fact that I could do so only
| |
| − | through a new movement was quite clear to me; but I had hitherto lacked
| |
| − | the impulse to take concrete action. I am not one of those people who
| |
| − | will begin something to-day and just give it up the next day for the
| |
| − | sake of something new. That was the main reason which made it so
| |
| − | difficult for me to decide in joining something newly founded; for this
| |
| − | must become the real fulfilment of everything I dreamt, or else it had
| |
| − | better not be started at all. I knew that such a decision should bind me
| |
| − | for ever and that there could be no turning back. For me there could be
| |
| − | no idle dallying but only a cause to be championed ardently. I had
| |
| − | already an instinctive feeling against people who took up everything,
| |
| − | but never carried anything through to the end. I loathed these
| |
| − | Jacks-of-all-Trades, and considered the activities of such people to be
| |
| − | worse than if they were to remain entirely quiescent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Fate herself now seemed to supply the finger-post that pointed out the
| |
| − | way. I should never have entered one of the big parties already in
| |
| − | existence and shall explain my reasons for this later on. This ludicrous
| |
| − | little formation, with its handful of members, seemed to have the unique
| |
| − | advantage of not yet being fossilized into an 'organization' and still
| |
| − | offered a chance for real personal activity on the part of the
| |
| − | individual. Here it might still be possible to do some effective work;
| |
| − | and, as the movement was still small, one could all the easier give it
| |
| − | the required shape. Here it was still possible to determine the
| |
| − | character of the movement, the aims to be achieved and the road to be
| |
| − | taken, which would have been impossible in the case of the big parties
| |
| − | already existing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The longer I reflected on the problem, the more my opinion developed
| |
| − | that just such a small movement would best serve as an instrument to
| |
| − | prepare the way for the national resurgence, but that this could never
| |
| − | be done by the political parliamentary parties which were too firmly
| |
| − | attached to obsolete ideas or had an interest in supporting the new
| |
| − | regime. What had to be proclaimed here was a new WELTANSCHAUUNG and not
| |
| − | a new election cry.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was, however, infinitely difficult to decide on putting the intention
| |
| − | into practice. What were the qualifications which I could bring to the
| |
| − | accomplishment of such a task?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that I was poor and without resources could, in my opinion, be
| |
| − | the easiest to bear. But the fact that I was utterly unknown raised a
| |
| − | more difficult problem. I was only one of the millions which Chance
| |
| − | allows to exist or cease to exist, whom even their next-door neighbours
| |
| − | will not consent to know. Another difficulty arose from the fact that I
| |
| − | had not gone through the regular school curriculum.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The so-called 'intellectuals' still look down with infinite
| |
| − | superciliousness on anyone who has not been through the prescribed
| |
| − | schools and allowed them to pump the necessary knowledge into him. The
| |
| − | question of what a man can do is never asked but rather, what has he
| |
| − | learned? 'Educated' people look upon any imbecile who is plastered with
| |
| − | a number of academic certificates as superior to the ablest young fellow
| |
| − | who lacks these precious documents. I could therefore easily imagine how
| |
| − | this 'educated' world would receive me and I was wrong only in so far as
| |
| − | I then believed men to be for the most part better than they proved to
| |
| − | be in the cold light of reality. Because of their being as they are, the
| |
| − | few exceptions stand out all the more conspicuously. I learned more and
| |
| − | more to distinguish between those who will always be at school and those
| |
| − | who will one day come to know something in reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After two days of careful brooding and reflection I became convinced
| |
| − | that I must take the contemplated step.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was the most fateful decision of my life. No retreat was possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus I declared myself ready to accept the membership tendered me by the
| |
| − | German Labour Party and received a provisional certificate of
| |
| − | membership. I was numbered SEVEN.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER X
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | WHY THE SECOND REICH COLLAPSED
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The depth of a fall is always measured by the difference between the
| |
| − | level of the original position from which a body has fallen and that in
| |
| − | which it is now found. The same holds good for Nations and States. The
| |
| − | matter of greatest importance here is the height of the original level,
| |
| − | or rather the greatest height that had been attained before the descent
| |
| − | began.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For only the profound decline or collapse of that which was capable of
| |
| − | reaching extraordinary heights can make a striking impression on the eye
| |
| − | of the beholder. The collapse of the Second REICH was all the more
| |
| − | bewildering for those who could ponder over it and feel the effect of it
| |
| − | in their hearts, because the REICH had fallen from a height which can
| |
| − | hardly be imagined in these days of misery and humiliation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Second REICH was founded in circumstances of such dazzling splendour
| |
| − | that the whole nation had become entranced and exalted by it. Following
| |
| − | an unparalleled series of victories, that Empire was handed over as the
| |
| − | guerdon of immortal heroism to the children and grandchildren of the
| |
| − | heroes. Whether they were fully conscious of it or not does not matter;
| |
| − | anyhow, the Germans felt that this Empire had not been brought into
| |
| − | existence by a series of able political negotiations through
| |
| − | parliamentary channels, but that it was different from political
| |
| − | institutions founded elsewhere by reason of the nobler circumstances
| |
| − | that had accompanied its establishment. When its foundations were laid
| |
| − | the accompanying music was not the chatter of parliamentary debates but
| |
| − | the thunder and boom of war along the battle front that encircled Paris.
| |
| − | It was thus that an act of statesmanship was accomplished whereby the
| |
| − | Germans, princes as well as people, established the future REICH and
| |
| − | restored the symbol of the Imperial Crown. Bismarck's State was not
| |
| − | founded on treason and assassination by deserters and shirkers but by
| |
| − | the regiments that had fought at the front. This unique birth and
| |
| − | baptism of fire sufficed of themselves to surround the Second Empire
| |
| − | with an aureole of historical splendour such as few of the older States
| |
| − | could lay claim to.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And what an ascension then began! A position of independence in regard
| |
| − | to the outside world guaranteed the means of livelihood at home. The
| |
| − | nation increased in numbers and in worldly wealth. The honour of the
| |
| − | State and therewith the honour of the people as a whole were secured and
| |
| − | protected by an army which was the most striking witness of the
| |
| − | difference between this new REICH and the old German Confederation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the downfall of the Second Empire and the German people has been so
| |
| − | profound that they all seem to have been struck dumbfounded and rendered
| |
| − | incapable of feeling the significance of this downfall or reflecting on
| |
| − | it. It seems as if people were utterly unable to picture in their minds
| |
| − | the heights to which the Empire formerly attained, so visionary and
| |
| − | unreal appears the greatness and splendour of those days in contrast to
| |
| − | the misery of the present. Bearing this in mind we can understand why
| |
| − | and how people become so dazed when they try to look back to the sublime
| |
| − | past that they forget to look for the symptoms of the great collapse
| |
| − | which must certainly have been present in some form or other. Naturally
| |
| − | this applies only to those for whom Germany was more than merely a place
| |
| − | of abode and a source of livelihood. These are the only people who have
| |
| − | been able to feel the present conditions as really catastrophic, whereas
| |
| − | others have considered these conditions as the fulfilment of what they
| |
| − | had looked forward to and hitherto silently wished.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The symptoms of future collapse were definitely to be perceived in those
| |
| − | earlier days, although very few made any attempt to draw a practical
| |
| − | lesson from their significance. But this is now a greater necessity than
| |
| − | it ever was before. For just as bodily ailments can be cured only when
| |
| − | their origin has been diagnosed, so also political disease can be
| |
| − | treated only when it has been diagnosed. It is obvious of course that
| |
| − | the external symptoms of any disease can be more readily detected than
| |
| − | its internal causes, for these symptoms strike the eye more easily. This
| |
| − | is also the reason why so many people recognize only external effects
| |
| − | and mistake them for causes. Indeed they will sometimes try to deny the
| |
| − | existence of such causes. And that is why the majority of people among
| |
| − | us recognize the German collapse only in the prevailing economic
| |
| − | distress and the results that have followed therefrom. Almost everyone
| |
| − | has to carry his share of this burden, and that is why each one looks on
| |
| − | the economic catastrophe as the cause of the present deplorable state of
| |
| − | affairs. The broad masses of the people see little of the cultural,
| |
| − | political, and moral background of this collapse. Many of them
| |
| − | completely lack both the necessary feeling and powers of understanding
| |
| − | for it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That the masses of the people should thus estimate the causes of
| |
| − | Germany's downfall is quite understandable. But the fact that
| |
| − | intelligent sections of the community regard the German collapse
| |
| − | primarily as an economic catastrophe, and consequently think that a cure
| |
| − | for it may be found in an economic solution, seems to me to be the
| |
| − | reason why hitherto no improvement has been brought about. No
| |
| − | improvement can be brought about until it be understood that economics
| |
| − | play only a second or third role, while the main part is played by
| |
| − | political, moral and racial factors. Only when this is understood will
| |
| − | it be possible to understand the causes of the present evil and
| |
| − | consequently to find the ways and means of remedying them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the question of why Germany really collapsed is one of the
| |
| − | most urgent significance, especially for a political movement which aims
| |
| − | at overcoming this disaster.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In scrutinizing the past with a view to discovering the causes of the
| |
| − | German break-up, it is necessary to be careful lest we may be unduly
| |
| − | impressed by external results that readily strike the eye and thus
| |
| − | ignore the less manifest causes of these results.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most facile, and therefore the most generally accepted, way of
| |
| − | accounting for the present misfortune is to say that it is the result of
| |
| − | a lost war, and that this is the real cause of the present misfortune.
| |
| − | Probably there are many who honestly believe in this absurd explanation
| |
| − | but there are many more in whose mouths it is a deliberate and conscious
| |
| − | falsehood. This applies to all those who are now feeding at the
| |
| − | Government troughs. For the prophets of the Revolution again and again
| |
| − | declared to the people that it would be immaterial to the great masses
| |
| − | what the result of the War might be. On the contrary, they solemnly
| |
| − | assured the public that it was High Finance which was principally
| |
| − | interested in a victorious outcome of this gigantic struggle among the
| |
| − | nations but that the German people and the German workers had no
| |
| − | interest whatsoever in such an outcome. Indeed the apostles of world
| |
| − | conciliation habitually asserted that, far from any German downfall, the
| |
| − | opposite was bound to take place--namely, the resurgence of the German
| |
| − | people--once 'militarism' had been crushed. Did not these self-same
| |
| − | circles sing the praises of the Entente and did they not also lay the
| |
| − | whole blame for the sanguinary struggle on the shoulders of Germany?
| |
| − | Without this explanation, would they have been able to put forward the
| |
| − | theory that a military defeat would have no political consequences for
| |
| − | the German people? Was not the whole Revolution dressed up in gala
| |
| − | colours as blocking the victorious advance of the German banners and
| |
| − | that thus the German people would be assured its liberty both at home
| |
| − | and abroad?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Is not that so, you miserable, lying rascals?
| |
| − | | |
| − | That kind of impudence which is typical of the Jews was necessary in
| |
| − | order to proclaim the defeat of the army as the cause of the German
| |
| − | collapse. Indeed the Berlin VORWÄRTS, that organ and mouthpiece of
| |
| − | sedition then wrote on this occasion that the German nation should not
| |
| − | be permitted to bring home its banners triumphantly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And yet they attribute our collapse to the military defeat.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course it would be out of the question to enter into an argument with
| |
| − | these liars who deny at one moment what they said the moment before. I
| |
| − | should waste no further words on them were it not for the fact that
| |
| − | there are many thoughtless people who repeat all this in parrot fashion,
| |
| − | without being necessarily inspired by any evil motives. But the
| |
| − | observations I am making here are also meant for our fighting followers,
| |
| − | seeing that nowadays one's spoken words are often forgotten and twisted
| |
| − | in their meaning.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The assertion that the loss of the War was the cause of the German
| |
| − | collapse can best be answered as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is admittedly a fact that the loss of the War was of tragic
| |
| − | importance for the future of our country. But that loss was not in
| |
| − | itself a cause. It was rather the consequence of other causes. That a
| |
| − | disastrous ending to this life-or-death conflict must have involved
| |
| − | catastrophes in its train was clearly seen by everyone of insight who
| |
| − | could think in a straightforward manner. But unfortunately there were
| |
| − | also people whose powers of understanding seemed to fail them at that
| |
| − | critical moment. And there were other people who had first questioned
| |
| − | that truth and then altogether denied it. And there were people who,
| |
| − | after their secret desire had been fulfilled, were suddenly faced with
| |
| − | the subsequent facts that resulted from their own collaboration. Such
| |
| − | people are responsible for the collapse, and not the lost war, though
| |
| − | they now want to attribute everything to this. As a matter of fact the
| |
| − | loss of the War was a result of their activities and not the result of
| |
| − | bad leadership as they now would like to maintain. Our enemies were not
| |
| − | cowards. They also know how to die. From the very first day of the War
| |
| − | they outnumbered the German Army, and the arsenals and armament
| |
| − | factories of the whole world were at their disposal for the
| |
| − | replenishment of military equipment. Indeed it is universally admitted
| |
| − | that the German victories, which had been steadily won during four years
| |
| − | of warfare against the whole world, were due to superior leadership,
| |
| − | apart of course from the heroism of the troops. And the organization was
| |
| − | solely due to the German military leadership. That organization and
| |
| − | leadership of the German Army was the most mighty thing that the world
| |
| − | has ever seen. Any shortcomings which became evident were humanly
| |
| − | unavoidable. The collapse of that army was not the cause of our present
| |
| − | distress. It was itself the consequence of other faults. But this
| |
| − | consequence in its turn ushered in a further collapse, which was more
| |
| − | visible. That such was actually the case can be shown as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Must a military defeat necessarily lead to such a complete overthrow of
| |
| − | the State and Nation? Whenever has this been the result of an unlucky
| |
| − | war? As a matter of fact, are nations ever ruined by a lost war and by
| |
| − | that alone? The answer to this question can be briefly stated by
| |
| − | referring to the fact that military defeats are the result of internal
| |
| − | decay, cowardice, want of character, and are a retribution for such
| |
| − | things. If such were not the causes then a military defeat would lead to
| |
| − | a national resurgence and bring the nation to a higher pitch of effort.
| |
| − | A military defeat is not the tombstone of national life. History affords
| |
| − | innumerable examples to confirm the truth of that statement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Unfortunately Germany's military overthrow was not an undeserved
| |
| − | catastrophe, but a well-merited punishment which was in the nature of an
| |
| − | eternal retribution. This defeat was more than deserved by us; for it
| |
| − | represented the greatest external phenomenon of decomposition among a
| |
| − | series of internal phenomena, which, although they were visible, were
| |
| − | not recognized by the majority of the people, who follow the tactics of
| |
| − | the ostrich and see only what they want to see.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let us examine the symptoms that were evident in Germany at the time
| |
| − | that the German people accepted this defeat. Is it not true that in
| |
| − | several circles the misfortunes of the Fatherland were even joyfully
| |
| − | welcomed in the most shameful manner? Who could act in such a way
| |
| − | without thereby meriting vengeance for his attitude? Were there not
| |
| − | people who even went further and boasted that they had gone to the
| |
| − | extent of weakening the front and causing a collapse? Therefore it was
| |
| − | not the enemy who brought this disgrace upon our shoulders but rather
| |
| − | our own countrymen. If they suffered misfortune for it afterwards, was
| |
| − | that misfortune undeserved? Was there ever a case in history where a
| |
| − | people declared itself guilty of a war, and that even against its better
| |
| − | conscience and its better knowledge?
| |
| − | | |
| − | No, and again no. In the manner in which the German nation reacted to
| |
| − | its defeat we can see that the real cause of our collapse must be looked
| |
| − | for elsewhere and not in the purely military loss of a few positions or
| |
| − | the failure of an offensive. For if the front as such had given way and
| |
| − | thus brought about a national disaster, then the German nation would
| |
| − | have accepted the defeat in quite another spirit. They would have borne
| |
| − | the subsequent misfortune with clenched teeth, or they would have been
| |
| − | overwhelmed by sorrow. Regret and fury would have filled their hearts
| |
| − | against an enemy into whose hands victory had been given by a chance
| |
| − | event or the decree of Fate; and in that case the nation, following the
| |
| − | example of the Roman Senate (Note 14), would have faced the defeated
| |
| − | legions on their return and expressed their thanks for the sacrifices that
| |
| − | had been made and would have requested them not to lose faith in the
| |
| − | Empire. Even the capitulation would have been signed under the sway of
| |
| − | calm reason, while the heart would have beaten in the hope of the coming
| |
| − | REVANCHE.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 14. Probably the author has two separate incidents in mind. The
| |
| − | first happened in 390 B.C., when, as the victorious Gauls descended on
| |
| − | Rome, the Senators ordered their ivory chairs to be placed in the Forum
| |
| − | before the Temples ofthe Gods. There, clad in their robes of state, they
| |
| − | awaited the invader, hoping to save the city by sacrificing themselves.
| |
| − | This noble gesture failed for the time being; but it had an inspiring
| |
| − | influence on subsequent generations. The second incident, which has more
| |
| − | historical authenticity, occurred after the Roman defeat at Cannae in 216
| |
| − | B.C. On that occasion Varro, the Roman commander, who, though in great
| |
| − | part responsible for the disaster, made an effort to carry on the
| |
| − | struggle, was, on his return to Rome, met by the citizens of all ranks
| |
| − | and publicly thanked because he had not despaired of the Republic. The
| |
| − | consequence was that the Republic refused to make peace with the
| |
| − | victorious Carthagenians.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is the reception that would have been given to a military defeat
| |
| − | which had to be attributed only to the adverse decree of Fortune. There
| |
| − | would have been neither joy-making nor dancing. Cowardice would not have
| |
| − | been boasted of, and the defeat would not have been honoured. On
| |
| − | returning from the Front, the troops would not have been mocked at, and
| |
| − | the colours would not have been dragged in the dust. But above all, that
| |
| − | disgraceful state of affairs could never have arisen which induced a
| |
| − | British officer, Colonel Repington, to declare with scorn: Every third
| |
| − | German is a traitor! No, in such a case this plague would never have
| |
| − | assumed the proportions of a veritable flood which, for the past five
| |
| − | years, has smothered every vestige of respect for the German nation in
| |
| − | the outside world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This shows only too clearly how false it is to say that the loss of the
| |
| − | War was the cause of the German break-up. No. The military defeat was
| |
| − | itself but the consequence of a whole series of morbid symptoms and
| |
| − | their causes which had become active in the German nation before the War
| |
| − | broke out. The War was the first catastrophal consequence, visible to
| |
| − | all, of how traditions and national morale had been poisoned and how the
| |
| − | instinct of self-preservation had degenerated. These were the
| |
| − | preliminary causes which for many years had been undermining the
| |
| − | foundations of the nation and the Empire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But it remained for the Jews, with their unqualified capacity for
| |
| − | falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute
| |
| − | responsibility for the downfall precisely to the man who alone had shown
| |
| − | a superhuman will and energy in his effort to prevent the catastrophe
| |
| − | which he had foreseen and to save the nation from that hour of complete
| |
| − | overthrow and shame. By placing responsibility for the loss of the world
| |
| − | war on the shoulders of Ludendorff they took away the weapon of moral
| |
| − | right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed
| |
| − | in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to Justice. All this was
| |
| − | inspired by the principle--which is quite true in itself--that in the
| |
| − | big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the
| |
| − | broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper
| |
| − | strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and
| |
| − | thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall
| |
| − | victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often
| |
| − | tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to
| |
| − | large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to
| |
| − | fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others
| |
| − | could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though
| |
| − | the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their
| |
| − | minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that
| |
| − | there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always
| |
| − | leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact
| |
| − | which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire
| |
| − | together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use
| |
| − | falsehood for the basest purposes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From time immemorial. however, the Jews have known better than any
| |
| − | others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very
| |
| − | existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious
| |
| − | community, whereas in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of
| |
| − | the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for
| |
| − | all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. He
| |
| − | (Schopenhauer) called the Jew "The Great Master of Lies". Those who do
| |
| − | not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it,
| |
| − | will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We may regard it as a great stroke of fortune for the German nation that
| |
| − | its period of lingering suffering was so suddenly curtailed and
| |
| − | transformed into such a terrible catastrophe. For if things had gone on
| |
| − | as they were the nation would have more slowly, but more surely, gone to
| |
| − | ruin. The disease would have become chronic; whereas, in the acute form
| |
| − | of the disaster, it at least showed itself clearly to the eyes of a
| |
| − | considerable number of observers. It was not by accident that man
| |
| − | conquered the black plague more easily than he conquered tuberculosis.
| |
| − | The first appeared in terrifying waves of death that shook the whole of
| |
| − | mankind, the other advances insidiously; the first induces terror, the
| |
| − | other gradual indifference. The result is, however, that men opposed the
| |
| − | first with all the energy they were capable of, whilst they try to
| |
| − | arrest tuberculosis by feeble means. Thus man has mastered the black
| |
| − | plague, while tuberculosis still gets the better of him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The same applies to diseases in nations. So long as these diseases are
| |
| − | not of a catastrophic character, the population will slowly accustom
| |
| − | itself to them and later succumb. It is then a stroke of luck--although
| |
| − | a bitter one--when Fate decides to interfere in this slow process of
| |
| − | decay and suddenly brings the victim face to face with the final stage
| |
| − | of the disease. More often than not the result of a catastrophe is that
| |
| − | a cure is at once undertaken and carried through with rigid
| |
| − | determination.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But even in such a case the essential preliminary condition is always
| |
| − | the recognition of the internal causes which have given rise to the
| |
| − | disease in question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The important question here is the differentiation of the root causes
| |
| − | from the circumstances developing out of them. This becomes all the more
| |
| − | difficult the longer the germs of disease remain in the national body
| |
| − | and the longer they are allowed to become an integral part of that body.
| |
| − | It may easily happen that, as time goes on, it will become so difficult
| |
| − | to recognize certain definite virulent poisons as such that they are
| |
| − | accepted as belonging to the national being; or they are merely
| |
| − | tolerated as a necessary evil, so that drastic attempts to locate those
| |
| − | alien germs are not held to be necessary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the long period of peace prior to the last war certain evils were
| |
| − | apparent here and there although, with one or two exceptions, very
| |
| − | little effort was made to discover their origin. Here again these
| |
| − | exceptions were first and foremost those phenomena in the economic life
| |
| − | of the nation which were more apparent to the individual than the evil
| |
| − | conditions existing in a good many other spheres.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There were many signs of decay which ought to have been given serious
| |
| − | thought. As far as economics were concerned, the following may be
| |
| − | said:--
| |
| − | | |
| − | The amazing increase of population in Germany before the war brought the
| |
| − | question of providing daily bread into a more and more prominent
| |
| − | position in all spheres of political and economic thought and action.
| |
| − | But unfortunately those responsible could not make up their minds to
| |
| − | arrive at the only correct solution and preferred to reach their
| |
| − | objective by cheaper methods. Repudiation of the idea of acquiring fresh
| |
| − | territory and the substitution for it of the mad desire for the
| |
| − | commercial conquest of the world was bound to lead eventually to
| |
| − | unlimited and injurious industrialization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first and most fatal result brought about in this way was the
| |
| − | weakening of the agricultural classes, whose decline was proportionate
| |
| − | to the increase in the proletariat of the urban areas, until finally the
| |
| − | equilibrium was completely upset.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The big barrier dividing rich and poor now became apparent. Luxury and
| |
| − | poverty lived so close to each other that the consequences were bound to
| |
| − | be deplorable. Want and frequent unemployment began to play havoc with
| |
| − | the people and left discontent and embitterment behind them. The result
| |
| − | of this was to divide the population into political classes. Discontent
| |
| − | increased in spite of commercial prosperity. Matters finally reached
| |
| − | that stage which brought about the general conviction that 'things
| |
| − | cannot go on as they are', although no one seemed able to visualize what
| |
| − | was really going to happen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These were typical and visible signs of the depths which the prevailing
| |
| − | discontent had reached. Far worse than these, however, were other
| |
| − | consequences which became apparent as a result of the industrialization
| |
| − | of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In proportion to the extent that commerce assumed definite control of
| |
| − | the State, money became more and more of a God whom all had to serve and
| |
| − | bow down to. Heavenly Gods became more and more old-fashioned and were
| |
| − | laid away in the corners to make room for the worship of mammon. And
| |
| − | thus began a period of utter degeneration which became specially
| |
| − | pernicious because it set in at a time when the nation was more than
| |
| − | ever in need of an exalted idea, for a critical hour was threatening.
| |
| − | Germany should have been prepared to protect with the sword her efforts
| |
| − | to win her own daily bread in a peaceful way.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Unfortunately, the predominance of money received support and sanction
| |
| − | in the very quarter which ought to have been opposed to it. His Majesty,
| |
| − | the Kaiser, made a mistake when he raised representatives of the new
| |
| − | finance capital to the ranks of the nobility. Admittedly, it may be
| |
| − | offered as an excuse that even Bismarck failed to realize the
| |
| − | threatening danger in this respect. In practice, however, all ideal
| |
| − | virtues became secondary considerations to those of money, for it was
| |
| − | clear that having once taken this road, the nobility of the sword would
| |
| − | very soon rank second to that of finance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Financial operations succeed easier than war operations. Hence it was no
| |
| − | longer any great attraction for a true hero or even a statesman to be
| |
| − | brought into touch with the nearest Jew banker. Real merit was not
| |
| − | interested in receiving cheap decorations and therefore declined them
| |
| − | with thanks. But from the standpoint of good breeding such a development
| |
| − | was deeply regrettable. The nobility began to lose more and more of the
| |
| − | racial qualities that were a condition of its very existence, with the
| |
| − | result that in many cases the term 'plebeian' would have been more
| |
| − | appropriate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A serious state of economic disruption was being brought about by the
| |
| − | slow elimination of the personal control of vested interests and the
| |
| − | gradual transference of the whole economic structure into the hands of
| |
| − | joint stock companies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this way labour became degraded into an object of speculation in the
| |
| − | hands of unscrupulous exploiters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The de-personalization of property ownership increased on a vast scale.
| |
| − | Financial exchange circles began to triumph and made slow but sure
| |
| − | progress in assuming control of the whole of national life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before the War the internationalization of the German economic structure
| |
| − | had already begun by the roundabout way of share issues. It is true that
| |
| − | a section of the German industrialists made a determined attempt to
| |
| − | avert the danger, but in the end they gave way before the united attacks
| |
| − | of money-grabbing capitalism, which was assisted in this fight by its
| |
| − | faithful henchmen in the Marxist movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The persistent war against German 'heavy industries' was the visible
| |
| − | start of the internationalization of German economic life as envisaged
| |
| − | by the Marxists. This, however, could only be brought to a successful
| |
| − | conclusion by the victory which Marxism was able to gain in the
| |
| − | Revolution. As I write these words, success is attending the general
| |
| − | attack on the German State Railways which are now to be turned over to
| |
| − | international capitalists. Thus 'International Social-Democracy' has
| |
| − | once again attained one of its main objectives.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The best evidence of how far this 'commercialization' of the German
| |
| − | nation was able to go can be plainly seen in the fact that when the War
| |
| − | was over one of the leading captains of German industry and commerce
| |
| − | gave it as his opinion that commerce as such was the only force which
| |
| − | could put Germany on its feet again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This sort of nonsense was uttered just at the time when France was
| |
| − | restoring public education on a humanitarian basis, thus doing away with
| |
| − | the idea that national life is dependent on commerce rather than ideal
| |
| − | values. The statement which Stinnes broadcasted to the world at that
| |
| − | time caused incredible confusion. It was immediately taken up and has
| |
| − | become the leading motto of all those humbugs and babblers--the
| |
| − | 'statesmen' whom Fate let loose on Germany after the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One of the worst evidences of decadence in Germany before the War was
| |
| − | the ever increasing habit of doing things by halves. This was one of the
| |
| − | consequences of the insecurity that was felt all round. And it is to be
| |
| − | attributed also to a certain timidity which resulted from one cause or
| |
| − | another. And the latter malady was aggravated by the educational system.
| |
| − | | |
| − | German education in pre-War times had an extraordinary number of weak
| |
| − | features. It was simply and exclusively limited to the production of
| |
| − | pure knowledge and paid little attention to the development of practical
| |
| − | ability. Still less attention was given to the development of individual
| |
| − | character, in so far as this is ever possible. And hardly any attention
| |
| − | at all was paid to the development of a sense of responsibility, to
| |
| − | strengthening the will and the powers of decision. The result of this
| |
| − | method was to produce erudite people who had a passion for knowing
| |
| − | everything. Before the War we Germans were accepted and estimated
| |
| − | accordingly. The German was liked because good use could be made of him;
| |
| − | but there was little esteem for him personally, on account of this
| |
| − | weakness of character. For those who can read its significance aright,
| |
| − | there is much instruction in the fact that among all nationalities
| |
| − | Germans were the first to part with their national citizenship when they
| |
| − | found themselves in a foreign country. And there is a world of meaning
| |
| − | in the saying that was then prevalent: 'With the hat in the hand one can
| |
| − | go through the whole country'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This kind of social etiquette turned out disastrous when it prescribed
| |
| − | the exclusive forms that had to be observed in the presence of His
| |
| − | Majesty. These forms insisted that there should be no contradiction
| |
| − | whatsoever, but that everything should be praised which His Majesty
| |
| − | condescended to like.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was just here that the frank expression of manly dignity, and not
| |
| − | subservience, was most needed. Servility in the presence of monarchs may
| |
| − | be good enough for the professional lackey and place-hunter, in fact for
| |
| − | all those decadent beings who are more pleased to be found moving in the
| |
| − | high circles of royalty than among honest citizens. These exceedingly
| |
| − | 'humble' creatures however, though they grovel before their lord and
| |
| − | bread-giver, invariably put on airs of boundless superciliousness
| |
| − | towards other mortals, which was particularly impudent when they posed
| |
| − | as the only people who had the right to be called 'monarchists'. This
| |
| − | was a gross piece of impertinence such as only despicable specimens
| |
| − | among the newly-ennobled or yet-to-be-ennobled could be capable of.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And these have always been just the people who have prepared the way for
| |
| − | the downfall of monarchy and the monarchical principle. It could not be
| |
| − | otherwise. For when a man is prepared to stand up for a cause, come what
| |
| − | may, he never grovels before its representative. A man who is serious
| |
| − | about the maintenance and welfare of an institution will not allow
| |
| − | himself to be discouraged when the representatives of that institution
| |
| − | show certain faults and failings. And he certainly will not run around
| |
| − | to tell the world about it, as certain false democratic 'friends' of the
| |
| − | monarchy have done; but he will approach His Majesty, the bearer of the
| |
| − | Crown himself, to warn him of the seriousness of a situation and
| |
| − | persuade the monarch to act. Furthermore, he will not take up the
| |
| − | standpoint that it must be left to His Majesty to act as the latter
| |
| − | thinks fit, even though the course which he would take must plainly lead
| |
| − | to disaster. But the man I am thinking of will deem it his duty to
| |
| − | protect the monarchy against the monarch himself, no matter what
| |
| − | personal risk he may run in doing so. If the worth of the monarchical
| |
| − | institution be dependent on the person of the monarch himself, then it
| |
| − | would be the worst institution imaginable; for only in rare cases are
| |
| − | kings found to be models of wisdom and understanding, and integrity of
| |
| − | character, though we might like to think otherwise. But this fact is
| |
| − | unpalatable to the professional knaves and lackeys. Yet all upright men,
| |
| − | and they are the backbone of the nation, repudiate the nonsensical
| |
| − | fiction that all monarchs are wise, etc. For such men history is history
| |
| − | and truth is truth, even where monarchs are concerned. But if a nation
| |
| − | should have the good luck to possess a great king or a great man it
| |
| − | ought to consider itself as specially favoured above all the other
| |
| − | nations, and these may be thankful if an adverse fortune has not
| |
| − | allotted the worst to them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is clear that the worth and significance of the monarchical principle
| |
| − | cannot rest in the person of the monarch alone, unless Heaven decrees
| |
| − | that the crown should be set on the head of a brilliant hero like
| |
| − | Frederick the Great, or a sagacious person like William I. This may
| |
| − | happen once in several centuries, but hardly oftener than that. The
| |
| − | ideal of the monarchy takes precedence of the person of the monarch,
| |
| − | inasmuch as the meaning of the institution must lie in the institution
| |
| − | it self. Thus the monarchy may be reckoned in the category of those
| |
| − | whose duty it is to serve. He, too, is but a wheel in this machine and
| |
| − | as such he is obliged to do his duty towards it. He has to adapt himself
| |
| − | for the fulfilment of high aims. If, therefore, there were no
| |
| − | significance attached to the idea itself and everything merely centred
| |
| − | around the 'sacred' person, then it would never be possible to depose a
| |
| − | ruler who has shown himself to be an imbecile.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is essential to insist upon this truth at the present time, because
| |
| − | recently those phenomena have appeared again and were in no small
| |
| − | measure responsible for the collapse of the monarchy. With a certain
| |
| − | amount of native impudence these persons once again talk about 'their
| |
| − | King'--that is to say, the man whom they shamefully deserted a few years
| |
| − | ago at a most critical hour. Those who refrain from participating in
| |
| − | this chorus of lies are summarily classified as 'bad Germans'. They who
| |
| − | make the charge are the same class of quitters who ran away in 1918 and
| |
| − | took to wearing red badges. They thought that discretion was the better
| |
| − | part of valour. They were indifferent about what happened to the Kaiser.
| |
| − | They camouflaged themselves as 'peaceful citizens' but more often than
| |
| − | not they vanished altogether. All of a sudden these champions of royalty
| |
| − | were nowhere to be found at that time. Circumspectly, one by one, these
| |
| − | 'servants and counsellors' of the Crown reappeared, to resume their
| |
| − | lip-service to royalty but only after others had borne the brunt of the
| |
| − | anti-royalist attack and suppressed the Revolution for them. Once again
| |
| − | they were all there. remembering wistfully the flesh-pots of Egypt and
| |
| − | almost bursting with devotion for the royal cause. This went on until
| |
| − | the day came when red badges were again in the ascendant. Then this
| |
| − | whole ramshackle assembly of royal worshippers scuttled anew like mice
| |
| − | from the cats.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If monarchs were not themselves responsible for such things one could
| |
| − | not help sympathizing with them. But they must realize that with such
| |
| − | champions thrones can be lost but certainly never gained.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All this devotion was a mistake and was the result of our whole system
| |
| − | of education, which in this case brought about a particularly severe
| |
| − | retribution. Such lamentable trumpery was kept up at the various courts
| |
| − | that the monarchy was slowly becoming under mined. When finally it did
| |
| − | begin to totter, everything was swept away. Naturally, grovellers and
| |
| − | lick-spittles are never willing to die for their masters. That monarchs
| |
| − | never realize this, and almost on principle never really take the
| |
| − | trouble to learn it, has always been their undoing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One visible result of wrong educational system was the fear of
| |
| − | shouldering responsibility and the resultant weakness in dealing with
| |
| − | obvious vital problems of existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The starting point of this epidemic, however, was in our parliamentary
| |
| − | institution where the shirking of responsibility is particularly
| |
| − | fostered. Unfortunately the disease slowly spread to all branches of
| |
| − | everyday life but particularly affected the sphere of public affairs.
| |
| − | Responsibility was being shirked everywhere and this led to insufficient
| |
| − | or half-hearted measures being taken, personal responsibility for each
| |
| − | act being reduced to a minimum.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we consider the attitude of various Governments towards a whole
| |
| − | series of really pernicious phenomena in public life, we shall at once
| |
| − | recognize the fearful significance of this policy of half-measures and
| |
| − | the lack of courage to undertake responsibilities. I shall single out
| |
| − | only a few from the large numbers of instances known to me.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the Press as
| |
| − | a 'Great Power' within the State. As a matter of fact its importance is
| |
| − | immense. One cannot easily overestimate it, for the Press continues the
| |
| − | work of education even in adult life. Generally, readers of the Press
| |
| − | can be classified into three groups:
| |
| − | | |
| − | First, those who believe everything they read;
| |
| − | | |
| − | Second, those who no longer believe anything;
| |
| − | | |
| − | Third, those who critically examine what they read and form their
| |
| − | judgments accordingly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Numerically, the first group is by far the strongest, being composed of
| |
| − | the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest
| |
| − | portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation
| |
| − | but only into grades of intelligence. Under this category come all those
| |
| − | who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to
| |
| − | do so and who, partly through incompetence and partly through ignorance,
| |
| − | believe everything that is set before them in print. To these we must
| |
| − | add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for
| |
| − | himself out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others
| |
| − | had thought over, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done.
| |
| − | The influence which the Press has on all these people is therefore
| |
| − | enormous; for after all they constitute the broad masses of a nation.
| |
| − | But, somehow they are not in a position or are not willing personally to
| |
| − | sift what is being served up to them; so that their whole attitude
| |
| − | towards daily problems is almost solely the result of extraneous
| |
| − | influence. All this can be advantageous where public enlightenment is of
| |
| − | a serious and truthful character, but great harm is done when scoundrels
| |
| − | and liars take a hand at this work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The second group is numerically smaller, being partly composed of those
| |
| − | who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter
| |
| − | disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in
| |
| − | print. They hate all newspapers. Either they do not read them at all or
| |
| − | they become exceptionally annoyed at their contents, which they hold to
| |
| − | be nothing but a congeries of lies and misstatements. These people are
| |
| − | difficult to handle; for they will always be sceptical of the truth.
| |
| − | Consequently, they are useless for any form of positive work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The third group is easily the smallest, being composed of real
| |
| − | intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think
| |
| − | for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgments,
| |
| − | while at the same time carefully sifting what they read. They will not
| |
| − | read any newspaper without using their own intelligence to collaborate
| |
| − | with that of the writer and naturally this does not set writers an easy
| |
| − | task. Journalists appreciate this type of reader only with a certain
| |
| − | amount of reservation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the trash that newspapers are capable of serving up is of little
| |
| − | danger--much less of importance--to the members of the third group of
| |
| − | readers. In the majority of cases these readers have learnt to regard
| |
| − | every journalist as fundamentally a rogue who sometimes speaks the
| |
| − | truth. Most unfortunately, the value of these readers lies in their
| |
| − | intelligence and not in their numerical strength, an unhappy state of
| |
| − | affairs in a period where wisdom counts for nothing and majorities for
| |
| − | everything. Nowadays when the voting papers of the masses are the
| |
| − | deciding factor; the decision lies in the hands of the numerically
| |
| − | strongest group; that is to say the first group, the crowd of simpletons
| |
| − | and the credulous.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is an all-important interest of the State and a national duty to
| |
| − | prevent these people from falling into the hands of false, ignorant or
| |
| − | even evil-minded teachers. Therefore it is the duty of the State to
| |
| − | supervise their education and prevent every form of offence in this
| |
| − | respect. Particular attention should be paid to the Press; for its
| |
| − | influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating
| |
| − | of all; since its effect is not transitory but continual. Its immense
| |
| − | significance lies in the uniform and persistent repetition of its
| |
| − | teaching. Here, if anywhere, the State should never forget that all
| |
| − | means should converge towards the same end. It must not be led astray by
| |
| − | the will-o'-the-wisp of so-called 'freedom of the Press', or be talked
| |
| − | into neglecting its duty, and withholding from the nation that which is
| |
| − | good and which does good. With ruthless determination the State must
| |
| − | keep control of this instrument of popular education and place it at the
| |
| − | service of the State and the Nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what sort of pabulum was it that the German Press served up for the
| |
| − | consumption of its readers in pre-War days? Was it not the worst
| |
| − | virulent poison imaginable? Was not pacifism in its worst form
| |
| − | inoculated into our people at a time when others were preparing slowly
| |
| − | but surely to pounce upon Germany? Did not this self-same Press of ours
| |
| − | in peace time already instil into the public mind a doubt as to the
| |
| − | sovereign rights of the State itself, thereby already handicapping the
| |
| − | State in choosing its means of defence? Was it not the German Press that
| |
| − | under stood how to make all the nonsensical talk about 'Western
| |
| − | democracy' palatable to our people, until an exuberant public was
| |
| − | eventually prepared to entrust its future to the League of Nations? Was
| |
| − | not this Press instrumental in bringing in a state of moral degradation
| |
| − | among our people? Were not morals and public decency made to look
| |
| − | ridiculous and classed as out-of-date and banal, until finally our
| |
| − | people also became modernized? By means of persistent attacks, did not
| |
| − | the Press keep on undermining the authority of the State, until one blow
| |
| − | sufficed to bring this institution tottering to the ground? Did not the
| |
| − | Press oppose with all its might every movement to give the State that
| |
| − | which belongs to the State, and by means of constant criticism, injure
| |
| − | the reputation of the army, sabotage general conscription and demand
| |
| − | refusal of military credits, etc.--until the success of this campaign
| |
| − | was assured?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The function of the so-called liberal Press was to dig the grave for the
| |
| − | German people and REICH. No mention need be made of the lying Marxist
| |
| − | Press. To them the spreading of falsehood is as much a vital necessity
| |
| − | as the mouse is to a cat. Their sole task is to break the national
| |
| − | backbone of the people, thus preparing the nation to become the slaves
| |
| − | of international finance and its masters, the Jews.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And what measures did the State take to counteract this wholesale
| |
| − | poisoning of the public mind? None, absolutely nothing at all. By this
| |
| − | policy it was hoped to win the favour of this pest--by means of
| |
| − | flattery, by a recognition of the 'value' of the Press, its
| |
| − | 'importance', its 'educative mission' and similar nonsense. The Jews
| |
| − | acknowledged all this with a knowing smile and returned thanks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The reason for this ignominious failure on the part of the State lay not
| |
| − | so much in its refusal to realize the danger as in the out-and-out
| |
| − | cowardly way of meeting the situation by the adoption of faulty and
| |
| − | ineffective measures. No one had the courage to employ any energetic and
| |
| − | radical methods. Everyone temporised in some way or other; and instead
| |
| − | of striking at its heart, the viper was only further irritated. The
| |
| − | result was that not only did everything remain as it was, but the power
| |
| − | of this institution which should have been combated grew greater from
| |
| − | year to year.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The defence put up by the Government in those days against a mainly
| |
| − | Jew-controlled Press that was slowly corrupting the nation, followed no
| |
| − | definite line of action, it had no determination behind it and above
| |
| − | all, no fixed objective whatsoever in view. This is where official
| |
| − | understanding of the situation completely failed both in estimating the
| |
| − | importance of the struggle, choosing the means and deciding on a
| |
| − | definite plan. They merely tinkered with the problem. Occasionally, when
| |
| − | bitten, they imprisoned one or another journalistic viper for a few
| |
| − | weeks or months, but the whole poisonous brood was allowed to carry on
| |
| − | in peace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must be admitted that all this was partly the result of extraordinary
| |
| − | crafty tactics on the part of Jewry on the one hand, and obvious
| |
| − | official stupidity or naïveté on the other hand. The Jews were too
| |
| − | clever to allow a simultaneous attack to be made on the whole of their
| |
| − | Press. No one section functioned as cover for the other. While the
| |
| − | Marxist newspaper, in the most despicable manner possible, reviled
| |
| − | everything that was sacred, furiously attacked the State and Government
| |
| − | and incited certain classes of the community against each other, the
| |
| − | bourgeois-democratic papers, also in Jewish hands, knew how to
| |
| − | camouflage themselves as model examples of objectivity. They studiously
| |
| − | avoided harsh language, knowing well that block-heads are capable of
| |
| − | judging only by external appearances and never able to penetrate to the
| |
| − | real depth and meaning of anything. They measure the worth of an object
| |
| − | by its exterior and not by its content. This form of human frailty was
| |
| − | carefully studied and understood by the Press.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this class of blockheads the FRANKFURTER ZEITUNG would be
| |
| − | acknowledged as the essence of respectability. It always carefully
| |
| − | avoided calling a spade a spade. It deprecated the use of every form of
| |
| − | physical force and persistently appealed to the nobility of fighting
| |
| − | with 'intellectual' weapons. But this fight, curiously enough, was most
| |
| − | popular with the least intellectual classes. That is one of the results
| |
| − | of our defective education, which turns the youth away from the
| |
| − | instinctive dictates of Nature, pumps into them a certain amount of
| |
| − | knowledge without however being able to bring them to what is the
| |
| − | supreme act of knowing. To this end diligence and goodwill are of no
| |
| − | avail, if innate understanding fail. This final knowledge at which man
| |
| − | must aim is the understanding of causes which are instinctively
| |
| − | perceived.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let me explain: Man must not fall into the error of thinking that he was
| |
| − | ever meant to become lord and master of Nature. A lopsided education has
| |
| − | helped to encourage that illusion. Man must realize that a fundamental
| |
| − | law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that
| |
| − | his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife. He
| |
| − | will then feel that there cannot be a separate law for mankind in a
| |
| − | world in which planets and suns follow their orbits, where moons and
| |
| − | planets trace their destined paths, where the strong are always the
| |
| − | masters of the weak and where those subject to such laws must obey them
| |
| − | or be destroyed. Man must also submit to the eternal principles of this
| |
| − | supreme wisdom. He may try to understand them but he can never free
| |
| − | himself from their sway.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is just for intellectual DEMI-MONDE that the Jew writes those papers
| |
| − | which he calls his 'intellectual' Press. For them the FRANKFURTER
| |
| − | ZEITUNG and BERLINER TAGEBLATT are written, the tone being adapted to
| |
| − | them, and it is over these people that such papers have an influence.
| |
| − | While studiously avoiding all forms of expression that might strike the
| |
| − | reader as crude, the poison is injected from other vials into the hearts
| |
| − | of the clientele. The effervescent tone and the fine phraseology lug the
| |
| − | readers into believing that a love for knowledge and moral principle is
| |
| − | the sole driving force that determines the policy of such papers,
| |
| − | whereas in reality these features represent a cunning way of disarming
| |
| − | any opposition that might be directed against the Jews and their Press.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They make such a parade of respectability that the imbecile readers are
| |
| − | all the more ready to believe that the excesses which other papers
| |
| − | indulge in are only of a mild nature and not such as to warrant legal
| |
| − | action being taken against them. Indeed such action might trespass on
| |
| − | the freedom of the Press, that expression being a euphemism under which
| |
| − | such papers escape legal punishment for deceiving the public and
| |
| − | poisoning the public mind. Hence the authorities are very slow indeed to
| |
| − | take any steps against these journalistic bandits for fear of
| |
| − | immediately alienating the sympathy of the so-called respectable Press.
| |
| − | A fear that is only too well founded, for the moment any attempt is made
| |
| − | to proceed against any member of the gutter press all the others rush to
| |
| − | its assistance at once, not indeed to support its policy but simply and
| |
| − | solely to defend the principle of freedom of the Press and liberty of
| |
| − | public opinion. This outcry will succeed in cowering the most stalwart;
| |
| − | for it comes from the mouth of what is called decent journalism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so this poison was allowed to enter the national bloodstream and
| |
| − | infect public life without the Government taking any effectual measures
| |
| − | to master the course of the disease. The ridiculous half-measures that
| |
| − | were taken were in themselves an indication of the process of
| |
| − | disintegration that was already threatening to break up the Empire. For
| |
| − | an institution practically surrenders its existence when it is no longer
| |
| − | determined to defend itself with all the weapons at its command. Every
| |
| − | half-measure is the outward expression of an internal process of decay
| |
| − | which must lead to an external collapse sooner or later.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I believe that our present generation would easily master this danger if
| |
| − | they were rightly led. For this generation has gone through certain
| |
| − | experiences which must have strengthened the nerves of all those who did
| |
| − | not become nervously broken by them. Certainly in days to come the Jews
| |
| − | will raise a tremendous cry throughout their newspapers once a hand is
| |
| − | laid on their favourite nest, once a move is made to put an end to this
| |
| − | scandalous Press and once this instrument which shapes public opinion is
| |
| − | brought under State control and no longer left in the hands of aliens
| |
| − | and enemies of the people. I am certain that this will be easier for us
| |
| − | than it was for our fathers. The scream of the twelve-inch shrapnel is
| |
| − | more penetrating than the hiss from a thousand Jewish newspaper vipers.
| |
| − | Therefore let them go on with their hissing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A further example of the weak and hesitating way in which vital national
| |
| − | problems were dealt with in pre-War Germany is the following: Hand in
| |
| − | hand with the political and moral process of infecting the nation, for
| |
| − | many years an equally virulent process of infection had been attacking
| |
| − | the public health of the people. In large cities, particularly, syphilis
| |
| − | steadily increased and tuberculosis kept pace with it in reaping its
| |
| − | harvest of death almost in every part of the country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Although in both cases the effect on the nation was alarming, it seemed
| |
| − | as if nobody was in a position to undertake any decisive measures
| |
| − | against these scourges.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the case of syphilis especially the attitude of the State and public
| |
| − | bodies was one of absolute capitulation. To combat this state of affairs
| |
| − | something of far wider sweep should have been undertaken than was really
| |
| − | done. The discovery of a remedy which is of a questionable nature and
| |
| − | the excellent way in which it was placed on the market were only of
| |
| − | little assistance in fighting such a scourge. Here again the only course
| |
| − | to adopt is to attack the disease in its causes rather than in its
| |
| − | symptoms. But in this case the primary cause is to be found in the
| |
| − | manner in which love has been prostituted. Even though this did not
| |
| − | directly bring about the fearful disease itself, the nation must still
| |
| − | suffer serious damage thereby, for the moral havoc resulting from this
| |
| − | prostitution would be sufficient to bring about the destruction of the
| |
| − | nation, slowly but surely. This Judaizing of our spiritual life and
| |
| − | mammonizing of our natural instinct for procreation will sooner or later
| |
| − | work havoc with our whole posterity. For instead of strong, healthy
| |
| − | children, blessed with natural feelings, we shall see miserable
| |
| − | specimens of humanity resulting from economic calculation. For economic
| |
| − | considerations are becoming more and more the foundations of marriage
| |
| − | and the sole preliminary condition of it. And love looks for an outlet
| |
| − | elsewhere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here, as elsewhere, one may defy Nature for a certain period of time;
| |
| − | but sooner or later she will take her inexorable revenge. And when man
| |
| − | realizes this truth it is often too late.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our own nobility furnishes an example of the devastating consequences
| |
| − | that follow from a persistent refusal to recognize the primary
| |
| − | conditions necessary for normal wedlock. Here we are openly brought face
| |
| − | to face with the results of those reproductive habits which on the one
| |
| − | hand are determined by social pressure and, on the other, by financial
| |
| − | considerations. The one leads to inherited debility and the other to
| |
| − | adulteration of the blood-strain; for all the Jewish daughters of the
| |
| − | department store proprietors are looked upon as eligible mates to
| |
| − | co-operate in propagating His Lordship's stock. And the stock certainly
| |
| − | looks it. All this leads to absolute degeneration. Nowadays our
| |
| − | bourgeoise are making efforts to follow in the same path, They will come
| |
| − | to the same journey's end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These unpleasant truths are hastily and nonchalantly brushed aside, as
| |
| − | if by so doing the real state of affairs could also be abolished. But
| |
| − | no. It cannot be denied that the population of our great towns and
| |
| − | cities is tending more and more to avail of prostitution in the exercise
| |
| − | of its amorous instincts and is thus becoming more and more contaminated
| |
| − | by the scourge of venereal disease. On the one hand, the visible effects
| |
| − | of this mass-infection can be observed in our insane asylums and, on the
| |
| − | other hand, alas! among the children at home. These are the doleful and
| |
| − | tragic witnesses to the steadily increasing scourge that is poisoning
| |
| − | our sexual life. Their sufferings are the visible results of parental
| |
| − | vice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There are many ways of becoming resigned to this unpleasant and terrible
| |
| − | fact. Many people go about seeing nothing or, to be more correct, not
| |
| − | wanting to see anything. This is by far the simplest and cheapest
| |
| − | attitude to adopt. Others cover themselves in the sacred mantle of
| |
| − | prudery, as ridiculous as it is false. They describe the whole condition
| |
| − | of affairs as sinful and are profoundly indignant when brought face to
| |
| − | face with a victim. They close their eyes in reverend abhorrence to this
| |
| − | godless scourge and pray to the Almighty that He--if possible after
| |
| − | their own death--may rain down fire and brimstone as on Sodom and
| |
| − | Gomorrah and so once again make an out standing example of this
| |
| − | shameless section of humanity. Finally, there are those who are well
| |
| − | aware of the terrible results which this scourge will and must bring
| |
| − | about, but they merely shrug their shoulders, fully convinced of their
| |
| − | inability to undertake anything against this peril. Hence matters are
| |
| − | allowed to take their own course.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Undoubtedly all this is very convenient and simple, only it must not be
| |
| − | overlooked that this convenient way of approaching things can have fatal
| |
| − | consequences for our national life. The excuse that other nations are
| |
| − | also not faring any better does not alter the fact of our own
| |
| − | deterioration, except that the feeling of sympathy for other stricken
| |
| − | nations makes our own suffering easier to bear. But the important
| |
| − | question that arises here is: Which nation will be the first to take the
| |
| − | initiative in mastering this scourge, and which nations will succumb to
| |
| − | it? This will be the final upshot of the whole situation. The present is
| |
| − | a period of probation for racial values. The race that fails to come
| |
| − | through the test will simply die out and its place will be taken by the
| |
| − | healthier and stronger races, which will be able to endure greater
| |
| − | hardships. As this problem primarily concerns posterity, it belongs to
| |
| − | that category of which it is said with terrible justification that the
| |
| − | sins of the fathers are visited on their offspring unto the tenth
| |
| − | generation. This is a consequence which follows on an infringement of
| |
| − | the laws of blood and race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The sin against blood and race is the hereditary sin in this world and
| |
| − | it brings disaster on every nation that commits it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The attitude towards this one vital problem in pre-War Germany was most
| |
| − | regrettable. What measures were undertaken to arrest the infection of
| |
| − | our youth in the large cities? What was done to put an end to the
| |
| − | contamination and mammonization of sexual life among us? What was done
| |
| − | to fight the resultant spreading of syphilis throughout the whole of our
| |
| − | national life? The reply to this question can best be illustrated by
| |
| − | showing what should have been done.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Instead of tackling this problem in a haphazard way, the authorities
| |
| − | should have realized that the fortunes or misfortunes of future
| |
| − | generations depended on its solution. But to admit this would have
| |
| − | demanded that active measures be carried out in a ruthless manner. The
| |
| − | primary condition would have been that the enlightened attention of the
| |
| − | whole country should be concentrated on this terrible danger, so that
| |
| − | every individual would realize the importance of fighting against it. It
| |
| − | would be futile to impose obligations of a definite character--which are
| |
| − | often difficult to bear--and expect them to become generally effective,
| |
| − | unless the public be thoroughly instructed on the necessity of imposing
| |
| − | and accepting such obligations. This demands a widespread and systematic
| |
| − | method of enlightenment and all other daily problems that might distract
| |
| − | public attention from this great central problem should be relegated to
| |
| − | the background.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In every case where there are exigencies or tasks that seem impossible
| |
| − | to deal with successfully public opinion must be concentrated on the one
| |
| − | problem, under the conviction that the solution of this problem alone is
| |
| − | a matter of life or death. Only in this way can public interest be
| |
| − | aroused to such a pitch as will urge people to combine in a great
| |
| − | voluntary effort and achieve important results.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This fundamental truth applies also to the individual, provided he is
| |
| − | desirous of attaining some great end. He must always concentrate his
| |
| − | efforts to one definitely limited stage of his progress which has to be
| |
| − | completed before the next step be attempted. Those who do not endeavour
| |
| − | to realize their aims step by step and who do not concentrate their
| |
| − | energy in reaching the individual stages, will never attain the final
| |
| − | objective. At some stage or other they will falter and fail. This
| |
| − | systematic way of approaching an objective is an art in itself, and
| |
| − | always calls for the expenditure of every ounce of energy in order to
| |
| − | conquer step after step of the road.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the most essential preliminary condition necessary for an
| |
| − | attack on such a difficult stage of the human road is that the
| |
| − | authorities should succeed in convincing the masses that the immediate
| |
| − | objective which is now being fought for is the only one that deserves to
| |
| − | be considered and the only one on which everything depends. The broad
| |
| − | masses are never able clearly to see the whole stretch of the road lying
| |
| − | in front of them without becoming tired and thus losing faith in their
| |
| − | ability to complete the task. To a certain extent they will keep the
| |
| − | objective in mind, but they are only able to survey the whole road in
| |
| − | small stages, as in the case of the traveller who knows where his
| |
| − | journey is going to end but who masters the endless stretch far better
| |
| − | by attacking it in degrees. Only in this way can he keep up his
| |
| − | determination to reach the final objective.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is in this way, with the assistance of every form of propaganda, that
| |
| − | the problem of fighting venereal disease should be placed before the
| |
| − | public--not as a task for the nation but as THE main task. Every
| |
| − | possible means should be employed to bring the truth about this scourge
| |
| − | home to the minds of the people, until the whole nation has been
| |
| − | convinced that everything depends on the solution of this problem; that
| |
| − | is to say, a healthy future or national decay.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only after such preparatory measures--if necessary spread over a period
| |
| − | of many years--will public attention and public resolution be fully
| |
| − | aroused, and only then can serious and definite measures be undertaken
| |
| − | without running the risk of not being fully understood or of being
| |
| − | suddenly faced with a slackening of the public will. It must be made
| |
| − | clear to all that a serious fight against this scourge calls for vast
| |
| − | sacrifices and an enormous amount of work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To wage war against syphilis means fighting against prostitution,
| |
| − | against prejudice, against old-established customs, against current
| |
| − | fashion, public opinion, and, last but not least, against false prudery
| |
| − | in certain circles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first preliminary condition to be fulfilled before the State can
| |
| − | claim a moral right to fight against all these things is that the young
| |
| − | generation should be afforded facilities for contracting early
| |
| − | marriages. Late marriages have the sanction of a custom which, from
| |
| − | whatever angle we view it, is and will remain a disgrace to humanity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Prostitution is a disgrace to humanity and cannot be removed simply by
| |
| − | charitable or academic methods. Its restriction and final extermination
| |
| − | presupposes the removal of a whole series of contributory circumstances.
| |
| − | The first remedy must always be to establish such conditions as will
| |
| − | make early marriages possible, especially for young men--for women are,
| |
| − | after all, only passive subjects in this matter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An illustration of the extent to which people have so often been led
| |
| − | astray nowadays is afforded by the fact that not infrequently one hears
| |
| − | mothers in so-called 'better' circles openly expressing their
| |
| − | satisfaction at having found as a husband for their daughter a man who
| |
| − | has already sown his wild oats, etc. As there is usually so little
| |
| − | shortage in men of this type, the poor girl finds no difficulty in
| |
| − | getting a mate of this description, and the children of this marriage
| |
| − | are a visible result of such supposedly sensible unions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When one realizes, apart from this, that every possible effort is being
| |
| − | made to hinder the process of procreation and that Nature is being
| |
| − | wilfully cheated of her rights, there remains really only one question:
| |
| − | Why is such an institution as marriage still in existence, and what are
| |
| − | its functions? Is it really nothing better than prostitution? Does our
| |
| − | duty to posterity no longer play any part? Or do people not realize the
| |
| − | nature of the curse they are inflicting on themselves and their
| |
| − | offspring by such criminally foolish neglect of one of the primary laws
| |
| − | of Nature? This is how civilized nations degenerate and gradually
| |
| − | perish.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Marriage is not an end in itself but must serve the greater end, which
| |
| − | is that of increasing and maintaining the human species and the race.
| |
| − | This is its only meaning and purpose.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This being admitted, then it is clear that the institution of marriage
| |
| − | must be judged by the manner in which its allotted function is
| |
| − | fulfilled. Therefore early marriages should be the rule, because thus
| |
| − | the young couple will still have that pristine force which is the
| |
| − | fountain head of a healthy posterity with unimpaired powers of
| |
| − | resistance. Of course early marriages cannot be made the rule unless a
| |
| − | whole series of social measures are first undertaken without which early
| |
| − | marriages cannot be even thought of. In other words, a solution of this
| |
| − | question, which seems a small problem in itself, cannot be brought about
| |
| − | without adopting radical measures to alter the social background. The
| |
| − | importance of such measures ought to be studied and properly estimated,
| |
| − | especially at a time when the so-called 'social' Republic has shown
| |
| − | itself unable to solve the housing problem and thus has made it
| |
| − | impossible for innumerable couples to get married. That sort of policy
| |
| − | prepares the way for the further advance of prostitution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Another reason why early marriages are impossible is our nonsensical
| |
| − | method of regulating the scale of salaries, which pays far too little
| |
| − | attention to the problem of family support. Prostitution, therefore, can
| |
| − | only be really seriously tackled if, by means of a radical social
| |
| − | reform, early marriage is made easier than hitherto. This is the first
| |
| − | preliminary necessity for the solution of this problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Secondly, a whole series of false notions must be eradicated from our
| |
| − | system of bringing up and educating children--things which hitherto no
| |
| − | one seems to have worried about. In our present educational system a
| |
| − | balance will have to be established, first and foremost, between mental
| |
| − | instruction and physical training.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What is known as GYMNASIUM (Grammar School) to-day is a positive insult
| |
| − | to the Greek institution. Our system of education entirely loses sight
| |
| − | of the fact that in the long run a healthy mind can exist only in a
| |
| − | healthy body. This statement, with few exceptions, applies particularly
| |
| − | to the broad masses of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the pre-War Germany there was a time when no one took the trouble to
| |
| − | think over this truth. Training of the body was criminally neglected,
| |
| − | the one-sided training of the mind being regarded as a sufficient
| |
| − | guarantee for the nation's greatness. This mistake was destined to show
| |
| − | its effects sooner than had been anticipated. It is not pure chance that
| |
| − | the Bolshevic teaching flourishes in those regions whose degenerate
| |
| − | population has been brought to the verge of starvation, as, for example,
| |
| − | in the case of Central Germany, Saxony, and the Ruhr Valley. In all
| |
| − | these districts there is a marked absence of any serious resistance,
| |
| − | even by the so-called intellectual classes, against this Jewish
| |
| − | contagion. And the simple reason is that the intellectual classes are
| |
| − | themselves physically degenerate, not through privation but through
| |
| − | education. The exclusive intellectualism of the education in vogue among
| |
| − | our upper classes makes them unfit for life's struggle at an epoch in
| |
| − | which physical force and not mind is the dominating factor. Thus they
| |
| − | are neither capable of maintaining themselves nor of making their way in
| |
| − | life. In nearly every case physical disability is the forerunner of
| |
| − | personal cowardice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The extravagant emphasis laid on purely intellectual education and the
| |
| − | consequent neglect of physical training must necessarily lead to sexual
| |
| − | thoughts in early youth. Those boys whose constitutions have been
| |
| − | trained and hardened by sports and gymnastics are less prone to sexual
| |
| − | indulgence than those stay-at-homes who have been fed exclusively with
| |
| − | mental pabulum. Sound methods of education cannot, however, afford to
| |
| − | disregard this, and we must not forget that the expectations of a
| |
| − | healthy young man from a woman will differ from those of a weakling who
| |
| − | has been prematurely corrupted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus in every branch of our education the day's curriculum must be
| |
| − | arranged so as to occupy a boy's free time in profitable development of
| |
| − | his physical powers. He has no right in those years to loaf about,
| |
| − | becoming a nuisance in public streets and in cinemas; but when his day's
| |
| − | work is done he ought to harden his young body so that his strength may
| |
| − | not be found wanting when the occasion arises. To prepare for this and
| |
| − | to carry it out should be the function of our educational system and not
| |
| − | exclusively to pump in knowledge or wisdom. Our school system must also
| |
| − | rid itself of the notion that the training of the body is a task that
| |
| − | should be left to the individual himself. There is no such thing as
| |
| − | allowing freedom of choice to sin against posterity and thus against the
| |
| − | race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fight against pollution of the mind must be waged simultaneously
| |
| − | with the training of the body. To-day the whole of our public life may
| |
| − | be compared to a hot-house for the forced growth of sexual notions and
| |
| − | incitements. A glance at the bill-of-fare provided by our cinemas,
| |
| − | playhouses, and theatres suffices to prove that this is not the right
| |
| − | food, especially for our young people. Hoardings and advertisements
| |
| − | kiosks combine to attract the public in the most vulgar manner. Anyone
| |
| − | who has not altogether lost contact with adolescent yearnings will
| |
| − | realize that all this must have very grave consequences. This seductive
| |
| − | and sensuous atmosphere puts notions into the heads of our youth which,
| |
| − | at their age, ought still to be unknown to them. Unfortunately, the
| |
| − | results of this kind of education can best be seen in our contemporary
| |
| − | youth who are prematurely grown up and therefore old before their time.
| |
| − | The law courts from time to time throw a distressing light on the
| |
| − | spiritual life of our 14- and 15-year old children. Who, therefore, will
| |
| − | be surprised to learn that venereal disease claims its victims at this
| |
| − | age? And is it not a frightful shame to see the number of physically
| |
| − | weak and intellectually spoiled young men who have been introduced to
| |
| − | the mysteries of marriage by the whores of the big cities?
| |
| − | | |
| − | No; those who want seriously to combat prostitution must first of all
| |
| − | assist in removing the spiritual conditions on which it thrives. They
| |
| − | will have to clean up the moral pollution of our city 'culture'
| |
| − | fearlessly and without regard for the outcry that will follow. If we do
| |
| − | not drag our youth out of the morass of their present environment they
| |
| − | will be engulfed by it. Those people who do not want to see these things
| |
| − | are deliberately encouraging them and are guilty of spreading the
| |
| − | effects of prostitution to the future--for the future belongs to our
| |
| − | young generation. This process of cleansing our 'Kultur' will have to be
| |
| − | applied in practically all spheres. The stage, art, literature, the
| |
| − | cinema, the Press and advertisement posters, all must have the stains of
| |
| − | pollution removed and be placed in the service of a national and
| |
| − | cultural idea. The life of the people must be freed from the
| |
| − | asphyxiating perfume of our modern eroticism and also from every unmanly
| |
| − | and prudish form of insincerity. In all these things the aim and the
| |
| − | method must be determined by thoughtful consideration for the
| |
| − | preservation of our national well-being in body and soul. The right to
| |
| − | personal freedom comes second in importance to the duty of maintaining
| |
| − | the race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only after such measures have been put into practice can a medical
| |
| − | campaign against this scourge begin with some hope of success. But, here
| |
| − | again, half-measures will be valueless. Far-reaching and important
| |
| − | decisions will have to be made. It would be doing things by halves if
| |
| − | incurables were given the opportunity of infecting one healthy person
| |
| − | after another. This would be that kind of humanitarianism which would
| |
| − | allow hundreds to perish in order to save the suffering of one
| |
| − | individual. The demand that it should be made impossible for defective
| |
| − | people to continue to propagate defective offspring is a demand that is
| |
| − | based on most reasonable grounds, and its proper fulfilment is the most
| |
| − | humane task that mankind has to face. Unhappy and undeserved suffering
| |
| − | in millions of cases will be spared, with the result that there will be
| |
| − | a gradual improvement in national health. A determined decision to act
| |
| − | in this manner will at the same time provide an obstacle against the
| |
| − | further spread of venereal disease. It would then be a case, where
| |
| − | necessary, of mercilessly isolating all incurables--perhaps a barbaric
| |
| − | measure for those unfortunates--but a blessing for the present
| |
| − | generation and for posterity. The temporary pain thus experienced in
| |
| − | this century can and will spare future thousands of generations from
| |
| − | suffering.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fight against syphilis and its pace-maker, prostitution, is one of
| |
| − | the gigantic tasks of mankind; gigantic, because it is not merely a case
| |
| − | of solving a single problem but the removal of a whole series of evils
| |
| − | which are the contributory causes of this scourge. Disease of the body
| |
| − | in this case is merely the result of a diseased condition of the moral,
| |
| − | social, and racial instincts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But if for reasons of indolence or cowardice this fight is not fought to
| |
| − | a finish we may imagine what conditions will be like 500 years hence.
| |
| − | Little of God's image will be left in human nature, except to mock the
| |
| − | Creator.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what has been done in Germany to counteract this scourge? If we
| |
| − | think calmly over the answer we shall find it distressing. It is true
| |
| − | that in governmental circles the terrible and injurious effects of this
| |
| − | disease were well known, but the counter-measures which were officially
| |
| − | adopted were ineffective and a hopeless failure. They tinkered with
| |
| − | cures for the symptoms, wholly regardless of the cause of the disease.
| |
| − | Prostitutes were medically examined and controlled as far as possible,
| |
| − | and when signs of infection were apparent they were sent to hospital.
| |
| − | When outwardly cured, they were once more let loose on humanity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is true that 'protective legislation' was introduced which made
| |
| − | sexual intercourse a punishable offence for all those not completely
| |
| − | cured, or those suffering from venereal disease. This legislation was
| |
| − | correct in theory, but in practice it failed completely. In the first
| |
| − | place, in the majority of cases women will decline to appear in court as
| |
| − | witnesses against men who have robbed them of their health. Women would
| |
| − | be exposed far more than men to uncharitable remarks in such cases, and
| |
| − | one can imagine what their position would be if they had been infected
| |
| − | by their own husbands. Should women in that case lay a charge? Or what
| |
| − | should they do?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the case of the man there is the additional fact that he frequently
| |
| − | is unfortunate enough to run up against this danger when he is under the
| |
| − | influence of alcohol. His condition makes it impossible for him to
| |
| − | assess the qualities of his 'amorous beauty,' a fact which is well known
| |
| − | to every diseased prostitute and makes them single out men in this ideal
| |
| − | condition for preference. The result is that the unfortunate man is not
| |
| − | able to recollect later on who his compassionate benefactress was, which
| |
| − | is not surprising in cities like Berlin and Munich. Many of such cases
| |
| − | are visitors from the provinces who, held speechless and enthralled by
| |
| − | the magic charm of city life, become an easy prey for prostitutes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the final analysis who is able to say whether he has been infected or
| |
| − | not?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Are there not innumerable cases on record where an apparently cured
| |
| − | person has a relapse and does untold harm without knowing it?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore in practice the results of these legislative measures are
| |
| − | negative. The same applies to the control of prostitution, and, finally,
| |
| − | even medical treatment and cure are nowadays unsafe and doubtful. One
| |
| − | thing only is certain. The scourge has spread further and further in
| |
| − | spite of all measures, and this alone suffices definitely to stamp and
| |
| − | substantiate their inefficiency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Everything else that was undertaken was just as inefficient as it was
| |
| − | absurd. The spiritual prostitution of the people was neither arrested
| |
| − | nor was anything whatsoever undertaken in this direction.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those, however, who do not regard this subject as a serious one would do
| |
| − | well to examine the statistical data of the spread of this disease,
| |
| − | study its growth in the last century and contemplate the possibilities
| |
| − | of its further development. The ordinary observer, unless he were
| |
| − | particularly stupid, would experience a cold shudder if the position
| |
| − | were made clear to him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The half-hearted and wavering attitude adopted in pre-War Germany
| |
| − | towards this iniquitous condition can assuredly be taken as a visible
| |
| − | sign of national decay. When the courage to fight for one's own health
| |
| − | is no longer in evidence, then the right to live in this world of
| |
| − | struggle also ceases.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One of the visible signs of decay in the old REICH was the slow setback
| |
| − | which the general cultural level experienced. But by 'Kultur' I do not
| |
| − | mean that which we nowadays style as civilization, which on the contrary
| |
| − | may rather be regarded as inimical to the spiritual elevation of life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the turn of the last century a new element began to make its
| |
| − | appearance in our world. It was an element which had been hitherto
| |
| − | absolutely unknown and foreign to us. In former times there had
| |
| − | certainly been offences against good taste; but these were mostly
| |
| − | departures from the orthodox canons of art, and posterity could
| |
| − | recognize a certain historical value in them. But the new products
| |
| − | showed signs, not only of artistic aberration but of spiritual
| |
| − | degeneration. Here, in the cultural sphere, the signs of the coming
| |
| − | collapse first became manifest.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Bolshevization of art is the only cultural form of life and the only
| |
| − | spiritual manifestation of which Bolshevism is capable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyone to whom this statement may appear strange need only take a glance
| |
| − | at those lucky States which have become Bolshevized and, to his horror,
| |
| − | he will there recognize those morbid monstrosities which have been
| |
| − | produced by insane and degenerate people. All those artistic aberrations
| |
| − | which are classified under the names of cubism and dadism, since the
| |
| − | opening of the present century, are manifestations of art which have
| |
| − | come to be officially recognized by the State itself. This phenomenon
| |
| − | made its appearance even during the short-lived period of the Soviet
| |
| − | Republic in Bavaria. At that time one might easily have recognized how
| |
| − | all the official posters, propagandist pictures and newspapers, etc.,
| |
| − | showed signs not only of political but also of cultural decadence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | About sixty years ago a political collapse such as we are experiencing
| |
| − | to-day would have been just as inconceivable as the cultural decline
| |
| − | which has been manifested in cubist and futurist pictures ever since
| |
| − | 1900. Sixty years ago an exhibition of so-called dadistic 'experiences'
| |
| − | would have been an absolutely preposterous idea. The organizers of such
| |
| − | an exhibition would then have been certified for the lunatic asylum,
| |
| − | whereas, to-day they are appointed presidents of art societies. At that
| |
| − | time such an epidemic would never have been allowed to spread. Public
| |
| − | opinion would not have tolerated it, and the Government would not have
| |
| − | remained silent; for it is the duty of a Government to save its people
| |
| − | from being stampeded into such intellectual madness. But intellectual
| |
| − | madness would have resulted from a development that followed the
| |
| − | acceptance of this kind of art. It would have marked one of the worst
| |
| − | changes in human history; for it would have meant that a retrogressive
| |
| − | process had begun to take place in the human brain, the final stages of
| |
| − | which would be unthinkable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we study the course of our cultural life during the last twenty-five
| |
| − | years we shall be astonished to note how far we have already gone in
| |
| − | this process of retrogression. Everywhere we find the presence of those
| |
| − | germs which give rise to protuberant growths that must sooner or later
| |
| − | bring about the ruin of our culture. Here we find undoubted symptoms of
| |
| − | slow corruption; and woe to the nations that are no longer able to bring
| |
| − | that morbid process to a halt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In almost all the various fields of German art and culture those morbid
| |
| − | phenomena may be observed. Here everything seems to have passed the
| |
| − | culminating point of its excellence and to have entered the curve of a
| |
| − | hasty decline. At the beginning of the century the theatres seemed
| |
| − | already degenerating and ceasing to be cultural factors, except the
| |
| − | Court theatres, which opposed this prostitution of the national art.
| |
| − | With these exceptions, and also a few other decent institutions, the
| |
| − | plays produced on the stage were of such a nature that the people would
| |
| − | have benefited by not visiting them at all. A sad symptom of decline was
| |
| − | manifested by the fact that in the case of many 'art centres' the sign
| |
| − | was posted on the entrance doors: FOR ADULTS ONLY.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let it be borne in mind that these precautions had to be taken in regard
| |
| − | to institutions whose main purpose should have been to promote the
| |
| − | education of the youth and not merely to provide amusement for
| |
| − | sophisticated adults. What would the great dramatists of other times
| |
| − | have said of such measures and, above all, of the conditions which made
| |
| − | these measures necessary? How exasperated Schiller would have been, and
| |
| − | how Goethe would have turned away in disgust!
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what are Schiller, Goethe and Shakespeare when confronted with the
| |
| − | heroes of our modern German literature? Old and frowsy and outmoded and
| |
| − | finished. For it was typical of this epoch that not only were its own
| |
| − | products bad but that the authors of such products and their backers
| |
| − | reviled everything that had really been great in the past. This is a
| |
| − | phenomenon that is very characteristic of such epochs. The more vile and
| |
| − | miserable are the men and products of an epoch, the more they will hate
| |
| − | and denigrate the ideal achievements of former generations. What these
| |
| − | people would like best would be completely to destroy every vestige of
| |
| − | the past, in order to do away with that sole standard of comparison
| |
| − | which prevents their own daubs from being looked upon as art. Therefore
| |
| − | the more lamentable and wretched are the products of each new era, the
| |
| − | more it will try to obliterate all the memorials of the past. But any
| |
| − | real innovation that is for the benefit of mankind can always face
| |
| − | comparison with the best of what has gone before; and frequently it
| |
| − | happens that those monuments of the past guarantee the acceptance of
| |
| − | those modern productions. There is no fear that modern productions of
| |
| − | real worth will look pale and worthless beside the monuments of the
| |
| − | past. What is contributed to the general treasury of human culture often
| |
| − | fulfils a part that is necessary in order to keep the memory of old
| |
| − | achievements alive, because this memory alone is the standard whereby
| |
| − | our own works are properly appreciated. Only those who have nothing of
| |
| − | value to give to the world will oppose everything that already exists
| |
| − | and would have it destroyed at all costs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And this holds good not only for new phenomena in the cultural domain
| |
| − | but also in politics. The more inferior new revolutionary movements are,
| |
| − | the more will they try to denigrate the old forms. Here again the desire
| |
| − | to pawn off their shoddy products as great and original achievements
| |
| − | leads them into a blind hatred against everything which belongs to the
| |
| − | past and which is superior to their own work. As long as the historical
| |
| − | memory of Frederick the Great, for instance, still lives, Frederick
| |
| − | Ebert can arouse only a problematic admiration. The relation of the hero
| |
| − | of Sans Souci to the former republican of Bremen may be compared to that
| |
| − | of the sun to the moon; for the moon can shine only after the direct
| |
| − | rays of the sun have left the earth. Thus we can readily understand why
| |
| − | it is that all the new moons in human history have hated the fixed
| |
| − | stars. In the field of politics, if Fate should happen temporarily to
| |
| − | place the ruling power in the hands of those nonentities they are not
| |
| − | only eager to defile and revile the past but at the same time they will
| |
| − | use all means to evade criticism of their own acts. The Law for the
| |
| − | Protection of the Republic, which the new German State enacted, may be
| |
| − | taken as one example of this truth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One has good grounds to be suspicious in regard to any new idea, or any
| |
| − | doctrine or philosophy, any political or economical movement, which
| |
| − | tries to deny everything that the past has produced or to present it as
| |
| − | inferior and worthless. Any renovation which is really beneficial to
| |
| − | human progress will always have to begin its constructive work at the
| |
| − | level where the last stones of the structure have been laid. It need not
| |
| − | blush to utilize those truths which have already been established; for
| |
| − | all human culture, as well as man himself, is only the result of one
| |
| − | long line of development, where each generation has contributed but one
| |
| − | stone to the building of the whole structure. The meaning and purpose of
| |
| − | revolutions cannot be to tear down the whole building but to take away
| |
| − | what has not been well fitted into it or is unsuitable, and to rebuild
| |
| − | the free space thus caused, after which the main construction of the
| |
| − | building will be carried on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus alone will it be possible to talk of human progress; for otherwise
| |
| − | the world would never be free of chaos, since each generation would feel
| |
| − | entitled to reject the past and to destroy all the work of the past, as
| |
| − | the necessary preliminary to any new work of its own.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The saddest feature of the condition in which our whole civilization
| |
| − | found itself before the War was the fact that it was not only barren of
| |
| − | any creative force to produce its own works of art and civilization but
| |
| − | that it hated, defiled and tried to efface the memory of the superior
| |
| − | works produced in the past. About the end of the last century people
| |
| − | were less interested in producing new significant works of their
| |
| − | own--particularly in the fields of dramatic art and literature--than in
| |
| − | defaming the best works of the past and in presenting them as inferior
| |
| − | and antiquated. As if this period of disgraceful decadence had the
| |
| − | slightest capacity to produce anything of superior quality! The efforts
| |
| − | made to conceal the past from the eyes of the present afforded clear
| |
| − | evidence of the fact that these apostles of the future acted from an
| |
| − | evil intent. These symptoms should have made it clear to all that it was
| |
| − | not a question of new, though wrong, cultural ideas but of a process
| |
| − | which was undermining the very foundations of civilization. It threw the
| |
| − | artistic feeling which had hitherto been quite sane into utter
| |
| − | confusion, thus spiritually preparing the way for political Bolshevism.
| |
| − | If the creative spirit of the Periclean age be manifested in the
| |
| − | Parthenon, then the Bolshevist era is manifested through its cubist
| |
| − | grimace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this connection attention must be drawn once again to the want of
| |
| − | courage displayed by one section of our people, namely, by those who, in
| |
| − | virtue of their education and position, ought to have felt themselves
| |
| − | obliged to take up a firm stand against this outrage on our culture. But
| |
| − | they refrained from offering serious resistance and surrendered to what
| |
| − | they considered the inevitable. This abdication of theirs was due,
| |
| − | however, to sheer funk lest the apostles of Bolshevist art might raise a
| |
| − | rumpus; for those apostles always violently attacked everyone who was
| |
| − | not ready to recognize them as the choice spirits of artistic creation,
| |
| − | and they tried to strangle all opposition by saying that it was the
| |
| − | product of philistine and backwater minds. People trembled in fear lest
| |
| − | they might be accused by these yahoos and swindlers of lacking artistic
| |
| − | appreciation, as if it would have been a disgrace not to be able to
| |
| − | understand and appreciate the effusions of those mental degenerates or
| |
| − | arrant rogues. Those cultural disciples, however, had a very simple way
| |
| − | of presenting their own effusions as works of the highest quality. They
| |
| − | offered incomprehensible and manifestly crazy productions to their
| |
| − | amazed contemporaries as what they called 'an inner experience'. Thus
| |
| − | they forestalled all adverse criticism at very little cost indeed. Of
| |
| − | course nobody ever doubted that there could have been inner experiences
| |
| − | like that, but some doubt ought to have arisen as to whether or not
| |
| − | there was any justification for exposing these hallucinations of
| |
| − | psychopaths or criminals to the sane portion of human society. The works
| |
| − | produced by a Moritz von Schwind or a Böcklin were also externalizations
| |
| − | of an inner experience, but these were the experiences of divinely
| |
| − | gifted artists and not of buffoons.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This situation afforded a good opportunity of studying the miserable
| |
| − | cowardliness of our so-called intellectuals who shirked the duty of
| |
| − | offering serious resistance to the poisoning of the sound instincts of
| |
| − | our people. They left it to the people themselves to formulate their own
| |
| − | attitude towards his impudent nonsense. Lest they might be considered as
| |
| − | understanding nothing of art, they accepted every caricature of art,
| |
| − | until they finally lost the power of judging what is really good or bad.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Taken all in all, there were superabundant symptoms to show that a
| |
| − | diseased epoch had begun.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Still another critical symptom has to be considered. In the course of
| |
| − | the nineteenth century our towns and cities began more and more to lose
| |
| − | their character as centres of civilization and became more and more
| |
| − | centres of habitation. In our great modern cities the proletariat does
| |
| − | not show much attachment to the place where it lives. This feeling
| |
| − | results from the fact that their dwelling-place is nothing but an
| |
| − | accidental abode, and that feeling is also partly due to the frequent
| |
| − | change of residence which is forced upon them by social conditions.
| |
| − | There is no time for the growth of any attachment to the town in which
| |
| − | they live. But another reason lies in the cultural barrenness and
| |
| − | superficiality of our modern cities. At the time of the German Wars of
| |
| − | Liberation our German towns and cities were not only small in number but
| |
| − | also very modest in size. The few that could really be called great
| |
| − | cities were mostly the residential cities of princes; as such they had
| |
| − | almost always a definite cultural value and also a definite cultural
| |
| − | aspect. Those few towns which had more than fifty thousand inhabitants
| |
| − | were, in comparison with modern cities of the same size, rich in
| |
| − | scientific and artistic treasures. At the time when Munich had not more
| |
| − | than sixty thousand souls it was already well on the way to become one
| |
| − | of the first German centres of art. Nowadays almost every industrial
| |
| − | town has a population at least as large as that, without having anything
| |
| − | of real value to call its own. They are agglomerations of tenement
| |
| − | houses and congested dwelling barracks, and nothing else. It would be a
| |
| − | miracle if anybody should grow sentimentally attached to such a
| |
| − | meaningless place. Nobody can grow attached to a place which offers only
| |
| − | just as much or as little as any other place would offer, which has no
| |
| − | character of its own and where obviously pains have been taken to avoid
| |
| − | everything that might have any resemblance to an artistic appearance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But this is not all. Even the great cities become more barren of real
| |
| − | works of art the more they increase in population. They assume more and
| |
| − | more a neutral atmosphere and present the same aspect, though on a
| |
| − | larger scale, as the wretched little factory towns. Everything that our
| |
| − | modern age has contributed to the civilization of our great cities is
| |
| − | absolutely deficient. All our towns are living on the glory and the
| |
| − | treasures of the past. If we take away from the Munich of to-day
| |
| − | everything that was created under Ludwig II we should be horror-stricken
| |
| − | to see how meagre has been the output of important artistic creations
| |
| − | since that time. One might say much the same of Berlin and most of our
| |
| − | other great towns.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the following is the essential thing to be noticed: Our great modern
| |
| − | cities have no outstanding monuments that dominate the general aspect of
| |
| − | the city and could be pointed to as the symbols of a whole epoch. Yet
| |
| − | almost every ancient town had a monument erected to its glory. It was
| |
| − | not in private dwellings that the characteristic art of ancient cities
| |
| − | was displayed but in the public monuments, which were not meant to have
| |
| − | a transitory interest but an enduring one. And this was because they did
| |
| − | not represent the wealth of some individual citizen but the greatness
| |
| − | and importance of the community. It was under this inspiration that
| |
| − | those monuments arose which bound the individual inhabitants to their
| |
| − | own town in a manner that is often almost incomprehensible to us to-day.
| |
| − | What struck the eye of the individual citizen was not a number of
| |
| − | mediocre private buildings, but imposing structures that belonged to the
| |
| − | whole community. In contradistinction to these, private dwellings were
| |
| − | of only very secondary importance indeed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When we compare the size of those ancient public buildings with that of
| |
| − | the private dwellings belonging to the same epoch then we can understand
| |
| − | the great importance which was given to the principle that those works
| |
| − | which reflected and affected the life of the community should take
| |
| − | precedence of all others.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Among the broken arches and vast spaces that are covered with ruins from
| |
| − | the ancient world the colossal riches that still arouse our wonder have
| |
| − | not been left to us from the commercial palaces of these days but from
| |
| − | the temples of the Gods and the public edifices that belonged to the
| |
| − | State. The community itself was the owner of those great edifices. Even
| |
| − | in the pomp of Rome during the decadence it was not the villas and
| |
| − | palaces of some citizens that filled the most prominent place but rather
| |
| − | the temples and the baths, the stadia, the circuses, the aqueducts, the
| |
| − | basilicas, etc., which belonged to the State and therefore to the people
| |
| − | as a whole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In medieval Germany also the same principle held sway, although the
| |
| − | artistic outlook was quite different. In ancient times the theme that
| |
| − | found its expression in the Acropolis or the Pantheon was now clothed in
| |
| − | the forms of the Gothic Cathedral. In the medieval cities these
| |
| − | monumental structures towered gigantically above the swarm of smaller
| |
| − | buildings with their framework walls of wood and brick. And they remain
| |
| − | the dominant feature of these cities even to our own day, although they
| |
| − | are becoming more and more obscured by the apartment barracks. They
| |
| − | determine the character and appearance of the locality. Cathedrals,
| |
| − | city-halls, corn exchanges, defence towers, are the outward expression
| |
| − | of an idea which has its counterpart only in the ancient world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The dimensions and quality of our public buildings to-day are in
| |
| − | deplorable contrast to the edifices that represent private interests. If
| |
| − | a similar fate should befall Berlin as befell Rome future generations
| |
| − | might gaze upon the ruins of some Jewish department stores or
| |
| − | joint-stock hotels and think that these were the characteristic
| |
| − | expressions of the culture of our time. In Berlin itself, compare the
| |
| − | shameful disproportion between the buildings which belong to the REICH
| |
| − | and those which have been erected for the accommodation of trade and
| |
| − | finance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The credits that are voted for public buildings are in most cases
| |
| − | inadequate and really ridiculous. They are not built as structures that
| |
| − | were meant to last but mostly for the purpose of answering the need of
| |
| − | the moment. No higher idea influenced those who commissioned such
| |
| − | buildings. At the time the Berlin Schloss was built it had a quite
| |
| − | different significance from what the new library has for our time,
| |
| − | seeing that one battleship alone represents an expenditure of about
| |
| − | sixty million marks, whereas less than half that sum was allotted for
| |
| − | the building of the Reichstag, which is the most imposing structure
| |
| − | erected for the REICH and which should have been built to last for ages.
| |
| − | Yet, in deciding the question of internal decoration, the Upper House
| |
| − | voted against the use of stone and ordered that the walls should be
| |
| − | covered with stucco. For once, however, the parliamentarians made an
| |
| − | appropriate decision on that occasion; for plaster heads would be out of
| |
| − | place between stone walls.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The community as such is not the dominant characteristic of our
| |
| − | contemporary cities, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if the
| |
| − | community does not find itself architecturally represented. Thus we must
| |
| − | eventually arrive at a veritable civic desert which will at last be
| |
| − | reflected in the total indifference of the individual citizen towards
| |
| − | his own country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This is also a sign of our cultural decay and general break-up. Our era
| |
| − | is entirely preoccupied with little things which are to no purpose, or
| |
| − | rather it is entirely preoccupied in the service of money. Therefore it
| |
| − | is not to be wondered at if, with the worship of such an idol, the sense
| |
| − | of heroism should entirely disappear. But the present is only reaping
| |
| − | what the past has sown.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All these symptoms which preceded the final collapse of the Second
| |
| − | Empire must be attributed to the lack of a definite and uniformly
| |
| − | accepted WELTANSCHAUUNG and the general uncertainty of outlook
| |
| − | consequent on that lack. This uncertainty showed itself when the great
| |
| − | questions of the time had to be considered one after another and a
| |
| − | decisive policy adopted towards them. This lack is also accountable for
| |
| − | the habit of doing everything by halves, beginning with the educational
| |
| − | system, the shilly-shally, the reluctance to undertake responsibilites
| |
| − | and, finally, the cowardly tolerance of evils that were even admitted to
| |
| − | be destructive. Visionary humanitarianisms became the fashion. In weakly
| |
| − | submitting to these aberrations and sparing the feelings of the
| |
| − | individual, the future of millions of human beings was sacrificed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An examination of the religious situation before the War shows that the
| |
| − | general process of disruption had extended to this sphere also. A great
| |
| − | part of the nation itself had for a long time already ceased to have any
| |
| − | convictions of a uniform and practical character in their ideological
| |
| − | outlook on life. In this matter the point of primary importance was by
| |
| − | no means the number of people who renounced their church membership but
| |
| − | rather the widespread indifference. While the two Christian
| |
| − | denominations maintained missions in Asia and Africa, for the purpose of
| |
| − | securing new adherents to the Faith, these same denominations were
| |
| − | losing millions and millions of their adherents at home in Europe. These
| |
| − | former adherents either gave up religion wholly as a directive force in
| |
| − | their lives or they adopted their own interpretation of it. The
| |
| − | consequences of this were specially felt in the moral life of the
| |
| − | country. In parenthesis it may be remarked that the progress made by the
| |
| − | missions in spreading the Christian Faith abroad was only quite modest
| |
| − | in comparison with the spread of Mohammedanism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must be noted too that the attack on the dogmatic principles
| |
| − | underlying ecclesiastical teaching increased steadily in violence. And
| |
| − | yet this human world of ours would be inconceivable without the
| |
| − | practical existence of a religious belief. The great masses of a nation
| |
| − | are not composed of philosophers. For the masses of the people,
| |
| − | especially faith is absolutely the only basis of a moral outlook on
| |
| − | life. The various substitutes that have been offered have not shown any
| |
| − | results that might warrant us in thinking that they might usefully
| |
| − | replace the existing denominations. But if religious teaching and
| |
| − | religious faith were once accepted by the broad masses as active forces
| |
| − | in their lives, then the absolute authority of the doctrines of faith
| |
| − | would be the foundation of all practical effort. There may be a few
| |
| − | hundreds of thousands of superior men who can live wisely and
| |
| − | intelligently without depending on the general standards that prevail in
| |
| − | everyday life, but the millions of others cannot do so. Now the place
| |
| − | which general custom fills in everyday life corresponds to that of
| |
| − | general laws in the State and dogma in religion. The purely spiritual
| |
| − | idea is of itself a changeable thing that may be subjected to endless
| |
| − | interpretations. It is only through dogma that it is given a precise and
| |
| − | concrete form without which it could not become a living faith.
| |
| − | Otherwise the spiritual idea would never become anything more than a
| |
| − | mere metaphysical concept, or rather a philosophical opinion.
| |
| − | Accordingly the attack against dogma is comparable to an attack against
| |
| − | the general laws on which the State is founded. And so this attack would
| |
| − | finally lead to complete political anarchy if it were successful, just
| |
| − | as the attack on religion would lead to a worthless religious nihilism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The political leader should not estimate the worth of a religion by
| |
| − | taking some of its shortcomings into account, but he should ask himself
| |
| − | whether there be any practical substitute in a view which is
| |
| − | demonstrably better. Until such a substitute be available only fools and
| |
| − | criminals would think of abolishing the existing religion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Undoubtedly no small amount of blame for the present unsatisfactory
| |
| − | religious situation must be attributed to those who have encumbered the
| |
| − | ideal of religion with purely material accessories and have thus given
| |
| − | rise to an utterly futile conflict between religion and science. In this
| |
| − | conflict victory will nearly always be on the side of science, even
| |
| − | though after a bitter struggle, while religion will suffer heavily in
| |
| − | the eyes of those who cannot penetrate beneath the mere superficial
| |
| − | aspects of science.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the greatest damage of all has come from the practice of debasing
| |
| − | religion as a means that can be exploited to serve political interests,
| |
| − | or rather commercial interests. The impudent and loud-mouthed liars who
| |
| − | do this make their profession of faith before the whole world in
| |
| − | stentorian tones so that all poor mortals may hear--not that they are
| |
| − | ready to die for it if necessary but rather that they may live all the
| |
| − | better. They are ready to sell their faith for any political QUID PRO
| |
| − | QUO. For ten parliamentary mandates they would ally themselves with the
| |
| − | Marxists, who are the mortal foes of all religion. And for a seat in the
| |
| − | Cabinet they would go the length of wedlock with the devil, if the
| |
| − | latter had not still retained some traces of decency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If religious life in pre-war Germany had a disagreeable savour for the
| |
| − | mouths of many people this was because Christianity had been lowered to
| |
| − | base uses by political parties that called themselves Christian and
| |
| − | because of the shameful way in which they tried to identify the Catholic
| |
| − | Faith with a political party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This substitution was fatal. It procured some worthless parliamentary
| |
| − | mandates for the party in question, but the Church suffered damage
| |
| − | thereby.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The consequences of that situation had to be borne by the whole nation;
| |
| − | for the laxity that resulted in religious life set in at a juncture when
| |
| − | everything was beginning to lose hold and vacillate and the traditional
| |
| − | foundations of custom and of morality were threatening to fall asunder.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet all those cracks and clefts in the social organism might not have
| |
| − | been dangerous if no grave burdens had been laid upon it; but they
| |
| − | became disastrous when the internal solidarity of the nation was the
| |
| − | most important factor in withstanding the storm of big events.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the political field also observant eyes might have noticed certain
| |
| − | anomalies of the REICH which foretold disaster unless some alteration
| |
| − | and correction took place in time. The lack of orientation in German
| |
| − | policy, both domestic and foreign, was obvious to everyone who was not
| |
| − | purposely blind. The best thing that could be said about the practice of
| |
| − | making compromises is that it seemed outwardly to be in harmony with
| |
| − | Bismarck's axiom that 'politics is the art of the possible'. But
| |
| − | Bismarck was a slightly different man from the Chancellors who followed
| |
| − | him. This difference allowed the former to apply that formula to the
| |
| − | very essence of his policy, while in the mouths of the others it took on
| |
| − | an utterly different significance. When he uttered that phrase Bismarck
| |
| − | meant to say that in order to attain a definite political end all
| |
| − | possible means should be employed or at least that all possibilities
| |
| − | should be tried. But his successors see in that phrase only a solemn
| |
| − | declaration that one is not necessarily bound to have political
| |
| − | principles or any definite political aims at all. And the political
| |
| − | leaders of the REICH at that time had no far-seeing policy. Here, again,
| |
| − | the necessary foundation was lacking, namely, a definite
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG, and these leaders also lacked that clear insight into
| |
| − | the laws of political evolution which is a necessary quality in
| |
| − | political leadership.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Many people who took a gloomy view of things at that time condemned the
| |
| − | lack of ideas and lack of orientation which were evident in directing
| |
| − | the policy of the REICH. They recognized the inner weakness and futility
| |
| − | of this policy. But such people played only a secondary role in
| |
| − | politics. Those who had the Government of the country in their hands
| |
| − | were quite as indifferent to principles of civil wisdom laid down by
| |
| − | thinkers like Houston Stewart Chamberlain as our political leaders now
| |
| − | are. These people are too stupid to think for themselves, and they have
| |
| − | too much self-conceit to take from others the instruction which they
| |
| − | need. Oxenstierna (Note 14a) gave expression to a truth which has lasted
| |
| − | since time immemorial, when he said that the world is governed by only a
| |
| − | particle of wisdom. Almost every civil servant of councillor rank might
| |
| − | naturally be supposed to possess only an atom or so belonging to this
| |
| − | particle. But since Germany became a Republic even this modicum is
| |
| − | wanting. And that is why they had to promulgate the Law for the Defence
| |
| − | of the Republic, which prohibits the holding of such views or expressing
| |
| − | them. It was fortunate for Oxenstierna that he lived at that time and
| |
| − | not in this wise Republic of our time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 14a. Swedish Chancellor who took over the reins of Government after
| |
| − | the death of Gustavus Adolphus]
| |
| − | | |
| − | Already before the War that institution which should have represented
| |
| − | the strength of the Reich--the Parliament, the Reichstag--was widely
| |
| − | recognized as its weakest feature. Cowardliness and fear of shouldering
| |
| − | responsibilities were associated together there in a perfect fashion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One of the silliest notions that one hears expressed to-day is that in
| |
| − | Germany the parliamentary institution has ceased to function since the
| |
| − | Revolution. This might easily be taken to imply that the case was
| |
| − | different before the Revolution. But in reality the parliamentary
| |
| − | institution never functioned except to the detriment of the country. And
| |
| − | it functioned thus in those days when people saw nothing or did not wish
| |
| − | to see anything. The German downfall is to be attributed in no small
| |
| − | degree to this institution. But that the catastrophe did not take place
| |
| − | sooner is not to be credited to the Parliament but rather to those who
| |
| − | opposed the influence of this institution which, during peace times, was
| |
| − | digging the grave of the German Nation and the German REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the immense mass of devastating evils that were due either directly
| |
| − | or indirectly to the Parliament I shall select one the most intimately
| |
| − | typical of this institution which was the most irresponsible of all
| |
| − | time. The evil I speak of was seen in the appalling shilly-shally and
| |
| − | weakness in conducting the internal and external affairs of the REICH.
| |
| − | It was attributable in the first place to the action of the Reichstag
| |
| − | and was one of the principal causes of the political collapse.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Everything subject to the influence of Parliament was done by halves, no
| |
| − | matter from what aspect you may regard it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The foreign policy of the REICH in the matter of alliances was an
| |
| − | example of shilly-shally. They wished to maintain peace, but in doing so
| |
| − | they steered straight. into war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Their Polish policy was also carried out by half-measures. It resulted
| |
| − | neither in a German triumph nor Polish conciliation, and it made enemies
| |
| − | of the Russians.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They tried to solve the Alsace-Lorraine question through half-measures.
| |
| − | Instead of crushing the head of the French hydra once and for all with
| |
| − | the mailed fist and granting Alsace-Lorraine equal rights with the other
| |
| − | German States, they did neither the one nor the other. Anyhow, it was
| |
| − | impossible for them to do otherwise, for they had among their ranks the
| |
| − | greatest traitors to the country, such as Herr Wetterlé of the Centre
| |
| − | Party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But still the country might have been able to bear with all this
| |
| − | provided the half-measure policy had not victimized that force in which,
| |
| − | as the last resort, the existence of the Empire depended: namely, the
| |
| − | Army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The crime committed by the so-called German Reichstag in this regard was
| |
| − | sufficient of itself to draw down upon it the curses of the German
| |
| − | Nation for all time. On the most miserable of pretexts these
| |
| − | parliamentary party henchmen filched from the hands of the nation and
| |
| − | threw away the weapons which were needed to maintain its existence and
| |
| − | therewith defend the liberty and independence of our people. If the
| |
| − | graves on the plains of Flanders were to open to-day the bloodstained
| |
| − | accusers would arise, hundreds of thousands of our best German youth who
| |
| − | were driven into the arms of death by those conscienceless parliamentary
| |
| − | ruffians who were either wrongly educated for their task or only
| |
| − | half-educated. Those youths, and other millions of the killed and
| |
| − | mutilated, were lost to the Fatherland simply and solely in order that a
| |
| − | few hundred deceivers of the people might carry out their political
| |
| − | manoeuvres and their exactions or even treasonably pursue their
| |
| − | doctrinaire theories.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By means of the Marxist and democratic Press, the Jews spread the
| |
| − | colossal falsehood about 'German Militarism' throughout the world and
| |
| − | tried to inculpate Germany by every possible means, while at the same
| |
| − | time the Marxist and democratic parties refused to assent to the
| |
| − | measures that were necessary for the adequate training of our national
| |
| − | defence forces. The appalling crime thus committed by these people ought
| |
| − | to have been obvious to everybody who foresaw that in case of war the
| |
| − | whole nation would have to be called to arms and that, because of the
| |
| − | mean huckstering of these noble 'representatives of the people', as they
| |
| − | called themselves, millions of Germans would have to face the enemy
| |
| − | ill-equipped and insufficiently trained. But even apart from the
| |
| − | consequences of the crude and brutal lack of conscience which these
| |
| − | parliamentarian rascals displayed, it was quite clear that the lack of
| |
| − | properly trained soldiers at the beginning of a war would most probably
| |
| − | lead to the loss of such a war; and this probability was confirmed in a
| |
| − | most terrible way during the course of the world war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the German people lost the struggle for the freedom and
| |
| − | independence of their country because of the half-hearted and defective
| |
| − | policy employed during times of peace in the organization and training
| |
| − | of the defensive strength of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The number of recruits trained for the land forces was too small; but
| |
| − | the same half-heartedness was shown in regard to the navy and made this
| |
| − | weapon of national self-preservation more or less ineffective.
| |
| − | Unfortunately, even the naval authorities themselves were contaminated
| |
| − | with this spirit of half-heartedness. The tendency to build the ship on
| |
| − | the stocks somewhat smaller than that just launched by the British did
| |
| − | not show much foresight and less genius. A fleet which cannot be brought
| |
| − | to the same numerical strength as that of the probable enemy ought to
| |
| − | compensate for this inferiority by the superior fighting power of the
| |
| − | individual ship. It is the weight of the fighting power that counts and
| |
| − | not any sort of traditional quality. As a matter of fact, modern
| |
| − | technical development is so advanced and so well proportioned among the
| |
| − | various civilized States that it must be looked on as practically
| |
| − | impossible for one Power to build vessels which would have a superior
| |
| − | fighting quality to that of the vessels of equal size built by the other
| |
| − | Powers. But it is even less feasible to build vessels of smaller
| |
| − | displacement which will be superior in action to those of larger
| |
| − | displacement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a matter of fact, the smaller proportions of the German vessels could
| |
| − | be maintained only at the expense of speed and armament. The phrase used
| |
| − | to justify this policy was in itself an evidence of the lack of logical
| |
| − | thinking on the part of the naval authorities who were in charge of
| |
| − | these matters in times of peace. They declared that the German guns were
| |
| − | definitely superior to the British 30.5 cm. as regards striking
| |
| − | efficiency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But that was just why they should have adopted the policy of building
| |
| − | 30.5 cm. guns also; for it ought to have been their object not to
| |
| − | achieve equality but superiority in fighting strength. If that were not
| |
| − | so then it would have been superfluous to equip the land forces with 42
| |
| − | cm. mortars; for the German 21 cm. mortar could be far superior to any
| |
| − | high-angle guns which the French possessed at that time and since the
| |
| − | fortresses could probably have been taken by means of 30.5 cm. mortars.
| |
| − | The army authorities unfortunately failed to do so. If they refrained
| |
| − | from assuring superior efficiency in the artillery as in the velocity,
| |
| − | this was because of the fundamentally false 'principle of risk' which
| |
| − | they adopted. The naval authorities, already in times of peace,
| |
| − | renounced the principle of attack and thus had to follow a defensive
| |
| − | policy from the very beginning of the War. But by this attitude they
| |
| − | renounced also the chances of final success, which can be achieved only
| |
| − | by an offensive policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A vessel with slower speed and weaker armament will be crippled and
| |
| − | battered by an adversary that is faster and stronger and can frequently
| |
| − | shoot from a favourable distance. A large number of cruisers have been
| |
| − | through bitter experiences in this matter. How wrong were the ideas
| |
| − | prevalent among the naval authorities in times of peace was proved
| |
| − | during the War. They were compelled to modify the armament of the old
| |
| − | vessels and to equip the new ones with better armament whenever there
| |
| − | was a chance to do so. If the German vessels in the Battle of the
| |
| − | Skagerrak had been of equal size, the same armament and the same speed
| |
| − | as the English, the British Fleet would have gone down under the tempest
| |
| − | of the German 38 centimeter shells, which hit their aims more accurately
| |
| − | and were more effective.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Japan had followed a different kind of naval policy. There, care was
| |
| − | principally taken to create with every single new vessel a fighting
| |
| − | force that would be superior to those of the eventual adversaries. But,
| |
| − | because of this policy, it was afterwards possible to use the fleet for
| |
| − | the offensive.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While the army authorities refused to adopt such fundamentally erroneous
| |
| − | principles, the navy--which unfortunately had more representatives in
| |
| − | Parliament--succumbed to the spirit that ruled there. The navy was not
| |
| − | organized on a strong basis, and it was later used in an unsystematic
| |
| − | and irresolute way. The immortal glory which the navy won, in spite of
| |
| − | these drawbacks, must be entirely credited to the good work and the
| |
| − | efficiency and incomparable heroism of officers and crews. If the former
| |
| − | commanders-in-chief had been inspired with the same kind of genius all
| |
| − | the sacrifices would not have been in vain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was probably the very parliamentarian skill displayed by the chief of
| |
| − | the navy during the years of peace which later became the cause of the
| |
| − | fatal collapse, since parliamentarian considerations had begun to play a
| |
| − | more important role in the construction of the navy than fighting
| |
| − | considerations. The irresolution, the weakness and the failure to adopt
| |
| − | a logically consistent policy, which is typical of the parliamentary
| |
| − | system, contaminated the naval authorities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have already emphasized, the military authorities did not allow
| |
| − | themselves to be led astray by such fundamentally erroneous ideas.
| |
| − | Ludendorff, who was then a Colonel in the General Staff, led a desperate
| |
| − | struggle against the criminal vacillations with which the Reichstag
| |
| − | treated the most vital problems of the nation and in most cases voted
| |
| − | against them. If the fight which this officer then waged remained
| |
| − | unsuccessful this must be debited to the Parliament and partly also to
| |
| − | the wretched and weak attitude of the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet those who are responsible for Germany's collapse do not hesitate now
| |
| − | to lay all the blame on the shoulders of the one man who took a firm
| |
| − | stand against the neglectful manner in which the interests of the nation
| |
| − | were managed. But one falsehood more or less makes no difference to
| |
| − | these congenital tricksters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anybody who thinks of all the sacrifices which this nation has had to
| |
| − | bear, as a result of the criminal neglect of those irresponsible
| |
| − | individuals; anybody who thinks of the number of those who died or were
| |
| − | maimed unnecessarily; anybody who thinks of the deplorable shame and
| |
| − | dishonour which has been heaped upon us and of the illimitable distress
| |
| − | into which our people are now plunged--anybody who realizes that in
| |
| − | order to prepare the way to a few seats in Parliament for some
| |
| − | unscrupulous place-hunters and arrivists will understand that such
| |
| − | hirelings can be called by no other name than that of rascal and
| |
| − | criminal; for otherwise those words could have no meaning. In comparison
| |
| − | with traitors who betrayed the nation's trust every other kind of
| |
| − | twister may be looked upon as an honourable man.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a peculiar feature of the situation that all the real faults of
| |
| − | the old Germany were exposed to the public gaze only when the inner
| |
| − | solidarity of the nation could be injured by doing so. Then, indeed,
| |
| − | unpleasant truths were openly proclaimed in the ears of the broad
| |
| − | masses, while many other things were at other times shamefully hushed up
| |
| − | or their existence simply denied, especially at times when an open
| |
| − | discussion of such problems might have led to an improvement in their
| |
| − | regard. The higher government authorities knew little or nothing of the
| |
| − | nature and use of propaganda in such matters. Only the Jew knew that by
| |
| − | an able and persistent use of propaganda heaven itself can be presented
| |
| − | to the people as if it were hell and, vice versa, the most miserable
| |
| − | kind of life can be presented as if it were paradise. The Jew knew this
| |
| − | and acted accordingly. But the German, or rather his Government, did not
| |
| − | have the slightest suspicion of it. During the War the heaviest of
| |
| − | penalties had to be paid for that ignorance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Over against the innumerable drawbacks which I have mentioned here and
| |
| − | which affected German life before the War there were many outstanding
| |
| − | features on the positive side. If we take an impartial survey we must
| |
| − | admit that most of our drawbacks were in great measure prevalent also in
| |
| − | other countries and among the other nations, and very often in a worse
| |
| − | form than with us; whereas among us there were many real advantages
| |
| − | which the other did not have.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The leading phase of Germany's superiority arose from the fact that,
| |
| − | almost alone among all the other European nations, the German nation had
| |
| − | made the strongest effort to preserve the national character of its
| |
| − | economic structure and for this reason was less subject than other
| |
| − | countries to the power of international finance, though indeed there
| |
| − | were many untoward symptoms in this regard also.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And yet this superiority was a perilous one and turned out later to be
| |
| − | one of the chief causes of the world war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But even if we disregard this advantage of national independence in
| |
| − | economic matters there were certain other positive features of our
| |
| − | social and political life which were of outstanding excellence. These
| |
| − | features were represented by three institutions which were constant
| |
| − | sources of regeneration. In their respective spheres they were models of
| |
| − | perfection and were partly unrivalled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first of these was the statal form as such and the manner in which
| |
| − | it had been developed for Germany in modern times. Of course we must
| |
| − | except those monarchs who, as human beings, were subject to the failings
| |
| − | which afflict this life and its children. If we were not so tolerant in
| |
| − | these matters, then the case of the present generation would be
| |
| − | hopeless; for if we take into consideration the personal capabilities
| |
| − | and character of the representative figures in our present regime it
| |
| − | would be difficult to imagine a more modest level of intelligence and
| |
| − | moral character. If we measure the 'value' of the German Revolution by
| |
| − | the personal worth and calibre of the individuals whom this revolution
| |
| − | has presented to the German people since November 1918 then we may feel
| |
| − | ashamed indeed in thinking of the judgment which posterity will pass on
| |
| − | these people, when the Law for the Protection of the Republic can no
| |
| − | longer silence public opinion. Coming generations will surely decide
| |
| − | that the intelligence and integrity of our new German leaders were in
| |
| − | adverse ratio to their boasting and their vices.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must be admitted that the monarchy had become alien in spirit to many
| |
| − | citizens and especially the broad masses. This resulted from the fact
| |
| − | that the monarchs were not always surrounded by the highest
| |
| − | intelligence--so to say--and certainly not always by persons of the most
| |
| − | upright character. Unfortunately many of them preferred flatterers to
| |
| − | honest-spoken men and hence received their 'information' from the
| |
| − | former. This was a source of grave danger at a time when the world was
| |
| − | passing through a period in which many of the old conditions were
| |
| − | changing and when this change was affecting even the traditions of the
| |
| − | Court.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The average man or woman could not have felt a wave of enthusiasm
| |
| − | surging within the breast when, for example, at the turn of the century,
| |
| − | a princess in uniform and on horseback had the soldiers file past her on
| |
| − | parade. Those high circles had apparently no idea of the impression
| |
| − | which such a parade made on the minds of ordinary people; else such
| |
| − | unfortunate occurrences would not have taken place. The sentimental
| |
| − | humanitarianism--not always very sincere--which was professed in those
| |
| − | high circles was often more repulsive than attractive. When, for
| |
| − | instance, the Princess X condescended to taste the products of a soup
| |
| − | kitchen and found them excellent, as usual, such a gesture might have
| |
| − | made an excellent impression in times long past, but on this occasion it
| |
| − | had the opposite effect to what was intended. For even if we take it for
| |
| − | granted that Her Highness did not have the slightest idea, that on the
| |
| − | day she sampled it, the food was not quite the same as on other days, it
| |
| − | sufficed that the people knew it. Even the best of intentions thus
| |
| − | became an object of ridicule or a cause of exasperation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Descriptions of the proverbial frugality practised by the monarch, his
| |
| − | much too early rise in the morning and the drudgery he had to go through
| |
| − | all day long until late at night, and especially the constantly
| |
| − | expressed fears lest he might become undernourished--all this gave rise
| |
| − | to ominous expression on the part of the people. Nobody was keen to know
| |
| − | what and how much the monarch ate or drank. Nobody grudged him a full
| |
| − | meal, or the necessary amount of sleep. Everybody was pleased when the
| |
| − | monarch, as a man and a personality, brought honour on his family and
| |
| − | his country and fulfilled his duties as a sovereign. All the legends
| |
| − | which were circulated about him helped little and did much damage.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These and such things, however, are only mere bagatelle. What was much
| |
| − | worse was the feeling, which spread throughout large sections of the
| |
| − | nation, that the affairs of the individual were being taken care of from
| |
| − | above and that he did not need to bother himself with them. As long as
| |
| − | the Government was really good, or at least moved by goodwill, no
| |
| − | serious objections could be raised.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the country was destined to disaster when the old Government, which
| |
| − | had at least striven for the best, became replaced by a new regime which
| |
| − | was not of the same quality. Then the docile obedience and infantile
| |
| − | credulity which formerly offered no resistance was bound to be one of
| |
| − | the most fatal evils that can be imagined.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But against these and other defects there were certain qualities which
| |
| − | undoubtedly had a positive effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | First of all the monarchical form of government guarantees stability in
| |
| − | the direction of public affairs and safeguards public offices from the
| |
| − | speculative turmoil of ambitious politicians. Furthermore, the venerable
| |
| − | tradition which this institution possesses arouses a feeling which gives
| |
| − | weight to the monarchical authority. Beyond this there is the fact that
| |
| − | the whole corps of officials, and the army in particular, are raised
| |
| − | above the level of political party obligations. And still another
| |
| − | positive feature was that the supreme rulership of the State was
| |
| − | embodied in the monarch, as an individual person, who could serve as the
| |
| − | symbol of responsibility, which a monarch has to bear more seriously
| |
| − | than any anonymous parliamentary majority. Indeed, the proverbial
| |
| − | honesty and integrity of the German administration must be attributed
| |
| − | chiefly to this fact. Finally, the monarchy fulfilled a high cultural
| |
| − | function among the German people, which made amends for many of its
| |
| − | defects. The German residential cities have remained, even to our time,
| |
| − | centres of that artistic spirit which now threatens to disappear and is
| |
| − | becoming more and more materialistic. The German princes gave a great
| |
| − | deal of excellent and practical encouragement to art and science,
| |
| − | especially during the nineteenth century. Our present age certainly has
| |
| − | nothing of equal worth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During that process of disintegration which was slowly extending
| |
| − | throughout the social order the most positive force of resistance was
| |
| − | that offered by the army. This was the strongest source of education
| |
| − | which the German people possessed. For that reason all the hatred of our
| |
| − | enemies was directed against the paladin of our national
| |
| − | self-preservation and our liberty. The strongest testimony in favour of
| |
| − | this unique institution is the fact that it was derided, hated and
| |
| − | fought against, but also feared, by worthless elements all round. The
| |
| − | fact that the international profiteers who gathered at Versailles,
| |
| − | further to exploit and plunder the nations directed their enmity
| |
| − | specially against the old German army proved once again that it deserved
| |
| − | to be regarded as the institution which protected the liberties of our
| |
| − | people against the forces of the international stock-exchange. If the
| |
| − | army had not been there to sound the alarm and stand on guard, the
| |
| − | purposes of the Versailles representatives would have been carried out
| |
| − | much sooner. There is only one word to express what the German people
| |
| − | owe to this army--Everything!
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was the army that still inculcated a sense of responsibility among
| |
| − | the people when this quality had become very rare and when the habit of
| |
| − | shirking every kind of responsibility was steadily spreading. This habit
| |
| − | had grown up under the evil influences of Parliament, which was itself
| |
| − | the very model of irresponsibility. The army trained the people to
| |
| − | personal courage at a time when the virtue of timidity threatened to
| |
| − | become an epidemic and when the spirit of sacrificing one's personal
| |
| − | interests for the good of the community was considered as something that
| |
| − | amounted almost to weak-mindedness. At a time when only those were
| |
| − | estimated as intelligent who knew how to safeguard and promote their own
| |
| − | egotistic interests, the army was the school through which individual
| |
| − | Germans were taught not to seek the salvation of their nation in the
| |
| − | false ideology of international fraternization between negroes, Germans,
| |
| − | Chinese, French and English, etc., but in the strength and unity of
| |
| − | their own national being.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The army developed the individual's powers of resolute decision, and
| |
| − | this at a time when a spirit of indecision and scepticism governed human
| |
| − | conduct. At a time when the wiseacres were everywhere setting the
| |
| − | fashion it needed courage to uphold the principle that any command is
| |
| − | better than none. This one principle represents a robust and sound style
| |
| − | of thought, of which not a trace would have been left in the other
| |
| − | branches of life if the army had not furnished a constant rejuvenation
| |
| − | of this fundamental force. A sufficient proof of this may be found in
| |
| − | the appalling lack of decision which our present government authorities
| |
| − | display. They cannot shake off their mental and moral lethargy and
| |
| − | decide on some definite line of action except when they are forced to
| |
| − | sign some new dictate for the exploitation of the German people. In that
| |
| − | case they decline all responsibility while at the same time they sign
| |
| − | everything which the other side places before them; and they sign with
| |
| − | the readiness of an official stenographer. Their conduct is here
| |
| − | explicable on the ground that in this case they are not under the
| |
| − | necessity of coming to a decision; for the decision is dictated to them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The army imbued its members with a spirit of idealism and developed
| |
| − | their readiness to sacrifice themselves for their country and its
| |
| − | honour, while greed and materialism dominated in all the other branches
| |
| − | of life. The army united a people who were split up into classes: and in
| |
| − | this respect had only one defect, which was the One Year Military
| |
| − | Service, a privilege granted to those who had passed through the high
| |
| − | schools. It was a defect, because the principle of absolute equality was
| |
| − | thereby violated; and those who had a better education were thus placed
| |
| − | outside the cadres to which the rest of their comrades belonged. The
| |
| − | reverse would have been better. Since our upper classes were really
| |
| − | ignorant of what was going on in the body corporate of the nation and
| |
| − | were becoming more and more estranged from the life of the people, the
| |
| − | army would have accomplished a very beneficial mission if it had refused
| |
| − | to discriminate in favour of the so-called intellectuals, especially
| |
| − | within its own ranks. It was a mistake that this was not done; but in
| |
| − | this world of ours can we find any institution that has not at least one
| |
| − | defect? And in the army the good features were so absolutely predominant
| |
| − | that the few defects it had were far below the average that generally
| |
| − | rises from human weakness.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the greatest credit which the army of the old Empire deserves is
| |
| − | that, at a time when the person of the individual counted for nothing
| |
| − | and the majority was everything, it placed individual personal values
| |
| − | above majority values. By insisting on its faith in personality, the
| |
| − | army opposed that typically Jewish and democratic apotheosis of the
| |
| − | power of numbers. The army trained what at that time was most surely
| |
| − | needed: namely, real men. In a period when men were falling a prey to
| |
| − | effeminacy and laxity, 350,000 vigorously trained young men went from
| |
| − | the ranks of the army each year to mingle with their fellow-men. In the
| |
| − | course of their two years' training they had lost the softness of their
| |
| − | young days and had developed bodies as tough as steel. The young man who
| |
| − | had been taught obedience for two years was now fitted to command. The
| |
| − | trained soldier could be recognized already by his walk.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was the great school of the German nation; and it was not without
| |
| − | reason that it drew upon its head all the bitter hatred of those who
| |
| − | wanted the Empire to be weak and defenceless, because they were jealous
| |
| − | of its greatness and were themselves possessed by a spirit of rapacity
| |
| − | and greed. The rest of the world recognized a fact which many Germans
| |
| − | did not wish to see, either because they were blind to facts or because
| |
| − | out of malice they did not wish to see it. This fact was that the German
| |
| − | Army was the most powerful weapon for the defence and freedom of the
| |
| − | German nation and the best guarantee for the livelihood of its citizens.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There was a third institution of positive worth, which has to be placed
| |
| − | beside that of the monarchy and the army. This was the civil service.
| |
| − | | |
| − | German administration was better organized and better carried out than
| |
| − | the administration of other countries. There may have been objections to
| |
| − | the bureaucratic routine of the officials, but from this point of view
| |
| − | the state of affairs was similar, if not worse, in the other countries.
| |
| − | But the other States did not have the wonderful solidarity which this
| |
| − | organization possessed in Germany, nor were their civil servants of that
| |
| − | same high level of scrupulous honesty. It is certainly better to be a
| |
| − | trifle over-bureaucratic and honest and loyal than to be
| |
| − | over-sophisticated and modern, the latter often implying an inferior
| |
| − | type of character and also ignorance and inefficiency. For if it be
| |
| − | insinuated to-day that the German administration of the pre-War period
| |
| − | may have been excellent so far as bureaucratic technique goes, but that
| |
| − | from the practical business point of view it was incompetent, I can only
| |
| − | give the following reply: What other country in the world possessed a
| |
| − | better-organized and administered business enterprise than the German
| |
| − | State Railways, for instance? It was left to the Revolution to destroy
| |
| − | this standard organization, until a time came when it was taken out of
| |
| − | the hands of the nation and socialized, in the sense which the founders
| |
| − | of the Republic had given to that word, namely, making it subservient to
| |
| − | the international stock-exchange capitalists, who were the wire-pullers
| |
| − | of the German Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most outstanding trait in the civil service and the whole body of
| |
| − | the civil administration was its independence of the vicissitudes of
| |
| − | government, the political mentality of which could exercise no influence
| |
| − | on the attitude of the German State officials. Since the Revolution this
| |
| − | situation has been completely changed. Efficiency and capability have
| |
| − | been replaced by the test of party-adherence; and independence of
| |
| − | character and initiative are no longer appreciated as positive qualities
| |
| − | in a public official. They rather tell against him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The wonderful might and power of the old Empire was based on the
| |
| − | monarchical form of government, the army and the civil service. On these
| |
| − | three foundations rested that great strength which is now entirely
| |
| − | lacking; namely, the authority of the State. For the authority of the
| |
| − | State cannot be based on the babbling that goes on in Parliament or in
| |
| − | the provincial diets and not upon laws made to protect the State, or
| |
| − | upon sentences passed by the law courts to frighten those who have had
| |
| − | the hardihood to deny the authority of the State, but only on the
| |
| − | general confidence which the management and administration of the
| |
| − | community establishes among the people. This confidence is in its turn,
| |
| − | nothing else than the result of an unshakable inner conviction that the
| |
| − | government and administration of a country is inspired by disinterested
| |
| − | and honest goodwill and on the feeling that the spirit of the law is in
| |
| − | complete harmony with the moral convictions of the people. In the long
| |
| − | run, systems of government are not maintained by terrorism but on the
| |
| − | belief of the people in the merits and sincerity of those who administer
| |
| − | and promote the public interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though it be true that in the period preceding the War certain grave
| |
| − | evils tended to infect and corrode the inner strength of the nation, it
| |
| − | must be remembered that the other States suffered even more than Germany
| |
| − | from these drawbacks and yet those other States did not fail and break
| |
| − | down when the time of crisis came. If we remember further that those
| |
| − | defects in pre-War Germany were outweighed by great positive qualities
| |
| − | we shall have to look elsewhere for the effective cause of the collapse.
| |
| − | And elsewhere it lay.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The ultimate and most profound reason of the German downfall is to be
| |
| − | found in the fact that the racial problem was ignored and that its
| |
| − | importance in the historical development of nations was not grasped. For
| |
| − | the events that take place in the life of nations are not due to chance
| |
| − | but are the natural results of the effort to conserve and multiply the
| |
| − | species and the race, even though men may not be able consciously to
| |
| − | picture to their minds the profound motives of their conduct.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER XI
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | RACE AND PEOPLE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | There are certain truths which stand out so openly on the roadsides of
| |
| − | life, as it were, that every passer-by may see them. Yet, because of
| |
| − | their very obviousness, the general run of people disregard such truths
| |
| − | or at least they do not make them the object of any conscious knowledge.
| |
| − | People are so blind to some of the simplest facts in every-day life that
| |
| − | they are highly surprised when somebody calls attention to what
| |
| − | everybody ought to know. Examples of The Columbus Egg lie around us in
| |
| − | hundreds of thousands; but observers like Columbus are rare.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Walking about in the garden of Nature, most men have the self-conceit to
| |
| − | think that they know everything; yet almost all are blind to one of the
| |
| − | outstanding principles that Nature employs in her work. This principle
| |
| − | may be called the inner isolation which characterizes each and every
| |
| − | living species on this earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even a superficial glance is sufficient to show that all the innumerable
| |
| − | forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a
| |
| − | fundamental law--one may call it an iron law of Nature--which compels
| |
| − | the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own
| |
| − | life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind. Each animal
| |
| − | mates only with one of its own species. The titmouse cohabits only with
| |
| − | the titmouse, the finch with the finch, the stork with the stork, the
| |
| − | field-mouse with the field-mouse, the house-mouse with the house-mouse,
| |
| − | the wolf with the she-wolf, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Deviations from this law take place only in exceptional circumstances.
| |
| − | This happens especially under the compulsion of captivity, or when some
| |
| − | other obstacle makes procreative intercourse impossible between
| |
| − | individuals of the same species. But then Nature abhors such intercourse
| |
| − | with all her might; and her protest is most clearly demonstrated by the
| |
| − | fact that the hybrid is either sterile or the fecundity of its
| |
| − | descendants is limited. In most cases hybrids and their progeny are
| |
| − | denied the ordinary powers of resistance to disease or the natural means
| |
| − | of defence against outer attack.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a dispensation of Nature is quite logical. Every crossing between
| |
| − | two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an
| |
| − | intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means
| |
| − | that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in
| |
| − | the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher
| |
| − | parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle
| |
| − | against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature
| |
| − | towards the selective improvements of life in general. The favourable
| |
| − | preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and
| |
| − | lower orders of being but rather to allow the complete triumph of the
| |
| − | higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker,
| |
| − | which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the
| |
| − | born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so
| |
| − | it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if
| |
| − | such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher
| |
| − | development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This urge for the maintenance of the unmixed breed, which is a
| |
| − | phenomenon that prevails throughout the whole of the natural world,
| |
| − | results not only in the sharply defined outward distinction between one
| |
| − | species and another but also in the internal similarity of
| |
| − | characteristic qualities which are peculiar to each breed or species.
| |
| − | The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger
| |
| − | will retain the character of a tiger. The only difference that can exist
| |
| − | within the species must be in the various degrees of structural strength
| |
| − | and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with
| |
| − | which the individual specimens are endowed. It would be impossible to
| |
| − | find a fox which has a kindly and protective disposition towards geese,
| |
| − | just as no cat exists which has a friendly disposition towards mice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why the struggle between the various species does not arise from
| |
| − | a feeling of mutual antipathy but rather from hunger and love. In both
| |
| − | cases Nature looks on calmly and is even pleased with what happens. The
| |
| − | struggle for the daily livelihood leaves behind in the ruck everything
| |
| − | that is weak or diseased or wavering; while the fight of the male to
| |
| − | possess the female gives to the strongest the right, or at least, the
| |
| − | possibility to propagate its kind. And this struggle is a means of
| |
| − | furthering the health and powers of resistance in the species. Thus it
| |
| − | is one of the causes underlying the process of development towards a
| |
| − | higher quality of being.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the case were different the progressive process would cease, and even
| |
| − | retrogression might set in. Since the inferior always outnumber the
| |
| − | superior, the former would always increase more rapidly if they
| |
| − | possessed the same capacities for survival and for the procreation of
| |
| − | their kind; and the final consequence would be that the best in quality
| |
| − | would be forced to recede into the background. Therefore a corrective
| |
| − | measure in favour of the better quality must intervene. Nature supplies
| |
| − | this by establishing rigorous conditions of life to which the weaker
| |
| − | will have to submit and will thereby be numerically restricted; but even
| |
| − | that portion which survives cannot indiscriminately multiply, for here a
| |
| − | new and rigorous selection takes place, according to strength and
| |
| − | health.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the
| |
| − | stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle
| |
| − | with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout
| |
| − | hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher
| |
| − | stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.
| |
| − | | |
| − | History furnishes us with innumerable instances that prove this law. It
| |
| − | shows, with a startling clarity, that whenever Aryans have mingled their
| |
| − | blood with that of an inferior race the result has been the downfall of
| |
| − | the people who were the standard-bearers of a higher culture. In North
| |
| − | America, where the population is prevalently Teutonic, and where those
| |
| − | elements intermingled with the inferior race only to a very small
| |
| − | degree, we have a quality of mankind and a civilization which are
| |
| − | different from those of Central and South America. In these latter
| |
| − | countries the immigrants--who mainly belonged to the Latin races--mated
| |
| − | with the aborigines, sometimes to a very large extent indeed. In this
| |
| − | case we have a clear and decisive example of the effect produced by the
| |
| − | mixture of races. But in North America the Teutonic element, which has
| |
| − | kept its racial stock pure and did not mix it with any other racial
| |
| − | stock, has come to dominate the American Continent and will remain
| |
| − | master of it as long as that element does not fall a victim to the habit
| |
| − | of adulterating its blood.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered;
| |
| − | | |
| − | (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but
| |
| − | steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will
| |
| − | of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Man's effort to build up something that contradicts the iron logic of
| |
| − | Nature brings him into conflict with those principles to which he
| |
| − | himself exclusively owes his own existence. By acting against the laws
| |
| − | of Nature he prepares the way that leads to his ruin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here we meet the insolent objection, which is Jewish in its inspiration
| |
| − | and is typical of the modern pacifist. It says: "Man can control even
| |
| − | Nature."
| |
| − | | |
| − | There are millions who repeat by rote that piece of Jewish babble and
| |
| − | end up by imagining that somehow they themselves are the conquerors of
| |
| − | Nature. And yet their only weapon is just a mere idea, and a very
| |
| − | preposterous idea into the bargain; because if one accepted it, then it
| |
| − | would be impossible even to imagine the existence of the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The real truth is that, not only has man failed to overcome Nature in
| |
| − | any sphere whatsoever but that at best he has merely succeeded in
| |
| − | getting hold of and lifting a tiny corner of the enormous veil which she
| |
| − | has spread over her eternal mysteries and secret. He never creates
| |
| − | anything. All he can do is to discover something. He does not master
| |
| − | Nature but has only come to be the master of those living beings who
| |
| − | have not gained the knowledge he has arrived at by penetrating into some
| |
| − | of Nature's laws and mysteries. Apart from all this, an idea can never
| |
| − | subject to its own sway those conditions which are necessary for the
| |
| − | existence and development of mankind; for the idea itself has come only
| |
| − | from man. Without man there would be no human idea in this world. The
| |
| − | idea as such is therefore always dependent on the existence of man and
| |
| − | consequently is dependent on those laws which furnish the conditions of
| |
| − | his existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And not only that. Certain ideas are even confined to certain people.
| |
| − | This holds true with regard to those ideas in particular which have not
| |
| − | their roots in objective scientific truth but in the world of feeling.
| |
| − | In other words, to use a phrase which is current to-day and which well
| |
| − | and clearly expresses this truth: THEY REFLECT AN INNER EXPERIENCE. All
| |
| − | such ideas, which have nothing to do with cold logic as such but
| |
| − | represent mere manifestations of feeling, such as ethical and moral
| |
| − | conceptions, etc., are inextricably bound up with man's existence. It is
| |
| − | to the creative powers of man's imagination that such ideas owe their
| |
| − | existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now, then, a necessary condition for the maintenance of such ideas is
| |
| − | the existence of certain races and certain types of men. For example,
| |
| − | anyone who sincerely wishes that the pacifist idea should prevail in
| |
| − | this world ought to do all he is capable of doing to help the Germans
| |
| − | conquer the world; for in case the reverse should happen it may easily
| |
| − | be that the last pacifist would disappear with the last German. I say
| |
| − | this because, unfortunately, only our people, and no other people in the
| |
| − | world, fell a prey to this idea. Whether you like it or not, you would
| |
| − | have to make up your mind to forget wars if you would achieve the
| |
| − | pacifist ideal. Nothing less than this was the plan of the American
| |
| − | world-redeemer, Woodrow Wilson. Anyhow that was what our visionaries
| |
| − | believed, and they thought that through his plans their ideals would be
| |
| − | attained.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The pacifist-humanitarian idea may indeed become an excellent one when
| |
| − | the most superior type of manhood will have succeeded in subjugating the
| |
| − | world to such an extent that this type is then sole master of the earth.
| |
| − | This idea could have an injurious effect only in the measure according
| |
| − | to which its application would become difficult and finally impossible.
| |
| − | So, first of all, the fight and then pacifism. If the case were
| |
| − | different it would mean that mankind has already passed the zenith of
| |
| − | its development, and accordingly the end would not be the supremacy of
| |
| − | some moral ideal but degeneration into barbarism and consequent chaos.
| |
| − | People may laugh at this statement; but our planet has been moving
| |
| − | through the spaces of ether for millions and millions of years,
| |
| − | uninhabited by men, and at some future date may easily begin to do so
| |
| − | again--if men should forget that wherever they have reached a superior
| |
| − | level of existence, it was not the result of following the ideas of
| |
| − | crazy visionaries but by acknowledging and rigorously observing the iron
| |
| − | laws of Nature.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All that we admire in the world to-day, its science, its art, its
| |
| − | technical developments and discoveries, are the products of the creative
| |
| − | activities of a few peoples, and it may be true that their first
| |
| − | beginnings must be attributed to one race. The maintenance of
| |
| − | civilization is wholly dependent on such peoples. Should they perish,
| |
| − | all that makes this earth beautiful will descend with them into the
| |
| − | grave.
| |
| − | | |
| − | However great, for example, be the influence which the soil exerts on
| |
| − | men, this influence will always vary according to the race in which it
| |
| − | produces its effect. Dearth of soil may stimulate one race to the most
| |
| − | strenuous efforts and highest achievement; while, for another race, the
| |
| − | poverty of the soil may be the cause of misery and finally of
| |
| − | undernourishment, with all its consequences. The internal
| |
| − | characteristics of a people are always the causes which determine the
| |
| − | nature of the effect that outer circumstances have on them. What reduces
| |
| − | one race to starvation trains another race to harder work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All the great civilizations of the past became decadent because the
| |
| − | originally creative race died out, as a result of contamination of the
| |
| − | blood.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most profound cause of such a decline is to be found in the fact
| |
| − | that the people ignored the principle that all culture depends on men,
| |
| − | and not the reverse. In other words, in order to preserve a certain
| |
| − | culture, the type of manhood that creates such a culture must be
| |
| − | preserved. But such a preservation goes hand-in-hand with the inexorable
| |
| − | law that it is the strongest and the best who must triumph and that they
| |
| − | have the right to endure.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He who would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this
| |
| − | world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to
| |
| − | exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a saying may sound hard; but, after all, that is how the matter
| |
| − | really stands. Yet far harder is the lot of him who believes that he can
| |
| − | overcome Nature and thus in reality insults her. Distress, misery, and
| |
| − | disease are her rejoinders.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whoever ignores or despises the laws of race really deprives himself of
| |
| − | the happiness to which he believes he can attain. For he places an
| |
| − | obstacle in the victorious path of the superior race and, by so doing,
| |
| − | he interferes with a prerequisite condition of all human progress.
| |
| − | Loaded with the burden of humanitarian sentiment, he falls back to the
| |
| − | level of those who are unable to raise themselves in the scale of being.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would be futile to attempt to discuss the question as to what race or
| |
| − | races were the original standard-bearers of human culture and were
| |
| − | thereby the real founders of all that we understand by the word
| |
| − | humanity. It is much simpler to deal with this question in so far as it
| |
| − | relates to the present time. Here the answer is simple and clear. Every
| |
| − | manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and
| |
| − | technical skill, which we see before our eyes to-day, is almost
| |
| − | exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power. This very fact
| |
| − | fully justifies the conclusion that it was the Aryan alone who founded a
| |
| − | superior type of humanity; therefore he represents the architype of what
| |
| − | we understand by the term: MAN. He is the Prometheus of mankind, from
| |
| − | whose shining brow the divine spark of genius has at all times flashed
| |
| − | forth, always kindling anew that fire which, in the form of knowledge,
| |
| − | illuminated the dark night by drawing aside the veil of mystery and thus
| |
| − | showing man how to rise and become master over all the other beings on
| |
| − | the earth. Should he be forced to disappear, a profound darkness will
| |
| − | descend on the earth; within a few thousand years human culture will
| |
| − | vanish and the world will become a desert.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we divide mankind into three categories--founders of culture, bearers
| |
| − | of culture, and destroyers of culture--the Aryan alone can be considered
| |
| − | as representing the first category. It was he who laid the groundwork
| |
| − | and erected the walls of every great structure in human culture. Only
| |
| − | the shape and colour of such structures are to be attributed to the
| |
| − | individual characteristics of the various nations. It is the Aryan who
| |
| − | has furnished the great building-stones and plans for the edifices of
| |
| − | all human progress; only the way in which these plans have been executed
| |
| − | is to be attributed to the qualities of each individual race. Within a
| |
| − | few decades the whole of Eastern Asia, for instance, appropriated a
| |
| − | culture and called such a culture its own, whereas the basis of that
| |
| − | culture was the Greek mind and Teutonic skill as we know it. Only the
| |
| − | external form--at least to a certain degree--shows the traits of an
| |
| − | Asiatic inspiration. It is not true, as some believe, that Japan adds
| |
| − | European technique to a culture of her own. The truth rather is that
| |
| − | European science and technics are just decked out with the peculiar
| |
| − | characteristics of Japanese civilization. The foundations of actual life
| |
| − | in Japan to-day are not those of the native Japanese culture, although
| |
| − | this characterizes the external features of the country, which features
| |
| − | strike the eye of European observers on account of their fundamental
| |
| − | difference from us; but the real foundations of contemporary Japanese
| |
| − | life are the enormous scientific and technical achievements of Europe
| |
| − | and America, that is to say, of Aryan peoples. Only by adopting these
| |
| − | achievements as the foundations of their own progress can the various
| |
| − | nations of the Orient take a place in contemporary world progress. The
| |
| − | scientific and technical achievements of Europe and America provide the
| |
| − | basis on which the struggle for daily livelihood is carried on in the
| |
| − | Orient. They provide the necessary arms and instruments for this
| |
| − | struggle, and only the outer forms of these instruments have become
| |
| − | gradually adapted to Japanese ways of life.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If, from to-day onwards, the Aryan influence on Japan would cease--and
| |
| − | if we suppose that Europe and America would collapse--then the present
| |
| − | progress of Japan in science and technique might still last for a short
| |
| − | duration; but within a few decades the inspiration would dry up, and
| |
| − | native Japanese character would triumph, while the present civilization
| |
| − | would become fossilized and fall back into the sleep from which it was
| |
| − | aroused about seventy years ago by the impact of Aryan culture. We may
| |
| − | therefore draw the conclusion that, just as the present Japanese
| |
| − | development has been due to Aryan influence, so in the immemorial past
| |
| − | an outside influence and an outside culture brought into existence the
| |
| − | Japanese culture of that day. This opinion is very strongly supported by
| |
| − | the fact that the ancient civilization of Japan actually became
| |
| − | fossilizied and petrified. Such a process of senility can happen only if
| |
| − | a people loses the racial cell which originally had been creative or if
| |
| − | the outside influence should be withdrawn after having awakened and
| |
| − | maintained the first cultural developments in that region. If it be
| |
| − | shown that a people owes the fundamental elements of its culture to
| |
| − | foreign races, assimilating and elaborating such elements, and if
| |
| − | subsequently that culture becomes fossilized whenever the external
| |
| − | influence ceases, then such a race may be called the depository but
| |
| − | never the creator of a culture.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we subject the different peoples to a strict test from this
| |
| − | standpoint we shall find that scarcely any one of them has originally
| |
| − | created a culture, but almost all have been merely the recipients of a
| |
| − | culture created elsewhere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This development may be depicted as always happening somewhat in the
| |
| − | following way:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Aryan tribes, often almost ridiculously small in number, subjugated
| |
| − | foreign peoples and, stimulated by the conditions of life which their
| |
| − | new country offered them (fertility, the nature of the climate, etc.),
| |
| − | and profiting also by the abundance of manual labour furnished them by
| |
| − | the inferior race, they developed intellectual and organizing faculties
| |
| − | which had hitherto been dormant in these conquering tribes. Within the
| |
| − | course of a few thousand years, or even centuries, they gave life to
| |
| − | cultures whose primitive traits completely corresponded to the character
| |
| − | of the founders, though modified by adaptation to the peculiarities of
| |
| − | the soil and the characteristics of the subjugated people. But finally
| |
| − | the conquering race offended against the principles which they first had
| |
| − | observed, namely, the maintenance of their racial stock unmixed, and
| |
| − | they began to intermingle with the subjugated people. Thus they put an
| |
| − | end to their own separate existence; for the original sin committed in
| |
| − | Paradise has always been followed by the expulsion of the guilty
| |
| − | parties.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After a thousand years or more the last visible traces of those former
| |
| − | masters may then be found in a lighter tint of the skin which the Aryan
| |
| − | blood had bequeathed to the subjugated race, and in a fossilized culture
| |
| − | of which those Aryans had been the original creators. For just as the
| |
| − | blood. of the conqueror, who was a conqueror not only in body but also
| |
| − | in spirit, got submerged in the blood of the subject race, so the
| |
| − | substance disappeared out of which the torch of human culture and
| |
| − | progress was kindled. In so far as the blood of the former ruling race
| |
| − | has left a light nuance of colour in the blood of its descendants, as a
| |
| − | token and a memory, the night of cultural life is rendered less dim and
| |
| − | dark by a mild light radiated from the products of those who were the
| |
| − | bearers of the original fire. Their radiance shines across the barbarism
| |
| − | to which the subjected race has reverted and might often lead the
| |
| − | superficial observer to believe that he sees before him an image of the
| |
| − | present race when he is really looking into a mirror wherein only the
| |
| − | past is reflected.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may happen that in the course of its history such a people will come
| |
| − | into contact a second time, and even oftener, with the original founders
| |
| − | of their culture and may not even remember that distant association.
| |
| − | Instinctively the remnants of blood left from that old ruling race will
| |
| − | be drawn towards this new phenomenon and what had formerly been possible
| |
| − | only under compulsion can now be successfully achieved in a voluntary
| |
| − | way. A new cultural wave flows in and lasts until the blood of its
| |
| − | standard-bearers becomes once again adulterated by intermixture with the
| |
| − | originally conquered race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It will be the task of those who set themselves to the study of a
| |
| − | universal history of civilization to investigate history from this point
| |
| − | of view instead of allowing themselves to be smothered under the mass of
| |
| − | external data, as is only too often the case with our present historical
| |
| − | science.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This short sketch of the changes that take place among those races that
| |
| − | are only the depositories of a culture also furnishes a picture of the
| |
| − | development and the activity and the disappearance of those who are the
| |
| − | true founders of culture on this earth, namely the Aryans themselves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as in our daily life the so-called man of genius needs a particular
| |
| − | occasion, and sometimes indeed a special stimulus, to bring his genius
| |
| − | to light, so too in the life of the peoples the race that has genius in
| |
| − | it needs the occasion and stimulus to bring that genius to expression.
| |
| − | In the monotony and routine of everyday life even persons of
| |
| − | significance seem just like the others and do not rise beyond the
| |
| − | average level of their fellow-men. But as soon as such men find
| |
| − | themselves in a special situation which disconcerts and unbalances the
| |
| − | others, the humble person of apparently common qualities reveals traits
| |
| − | of genius, often to the amazement of those who have hitherto known him
| |
| − | in the small things of everyday life. That is the reason why a prophet
| |
| − | only seldom counts for something in his own country. War offers an
| |
| − | excellent occasion for observing this phenomenon. In times of distress,
| |
| − | when the others despair, apparently harmless boys suddenly spring up and
| |
| − | become heroes, full of determination, undaunted in the presence of Death
| |
| − | and manifesting wonderful powers of calm reflection under such
| |
| − | circumstances. If such an hour of trial did not come nobody would have
| |
| − | thought that the soul of a hero lurked in the body of that beardless
| |
| − | youth. A special impulse is almost always necessary to bring a man of
| |
| − | genius into the foreground. The sledge-hammer of Fate which strikes down
| |
| − | the one so easily suddenly finds the counter-impact of steel when it
| |
| − | strikes at the other. And, after the common shell of everyday life is
| |
| − | broken, the core that lay hidden in it is displayed to the eyes of an
| |
| − | astonished world. This surrounding world then grows obstinate and will
| |
| − | not believe that what had seemed so like itself is really of that
| |
| − | different quality so suddenly displayed. This is a process which is
| |
| − | repeated probably every time a man of outstanding significance appears.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though an inventor, for example, does not establish his fame until the
| |
| − | very day that he carries through his invention, it would be a mistake to
| |
| − | believe that the creative genius did not become alive in him until that
| |
| − | moment. From the very hour of his birth the spark of genius is living
| |
| − | within the man who has been endowed with the real creative faculty. True
| |
| − | genius is an innate quality. It can never be the result of education or
| |
| − | training.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have stated already, this holds good not merely of the individual
| |
| − | but also of the race. Those peoples who manifest creative abilities in
| |
| − | certain periods of their history have always been fundamentally
| |
| − | creative. It belongs to their very nature, even though this fact may
| |
| − | escape the eyes of the superficial observer. Here also recognition from
| |
| − | outside is only the consequence of practical achievement. Since the rest
| |
| − | of the world is incapable of recognizing genius as such, it can only see
| |
| − | the visible manifestations of genius in the form of inventions,
| |
| − | discoveries, buildings, painting, etc.; but even here a long time passes
| |
| − | before recognition is given. Just as the individual person who has been
| |
| − | endowed with the gift of genius, or at least talent of a very high
| |
| − | order, cannot bring that endowment to realization until he comes under
| |
| − | the urge of special circumstances, so in the life of the nations the
| |
| − | creative capacities and powers frequently have to wait until certain
| |
| − | conditions stimulate them to action.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most obvious example of this truth is furnished by that race which
| |
| − | has been, and still is, the standard-bearer of human progress: I mean
| |
| − | the Aryan race. As soon as Fate brings them face to face with special
| |
| − | circumstances their powers begin to develop progressively and to be
| |
| − | manifested in tangible form. The characteristic cultures which they
| |
| − | create under such circumstances are almost always conditioned by the
| |
| − | soil, the climate and the people they subjugate. The last factor--that
| |
| − | of the character of the people--is the most decisive one. The more
| |
| − | primitive the technical conditions under which the civilizing activity
| |
| − | takes place, the more necessary is the existence of manual labour which
| |
| − | can be organized and employed so as to take the place of mechanical
| |
| − | power. Had it not been possible for them to employ members of the
| |
| − | inferior race which they conquered, the Aryans would never have been in
| |
| − | a position to take the first steps on the road which led them to a later
| |
| − | type of culture; just as, without the help of certain suitable animals
| |
| − | which they were able to tame, they would never have come to the
| |
| − | invention of mechanical power which has subsequently enabled them to do
| |
| − | without these beasts. The phrase, 'The Moor has accomplished his
| |
| − | function, so let him now depart', has, unfortunately, a profound
| |
| − | application. For thousands of years the horse has been the faithful
| |
| − | servant of man and has helped him to lay the foundations of human
| |
| − | progress, but now motor power has dispensed with the use of the horse.
| |
| − | In a few years to come the use of the horse will cease entirely; and yet
| |
| − | without its collaboration man could scarcely have come to the stage of
| |
| − | development which he has now created.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the establishment of superior types of civilization the members of
| |
| − | inferior races formed one of the most essential pre-requisites. They
| |
| − | alone could supply the lack of mechanical means without which no
| |
| − | progress is possible. It is certain that the first stages of human
| |
| − | civilization were not based so much on the use of tame animals as on the
| |
| − | employment of human beings who were members of an inferior race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only after subjugated races were employed as slaves was a similar fate
| |
| − | allotted to animals, and not vice versa, as some people would have us
| |
| − | believe. At first it was the conquered enemy who had to draw the plough
| |
| − | and only afterwards did the ox and horse take his place. Nobody else but
| |
| − | puling pacifists can consider this fact as a sign of human degradation.
| |
| − | Such people fail to recognize that this evolution had to take place in
| |
| − | order that man might reach that degree of civilization which these
| |
| − | apostles now exploit in an attempt to make the world pay attention to
| |
| − | their rigmarole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The progress of mankind may be compared to the process of ascending an
| |
| − | infinite ladder. One does not reach the higher level without first
| |
| − | having climbed the lower rungs. The Aryan therefore had to take that
| |
| − | road which his sense of reality pointed out to him and not that which
| |
| − | the modern pacifist dreams of. The path of reality is, however,
| |
| − | difficult and hard to tread; yet it is the only one which finally leads
| |
| − | to the goal where the others envisage mankind in their dreams. But the
| |
| − | real truth is that those dreamers help only to lead man away from his
| |
| − | goal rather than towards it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was not by mere chance that the first forms of civilization arose
| |
| − | there where the Aryan came into contact with inferior races, subjugated
| |
| − | them and forced them to obey his command. The members of the inferior
| |
| − | race became the first mechanical tools in the service of a growing
| |
| − | civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thereby the way was clearly indicated which the Aryan had to follow. As
| |
| − | a conqueror, he subjugated inferior races and turned their physical
| |
| − | powers into organized channels under his own leadership, forcing them to
| |
| − | follow his will and purpose. By imposing on them a useful, though hard,
| |
| − | manner of employing their powers he not only spared the lives of those
| |
| − | whom he had conquered but probably made their lives easier than these
| |
| − | had been in the former state of so-called 'freedom'. While he ruthlessly
| |
| − | maintained his position as their master, he not only remained master but
| |
| − | he also maintained and advanced civilization. For this depended
| |
| − | exclusively on his inborn abilities and, therefore, on the preservation
| |
| − | of the Aryan race as such. As soon, however, as his subject began to
| |
| − | rise and approach the level of their conqueror, a phase of which
| |
| − | ascension was probably the use of his language, the barriers that had
| |
| − | distinguished master from servant broke down. The Aryan neglected to
| |
| − | maintain his own racial stock unmixed and therewith lost the right to
| |
| − | live in the paradise which he himself had created. He became submerged
| |
| − | in the racial mixture and gradually lost his cultural creativeness,
| |
| − | until he finally grew, not only mentally but also physically, more like
| |
| − | the aborigines whom he had subjected rather than his own ancestors. For
| |
| − | some time he could continue to live on the capital of that culture which
| |
| − | still remained; but a condition of fossilization soon set in and he sank
| |
| − | into oblivion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is how cultures and empires decline and yield their places to new
| |
| − | formations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The adulteration of the blood and racial deterioration conditioned
| |
| − | thereby are the only causes that account for the decline of ancient
| |
| − | civilizations; for it is never by war that nations are ruined, but by
| |
| − | the loss of their powers of resistance, which are exclusively a
| |
| − | characteristic of pure racial blood. In this world everything that is
| |
| − | not of sound racial stock is like chaff. Every historical event in the
| |
| − | world is nothing more nor less than a manifestation of the instinct of
| |
| − | racial self-preservation, whether for weal or woe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question as to the ground reasons for the predominant importance of
| |
| − | Aryanism can be answered by pointing out that it is not so much that the
| |
| − | Aryans are endowed with a stronger instinct for self-preservation, but
| |
| − | rather that this manifests itself in a way which is peculiar to
| |
| − | themselves. Considered from the subjective standpoint, the will-to-live
| |
| − | is of course equally strong all round and only the forms in which it is
| |
| − | expressed are different. Among the most primitive organisms the instinct
| |
| − | for self-preservation does not extend beyond the care of the individual
| |
| − | ego. Egotism, as we call this passion, is so predominant that it
| |
| − | includes even the time element; which means that the present moment is
| |
| − | deemed the most important and that nothing is left to the future. The
| |
| − | animal lives only for itself, searching for food only when it feels
| |
| − | hunger and fighting only for the preservation of its own life. As long
| |
| − | as the instinct for self-preservation manifests itself exclusively in
| |
| − | such a way, there is no basis for the establishment of a community; not
| |
| − | even the most primitive form of all, that is to say the family. The
| |
| − | society formed by the male with the female, where it goes beyond the
| |
| − | mere conditions of mating, calls for the extension of the instinct of
| |
| − | self-preservation, since the readiness to fight for one's own ego has to
| |
| − | be extended also to the mate. The male sometimes provides food for the
| |
| − | female, but in most cases both parents provide food for the offspring.
| |
| − | Almost always they are ready to protect and defend each other; so that
| |
| − | here we find the first, though infinitely simple, manifestation of the
| |
| − | spirit of sacrifice. As soon as this spirit extends beyond the narrow
| |
| − | limits of the family, we have the conditions under which larger
| |
| − | associations and finally even States can be formed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The lowest species of human beings give evidence of this quality only to
| |
| − | a very small degree, so that often they do not go beyond the formation
| |
| − | of the family society. With an increasing readiness to place their
| |
| − | immediate personal interests in the background, the capacity for
| |
| − | organizing more extensive communities develops.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The readiness to sacrifice one's personal work and, if necessary, even
| |
| − | one's life for others shows its most highly developed form in the Aryan
| |
| − | race. The greatness of the Aryan is not based on his intellectual
| |
| − | powers, but rather on his willingness to devote all his faculties to the
| |
| − | service of the community. Here the instinct for self-preservation has
| |
| − | reached its noblest form; for the Aryan willingly subordinates his own
| |
| − | ego to the common weal and when necessity calls he will even sacrifice
| |
| − | his own life for the community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The constructive powers of the Aryan and that peculiar ability he has
| |
| − | for the building up of a culture are not grounded in his intellectual
| |
| − | gifts alone. If that were so they might only be destructive and could
| |
| − | never have the ability to organize; for the latter essentially depends
| |
| − | on the readiness of the individual to renounce his own personal opinions
| |
| − | and interests and to lay both at the service of the human group. By
| |
| − | serving the common weal he receives his reward in return. For example,
| |
| − | he does not work directly for himself but makes his productive work a
| |
| − | part of the activity of the group to which he belongs, not only for his
| |
| − | own benefit but for the general. The spirit underlying this attitude is
| |
| − | expressed by the word: WORK, which to him does not at all signify a
| |
| − | means of earning one's daily livelihood but rather a productive activity
| |
| − | which cannot clash with the interests of the community. Whenever human
| |
| − | activity is directed exclusively to the service of the instinct for
| |
| − | self-preservation it is called theft or usury, robbery or burglary, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This mental attitude, which forces self-interest to recede into the
| |
| − | background in favour of the common weal, is the first prerequisite for
| |
| − | any kind of really human civilization. It is out of this spirit alone
| |
| − | that great human achievements have sprung for which the original doers
| |
| − | have scarcely ever received any recompense but which turns out to be the
| |
| − | source of abundant benefit for their descendants. It is this spirit
| |
| − | alone which can explain why it so often happens that people can endure a
| |
| − | harsh but honest existence which offers them no returns for their toil
| |
| − | except a poor and modest livelihood. But such a livelihood helps to
| |
| − | consolidate the foundations on which the community exists. Every worker
| |
| − | and every peasant, every inventor, state official, etc., who works
| |
| − | without ever achieving fortune or prosperity for himself, is a
| |
| − | representative of this sublime idea, even though he may never become
| |
| − | conscious of the profound meaning of his own activity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Everything that may be said of that kind of work which is the
| |
| − | fundamental condition of providing food and the basic means of human
| |
| − | progress is true even in a higher sense of work that is done for the
| |
| − | protection of man and his civilization. The renunciation of one's own
| |
| − | life for the sake of the community is the crowning significance of the
| |
| − | idea of all sacrifice. In this way only is it possible to protect what
| |
| − | has been built up by man and to assure that this will not be destroyed
| |
| − | by the hand of man or of nature.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the German language we have a word which admirably expresses this
| |
| − | underlying spirit of all work: It is Pflichterfüllung, which means the
| |
| − | service of the common weal before the consideration of one's own
| |
| − | interests. The fundamental spirit out of which this kind of activity
| |
| − | springs is the contradistinction of 'Egotism' and we call it 'Idealism'.
| |
| − | By this we mean to signify the willingness of the individual to make
| |
| − | sacrifices for the community and his fellow-men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is of the utmost importance to insist again and again that idealism
| |
| − | is not merely a superfluous manifestation of sentiment but rather
| |
| − | something which has been, is and always will be, a necessary
| |
| − | precondition of human civilization; it is even out of this that the very
| |
| − | idea of the word 'Human' arises. To this kind of mentality the Aryan
| |
| − | owes his position in the world. And the world is indebted to the Aryan
| |
| − | mind for having developed the concept of 'mankind'; for it is out of
| |
| − | this spirit alone that the creative force has come which in a unique way
| |
| − | combined robust muscular power with a first-class intellect and thus
| |
| − | created the monuments of human civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Were it not for idealism all the faculties of the intellect, even the
| |
| − | most brilliant, would be nothing but intellect itself, a mere external
| |
| − | phenomenon without inner value and never a creative force.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since true idealism, however, is essentially the subordination of the
| |
| − | interests and life of the individual to the interests and life of the
| |
| − | community, and since the community on its part represents the
| |
| − | pre-requisite condition of every form of organization, this idealism
| |
| − | accords in its innermost essence with the final purpose of Nature. This
| |
| − | feeling alone makes men voluntarily acknowledge that strength and power
| |
| − | are entitled to take the lead and thus makes them a constituent particle
| |
| − | in that order out of which the whole universe is shaped and formed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Without being conscious of it, the purest idealism is always associated
| |
| − | with the most profound knowledge. How true this is and how little
| |
| − | genuine idealism has to do with fantastic self-dramatization will become
| |
| − | clear the moment we ask an unspoilt child, a healthy boy for example, to
| |
| − | give his opinion. The very same boy who listens to the rantings of an
| |
| − | 'idealistic' pacifist without understanding them, and even rejects them,
| |
| − | would readily sacrifice his young life for the ideal of his people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Unconsciously his instinct will submit to the knowledge that the
| |
| − | preservation of the species, even at the cost of the individual life, is
| |
| − | a primal necessity and he will protest against the fantasies of pacifist
| |
| − | ranters, who in reality are nothing better than cowardly egoists, even
| |
| − | though camouflaged, who contradict the laws of human development. For it
| |
| − | is a necessity of human evolution that the individual should be imbued
| |
| − | with the spirit of sacrifice in favour of the common weal, and that he
| |
| − | should not be influenced by the morbid notions of those knaves who
| |
| − | pretend to know better than Nature and who have the impudencc to
| |
| − | criticize her decrees.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is just at those junctures when the idealistic attitude threatens to
| |
| − | disappear that we notice a weakening of this force which is a necessary
| |
| − | constituent in the founding and maintenance of the community and is
| |
| − | thereby a necessary condition of civilization. As soon as the spirit of
| |
| − | egotism begins to prevail among a people then the bonds of the social
| |
| − | order break and man, by seeking his own personal happiness, veritably
| |
| − | tumbles out of heaven and falls into hell.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Posterity will not remember those who pursued only their own individual
| |
| − | interests, but it will praise those heroes who renounced their own
| |
| − | happiness.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jew offers the most striking contrast to the Aryan. There is
| |
| − | probably no other people in the world who have so developed the instinct
| |
| − | of self-preservation as the so-called 'chosen' people. The best proof of
| |
| − | this statement is found in the simple fact that this race still exists.
| |
| − | Where can another people be found that in the course of the last two
| |
| − | thousand years has undergone so few changes in mental outlook and
| |
| − | character as the Jewish people? And yet what other people has taken such
| |
| − | a constant part in the great revolutions? But even after having passed
| |
| − | through the most gigantic catastrophes that have overwhelmed mankind,
| |
| − | the Jews remain the same as ever. What an infinitely tenacious
| |
| − | will-to-live, to preserve one's kind, is demonstrated by that fact!
| |
| − | | |
| − | The intellectual faculties of the Jew have been trained through
| |
| − | thousands of years. To-day the Jew is looked upon as specially
| |
| − | 'cunning'; and in a certain sense he has been so throughout the ages.
| |
| − | His intellectual powers, however, are not the result of an inner
| |
| − | evolution but rather have been shaped by the object-lessons which the
| |
| − | Jew has received from others. The human spirit cannot climb upwards
| |
| − | without taking successive steps. For every step upwards it needs the
| |
| − | foundation of what has been constructed before--the past--which in, the
| |
| − | comprehensive sense here employed, can have been laid only in a general
| |
| − | civilization. All thinking originates only to a very small degree in
| |
| − | personal experience. The largest part is based on the accumulated
| |
| − | experiences of the past. The general level of civilization provides the
| |
| − | individual, who in most cases is not consciously aware of the fact, with
| |
| − | such an abundance of preliminary knowledge that with this equipment he
| |
| − | can more easily take further steps on the road of progress. The boy of
| |
| − | to-day, for example, grows up among such an overwhelming mass of
| |
| − | technical achievement which has accumulated during the last century that
| |
| − | he takes as granted many things which a hundred years ago were still
| |
| − | mysteries even to the greatest minds of those times. Yet these things
| |
| − | that are not so much a matter of course are of enormous importance to
| |
| − | those who would understand the progress we have made in these matters
| |
| − | and would carry on that progress a step farther. If a man of genius
| |
| − | belonging to the 'twenties of the last century were to arise from his
| |
| − | grave to-day he would find it more difficult to understand our present
| |
| − | age than the contemporary boy of fifteen years of age who may even have
| |
| − | only an average intelligence. The man of genius, thus come back from the
| |
| − | past, would need to provide himself with an extraordinary amount of
| |
| − | preliminary information which our contemporary youth receive
| |
| − | automatically, so to speak, during the time they are growing up among
| |
| − | the products of our modern civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since the Jew--for reasons that I shall deal with immediately--never had
| |
| − | a civilization of his own, he has always been furnished by others with a
| |
| − | basis for his: intellectual work. His intellect has always developed by
| |
| − | the use of those cultural achievements which he has found ready-to-hand
| |
| − | around him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The process has never been the reverse.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For, though among the Jews the instinct of self-preservation has not
| |
| − | been weaker but has been much stronger than among other peoples, and
| |
| − | though the impression may easily be created that the intellectual powers
| |
| − | of the Jew are at least equal to those of other races, the Jews
| |
| − | completely lack the most essential pre-requisite of a cultural people,
| |
| − | namely the idealistic spirit. With the Jewish people the readiness for
| |
| − | sacrifice does not extend beyond the simple instinct of individual
| |
| − | preservation. In their case the feeling of racial solidarity which they
| |
| − | apparently manifest is nothing but a very primitive gregarious instinct,
| |
| − | similar to that which may be found among other organisms in this world.
| |
| − | It is a remarkable fact that this herd instinct brings individuals
| |
| − | together for mutual protection only as long as there is a common danger
| |
| − | which makes mutual assistance expedient or inevitable. The same pack of
| |
| − | wolves which a moment ago joined together in a common attack on their
| |
| − | victim will dissolve into individual wolves as soon as their hunger has
| |
| − | been satisfied. This is also sure of horses, which unite to defend
| |
| − | themselves against any aggressor but separate the moment the danger is
| |
| − | over.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is much the same with the Jew. His spirit of sacrifice is only
| |
| − | apparent. It manifests itself only so long as the existence of the
| |
| − | individual makes this a matter of absolute necessity. But as soon as the
| |
| − | common foe is conquered and the danger which threatened the individual
| |
| − | Jews is overcome and the prey secured, then the apparent harmony
| |
| − | disappears and the original conditions set in again. Jews act in concord
| |
| − | only when a common danger threatens them or a common prey attracts them.
| |
| − | Where these two motives no longer exist then the most brutal egotism
| |
| − | appears and these people who before had lived together in unity will
| |
| − | turn into a swarm of rats that bitterly fight against each other.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the Jews were the only people in the world they would be wallowing in
| |
| − | filth and mire and would exploit one another and try to exterminate one
| |
| − | another in a bitter struggle, except in so far as their utter lack of
| |
| − | the ideal of sacrifice, which shows itself in their cowardly spirit,
| |
| − | would prevent this struggle from developing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore it would be a complete mistake to interpret the mutual help
| |
| − | which the Jews render one another when they have to fight--or, to put it
| |
| − | more accurately, to exploit--their fellow being, as the expression of a
| |
| − | certain idealistic spirit of sacrifice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here again the Jew merely follows the call of his individual egotism.
| |
| − | That is why the Jewish State, which ought to be a vital organization to
| |
| − | serve the purpose of preserving or increasing the race, has absolutely
| |
| − | no territorial boundaries. For the territorial delimitation of a State
| |
| − | always demands a certain idealism of spirit on the part of the race
| |
| − | which forms that State and especially a proper acceptance of the idea of
| |
| − | work. A State which is territorially delimited cannot be established or
| |
| − | maintained unless the general attitude towards work be a positive one.
| |
| − | If this attitude be lacking, then the necessary basis of a civilization
| |
| − | is also lacking.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why the Jewish people, despite the intellectual powers with
| |
| − | which they are apparently endowed, have not a culture--certainly not a
| |
| − | culture of their own. The culture which the Jew enjoys to-day is the
| |
| − | product of the work of others and this product is debased in the hands
| |
| − | of the Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order to form a correct judgment of the place which the Jew holds in
| |
| − | relation to the whole problem of human civilization, we must bear in
| |
| − | mind the essential fact that there never has been any Jewish art and
| |
| − | consequently that nothing of this kind exists to-day. We must realize
| |
| − | that especially in those two royal domains of art, namely architecture
| |
| − | and music, the Jew has done no original creative work. When the Jew
| |
| − | comes to producing something in the field of art he merely bowdler-izes
| |
| − | something already in existence or simply steals the intellectual word,
| |
| − | of others. The Jew essentially lacks those qualities which are
| |
| − | characteristic of those creative races that are the founders of
| |
| − | civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To what extent the Jew appropriates the civilization built up by
| |
| − | others--or rather corrupts it, to speak more accurately--is indicated by
| |
| − | the fact that he cultivates chiefly the art which calls for the smallest
| |
| − | amount of original invention, namely the dramatic art. And even here he
| |
| − | is nothing better than a kind of juggler or, perhaps more correctly
| |
| − | speaking, a kind of monkey imitator; for in this domain also he lacks
| |
| − | the creative elan which is necessary for the production of all really
| |
| − | great work. Even here, therefore, he is not a creative genius but rather
| |
| − | a superficial imitator who, in spite of all his retouching and tricks,
| |
| − | cannot disguise the fact that there is no inner vitality in the shape he
| |
| − | gives his products. At this juncture the Jewish Press comes in and
| |
| − | renders friendly assistance by shouting hosannas over the head of even
| |
| − | the most ordinary bungler of a Jew, until the rest of the world is
| |
| − | stampeded into thinking that the object of so much praise must really be
| |
| − | an artist, whereas in reality he may be nothing more than a low-class
| |
| − | mimic.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No; the Jews have not the creative abilities which are necessary to the
| |
| − | founding of a civilization; for in them there is not, and never has
| |
| − | been, that spirit of idealism which is an absolutely necessary element
| |
| − | in the higher development of mankind. Therefore the Jewish intellect
| |
| − | will never be constructive but always destructive. At best it may serve
| |
| − | as a stimulus in rare cases but only within the meaning of the poet's
| |
| − | lines: 'THE POWER WHICH ALWAYS WILLS THE BAD, AND ALWAYS WORKS THE GOOD'
| |
| − | (KRAFT, DIE STETS DAS BÖSE WILL UND STETS DAS GUTE SCHAFFT). (Note 15) It
| |
| − | is not through his help but in spite of his help that mankind makes any
| |
| − | progress.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 15. When Mephistopheles first appears to Faust, in the latter's
| |
| − | study, Faust inquires: "What is thy name?" To which Mephistopheles
| |
| − | replies: "A part ofthe Power which always wills the Bad and always works
| |
| − | the Good." And when Faust asks him what is meant by this riddle and why he
| |
| − | should call himself'a part,' the gist of Mephistopheles' reply is that he
| |
| − | is the Spirit of Negation and exists through opposition to the positive
| |
| − | Truth and Order and Beauty which proceed from the never-ending creative
| |
| − | energy of the Deity. In the Prologue to Faust the Lord declares that
| |
| − | man's active nature would grow sluggishin working the good and that
| |
| − | therefore he has to be aroused by the Spirit of Opposition. This Spirit
| |
| − | wills the Bad, but of itself it can do nothing positive, and by its
| |
| − | opposition always works the opposite of what it wills.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since the Jew has never had a State which was based on territorial
| |
| − | delimitations, and therefore never a civilization of his own, the idea
| |
| − | arose that here we were dealing with a people who had to be considered
| |
| − | as Nomads. That is a great and mischievous mistake. The true nomad does
| |
| − | actually possess a definite delimited territory where he lives. It is
| |
| − | merely that he does not cultivate it, as the settled farmer does, but
| |
| − | that he lives on the products of his herds, with which he wanders over
| |
| − | his domain. The natural reason for this mode of existence is to be found
| |
| − | in the fact that the soil is not fertile and that it does not give the
| |
| − | steady produce which makes a fixed abode possible. Outside of this
| |
| − | natural cause, however, there is a more profound cause: namely, that no
| |
| − | mechanical civilization is at hand to make up for the natural poverty of
| |
| − | the region in question. There are territories where the Aryan can
| |
| − | establish fixed settlements by means of the technical skill which he has
| |
| − | developed in the course of more than a thousand years, even though these
| |
| − | territories would otherwise have to be abandoned, unless the Aryan were
| |
| − | willing to wander about them in nomadic fashion; but his technical
| |
| − | tradition and his age-long experience of the use of technical means
| |
| − | would probably make the nomadic life unbearable for him. We ought to
| |
| − | remember that during the first period of American colonization numerous
| |
| − | Aryans earned their daily livelihood as trappers and hunters, etc.,
| |
| − | frequently wandering about in large groups with their women and
| |
| − | children, their mode of existence very much resembling that of ordinary
| |
| − | nomads. The moment, however, that they grew more numerous and were able
| |
| − | to accumulate larger resources, they cleared the land and drove out the
| |
| − | aborigines, at the same time establishing settlements which rapidly
| |
| − | increased all over the country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Aryan himself was probably at first a nomad and became a settler in
| |
| − | the course of ages. But yet he was never of the Jewish kind. The Jew is
| |
| − | not a nomad; for the nomad has already a definite attitude towards the
| |
| − | concept of 'work', and this attitude served as the basis of a later
| |
| − | cultural development, when the necessary intellectual conditions were at
| |
| − | hand. There is a certain amount of idealism in the general attitude of
| |
| − | the nomad, even though it be rather primitive. His whole character may,
| |
| − | therefore, be foreign to Aryan feeling but it will never be repulsive.
| |
| − | But not even the slightest trace of idealism exists in the Jewish
| |
| − | character. The Jew has never been a nomad, but always a parasite,
| |
| − | battening on the substance of others. If he occasionally abandoned
| |
| − | regions where he had hitherto lived he did not do it voluntarily. He did
| |
| − | it because from time to time he was driven out by people who were tired
| |
| − | of having their hospitality abused by such guests. Jewish self-expansion
| |
| − | is a parasitic phenomenon--since the Jew is always looking for new
| |
| − | pastures for his race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But this has nothing to do with nomadic life as such; because the Jew
| |
| − | does not ever think of leaving a territory which he has once occupied.
| |
| − | He sticks where he is with such tenacity that he can hardly be driven
| |
| − | out even by superior physical force. He expands into new territories
| |
| − | only when certain conditions for his existence are provided therein; but
| |
| − | even then--unlike the nomad--he will not change his former abode. He is
| |
| − | and remains a parasite, a sponger who, like a pernicious bacillus,
| |
| − | spreads over wider and wider areas according as some favourable area
| |
| − | attracts him. The effect produced by his presence is also like that of
| |
| − | the vampire; for wherever he establishes himself the people who grant
| |
| − | him hospitality are bound to be bled to death sooner or later. Thus the
| |
| − | Jew has at all times lived in States that have belonged to other races
| |
| − | and within the organization of those States he had formed a State of his
| |
| − | own, which is, however, hidden behind the mask of a 'religious
| |
| − | community', as long as external circumstances do not make it advisable
| |
| − | for this community to declare its true nature. As soon as the Jew feels
| |
| − | himself sufficiently established in his position to be able to hold it
| |
| − | without a disguise, he lifts the mask and suddenly appears in the
| |
| − | character which so many did not formerly believe or wish to see: namely
| |
| − | that of the Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The life which the Jew lives as a parasite thriving on the substance of
| |
| − | other nations and States has resulted in developing that specific
| |
| − | character which Schopenhauer once described when he spoke of the Jew as
| |
| − | 'The Great Master of Lies'. The kind of existence which he leads forces
| |
| − | the Jew to the systematic use of falsehood, just as naturally as the
| |
| − | inhabitants of northern climates are forced to wear warm clothes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He can live among other nations and States only as long as he succeeds
| |
| − | in persuading them that the Jews are not a distinct people but the
| |
| − | representatives of a religious faith who thus constitute a 'religious
| |
| − | community', though this be of a peculiar character.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a matter of fact, however, this is the first of his great falsehoods.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He is obliged to conceal his own particular character and mode of life
| |
| − | that he may be allowed to continue his existence as a parasite among the
| |
| − | nations. The greater the intelligence of the individual Jew, the better
| |
| − | will he succeed in deceiving others. His success in this line may even
| |
| − | go so far that the people who grant him hospitality may be led to
| |
| − | believe that the Jew among them is a genuine Frenchman, for instance, or
| |
| − | Englishman or German or Italian, who just happens to belong to a
| |
| − | religious denomination which is different from that prevailing in these
| |
| − | countries. Especially in circles concerned with the executive
| |
| − | administration of the State, where the officials generally have only a
| |
| − | minimum of historical sense, the Jew is able to impose his infamous
| |
| − | deception with comparative ease. In these circles independent thinking
| |
| − | is considered a sin against the sacred rules according to which official
| |
| − | promotion takes place. It is therefore not surprising that even to-day
| |
| − | in the Bavarian government offices, for example, there is not the
| |
| − | slightest suspicion that the Jews form a distinct nation themselves and
| |
| − | are not merely the adherents of a 'Confession', though one glance at the
| |
| − | Press which belongs to the Jews ought to furnish sufficient evidence to
| |
| − | the contrary even for those who possess only the smallest degree of
| |
| − | intelligence. The JEWISH ECHO, however, is not an official gazette and
| |
| − | therefore not authoritative in the eyes of those government potentates.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Jewry has always been a nation of a definite racial character and never
| |
| − | differentiated merely by the fact of belonging to a certain religion. At
| |
| − | a very early date, urged on by the desire to make their way in the
| |
| − | world, the Jews began to cast about for a means whereby they might
| |
| − | distract such attention as might prove inconvenient for them. What could
| |
| − | be more effective and at the same time more above suspicion than to
| |
| − | borrow and utilize the idea of the religious community? Here also
| |
| − | everything is copied, or rather stolen; for the Jew could not possess
| |
| − | any religious institution which had developed out of his own
| |
| − | consciousness, seeing that he lacks every kind of idealism; which means
| |
| − | that belief in a life beyond this terrestrial existence is foreign to
| |
| − | him. In the Aryan mind no religion can ever be imagined unless it
| |
| − | embodies the conviction that life in some form or other will continue
| |
| − | after death. As a matter of fact, the Talmud is not a book that lays
| |
| − | down principles according to which the individual should prepare for the
| |
| − | life to come. It only furnishes rules for a practical and convenient
| |
| − | life in this world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The religious teaching of the Jews is principally a collection of
| |
| − | instructions for maintaining the Jewish blood pure and for regulating
| |
| − | intercourse between Jews and the rest of the world: that is to say,
| |
| − | their relation with non-Jews. But the Jewish religious teaching is not
| |
| − | concerned with moral problems. It is rather concerned with economic
| |
| − | problems, and very petty ones at that. In regard to the moral value of
| |
| − | the religious teaching of the Jews there exist and always have existed
| |
| − | quite exhaustive studies (not from the Jewish side; for whatever the
| |
| − | Jews have written on this question has naturally always been of a
| |
| − | tendentious character) which show up the kind of religion that the Jews
| |
| − | have in a light that makes it look very uncanny to the Aryan mind. The
| |
| − | Jew himself is the best example of the kind of product which this
| |
| − | religious training evolves. His life is of this world only and his
| |
| − | mentality is as foreign to the true spirit of Christianity as his
| |
| − | character was foreign to the great Founder of this new creed two
| |
| − | thousand years ago. And the Founder of Christianity made no secret
| |
| − | indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it
| |
| − | necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of
| |
| − | God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing
| |
| − | their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the
| |
| − | Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians
| |
| − | enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase
| |
| − | themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political
| |
| − | intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of
| |
| − | their own Christian nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On this first and fundamental lie, the purpose of which is to make
| |
| − | people believe that Jewry is not a nation but a religion, other lies are
| |
| − | subsequently based. One of those further lies, for example, is in
| |
| − | connection with the language spoken by the Jew. For him language is not
| |
| − | an instrument for the expression of his inner thoughts but rather a
| |
| − | means of cloaking them. When talking French his thoughts are Jewish and
| |
| − | when writing German rhymes he only gives expression to the character of
| |
| − | his own race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As long as the Jew has not succeeded in mastering other peoples he is
| |
| − | forced to speak their language whether he likes it or not. But the
| |
| − | moment that the world would become the slave of the Jew it would have to
| |
| − | learn some other language (Esperanto, for example) so that by this means
| |
| − | the Jew could dominate all the more easily.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How much the whole existence of this people is based on a permanent
| |
| − | falsehood is proved in a unique way by 'The Protocols of the Elders of
| |
| − | Zion', which are so violently repudiated by the Jews. With groans and
| |
| − | moans, the FRANKFURTER ZEITUNG repeats again and again that these are
| |
| − | forgeries. This alone is evidence in favour of their authenticity. What
| |
| − | many Jews unconsciously wish to do is here clearly set forth. It is not
| |
| − | necessary to ask out of what Jewish brain these revelations sprang; but
| |
| − | what is of vital interest is that they disclose, with an almost
| |
| − | terrifying precision, the mentality and methods of action characteristic
| |
| − | of the Jewish people and these writings expound in all their various
| |
| − | directions the final aims towards which the Jews are striving. The study
| |
| − | of real happenings, however, is the best way of judging the authenticity
| |
| − | of those documents. If the historical developments which have taken
| |
| − | place within the last few centuries be studied in the light of this book
| |
| − | we shall understand why the Jewish Press incessantly repudiates and
| |
| − | denounces it. For the Jewish peril will be stamped out the moment the
| |
| − | general public come into possession of that book and understand it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order to get to know the Jew properly it is necessary to study the
| |
| − | road which he has been following among the other peoples during the last
| |
| − | few centuries. One example will suffice to give a clear insight here.
| |
| − | Since his career has been the same at all epochs--just as the people at
| |
| − | whose expense he has lived have remained the same--for the purposes of
| |
| − | making the requisite analysis it will be best to mark his progress by
| |
| − | stages. For the sake of simplicity we shall indicate these stages by
| |
| − | letters of the alphabet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first Jews came into what was then called Germania during the period
| |
| − | of the Roman invasion; and, as usual, they came as merchants. During the
| |
| − | turmoil caused by the great migrations of the German tribes the Jews
| |
| − | seem to have disappeared. We may therefore consider the period when the
| |
| − | Germans formed the first political communities as the beginning of that
| |
| − | process whereby Central and Northern Europe was again, and this time
| |
| − | permanently, Judaized. A development began which has always been the
| |
| − | same or similar wherever and whenever Jews came into contact with Aryan
| |
| − | peoples.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (a) As soon as the first permanent settlements had been established the
| |
| − | Jew was suddenly 'there'. He arrived as a merchant and in the beginning
| |
| − | did not trouble to disguise his nationality. He still remained openly a
| |
| − | Jew, partly it may be because he knew too little of the language. It may
| |
| − | also be that people of other races refused to mix with him, so that he
| |
| − | could not very well adopt any other appearance than that of a foreign
| |
| − | merchant. Because of his subtlety and cunning and the lack of experience
| |
| − | on the part of the people whose guest he became, it was not to his
| |
| − | disadvantage openly to retain his Jewish character. This may even have
| |
| − | been advantageous to him; for the foreigner was received kindly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (b) Slowly but steadily he began to take part in the economic life
| |
| − | around him; not as a producer, however, but only as a middleman. His
| |
| − | commercial cunning, acquired through thousands of years of negotiation
| |
| − | as an intermediary, made him superior in this field to the Aryans, who
| |
| − | were still quite ingenuous and indeed clumsy and whose honesty was
| |
| − | unlimited; so that after a short while commerce seemed destined to
| |
| − | become a Jewish monopoly. The Jew began by lending out money at usurious
| |
| − | interest, which is a permanent trade of his. It was he who first
| |
| − | introduced the payment of interest on borrowed money. The danger which
| |
| − | this innovation involved was not at first recognized; indeed the
| |
| − | innovation was welcomed, because it offered momentary advantages.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (c) At this stage the Jew had become firmly settled down; that is to
| |
| − | say, he inhabited special sections of the cities and towns and had his
| |
| − | own quarter in the market-places. Thus he gradually came to form a State
| |
| − | within a State. He came to look upon the commercial domain and all money
| |
| − | transactions as a privilege belonging exclusively to himself and he
| |
| − | exploited it ruthlessly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (d) At this stage finance and trade had become his complete monopoly.
| |
| − | Finally, his usurious rate of interest aroused opposition and the
| |
| − | increasing impudence which the Jew began to manifest all round stirred
| |
| − | up popular indignation, while his display of wealth gave rise to popular
| |
| − | envy. The cup of his iniquity became full to the brim when he included
| |
| − | landed property among his commercial wares and degraded the soil to the
| |
| − | level of a market commodity. Since he himself never cultivated the soil
| |
| − | but considered it as an object to be exploited, on which the peasant may
| |
| − | still remain but only on condition that he submits to the most heartless
| |
| − | exactions of his new master, public antipathy against the Jew steadily
| |
| − | increased and finally turned into open animosity. His extortionate
| |
| − | tyranny became so unbearable that people rebelled against his control
| |
| − | and used physical violence against him. They began to scrutinize this
| |
| − | foreigner somewhat more closely, and then began to discover the
| |
| − | repulsive traits and characteristics inherent in him, until finally an
| |
| − | abyss opened between the Jews and their hosts, across which abyss there
| |
| − | could be no further contact.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In times of distress a wave of public anger has usually arisen against
| |
| − | the Jew; the masses have taken the law into their own hands; they have
| |
| − | seized Jewish property and ruined the Jew in their urge to protect
| |
| − | themselves against what they consider to be a scourge of God. Having
| |
| − | come to know the Jew intimately through the course of centuries, in
| |
| − | times of distress they looked upon his presence among them as a public
| |
| − | danger comparable only to the plague.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (e) But then the Jew began to reveal his true character. He paid court
| |
| − | to governments, with servile flattery, used his money to ingratiate
| |
| − | himself further and thus regularly secured for himself once again the
| |
| − | privilege of exploiting his victim. Although public wrath flared up
| |
| − | against this eternal profiteer and drove him out, after a few years he
| |
| − | reappeared in those same places and carried on as before. No persecution
| |
| − | could force him to give up his trade of exploiting other people and no
| |
| − | amount of harrying succeeded in driving him out permanently. He always
| |
| − | returned after a short time and it was always the old story with him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In an effort to save at least the worst from happening, legislation was
| |
| − | passed which debarred the Jew from obtaining possession of the land.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (f) In proportion as the powers of kings and princes increased, the Jew
| |
| − | sidled up to them. He begged for 'charters' and 'privileges' which those
| |
| − | gentlemen, who were generally in financial straits, gladly granted if
| |
| − | they received adequate payment in return. However high the price he has
| |
| − | to pay, the Jew will succeed in getting it back within a few years from
| |
| − | operating the privilege he has acquired, even with interest and compound
| |
| − | interest. He is a real leech who clings to the body of his unfortunate
| |
| − | victims and cannot be removed; so that when the princes found themselves
| |
| − | in need once again they took the blood from his swollen veins with their
| |
| − | own hands.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This game was repeated unendingly. In the case of those who were called
| |
| − | 'German Princes', the part they played was quite as contemptible as that
| |
| − | played by the Jew. They were a real scourge for their people. Their
| |
| − | compeers may be found in some of the government ministers of our time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was due to the German princes that the German nation could not
| |
| − | succeed in definitely freeing itself from the Jewish peril.
| |
| − | Unfortunately the situation did not change at a later period. The
| |
| − | princes finally received the reward which they had a thousand-fold
| |
| − | deserved for all the crimes committed by them against their own people.
| |
| − | They had allied themselves with Satan and later on they discovered that
| |
| − | they were in Satan's embrace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (g) By permitting themselves to be entangled in the toils of the Jew,
| |
| − | the princes prepared their own downfall. The position which they held
| |
| − | among their people was slowly but steadily undermined not only by their
| |
| − | continued failure to guard the interests of their subjects but by the
| |
| − | positive exploitation of them. The Jew calculated exactly the time when
| |
| − | the downfall of the princes was approaching and did his best to hasten
| |
| − | it. He intensified their financial difficulties by hindering them in the
| |
| − | exercise of their duty towards their people, by inveigling them through
| |
| − | the most servile flatteries into further personal display, whereby he
| |
| − | made himself more and more indispensable to them. His astuteness, or
| |
| − | rather his utter unscrupulousness, in money affairs enabled him to exact
| |
| − | new income from the princes, to squeeze the money out of them and then
| |
| − | have it spent as quickly as possible. Every Court had its 'Court Jews',
| |
| − | as this plague was called, who tortured the innocent victims until they
| |
| − | were driven to despair; while at the same time this Jew provided the
| |
| − | means which the princes squandered on their own pleasures. It is not to
| |
| − | be wondered at that these ornaments of the human race became the
| |
| − | recipients of official honours and even were admitted into the ranks of
| |
| − | the hereditary nobility, thus contributing not only to expose that
| |
| − | social institution to ridicule but also to contaminate it from the
| |
| − | inside.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally the Jew could now exploit the position to which he had
| |
| − | attained and push himself forward even more rapidly than before. Finally
| |
| − | he became baptized and thus entitled to all the rights and privileges
| |
| − | which belonged to the children of the nation on which he preyed. This
| |
| − | was a high-class stroke of business for him, and he often availed
| |
| − | himself of it, to the great joy of the Church, which was proud of having
| |
| − | gained a new child in the Faith, and also to the joy of Israel, which
| |
| − | was happy at seeing the trick pulled off successfully.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (h) At this stage a transformation began to take place in the world of
| |
| − | Jewry. Up to now they had been Jews--that is to say, they did not
| |
| − | hitherto set any great value on pretending to be something else; and
| |
| − | anyhow the distinctive characteristics which separated them from other
| |
| − | races could not be easily overcome. Even as late as the time of
| |
| − | Frederick the Great nobody looked upon the Jews as other than a
| |
| − | 'foreign' people, and Goethe rose up in revolt against the failure
| |
| − | legally to prohibit marriage between Christians and Jews. Goethe was
| |
| − | certainly no reactionary and no time-server. What he said came from the
| |
| − | voice of the blood and the voice of reason. Notwithstanding the
| |
| − | disgraceful happenings taking place in Court circles, the people
| |
| − | recognized instinctively that the Jew was the foreign body in their own
| |
| − | flesh and their attitude towards him was directed by recognition of that
| |
| − | fact.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But a change was now destined to take place. In the course of more than
| |
| − | a thousand years the Jew had learned to master the language of his hosts
| |
| − | so thoroughly that he considered he might now lay stress on his Jewish
| |
| − | character and emphasize the 'Germanism' a bit more. Though it must have
| |
| − | appeared ridiculous and absurd at first sight, he was impudent enough to
| |
| − | call himself a 'Teuton', which in this case meant a German. In that way
| |
| − | began one of the most infamous impositions that can be imagined. The Jew
| |
| − | did not possess the slightest traces of the German character. He had
| |
| − | only acquired the art of twisting the German language to his own uses,
| |
| − | and that in a disgusting way, without having assimilated any other
| |
| − | feature of the German character. Therefore his command of the language
| |
| − | was the sole ground on which he could pretend to be a German. It is not
| |
| − | however by the tie of language, but exclusively by the tie of blood that
| |
| − | the members of a race are bound together. And the Jew himself knows this
| |
| − | better than any other, seeing that he attaches so little importance to
| |
| − | the preservation of his own language while at the same time he strives
| |
| − | his utmost to maintain his blood free from intermixture with that of
| |
| − | other races. A man may acquire and use a new language without much
| |
| − | trouble; but it is only his old ideas that he expresses through the new
| |
| − | language. His inner nature is not modified thereby. The best proof of
| |
| − | this is furnished by the Jew himself. He may speak a thousand tongues
| |
| − | and yet his Jewish nature will remain always one and the same. His
| |
| − | distinguishing characteristics were the same when he spoke the Latin
| |
| − | language at Ostia two thousand years ago as a merchant in grain, as they
| |
| − | are to-day when he tries to sell adulterated flour with the aid of his
| |
| − | German gibberish. He is always the same Jew. That so obvious a fact is
| |
| − | not recognized by the average head-clerk in a German government
| |
| − | department, or by an officer in the police administration, is also a
| |
| − | self-evident and natural fact; since it would be difficult to find
| |
| − | another class of people who are so lacking in instinct and intelligence
| |
| − | as the civil servants employed by our modern German State authorities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The reason why, at the stage I am dealing with, the Jew so suddenly
| |
| − | decided to transform himself into a German is not difficult to discover.
| |
| − | He felt the power of the princes slowly crumbling and therefore looked
| |
| − | about to find a new social plank on which he might stand. Furthermore,
| |
| − | his financial domination over all the spheres of economic life had
| |
| − | become so powerful that he felt he could no longer sustain that enormous
| |
| − | structure or add to it unless he were admitted to the full enjoyment of
| |
| − | the 'rights of citizenship.' He aimed at both, preservation and
| |
| − | expansion; for the higher he could climb the more alluring became the
| |
| − | prospect of reaching the old goal, which was promised to him in ancient
| |
| − | times, namely world-rulership, and which he now looked forward to with
| |
| − | feverish eyes, as he thought he saw it visibly approaching. Therefore
| |
| − | all his efforts were now directed to becoming a fully-fledged citizen,
| |
| − | endowed with all civil and political rights.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was the reason for his emancipation from the Ghetto.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (i) And thus the Court Jew slowly developed into the national Jew. But
| |
| − | naturally he still remained associated with persons in higher quarters
| |
| − | and he even attempted to push his way further into the inner circles of
| |
| − | the ruling set. But at the same time some other representatives of his
| |
| − | race were currying favour with the people. If we remember the crimes the
| |
| − | Jew had committed against the masses of the people in the course of so
| |
| − | many centuries, how repeatedly and ruthlessly he exploited them and how
| |
| − | he sucked out even the very marrow of their substance, and when we
| |
| − | further remember how they gradually came to hate him and finally
| |
| − | considered him as a public scourge--then we may well understand how
| |
| − | difficult the Jew must have found this final transformation. Yes,
| |
| − | indeed, it must tax all their powers to be able to present themselves as
| |
| − | 'friends of humanity' to the poor victims whom they have skinned raw.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the Jew began by making public amends for the crimes which he
| |
| − | had committed against the people in the past. He started his
| |
| − | metamorphosis by first appearing as the 'benefactor' of humanity. Since
| |
| − | his new philanthropic policy had a very concrete aim in view, he could
| |
| − | not very well apply to himself the biblical counsel, not to allow the
| |
| − | left hand to know what the right hand is giving. He felt obliged to let
| |
| − | as many people as possible know how deeply the sufferings of the masses
| |
| − | grieved him and to what excesses of personal sacrifice he was ready to
| |
| − | go in order to help them. With this manifestation of innate modesty, so
| |
| − | typical of the Jew, he trumpeted his virtues before the world until
| |
| − | finally the world actually began to believe him. Those who refused to
| |
| − | share this belief were considered to be doing him an injustice. Thus
| |
| − | after a little while he began to twist things around, so as to make it
| |
| − | appear that it was he who had always been wronged, and vice versa. There
| |
| − | were really some particularly foolish people who could not help pitying
| |
| − | this poor unfortunate creature of a Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Attention may be called to the fact that, in spite of his proclaimed
| |
| − | readiness to make personal sacrifices, the Jew never becomes poor
| |
| − | thereby. He has a happy knack of always making both ends meet.
| |
| − | Occasionally his benevolence might be compared to the manure which is
| |
| − | not spread over the field merely for the purpose of getting rid of it,
| |
| − | but rather with a view to future produce. Anyhow, after a comparatively
| |
| − | short period of time, the world was given to know that the Jew had
| |
| − | become a general benefactor and philanthropist. What a transformation!
| |
| − | | |
| − | What is looked upon as more or less natural when done by other people
| |
| − | here became an object of astonishment, and even sometimes of admiration,
| |
| − | because it was considered so unusual in a Jew. That is why he has
| |
| − | received more credit for his acts of benevolence than ordinary mortals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And something more: The Jew became liberal all of a sudden and began to
| |
| − | talk enthusiastically of how human progress must be encouraged.
| |
| − | Gradually he assumed the air of being the herald of a new age.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet at the same time he continued to undermine the ground-work of that
| |
| − | part of the economic system in which the people have the most practical
| |
| − | interest. He bought up stock in the various national undertakings and
| |
| − | thus pushed his influence into the circuit of national production,
| |
| − | making this latter an object of buying and selling on the stock
| |
| − | exchange, or rather what might be called the pawn in a financial game of
| |
| − | chess, and thus ruining the basis on which personal proprietorship alone
| |
| − | is possible. Only with the entrance of the Jew did that feeling of
| |
| − | estrangement, between employers and employees begin which led at a later
| |
| − | date to the political class-struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally the Jew gained an increasing influence in all economic
| |
| − | undertakings by means of his predominance in the stock-exchange. If not
| |
| − | the ownership, at least he secured control of the working power of the
| |
| − | nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order to strengthen his political position, he directed his efforts
| |
| − | towards removing the barrier of racial and civic discrimination which
| |
| − | had hitherto hindered his advance at every turn. With characteristic
| |
| − | tenacity he championed the cause of religious tolerance for this
| |
| − | purpose; and in the freemason organization, which had fallen completely
| |
| − | into his hands, he found a magnificent weapon which helped him to
| |
| − | achieve his ends. Government circles, as well as the higher sections of
| |
| − | the political and commercial bourgeoisie, fell a prey to his plans
| |
| − | through his manipulation of the masonic net, though they themselves did
| |
| − | not even suspect what was happening.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only the people as such, or rather the masses which were just becoming
| |
| − | conscious of their own power and were beginning to use it in the fight
| |
| − | for their rights and liberties, had hitherto escaped the grip of the
| |
| − | Jew. At least his influence had not yet penetrated to the deeper and
| |
| − | wider sections of the people. This was unsatisfactory to him. The most
| |
| − | important phase of his policy was therefore to secure control over the
| |
| − | people. The Jew realized that in his efforts to reach the position of
| |
| − | public despot he would need a 'peace-maker.' And he thought he could
| |
| − | find a peace-maker if he could whip-in sufficient extensive sections of
| |
| − | the bourgeois. But the freemasons failed to catch the
| |
| − | glove-manufacturers and the linen-weavers in the frail meshes of their
| |
| − | net. And so it became necessary to find a grosser and withal a more
| |
| − | effective means. Thus another weapon beside that of freemasonry would
| |
| − | have to be secured. This was the Press. The Jew exercised all his skill
| |
| − | and tenacity in getting hold of it. By means of the Press he began
| |
| − | gradually to control public life in its entirety. He began to drive it
| |
| − | along the road which he had chosen to reach his own ends; for he was now
| |
| − | in a position to create and direct that force which, under the name of
| |
| − | 'public opinion' is better known to-day than it was some decades ago.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Simultaneously the Jew gave himself the air of thirsting after
| |
| − | knowledge. He lauded every phase of progress, particularly those phases
| |
| − | which led to the ruin of others; for he judges all progress and
| |
| − | development from the standpoint of the advantages which these bring to
| |
| − | his own people. When it brings him no such advantages he is the deadly
| |
| − | enemy of enlightenment and hates all culture which is real culture as
| |
| − | such. All the knowledge which he acquires in the schools of others is
| |
| − | exploited by him exclusively in the service of his own race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even more watchfully than ever before, he now stood guard over his
| |
| − | Jewish nationality. Though bubbling over with 'enlightenment',
| |
| − | 'progress', 'liberty', 'humanity', etc., his first care was to preserve
| |
| − | the racial integrity of his own people. He occasionally bestowed one of
| |
| − | his female members on an influential Christian; but the racial stock of
| |
| − | his male descendants was always preserved unmixed fundamentally. He
| |
| − | poisons the blood of others but preserves his own blood unadulterated.
| |
| − | The Jew scarcely ever marries a Christian girl, but the Christian takes
| |
| − | a Jewess to wife. The mongrels that are a result of this latter union
| |
| − | always declare themselves on the Jewish side. Thus a part of the higher
| |
| − | nobility in particular became completely degenerate. The Jew was well
| |
| − | aware of this fact and systematically used this means of disarming the
| |
| − | intellectual leaders of the opposite race. To mask his tactics and fool
| |
| − | his victims, he talks of the equality of all men, no matter what their
| |
| − | race or colour may be. And the simpletons begin to believe him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since his whole nature still retains too foreign an odour for the broad
| |
| − | masses of the people to allow themselves to be caught in his snare, he
| |
| − | uses the Press to put before the public a picture of himself which is
| |
| − | entirely untrue to life but well designed to serve his purpose. In the
| |
| − | comic papers special efforts are made to represent the Jews as an
| |
| − | inoffensive little race which, like all others, has its peculiarities.
| |
| − | In spite of their manners, which may seem a bit strange, the comic
| |
| − | papers present the Jews as fundamentally good-hearted and honourable.
| |
| − | Attempts are generally made to make them appear insignificant rather
| |
| − | than dangerous.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During this phase of his progress the chief goal of the Jew was the
| |
| − | victory of democracy, or rather the supreme hegemony of the
| |
| − | parliamentary system, which embodies his concept of democracy. This
| |
| − | institution harmonises best with his purposes; for thus the personal
| |
| − | element is eliminated and in its place we have the dunder-headed
| |
| − | majority, inefficiency and, last but by no means least, knavery.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The final result must necessarily have been the overthrow of the
| |
| − | monarchy, which had to happen sooner or later.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (j) A tremendous economic development transformed the social structure
| |
| − | of the nation. The small artisan class slowly disappeared and the
| |
| − | factory worker, who took its place, had scarcely any chance of
| |
| − | establishing an independent existence of his own but sank more and more
| |
| − | to the level of a proletariat. An essential characteristic of the
| |
| − | factory worker is that he is scarcely ever able to provide for an
| |
| − | independent source of livelihood which will support him in later life.
| |
| − | In the true sense of the word, he is 'disinherited'. His old age is a
| |
| − | misery to him and can hardly be called life at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In earlier times a similar situation had been created, which had
| |
| − | imperatively demanded a solution and for which a solution was found.
| |
| − | Side by side with the peasant and the artisan, a new class was gradually
| |
| − | developed, namely that of officials and employees, especially those
| |
| − | employed in the various services of the State. They also were a
| |
| − | 'disinherited' class, in the true sense of the word. But the State found
| |
| − | a remedy for this unhealthy situation by taking upon itself the duty of
| |
| − | providing for the State official who could establish nothing that would
| |
| − | be an independent means of livelihood for himself in his old age. Thus
| |
| − | the system of pensions and retiring allowances was introduced. Private
| |
| − | enterprises slowly followed this example in increasing numbers; so that
| |
| − | to-day every permanent non-manual worker receives a pension in his later
| |
| − | years, if the firm which he has served is one that has reached or gone
| |
| − | beyond a certain size. It was only by virtue of the assurance given of
| |
| − | State officials, that they would be cared for in their old age. that
| |
| − | such a high degree of unselfish devotion to duty was developed, which in
| |
| − | pre-war times was one of the distinguising characteristics of German
| |
| − | officials.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus a whole class which had no personal property was saved from
| |
| − | destitution by an intelligent system of provision, and found a place in
| |
| − | the social structure of the national community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The problem is now put before the State and nation, but this time in a
| |
| − | much larger form. When the new industries sprang up and developed,
| |
| − | millions of people left the countryside and the villages to take up
| |
| − | employment in the big factories. The conditions under which this new
| |
| − | class found itself forced to live were worse than miserable. The more or
| |
| − | less mechanical transformation of the methods of work hitherto in vogue
| |
| − | among the artisans and peasants did not fit in well with the habits or
| |
| − | mentality of this new working-class. The way in which the peasants and
| |
| − | artisans had formerly worked had nothing comparable to the intensive
| |
| − | labour of the new factory worker. In the old trades time did not play a
| |
| − | highly important role, but it became an essential element in the new
| |
| − | industrial system. The formal taking over of the old working hours into
| |
| − | the mammoth industrial enterprises had fatal results. The actual amount
| |
| − | of work hitherto accomplished within a certain time was comparatively
| |
| − | small, because the modern methods of intensive production were then
| |
| − | unknown. Therefore, though in the older system a working day of fourteen
| |
| − | or even fifteen hours was not unendurable, now it was beyond the
| |
| − | possibilities of human endurance because in the new system every minute
| |
| − | was utilized to the extreme. This absurd transference of the old working
| |
| − | hours to the new industrial system proved fatal in two directions.
| |
| − | First, it ruined the health of the workers; secondly, it destroyed their
| |
| − | faith in a superior law of justice. Finally, on the one hand a miserable
| |
| − | wage was received and, on the other, the employer held a much more
| |
| − | lucrative position than before. Hence a striking difference between the
| |
| − | ways of life on the one side and on the other.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the open country there could be no social problem, because the master
| |
| − | and the farm-hand were doing the same kind of work and doing it
| |
| − | together. They ate their food in common, and sometimes even out of the
| |
| − | same dish. But in this sphere also the new system introduced an entirely
| |
| − | different set of conditions between masters and men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The division created between employer and employees seems not to have
| |
| − | extended to all branches of life. How far this Judaizing process has
| |
| − | been allowed to take effect among our people is illustrated by the fact
| |
| − | that manual labour not only receives practically no recognition but is
| |
| − | even considered degrading. That is not a natural German attitude. It is
| |
| − | due to the introduction of a foreign element into our lives, and that
| |
| − | foreign element is the Jewish spirit, one of the effects of which has
| |
| − | been to transform the high esteem in which our handicrafts once were
| |
| − | held into a definite feeling that all physical labour is something base
| |
| − | and unworthy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus a new social class has grown up which stands in low esteem; and the
| |
| − | day must come when we shall have to face the question of whether the
| |
| − | nation will be able to make this class an integral part of the social
| |
| − | community or whether the difference of status now existing will become a
| |
| − | permanent gulf separating this class from the others.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One thing, however, is certain: This class does not include the worst
| |
| − | elements of the community in its ranks. Rather the contrary is the
| |
| − | truth: it includes the most energetic parts of the nation. The
| |
| − | sophistication which is the result of a so-called civilization has not
| |
| − | yet exercised its disintegrating and degenerating influence on this
| |
| − | class. The broad masses of this new lower class, constituted by the
| |
| − | manual labourers, have not yet fallen a prey to the morbid weakness of
| |
| − | pacifism. These are still robust and, if necessary, they can be brutal.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While our bourgeoisie middle class paid no attention at all to this
| |
| − | momentous problem and indifferently allowed events to take their course,
| |
| − | the Jew seized upon the manifold possibilities which the situation
| |
| − | offered him for the future. While on the one hand he organized
| |
| − | capitalistic methods of exploitation to their ultimate degree of
| |
| − | efficiency, he curried favour with the victims of his policy and his
| |
| − | power and in a short while became the leader of their struggle against
| |
| − | himself. 'Against himself' is here only a figurative way of speaking;
| |
| − | for this 'Great Master of Lies' knows how to appear in the guise of the
| |
| − | innocent and throw the guilt on others. Since he had the impudence to
| |
| − | take a personal lead among the masses, they never for a moment suspected
| |
| − | that they were falling a prey to one of the most infamous deceits ever
| |
| − | practised. And yet that is what it actually was.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The moment this new class had arisen out of the general economic
| |
| − | situation and taken shape as a definite body in the social order, the
| |
| − | Jew saw clearly where he would find the necessary pacemaker for his own
| |
| − | progressive march. At first he had used the bourgeois class as a
| |
| − | battering-ram against the feudal order; and now he used the worker
| |
| − | against the bourgeois world. Just as he succeeded in obtaining civic
| |
| − | rights by intrigues carried on under the protection of the bourgeois
| |
| − | class, he now hoped that by joining in the struggle which the workers
| |
| − | were waging for their own existence he would be able to obtain full
| |
| − | control over them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When that moment arrives, then the only objective the workers will have
| |
| − | to fight for will be the future of the Jewish people. Without knowing
| |
| − | it, the worker is placing himself at the service of the very power
| |
| − | against which he believes he is fighting. Apparently he is made to fight
| |
| − | against capital and thus he is all the more easily brought to fight for
| |
| − | capitalist interests. Outcries are systematically raised against
| |
| − | international capital but in reality it is against the structure of
| |
| − | national economics that these slogans are directed. The idea is to
| |
| − | demolish this structure and on its ruins triumphantly erect the
| |
| − | structure of the International Stock Exchange.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this line of action the procedure of the Jew was as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | He kowtowed to the worker, hypocritically pretended to feel pity for him
| |
| − | and his lot, and even to be indignant at the misery and poverty which
| |
| − | the worker had to endure. That is the way in which the Jew endeavoured
| |
| − | to gain the confidence of the working class. He showed himself eager to
| |
| − | study their various hardships, whether real or imaginary, and strove to
| |
| − | awaken a yearning on the part of the workers to change the conditions
| |
| − | under which they lived. The Jew artfully enkindled that innate yearning
| |
| − | for social justice which is a typical Aryan characteristic. Once that
| |
| − | yearning became alive it was transformed into hatred against those in
| |
| − | more fortunate circumstances of life. The next stage was to give a
| |
| − | precise philosophical aspect to the struggle for the elimination of
| |
| − | social wrongs. And thus the Marxist doctrine was invented.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By presenting his doctrine as part and parcel of a just revindication of
| |
| − | social rights, the Jew propagated the doctrine all the more effectively.
| |
| − | But at the same time he provoked the opposition of decent people who
| |
| − | refused to admit these demands which, because of the form and
| |
| − | pseudo-philosophical trimmings in which they are presented, seemed
| |
| − | fundamentally unjust and impossible for realization. For, under the
| |
| − | cloak of purely social concepts there are hidden aims which are of a
| |
| − | Satanic character. These aims are even expounded in the open with the
| |
| − | clarity of unlimited impudence. This Marxist doctrine is an individual
| |
| − | mixture of human reason and human absurdity; but the combination is
| |
| − | arranged in such a way that only the absurd part of it could ever be put
| |
| − | into practice, but never the reasonable part of it. By categorically
| |
| − | repudiating the personal worth of the individual and also the nation and
| |
| − | its racial constituent, this doctrine destroys the fundamental basis of
| |
| − | all civilization; for civilization essentially depends on these very
| |
| − | factors. Such is the true essence of the Marxist WELTANSCHAUUNG, so far
| |
| − | as the word WELTANSCHAUUNG can be applied at all to this phantom
| |
| − | arising from a criminal brain. The destruction of the concept of
| |
| − | personality and of race removes the chief obstacle which barred the way
| |
| − | to domination of the social body by its inferior elements, which are the
| |
| − | Jews.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The very absurdity of the economic and political theories of Marxism
| |
| − | gives the doctrine its peculiar significance. Because of its
| |
| − | pseudo-logic, intelligent people refuse to support it, while all those
| |
| − | who are less accustomed to use their intellectual faculties, or who have
| |
| − | only a rudimentary notion of economic principles, join the Marxist cause
| |
| − | with flying banners. The intelligence behind the movement--for even this
| |
| − | movement needs intelligence if it is to subsist--is supplied by the Jews
| |
| − | themselves, naturally of course as a gratuitous service which is at the
| |
| − | same time a sacrifice on their part.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus arose a movement which was composed exclusively of manual workers
| |
| − | under the leadership of Jews. To all external appearances, this movement
| |
| − | strives to ameliorate the conditions under which the workers live; but
| |
| − | in reality its aim is to enslave and thereby annihilate the non-Jewish
| |
| − | races.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The propaganda which the freemasons had carried on among the so-called
| |
| − | intelligentsia, whereby their pacifist teaching paralysed the instinct
| |
| − | for national self-preservation, was now extended to the broad masses of
| |
| − | the workers and bourgeoisie by means of the Press, which was almost
| |
| − | everywhere in Jewish hands. To those two instruments of disintegration a
| |
| − | third and still more ruthless one was added, namely, the organization of
| |
| − | brute physical force among the masses. As massed columns of attacks, the
| |
| − | Marxist troops stormed those parts of the social order which had been
| |
| − | left standing after the two former undermining operations had done their
| |
| − | work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The combined activity of all these forces has been marvellously managed.
| |
| − | And it will not be surprising if it turns out that those institutions
| |
| − | which have always appeared as the organs of the more or less traditional
| |
| − | authority of the State should now fall before the Marxist attack. Among
| |
| − | our higher and highest State officials, with very few exceptions, the
| |
| − | Jew has found the cost complacent backers in his work of destruction. An
| |
| − | attitude of sneaking servility towards 'superiors' and supercilious
| |
| − | arrogance towards 'inferiors' are the characteristics of this class of
| |
| − | people, as well as a grade of stupidity which is really frightening and
| |
| − | at the same time a towering self-conceit, which has been so consistently
| |
| − | developed to make it amusing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But these qualities are of the greatest utility to the Jew in his
| |
| − | dealings with our authorities. Therefore they are qualities which he
| |
| − | appreciates most in the officials.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If I were to sketch roughly the actual struggle which is now beginning I
| |
| − | should describe it somewhat thus:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not satisfied with the economic conquest of the world, but also
| |
| − | demanding that it must come under his political control, the Jew
| |
| − | subdivides the organized Marxist power into two parts, which correspond
| |
| − | to the ultimate objectives that are to be fought for in this struggle
| |
| − | which is carried on under the direction of the Jew. To outward
| |
| − | appearance, these seem to be two independent movements, but in reality
| |
| − | they constitute an indivisible unity. The two divisions are: The
| |
| − | political movement and the trades union movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The trades union movement has to gather in the recruits. It offers
| |
| − | assistance and protection to the workers in the hard struggle which they
| |
| − | have to wage for the bare means of existence, a struggle which has been
| |
| − | occasioned by the greediness and narrow-mindedness of many of the
| |
| − | industrialists. Unless the workers be ready to surrender all claims to
| |
| − | an existence which the dignity of human nature itself demands, and
| |
| − | unless they are ready to submit their fate to the will of employers who
| |
| − | in many cases have no sense of human responsibilities and are utterly
| |
| − | callous to human wants, then the worker must necessarily take matters
| |
| − | into his own hands, seeing that the organized social community--that is
| |
| − | to say, the State--pays no attention to his needs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The so-called national-minded bourgeoisie, blinded by its own material
| |
| − | interests, opposes this life-or-death struggle of the workers and places
| |
| − | the most difficult obstacles in their way. Not only does this
| |
| − | bourgeoisie hinder all efforts to enact legislation which would shorten
| |
| − | the inhumanly long hours of work, prohibit child-labour, grant security
| |
| − | and protection to women and improve the hygienic conditions of the
| |
| − | workshops and the dwellings of the working-class, but while the
| |
| − | bourgeoisie hinders all this the shrewd Jew takes the cause of the
| |
| − | oppressed into his own hands. He gradually becomes the leader of the
| |
| − | trades union movements, which is an easy task for him, because he does
| |
| − | not genuinely intend to find remedies for the social wrong: he pursues
| |
| − | only one objective, namely, to gather and consolidate a body of
| |
| − | followers who will act under his commands as an armed weapon in the
| |
| − | economic war for the destruction of national economic independence. For,
| |
| − | while a sound social policy has to move between the two poles of
| |
| − | securing a decent level of public health and welfare on the one hand
| |
| − | and, on the other, that of safeguarding the independence of the economic
| |
| − | life of the nation, the Jew does not take these poles into account at
| |
| − | all. The destruction of both is one of his main objects. He would ruin,
| |
| − | rather than safeguard, the independence of the national economic system.
| |
| − | Therefore, as the leader of the trades union movement, he has no
| |
| − | scruples about putting forward demands which not only go beyond the
| |
| − | declared purpose of the movement but could not be carried into effect
| |
| − | without ruining the national economic structure. On the other hand, he
| |
| − | has no interest in seeing a healthy and sturdy population develop; he
| |
| − | would be more content to see the people degenerate into an unthinking
| |
| − | herd which could be reduced to total subjection. Because these are his
| |
| − | final objectives, he can afford to put forward the most absurd claims.
| |
| − | He knows very well that these claims can never be realized and that
| |
| − | therefore nothing in the actual state of affairs could be altered by
| |
| − | them, but that the most they can do is to arouse the spirit of unrest
| |
| − | among the masses. That is exactly the purpose which he wishes such
| |
| − | propaganda to serve and not a real and honest improvement of the social
| |
| − | conditions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jews will therefore remain the unquestioned leaders of the trades
| |
| − | union movement so long as a campaign is not undertaken, which must be
| |
| − | carried out on gigantic lines, for the enlightenment of the masses; so
| |
| − | that they will be enabled better to understand the causes of their
| |
| − | misery. Or the same end might be achieved if the government authorities
| |
| − | would get rid of the Jew and his work. For as long as the masses remain
| |
| − | so ill-informed as they actually are to-day, and as long as the State
| |
| − | remains as indifferent to their lot as it now is, the masses will follow
| |
| − | whatever leader makes them the most extravagant promises in regard to
| |
| − | economic matters. The Jew is a past master at this art and his
| |
| − | activities are not hampered by moral considerations of any kind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally it takes him only a short time to defeat all his competitors
| |
| − | in this field and drive them from the scene of action. In accordance
| |
| − | with the general brutality and rapacity of his nature, he turns the
| |
| − | trades union movement into an organization for the exercise of physical
| |
| − | violence. The resistance of those whose common sense has hitherto saved
| |
| − | them from surrendering to the Jewish dictatorship is now broken down by
| |
| − | terrorization. The success of that kind of activity is enormous.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Parallel with this, the political organization advances. It operates
| |
| − | hand-in-hand with the trades union movement, inasmuch as the latter
| |
| − | prepares the masses for the political organization and even forces them
| |
| − | into it. This is also the source that provides the money which the
| |
| − | political organization needs to keep its enormous apparatus in action.
| |
| − | The trades union organization is the organ of control for the political
| |
| − | activity of its members and whips in the masses for all great political
| |
| − | demonstrations. In the end it ceases to struggle for economic interests
| |
| − | but places its chief weapon, the refusal to continue work--which takes
| |
| − | the form of a general strike--at the disposal of the political movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By means of a Press whose contents are adapted to the level of the most
| |
| − | ignorant readers, the political and trades union organizations are
| |
| − | provided with an instrument which prepares the lowest stratum of the
| |
| − | nation for a campaign of ruthless destruction. It is not considered part
| |
| − | of the purpose of this Press to inspire its readers with ideals which
| |
| − | might help them to lift their minds above the sordid conditions of their
| |
| − | daily lives; but, on the contrary, it panders to their lowest instincts.
| |
| − | Among the lazy-minded and self-seeking sections of the masses this kind
| |
| − | of speculation turns out lucrative.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is this Press above all which carries on a fanatical campaign of
| |
| − | calumny, strives to tear down everything that might be considered as a
| |
| − | mainstay of national independence and to sabotage all cultural values as
| |
| − | well as to destroy the autonomy of the national economic system.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It aims its attack especially against all men of character who refuse to
| |
| − | fall into line with the Jewish efforts to obtain control over the State
| |
| − | or who appear dangerous to the Jews merely because of their superior
| |
| − | intelligence. For in order to incur the enmity of the Jew it is not
| |
| − | necessary to show any open hostility towards him. It is quite sufficient
| |
| − | if one be considered capable of opposing the Jew some time in the future
| |
| − | or using his abilities and character to enhance the power and position
| |
| − | of a nation which the Jew finds hostile to himself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jewish instinct, which never fails where these problems have to be
| |
| − | dealt with, readily discerns the true mentality of those whom the Jew
| |
| − | meets in everyday life; and those who are not of a kindred spirit with
| |
| − | him may be sure of being listed among his enemies. Since the Jew is not
| |
| − | the object of aggression but the aggressor himself, he considers as his
| |
| − | enemies not only those who attack him but also those who may be capable
| |
| − | of resisting him. The means which he employs to break people of this
| |
| − | kind, who may show themselves decent and upright, are not the open means
| |
| − | generally used in honourable conflict, but falsehood and calumny.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He will stop at nothing. His utterly low-down conduct is so appalling
| |
| − | that one really cannot be surprised if in the imagination of our people
| |
| − | the Jew is pictured as the incarnation of Satan and the symbol of evil.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The ignorance of the broad masses as regards the inner character of the
| |
| − | Jew, and the lack of instinct and insight that our upper classes
| |
| − | display, are some of the reasons which explain how it is that so many
| |
| − | people fall an easy prey to the systematic campaign of falsehood which
| |
| − | the Jew carries on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While the upper classes, with their innate cowardliness, turn away from
| |
| − | anyone whom the Jew thus attacks with lies and calumny, the common
| |
| − | people are credulous of everything, whether because of their ignorance
| |
| − | or their simple-mindedness. Government authorities wrap themselves up in
| |
| − | a robe of silence, but more frequently they persecute the victims of
| |
| − | Jewish attacks in order to stop the campaign in the Jewish Press. To the
| |
| − | fatuous mind of the government official such a line of conduct appears
| |
| − | to belong to the policy of upholding the authority of the State and
| |
| − | preserving public order. Gradually the Marxist weapon in the hands of
| |
| − | the Jew becomes a constant bogy to decent people. Sometimes the fear of
| |
| − | it sticks in the brain or weighs upon them as a kind of nightmare.
| |
| − | People begin to quail before this fearful foe and therewith become his
| |
| − | victims.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (k) The Jewish domination in the State seems now so fully assured that
| |
| − | not only can he now afford to call himself a Jew once again, but he even
| |
| − | acknowledges freely and openly what his ideas are on racial and
| |
| − | political questions. A section of the Jews avows itself quite openly as
| |
| − | an alien people, but even here there is another falsehood. When the
| |
| − | Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the new national
| |
| − | consciousness of the Jews will be satisfied by the establishment of a
| |
| − | Jewish State in Palestine, the Jews thereby adopt another means to dupe
| |
| − | the simple-minded Gentile. They have not the slightest intention of
| |
| − | building up a Jewish State in Palestine so as to live in it. What they
| |
| − | really are aiming at is to establish a central organization for their
| |
| − | international swindling and cheating. As a sovereign State, this cannot
| |
| − | be controlled by any of the other States. Therefore it can serve as a
| |
| − | refuge for swindlers who have been found out and at the same time a
| |
| − | high-school for the training of other swindlers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a sign of their growing presumption and sense of security, a certain
| |
| − | section of them openly and impudently proclaim their Jewish nationality
| |
| − | while another section hypocritically pretend that they are German,
| |
| − | French or English as the case may be. Their blatant behaviour in their
| |
| − | relations with other people shows how clearly they envisage their day of
| |
| − | triumph in the near future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, satanically
| |
| − | glaring at and spying on the unsuspicious girl whom he plans to seduce,
| |
| − | adulterating her blood and removing her from the bosom of her own
| |
| − | people. The Jew uses every possible means to undermine the racial
| |
| − | foundations of a subjugated people. In his systematic efforts to ruin
| |
| − | girls and women he strives to break down the last barriers of
| |
| − | discrimination between him and other peoples. The Jews were responsible
| |
| − | for bringing negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of
| |
| − | bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its
| |
| − | cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate. For as long
| |
| − | as a people remain racially pure and are conscious of the treasure of
| |
| − | their blood, they can never be overcome by the Jew. Never in this world
| |
| − | can the Jew become master of any people except a bastardized people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why the Jew systematically endeavours to lower the racial
| |
| − | quality of a people by permanently adulterating the blood of the
| |
| − | individuals who make up that people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the field of politics he now begins to replace the idea of democracy
| |
| − | by introducing the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the masses
| |
| − | organized under the Marxist banners he has found a weapon which makes it
| |
| − | possible for him to discard democracy, so as to subjugate and rule in a
| |
| − | dictatorial fashion by the aid of brute force. He is systematically
| |
| − | working in two ways to bring about this revolution. These ways are the
| |
| − | economic and the political respectively.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Aided by international influences, he forms a ring of enemies around
| |
| − | those nations which have proved themselves too sturdy for him in
| |
| − | withstanding attacks from within. He would like to force them into war
| |
| − | and then, if it should be necessary to his plans, he will unfurl the
| |
| − | banners of revolt even while the troops are actually fighting at the
| |
| − | front.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Economically he brings about the destruction of the State by a
| |
| − | systematic method of sabotaging social enterprises until these become so
| |
| − | costly that they are taken out of the hands of the State and then
| |
| − | submitted to the control of Jewish finance. Politically he works to
| |
| − | withdraw from the State its means of susbsistence, inasmuch as he
| |
| − | undermines the foundations of national resistance and defence, destroys
| |
| − | the confidence which the people have in their Government, reviles the
| |
| − | past and its history and drags everything national down into the gutter.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Culturally his activity consists in bowdlerizing art, literature and the
| |
| − | theatre, holding the expressions of national sentiment up to scorn,
| |
| − | overturning all concepts of the sublime and beautiful, the worthy and
| |
| − | the good, finally dragging the people to the level of his own low
| |
| − | mentality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of religion he makes a mockery. Morality and decency are described as
| |
| − | antiquated prejudices and thus a systematic attack is made to undermine
| |
| − | those last foundations on which the national being must rest if the
| |
| − | nation is to struggle for its existence in this world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (l) Now begins the great and final revolution. As soon as the Jew is in
| |
| − | possession of political power he drops the last few veils which have
| |
| − | hitherto helped to conceal his features. Out of the democratic Jew, the
| |
| − | Jew of the People, arises the 'Jew of the Blood', the tyrant of the
| |
| − | peoples. In the course of a few years he endeavours to exterminate all
| |
| − | those who represent the national intelligence. And by thus depriving the
| |
| − | peoples of their natural intellectual leaders he fits them for their
| |
| − | fate as slaves under a lasting despotism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Russia furnishes the most terrible example of such a slavery. In that
| |
| − | country the Jew killed or starved thirty millions of the people, in a
| |
| − | bout of savage fanaticism and partly by the employment of inhuman
| |
| − | torture. And he did this so that a gang of Jewish literati and financial
| |
| − | bandits should dominate over a great people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the final consequence is not merely that the people lose all their
| |
| − | freedom under the domination of the Jews, but that in the end these
| |
| − | parasites themselves disappear. The death of the victim is followed
| |
| − | sooner or later by that of the vampire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we review all the causes which contributed to bring about the
| |
| − | downfall of the German people we shall find that the most profound and
| |
| − | decisive cause must be attributed to the lack of insight into the racial
| |
| − | problem and especially in the failure to recognize the Jewish danger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would have been easy enough to endure the defeats suffered on the
| |
| − | battlefields in August 1918. They were nothing when compared with the
| |
| − | military victories which our nation had achieved. Our downfall was not
| |
| − | the result of those defeats; but we were overthrown by that force which
| |
| − | had prepared those defeats by systematically operating for several
| |
| − | decades to destroy those political instincts and that moral stamina
| |
| − | which alone enable a people to struggle for its existence and therewith
| |
| − | secure the right to exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By neglecting the problem of preserving the racial foundations of our
| |
| − | national life, the old Empire abrogated the sole right which entitles a
| |
| − | people to live on this planet. Nations that make mongrels of their
| |
| − | people, or allow their people to be turned into mongrels, sin against
| |
| − | the Will of Eternal Providence. And thus their overthrow at the hands of
| |
| − | a stronger opponent cannot be looked upon as a wrong but, on the
| |
| − | contrary, as a restoration of justice. If a people refuses to guard and
| |
| − | uphold the qualities with which it has been endowed by Nature and which
| |
| − | have their roots in the racial blood, then such a people has no right to
| |
| − | complain over the loss of its earthly existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Everything on this earth can be made into something better. Every defeat
| |
| − | may be made the foundation of a future victory. Every lost war may be
| |
| − | the cause of a later resurgence. Every visitation of distress can give a
| |
| − | new impetus to human energy. And out of every oppression those forces
| |
| − | can develop which bring about a new re-birth of the national
| |
| − | soul--provided always that the racial blood is kept pure.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the loss of racial purity will wreck inner happiness for ever. It
| |
| − | degrades men for all time to come. And the physical and moral
| |
| − | consequences can never be wiped out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If this unique problem be studied and compared with the other problems
| |
| − | of life we shall easily recognize how small is their importance in
| |
| − | comparison with this. They are all limited to time; but the problem of
| |
| − | the maintenance or loss of the purity of the racial blood will last as
| |
| − | long as man himself lasts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All the symptoms of decline which manifested themselves already in
| |
| − | pre-war times can be traced back to the racial problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whether one is dealing with questions of general law, or monstrous
| |
| − | excrescences in economic life, of phenomena which point to a cultural
| |
| − | decline or political degeneration, whether it be a question of defects
| |
| − | in the school-system or of the evil influence which the Press exerts
| |
| − | over the adult population--always and everywhere these phenomena are at
| |
| − | bottom caused by a lack of consideration for the interests of the race
| |
| − | to which one's own nation belongs, or by the failure to recognize the
| |
| − | danger that comes from allowing a foreign race to exist within the
| |
| − | national body.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why all attempts at reform, all institutions for social relief,
| |
| − | all political striving, all economic progress and all apparent increase
| |
| − | in the general stock of knowledge, were doomed to be unproductive of any
| |
| − | significant results. The nation, as well as the organization which
| |
| − | enables it to exist--namely, the State--were not developing in inner
| |
| − | strength and stability, but, on the contrary, were visibly losing their
| |
| − | vitality. The false brilliance of the Second Empire could not disguise
| |
| − | the inner weakness. And every attempt to invigorate it anew failed
| |
| − | because the main and most important problem was left out of
| |
| − | consideration.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would be a mistake to think that the followers of the various
| |
| − | political parties which tried to doctor the condition of the German
| |
| − | people, or even all their leaders, were bad in themselves or meant
| |
| − | wrong. Their activity even at best was doomed to fail, merely because of
| |
| − | the fact that they saw nothing but the symptoms of our general malady
| |
| − | and they tried to doctor the symptoms while they overlooked the real
| |
| − | cause of the disease. If one makes a methodical study of the lines along
| |
| − | which the old Empire developed one cannot help seeing, after a careful
| |
| − | political analysis, that a process of inner degeneration had already set
| |
| − | in even at the time when the united Empire was formed and the German
| |
| − | nation began to make rapid external progress. The general situation was
| |
| − | declining, in spite of the apparent political success and in spite of
| |
| − | the increasing economic wealth. At the elections to the Reichstag the
| |
| − | growing number of Marxist votes indicated that the internal breakdown
| |
| − | and the political collapse were then rapidly approaching. All the
| |
| − | victories of the so-called bourgeois parties were fruitless, not only
| |
| − | because they could not prevent the numerical increase in the growing
| |
| − | mass of Marxist votes, even when the bourgeois parties triumphed at the
| |
| − | polls, but mainly because they themselves were already infected with the
| |
| − | germs of decay. Though quite unaware of it, the bourgeois world was
| |
| − | infected from within with the deadly virus of Marxist ideas. The fact
| |
| − | that they sometimes openly resisted was to be explained by the
| |
| − | competitive strife among ambitious political leaders, rather than by
| |
| − | attributing it to any opposition in principle between adversaries who
| |
| − | were determined to fight one another to the bitter end. During all those
| |
| − | years only one protagonist was fighting with steadfast perseverance.
| |
| − | This was the Jew. The Star of David steadily ascended as the will to
| |
| − | national self-preservation declined.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore it was not a solid national phalanx that, of itself and out of
| |
| − | its own feeling of solidarity, rushed to the battlefields in August
| |
| − | 1914. But it was rather the manifestation of the last flicker from the
| |
| − | instinct of national self-preservation against the progress of the
| |
| − | paralysis with which the pacifist and Marxist doctrine threatened our
| |
| − | people. Even in those days when the destinies of the nation were in the
| |
| − | balance the internal enemy was not recognized; therefore all efforts to
| |
| − | resist the external enemy were bound to be in vain. Providence did not
| |
| − | grant the reward to the victorious sword, but followed the eternal law
| |
| − | of retributive justice. A profound recognition of all this was the
| |
| − | source of those principles and tendencies which inspire our new
| |
| − | movement. We were convinced that only by recognizing such truths could
| |
| − | we stop the national decline in Germany and lay a granite foundation on
| |
| − | which the State could again be built up, a State which would not be a
| |
| − | piece of mechanism alien to our people, constituted for economic
| |
| − | purposes and interests, but an organism created from the soul of the
| |
| − | people themselves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A GERMAN STATE IN A GERMAN NATION
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER XII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE FIRST STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN
| |
| − | NATIONAL SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Here at the close of the volume I shall describe the first stage in the
| |
| − | progress of our movement and shall give a brief account of the problems
| |
| − | we had to deal with during that period. In doing this I have no
| |
| − | intention of expounding the ideals which we have set up as the goal of
| |
| − | our movement; for these ideals are so momentous in their significance
| |
| − | that an exposition of them will need a whole volume. Therefore I shall
| |
| − | devote the second volume of this book to a detailed survey of the
| |
| − | principles which form the programme of our movement and I shall attempt
| |
| − | to draw a picture of what we mean by the word 'State'. When I say 'we'
| |
| − | in this connection I mean to include all those hundreds of thousands who
| |
| − | have fundamentally the same longing, though in the individual cases they
| |
| − | cannot find adequate words to describe the vision that hovers before
| |
| − | their eyes. It is a characteristic feature of all great reforms that in
| |
| − | the beginning there is only one single protagonist to come forward on
| |
| − | behalf of several millions of people. The final goal of a great
| |
| − | reformation has often been the object of profound longing on the parts
| |
| − | of hundreds of thousands for many centuries before, until finally one
| |
| − | among them comes forward as a herald to announce the will of that
| |
| − | multitude and become the standard-bearer of the old yearning, which he
| |
| − | now leads to a realization in a new idea.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that millions of our people yearn at heart for a radical change
| |
| − | in our present conditions is proved by the profound discontent which
| |
| − | exists among them. This feeling is manifested in a thousand ways. Some
| |
| − | express it in a form of discouragement and despair. Others show it in
| |
| − | resentment and anger and indignation. Among some the profound discontent
| |
| − | calls forth an attitude of indifference, while it urges others to
| |
| − | violent manifestations of wrath. Another indication of this feeling may
| |
| − | be seen on the one hand in the attitude of those who abstain from voting
| |
| − | at elections and, on the other, in the large numbers of those who side
| |
| − | with the fanatical extremists of the left wing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To these latter people our young movement had to appeal first of all. It
| |
| − | was not meant to be an organization for contented and satisfied people,
| |
| − | but was meant to gather in all those who were suffering from profound
| |
| − | anxiety and could find no peace, those who were unhappy and
| |
| − | discontented. It was not meant to float on the surface of the nation but
| |
| − | rather to push its roots deep among the masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Looked at from the purely political point of view, the situation in 1918
| |
| − | was as follows: A nation had been torn into two parts. One part, which
| |
| − | was by far the smaller of the two, contained the intellectual classes of
| |
| − | the nation from which all those employed in physical labour were
| |
| − | excluded. On the surface these intellectual classes appeared to be
| |
| − | national-minded, but that word meant nothing else to them except a very
| |
| − | vague and feeble concept of the duty to defend what they called the
| |
| − | interests of the State, which in turn seemed identical with those of the
| |
| − | dynastic regime. This class tried to defend its ideas and reach its aims
| |
| − | by carrying on the fight with the aid of intellectual weapons, which
| |
| − | could be used only here and there and which had only a superficial
| |
| − | effect against the brutal measures employed by the adversaries, in the
| |
| − | face of which the intellectual weapons were of their very nature bound
| |
| − | to fail. With one violent blow the class which had hitherto governed was
| |
| − | now struck down. It trembled with fear and accepted every humiliation
| |
| − | imposed on it by the merciless victor.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Over against this class stood the broad masses of manual labourers who
| |
| − | were organized in movements with a more or less radically Marxist
| |
| − | tendency. These organized masses were firmly determined to break any
| |
| − | kind of intellectual resistance by the use of brute force. They had no
| |
| − | nationalist tendencies whatsoever and deliberately repudiated the idea
| |
| − | of advancing the interests of the nation as such. On the contrary, they
| |
| − | promoted the interests of the foreign oppressor. Numerically this class
| |
| − | embraced the majority of the population and, what is more important,
| |
| − | included all those elements of the nation without whose collaboration a
| |
| − | national resurgence was not only a practical impossibility but was even
| |
| − | inconceivable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For already in 1918 one thing had to be clearly recognized; namely, that
| |
| − | no resurgence of the German nation could take place until we had first
| |
| − | restored our national strength to face the outside world. For this
| |
| − | purpose arms are not the preliminary necessity, though our bourgeois
| |
| − | 'statesmen' always blathered about it being so; what was wanted was
| |
| − | will-power. At one time the German people had more than sufficient
| |
| − | military armament. And yet they were not able to defend their liberty
| |
| − | because they lacked those energies which spring from the instinct of
| |
| − | national self-preservation and the will to hold on to one's own. The
| |
| − | best armament is only dead and worthless material as long as the spirit
| |
| − | is wanting which makes men willing and determined to avail themselves of
| |
| − | such weapons. Germany was rendered defenceless not because she lacked
| |
| − | arms, but because she lacked the will to keep her arms for the
| |
| − | maintenance of her people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day our Left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting
| |
| − | that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily
| |
| − | results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this
| |
| − | is the policy of traitors. To all that kind of talk the answer ought to
| |
| − | be: No, the contrary is the truth. Your action in delivering up the arms
| |
| − | was dictated by your anti-national and criminal policy of abandoning the
| |
| − | interests of the nation. And now you try to make people believe that
| |
| − | your miserable whining is fundamentally due to the fact that you have no
| |
| − | arms. Just like everything else in your conduct, this is a lie and a
| |
| − | falsification of the true reason.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It
| |
| − | was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who
| |
| − | came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms. The
| |
| − | conservative politicians have neither right nor reason on their side
| |
| − | when they appeal to disarmament as the cause which compelled them to
| |
| − | adopt a policy of prudence (that is to say, cowardice). Here, again, the
| |
| − | contrary is the truth. Disarmament is the result of their lack of
| |
| − | spirit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the problem of restoring Germany's power is not a question of
| |
| − | how can we manufacture arms but rather a question of how we can produce
| |
| − | that spirit which enables a people to bear arms. Once this spirit
| |
| − | prevails among a people then it will find a thousand ways, each of which
| |
| − | leads to the necessary armament. But a coward will not fire even a
| |
| − | single shot when attacked though he may be armed with ten pistols. For
| |
| − | him they are of less value than a blackthorn in the hands of a man of
| |
| − | courage.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The problem of re-establishing the political power of our nation is
| |
| − | first of all a problem of restoring the instinct of national
| |
| − | self-preservation for if no other reason than that every preparatory
| |
| − | step in foreign policy and every foreign judgment on the worth of a
| |
| − | State has been proved by experience to be grounded not on the material
| |
| − | size of the armament such a State may possess but rather on the moral
| |
| − | capacity for resistance which such a State has or is believed to have.
| |
| − | The question whether or not a nation be desirable as an ally is not so
| |
| − | much determined by the inert mass of arms which it has at hand but by
| |
| − | the obvious presence of a sturdy will to national self-preservation and
| |
| − | a heroic courage which will fight through to the last breath. For an
| |
| − | alliance is not made between arms but between men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The British nation will therefore be considered as the most valuable
| |
| − | ally in the world as long as it can be counted upon to show that
| |
| − | brutality and tenacity in its government, as well as in the spirit of
| |
| − | the broad masses, which enables it to carry through to victory any
| |
| − | struggle that it once enters upon, no matter how long such a struggle
| |
| − | may last, or however great the sacrifice that may be necessary or
| |
| − | whatever the means that have to be employed; and all this even though
| |
| − | the actual military equipment at hand may be utterly inadequate when
| |
| − | compared with that of other nations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once it is understood that the restoration of Germany is a question of
| |
| − | reawakening the will to political self-preservation we shall see quite
| |
| − | clearly that it will not be enough to win over those elements that are
| |
| − | already national-minded but that the deliberately anti-national masses
| |
| − | must be converted to believe in the national ideals.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A young movement that aims at re-establishing a German State with full
| |
| − | sovereign powers will therefore have to make the task of winning over
| |
| − | the broad masses a special objective of its plan of campaign. Our
| |
| − | so-called 'national bourgeoisie' are so lamentably supine, generally
| |
| − | speaking, and their national spirit appears so feckless, that we may
| |
| − | feel sure they will offer no serious resistance against a vigorous
| |
| − | national foreign--or domestic policy. Even though the narrow-minded
| |
| − | German bourgeoisie should keep up a passive resistance when the hour of
| |
| − | deliverance is at hand, as they did in Bismarck's time, we shall never
| |
| − | have to fear any active resistance on their part, because of their
| |
| − | recognized proverbial cowardice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is quite different with the masses of our population, who are imbued
| |
| − | with ideas of internationalism. Through the primitive roughness of their
| |
| − | natures they are disposed to accept the preaching of violence, while at
| |
| − | the same time their Jewish leaders are more brutal and ruthless. They
| |
| − | will crush any attempt at a German revival, just as they smashed the
| |
| − | German Army by striking at it from the rear. Above all, these organized
| |
| − | masses will use their numerical majority in this Parliamentarian State
| |
| − | not only to hinder any national foreign policy, but also to prevent
| |
| − | Germany from restoring her political power and therewith her prestige
| |
| − | abroad. Thus she becomes excluded from the ranks of desirable allies.
| |
| − | For it is not we ourselves alone who are aware of the handicap that
| |
| − | results from the existence of fifteen million Marxists, democrats,
| |
| − | pacifists and followers of the Centre, in our midst, but foreign nations
| |
| − | also recognize this internal burden which we have to bear and take it
| |
| − | into their calculations when estimating the value of a possible alliance
| |
| − | with us. Nobody would wish to form an alliance with a State where the
| |
| − | active portion of the population is at least passively opposed to any
| |
| − | resolute foreign policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The situation is made still worse by reason of the fact that the leaders
| |
| − | of those parties which were responsible for the national betrayal are
| |
| − | ready to oppose any and every attempt at a revival, simply because they
| |
| − | want to retain the positions they now hold. According to the laws that
| |
| − | govern human history it is inconceivable that the German people could
| |
| − | resume the place they formerly held without retaliating on those who
| |
| − | were both cause and occasion of the collapse that involved the ruin of
| |
| − | our State. Before the judgment seat of posterity November 1918 will not
| |
| − | be regarded as a simple rebellion but as high treason against the
| |
| − | country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore it is not possible to think of re-establishing German
| |
| − | sovereignty and political independence without at the same time
| |
| − | reconstructing a united front within the nation, by a peaceful
| |
| − | conversion of the popular will.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Looked at from the standpoint of practical ways and means, it seems
| |
| − | absurd to think of liberating Germany from foreign bondage as long as
| |
| − | the masses of the people are not willing to support such an ideal of
| |
| − | freedom. After carefully considering this problem from the purely
| |
| − | military point of view, everybody, and in particular every officer, will
| |
| − | agree that a war cannot be waged against an outside enemy by battalions
| |
| − | of students; but that, together with the brains of the nation, the
| |
| − | physical strength of the nation is also necessary. Furthermore it must
| |
| − | be remembered that the nation would be robbed of its irreplaceable
| |
| − | assets by a national defence in which only the intellectual circles, as
| |
| − | they are called, were engaged. The young German intellectuals who joined
| |
| − | the volunteer regiments and fell on the battlefields of Flanders in the
| |
| − | autumn of 1914 were bitterly missed later on. They were the dearest
| |
| − | treasure which the nation possessed and their loss could not be made
| |
| − | good in the course of the war. And it is not only the struggle itself
| |
| − | which could not be waged if the working masses of the nation did not
| |
| − | join the storm battalions, but the necessary technical preparations
| |
| − | could not be made without a unified will and a common front within the
| |
| − | nation itself. Our nation which has to exist disarmed, under the
| |
| − | thousand eyes appointed by the Versailles Peace Treaty, cannot make any
| |
| − | technical preparations for the recovery of its freedom and human
| |
| − | independence until the whole army of spies employed within the country
| |
| − | is cut down to those few whose inborn baseness would lead them to betray
| |
| − | anything and everything for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver. But
| |
| − | we can deal with such people. The millions, however, who are opposed to
| |
| − | every kind of national revival simply because of their political
| |
| − | opinions, constitute an insurmountable obstacle. At least the obstacle
| |
| − | will remain insurmountable as long as the cause of their opposition,
| |
| − | which is international Marxism, is not overcome and its teachings
| |
| − | banished from both their hearts and heads.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From whatever point of view we may examine the possibility of recovering
| |
| − | our independence as a State and a people, whether we consider the
| |
| − | problem from the standpoint of technical rearmament or from that of the
| |
| − | actual struggle itself, the necessary pre-requisite always remains the
| |
| − | same. This pre-requisite is that the broad masses of the people must
| |
| − | first be won over to accept the principle of our national independence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we do not regain our external freedom every step forward in domestic
| |
| − | reform will at best be an augmentation of our productive powers for the
| |
| − | benefit of those nations that look upon us as a colony to be exploited.
| |
| − | The surplus produced by any so-called improvement would only go into the
| |
| − | hands of our international controllers and any social betterment would
| |
| − | at best increase the product of our labour in favour of those people. No
| |
| − | cultural progress can be made by the German nation, because such
| |
| − | progress is too much bound up with the political independence and
| |
| − | dignity of a people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, as we can find a satisfactory solution for the problem of
| |
| − | Germany's future only by winning over the broad masses of our people for
| |
| − | the support of the national idea, this work of education must be
| |
| − | considered the highest and most important task to be accomplished by a
| |
| − | movement which does not strive merely to satisfy the needs of the moment
| |
| − | but considers itself bound to examine in the light of future results
| |
| − | everything it decides to do or refrain from doing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As early as 1919 we were convinced that the nationalization of the
| |
| − | masses would have to constitute the first and paramount aim of the new
| |
| − | movement. From the tactical standpoint, this decision laid a certain
| |
| − | number of obligations on our shoulders.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) No social sacrifice could be considered too great in this effort to
| |
| − | win over the masses for the national revival.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the field of national economics, whatever concessions are granted
| |
| − | to-day to the employees are negligible when compared with the benefit to
| |
| − | be reaped by the whole nation if such concessions contribute to bring
| |
| − | back the masses of the people once more to the bosom of their own
| |
| − | nation. Nothing but meanness and shortsightedness, which are
| |
| − | characteristics that unfortunately are only too prevalent among our
| |
| − | employers, could prevent people from recognizing that in the long run no
| |
| − | economic improvement and therefore no rise in profits are possible
| |
| − | unless internal solidarity be restored among the bulk of the people who
| |
| − | make up our nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the German trades unions had defended the interests of the
| |
| − | working-classes uncompromisingly during the War; if even during the War
| |
| − | they had used the weapon of the strike to force the industrialists--who
| |
| − | were greedy for higher dividends--to grant the demands of the workers
| |
| − | for whom the unions acted; if at the same time they had stood up as good
| |
| − | Germans for the defence of the nation as stoutly as for their own
| |
| − | claims, and if they had given to their country what was their country's
| |
| − | due--then the War would never have been lost. How ludicrously
| |
| − | insignificant would all, and even the greatest, economic concession have
| |
| − | been in face of the tremendous importance of such a victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For a movement which would restore the German worker to the German
| |
| − | people it is therefore absolutely necessary to understand clearly that
| |
| − | economic sacrifices must be considered light in such cases, provided of
| |
| − | course that they do not go the length of endangering the independence
| |
| − | and stability of the national economic system.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) The education of the masses along national lines can be carried out
| |
| − | only indirectly, by improving their social conditions; for only by such
| |
| − | a process can the economic conditions be created which enable everybody
| |
| − | to share in the cultural life of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (3) The nationalization of the broad masses can never be achieved by
| |
| − | half-measures--that is to say, by feebly insisting on what is called the
| |
| − | objective side of the question--but only by a ruthless and devoted
| |
| − | insistence on the one aim which must be achieved. This means that a
| |
| − | people cannot be made 'national' according to the signification attached
| |
| − | to that word by our bourgeois class to-day--that is to say, nationalism
| |
| − | with many reservations--but national in the vehement and extreme sense.
| |
| − | Poison can be overcome only by a counter-poison, and only the supine
| |
| − | bourgeois mind could think that the Kingdom of Heaven can be attained by
| |
| − | a compromise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The broad masses of a nation are not made up of professors and
| |
| − | diplomats. Since these masses have only a poor acquaintance with
| |
| − | abstract ideas, their reactions lie more in the domain of the feelings,
| |
| − | where the roots of their positive as well as their negative attitudes
| |
| − | are implanted. They are susceptible only to a manifestation of strength
| |
| − | which comes definitely either from the positive or negative side, but
| |
| − | they are never susceptible to any half-hearted attitude that wavers
| |
| − | between one pole and the other. The emotional grounds of their attitude
| |
| − | furnish the reason for their extraordinary stability. It is always more
| |
| − | difficult to fight successfully against Faith than against knowledge.
| |
| − | Love is less subject to change than respect. Hatred is more lasting than
| |
| − | mere aversion. And the driving force which has brought about the most
| |
| − | tremendous revolutions on this earth has never been a body of scientific
| |
| − | teaching which has gained power over the masses, but always a devotion
| |
| − | which has inspired them, and often a kind of hysteria which has urged
| |
| − | them to action.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whoever wishes to win over the masses must know the key that will open
| |
| − | the door to their hearts. It is not objectivity, which is a feckless
| |
| − | attitude, but a determined will, backed up by force, when necessary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (4) The soul of the masses can be won only if those who lead the
| |
| − | movement for that purpose are determined not merely to carry through the
| |
| − | positive struggle for their own aims but are also determined to destroy
| |
| − | the enemy that opposes them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When they see an uncompromising onslaught against an adversary the
| |
| − | people have at all times taken this as a proof that right is on the side
| |
| − | of the active aggressor; but if the aggressor should go only half-way
| |
| − | and fail to push home his success by driving his opponent entirely from
| |
| − | the scene of action, the people will look upon this as a sign that the
| |
| − | aggressor is uncertain of the justice of his own cause and his half-way
| |
| − | policy may even be an acknowledgment that his cause is unjust.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The masses are but a part of Nature herself. Their feeling is such that
| |
| − | they cannot understand mutual hand-shakings between men who are declared
| |
| − | enemies. Their wish is to see the stronger side win and the weaker wiped
| |
| − | out or subjected unconditionally to the will of the stronger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The nationalization of the masses can be successfully achieved only if,
| |
| − | in the positive struggle to win the soul of the people, those who spread
| |
| − | the international poison among them are exterminated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (5) All the great problems of our time are problems of the moment and
| |
| − | are only the results of certain definite causes. And among all those
| |
| − | there is only one that has a profoundly causal significance. This is the
| |
| − | problem of preserving the pure racial stock among the people. Human
| |
| − | vigour or decline depends on the blood. Nations that are not aware of
| |
| − | the importance of their racial stock, or which neglect to preserve it,
| |
| − | are like men who would try to educate the pug-dog to do the work of the
| |
| − | greyhound, not understanding that neither the speed of the greyhound nor
| |
| − | the imitative faculties of the poodle are inborn qualities which cannot
| |
| − | be drilled into the one or the other by any form of training. A people
| |
| − | that fails to preserve the purity of its racial blood thereby destroys
| |
| − | the unity of the soul of the nation in all its manifestations. A
| |
| − | disintegrated national character is the inevitable consequence of a
| |
| − | process of disintegration in the blood. And the change which takes place
| |
| − | in the spiritual and creative faculties of a people is only an effect of
| |
| − | the change that has modified its racial substance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we are to free the German people from all those failings and ways of
| |
| − | acting which do not spring from their original character, we must first
| |
| − | get rid of those foreign germs in the national body which are the cause
| |
| − | of its failings and false ways.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German nation will never revive unless the racial problem is taken
| |
| − | into account and dealt with. The racial problem furnishes the key not
| |
| − | only to the understanding of human history but also to the understanding
| |
| − | of every kind of human culture.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (6) By incorporating in the national community the masses of our people
| |
| − | who are now in the international camp we do not thereby mean to renounce
| |
| − | the principle that the interests of the various trades and professions
| |
| − | must be safeguarded. Divergent interests in the various branches of
| |
| − | labour and in the trades and professions are not the same as a division
| |
| − | between the various classes, but rather a feature inherent in the
| |
| − | economic situation. Vocational grouping does not clash in the least with
| |
| − | the idea of a national community, for this means national unity in
| |
| − | regard to all those problems that affect the life of the nation as such.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To incorporate in the national community, or simply the State, a stratum
| |
| − | of the people which has now formed a social class the standing of the
| |
| − | higher classes must not be lowered but that of the lower classes must be
| |
| − | raised. The class which carries through this process is never the higher
| |
| − | class but rather the lower one which is fighting for equality of rights.
| |
| − | The bourgeoisie of to-day was not incorporated in the State through
| |
| − | measures enacted by the feudal nobility but only through its own energy
| |
| − | and a leadership that had sprung from its own ranks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German worker cannot be raised from his present standing and
| |
| − | incorporated in the German folk-community by means of goody-goody
| |
| − | meetings where people talk about the brotherhood of the people, but
| |
| − | rather by a systematic improvement in the social and cultural life of
| |
| − | the worker until the yawning abyss between him and the other classes can
| |
| − | be filled in. A movement which has this for its aim must try to recruit
| |
| − | its followers mainly from the ranks of the working class. It must
| |
| − | include members of the intellectual classes only in so far as such
| |
| − | members have rightly understood and accepted without reserve the ideal
| |
| − | towards which the movement is striving. This process of transformation
| |
| − | and reunion cannot be completed within ten or twenty years. It will take
| |
| − | several generations, as the history of such movements has shown.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most difficult obstacle to the reunion of our contemporary worker in
| |
| − | the national folk-community does not consist so much in the fact that he
| |
| − | fights for the interests of his fellow-workers, but rather in the
| |
| − | international ideas with which he is imbued and which are of their
| |
| − | nature at variance with the ideas of nationhood and fatherland. This
| |
| − | hostile attitude to nation and fatherland has been inculcated by the
| |
| − | leaders of the working class. If they were inspired by the principle of
| |
| − | devotion to the nation in all that concerns its political and social
| |
| − | welfare, the trades unions would make those millions of workers most
| |
| − | valuable members of the national community, without thereby affecting
| |
| − | their own constant struggle for their economic demands.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A movement which sincerely endeavours to bring the German worker back
| |
| − | into his folk-community, and rescue him from the folly of
| |
| − | internationalism, must wage a vigorous campaign against certain notions
| |
| − | that are prevalent among the industrialists. One of these notions is
| |
| − | that according to the concept of the folk-community, the employee is
| |
| − | obliged to surrender all his economic rights to the employer and,
| |
| − | further, that the workers would come into conflict with the
| |
| − | folk-community if they should attempt to defend their own just and vital
| |
| − | interests. Those who try to propagate such a notion are deliberate
| |
| − | liars. The idea of a folk-community does not impose any obligations on
| |
| − | the one side that are not imposed on the other.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A worker certainly does something which is contrary to the spirit of
| |
| − | folk-community if he acts entirely on his own initiative and puts
| |
| − | forward exaggerated demands without taking the common good into
| |
| − | consideration or the maintenance of the national economic structure. But
| |
| − | an industrialist also acts against the spirit of the folk-community if
| |
| − | he adopts inhuman methods of exploitation and misuses the working forces
| |
| − | of the nation to make millions unjustly for himself from the sweat of
| |
| − | the workers. He has no right to call himself 'national' and no right to
| |
| − | talk of a folk-community, for he is only an unscrupulous egoist who sows
| |
| − | the seeds of social discontent and provokes a spirit of conflict which
| |
| − | sooner or later must be injurious to the interests of the country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The reservoir from which the young movement has to draw its members will
| |
| − | first of all be the working masses. Those masses must be delivered from
| |
| − | the clutches of the international mania. Their social distress must be
| |
| − | eliminated. They must be raised above their present cultural level,
| |
| − | which is deplorable, and transformed into a resolute and valuable factor
| |
| − | in the folk-community, inspired by national ideas and national
| |
| − | sentiment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If among those intellectual circles that are nationalist in their
| |
| − | outlook men can be found who genuinely love the people and look forward
| |
| − | eagerly to the future of Germany, and at the same time have a sound
| |
| − | grasp of the importance of a struggle whose aim is to win over the soul
| |
| − | of the masses, such men are cordially welcomed in the ranks of our
| |
| − | movement, because they can serve as a valuable intellectual force in the
| |
| − | work that has to be done. But this movement can never aim at recruiting
| |
| − | its membership from the unthinking herd of bourgeois voters. If it did
| |
| − | so the movement would be burdened with a mass of people whose whole
| |
| − | mentality would only help to paralyse the effort of our campaign to win
| |
| − | the mass of the people. In theory it may be very fine to say that the
| |
| − | broad masses ought to be influenced by a combined leadership of the
| |
| − | upper and lower social strata within the framework of the one movement;
| |
| − | but, notwithstanding all this, the fact remains that though it may be
| |
| − | possible to exercise a psychological influence on the bourgeois classes
| |
| − | and to arouse some enthusiasm or even awaken some understanding among
| |
| − | them by our public demonstrations, their traditional characteristics
| |
| − | cannot be changed. In other words, we could not eliminate from the
| |
| − | bourgeois classes the inefficiency and supineness which are part of a
| |
| − | tradition that has developed through centuries. The difference between
| |
| − | the cultural levels of the two groups and between their respective
| |
| − | attitudes towards social-economic questions is still so great that it
| |
| − | would turn out a hindrance to the movement the moment the first
| |
| − | enthusiasm aroused by our demonstrations calmed down.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, it is not part of our programme to transform the nationalist
| |
| − | camp itself, but rather to win over those who are anti-national in their
| |
| − | outlook. It is from this viewpoint that the strategy of the whole
| |
| − | movement must finally be decided.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (7) This one-sided but accordingly clear and definite attitude must be
| |
| − | manifested in the propaganda of the movement; and, on the other hand,
| |
| − | this is absolutely necessary to make the propaganda itself effective.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If propaganda is to be of service to the movement it must be addressed
| |
| − | to one side alone; for if it should vary the direction of its appeal it
| |
| − | will not be understood in the one camp or may be rejected by the other,
| |
| − | as merely insisting on obvious and uninteresting truisms; for the
| |
| − | intellectual training of the two camps that come into question here has
| |
| − | been very different.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even the manner in which something is presented and the tone in which
| |
| − | particular details are emphasized cannot have the same effect in those
| |
| − | two strata that belong respectively to the opposite extremes of the
| |
| − | social structure. If the propaganda should refrain from using primitive
| |
| − | forms of expression it will not appeal to the sentiments of the masses.
| |
| − | If, on the other hand, it conforms to the crude sentiments of the masses
| |
| − | in its words and gestures the intellectual circles will be averse to it
| |
| − | because of its roughness and vulgarity. Among a hundred men who call
| |
| − | themselves orators there are scarcely ten who are capable of speaking
| |
| − | with effect before an audience of street-sweepers, locksmiths and
| |
| − | navvies, etc., to-day and expound the same subject with equal effect
| |
| − | to-morrow before an audience of university professors and students.
| |
| − | Among a thousand public speakers there may be only one who can speak
| |
| − | before a composite audience of locksmiths and professors in the same
| |
| − | hall in such a way that his statements can be fully comprehended by each
| |
| − | group while at the same time he effectively influences both and awakens
| |
| − | enthusiasm, on the one side as well as on the other, to hearty applause.
| |
| − | But it must be remembered that in most cases even the most beautiful
| |
| − | idea embodied in a sublime theory can be brought home to the public only
| |
| − | through the medium of smaller minds. The thing that matters here is not
| |
| − | the vision of the man of genius who created the great idea but rather
| |
| − | the success which his apostles achieve in shaping the expression of this
| |
| − | idea so as to bring it home to the minds of the masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Social-Democracy and the whole Marxist movement were particularly
| |
| − | qualified to attract the great masses of the nation, because of the
| |
| − | uniformity of the public to which they addressed their appeal. The more
| |
| − | limited and narrow their ideas and arguments, the easier it was for the
| |
| − | masses to grasp and assimilate them; for those ideas and arguments were
| |
| − | well adapted to a low level of intelligence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These considerations led the new movement to adopt a clear and simple
| |
| − | line of policy, which was as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | In its message as well as in its forms of expression the propaganda must
| |
| − | be kept on a level with the intelligence of the masses, and its value
| |
| − | must be measured only by the actual success it achieves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At a public meeting where the great masses are gathered together the
| |
| − | best speaker is not he whose way of approaching a subject is most akin
| |
| − | to the spirit of those intellectuals who may happen to be present, but
| |
| − | the speaker who knows how to win the hearts of the masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An educated man who is present and who finds fault with an address
| |
| − | because he considers it to be on an intellectual plane that is too low,
| |
| − | though he himself has witnessed its effect on the lower intellectual
| |
| − | groups whose adherence has to be won, only shows himself completely
| |
| − | incapable of rightly judging the situation and therewith proves that he
| |
| − | can be of no use in the new movement. Only intellectuals can be of use
| |
| − | to a movement who understand its mission and its aims so well that they
| |
| − | have learned to judge our methods of propaganda exclusively by the
| |
| − | success obtained and never by the impression which those methods made on
| |
| − | the intellectuals themselves. For our propaganda is not meant to serve
| |
| − | as an entertainment for those people who already have a nationalist
| |
| − | outlook, but its purpose is to win the adhesion of those who have
| |
| − | hitherto been hostile to national ideas and who are nevertheless of our
| |
| − | own blood and race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In general, those considerations of which I have given a brief summary
| |
| − | in the chapter on 'War Propaganda' became the guiding rules and
| |
| − | principles which determined the kind of propaganda we were to adopt in
| |
| − | our campaign and the manner in which we were to put it into practice.
| |
| − | The success that has been obtained proves that our decision was right.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (8) The ends which any political reform movement sets out to attain can
| |
| − | never be reached by trying to educate the public or influence those in
| |
| − | power but only by getting political power into its hands. Every idea
| |
| − | that is meant to move the world has not only the right but also the
| |
| − | obligation of securing control of those means which will enable the idea
| |
| − | to be carried into effect. In this world success is the only rule of
| |
| − | judgment whereby we can decide whether such an undertaking was right or
| |
| − | wrong. And by the word 'success' in this connection I do not mean such a
| |
| − | success as the mere conquest of power in 1918 but the successful issue
| |
| − | whereby the common interests of the nation have been served. A COUP
| |
| − | D'ETAT cannot be considered successful if, as many empty-headed
| |
| − | government lawyers in Germany now believe, the revolutionaries succeeded
| |
| − | in getting control of the State into their hands but only if, in
| |
| − | comparison with the state of affairs under the old regime, the lot of
| |
| − | the nation has been improved when the aims and intentions on which the
| |
| − | revolution was based have been put into practice. This certainly does
| |
| − | not apply to the German Revolution, as that movement was called, which
| |
| − | brought a gang of bandits into power in the autumn of 1918.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But if the conquest of political power be a requisite preliminary for
| |
| − | the practical realization of the ideals that inspire a reform movement,
| |
| − | then any movement which aims at reform must, from the very first day of
| |
| − | its activity, be considered by its leaders as a movement of the masses
| |
| − | and not as a literary tea club or an association of philistines who meet
| |
| − | to play ninepins.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (9) The nature and internal organization of the new movement make it
| |
| − | anti-parliamentarian. That is to say, it rejects in general and in its
| |
| − | own structure all those principles according to which decisions are to
| |
| − | be taken on the vote of the majority and according to which the leader
| |
| − | is only the executor of the will and opinion of others. The movement
| |
| − | lays down the principle that, in the smallest as well as in the greatest
| |
| − | problems, one person must have absolute authority and bear all
| |
| − | responsibility.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our movement the practical consequences of this principle are the
| |
| − | following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The president of a large group is appointed by the head of the group
| |
| − | immediately above his in authority. He is then the responsible leader of
| |
| − | his group. All the committees are subject to his authority and not he to
| |
| − | theirs. There is no such thing as committees that vote but only
| |
| − | committees that work. This work is allotted by the responsible leader,
| |
| − | who is the president of the group. The same principle applies to the
| |
| − | higher organizations--the Bezirk (district), the KREIS (urban circuit)
| |
| − | and the GAU (the region). In each case the president is appointed from
| |
| − | above and is invested with full authority and executive power. Only the
| |
| − | leader of the whole party is elected at the general meeting of the
| |
| − | members. But he is the sole leader of the movement. All the committees
| |
| − | are responsible to him, but he is not responsible to the committees. His
| |
| − | decision is final, but he bears the whole responsibility of it. The
| |
| − | members of the movement are entitled to call him to account by means of
| |
| − | a new election, or to remove him from office if he has violated the
| |
| − | principles of the movement or has not served its interests adequately.
| |
| − | He is then replaced by a more capable man. who is invested with the same
| |
| − | authority and obliged to bear the same responsibility.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One of the highest duties of the movement is to make this principle
| |
| − | imperative not only within its own ranks but also for the whole State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The man who becomes leader is invested with the highest and unlimited
| |
| − | authority, but he also has to bear the last and gravest responsibility.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The man who has not the courage to shoulder responsibility for his
| |
| − | actions is not fitted to be a leader. Only a man of heroic mould can
| |
| − | have the vocation for such a task.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Human progress and human cultures are not founded by the multitude. They
| |
| − | are exclusively the work of personal genius and personal efficiency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Because of this principle, our movement must necessarily be
| |
| − | anti-parliamentarian, and if it takes part in the parliamentary
| |
| − | institution it is only for the purpose of destroying this institution
| |
| − | from within; in other words, we wish to do away with an institution
| |
| − | which we must look upon as one of the gravest symptoms of human decline.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (10) The movement steadfastly refuses to take up any stand in regard to
| |
| − | those problems which are either outside of its sphere of political work
| |
| − | or seem to have no fundamental importance for us. It does not aim at
| |
| − | bringing about a religious reformation, but rather a political
| |
| − | reorganization of our people. It looks upon the two religious
| |
| − | denominations as equally valuable mainstays for the existence of our
| |
| − | people, and therefore it makes war on all those parties which would
| |
| − | degrade this foundation, on which the religious and moral stability of
| |
| − | our people is based, to an instrument in the service of party interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, the movement does not aim at establishing any one form of State
| |
| − | or trying to destroy another, but rather to make those fundamental
| |
| − | principles prevail without which no republic and no monarchy can exist
| |
| − | for any length of time. The movement does not consider its mission to be
| |
| − | the establishment of a monarchy or the preservation of the Republic but
| |
| − | rather to create a German State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The problem concerning the outer form of this State, that is to say, its
| |
| − | final shape, is not of fundamental importance. It is a problem which
| |
| − | must be solved in the light of what seems practical and opportune at the
| |
| − | moment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once a nation has understood and appreciated the great problems that
| |
| − | affect its inner existence, the question of outer formalities will never
| |
| − | lead to any internal conflict.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (11) The problem of the inner organization of the movement is not one of
| |
| − | principle but of expediency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The best kind of organization is not that which places a large
| |
| − | intermediary apparatus between the leadership of the movement and the
| |
| − | individual followers but rather that which works successfully with the
| |
| − | smallest possible intermediary apparatus. For it is the task of such an
| |
| − | organization to transmit a certain idea which originated in the brain of
| |
| − | one individual to a multitude of people and to supervise the manner in
| |
| − | which this idea is being put into practice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, from any and every viewpoint, the organization is only a
| |
| − | necessary evil. At best it is only a means of reaching certain ends. The
| |
| − | worst happens when it becomes an end in itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since the world produces more mechanical than intelligent beings, it
| |
| − | will always be easier to develop the form of an organization than its
| |
| − | substance; that is to say, the ideas which it is meant to serve.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The march of any idea which strives towards practical fulfilment, and in
| |
| − | particular those ideas which are of a reformatory character, may be
| |
| − | roughly sketched as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | A creative idea takes shape in the mind of somebody who thereupon feels
| |
| − | himself called upon to transmit this idea to the world. He propounds his
| |
| − | faith before others and thereby gradually wins a certain number of
| |
| − | followers. This direct and personal way of promulgating one's ideas
| |
| − | among one's contemporaries is the most natural and the most ideal. But
| |
| − | as the movement develops and secures a large number of followers it
| |
| − | gradually becomes impossible for the original founder of the doctrine on
| |
| − | which the movement is based to carry on his propaganda personally among
| |
| − | his innumerable followers and at the same time guide the course of the
| |
| − | movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | According as the community of followers increases, direct communication
| |
| − | between the head and the individual followers becomes impossible. This
| |
| − | intercourse must then take place through an intermediary apparatus
| |
| − | introduced into the framework of the movement. Thus ideal conditions of
| |
| − | inter-communication cease, and organization has to be introduced as a
| |
| − | necessary evil. Small subsidiary groups come into existence, as in the
| |
| − | political movement, for example, where the local groups represent the
| |
| − | germ-cells out of which the organization develops later on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But such sub-divisions must not be introduced into the movement until
| |
| − | the authority of the spiritual founder and of the school he has created
| |
| − | are accepted without reservation. Otherwise the movement would run the
| |
| − | risk of becoming split up by divergent doctrines. In this connection too
| |
| − | much emphasis cannot be laid on the importance of having one geographic
| |
| − | centre as the chief seat of the movement. Only the existence of such a
| |
| − | seat or centre, around which a magic charm such as that of Mecca or Rome
| |
| − | is woven, can supply a movement with that permanent driving force which
| |
| − | has its sources in the internal unity of the movement and the
| |
| − | recognition of one head as representing this unity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the first germinal cells of the organization are being formed care
| |
| − | must always be taken to insist on the importance of the place where the
| |
| − | idea originated. The creative, moral and practical greatness of the
| |
| − | place whence the movement went forth and from which it is governed must
| |
| − | be exalted to a supreme symbol, and this must be honoured all the more
| |
| − | according as the original cells of the movement become so numerous that
| |
| − | they have to be regrouped into larger units in the structure of the
| |
| − | organization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the number of individual followers became so large that direct
| |
| − | personal contact with the head of the movement was out of the question,
| |
| − | then we had to form those first local groups. As those groups multiplied
| |
| − | to an extraordinary number it was necessary to establish higher cadres
| |
| − | into which the local groups were distributed. Examples of such cadres in
| |
| − | the political organization are those of the region (GAU) and the
| |
| − | district (BEZIRK).
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though it may be easy enough to maintain the original central authority
| |
| − | over the lowest groups, it is much more difficult to do so in relation
| |
| − | to the higher units of organization which have now developed. And yet we
| |
| − | must succeed in doing this, for this is an indispensable condition if
| |
| − | the unity of the movement is to be guaranteed and the idea of it carried
| |
| − | into effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, when those larger intermediary organizations have to be
| |
| − | combined in new and still higher units it becomes increasingly difficult
| |
| − | to maintain over them the absolute supremacy of the original seat of the
| |
| − | movement and the school attached to it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Consequently the mechanical forms of an organization must only be
| |
| − | introduced if and in so far as the spiritual authority and the ideals of
| |
| − | the central seat of the organization are shown to be firmly established.
| |
| − | In the political sphere it may often happen that this supremacy can be
| |
| − | maintained only when the movement has taken over supreme political
| |
| − | control of the nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Having taken all these considerations into account, the following
| |
| − | principles were laid down for the inner structure of the movement:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (a) That at the beginning all activity should be concentrated in one
| |
| − | town: namely, Munich. That a band of absolutely reliable followers
| |
| − | should be trained and a school founded which would subsequently help to
| |
| − | propagate the idea of the movement. That the prestige of the movement,
| |
| − | for the sake of its subsequent extension, should first be established
| |
| − | here through gaining as many successful and visible results as possible
| |
| − | in this one place. To secure name and fame for the movement and its
| |
| − | leader it was necessary, not only to give in this one town a striking
| |
| − | example to shatter the belief that the Marxist doctrine was invincible
| |
| − | but also to show that a counter-doctrine was possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (b) That local groups should not be established before the supremacy of
| |
| − | the central authority in Munich was definitely established and
| |
| − | acknowledged.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (c) That District, Regional, and Provincial groups should be formed only
| |
| − | after the need for them has become evident and only after the supremacy
| |
| − | of the central authority has been satisfactorily guaranteed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Further, that the creation of subordinate organisms must depend on
| |
| − | whether or not those persons can be found who are qualified to undertake
| |
| − | the leadership of them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here there were only two solutions:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (a) That the movement should acquire the necessary funds to attract and
| |
| − | train intelligent people who would be capable of becoming leaders. The
| |
| − | personnel thus obtained could then be systematically employed according
| |
| − | as the tactical situation and the necessity for efficiency demanded.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This solution was the easier and the more expedite. But it demanded
| |
| − | large financial resources; for this group of leaders could work in the
| |
| − | movement only if they could be paid a salary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (b) Because the movement is not in a position to employ paid officials
| |
| − | it must begin by depending on honorary helpers. Naturally this solution
| |
| − | is slower and more difficult.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It means that the leaders of the movement have to allow vast territories
| |
| − | to lie fallow unless in these respective districts one of the members
| |
| − | comes forward who is capable and willing to place himself at the service
| |
| − | of the central authority for the purpose of organizing and directing the
| |
| − | movement in the region concerned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may happen that in extensive regions no such leader can be found, but
| |
| − | that at the same time in other regions two or three or even more persons
| |
| − | appear whose capabilities are almost on a level. The difficulty which
| |
| − | this situation involves is very great and can be overcome only with the
| |
| − | passing of the years.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the establishment of any branch of the organization the decisive
| |
| − | condition must always be that a person can be found who is capable of
| |
| − | fulfilling the functions of a leader.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as the army and all its various units of organization are useless
| |
| − | if there are no officers, so any political organization is worthless if
| |
| − | it has not the right kind of leaders.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If an inspiring personality who has the gift of leadership cannot be
| |
| − | found for the organization and direction of a local group it is better
| |
| − | for the movement to refrain from establishing such a group than to run
| |
| − | the risk of failure after the group has been founded.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The will to be a leader is not a sufficient qualification for
| |
| − | leadership. For the leader must have the other necessary qualities.
| |
| − | Among these qualities will-power and energy must be considered as more
| |
| − | serviceable than the intellect of a genius. The most valuable
| |
| − | association of qualities is to be found in a combination of talent,
| |
| − | determination and perseverance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (12) The future of a movement is determined by the devotion, and even
| |
| − | intolerance, with which its members fight for their cause. They must
| |
| − | feel convinced that their cause alone is just, and they must carry it
| |
| − | through to success, as against other similar organizations in the same
| |
| − | field.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is quite erroneous to believe that the strength of a movement must
| |
| − | increase if it be combined with other movements of a similar kind. Any
| |
| − | expansion resulting from such a combination will of course mean an
| |
| − | increase in external development, which superficial observers might
| |
| − | consider as also an increase of power; but in reality the movement thus
| |
| − | admits outside elements which will subsequently weaken its
| |
| − | constitutional vigour.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though it may be said that one movement is identical in character with
| |
| − | another, in reality no such identity exists. If it did exist then
| |
| − | practically there would not be two movements but only one. And whatever
| |
| − | the difference may be, even if it consist only of the measure in which
| |
| − | the capabilities of the one set of leaders differ from those of the
| |
| − | other, there it is. It is against the natural law of all development to
| |
| − | couple dissimilar organisms, or the law is that the stronger must
| |
| − | overcome the weaker and, through the struggle necessary for such a
| |
| − | conquest, increase the constitutional vigour and effective strength of
| |
| − | the victor.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By amalgamating political organizations that are approximately alike,
| |
| − | certain immediate advantages may be gained, but advantages thus gained
| |
| − | are bound in the long run to become the cause of internal weaknesses
| |
| − | which will make their appearance later on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A movement can become great only if the unhampered development of its
| |
| − | internal strength be safeguarded and steadfastly augmented, until
| |
| − | victory over all its competitors be secured.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One may safely say that the strength of a movement and its right to
| |
| − | existence can be developed only as long as it remains true to the
| |
| − | principle that struggle is a necessary condition of its progress and
| |
| − | that its maximum strength will be reached only as soon as complete
| |
| − | victory has been won.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore a movement must not strive to obtain successes that will be
| |
| − | only immediate and transitory, but it must show a spirit of
| |
| − | uncompromising perseverance in carrying through a long struggle which
| |
| − | will secure for it a long period of inner growth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All those movements which owe their expansion to a so-called combination
| |
| − | of similar organisms, which means that their external strength is due to
| |
| − | a policy of compromise, are like plants whose growth is forced in a
| |
| − | hothouse. They shoot up externally but they lack that inner strength
| |
| − | which enables the natural plant to grow into a tree that will withstand
| |
| − | the storms of centuries.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The greatness of every powerful organization which embodies a creative
| |
| − | idea lies in the spirit of religious devotion and intolerance with which
| |
| − | it stands out against all others, because it has an ardent faith in its
| |
| − | own right. If an idea is right in itself and, furnished with the
| |
| − | fighting weapons I have mentioned, wages war on this earth, then it is
| |
| − | invincible and persecution will only add to its internal strength.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The greatness of Christianity did not arise from attempts to make
| |
| − | compromises with those philosophical opinions of the ancient world which
| |
| − | had some resemblance to its own doctrine, but in the unrelenting and
| |
| − | fanatical proclamation and defence of its own teaching.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The apparent advance that a movement makes by associating itself with
| |
| − | other movements will be easily reached and surpassed by the steady
| |
| − | increase of strength which a doctrine and its organization acquires if
| |
| − | it remains independent and fights its own cause alone.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (13) The movement ought to educate its adherents to the principle that
| |
| − | struggle must not be considered a necessary evil but as something to be
| |
| − | desired in itself. Therefore they must not be afraid of the hostility
| |
| − | which their adversaries manifest towards them but they must take it as a
| |
| − | necessary condition on which their whole right to existence is based.
| |
| − | They must not try to avoid being hated by those who are the enemies of
| |
| − | our people and our philosophy of life, but must welcome such hatred.
| |
| − | Lies and calumnies are part of the method which the enemy employs to
| |
| − | express his chagrin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The man who is not opposed and vilified and slandered in the Jewish
| |
| − | Press is not a staunch German and not a true National Socialist. The
| |
| − | best rule whereby the sincerity of his convictions, his character and
| |
| − | strength of will, can be measured is the hostility which his name
| |
| − | arouses among the mortal enemies of our people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The followers of the movement, and indeed the whole nation, must be
| |
| − | reminded again and again of the fact that, through the medium of his
| |
| − | newspapers, the Jew is always spreading falsehood and that if he tells
| |
| − | the truth on some occasions it is only for the purpose of masking some
| |
| − | greater deceit, which turns the apparent truth into a deliberate
| |
| − | falsehood. The Jew is the Great Master of Lies. Falsehood and duplicity
| |
| − | are the weapons with which he fights.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Every calumny and falsehood published by the Jews are tokens of honour
| |
| − | which can be worn by our comrades. He whom they decry most is nearest to
| |
| − | our hearts and he whom they mortally hate is our best friend.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If a comrade of ours opens a Jewish newspaper in the morning and does
| |
| − | not find himself vilified there, then he has spent yesterday to no
| |
| − | account. For if he had achieved something he would be persecuted,
| |
| − | slandered, derided and abused. Those who effectively combat this mortal
| |
| − | enemy of our people, who is at the same time the enemy of all Aryan
| |
| − | peoples and all culture, can only expect to arouse opposition on the
| |
| − | part of this race and become the object of its slanderous attacks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When these truths become part of the flesh and blood, as it were, of our
| |
| − | members, then the movement will be impregnable and invincible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (14) The movement must use all possible means to cultivate respect for
| |
| − | the individual personality. It must never forget that all human values
| |
| − | are based on personal values, and that every idea and achievement is the
| |
| − | fruit of the creative power of one man. We must never forget that
| |
| − | admiration for everything that is great is not only a tribute to one
| |
| − | creative personality but that all those who feel such admiration become
| |
| − | thereby united under one covenant.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nothing can take the place of the individual, especially if the
| |
| − | individual embodies in himself not the mechanical element but the
| |
| − | element of cultural creativeness. No pupil can take the place of the
| |
| − | master in completing a great picture which he has left unfinished; and
| |
| − | just in the same way no substitute can take the place of the great poet
| |
| − | or thinker, or the great statesman or military general. For the source
| |
| − | of their power is in the realm of artistic creativeness. It can never be
| |
| − | mechanically acquired, because it is an innate product of divine grace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The greatest revolutions and the greatest achievements of this world,
| |
| − | its greatest cultural works and the immortal creations of great
| |
| − | statesmen, are inseparably bound up with one name which stands as a
| |
| − | symbol for them in each respective case. The failure to pay tribute to
| |
| − | one of those great spirits signifies a neglect of that enormous source
| |
| − | of power which lies in the remembrance of all great men and women.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jew himself knows this best. He, whose great men have always been
| |
| − | great only in their efforts to destroy mankind and its civilization,
| |
| − | takes good care that they are worshipped as idols. But the Jew tries to
| |
| − | degrade the honour in which nations hold their great men and women. He
| |
| − | stigmatizes this honour as 'the cult of personality'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as a nation has so far lost its courage as to submit to this
| |
| − | impudent defamation on the part of the Jews it renounces the most
| |
| − | important source of its own inner strength. This inner force cannot
| |
| − | arise from a policy of pandering to the masses but only from the worship
| |
| − | of men of genius, whose lives have uplifted and ennobled the nation
| |
| − | itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When men's hearts are breaking and their souls are plunged into the
| |
| − | depths of despair, their great forebears turn their eyes towards them
| |
| − | from the dim shadows of the past--those forebears who knew how to
| |
| − | triumph over anxiety and affliction, mental servitude and physical
| |
| − | bondage--and extend their eternal hands in a gesture of encouragement to
| |
| − | despairing souls. Woe to the nation that is ashamed to clasp those
| |
| − | hands.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the initial phase of our movement our greatest handicap was the
| |
| − | fact that none of us were known and our names meant nothing, a fact
| |
| − | which then seemed to some of us to make the chances of final success
| |
| − | problematical. Our most difficult task then was to make our members
| |
| − | firmly believe that there was a tremendous future in store for the
| |
| − | movement and to maintain this belief as a living faith; for at that time
| |
| − | only six, seven or eight persons came to hear one of our speakers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Consider that only six or seven poor devils who were entirely unknown
| |
| − | came together to found a movement which should succeed in doing what the
| |
| − | great mass-parties had failed to do: namely, to reconstruct the German
| |
| − | REICH, even in greater power and glory than before. We should have been
| |
| − | very pleased if we were attacked or even ridiculed. But the most
| |
| − | depressing fact was that nobody paid any attention to us whatever. This
| |
| − | utter lack of interest in us caused me great mental pain at that time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I entered the circle of those men there was not yet any question of
| |
| − | a party or a movement. I have already described the impression which was
| |
| − | made on me when I first came into contact with that small organization.
| |
| − | Subsequently I had time, and also the occasion, to study the form of
| |
| − | this so-called party which at first had made such a woeful impression.
| |
| − | The picture was indeed quite depressing and discouraging. There was
| |
| − | nothing, absolutely nothing at all. There was only the name of a party.
| |
| − | And the committee consisted of all the party members. Somehow or other
| |
| − | it seemed just the kind of thing we were about to fight against--a
| |
| − | miniature parliament. The voting system was employed. When the great
| |
| − | parliament cried until they were hoarse--at least they shouted over
| |
| − | problems of importance--here this small circle engaged in interminable
| |
| − | discussions as to the form in which they might answer the letters which
| |
| − | they were delighted to have received.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Needless to say, the public knew nothing of all this. In Munich nobody
| |
| − | knew of the existence of such a party, not even by name, except our few
| |
| − | members and their small circle of acquaintances.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Every Wednesday what was called a committee meeting was held in one of
| |
| − | the cafés, and a debate was arranged for one evening each week. In the
| |
| − | beginning all the members of the movement were also members of the
| |
| − | committee, therefore the same persons always turned up at both meetings.
| |
| − | The first step that had to be taken was to extend the narrow limits of
| |
| − | this small circle and get new members, but the principal necessity was
| |
| − | to utilize all the means at our command for the purpose of making the
| |
| − | movement known.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We chose the following methods: We decided to hold a monthly meeting to
| |
| − | which the public would be invited. Some of the invitations were
| |
| − | typewritten, and some were written by hand. For the first few meetings
| |
| − | we distributed them in the streets and delivered them personally at
| |
| − | certain houses. Each one canvassed among his own acquaintances and tried
| |
| − | to persuade some of them to attend our meetings. The result was
| |
| − | lamentable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I still remember once how I personally delivered eighty of these
| |
| − | invitations and how we waited in the evening for the crowds to come.
| |
| − | After waiting in vain for a whole hour the chairman finally had to open
| |
| − | the meeting. Again there were only seven people present, the old
| |
| − | familiar seven.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We then changed our methods. We had the invitations written with a
| |
| − | typewriter in a Munich stationer's shop and then multigraphed them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The result was that a few more people attended our next meeting. The
| |
| − | number increased gradually from eleven to thirteen to seventeen, to
| |
| − | twenty-three and finally to thirty-four. We collected some money within
| |
| − | our own circle, each poor devil giving a small contribution, and in that
| |
| − | way we raised sufficient funds to be able to advertise one of our
| |
| − | meetings in the MUNICH OBSERVER, which was still an independent paper.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This time we had an astonishing success. We had chosen the Munich
| |
| − | HOFBRÄU HAUS KELLER (which must not be confounded with the Munich
| |
| − | HOFBRÄU HAUS FESTSAAL) as our meeting-place. It was a small hall and
| |
| − | would accommodate scarcely more than 130 people. To me, however, the
| |
| − | hall seemed enormous, and we were all trembling lest this tremendous
| |
| − | edifice would remain partly empty on the night of the meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At seven o'clock 111 persons were present, and the meeting was opened. A
| |
| − | Munich professor delivered the principal address, and I spoke after him.
| |
| − | That was my first appearance in the role of public orator. The whole
| |
| − | thing seemed a very daring adventure to Herr Harrer, who was then
| |
| − | chairman of the party. He was a very decent fellow; but he had an
| |
| − | A PRIORI conviction that, although I might have quite a number of good
| |
| − | qualities, I certainly did not have a talent for public speaking. Even
| |
| − | later he could not be persuaded to change his opinion. But he was
| |
| − | mistaken. Twenty minutes had been allotted to me for my speech on this
| |
| − | occasion, which might be looked upon as our first public meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I talked for thirty minutes, and what I always had felt deep down in my
| |
| − | heart, without being able to put it to the test, was here proved to be
| |
| − | true: I could make a good speech. At the end of the thirty minutes it
| |
| − | was quite clear that all the people in the little hall had been
| |
| − | profoundly impressed. The enthusiasm aroused among them found its first
| |
| − | expression in the fact that my appeal to those present brought us
| |
| − | donations which amounted to three hundred marks. That was a great relief
| |
| − | for us. Our finances were at that time so meagre that we could not
| |
| − | afford to have our party prospectus printed, or even leaflets. Now we
| |
| − | possessed at least the nucleus of a fund from which we could pay the
| |
| − | most urgent and necessary expenses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the success of this first larger meeting was also important from
| |
| − | another point of view. I had already begun to introduce some young and
| |
| − | fresh members into the committee. During the long period of my military
| |
| − | service I had come to know a large number of good comrades whom I was
| |
| − | now able to persuade to join our party. All of them were energetic and
| |
| − | disciplined young men who, through their years of military service, had
| |
| − | been imbued with the principle that nothing is impossible and that where
| |
| − | there's a will there's a way.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The need for this fresh blood supply became evident to me after a few
| |
| − | weeks of collaboration with the new members. Herr Harrer, who was then
| |
| − | chairman of the party, was a journalist by profession, and as such he
| |
| − | was a man of general knowledge. But as leader of the party he had one
| |
| − | very serious handicap: he could not speak to the crowd. Though he did
| |
| − | his work conscientiously, it lacked the necessary driving force,
| |
| − | probably for the reason that he had no oratorical gifts whatsoever. Herr
| |
| − | Drexler, at that time chairman of the Munich local group, was a simple
| |
| − | working man. He, too, was not of any great importance as a speaker.
| |
| − | Moreover, he was not a soldier. He had never done military service, even
| |
| − | during the War. So that this man who was feeble and diffident by nature
| |
| − | had missed the only school which knows how to transform diffident and
| |
| − | weakly natures into real men. Therefore neither of those two men were of
| |
| − | the stuff that would have enabled them to stir up an ardent and
| |
| − | indomitable faith in the ultimate triumph of the movement and to brush
| |
| − | aside, with obstinate force and if necessary with brutal ruthlessness,
| |
| − | all obstacles that stood in the path of the new idea. Such a task could
| |
| − | be carried out only by men who had been trained, body and soul, in those
| |
| − | military virtues which make a man, so to speak, agile as a greyhound,
| |
| − | tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time I was still a soldier. Physically and mentally I had the
| |
| − | polish of six years of service, so that in the beginning this circle
| |
| − | must have looked on me as quite a stranger. In common with my army
| |
| − | comrades, I had forgotten such phrases as: "That will not go", or "That
| |
| − | is not possible", or "We ought not to take such a risk; it is too
| |
| − | dangerous".
| |
| − | | |
| − | The whole undertaking was of its very nature dangerous. At that time
| |
| − | there were many parts of Germany where it would have been absolutely
| |
| − | impossible openly to invite people to a national meeting that dared to
| |
| − | make a direct appeal to the masses. Those who attended such meetings
| |
| − | were usually dispersed and driven away with broken heads. It certainly
| |
| − | did not call for any great qualities to be able to do things in that
| |
| − | way. The largest so-called bourgeois mass meetings were accustomed to
| |
| − | dissolve, and those in attendance would run away like rabbits when
| |
| − | frightened by a dog as soon as a dozen communists appeared on the scene.
| |
| − | The Reds used to pay little attention to those bourgeois organizations
| |
| − | where only babblers talked. They recognized the inner triviality of such
| |
| − | associations much better than the members themselves and therefore felt
| |
| − | that they need not be afraid of them. On the contrary, however, they
| |
| − | were all the more determined to use every possible means of annihilating
| |
| − | once and for all any movement that appeared to them to be a danger to
| |
| − | their own interests. The most effective means which they always employed
| |
| − | in such cases were terror and brute force.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Marxist leaders, whose business consisted in deceiving and
| |
| − | misleading the public, naturally hated most of all a movement whose
| |
| − | declared aim was to win over those masses which hitherto had been
| |
| − | exclusively at the service of international Marxism in the Jewish and
| |
| − | Stock Exchange parties. The title alone, 'German Labour party',
| |
| − | irritated them. It could easily be foreseen that at the first opportune
| |
| − | moment we should have to face the opposition of the Marxist despots, who
| |
| − | were still intoxicated with their triumph in 1918.
| |
| − | | |
| − | People in the small circles of our own movement at that time showed a
| |
| − | certain amount of anxiety at the prospect of such a conflict. They
| |
| − | wanted to refrain as much as possible from coming out into the open,
| |
| − | because they feared that they might be attacked and beaten. In their
| |
| − | minds they saw our first public meetings broken up and feared that the
| |
| − | movement might thus be ruined for ever. I found it difficult to defend
| |
| − | my own position, which was that the conflict should not be evaded but
| |
| − | that it should be faced openly and that we should be armed with those
| |
| − | weapons which are the only protection against brute force. Terror cannot
| |
| − | be overcome by the weapons of the mind but only by counter-terror. The
| |
| − | success of our first public meeting strengthened my own position. The
| |
| − | members felt encouraged to arrange for a second meeting, even on a
| |
| − | larger scale.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Some time in October 1919 the second larger meeting took place in the
| |
| − | EBERLBRÄU KELLER. The theme of our speeches was 'Brest-Litowsk and
| |
| − | Versailles'. There were four speakers. I talked for almost an hour, and
| |
| − | the success was even more striking than at our first meeting. The number
| |
| − | of people who attended had grown to more than 130. An attempt to disturb
| |
| − | the proceedings was immediately frustrated by my comrades. The would-be
| |
| − | disturbers were thrown down the stairs, bearing imprints of violence on
| |
| − | their heads.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A fortnight later another meeting took place in the same hall. The
| |
| − | number in attendance had now increased to more than 170, which meant
| |
| − | that the room was fairly well filled. I spoke again, and once more the
| |
| − | success obtained was greater than at the previous meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then I proposed that a larger hall should be found. After looking around
| |
| − | for some time we discovered one at the other end of the town, in the
| |
| − | 'Deutschen REICH' in the Dachauer Strasse. The first meeting at this new
| |
| − | rendezvous had a smaller attendance than the previous meeting. There
| |
| − | were just less than 140 present. The members of the committee began to
| |
| − | be discouraged, and those who had always been sceptical were now
| |
| − | convinced that this falling-off in the attendance was due to the fact
| |
| − | that we were holding the meetings at too short intervals. There were
| |
| − | lively discussions, in which I upheld my own opinion that a city with
| |
| − | 700,000 inhabitants ought to be able not only to stand one meeting every
| |
| − | fortnight but ten meetings every week. I held that we should not be
| |
| − | discouraged by one comparative setback, that the tactics we had chosen
| |
| − | were correct, and that sooner or later success would be ours if we only
| |
| − | continued with determined perseverance to push forward on our road. This
| |
| − | whole winter of 1919-20 was one continual struggle to strengthen
| |
| − | confidence in our ability to carry the movement through to success and
| |
| − | to intensify this confidence until it became a burning faith that could
| |
| − | move mountains.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our next meeting in the small hall proved the truth of my contention.
| |
| − | Our audience had increased to more than 200. The publicity effect and
| |
| − | the financial success were splendid. I immediately urged that a further
| |
| − | meeting should be held. It took place in less than a fortnight, and
| |
| − | there were more than 270 people present. Two weeks later we invited our
| |
| − | followers and their friends, for the seventh time, to attend our
| |
| − | meeting. The same hall was scarcely large enough for the number that
| |
| − | came. They amounted to more than four hundred.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During this phase the young movement developed its inner form. Sometimes
| |
| − | we had more or less hefty discussions within our small circle. From
| |
| − | various sides--it was then just the same as it is to-day--objections
| |
| − | were made against the idea of calling the young movement a party. I have
| |
| − | always considered such criticism as a demonstration of practical
| |
| − | incapability and narrow-mindedness on the part of the critic. Those
| |
| − | objections have always been raised by men who could not differentiate
| |
| − | between external appearances and inner strength, but tried to judge the
| |
| − | movement by the high-sounding character of the name attached to it. To
| |
| − | this end they ransacked the vocabulary of our ancestors, with
| |
| − | unfortunate results.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time it was very difficult to make the people understand that
| |
| − | every movement is a party as long as it has not brought its ideals to
| |
| − | final triumph and thus achieved its purpose. It is a party even if it
| |
| − | give itself a thousand difterent names.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Any person who tries to carry into practice an original idea whose
| |
| − | realization would be for the benefit of his fellow men will first have
| |
| − | to look for disciples who are ready to fight for the ends he has in
| |
| − | view. And if these ends did not go beyond the destruction of the party
| |
| − | system and therewith put a stop to the process of disintegration, then
| |
| − | all those who come forward as protagonists and apostles of such an ideal
| |
| − | are a party in themselves as long as their final goal is reached. It is
| |
| − | only hair-splitting and playing with words when these antiquated
| |
| − | theorists, whose practical success is in reverse ratio to their wisdom,
| |
| − | presume to think they can change the character of a movement which is at
| |
| − | the same time a party, by merely changing its name.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the contrary, it is entirely out of harmony with the spirit of the
| |
| − | nation to keep harping on that far-off and forgotten nomenclature which
| |
| − | belongs to the ancient Germanic times and does not awaken any distinct
| |
| − | association in our age. This habit of borrowing words from the dead past
| |
| − | tends to mislead the people into thinking that the external trappings of
| |
| − | its vocabulary are the important feature of a movement. It is really a
| |
| − | mischievous habit; but it is quite prevalent nowadays.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time, and subsequently, I had to warn followers repeatedly
| |
| − | against these wandering scholars who were peddling Germanic folk-lore
| |
| − | and who never accomplished anything positive or practical, except to
| |
| − | cultivate their own superabundant self-conceit. The new movement must
| |
| − | guard itself against an influx of people whose only recommendation is
| |
| − | their own statement that they have been fighting for these very same
| |
| − | ideals during the last thirty or forty years.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now if somebody has fought for forty years to carry into effect what he
| |
| − | calls an idea, and if these alleged efforts not only show no positive
| |
| − | results but have not even been able to hinder the success of the
| |
| − | opposing party, then the story of those forty years of futile effort
| |
| − | furnishes sufficient proof for the incompetence of such a protagonist.
| |
| − | People of that kind are specially dangerous because they do not want to
| |
| − | participate in the movement as ordinary members. They talk rather of the
| |
| − | leading positions which would be the only fitting posts for them, in
| |
| − | view of their past work and also so that they might be enabled to carry
| |
| − | on that work further. But woe to a young movement if the conduct of it
| |
| − | should fall into the hands of such people. A business man who has been
| |
| − | in charge of a great firm for forty years and who has completely ruined
| |
| − | it through his mismanagement is not the kind of person one would
| |
| − | recommend for the founding of a new firm. And it is just the same with a
| |
| − | new national movement. Nobody of common sense would appoint to a leading
| |
| − | post in such a movement some Teutonic Methuselah who had been
| |
| − | ineffectively preaching some idea for a period of forty years, until
| |
| − | himself and his idea had entered the stage of senile decay.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Furthermore, only a very small percentage of such people join a new
| |
| − | movement with the intention of serving its end unselfishly and helping
| |
| − | in the spread of its principles. In most cases they come because they
| |
| − | think that, under the aegis of the new movement, it will be possible for
| |
| − | them to promulgate their old ideas to the misfortune of their new
| |
| − | listeners. Anyhow, nobody ever seems able to describe what exactly these
| |
| − | ideas are.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is typical of such persons that they rant about ancient Teutonic
| |
| − | heroes of the dim and distant ages, stone axes, battle spears and
| |
| − | shields, whereas in reality they themselves are the woefullest poltroons
| |
| − | imaginable. For those very same people who brandish Teutonic tin swords
| |
| − | that have been fashioned carefully according to ancient models and wear
| |
| − | padded bear-skins, with the horns of oxen mounted over their bearded
| |
| − | faces, proclaim that all contemporary conflicts must be decided by the
| |
| − | weapons of the mind alone. And thus they skedaddle when the first
| |
| − | communist cudgel appears. Posterity will have little occasion to write a
| |
| − | new epic on these heroic gladiators.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I have seen too much of that kind of people not to feel a profound
| |
| − | contempt for their miserable play-acting. To the masses of the nation
| |
| − | they are just an object of ridicule; but the Jew finds it to his own
| |
| − | interest to treat these folk-lore comedians with respect and to prefer
| |
| − | them to real men who are fighting to establish a German State. And yet
| |
| − | these comedians are extremely proud of themselves. Notwithstanding their
| |
| − | complete fecklessness, which is an established fact, they pretend to
| |
| − | know everything better than other people; so much so that they make
| |
| − | themselves a veritable nuisance to all sincere and honest patriots, to
| |
| − | whom not only the heroism of the past is worthy of honour but who also
| |
| − | feel bound to leave examples of their own work for the inspiration of
| |
| − | the coming generation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Among those people there were some whose conduct can be explained by
| |
| − | their innate stupidity and incompetence; but there are others who have a
| |
| − | definite ulterior purpose in view. Often it is difficult to distinguish
| |
| − | between the two classes. The impression which I often get, especially of
| |
| − | those so-called religious reformers whose creed is grounded on ancient
| |
| − | Germanic customs, is that they are the missionaries and protégés of
| |
| − | those forces which do not wish to see a national revival taking place in
| |
| − | Germany. All their activities tend to turn the attention of the people
| |
| − | away from the necessity of fighting together in a common cause against
| |
| − | the common enemy, namely the Jew. Moreover, that kind of preaching
| |
| − | induces the people to use up their energies, not in fighting for the
| |
| − | common cause, but in absurd and ruinous religious controversies within
| |
| − | their own ranks. There are definite grounds that make it absolutely
| |
| − | necessary for the movement to be dominated by a strong central force
| |
| − | which is embodied in the authoritative leadership. In this way alone is
| |
| − | it possible to counteract the activity of such fatal elements. And that
| |
| − | is just the reason why these folk-lore Ahasueruses are vigorously
| |
| − | hostile to any movement whose members are firmly united under one leader
| |
| − | and one discipline. Those people of whom I have spoken hate such a
| |
| − | movement because it is capable of putting a stop to their mischief.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was not without good reason that when we laid down a clearly defined
| |
| − | programme for the new movement we excluded the word VÖLKISCH from it.
| |
| − | The concept underlying the term VÖLKISCH cannot serve as the basis of a
| |
| − | movement, because it is too indefinite and general in its application.
| |
| − | Therefore, if somebody called himself VÖLKISCH such a designation could
| |
| − | not be taken as the hall-mark of some definite, party affiliation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Because this concept is so indefinite from the practical viewpoint, it
| |
| − | gives rise to various interpretations and thus people can appeal to it
| |
| − | all the more easily as a sort of personal recommendation. Whenever such
| |
| − | a vague concept, which is subject to so many interpretations, is
| |
| − | admitted into a political movement it tends to break up the disciplined
| |
| − | solidarity of the fighting forces. No such solidarity can be maintained
| |
| − | if each individual member be allowed to define for himself what he
| |
| − | believes and what he is willing to do.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One feels it a disgrace when one notices the kind of people who float
| |
| − | about nowadays with the VÖLKISCH symbol stuck in their buttonholes, and
| |
| − | at the same time to notice how many people have various ideas of their
| |
| − | own as to the significance of that symbol. A well-known professor in
| |
| − | Bavaria, a famous combatant who fights only with the weapons of the mind
| |
| − | and who boasts of having marched against Berlin--by shouldering the
| |
| − | weapons of the mind, of course--believes that the word VÖLKISCH is
| |
| − | synonymous with 'monarchical'. But this learned authority has hitherto
| |
| − | neglected to explain how our German monarchs of the past can be
| |
| − | identified with what we generally mean by the word VÖLKISCH to-day. I am
| |
| − | afraid he will find himself at a loss if he is asked to give a precise
| |
| − | answer. For it would be very difficult indeed to imagine anything less
| |
| − | VÖLKISCH than most of those German monarchical States were. Had they
| |
| − | been otherwise they would not have disappeared; or if they were
| |
| − | VÖLKISCH, then the fact of their downfall may be taken as evidence that
| |
| − | the VÖLKISCH outlook on the world (WELTANSCHAUUNG) is a false outlook.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Everybody interprets this concept in his own way. But such multifarious
| |
| − | opinions cannot be adopted as the basis of a militant political
| |
| − | movement. I need not call attention to the absolute lack of worldly
| |
| − | wisdom, and especially the failure to understand the soul of the nation,
| |
| − | which is displayed by these Messianic Precursors of the Twentieth
| |
| − | Century. Sufficient attention has been called to those people by the
| |
| − | ridicule which the left-wing parties have bestowed on them. They allow
| |
| − | them to babble on and sneer at them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I do not set much value on the friendship of people who do not succeed
| |
| − | in getting disliked by their enemies. Therefore, we considered the
| |
| − | friendship of such people as not only worthless but even dangerous to
| |
| − | our young movement. That was the principal reason why we first called
| |
| − | ourselves a PARTY. We hoped that by giving ourselves such a name we
| |
| − | might scare away a whole host of VÖLKISCH dreamers. And that was the
| |
| − | reason also why we named our Party, THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMAN LABOUR
| |
| − | PARTY.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first term, Party, kept away all those dreamers who live in the past
| |
| − | and all the lovers of bombastic nomenclature, as well as those who went
| |
| − | around beating the big drum for the VÖLKISCH idea. The full name of the
| |
| − | Party kept away all those heroes whose weapon is the sword of the spirit
| |
| − | and all those whining poltroons who take refuge behind their so-called
| |
| − | 'intelligence' as if it were a kind of shield.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was only to be expected that this latter class would launch a massed
| |
| − | attack against us after our movement had started; but, of course, it was
| |
| − | only a pen-and-ink attack, for the goose-quill is the only weapon which
| |
| − | these VÖLKISCH lancers wield. We had declared one of our principles
| |
| − | thus: "We shall meet violence with violence in our own defence".
| |
| − | Naturally that principle disturbed the equanimity of the knights of the
| |
| − | pen. They reproached us bitterly not only for what they called our crude
| |
| − | worship of the cudgel but also because, according to them, we had no
| |
| − | intellectual forces on our side. These charlatans did not think for a
| |
| − | moment that a Demosthenes could be reduced to silence at a mass-meeting
| |
| − | by fifty idiots who had come there to shout him down and use their fists
| |
| − | against his supporters. The innate cowardice of the pen-and-ink
| |
| − | charlatan prevents him from exposing himself to such a danger, for he
| |
| − | always works in safe retirement and never dares to make a noise or come
| |
| − | forward in public.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even to-day I must warn the members of our young movement in the
| |
| − | strongest possible terms to guard against the danger of falling into the
| |
| − | snare of those who call themselves 'silent workers'. These 'silent
| |
| − | workers' are not only a whitelivered lot but are also, and always will
| |
| − | be, ignorant do-nothings. A man who is aware of certain happenings and
| |
| − | knows that a certain danger threatens, and at the same time sees a
| |
| − | certain remedy which can be employed against it, is in duty bound not to
| |
| − | work in silence but to come into the open and publicly fight for the
| |
| − | destruction of the evil and the acceptance of his own remedy. If he does
| |
| − | not do so, then he is neglecting his duty and shows that he is weak in
| |
| − | character and that he fails to act either because of his timidity, or
| |
| − | indolence or incompetence. Most of these 'silent workers' generally
| |
| − | pretend to know God knows what. Not one of them is capable of any real
| |
| − | achievement, but they keep on trying to fool the world with their
| |
| − | antics. Though quite indolent, they try to create the impression that
| |
| − | their 'silent work' keeps them very busy. To put it briefly, they are
| |
| − | sheer swindlers, political jobbers who feel chagrined by the honest work
| |
| − | which others are doing. When you find one of these VÖLKISCH moths
| |
| − | buzzing over the value of his 'silent work' you may be sure that you are
| |
| − | dealing with a fellow who does no productive work at all but steals from
| |
| − | others the fruits of their honest labour.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In addition to all this one ought to note the arrogance and conceited
| |
| − | impudence with which these obscurantist idlers try to tear to pieces the
| |
| − | work of other people, criticizing it with an air of superiority, and
| |
| − | thus playing into the hands of the mortal enemy of our people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even the simplest follower who has the courage to stand on the table in
| |
| − | some beer-hall where his enemies are gathered, and manfully and openly
| |
| − | defend his position against them, achieves a thousand times more than
| |
| − | these slinking hypocrites. He at least will convert one or two people to
| |
| − | believe in the movement. One can examine his work and test its
| |
| − | effectiveness by its actual results. But those knavish swindlers--who
| |
| − | praise their own 'silent work' and shelter themselves under the cloak of
| |
| − | anonymity, are just worthless drones, in the truest sense of the term,
| |
| − | and are utterly useless for the purpose of our national reconstruction.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the beginning of 1920 I put forward the idea of holding our first
| |
| − | mass meeting. On this proposal there were differences of opinion amongst
| |
| − | us. Some leading members of our party thought that the time was not ripe
| |
| − | for such a meeting and that the result might be detrimental. The Press
| |
| − | of the Left had begun to take notice of us and we were lucky enough in
| |
| − | being able gradually to arouse their wrath. We had begun to appear at
| |
| − | other meetings and to ask questions or contradict the speakers, with the
| |
| − | natural result that we were shouted down forthwith. But still we thereby
| |
| − | gained some of our ends. People began to know of our existence and the
| |
| − | better they understood us, the stronger became their aversion and their
| |
| − | enmity. Therefore we might expect that a large contingent of our friends
| |
| − | from the Red Camp would attend our first mass meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I fully realized that our meeting would probably be broken up. But we
| |
| − | had to face the fight; if not now, then some months later. Since the
| |
| − | first day of our foundation we were resolved to secure the future of the
| |
| − | movement by fighting our way forward in a spirit of blind faith and
| |
| − | ruthless determination. I was well acquainted with the mentality of all
| |
| − | those who belonged to the Red Camp, and I knew quite well that if we
| |
| − | opposed them tooth and nail not only would we make an impression on them
| |
| − | but that we even might win new followers for ourselves. Therefore I felt
| |
| − | that we must decide on a policy of active opposition.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Herr Harrer was then chairman of our party. He did not see eye to eye
| |
| − | with me as to the opportune time for our first mass meeting. Accordingly
| |
| − | he felt himself obliged to resign from the leadership of the movement,
| |
| − | as an upright and honest man. Herr Anton Drexler took his place. I kept
| |
| − | the work of organizing the propaganda in my own hands and I listened to
| |
| − | no compromise in carrying it out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We decided on February 24th 1920 as the date for the first great popular
| |
| − | meeting to be held under the aegis of this movement which was hitherto
| |
| − | unknown.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I made all the preparatory arrangements personally. They did not take
| |
| − | very long. The whole apparatus of our organization was set in motion for
| |
| − | the purpose of being able to secure a rapid decision as to our policy.
| |
| − | Within twenty-four hours we had to decide on the attitude we should take
| |
| − | in regard to the questions of the day which would be put forward at the
| |
| − | mass meeting. The notices which advertised the meeting had to bring
| |
| − | these points before the public. In this direction we were forced to
| |
| − | depend on the use of posters and leaflets, the contents of which and the
| |
| − | manner in which they were displayed were decided upon in accordance with
| |
| − | the principles which I have already laid down in dealing with propaganda
| |
| − | in general. They were produced in a form which would appeal to the
| |
| − | crowd. They concentrated on a few points which were repeated again and
| |
| − | again. The text was concise and definite, an absolutely dogmatic form of
| |
| − | expression being used. We distributed these posters and leaflets with a
| |
| − | dogged energy and then we patiently waited for the effect they would
| |
| − | produce.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For our principal colour we chose red, as it has an exciting effect on
| |
| − | the eye and was therefore calculated to arouse the attention of our
| |
| − | opponents and irritate them. Thus they would have to take notice of
| |
| − | us--whether they liked it or not--and would not forget us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One result of our tactics was to show up clearly the close political
| |
| − | fraternization that existed also here in Bavaria between the Marxists
| |
| − | and the Centre Party. The political party that held power in Bavaria,
| |
| − | which was the Bavarian People's Party (affiliated with the Centre Party)
| |
| − | did its best to counteract the effect which our placards were having on
| |
| − | the 'Red' masses. Thus they made a definite step to fetter our
| |
| − | activities. If the police could find no other grounds for prohibiting
| |
| − | our placards, then they might claim that we were disturbing the traffic
| |
| − | in the streets. And thus the so-called German National People's Party
| |
| − | calmed the anxieties of their 'Red' allies by completely prohibiting
| |
| − | those placards which proclaimed a message that was bringing back to the
| |
| − | bosom of their own people hundreds of thousands of workers who had been
| |
| − | misled by international agitators and incensed against their own nation.
| |
| − | These placards bear witness to the bitterness of the struggle in which
| |
| − | the young movement was then engaged. Future generations will find in
| |
| − | these placards a documentary proof of our determination and the justice
| |
| − | of our own cause. And these placards will also prove how the so-called
| |
| − | national officials took arbitrary action to strangle a movement that did
| |
| − | not please them, because it was nationalizing the broad masses of the
| |
| − | people and winning them back to their own racial stock.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These placards will also help to refute the theory that there was then a
| |
| − | national government in Bavaria and they will afford documentary
| |
| − | confirmation of the fact that if Bavaria remained nationally-minded
| |
| − | during the years 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922 and 1923, this was not due to a
| |
| − | national government but it was because the national spirit gradually
| |
| − | gained a deeper hold on the people and the Government was forced to
| |
| − | follow public feeling. The Government authorities themselves did
| |
| − | everything in their power to hamper this process of recovery and make it
| |
| − | impossible. But in this connection two officials must be mentioned as
| |
| − | outstanding exceptions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Ernst Pöhner was Chief of Police at the time. He had a loyal counsellor
| |
| − | in Dr. Frick, who was his chief executive official. These were the only
| |
| − | men among the higher officials who had the courage to place the
| |
| − | interests of their country before their own interests in holding on to
| |
| − | their jobs. Of those in responsible positions Ernst Pöhner was the only
| |
| − | one who did not pay court to the mob but felt that his duty was towards
| |
| − | the nation as such and was ready to risk and sacrifice everything, even
| |
| − | his personal livelihood, to help in the restoration of the German
| |
| − | people, whom he dearly loved. For that reason he was a bitter thorn in
| |
| − | the side of the venal group of Government officials. It was not the
| |
| − | interests of the nation or the necessity of a national revival that
| |
| − | inspired or directed their conduct. They simply truckled to the wishes
| |
| − | of the Government, so as to secure their daily bread for themselves, but
| |
| − | they had no thought whatsoever for the national welfare that had been
| |
| − | entrusted to their care.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Above all, Pöhner was one of those people who, in contradistinction to
| |
| − | the majority of our so-called defenders of the authority of the State,
| |
| − | did not fear to incur the enmity of the traitors to the country and the
| |
| − | nation but rather courted it as a mark of honour and honesty. For such
| |
| − | men the hatred of the Jews and Marxists and the lies and calumnies they
| |
| − | spread, were their only source of happiness in the midst of the national
| |
| − | misery. Pöhner was a man of granite loyalty. He was like one of the
| |
| − | ascetic characters of the classical era and was at the same time that
| |
| − | kind of straightforward German for whom the saying 'Better dead than a
| |
| − | slave' is not an empty phrase but a veritable heart's cry.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In my opinion he and his collaborator, Dr. Frick, are the only men
| |
| − | holding positions then in Bavaria who have the right to be considered as
| |
| − | having taken active part in the creation of a national Bavaria.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before holding our first great mass meeting it was necessary not only to
| |
| − | have our propaganda material ready but also to have the main items of
| |
| − | our programme printed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the second volume of this book I shall give a detailed account of the
| |
| − | guiding principles which we then followed in drawing up our programme.
| |
| − | Here I will only say that the programme was arranged not merely to set
| |
| − | forth the form and content of the young movement but also with an eye to
| |
| − | making it understood among the broad masses. The so-called intellectual
| |
| − | circles made jokes and sneered at it and then tried to criticize it. But
| |
| − | the effect of our programme proved that the ideas which we then held
| |
| − | were right.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During those years I saw dozens of new movements arise and disappear
| |
| − | without leaving a trace behind. Only one movement has survived. It is
| |
| − | the National Socialist German Labour Party. To-day I am more convinced
| |
| − | than ever before that, though they may combat us and try to paralyse our
| |
| − | movement, and though pettifogging party ministers may forbid us the
| |
| − | right of free speech, they cannot prevent the triumph of our ideas. When
| |
| − | the present system of statal administration and even the names of the
| |
| − | political parties that represent it will be forgotten, the programmatic
| |
| − | basis of the National Socialist movement will supply the groundwork on
| |
| − | which the future State will be built.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The meetings which we held before January 1920 had enabled us to collect
| |
| − | the financial means that were necessary to have our first pamphlets and
| |
| − | posters and programmes printed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I shall bring the first part of this book to a close by referring to our
| |
| − | first great mass meeting, because that meeting marked the occasion on
| |
| − | which our framework as a small party had to be broken up and we started
| |
| − | to become the most powerful factor of this epoch in the influence we
| |
| − | exercised on public opinion. At that time my chief anxiety was that we
| |
| − | might not fill the hall and that we might have to face empty benches. I
| |
| − | myself was firmly convinced that if only the people would come this day
| |
| − | would turn out a great success for the young movement. That was my
| |
| − | feeling as I waited impatiently for the hour to come.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It had been announced that the meeting would begin at 7.30. A
| |
| − | quarter-of-an-hour before the opening time I walked through the chief
| |
| − | hall of the Hofbräuhaus on the PLATZ in Munich and my heart was nearly
| |
| − | bursting with joy. The great hall--for at that time it seemed very big
| |
| − | to me--was filled to overflowing. Nearly 2,000 people were present. And,
| |
| − | above all, those people had come whom we had always wished to reach.
| |
| − | More than half the audience consisted of persons who seemed to be
| |
| − | communists or independents. Our first great demonstration was destined,
| |
| − | in their view, to come to an abrupt end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But things happened otherwise. When the first speaker had finished I got
| |
| − | up to speak. After a few minutes I was met with a hailstorm of
| |
| − | interruptions and violent encounters broke out in the body of the hall.
| |
| − | A handful of my loyal war comrades and some other followers grappled
| |
| − | with the disturbers and restored order in a little while. I was able to
| |
| − | continue my speech. After half an hour the applause began to drown the
| |
| − | interruptions and the hootings. Then interruptions gradually ceased and
| |
| − | applause took their place. When I finally came to explain the
| |
| − | twenty-five points and laid them, point after point, before the masses
| |
| − | gathered there and asked them to pass their own judgment on each point,
| |
| − | one point after another was accepted with increasing enthusiasm. When
| |
| − | the last point was reached I had before me a hall full of people united
| |
| − | by a new conviction, a new faith and a new will.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nearly four hours had passed when the hall began to clear. As the masses
| |
| − | streamed towards the exits, crammed shoulder to shoulder, shoving and
| |
| − | pushing, I knew that a movement was now set afoot among the German
| |
| − | people which would never pass into oblivion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A fire was enkindled from whose glowing heat the sword would be
| |
| − | fashioned which would restore freedom to the German Siegfried and bring
| |
| − | back life to the German nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Beside the revival which I then foresaw, I also felt that the Goddess of
| |
| − | Vengeance was now getting ready to redress the treason of the 9th of
| |
| − | November, 1918. The hall was emptied. The movement was on the march.
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | VOLUME II: THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER I
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| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG AND PARTY
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | On February 24th, 1920, the first great mass meeting under the auspices
| |
| − | of the new movement took place. In the Banquet Hall of the Hofbräuhaus
| |
| − | in Munich the twenty-five theses which constituted the programme of our
| |
| − | new party were expounded to an audience of nearly two thousand people
| |
| − | and each thesis was enthusiastically received.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus we brought to the knowledge of the public those first principles
| |
| − | and lines of action along which the new struggle was to be conducted for
| |
| − | the abolition of a confused mass of obsolete ideas and opinions which
| |
| − | had obscure and often pernicious tendencies. A new force was to make its
| |
| − | appearance among the timid and feckless bourgeoisie. This force was
| |
| − | destined to impede the triumphant advance of the Marxists and bring the
| |
| − | Chariot of Fate to a standstill just as it seemed about to reach its
| |
| − | goal.
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| − | | |
| − | It was evident that this new movement could gain the public significance
| |
| − | and support which are necessary pre-requisites in such a gigantic
| |
| − | struggle only if it succeeded from the very outset 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 the political
| |
| − | field but that an entirely new WELTANSCHAUUNG, which was of a radical
| |
| − | significance, had to be promoted.
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| − | | |
| − | One must try to recall the miserable jumble of opinions that used to be
| |
| − | arrayed side by side to form the usual Party Programme, as it was
| |
| − | called, and one must remember how these opinions used to be brushed up
| |
| − | or dressed in a new form from time to time. If we would properly
| |
| − | understand these programmatic monstrosities we must carefully
| |
| − | investigate the motives which inspired the average bourgeois 'programme
| |
| − | committee'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those people are always influenced by one and the same preoccupation
| |
| − | when they introduce something new into their programme or modify
| |
| − | something already contained in it. That preoccupation is directed
| |
| − | towards the results of the next election. The moment these artists in
| |
| − | parliamentary government have the first glimmering of a suspicion that
| |
| − | their darling public may be ready to kick up its heels and escape from
| |
| − | the harness of the old party wagon they begin to paint the shafts with
| |
| − | new colours. On such occasions the party astrologists and horoscope
| |
| − | readers, the so-called 'experienced men' and 'experts', come forward.
| |
| − | For the most part they are old parliamentary hands whose political
| |
| − | schooling has furnished them with ample experience. They can remember
| |
| − | former occasions when the masses showed signs of losing patience and
| |
| − | they now diagnose the menace of a similar situation arising. Resorting
| |
| − | to their old prescription, they form a 'committee'. They go around among
| |
| − | the darling public and listen to what is being said. They dip their
| |
| − | noses into the newspapers and gradually begin to scent what it is that
| |
| − | their darlings, the broad masses, are wishing for, what they reject and
| |
| − | what they are hoping for. The groups that belong to each trade or
| |
| − | business, and even office employees, are carefully studied and their
| |
| − | innermost desires are investigated. The 'malicious slogans' of the
| |
| − | opposition from which danger is threatened are now suddenly looked upon
| |
| − | as worthy of reconsideration, and it often happens that these slogans,
| |
| − | to the great astonishment of those who originally coined and circulated
| |
| − | them, now appear to be quite harmless and indeed are to be found among
| |
| − | the dogmas of the old parties.
| |
| − | | |
| − | So the committees meet to revise the old programme and draw up a new
| |
| − | one.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For these people change their convictions just as the soldier changes
| |
| − | his shirt in war--when the old one is bug-eaten. In the new programme
| |
| − | everyone gets everything he wants. The farmer is assured that the
| |
| − | interests of agriculture will be safeguarded. The industrialist is
| |
| − | assured of protection for his products. The consumer is assured that his
| |
| − | interests will be protected in the market prices. Teachers are given
| |
| − | higher salaries and civil servants will have better pensions. Widows and
| |
| − | orphans will receive generous assistance from the State. Trade will be
| |
| − | promoted. The tariff will be lowered and even the taxes, though they
| |
| − | cannot be entirely abolished, will be almost abolished. It sometimes
| |
| − | happens that one section of the public is forgotten or that one of the
| |
| − | demands mooted among the public has not reached the ears of the party.
| |
| − | This is also hurriedly patched on to the whole, should there be any
| |
| − | space available for it: until finally it is felt that there are good
| |
| − | grounds for hoping that the whole normal host of philistines, including
| |
| − | their wives, will have their anxieties laid to rest and will beam with
| |
| − | satisfaction once again. And so, internally armed with faith in the
| |
| − | goodness of God and the impenetrable stupidity of the electorate, the
| |
| − | struggle for what is called 'the reconstruction of the REICH' can now
| |
| − | begin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the election day is over and the parliamentarians have held their
| |
| − | last public meeting for the next five years, when they can leave their
| |
| − | job of getting the populace to toe the line and can now devote
| |
| − | themselves to higher and more pleasing tasks--then the programme
| |
| − | committee is dissolved and the struggle for the progressive
| |
| − | reorganization of public affairs becomes once again a business of
| |
| − | earning one's daily bread, which for the parliamentarians means merely
| |
| − | the attendance that is required in order to be able to draw their daily
| |
| − | remunerations. Morning after morning the honourable deputy wends his way
| |
| − | to the House, and though he may not enter the Chamber itself he gets at
| |
| − | least as far as the front hall, where he will find the register on which
| |
| − | the names of the deputies in attendance have to be inscribed. As a part
| |
| − | of his onerous service to his constituents he enters his name, and in
| |
| − | return receives a small indemnity as a well-earned reward for his
| |
| − | unceasing and exhausting labours.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When four years have passed, or in the meantime if there should be some
| |
| − | critical weeks during which the parliamentary corporations have to face
| |
| − | the danger of being dissolved, these honourable gentlemen become
| |
| − | suddenly seized by an irresistible desire to act. Just as the grub-worm
| |
| − | cannot help growing into a cock-chafer, these parliamentarian worms
| |
| − | leave the great House of Puppets and flutter on new wings out among the
| |
| − | beloved public. They address the electors once again, give an account of
| |
| − | the enormous labours they have accomplished and emphasize the malicious
| |
| − | obstinacy of their opponents. They do not always meet with grateful
| |
| − | applause; for occasionally the unintelligent masses throw rude and
| |
| − | unfriendly remarks in their faces. When this spirit of public
| |
| − | ingratitude reaches a certain pitch there is only one way of saving the
| |
| − | situation. The prestige of the party must be burnished up again. The
| |
| − | programme has to be amended. The committee is called into existence once
| |
| − | again. And the swindle begins anew. Once we understand the impenetrable
| |
| − | stupidity of our public we cannot be surprised that such tactics turn
| |
| − | out successful. Led by the Press and blinded once again by the alluring
| |
| − | appearance of the new programme, the bourgeois as well as the
| |
| − | proletarian herds of voters faithfully return to the common stall and
| |
| − | re-elect their old deceivers. The 'people's man' and labour candidate
| |
| − | now change back again into the parliamentarian grub and become fat and
| |
| − | rotund as they batten on the leaves that grow on the tree of public
| |
| − | life--to be retransformed into the glittering butterfly after another
| |
| − | four years have passed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Scarcely anything else can be so depressing as to watch this process in
| |
| − | sober reality and to be the eyewitness of this repeatedly recurring
| |
| − | fraud. On a spiritual training ground of that kind it is not possible
| |
| − | for the bourgeois forces to develop the strength which is necessary to
| |
| − | carry on the fight against the organized might of Marxism. Indeed they
| |
| − | have never seriously thought of doing so. Though these parliamentary
| |
| − | quacks who represent the white race are generally recognized as persons
| |
| − | of quite inferior mental capacity, they are shrewd enough to know that
| |
| − | they could not seriously entertain the hope of being able to use the
| |
| − | weapon of Western Democracy to fight a doctrine for the advance of which
| |
| − | Western Democracy, with all its accessories, is employed as a means to
| |
| − | an end. Democracy is exploited by the Marxists for the purpose of
| |
| − | paralysing their opponents and gaining for themselves a free hand to put
| |
| − | their own methods into action. When certain groups of Marxists use all
| |
| − | their ingenuity for the time being to make it be believed that they are
| |
| − | inseparably attached to the principles of democracy, it may be well to
| |
| − | recall the fact that when critical occasions arose these same gentlemen
| |
| − | snapped their fingers at the principle of decision by majority vote, as
| |
| − | that principle is understood by Western Democracy. Such was the case in
| |
| − | those days when the bourgeois parliamentarians, in their monumental
| |
| − | shortsightedness, believed that the security of the REICH was guaranteed
| |
| − | because it had an overwhelming numerical majority in its favour, and the
| |
| − | Marxists did not hesitate suddenly to grasp supreme power in their own
| |
| − | hands, backed by a mob of loafers, deserters, political place-hunters
| |
| − | and Jewish dilettanti. That was a blow in the face for that democracy in
| |
| − | which so many parliamentarians believed. Only those credulous
| |
| − | parliamentary wizards who represented bourgeois democracy could have
| |
| − | believed that the brutal determination 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, be held in check by the magical formulas
| |
| − | of Western Parliamentarianism. Marxism will march shoulder to shoulder
| |
| − | with democracy until it succeeds indirectly in securing for its own
| |
| − | criminal purposes even the support of those whose minds are nationally
| |
| − | orientated and whom Marxism strives to exterminate. But if the Marxists
| |
| − | should one day come to believe that there was a danger that from this
| |
| − | witch's cauldron of our parliamentary democracy a majority vote might be
| |
| − | concocted, which by reason of its numerical majority would be empowered
| |
| − | to enact legislation and might use that power seriously to combat
| |
| − | Marxism, then the whole parliamentarian hocus-pocus would be at an end.
| |
| − | Instead of appealing to the democratic conscience, the standard bearers
| |
| − | of the Red International would immediately send forth a furious
| |
| − | rallying-cry among the proletarian masses and the ensuing fight would
| |
| − | not take place in the sedate atmosphere of Parliament but in the
| |
| − | factories and the streets. Then democracy would be annihilated
| |
| − | forthwith. And what the intellectual prowess of the apostles who
| |
| − | represented the people in Parliament had failed to accomplish would now
| |
| − | be successfully carried out by the crow-bar and the sledge-hammer of the
| |
| − | exasperated proletarian masses--just as in the autumn of 1918. At a blow
| |
| − | they would awaken the bourgeois world to see the madness of thinking
| |
| − | that the Jewish drive towards world-conquest can be effectually opposed
| |
| − | by means of Western Democracy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have said, only a very credulous soul could think of binding
| |
| − | himself to observe the rules of the game when he has to face a player
| |
| − | for whom those rules are nothing but a mere bluff or a means of serving
| |
| − | his own interests, which means he will discard them when they prove no
| |
| − | longer useful for his purpose.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All the parties that profess so-called bourgeois principles look upon
| |
| − | political life as in reality a struggle for seats in Parliament. The
| |
| − | moment their principles and convictions are of no further use in that
| |
| − | struggle they are thrown overboard, as if they were sand ballast. And
| |
| − | the programmes are constructed in such a way that they can be dealt with
| |
| − | in like manner. But such practice has a correspondingly weakening effect
| |
| − | on the strength of those parties. They lack the great magnetic force
| |
| − | which alone attracts the broad masses; for these masses always respond
| |
| − | to the compelling force which emanates from absolute faith in the ideas
| |
| − | put forward, 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 of life--even though it be criminal
| |
| − | in a thousand ways--makes an attack against the established order the
| |
| − | other side will be able to resist when it draws its strength from a new
| |
| − | faith, which in our case is a political faith. This faith must supersede
| |
| − | the weak and cowardly command to defend. In its stead we must raise the
| |
| − | battle-cry of a courageous and ruthless attack. Our present movement is
| |
| − | accused, especially by the so-called national bourgeois cabinet
| |
| − | ministers--the Bavarian representatives of the Centre, for example--of
| |
| − | heading towards a revolution. We have one answer to give to those
| |
| − | political pigmies. We say to them: 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 drag the nation into ruin.
| |
| − | But we, by our aggressive policy, are setting up a new WELTANSCHAUUNG
| |
| − | which we shall defend with indomitable devotion. Thus we are building
| |
| − | the steps on which our nation once again may ascend to the temple of
| |
| − | freedom.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so during the first stages of founding our movement we had to take
| |
| − | special care that our militant group which fought for the establishment
| |
| − | of a new and exalted political faith should not degenerate into a
| |
| − | society for the promotion of parliamentarian interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first preventive measure was to lay down a programme which of itself
| |
| − | would tend towards developing a certain moral greatness that would scare
| |
| − | away all the petty and weakling spirits who make up the bulk of our
| |
| − | present party politicians.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those fatal defects which finally led to Germany's downfall afford the
| |
| − | clearest proof of how right we were in considering it absolutely
| |
| − | necessary to set up programmatic aims which were sharply and distinctly
| |
| − | defined.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Because we recognized the defects above mentioned, we realized that a
| |
| − | new conception of the State had to be formed, which in itself became a
| |
| − | part of our new conception of life in general.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first volume of this book I have already dealt with the term
| |
| − | VÖLKISCH, and I said then that this term has not a sufficiently precise
| |
| − | meaning to furnish the kernel around which a closely consolidated
| |
| − | militant community could be formed. All kinds of people, with all kinds
| |
| − | of divergent opinions, are parading about at the present moment under
| |
| − | the device VÖLKISCH on their banners. Before I come to deal with the
| |
| − | purposes and aims of the National Socialist Labour Party I want to
| |
| − | establish a clear understanding of what is meant by the concept VÖLKISCH
| |
| − | and herewith explain its relation to our party movement. The word
| |
| − | VÖLKISCH does not express any clearly specified idea. It may be
| |
| − | interpreted in several ways and in practical application it is just as
| |
| − | general as the word 'religious', for instance. It is difficult to attach
| |
| − | any precise meaning to this latter word, either as a theoretical concept
| |
| − | or as a guiding principle in practical life. The word 'religious'
| |
| − | acquires a precise meaning only when it is associated with a distinct
| |
| − | and definite form through which the concept is put into practice. To say
| |
| − | 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
| |
| − | people who are content with such a vague description and there may even
| |
| − | be some to whom the word conveys a more or less definite picture of the
| |
| − | inner quality of a person thus described. But, since the masses of the
| |
| − | people are not composed of philosophers or saints, such a vague
| |
| − | religious idea will mean for them nothing else than to justify each
| |
| − | individual in thinking and acting according to his own bent. It will not
| |
| − | lead to that practical faith into which the inner religious yearning is
| |
| − | transformed only when it leaves the sphere of general metaphysical ideas
| |
| − | and is moulded to a definite dogmatic belief. Such a belief is certainly
| |
| − | not an end in itself, but the means to an end. Yet it is a means without
| |
| − | which the end could never be reached at all. This end, however, is not
| |
| − | merely something ideal; for at the bottom it is eminently practical. We
| |
| − | must always bear in mind the fact that, generally speaking, the highest
| |
| − | ideals are always the outcome of some profound vital need, just as the
| |
| − | most sublime beauty owes its nobility of shape, in the last analysis, to
| |
| − | the fact that the most beautiful form is the form that is best suited to
| |
| − | the purpose it is meant to serve.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By helping to lift the human being above the level of mere animal
| |
| − | existence, Faith really contributes to consolidate and safeguard its own
| |
| − | existence. Taking humanity as it exists to-day and taking into
| |
| − | consideration the fact that the religious beliefs which it generally
| |
| − | holds and which have been consolidated through our education, so that
| |
| − | they serve as moral standards in practical life, if we should now
| |
| − | abolish religious teaching and not replace it by anything of equal value
| |
| − | the result would be that the foundations of human existence would be
| |
| − | seriously shaken. We may safely say that man does not live merely to
| |
| − | serve higher ideals, but that these ideals, in their turn, furnish the
| |
| − | necessary conditions of his existence as 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 reckon the 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 critically analysed by any
| |
| − | person and accepted or rejected accordingly, until the emotional concept
| |
| − | or yearning has been transformed into an active service that is governed
| |
| − | by a clearly defined doctrinal faith. Such a faith furnishes the
| |
| − | practical outlet for religious feeling to express itself and thus opens
| |
| − | the way through which it can be put into practice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Without a clearly defined belief, the religious feeling would not only
| |
| − | be worthless for the purposes of human existence but even might
| |
| − | contribute towards a general disorganization, on account 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 implies certain fundamental ideas. Though
| |
| − | these ideas are very important indeed, they assume such vague and
| |
| − | indefinite forms that they cannot be estimated as having a greater value
| |
| − | than mere opinions, until they become constituent elements in the
| |
| − | structure of a political party. For in order to give practical force to
| |
| − | the ideals that grow out of a WELTANSCHAUUNG and to answer the demands
| |
| − | which are a logical consequence of such ideals, mere sentiment and inner
| |
| − | longing are of no practical assistance, just as freedom cannot be won by
| |
| − | a universal yearning for it. No. Only when the idealistic longing for
| |
| − | independence is organized in such a way that it can fight for its ideal
| |
| − | with military force, only then can the urgent wish of a people be
| |
| − | transformed into a potent reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Any WELTANSCHAUUNG, though a thousandfold right and supremely
| |
| − | beneficial to humanity, will be of no practical service for the
| |
| − | maintenance of a people as long as its principles have not yet become
| |
| − | the rallying point of a militant movement. And, on its own side, this
| |
| − | movement will remain a mere party until is has brought its ideals to
| |
| − | victory and transformed its party doctrines into the new foundations of
| |
| − | a State which gives the national community its final shape.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If an abstract conception of a general nature is to serve as the basis
| |
| − | of a future development, then the first prerequisite is to form a clear
| |
| − | understanding of the nature and character and scope of this conception.
| |
| − | For only on such a basis can a movement he founded which will be able to
| |
| − | draw the necessary fighting strength from the internal cohesion of its
| |
| − | principles and convictions. From general ideas a political programme
| |
| − | must be constructed and a general WELTANSCHAUUNG must receive the stamp
| |
| − | of a definite political faith. Since this faith must be directed towards
| |
| − | ends that have to be attained in the world of practical reality, not
| |
| − | only must it serve the general ideal as such but it must also take into
| |
| − | consideration 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 the abstract idea, which is correct in itself. In that way
| |
| − | an eternal ideal, which has everlasting significance as a guiding star
| |
| − | to mankind, must be adapted to the exigencies of human frailty so that
| |
| − | its practical effect may not be frustrated at the very outset through
| |
| − | those shortcomings which are general to mankind. The exponent of truth
| |
| − | must here go hand in hand with him who has a practical knowledge of the
| |
| − | soul of the people, so that from the realm of eternal verities and
| |
| − | ideals what is suited to the capacities of human nature may be selected
| |
| − | and given practical form. To take abstract and general principles,
| |
| − | derived from a WELTANSCHAUUNG which is based on a solid foundation of
| |
| − | truth, and transform them into a militant community whose members have
| |
| − | the same political faith--a community which is precisely defined,
| |
| − | rigidly organized, of one mind and one will--such a transformation is
| |
| − | the most important task of all; for the possibility of successfully
| |
| − | carrying out the idea is dependent on the successful fulfilment of that
| |
| − | task. Out of the army of millions who feel the truth of these ideas, and
| |
| − | even may understand them to some extent, one man must arise. This man
| |
| − | must have the gift of being able to expound general ideas in a clear and
| |
| − | definite form, and, from the world of vague ideas shimmering before the
| |
| − | minds of the masses, he must formulate principles that will be as
| |
| − | clear-cut and firm as granite. He must fight for these principles as the
| |
| − | only true ones, until a solid rock of common faith and common will
| |
| − | emerges above the troubled waves of vagrant ideas. The general
| |
| − | justification of such action is to be sought in the necessity for it and
| |
| − | the individual will be justified by his success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we try to penetrate to the inner meaning of the word VÖLKISCH we
| |
| − | arrive at the following conclusions:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The current political conception of the world is that the State, though
| |
| − | it possesses a creative force which can build up civilizations, has
| |
| − | nothing in common with the concept of race as the foundation of the
| |
| − | State. The State is considered rather as something which has resulted
| |
| − | from economic necessity, or, at best, the natural outcome of the play of
| |
| − | political forces and impulses. Such a conception of the foundations of
| |
| − | the State, together with all its logical consequences, not only ignores
| |
| − | the primordial racial forces that underlie the State, but it also leads
| |
| − | to a policy in which the importance of the individual is minimized. If
| |
| − | it be denied that races differ from one another in their powers of
| |
| − | cultural creativeness, then this same erroneous notion must necessarily
| |
| − | influence our estimation of the value of the individual. The assumption
| |
| − | that all races are alike leads to the assumption that nations and
| |
| − | individuals are equal to one another. And international Marxism is
| |
| − | nothing but the application--effected by the Jew, Karl Marx--of a
| |
| − | general conception of life to a definite profession of political faith;
| |
| − | but in reality that general concept had existed long before the time of
| |
| − | Karl Marx. If it had not already existed as a widely diffused infection
| |
| − | the amazing political progress of the Marxist teaching would never have
| |
| − | been possible. In reality what distinguished Karl Marx from the millions
| |
| − | who were affected in the same way was that, in a world already in a
| |
| − | state of gradual decomposition, he used his keen powers of prognosis to
| |
| − | detect the essential poisons, so as to extract them and concentrate
| |
| − | them, with the art of a necromancer, in a solution which would bring
| |
| − | about the rapid destruction of the independent nations on the globe. But
| |
| − | all this was done in the service of his race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the Marxist doctrine is the concentrated extract of the mentality
| |
| − | which underlies the general concept of life to-day. For this reason
| |
| − | alone it is out of the question and even ridiculous to think that what
| |
| − | is called our bourgeois world can put up any effective fight against
| |
| − | Marxism. For this bourgeois world is permeated with all those same
| |
| − | poisons and its conception of life in general differs from Marxism only
| |
| − | in degree and in the character of the persons who hold it. The bourgeois
| |
| − | world 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, while Marxism itself systematically aims at delivering the world
| |
| − | into the hands of the Jews.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Over against all this, the VÖLKISCH concept of the world recognizes that
| |
| − | the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for
| |
| − | mankind. In principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an
| |
| − | end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of
| |
| − | mankind. Therefore on the VÖLKISCH principle we cannot admit that one
| |
| − | race is equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, the
| |
| − | VÖLKISCH concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior
| |
| − | quality. On the basis of this recognition it feels bound in conformity
| |
| − | with the eternal Will that dominates the universe, to postulate the
| |
| − | victory of the better and stronger and the subordination of the inferior
| |
| − | and weaker. And so it pays homage to the truth that the principle
| |
| − | underlying all Nature's operations is the aristocratic principle and it
| |
| − | believes that this law holds good even down to the last individual
| |
| − | organism. It selects individual values from the mass and thus operates
| |
| − | as an organizing principle, whereas Marxism acts as a disintegrating
| |
| − | solvent. The VÖLKISCH belief holds that humanity must have its ideals,
| |
| − | because ideals are a necessary condition of human existence itself. But,
| |
| − | on the other hand, it denies that an ethical ideal has the right to
| |
| − | prevail if it endangers the existence of a race that is the
| |
| − | standard-bearer of a higher ethical ideal. For in a world which would be
| |
| − | composed of mongrels and negroids all ideals of human beauty and
| |
| − | nobility and all hopes of an idealized future for our humanity would be
| |
| − | lost forever.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On this planet of ours human culture and civilization are indissolubly
| |
| − | bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he should be exterminated or
| |
| − | subjugated, then the dark shroud of a new barbarian era would enfold the
| |
| − | earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To undermine the existence of human culture by exterminating its
| |
| − | founders and custodians would be an execrable crime in the eyes of those
| |
| − | who believe that the folk-idea lies at the basis of human existence.
| |
| − | Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of
| |
| − | God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this
| |
| − | marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the folk concept of the world is in profound accord with Nature's
| |
| − | will; because it restores the free play of the forces which will lead
| |
| − | the race through stages of sustained reciprocal education towards a
| |
| − | higher type, until finally the best portion of mankind will possess the
| |
| − | earth and will be free to work in every domain all over the world and
| |
| − | even reach spheres that lie outside the earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We all feel that in the distant future many may be faced with problems
| |
| − | which can be solved only by a superior race of human beings, a race
| |
| − | destined to become master of all the other peoples and which will have
| |
| − | at its disposal the means and resources of the whole world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is evident that such a general sketch of the ideas implied in the
| |
| − | folk concept of the world may easily be interpreted in a thousand
| |
| − | different ways. As a matter of fact there is scarcely one of our recent
| |
| − | political movements that does not refer at some point to this conception
| |
| − | of the world. But the fact that this conception of the world still
| |
| − | maintains its independent existence in face of all the others proves
| |
| − | that their ways of looking at life are quite difierent from this. Thus
| |
| − | the Marxist conception, directed by a central organization endowed with
| |
| − | supreme authority, is opposed by a motley crew of opinions which is not
| |
| − | very impressive in face of the solid phalanx presented by the enemy.
| |
| − | Victory cannot be achieved with such weak weapons. Only when the
| |
| − | international idea, politically organized by Marxism, is confronted by
| |
| − | the folk idea, equally well organized in a systematic way and equally
| |
| − | well led--only then will the fighting energy in the one camp be able to
| |
| − | meet that of the other on an equal footing; and victory will be found on
| |
| − | the side of eternal truth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But a general conception of life can never be given an organic
| |
| − | embodiment until it is precisely and definitely formulated. The function
| |
| − | which dogma fulfils in religious belief is parallel to the function
| |
| − | which party principles fulfil for a political party which is in the
| |
| − | process of being built up. Therefore, for the conception of life that is
| |
| − | based on the folk idea it is necessary that an instrument be forged
| |
| − | which can be used in fighting for this ideal, similar to the Marxist
| |
| − | party organization which clears the way for internationalism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And this is the aim which the German National Socialist Labour Movement
| |
| − | pursues.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The folk conception must therefore be definitely formulated so that it
| |
| − | may be organically incorporated in the party. That is a necessary
| |
| − | prerequisite for the success of this idea. And that it is so is very
| |
| − | clearly proved even by the indirect acknowledgment of those who oppose
| |
| − | such an amalgamation of the folk idea with party principles. The very
| |
| − | people who never tire of insisting again and again that the conception
| |
| − | of life based on the folk idea can never be the exclusive property of a
| |
| − | single group, because it lies dormant or 'lives' in myriads of hearts,
| |
| − | only confirm by their own statements the simple fact that the general
| |
| − | presence of such ideas in the hearts of millions of men has not proved
| |
| − | sufficient to impede the victory of the opposing ideas, which are
| |
| − | championed by a political party organized on the principle of class
| |
| − | conflict. If that were not so, the German people ought already to have
| |
| − | gained a gigantic victory instead of finding themselves on the brink of
| |
| − | the abyss. The international ideology achieved success because it was
| |
| − | organized in a militant political party which was always ready to take
| |
| − | the offensive. If hitherto the ideas opposed to the international
| |
| − | concept have had to give way before the latter the reason is that they
| |
| − | lacked a united front to fight for their cause. A doctrine which forms a
| |
| − | definite outlook on life cannot struggle and triumph by allowing the
| |
| − | right of free interpretation of its general teaching, but only by
| |
| − | defining that teaching in certain articles of faith that have to be
| |
| − | accepted and incorporating it in a political organization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore I considered it my special duty to extract from the extensive
| |
| − | but vague contents of a general WELTANSCHAUUNG the 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 the purpose of
| |
| − | uniting in a common front all those who are ready to accept them as
| |
| − | principles. In other words: The German National Socialist Labour Party
| |
| − | extracts the essential principles from the general conception of the
| |
| − | world which is based on the folk idea. On these principles it
| |
| − | establishes a political doctrine which takes into account the practical
| |
| − | realities of the day, the nature of the times, the available human
| |
| − | material and all its deficiencies. Through this political doctrine it is
| |
| − | possible to bring great masses of the people into an organization which
| |
| − | is constructed as rigidly as it could be. Such an organization is the
| |
| − | main preliminary that is necessary for the final triumph of this ideal.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER II
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE STATE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Already in 1920-1921 certain circles belonging to the effete bourgeois
| |
| − | class accused our movement again and again of taking up a negative
| |
| − | attitude towards the modern State. For that reason the motley gang of
| |
| − | camp followers attached to the various political parties, representing a
| |
| − | heterogeneous conglomeration of political views, assumed the right of
| |
| − | utilizing all available means to suppress the protagonists of this young
| |
| − | movement which was preaching a new political gospel. Our opponents
| |
| − | deliberately ignored the fact that the bourgeois class itself stood for
| |
| − | no uniform opinion as to what the State really meant and that the
| |
| − | bourgeoisie did not and could not give any coherent definition of this
| |
| − | institution. Those whose duty it is to explain what is meant when we
| |
| − | speak of the State, hold chairs in State universities, often in the
| |
| − | department of constitutional law, and consider it their highest duty to
| |
| − | find explanations and justifications for the more or less fortunate
| |
| − | existence of that particular form of State which provides them with
| |
| − | their daily bread. The more absurd such a form of State is the more
| |
| − | obscure and artificial and incomprehensible are the definitions which
| |
| − | are advanced to explain the purpose of its existence. What, for
| |
| − | instance, could a royal and imperial university professor write about
| |
| − | the meaning and purpose of a State in a country whose statal form
| |
| − | represented the greatest monstrosity of the twentieth century? That
| |
| − | would be a difficult undertaking indeed, in view of the fact that the
| |
| − | contemporary professor of constitutional law is obliged not so much to
| |
| − | serve the cause of truth but rather to serve a certain definite purpose.
| |
| − | And this purpose is to defend at all costs the existence of that
| |
| − | monstrous human mechanism which we now call the State. Nobody can be
| |
| − | surprised if concrete facts are evaded as far as possible when the
| |
| − | problem of the State is under discussion and if professors adopt the
| |
| − | tactics of concealing themselves in morass of abstract values and duties
| |
| − | and purposes which are described as 'ethical' and 'moral'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, these various theorists may be classed in three
| |
| − | groups:
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1. Those who hold that the State is a more or less voluntary association
| |
| − | of men who have agreed to set up and obey a ruling authority.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This is numerically the largest group. In its ranks are to be found
| |
| − | those who worship our present principle of legalized authority. In their
| |
| − | eyes the will of the people has no part whatever in the whole affair.
| |
| − | For them the fact that the State exists is sufficient reason to consider
| |
| − | it sacred and inviolable. To accept this aberration of the human brain
| |
| − | one would have to have a sort of canine adoration for what is called the
| |
| − | authority of the State. In the minds of these people the means is
| |
| − | substituted for the end, by a sort of sleight-of-hand movement. The
| |
| − | State no longer exists for the purpose of serving men but men exist for
| |
| − | the purpose of adoring the authority of the State, which is vested in
| |
| − | its functionaries, even down to the smallest official. So as to prevent
| |
| − | this placid and ecstatic adoration from changing into something that
| |
| − | might become in any way disturbing, the authority of the State is
| |
| − | limited simply to the task of preserving order and tranquillity.
| |
| − | Therewith it is no longer either a means or an end. The State must see
| |
| − | that public peace and order are preserved and, in their turn, order and
| |
| − | peace must make the existence of the State possible. All life must move
| |
| − | between these two poles. In Bavaria this view is upheld by the artful
| |
| − | politicians of the Bavarian Centre, which is called the 'Bavarian
| |
| − | Populist Party'. In Austria the Black-and-Yellow legitimists adopt a
| |
| − | similar attitude. In the REICH, unfortunately, the so-called
| |
| − | conservative elements follow the same line of thought.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 2. The second group is somewhat smaller in numbers. It includes those
| |
| − | who would make the existence of the State dependent on some conditions
| |
| − | at least. They insist that not only should there be a uniform system of
| |
| − | government but also, if possible, that only one language should be used,
| |
| − | though solely for technical reasons of administration. In this view the
| |
| − | authority of the State is no longer the sole and exclusive end for which
| |
| − | 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 it exists. It must submit to the test of practical
| |
| − | efficiency. Its venerable age no 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 the economic well-being
| |
| − | of the individual citizens. Hence it is judged from the practical
| |
| − | standpoint and according to general principles based on the idea of
| |
| − | economic returns. The chief representatives of this theory of the State
| |
| − | are to be found among the average German bourgeoisie, especially our
| |
| − | liberal democrats.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 3. The third group is numerically the smallest. In the State they
| |
| − | discover a means for the realization of tendencies that arise from a
| |
| − | policy of power, on the part of a people who are ethnically homogeneous
| |
| − | and speak the same language. But those who hold this view are not clear
| |
| − | about what they mean by 'tendencies arising from a policy of power'. A
| |
| − | common language is postulated not only because they hope that thereby
| |
| − | the State would be furnished with a solid basis for the extension of its
| |
| − | power outside its own frontiers, but also because they think--though
| |
| − | falling into a fundamental error by doing so--that such a common
| |
| − | language would enable them to carry out a process of nationalization in
| |
| − | a definite direction.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness
| |
| − | it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word
| |
| − | 'Germanization' was frivolously played with, though the practice was
| |
| − | often well intended. I well remember how in the days of my youth this
| |
| − | very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible
| |
| − | degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that
| |
| − | the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian
| |
| − | Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people
| |
| − | did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out
| |
| − | only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization
| |
| − | was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But
| |
| − | it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think
| |
| − | that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned
| |
| − | the German language and is willing to speak German for the future, and
| |
| − | even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois
| |
| − | nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of
| |
| − | Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all the
| |
| − | outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be
| |
| − | bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that
| |
| − | would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not
| |
| − | signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the
| |
| − | course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race
| |
| − | succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected
| |
| − | to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years
| |
| − | their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror
| |
| − | finally turned out to be the conquered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What makes a people or, to be more correct, a race, is not language but
| |
| − | blood. Therefore it would be justifiable to speak of Germanization only
| |
| − | if that process could change the blood of the people who would be
| |
| − | subjected to it, which is obviously impossible. A change would be
| |
| − | possible only by a mixture of blood, but in this case the quality of the
| |
| − | superior race would be debased. The final result of such a mixture would
| |
| − | be that precisely those qualities would be destroyed which had enabled
| |
| − | the conquering race to achieve victory over an inferior people. It is
| |
| − | especially the cultural creativeness which disappears when a superior
| |
| − | race intermixes with an inferior one, even though the resultant mongrel
| |
| − | race should excel a thousandfold 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 degeneration will at the last moment rally its
| |
| − | cultural creative power and once again produce striking examples of that
| |
| − | power. But these results are due only to the activity of elements that
| |
| − | have remained over from the superior race or hybrids of the first
| |
| − | crossing in whom the superior blood has remained dominant and seeks to
| |
| − | assert itself. But this will never happen with the final descendants of
| |
| − | such hybrids. These are always in a state of cultural retrogression.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We must consider it as fortunate that a Germanization of Austria
| |
| − | according to the plan of Joseph II did not succeed. Probably the result
| |
| − | would have been that the Austrian State would have been able to survive,
| |
| − | but at the same time participation in the use of a common language would
| |
| − | have debased the racial quality of the German element. In the course of
| |
| − | centuries a certain herd instinct might have been developed but the herd
| |
| − | itself would have deteriorated in quality. A national State might have
| |
| − | arisen, but a people who had been culturally creative would have
| |
| − | disappeared.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the German nation it was better that this process of intermixture
| |
| − | did not take place, although it was not renounced for any high-minded
| |
| − | reasons but simply through the short-sighted pettiness of the Habsburgs.
| |
| − | If it had taken place the German people could not now be looked upon as
| |
| − | a cultural factor.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not only in Austria, however, but also in the REICH, these so-called
| |
| − | national circles were, and still are, under the influence of similar
| |
| − | erroneous ideas. Unfortunately, a policy towards Poland, whereby the
| |
| − | East was to be Germanized, was demanded by many and was based on the
| |
| − | same false reasoning. Here again it was believed that the Polish people
| |
| − | could be Germanized by being compelled to use the German language. The
| |
| − | result would have been fatal. A people of foreign race would have had to
| |
| − | use the German language to express modes of thought that were foreign to
| |
| − | the German, thus compromising by its own inferiority the dignity and
| |
| − | nobility of our nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is revolting to think how much damage is indirectly done to German
| |
| − | prestige to-day through the fact that the German patois of the Jews when
| |
| − | they enter the United States enables them to be classed as Germans,
| |
| − | because many Americans are quite ignorant of German conditions. Among
| |
| − | us, nobody would think of taking these unhygienic immigrants from the
| |
| − | East for members of the German race and nation merely because they
| |
| − | mostly speak German.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What has been beneficially Germanized in the course of history was the
| |
| − | land which our ancestors conquered with the sword and colonized with
| |
| − | German tillers of the soil. To the extent that they introduced foreign
| |
| − | blood into our national body in this colonization, they have helped to
| |
| − | disintegrate our racial character, a process which has resulted in our
| |
| − | German hyper-individualism, though this latter characteristic is even
| |
| − | now frequently praised.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this third group also there are people who, to a certain degree,
| |
| − | consider the State as an end in itself. Hence they consider its
| |
| − | preservation as one of the highest aims of human existence. Our analysis
| |
| − | may be summed up as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | All these opinions have this common feature and failing: that they are
| |
| − | not grounded in a recognition of the profound truth that the capacity
| |
| − | for creating cultural values is essentially based on the racial element
| |
| − | and that, in accordance with this fact, the paramount purpose of the
| |
| − | State is to preserve and improve the race; for this is an indispensable
| |
| − | condition of all progress in human civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the Jew, Karl Marx, was able to draw the final conclusions from
| |
| − | these false concepts and ideas on the nature and purpose of the State.
| |
| − | By eliminating from the concept of the State all thought of the
| |
| − | obligation which the State bears towards the race, without finding any
| |
| − | other formula that might be universally accepted, the bourgeois teaching
| |
| − | prepared the way for that doctrine which rejects the State as such.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why the bourgeois struggle against Marxist internationalism is
| |
| − | absolutely doomed to fail in this field. The bourgeois classes have
| |
| − | already sacrificed the basic principles which alone could furnish a
| |
| − | solid footing for their ideas. Their crafty opponent has perceived the
| |
| − | defects in their structure and advances to the assault on it with those
| |
| − | weapons which they themselves have placed in his hands though not
| |
| − | meaning to do so.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore any new movement which is based on the racial concept of the
| |
| − | world will first of all have to put forward a clear and logical doctrine
| |
| − | of the nature and purpose of the State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fundamental principle is that the State is not an end in itself but
| |
| − | the means to an end. It is the preliminary condition under which alone a
| |
| − | higher form of human civilization can be developed, but it is not the
| |
| − | source of such a development. This is to be sought exclusively in the
| |
| − | actual existence of a race which is endowed with the gift of cultural
| |
| − | creativeness. There may be hundreds of excellent States on this earth,
| |
| − | and yet if the Aryan, who is the creator and custodian of civilization,
| |
| − | should disappear, all culture that is on an adequate level with the
| |
| − | spiritual needs of the superior nations to-day would also disappear. We
| |
| − | may go still further and say that the fact that States have been created
| |
| − | by human beings does not in the least exclude the possiblity that the
| |
| − | human race may become extinct, because the superior intellectual
| |
| − | faculties and powers of adaptation would be lost when the racial bearer
| |
| − | of these faculties and powers disappeared.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If, for instance, the surface of the globe should be shaken to-day by
| |
| − | some seismic convulsion and if a new Himalaya would emerge from the
| |
| − | waves of the sea, this one catastrophe alone might annihilate human
| |
| − | civilization. No State could exist any longer. All order would be
| |
| − | shattered. And all vestiges of cultural products which had been evolved
| |
| − | through thousands of years would disappear. Nothing would be left but
| |
| − | one tremendous field of death and destruction submerged in floods of
| |
| − | water and mud. If, however, just a few people would survive this
| |
| − | terrible havoc, and if these people belonged to a definite race that had
| |
| − | the innate powers to build up a civilization, when the commotion had
| |
| − | passed, the earth would again bear witness to the creative power of the
| |
| − | human spirit, even though a span of a thousand years might intervene.
| |
| − | Only with the extermination of the last race that possesses the gift of
| |
| − | cultural creativeness, and indeed only if all the individuals of that
| |
| − | race had disappeared, would the earth definitely be turned into a
| |
| − | desert. On the other hand, modern history furnishes examples to show
| |
| − | that statal institutions which owe their beginnings to members of a race
| |
| − | which lacks creative genius are not made of stuff that will endure. Just
| |
| − | as many varieties of prehistoric animals had to give way to others and
| |
| − | leave no trace behind them, so man will also have to give way, if he
| |
| − | loses that definite faculty which enables him to find the weapons that
| |
| − | are necessary for him to maintain his own existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not the State as such that brings about a certain definite advance
| |
| − | in cultural progress. The State can only protect the race that is the
| |
| − | cause of such progress. The State as such may well exist without
| |
| − | undergoing any change for hundreds of years, though the cultural
| |
| − | faculties and the general life of the people, which is shaped by these
| |
| − | faculties, may have suffered profound changes by reason of the fact that
| |
| − | the State did not prevent a process of racial mixture from taking place.
| |
| − | The present State, for instance, may continue to exist in a mere
| |
| − | mechanical form, but the poison of miscegenation permeating the national
| |
| − | body brings about a cultural decadence which manifests itself already in
| |
| − | various symptoms that are of a detrimental character.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the indispensable prerequisite for the existence of a superior
| |
| − | quality of human beings is not the State but the race, which is alone
| |
| − | capable of producing that higher human quality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 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 cultural creativeness possess this
| |
| − | faculty in a latent form during periods when the external circumstances
| |
| − | are unfavourable for the time being and therefore do not allow the
| |
| − | faculty to express itself effectively. It is therefore outrageously
| |
| − | unjust to speak of the pre-Christian Germans as barbarians who had no
| |
| − | civilization. They never have been such. But the severity of the climate
| |
| − | that prevailed in the northern regions which they inhabited imposed
| |
| − | conditions of life which hampered a free development of their creative
| |
| − | faculties. If they had come 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 an inferior race--to serve them as
| |
| − | working implements, the cultural faculty dormant in them would have
| |
| − | splendidly blossomed forth, as happened in the case of the Greeks, for
| |
| − | example. But this primordial creative faculty in cultural things was not
| |
| − | solely due to their northern climate. For the Laplanders or the Eskimos
| |
| − | would not have become creators of a culture if they were transplanted to
| |
| − | the South. No, this wonderful creative faculty is a special gift
| |
| − | bestowed on the Aryan, whether it lies dormant in him or becomes active,
| |
| − | according as the adverse conditions of nature prevent the active
| |
| − | expression of that faculty or favourable circumstances permit it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From these facts the following conclusions may be drawn:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The State is only a means to an end. Its end and its purpose is to
| |
| − | preserve and promote a community of human beings who are physically as
| |
| − | well as spiritually kindred. Above all, it must preserve the existence
| |
| − | of the race, thereby providing the indispensable condition for the free
| |
| − | development of all the forces dormant in this race. A great part of
| |
| − | these faculties will always have to be employed in the first place to
| |
| − | maintain the physical existence of the race, and only a small portion
| |
| − | will be free to work in the field of intellectual progress. But, as a
| |
| − | matter of fact, the one is always the necessary counterpart of the
| |
| − | other.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those States which do not serve this purpose have no justification for
| |
| − | their existence. They are monstrosities. The fact that they do exist is
| |
| − | no more of a justification than the successful raids carried out by a
| |
| − | band of pirates can be considered a justification of piracy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We National Socialists, who are fighting for a new WELTANSCHAUUNG, must
| |
| − | never take our stand on the famous 'basis of facts', and especially not
| |
| − | on mistaken facts. If we did so, we should cease to be the protagonists
| |
| − | of a new and great idea and would become slaves in the service of the
| |
| − | fallacy which is dominant to-day. We must make a clear-cut distinction
| |
| − | between the vessel and its contents. The State is only the vessel and
| |
| − | the race is what it contains. The vessel can have a meaning only if it
| |
| − | preserves and safeguards the contents. Otherwise it is worthless.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the supreme purpose of the ethnical State is to guard and preserve
| |
| − | those racial elements which, through their work in the cultural field,
| |
| − | create that beauty and dignity which are characteristic of a higher
| |
| − | mankind. As Aryans, we can consider the State only as the living
| |
| − | organism of a people, an organism which does not merely maintain the
| |
| − | existence of a people, but functions in such a way as to lead its people
| |
| − | to a position of supreme liberty by the progressive development of the
| |
| − | intellectual and cultural faculties.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What they want to impose upon us as a State to-day is in most cases
| |
| − | nothing but a monstrosity, the product of a profound human aberration
| |
| − | which brings untold suffering in its train.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We National Socialists know that in holding these views we take up a
| |
| − | revolutionary stand in the world of to-day and that we are branded as
| |
| − | revolutionaries. But our views and our conduct will not be determined by
| |
| − | the approbation or disapprobation of our contemporaries, but only by our
| |
| − | duty to follow a truth which we have acknowledged. In doing this we have
| |
| − | reason to believe that posterity will have a clearer insight, and will
| |
| − | not only understand the work we are doing to-day, but will also ratify
| |
| − | it as the right work and will exalt it accordingly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On these principles we National Socialists base our standards of value
| |
| − | in appraising a State. This value will be relative when viewed from the
| |
| − | particular standpoint of the individual nation, but it will be absolute
| |
| − | when considered from the standpoint of humanity as a whole. In other
| |
| − | words, this means:
| |
| − | | |
| − | That the excellence of a State can never be judged by the level of its
| |
| − | culture or the degree of importance which the outside world attaches to
| |
| − | its power, but that its excellence must be judged by the degree to which
| |
| − | its institutions serve the racial stock which belongs to it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A State may be considered as a model example if it adequately serves not
| |
| − | only the vital needs of the racial stock it represents but if it
| |
| − | actually assures by its own existence the preservation of this same
| |
| − | racial stock, no matter what general cultural significance this statal
| |
| − | institution may have in the eyes of the rest of the world. For it is not
| |
| − | the task of the State to create human capabilities, but only 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 a
| |
| − | high cultural level, it dooms to destruction the bearers of that culture
| |
| − | by breaking up their racial uniformity. For the practical effect of such
| |
| − | a policy would be to destroy those conditions that are indispensable for
| |
| − | the ulterior existence of that culture, which the State did not create
| |
| − | but which is the fruit of the creative power inherent in the racial
| |
| − | stock whose existence is assured by being united in the living organism
| |
| − | of the State. Once again let me emphasize 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 the value of the State in which that
| |
| − | people lives. It is evident that a people which is endowed with high
| |
| − | creative powers in the cultural sphere is of more worth 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 the negroes. Not
| |
| − | even the best of States and statal institutions can evolve faculties
| |
| − | from a people which they lack and which they never possessed, but a bad
| |
| − | State may gradually destroy the faculties which once existed. This it
| |
| − | can do by allowing or favouring the suppression of those who are the
| |
| − | bearers of a racial culture.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, the worth of a State can be determined only by asking how far
| |
| − | it actually succeeds in promoting the well-being of a definite race and
| |
| − | not by the role which it plays in the world at large. Its relative worth
| |
| − | can be estimated readily and accurately; but it is difficult to judge
| |
| − | its absolute worth, because the latter is conditioned not only by the
| |
| − | State but also by the quality and cultural level of the people that
| |
| − | belong to the individual State in question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, when we speak of the high mission of the State we must not
| |
| − | forget that the high mission belongs to the people and that the business
| |
| − | of the State is to use its organizing powers for the purpose of
| |
| − | furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this people freely to
| |
| − | unfold its creative faculties. And if we ask what kind of statal
| |
| − | institution we Germans need, we must first have a clear notion as to the
| |
| − | people which that State must embrace and what purpose it must serve.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Unfortunately the German national being is not based on a uniform racial
| |
| − | type. The process of welding the original elements together has not gone
| |
| − | so far as to warrant us in saying that a new race has emerged. On the
| |
| − | contrary, the poison which has invaded the national body, especially
| |
| − | since the Thirty Years' War, has destroyed the uniform constitution not
| |
| − | only of our blood but also of our national soul. The open frontiers of
| |
| − | our native country, the association with non-German foreign elements in
| |
| − | the territories that lie all along those frontiers, and especially the
| |
| − | strong influx of foreign blood into the interior of the REICH itself,
| |
| − | has prevented any complete assimilation of those various elements,
| |
| − | because the influx has continued steadily. Out of this melting-pot no
| |
| − | new race arose. The heterogeneous elements continue to exist side by
| |
| − | side. And the result is that, especially in times of crisis, when the
| |
| − | herd usually flocks together, the Germans disperse in all directions.
| |
| − | The fundamental racial elements are not only different in different
| |
| − | districts, but there are also various elements in the single districts.
| |
| − | Beside the Nordic type we find the East-European type, beside the
| |
| − | Eastern there is the Dinaric, the Western type intermingling with both,
| |
| − | and hybrids among them all. That is a grave drawback for us. Through it
| |
| − | the Germans lack that strong herd instinct which arises from unity of
| |
| − | blood and saves nations from ruin in dangerous and critical times;
| |
| − | because on such occasions small differences disappear, so that a united
| |
| − | herd faces the enemy. What we understand by the word hyper-individualism
| |
| − | arises from the fact that our primordial racial elements have existed
| |
| − | side by side without ever consolidating. During times of peace such a
| |
| − | situation may offer some advantages, but, taken all in all, it has
| |
| − | prevented us from gaining a mastery in the world. If in its historical
| |
| − | development the German people had possessed the unity of herd instinct
| |
| − | by which other peoples have so much benefited, then the German REICH
| |
| − | would probably be mistress of the globe to-day. World history would have
| |
| − | taken another course and in this case no man can tell if what many
| |
| − | blinded pacifists hope to attain by petitioning, whining and crying, may
| |
| − | not have been reached in this way: namely, a peace which would not be
| |
| − | based upon the waving of olive branches and tearful misery-mongering of
| |
| − | pacifist old women, but a peace that would be guaranteed by the
| |
| − | triumphant sword of a people endowed with the power to master the world
| |
| − | and administer it in the service of a higher civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that our people did not have a national being based on a unity
| |
| − | of blood has been the source of untold misery for us. To many petty
| |
| − | German potentates it gave residential capital cities, but the German
| |
| − | people as a whole was deprived of its right to rulership.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even to-day our nation still suffers from this lack of inner unity; but
| |
| − | what has been the cause of our past and present misfortunes may turn out
| |
| − | a blessing for us in the future. Though on the one hand it may be a
| |
| − | drawback that our racial elements were not welded together, so that no
| |
| − | homogeneous national body could develop, on the other hand, it was
| |
| − | fortunate that, since at least a part of our best blood was thus kept
| |
| − | pure, its racial quality was not debased.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A complete assimilation of all our racial elements would certainly have
| |
| − | brought about a homogeneous national organism; but, as has been proved
| |
| − | in the case of every racial mixture, it would have been less capable of
| |
| − | creating a civilization than by keeping intact its best original
| |
| − | elements. A benefit which results from the fact that there was no
| |
| − | all-round assimilation is to be seen in that even now we have large
| |
| − | groups of German Nordic people within our national organization, and
| |
| − | that their blood has not been mixed with the blood of other races. We
| |
| − | must look upon this as our most valuable treasure for the sake of the
| |
| − | future. During that dark period of absolute ignorance in regard to all
| |
| − | racial laws, when each individual was considered to be on a par with
| |
| − | every other, there could be no clear appreciation of the difference
| |
| − | between the various fundamental racial characteristics. We know to-day
| |
| − | that a complete assimilation of all the various elements which
| |
| − | constitute the national being might have resulted in giving us a larger
| |
| − | share of external power: but, on the other hand, the highest of human
| |
| − | aims would not have been attained, because the only kind of people which
| |
| − | fate has obviously chosen to bring about this perfection would have been
| |
| − | lost in such a general mixture of races which would constitute such a
| |
| − | racial amalgamation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what has been prevented by a friendly Destiny, without any
| |
| − | assistance on our part, must now be reconsidered and utilized in the
| |
| − | light of our new knowledge.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He who talks of the German people as having a mission to fulfil on this
| |
| − | earth must know that this cannot be fulfilled except by the building up
| |
| − | of a State whose highest purpose is to preserve and promote those nobler
| |
| − | elements of our race and of the whole of mankind which have remained
| |
| − | unimpaired.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus for the first time a high inner purpose is accredited to the State.
| |
| − | In face of the ridiculous phrase that the State should do no more than
| |
| − | act as the guardian of public order and tranquillity, so that everybody
| |
| − | can peacefully dupe everybody else, it is given a very high mission
| |
| − | indeed to preserve and encourage the highest type of humanity which a
| |
| − | beneficent Creator has bestowed on this earth. Out of a dead mechanism
| |
| − | which claims to be an end in itself a living organism shall arise which
| |
| − | has to serve one purpose exclusively: and that, indeed, a purpose which
| |
| − | belongs to a higher order of ideas.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a State the German REICH shall include all Germans. Its task is not
| |
| − | only to gather in and foster the most valuable sections of our people
| |
| − | but to lead them slowly and surely to a dominant position in the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus a period of stagnation is superseded by a period of effort. And
| |
| − | here, as in every other sphere, the proverb holds good that to rest is
| |
| − | to rust; and furthermore the proverb that victory will always be won by
| |
| − | him who attacks. The higher the final goal which we strive to reach, and
| |
| − | the less it be understood at the time by the broad masses, the more
| |
| − | magnificent will be its success. That is what the lesson of history
| |
| − | teaches. And the achievement will be all the more significant if the end
| |
| − | is conceived in the right way and the fight carried through with
| |
| − | unswerving persistence. Many of the officials who direct the affairs of
| |
| − | State nowadays may find it easier to work for the maintenance of the
| |
| − | present order than to fight for a new one. They will find it more
| |
| − | comfortable to look upon the State as a mechanism, whose purpose is its
| |
| − | own preservation, and to say that 'their lives belong to the State,' as
| |
| − | if anything that grew from the inner life of the nation can logically
| |
| − | serve anything but the national being, and as if man could be 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 the
| |
| − | formal mechanism of an organization, rather than as the sovereign
| |
| − | incarnation of a people's instinct for self-preservation on this earth.
| |
| − | For these weak minds 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 eternal struggle for existence, a weapon which
| |
| − | everyone must adopt, not because it is a mere formal mechanism, but
| |
| − | because it is the main expression of our common will to exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, in the fight for our new idea, which conforms completely to
| |
| − | the primal meaning of life, we shall find only a small number of
| |
| − | comrades in a social order which has become decrepit not only physically
| |
| − | but mentally also. From these strata of our population only a few
| |
| − | exceptional people will join our ranks, only those few old people whose
| |
| − | hearts have remained young and whose courage is still vigorous, but not
| |
| − | those who consider it their duty to maintain the state of affairs that
| |
| − | exists.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Against us we have the innumerable army of all those who are lazy-minded
| |
| − | and indifferent rather than evil, and those whose self-interest leads
| |
| − | them to uphold the present state of affairs. On the apparent
| |
| − | hopelessness of our great struggle is based the magnitude of our task
| |
| − | and the possibilities of success. A battle-cry which from the very start
| |
| − | will scare off all the petty spirits, or at least discourage them, will
| |
| − | become the signal for a rally of all those temperaments that are of the
| |
| − | real fighting metal. And it must be clearly recognized that if a highly
| |
| − | energetic and active body of men emerge from a nation and unite in the
| |
| − | fight for one goal, thereby ultimately rising above the inert masses of
| |
| − | the people, this small percentage will become masters of the whole.
| |
| − | World history is made by minorities if these numerical minorities
| |
| − | represent in themselves the will and energy and initiative of the people
| |
| − | as a whole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What seems an obstacle to many persons is really a preliminary condition
| |
| − | of our victory. Just because our task is so great and because so many
| |
| − | difficulties have to be overcome, the highest probability is that only
| |
| − | the best kind of protagonists will join our ranks. This selection is the
| |
| − | guarantee of our success. Nature generally takes certain measures to
| |
| − | correct the effect which racial mixture produces in life. She is not
| |
| − | much in favour of the mongrel. The later products of cross-breeding have
| |
| − | to suffer bitterly, especially the third, fourth and fifth generations.
| |
| − | Not only are they deprived of the higher qualities that belonged to the
| |
| − | parents who participated in the first mixture, but they also lack
| |
| − | definite will-power and vigorous vital energies owing to the lack of
| |
| − | harmony in the quality of their blood. At all critical moments in which
| |
| − | a person of pure racial blood makes correct decisions, that is to say,
| |
| − | decisions that are coherent and uniform, the person of mixed blood will
| |
| − | become confused and take measures that are incoherent. Hence we see that
| |
| − | a person of mixed blood is not only relatively inferior to a person of
| |
| − | pure blood, but is also doomed to become extinct more rapidly. In
| |
| − | innumerable cases wherein the pure race holds its ground the mongrel
| |
| − | breaks down. Therein we witness the corrective provision which Nature
| |
| − | adopts. She restricts the possibilities of procreation, thus impeding
| |
| − | the fertility of cross-breeds and bringing them to extinction.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For instance, if an individual member of a race should mingle his blood
| |
| − | with the member of a superior race the first result would be a lowering
| |
| − | of the racial level, and furthermore the descendants of this
| |
| − | cross-breeding would be weaker than those of the people around them who
| |
| − | had maintained their blood unadulterated. Where no new blood from the
| |
| − | superior race enters the racial stream of the mongrels, and where those
| |
| − | mongrels continue to cross-breed among themselves, the latter will
| |
| − | either die out because they have insufficient powers of resistance,
| |
| − | which is Nature's wise provision, or in the course of many thousands of
| |
| − | years they will form a new mongrel race in which the original elements
| |
| − | will become so wholly mixed through this millennial crossing that traces
| |
| − | of the original elements will be no longer recognizable. And thus a new
| |
| − | people would be developed which possessed a certain resistance capacity
| |
| − | of the herd type, but its intellectual value and its cultural
| |
| − | significance would be essentially inferior to those which the first
| |
| − | cross-breeds possessed. But even in this last case the mongrel product
| |
| − | would succumb in the mutual struggle for existence with a higher racial
| |
| − | group that had maintained its blood unmixed. The herd solidarity which
| |
| − | this mongrel race had developed through thousands of years will not be
| |
| − | equal to the struggle. And this is because it would lack elasticity and
| |
| − | constructive capacity to prevail over a race of homogeneous blood that
| |
| − | was mentally and culturally superior.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therewith we may lay down the following principle as valid: every racial
| |
| − | mixture leads, of necessity, sooner or later to the downfall of the
| |
| − | mongrel product, provided the higher racial strata of this cross-breed
| |
| − | has not retained within itself some sort of racial homogeneity. The
| |
| − | danger to the mongrels ceases only when this higher stratum, which has
| |
| − | maintained certain standards of homogeneous breeding, ceases to be true
| |
| − | to its pedigree and intermingles with the mongrels.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This principle is the source of a slow but constant regeneration whereby
| |
| − | all the poison which has invaded the racial body is gradually eliminated
| |
| − | so long as there still remains a fundamental stock of pure racial
| |
| − | elements which resists further crossbreeding.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such a process may set in automatically among those people where a
| |
| − | strong racial instinct has remained. Among such people we may count
| |
| − | those elements which, for some particular cause such as coercion, have
| |
| − | been thrown out of the normal way of reproduction along strict racial
| |
| − | lines. As soon as this compulsion ceases, that part of the race which
| |
| − | has remained intact will tend to marry with its own kind and thus impede
| |
| − | further intermingling. Then the mongrels recede quite naturally into the
| |
| − | background unless their numbers had increased so much as to be able to
| |
| − | withstand all serious resistance from those elements which had preserved
| |
| − | the purity of their race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When men have lost their natural instincts and ignore the obligations
| |
| − | imposed on them by Nature, then there is no hope that Nature will
| |
| − | correct the loss that has been caused, until recognition of the lost
| |
| − | instincts has been restored. Then the task of bringing back what has
| |
| − | been lost will have to be accomplished. But there is serious danger that
| |
| − | those who have become blind once in this respect will continue more and
| |
| − | more to break down racial barriers and finally lose the last remnants of
| |
| − | what is best in them. What then remains is nothing but a uniform
| |
| − | mish-mash, which seems to be the dream of our fine Utopians. But that
| |
| − | mish-mash would soon banish 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 as have created and founded civilizations
| |
| − | would not be produced. The mission of humanity might then be considered
| |
| − | at an end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those who do not wish that the earth should fall into such a condition
| |
| − | must realize that it is the task of the German State in particular to
| |
| − | see to it that the process of bastardization is brought to a stop.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our contemporary generation of weaklings will naturally decry such a
| |
| − | policy and whine and complain about it as an encroachment on the most
| |
| − | sacred of human rights. But there is only one right that is sacrosanct
| |
| − | and this right is at the same time a most sacred duty. This right and
| |
| − | obligation are: that the purity of the racial blood should be guarded,
| |
| − | so that the best types of human beings may be preserved and that thus we
| |
| − | should render possible a more noble development of humanity itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A folk-State should in the first place 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 to produce creatures made in the
| |
| − | likeness of the Lord and not create monsters that are a mixture of man
| |
| − | and ape. The protest which is put forward in the name of humanity does
| |
| − | not fit the mouth of a generation that makes it possible for the most
| |
| − | depraved degenerates to propagate themselves, thereby imposing
| |
| − | unspeakable suffering on their own products and their contemporaries,
| |
| − | while on the other hand contraceptives are permitted and sold in every
| |
| − | drug store and even by street hawkers, so that babies should not be born
| |
| − | even among the healthiest of our people. In this present State of ours,
| |
| − | whose function it is to be the guardian of peace and good order, our
| |
| − | national bourgeoisie look upon it as a crime to make procreation
| |
| − | impossible for syphilitics and those who suffer from tuberculosis or
| |
| − | other hereditary diseases, also cripples and imbeciles. But the
| |
| − | practical prevention of procreation among millions of our very best
| |
| − | people is not considered as an evil, nor does it offend against the
| |
| − | noble morality of this social class but rather encourages their
| |
| − | short-sightedness and mental lethargy. For otherwise they would at least
| |
| − | stir their brains to find an answer to the question of how to create
| |
| − | conditions for the feeding and maintaining of those future beings who
| |
| − | will be the healthy representatives of our nation and must also provide
| |
| − | the conditions on which the generation that is to follow them will have
| |
| − | to support itself and live.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How devoid of ideals and how ignoble is the whole contemporary system!
| |
| − | The fact that the churches join in committing this sin against the image
| |
| − | of God, even though they continue to emphasize the dignity of that
| |
| − | image, is quite in keeping with their present activities. They talk
| |
| − | about the Spirit, but they allow man, as the embodiment of the Spirit,
| |
| − | to degenerate to the proletarian level. Then they look on with amazement
| |
| − | when they realize how small is the influence of the Christian Faith in
| |
| − | their own country and how depraved and ungodly is this riff-raff which
| |
| − | is physically degenerate and therefore morally degenerate also. To
| |
| − | balance this state of affairs they try to convert the Hottentots and the
| |
| − | Zulus and the Kaffirs and to bestow on them the blessings of the Church.
| |
| − | While our European people, God be praised and thanked, are left to
| |
| − | become the victims of moral depravity, the pious missionary goes out to
| |
| − | Central Africa and establishes missionary stations for negroes. Finally,
| |
| − | sound and healthy--though primitive and backward--people will be
| |
| − | transformed, under the name of our 'higher civilization', into a motley
| |
| − | of lazy and brutalized mongrels.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would better accord with noble human aspirations if our two Christian
| |
| − | denominations would cease to bother the negroes with their preaching,
| |
| − | which the negroes do not want and do not understand. It would be better
| |
| − | if they left this work alone, and if, in its stead, they tried to teach
| |
| − | people in Europe, kindly and seriously, that it is much more pleasing to
| |
| − | God if a couple that is not of healthy stock were to show loving
| |
| − | 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 and unhappiness to all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this field the People's State will have to repair the damage that
| |
| − | arises from the fact that the problem is at present neglected by all the
| |
| − | various parties concerned. It will be the task of the People's State to
| |
| − | make the race the centre of the life of the community. It must make sure
| |
| − | that the purity of the racial strain will be preserved. It must proclaim
| |
| − | the truth that the child is the most valuable possession a people can
| |
| − | have. 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 show hereditary defects to bring children into the world and that
| |
| − | in such cases it is a high honour to refrain from doing so. But, on the
| |
| − | other hand, it must be considered as reprehensible conduct to refrain
| |
| − | from giving healthy children to the nation. In this matter the State
| |
| − | must assert itself as the trustee of a millennial future, in face of
| |
| − | which the egotistic desires of the individual count for nothing and will
| |
| − | have to give way before the ruling of the State. In order to fulfil this
| |
| − | duty in a practical manner the State will have to avail itself of modern
| |
| − | medical discoveries. It must proclaim as unfit for procreation all those
| |
| − | who are inflicted with some visible hereditary disease or are the
| |
| − | carriers of it; and practical measures must be adopted to have such
| |
| − | people rendered sterile. On the other hand, provision must be made for
| |
| − | the normally fertile woman so that she will not be restricted in
| |
| − | child-bearing through the financial and economic system operating in a
| |
| − | political regime that looks upon the blessing of having children as a
| |
| − | curse to their parents. The State will have to abolish the cowardly and
| |
| − | even criminal indifference with which the problem of social amenities
| |
| − | for large families is treated, and it will have to be 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 the
| |
| − | adult.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unfit must not
| |
| − | perpetuate their own suffering in the bodies of their children. From the
| |
| − | educational point of view there is here a huge task for the People's
| |
| − | State to accomplish. But in a future era this work will appear greater
| |
| − | and more significant than the victorious wars of our present bourgeois
| |
| − | epoch. Through educational means the State must teach individuals that
| |
| − | illness is not a disgrace but an unfortunate accident which has to be
| |
| − | pitied, yet that it is a crime and a disgrace to make this affliction
| |
| − | all the worse by passing on disease and defects to innocent creatures
| |
| − | out of mere egotism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And the State must also teach the people that it is an expression of a
| |
| − | really noble nature and that it is a humanitarian act worthy of
| |
| − | admiration if a person who innocently suffers from hereditary disease
| |
| − | refrains from having a child of his own but gives his love and affection
| |
| − | to some unknown child who, through its health, promises to become a
| |
| − | robust member of a healthy community. In accomplishing such an
| |
| − | educational task the State integrates its function by this activity in
| |
| − | the moral sphere. It must act on this principle without paying any
| |
| − | attention to the question of whether its conduct will be understood or
| |
| − | misconstrued, blamed or praised.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If for a period of only 600 years those individuals would be sterilized
| |
| − | who are physically degenerate or mentally diseased, humanity would not
| |
| − | only be delivered from an immense misfortune but also restored to a
| |
| − | state of general health such as we at present can hardly imagine. If the
| |
| − | fecundity of the healthy portion of the nation should be made a
| |
| − | practical matter in a conscientious and methodical way, we should have
| |
| − | at least the beginnings of a race from which all those germs would be
| |
| − | eliminated which are to-day the cause of our moral and physical
| |
| − | decadence. If a people and a State take this course to develop that
| |
| − | nucleus of the nation which is most valuable from the racial standpoint
| |
| − | and thus increase its fecundity, the people as a whole will subsequently
| |
| − | enjoy that most precious of gifts which consists in a racial quality
| |
| − | fashioned on truly noble lines.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To achieve this the State should first of all not leave the colonization
| |
| − | of newly acquired territory to a haphazard policy but should have it
| |
| − | carried out under the guidance of definite principles. Specially
| |
| − | competent committees ought to issue certificates to individuals
| |
| − | entitling them to engage in colonization work, and these certificates
| |
| − | should guarantee the racial purity of the individuals in question. In
| |
| − | this way frontier colonies could gradually be founded whose inhabitants
| |
| − | would be of the purest racial stock, and hence would possess the best
| |
| − | qualities of the race. Such colonies would be a valuable asset to the
| |
| − | whole nation. Their development would be a source of joy and confidence
| |
| − | and pride to each citizen of the nation, because they would contain the
| |
| − | pure germ which would ultimately bring about a great development of the
| |
| − | nation and indeed of mankind itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The WELTANSCHAUUNG which bases the State on the racial idea must
| |
| − | finally succeed in bringing about a nobler era, in which men will no
| |
| − | longer pay exclusive attention to breeding and rearing pedigree dogs and
| |
| − | horses and cats, but will endeavour to improve the breed of the human
| |
| − | race itself. That will be an era of silence and renunciation for one
| |
| − | class of people, while the others will give their gifts and make their
| |
| − | sacrifices joyfully.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That such a mentality may be possible cannot be denied in a world where
| |
| − | hundreds and thousands accept the principle of celibacy from their own
| |
| − | choice, without being obliged or pledged to do so by anything except an
| |
| − | ecclesiastical precept. Why should it not be possible 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 sin of racial
| |
| − | corruption which is steadily being passed on from one generation to
| |
| − | another. And, further, they ought to be brought to realize that it is
| |
| − | their bounden duty to give to the Almighty Creator beings such as He
| |
| − | himself made to His own image.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally, our wretched army of contemporary philistines will not
| |
| − | understand these things. They will ridicule them 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 carried out." And we
| |
| − | reply: "With you indeed it cannot be done, for your world is incapable
| |
| − | of such an idea. You know only one anxiety and that is for your own
| |
| − | personal existence. You have one God, and that is your money. We do not
| |
| − | turn to you, however, for help, but to the great army of those who are
| |
| − | too poor to consider their personal existence as the highest good on
| |
| − | earth. They do not place their trust in money but in other gods, into
| |
| − | whose hands they confide their lives. Above all we turn to the vast army
| |
| − | of our German youth. They are coming to maturity in a great epoch, and
| |
| − | they will fight against the evils which were due to the laziness and
| |
| − | indifference of their fathers." Either the German youth will one day
| |
| − | create a new State founded on the racial idea or they will be the last
| |
| − | witnesses of the complete breakdown and death of the bourgeois world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For if a generation suffers from defects which it recognizes and even
| |
| − | admits and is nevertheless quite pleased with itself, as the bourgeois
| |
| − | world is to-day, resorting to the cheap excuse that nothing can be done
| |
| − | to remedy the situation, then such a generation is doomed to disaster. A
| |
| − | marked characteristic of our bourgeois world is that they no longer can
| |
| − | deny the evil conditions that exist. They have to admit that there is
| |
| − | much which is foul and wrong; but they are not able to make up their
| |
| − | minds to fight against that evil, which would mean putting forth the
| |
| − | energy to mobilize 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 only indulge in silly comment and try from a safe
| |
| − | distance to show that such an enterprise is theoretically impossible and
| |
| − | doomed to failure. No arguments are too stupid to be employed in the
| |
| − | service of their own pettifogging opinions and their knavish moral
| |
| − | attitude. If, for instance, a whole continent wages war against
| |
| − | alcoholic intoxication, so as to free a whole people from this
| |
| − | devastating vice, our bourgeois European does not know better than to
| |
| − | look sideways stupidly, shake the head in doubt and ridicule the
| |
| − | movement with a superior sneer--a state of mind which is effective in a
| |
| − | society that is so ridiculous. But when all these stupidities miss their
| |
| − | aim and in that part of the world this sublime and intangible attitude
| |
| − | is treated effectively and success attends the movement, then such
| |
| − | success is called into question or its importance minimized. Even moral
| |
| − | principles are used in this slanderous campaign against a movement which
| |
| − | aims at suppressing a great source of immorality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. We must not permit ourselves to be deceived by any illusions on this
| |
| − | point. Our contemporary bourgeois world has become useless for any such
| |
| − | noble human task because it has lost all high quality and is evil, not
| |
| − | so much--as I think--because evil is wished but rather because these
| |
| − | people are too indolent to rise up against it. That is why those
| |
| − | political societies which call themselves 'bourgeois parties' are
| |
| − | nothing but associations to promote the interests of certain
| |
| − | professional groups and classes. Their highest aim is to defend their
| |
| − | own egoistic interests as best they can. It is obvious that such a
| |
| − | guild, consisting of bourgeois politicians, may be considered fit for
| |
| − | anything rather than a struggle, especially when the adversaries are not
| |
| − | cautious shopkeepers but the proletarian masses, goaded on to
| |
| − | extremities and determined not to hesitate before deeds of violence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we consider it the first duty of the State to serve and promote the
| |
| − | general welfare of the people, by preserving and encouraging the
| |
| − | development of the best racial elements, the logical consequence is that
| |
| − | this task cannot be limited to measures concerning the birth of the
| |
| − | infant members of the race and nation but that the State will also have
| |
| − | to adopt educational means for making each citizen a worthy factor in
| |
| − | the further propagation of the racial stock.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as, in general, the racial quality is the preliminary condition for
| |
| − | the mental efficiency of any given human material, the training of the
| |
| − | individual will first of all have to be directed towards the development
| |
| − | of sound bodily health. For the general rule is 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, or even of
| |
| − | a sickly constitution, is no proof against the principle I have
| |
| − | enunciated. These cases are only exceptions which, as everywhere else,
| |
| − | prove the rule. But when the bulk of a nation is composed of physical
| |
| − | degenerates it is rare for a great spirit to arise from such a miserable
| |
| − | motley. And in any case his activities would never meet with great
| |
| − | success. A degenerate mob will either be incapable of understanding him
| |
| − | at all or their will-power is so feeble that they cannot follow the
| |
| − | soaring of such an eagle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The State that is grounded on the racial principle and is alive to the
| |
| − | significance of this truth will first of all have to base its
| |
| − | educational work not on the mere imparting of knowledge but rather on
| |
| − | physical training and development of healthy bodies. The cultivation of
| |
| − | the intellectual facilities comes only in the second place. And here
| |
| − | again it is character which has to be developed first of all, strength
| |
| − | of will and decision. And the educational system ought to foster the
| |
| − | spirit of readiness to accept responsibilities gladly. Formal
| |
| − | instruction in the sciences must be considered last in importance.
| |
| − | Accordingly the State which is grounded on the racial idea must start
| |
| − | with the principle that a person whose formal education in the sciences
| |
| − | is relatively small but who is physically sound and robust, of a
| |
| − | steadfast and honest character, ready and able to make decisions and
| |
| − | endowed with strength of will, is a more useful member of the national
| |
| − | community than a weakling who is scholarly and refined. A nation
| |
| − | composed of learned men who are physical weaklings, hesitant about
| |
| − | decisions of the will, and timid pacifists, is not capable of assuring
| |
| − | even its own existence on this earth. In the bitter struggle which
| |
| − | decides the destiny of man it is very rare that an individual has
| |
| − | succumbed because he lacked learning. Those who fail are they who try to
| |
| − | ignore these consequences and are too faint-hearted about putting them
| |
| − | into effect. There must be a certain balance between mind and body. An
| |
| − | ill-kept body is not made a more beautiful sight by the indwelling of a
| |
| − | radiant spirit. We should not be acting justly if we were to bestow the
| |
| − | highest intellectual training on those who are physically deformed and
| |
| − | crippled, who lack decision and are weak-willed and cowardly. What has
| |
| − | made the Greek ideal of beauty immortal is the wonderful union of a
| |
| − | splendid physical beauty with nobility of mind and spirit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Moltke's saying, that in the long run fortune favours only the
| |
| − | efficient, is certainly valid for the relationship between body and
| |
| − | spirit. A mind which is sound will generally maintain its dwelling in a
| |
| − | body that is sound.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Accordingly, in the People's State physical training is not a matter for
| |
| − | the individual alone. Nor is it a duty which first devolves on the
| |
| − | parents and only secondly or thirdly a public interest; but it is
| |
| − | necessary for the preservation of the people, who are represented and
| |
| − | protected by the State. As regards purely formal education the State
| |
| − | even now interferes with the individual's right of self-determination
| |
| − | and insists upon the right of the community by submitting the child to
| |
| − | an obligatory system of training, without paying attention to the
| |
| − | approval or disapproval of the parents. In a similar way and to a higher
| |
| − | degree the new People's State will one day make its authority prevail
| |
| − | over the ignorance and incomprehension of individuals in problems
| |
| − | appertaining to the safety of the nation. It must organize its
| |
| − | educational work in such a way that the bodies of the young will be
| |
| − | systematically trained from infancy onwards, so as to be tempered and
| |
| − | hardened for the demands to be made on them in later years. Above all,
| |
| − | the State must see to it that a generation of stay-at-homes is not
| |
| − | developed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The work of education and hygiene has to begin with the young mother.
| |
| − | The painstaking efforts carried on for several decades have succeeded in
| |
| − | abolishing septic infection at childbirth and reducing puerperal fever
| |
| − | to a relatively small number of cases. And so it ought to 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
| |
| − | that this may serve as an excellent basis for future development.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State ought to allow much more time for physical training
| |
| − | in the school. It is nonsense to burden young brains with a load of
| |
| − | material of which, as experience shows, they retain only a small part,
| |
| − | and mostly not the essentials, but only the secondary and useless
| |
| − | portion; because the young mind is incapable of sifting the right kind
| |
| − | of learning out of all the stuff that is pumped into it. To-day, even in
| |
| − | the curriculum of the high schools, only two short hours in the week are
| |
| − | reserved for gymnastics; and worse still, it is left to the pupils to
| |
| − | decide whether or not they want to take part. This shows a grave
| |
| − | disproportion between this branch of education and purely intellectual
| |
| − | instruction. Not a single day should be allowed to pass in which the
| |
| − | young pupil does not have one hour of physical training in the morning
| |
| − | and one in the evening; and every kind of sport and gymnastics should be
| |
| − | included. There is one kind of sport which should be specially
| |
| − | encouraged, although many people who call themselves VÖLKISCH consider
| |
| − | it brutal and vulgar, and that is boxing. It is incredible how many
| |
| − | false notions prevail among the 'cultivated' classes. The fact that the
| |
| − | young man learns how to fence and then spends his time in duels is
| |
| − | considered quite natural and respectable. But boxing--that is brutal.
| |
| − | Why? There is no other sport which equals this in developing the
| |
| − | militant spirit, none that demands such a power of rapid decision or
| |
| − | which gives the body the flexibility of good steel. It is no more vulgar
| |
| − | when two young people settle their differences with their fists than
| |
| − | with sharp-pointed pieces of steel. One who is attacked and defends
| |
| − | himself with his fists surely does not act less manly than one who runs
| |
| − | off and yells for the assistance of a policeman. But, above all, a
| |
| − | healthy youth has to learn to endure hard knocks. This principle may
| |
| − | appear savage to our 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 aesthetic pacifists and physical
| |
| − | degenerates. This State does not consider that the human ideal is to be
| |
| − | found in the honourable philistine or the maidenly spinster, but in a
| |
| − | dareful personification of manly force and in women capable of bringing
| |
| − | men into the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, the function of sport is not only to make the
| |
| − | individual strong, alert and daring, but also to harden the body and
| |
| − | train it to endure an adverse environment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If our superior class had not received such a distinguished education,
| |
| − | and if, on the contrary, they had learned boxing, it would never have
| |
| − | been possible for bullies and deserters and other such CANAILLE to carry
| |
| − | through a German revolution. For the success of this revolution was not
| |
| − | due to the courageous, energetic and audacious activities of its authors
| |
| − | but to the lamentable cowardice and irresolution of those who ruled the
| |
| − | German State at that time and were responsible for it. But our educated
| |
| − | leaders had received only an 'intellectual' training and thus found
| |
| − | themselves defenceless when their adversaries used iron bars instead of
| |
| − | intellectual weapons. All this could happen only because our superior
| |
| − | scholastic system did not train men to be real men but merely to be
| |
| − | civil servants, engineers, technicians, chemists, litterateurs, jurists
| |
| − | and, finally, professors; so that intellectualism should not die out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our leadership in the purely intellectual sphere has always been
| |
| − | brilliant, but as regards will-power in practical affairs our leadership
| |
| − | has been beneath criticism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course education cannot make a courageous man out of one who is
| |
| − | temperamentally a coward. But a man who naturally possesses a certain
| |
| − | degree of courage will not be able to develop that quality if his
| |
| − | defective education has made him inferior to others from the very start
| |
| − | as regards physical strength and prowess. The army offers the best
| |
| − | example of the fact that the knowledge of one's physical ability
| |
| − | develops a man's courage and militant spirit. Outstanding heroes are not
| |
| − | the rule in the army, but the average represents men of high courage.
| |
| − | The excellent schooling which the German soldiers received before the
| |
| − | War imbued the members of the whole gigantic organism with a degree of
| |
| − | confidence in their own superiority such as even our opponents never
| |
| − | thought possible. All the immortal examples of dauntless courage and
| |
| − | daring which the German armies gave during the late summer and autumn of
| |
| − | 1914, as they advanced from triumph to triumph, were the result of that
| |
| − | education which had been pursued systematically. During those long years
| |
| − | of peace before the last War men who were almost physical weaklings were
| |
| − | made capable of incredible deeds, and thus a self-confidence was
| |
| − | developed which did not fail even in the most terrible battles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is our German people, which broke down and were delivered over to be
| |
| − | kicked by the rest of the world, that had need of the power that comes
| |
| − | by suggestion from self-confidence. But this confidence in one's self
| |
| − | must be instilled into our children from their very early years. The
| |
| − | whole system of education and training must be directed towards
| |
| − | fostering in the child the conviction that he is unquestionably a match
| |
| − | for any- and everybody. The individual has to regain his own physical
| |
| − | strength and prowess in order to believe in the invincibility of the
| |
| − | nation to which he belongs. What has formerly led the German armies to
| |
| − | victory was the sum total of the confidence which each individual had in
| |
| − | himself, and which all of them had in those who held the positions of
| |
| − | command. What will restore the national strength of the German people is
| |
| − | the conviction that they will be able to reconquer their liberty. But
| |
| − | this conviction can only be the final product of an equal feeling in the
| |
| − | millions of individuals. And here again we must have no illusions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The collapse of our people was overwhelming, and the efforts to put an
| |
| − | end to so much misery must also be overwhelming. It would be a bitter
| |
| − | and grave error to believe that our people could be made strong again
| |
| − | simply by means of our present bourgeois training in good order and
| |
| − | obedience. That will not suffice if we are to break up the present order
| |
| − | of things, which now sanctions the acknowledgment of our defeat and cast
| |
| − | the broken chains of our slavery in the face of our opponents. Only by a
| |
| − | superabundance of national energy and a passionate thirst for liberty
| |
| − | can we recover what has been lost.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Also the manner of clothing the young should be such as harmonizes with
| |
| − | this purpose. It is really lamentable to see how our young people have
| |
| − | fallen victims to a fashion mania which perverts the meaning of the old
| |
| − | adage that clothes make the man.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Especially in regard to young people clothes should take their place in
| |
| − | the service of education. The boy who walks about in summer-time wearing
| |
| − | long baggy trousers and clad up to the neck is hampered even by his
| |
| − | clothes in feeling any inclination towards strenuous physical exercise.
| |
| − | Ambition and, to speak quite frankly, even vanity must be appealed to. I
| |
| − | do not mean such vanity as leads people to want to wear fine clothes,
| |
| − | which not everybody can afford, but rather the vanity which inclines a
| |
| − | person towards developing a fine bodily physique. And this is something
| |
| − | which everybody can help to do.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This will come in useful also for later years. The young girl must
| |
| − | become acquainted with her sweetheart. If the beauty of the body were
| |
| − | not completely forced into the background to-day through our stupid
| |
| − | manner of dressing, it would not be possible for thousands of our girls
| |
| − | to be led astray by Jewish mongrels, with their repulsive crooked
| |
| − | waddle. It is also in the interests of the nation that those who have a
| |
| − | beautiful physique should be brought into the foreground, so that they
| |
| − | might encourage the development of a beautiful bodily form among the
| |
| − | people in general.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Military training is excluded among us to-day, and therewith the only
| |
| − | institution which in peace-times at least 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. The success of our old military
| |
| − | training not only showed itself in the education of the individual but
| |
| − | also in the influence which it exercised over the mutual relationship
| |
| − | between the sexes. The young girl preferred the soldier to one who was
| |
| − | not a soldier. The People's State must not confine its control of
| |
| − | physical training to the official school period, but it must demand
| |
| − | that, after leaving school and while the adolescent body is still
| |
| − | developing, the boy continues this training. For on such proper physical
| |
| − | development success in after-life largely depends. It is stupid to think
| |
| − | that the right of the State to supervise the education of its young
| |
| − | citizens suddenly comes to an end the moment they leave school and
| |
| − | recommences only with military service. This right is a duty, and as
| |
| − | such it must continue uninterruptedly. The present State, which does not
| |
| − | interest itself in developing healthy men, has criminally neglected this
| |
| − | duty. It leaves our contemporary youth to be corrupted on the streets
| |
| − | and in the brothels, instead of keeping hold of the reins and continuing
| |
| − | the physical training of these youths up to the time when they are grown
| |
| − | into healthy young men and women.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the present it is a matter of indifference what form the State
| |
| − | chooses for carrying on this training. The essential matter is that it
| |
| − | should be developed and that the most suitable ways of doing so should
| |
| − | be investigated. The People's State will have to consider the physical
| |
| − | training of the youth after the school period just as much a public duty
| |
| − | as their intellectual training; and this training will have to be
| |
| − | carried out through public institutions. Its general lines can be a
| |
| − | preparation for subsequent service in the army. And then it will no
| |
| − | longer be the task of the army to teach the young recruit the most
| |
| − | elementary drill regulations. In fact the army will no longer have to
| |
| − | deal with recruits in the present sense of the word, but it will rather
| |
| − | have to transform into a soldier the youth whose bodily prowess has been
| |
| − | already fully trained.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the People's State the army will no longer be obliged to teach boys
| |
| − | how to walk and stand erect, but it will be the final and supreme school
| |
| − | of patriotic education. In the army the young recruit will learn the art
| |
| − | of bearing arms, but at the same time he will be equipped for his other
| |
| − | duties in later life. And the supreme aim of military education must
| |
| − | always be to achieve that which was attributed to the old army as its
| |
| − | highest merit: namely, that through his military schooling the boy must
| |
| − | be transformed into a man, that he must not only learn to obey but also
| |
| − | acquire the fundamentals that will enable him one day to command. He
| |
| − | must learn to remain silent not only when he is rightly rebuked but also
| |
| − | when he is wrongly rebuked.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Furthermore, on the self-consciousness of his own strength and on the
| |
| − | basis of that ESPRIT DE CORPS which inspires him and his comrades, he
| |
| − | must become convinced that he belongs to a people who are invincible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After he has completed his military training two certificates shall be
| |
| − | handed to the soldier. The one will be his diploma as a citizen of the
| |
| − | State, a juridical document which will enable him to take part in public
| |
| − | affairs. The second will be an attestation of his physical health, which
| |
| − | guarantees his fitness for marriage.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State will have to direct the education of girls just as
| |
| − | that of boys and according to the same fundamental principles. Here
| |
| − | again special importance must be given to physical training, and only
| |
| − | after that must the importance of spiritual and mental training be taken
| |
| − | into account. In the education of the girl the final goal always to be
| |
| − | kept in mind is that she is one day to be a mother.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is only in the second place that the People's State must busy itself
| |
| − | with the training of character, using all the means adapted to that
| |
| − | purpose.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course the essential traits of the individual character are already
| |
| − | there fundamentally before any education takes place. A person who is
| |
| − | fundamentally egoistic will always remain fundamentally egoistic, and
| |
| − | the idealist will always remain fundamentally an idealist. Besides
| |
| − | those, however, who already possess a definite stamp of character there
| |
| − | are millions of people with characters that are indefinite and vague.
| |
| − | The born delinquent will always remain a delinquent, but numerous people
| |
| − | who show only a certain tendency to commit criminal acts may become
| |
| − | useful members of the community if rightly trained; whereas, on the
| |
| − | other hand, weak and unstable characters may easily become evil elements
| |
| − | if the system of education has been bad.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During the War it was often lamented that our people could be so little
| |
| − | reticent. This failing made it very difficult to keep even highly
| |
| − | important secrets from the knowledge of the enemy. But let us ask this
| |
| − | question: What did the German educational system do in pre-War times to
| |
| − | teach the Germans to be discreet? Did it not very often happen in
| |
| − | schooldays that the little tell-tale was preferred to his companions who
| |
| − | kept their mouths shut? Is it not true that then, as well as now,
| |
| − | complaining about others was considered praiseworthy 'candour', while
| |
| − | silent discretion was taken as obstinacy? Has any attempt ever been made
| |
| − | to teach that discretion is a precious and manly virtue? No, for such
| |
| − | matters are trifles in the eyes of our educators. But these trifles cost
| |
| − | our State innumerable millions in legal expenses; for 90 per cent of all
| |
| − | the processes for defamation and such like charges arise only from a
| |
| − | lack of discretion. Remarks that are made without any sense of
| |
| − | responsibility are thoughtlessly repeated from mouth to mouth; and our
| |
| − | economic welfare is continually damaged because important methods of
| |
| − | production are thus disclosed. Secret preparations for our national
| |
| − | defence are rendered illusory because our people have never learned the
| |
| − | duty of silence. They repeat everything they happen to hear. In times of
| |
| − | war such talkative habits may even cause the loss of battles and
| |
| − | therefore may contribute essentially to the unsuccessful outcome of a
| |
| − | campaign. Here, as in other matters, we may rest assured that adults
| |
| − | cannot do what they have not learnt to do in youth. A teacher must not
| |
| − | try to discover the wild tricks of the boys by encouraging the evil
| |
| − | practice of tale-bearing. Young people form a sort of State among
| |
| − | themselves and face adults with a certain solidarity. That is quite
| |
| − | natural. The ties which unite the ten-year boys to one another are
| |
| − | stronger and more natural than their relationship to adults. A boy who
| |
| − | tells on his 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 boy must not be classed as 'good',
| |
| − | 'reliable', and so on, but rather as one with undesirable traits of
| |
| − | character. It may be rather convenient for the teacher to make use of
| |
| − | such unworthy tendencies in order to help his own work, but by such an
| |
| − | attitude the germ of a moral habit is sown in young hearts and may one
| |
| − | day show fatal consequences. It has happened more often than once that a
| |
| − | young informer developed into a big scoundrel.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This is only one example among many. The deliberate training of fine and
| |
| − | noble traits of character in our schools to-day is almost negative. In
| |
| − | the future much more emphasis will have to be laid on this side of our
| |
| − | educational work. Loyalty, self-sacrifice and discretion are virtues
| |
| − | which a great nation must possess. And the teaching and development of
| |
| − | these in the school is a more important matter than many others things
| |
| − | now included in the curriculum. To make the children give up habits of
| |
| − | complaining and whining and howling when they are hurt, etc., also
| |
| − | belongs to this part of their training. If the educational system fails
| |
| − | to teach the child at an early age to endure pain and injury without
| |
| − | complaining we cannot be surprised if at a later age, when the boy has
| |
| − | grown to be the man and is, for example, in the trenches, the postal
| |
| − | service is used for nothing else than to send home letters of weeping
| |
| − | and complaint. If our youths, during their years in the primary schools,
| |
| − | had had their minds crammed with a little less knowledge, and if instead
| |
| − | they had been better taught how to be masters of themselves, it would
| |
| − | have served us well during the years 1914-1918.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In its educational system the People's State will have to attach the
| |
| − | highest importance to the development of character, hand-in-hand with
| |
| − | physical training. Many more defects which our national organism shows
| |
| − | at present could be at least ameliorated, if not completely eliminated,
| |
| − | by education of the right kind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Extreme importance should be attached 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 army the 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 is better 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 this simple
| |
| − | and primitive basis our youth should be trained to have the courage to
| |
| − | act.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It has been often lamented that in November and December 1918 all the
| |
| − | authorities lost their heads and that, from the monarch down to the last
| |
| − | divisional commander, nobody had sufficient mettle to make a decision on
| |
| − | his own responsibility. That terrible fact constitutes a grave rebuke to
| |
| − | our educational system; because what was then revealed on a colossal
| |
| − | scale at that moment of catastrophe was only what happens on a smaller
| |
| − | scale everywhere among us. It is the lack of will-power, and not the
| |
| − | lack of arms, which renders us incapable of offering any serious
| |
| − | resistance to-day. This defect is found everywhere among our people and
| |
| − | prevents decisive action wherever risks have to be taken, as if any
| |
| − | great action can be taken without also taking the risk. Quite
| |
| − | unsuspectingly, a German General found a formula for this lamentable
| |
| − | lack of the will-to-act when he said: "I act only when I can count on a
| |
| − | 51 per cent probability of success." In that '51 per cent probability'
| |
| − | we find the very root of the German collapse. The man who demands from
| |
| − | Fate a guarantee of his success deliberately denies the significance of
| |
| − | an heroic act. For this significance consists in the very fact that, in
| |
| − | the definite knowledge that the situation in question is fraught with
| |
| − | mortal danger, an action is undertaken which may lead to success. A
| |
| − | patient suffering from cancer and who knows that his death is certain if
| |
| − | he does not undergo an operation, needs no 51 per cent probability of a
| |
| − | cure before facing the operation. And if the operation promises only
| |
| − | half of one per cent probability of success a man of courage will risk
| |
| − | it and would not whine if it turned out unsuccessful.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All in all, the cowardly lack of will-power and the incapacity for
| |
| − | making decisions are chiefly results of the erroneous education given us
| |
| − | in our youth. The disastrous effects of this are now widespread among
| |
| − | us. The crowning examples of that tragic chain of consequences are shown
| |
| − | in the lack of civil courage which our leading statesmen display.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The cowardice which leads nowadays to 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. This drawback permeates all
| |
| − | sections of public life and finds its immortal consummation in the
| |
| − | institutions of government that function under the parliamentary regime.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Already in the school, unfortunately, more value is placed on
| |
| − | 'confession and full repentance' and 'contrite renouncement', on the
| |
| − | part of little sinners, than on a simple and frank avowal. But this
| |
| − | latter seems to-day, in the eyes of many an educator, to savour of a
| |
| − | spirit of utter incorrigibility and depravation. And, though it may seem
| |
| − | incredible, many a boy is told that the gallows tree is waiting for him
| |
| − | because he has shown certain traits which might be of inestimable value
| |
| − | in the nation as a whole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as the People's State must one day give its attention to training
| |
| − | the will-power and capacity for decision among the youth, so too it must
| |
| − | inculcate in the hearts of the young generation from early childhood
| |
| − | onwards a readiness to accept responsibilities, and the courage of open
| |
| − | and frank avowal. If it recognizes the full significance of this
| |
| − | necessity, finally--after a century of educative work--it will succeed
| |
| − | in building up a nation which will no longer be subject to those defeats
| |
| − | that have 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 be taken over by the People's State
| |
| − | with only few modifications. These modifications must be made in three
| |
| − | branches.
| |
| − | | |
| − | First of all, the brains of the young people must not generally be
| |
| − | burdened with subjects of which ninety-five per cent are useless to them
| |
| − | and are therefore forgotten again. The curriculum of the primary and
| |
| − | secondary schools presents an odd mixture at the present time. In many
| |
| − | branches of study the subject matter to be learned has become so
| |
| − | enormous that only a very small fraction of it can be remembered later
| |
| − | on, and indeed 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 specialize in any certain branch
| |
| − | for the purpose of earning his daily bread. Take, for example, the
| |
| − | average civil servant who has passed through the GYMNASIUM or High
| |
| − | School, and ask him at the age of thirty or forty how much he has
| |
| − | retained of the knowledge that was crammed into him with so much pains.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How much is retained from all that was stuffed into his brain? He will
| |
| − | certainly answer: "Well, if a mass of stuff was then taught, it was not
| |
| − | for the sole purpose of supplying the student with a great stock of
| |
| − | knowledge from which he could draw in later years, but it served to
| |
| − | develop the understanding, the memory, and above all it helped to
| |
| − | strengthen the thinking powers of the brain." That is partly true. And
| |
| − | yet it is somewhat dangerous to submerge a young brain in a flood of
| |
| − | impressions which it can hardly master and the single elements of which
| |
| − | it cannot discern or appreciate at their just value. It is mostly the
| |
| − | essential part of this knowledge, and not the accidental, that is
| |
| − | forgotten and sacrificed. Thus the principal purpose of this copious
| |
| − | instruction is frustrated, for that purpose cannot be to make the brain
| |
| − | capable of learning by simply offering it an enormous and varied amount
| |
| − | of subjects for acquisition, but rather to furnish the individual with
| |
| − | that stock of knowledge which he will need in later life and which he
| |
| − | can use for the good of the community. This aim, however, is rendered
| |
| − | illusory if, because of the superabundance of subjects that have been
| |
| − | crammed into his head in childhood, a person is able to remember
| |
| − | nothing, or at least not the essential portion, of all this in later
| |
| − | life. There is no reason why millions of people should learn two or
| |
| − | three languages during the school years, when only a very small fraction
| |
| − | will have the opportunity to use these languages in later life and when
| |
| − | most of them will therefore forget those languages completely. To take
| |
| − | an instance: Out of 100,000 students who learn French there are probably
| |
| − | not 2,000 who will be in a position to make use of this accomplishment
| |
| − | in later life, while 98,000 will never have a chance to utilize in
| |
| − | practice what they have learned in youth. They have spent thousands of
| |
| − | hours on a subject which will afterwards be without any value or
| |
| − | importance to them. The argument that these matters form part of the
| |
| − | general process of educating the mind is invalid. It would be sound if
| |
| − | all these people were able to use this learning in after life. But, as
| |
| − | the situation stands, 98,000 are tortured to no purpose and waste their
| |
| − | valuable time, only for the sake of the 2,000 to whom the language will
| |
| − | be of any use.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the case of that language which I have chosen as an example it cannot
| |
| − | be said that the learning of it educates the student in logical thinking
| |
| − | or sharpens his mental acumen, as the learning of Latin, for instance,
| |
| − | might be said to do. It would therefore be much better to teach young
| |
| − | students only the general outline, or, better, the inner structure of
| |
| − | such a language: that is to say, to allow them to discern the
| |
| − | characteristic features of the language, or perhaps to make them
| |
| − | acquainted with the rudiments of its grammar, its pronunciation, its
| |
| − | syntax, style, etc. That would be sufficient for average students,
| |
| − | because it would provide a clearer view of the whole and could be more
| |
| − | easily remembered. And it would be more practical than the present-day
| |
| − | attempt to cram into their heads a detailed knowledge of the whole
| |
| − | language, which they can never master and which they will readily
| |
| − | forget. If this method were adopted, then we should avoid the danger
| |
| − | that, out of the superabundance of matter taught, only some fragments
| |
| − | will remain in the memory; for the youth would then have to learn what
| |
| − | is worth while, and the selection between the useful and the useless
| |
| − | would thus have been made beforehand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As regards the majority of students the knowledge and understanding of
| |
| − | the rudiments of a language would be quite sufficient for the rest of
| |
| − | their lives. And those who really do need this language subsequently
| |
| − | would thus have a foundation on which to start, should they choose to
| |
| − | make a more thorough study of it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By adopting such a curriculum the necessary amount of time would be
| |
| − | gained for physical exercises as well as for a more intense training in
| |
| − | the various educational fields that have already been mentioned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A reform of particular importance is 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 historical knowledge. If politics
| |
| − | means history in the making, then our way of teaching history stands
| |
| − | condemned by the way we have conducted our politics. But there would be
| |
| − | no point in bewailing the lamentable results of our political conduct
| |
| − | unless 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 are deplorable. Usually only a few dates, years of birth and
| |
| − | names, remain in the memory, while a knowledge of the main and clearly
| |
| − | defined lines of historical development is completely lacking. The
| |
| − | essential features which are of real significance are not taught. It is
| |
| − | left to the more or less bright intelligence of the individual to
| |
| − | discover the inner motivating urge amid the mass of dates and
| |
| − | chronological succession of events.
| |
| − | | |
| − | You may object as strongly as you like to this unpleasant statement. But
| |
| − | read with attention the speeches which our parliamentarians make during
| |
| − | one session alone on political problems and on questions 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 number of them
| |
| − | have sat on the benches of our secondary schools and that many of them
| |
| − | have passed through our universities. Then you will realize how
| |
| − | defective the historical education of these people has been. If these
| |
| − | gentlemen had never studied history at all but had possessed a sound
| |
| − | instinct for public affairs, things would have gone better, and the
| |
| − | nation would have benefited greatly thereby.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The subject matter of our historical teaching must be curtailed. The
| |
| − | chief value of that teaching is to make the principal lines of
| |
| − | historical development understood. The more our historical teaching is
| |
| − | limited to this task, the more we may hope that it will turn out
| |
| − | subsequently to be of advantage to the individual and, through the
| |
| − | individual, to the community as a whole. For history must not be studied
| |
| − | merely with 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 of our own people. That is the real end; and the
| |
| − | teaching of history is only a means to attain this end. But here again
| |
| − | the means has superseded the end in our contemporary education. The goal
| |
| − | is completely forgotten. Do not reply that a profound study of history
| |
| − | demands a detailed knowledge of all these dates because otherwise we
| |
| − | could not fix the great lines of development. That task belongs to the
| |
| − | professional historians. But the average man is not a professor of
| |
| − | history. For him history has only one mission and that is to provide him
| |
| − | with such an amount of historical knowledge as is necessary in order to
| |
| − | enable him 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 all the details later on. Naturally he will have to
| |
| − | occupy himself even with the smallest details. Of course our present
| |
| − | teaching of history is not adequate to all this. Its scope is too vast
| |
| − | for the average student and too limited for the student who wishes to be
| |
| − | an historical expert.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, it is the business of the People's State to arrange for the
| |
| − | writing of a world history in which the race problem will occupy a
| |
| − | dominant position.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To sum up: The People's State must reconstruct our system of general
| |
| − | instruction in such a way that it will embrace only what is essential.
| |
| − | Beyond this it will have to make provision for a more advanced teaching
| |
| − | in the various subjects for those who want to specialize in them. It
| |
| − | will suffice for the average individual to be acquainted with the
| |
| − | fundamentals of the various subjects to serve as the basis of what may
| |
| − | be called an all-round education. He ought to study exhaustively and in
| |
| − | detail only that subject in which he intends to work during the rest of
| |
| − | his life. A general instruction in all subjects should be obligatory,
| |
| − | and specialization should be left to the choice of the individual.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this way the scholastic programme would be shortened, and thus
| |
| − | several school hours would be gained which could be utilized for
| |
| − | physical training and character training, in will-power, the capacity
| |
| − | for making practical judgments, decisions, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The little account taken by our school training to-day, especially in
| |
| − | the secondary schools, of the callings that have to be followed in after
| |
| − | life is demonstrated by the fact that men who are destined for the same
| |
| − | calling in life are educated in three different kinds of schools. What
| |
| − | is of decisive importance is general education only and not the special
| |
| − | teaching. When special knowledge is needed it cannot be given in the
| |
| − | curriculum of our secondary schools as they stand to-day.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the People's State will one day have to abolish such
| |
| − | half-measures.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The second modification in the curriculum which the People's State will
| |
| − | have to make is the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is a characteristic of our materialistic epoch that our scientific
| |
| − | education shows a growing emphasis on what is real and practical: such
| |
| − | subjects, for instance, as applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc.
| |
| − | Of course they are necessary in an age that is dominated by industrial
| |
| − | technology and chemistry, and where everyday life shows at least the
| |
| − | external manifestations of these. But it is a perilous thing to base the
| |
| − | general culture of a nation on the knowledge of these subjects. On the
| |
| − | contrary, that general culture ought always to be directed towards
| |
| − | ideals. It ought to be founded on the humanist disciplines and should
| |
| − | aim at giving only the ground work of further specialized instruction in
| |
| − | the various practical sciences. Otherwise we should sacrifice those
| |
| − | forces that are more important for the preservation of the nation than
| |
| − | any technical knowledge. In the historical department the study of
| |
| − | ancient history should not be omitted. Roman history, along general
| |
| − | lines, is and will remain the best teacher, not only for our own time
| |
| − | but also for the future. And the ideal of Hellenic culture should be
| |
| − | preserved for us in all its marvellous beauty. The differences between
| |
| − | the various peoples should not prevent us from recognizing the community
| |
| − | of race which unites them on a higher plane. The conflict of our times
| |
| − | is one that is being waged around great objectives. A civilization is
| |
| − | fighting for its existence. It is a civilization that is the product of
| |
| − | thousands of years of historical development, and the Greek as well as
| |
| − | the German forms part of it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A clear-cut division must be made between general culture and the
| |
| − | special branches. To-day the latter threaten more and more to devote
| |
| − | themselves exclusively to the service of Mammon. To counterbalance this
| |
| − | tendency, general culture should be preserved, at least in its ideal
| |
| − | forms. The principle should be repeatedly emphasized, that industrial
| |
| − | and technical progress, trade and commerce, can flourish only so long as
| |
| − | a folk community exists whose general system of thought is inspired by
| |
| − | ideals, since that is the preliminary condition for a flourishing
| |
| − | development of the enterprises I have spoken of. That condition is not
| |
| − | created by a spirit of materialist egotism but by a spirit of
| |
| − | self-denial and the joy of giving one's self in the service of others.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The system of education which prevails to-day sees its principal object
| |
| − | in pumping into young people that knowledge which will help them to make
| |
| − | their way in life. This principle is expressed in the following terms:
| |
| − | "The young man must one day become a useful member of human society." By
| |
| − | that phrase they mean the ability to gain an honest daily livelihood.
| |
| − | The superficial training in the duties of good citizenship, which he
| |
| − | acquires merely as an accidental thing, has very weak foundations. For
| |
| − | in itself the State represents only a form, and therefore it is
| |
| − | difficult to train people to look upon this form as the ideal which they
| |
| − | will have to serve and towards which they must feel responsible. A form
| |
| − | can be too easily broken. But, as we have seen, the idea which people
| |
| − | have of the State to-day does not represent anything clearly defined.
| |
| − | Therefore, there is nothing but the usual stereotyped 'patriotic'
| |
| − | training. In the old Germany the greatest emphasis was placed on the
| |
| − | divine right of the small and even the smallest potentates. The way in
| |
| − | which this divine right was formulated and presented was never very
| |
| − | clever and often very stupid. Because of the large numbers of those
| |
| − | small potentates, it was impossible to give adequate biographical
| |
| − | accounts of the really great personalities that shed their lustre on the
| |
| − | history of the German people. The result was that the broad masses
| |
| − | received a very inadequate knowledge of German history. Here, too, the
| |
| − | great lines of development were missing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is evident that in such a way no real national enthusiasm could be
| |
| − | aroused. Our educational system proved incapable of selecting from the
| |
| − | general mass of our historical personages the names of a few
| |
| − | personalities which the German people could be proud to look upon as
| |
| − | their own. Thus the whole nation might have been united by the ties of a
| |
| − | common knowledge of this common heritage. The really important figures
| |
| − | in German history were not presented to the present generation. The
| |
| − | attention of the whole nation was not concentrated on them for the
| |
| − | purpose of awakening a common national spirit. From the various subjects
| |
| − | that were taught, those who had charge of our training seemed incapable
| |
| − | of selecting what redounded most to the national honour and lifting that
| |
| − | above the common objective level, in order to inflame the national pride
| |
| − | in the light of such brilliant examples. At that time such a course
| |
| − | would have been looked upon as rank chauvinism, which did not then have
| |
| − | a very pleasant savour. Pettifogging dynastic patriotism was more
| |
| − | acceptable and more easily tolerated than the glowing fire of a supreme
| |
| − | national pride. The former could be always pressed into service, whereas
| |
| − | the latter might one day become a dominating force. Monarchist
| |
| − | patriotism terminated in Associations of Veterans, whereas passionate
| |
| − | national patriotism might have opened a road which would be difficult to
| |
| − | determine. This national passion is like a highly tempered thoroughbred
| |
| − | who is discriminate about the sort of rider he will tolerate in the
| |
| − | saddle. No wonder that most people preferred to shirk such a danger.
| |
| − | Nobody seemed to think it possible that one day a war might come which
| |
| − | would put the mettle of this kind of patriotism to the test, in
| |
| − | artillery bombardment and waves of attacks with poison gas. But when it
| |
| − | did come our lack of this patriotic passion was avenged in a terrible
| |
| − | way. None were very enthusiastic about dying for their imperial and
| |
| − | royal sovereigns; while on the other hand the 'Nation' was not
| |
| − | recognized by the greater number of the soldiers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since the revolution broke out in Germany and the monarchist patriotism
| |
| − | was therefore extinguished, the purpose of teaching history was nothing
| |
| − | more than to add to the stock of objective knowledge. The present State
| |
| − | has no use for patriotic enthusiasm; but it will never obtain what it
| |
| − | really desires. For if dynastic patriotism failed to produce a supreme
| |
| − | power of resistance at a time when the principle of nationalism
| |
| − | dominated, it will be still less possible to arouse republican
| |
| − | enthusiasm. There can be no doubt that the German people would not have
| |
| − | stood on the field of battle for four and a half years to fight under
| |
| − | the battle slogan 'For the Republic,' and least of all those who created
| |
| − | this grand institution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In reality this Republic has been allowed to exist undisturbed only by
| |
| − | grace of its readiness and its promise to all and sundry, to pay tribute
| |
| − | and reparations to the stranger and to put its signature to any kind of
| |
| − | territorial renunciation. The rest of the world finds it sympathetic,
| |
| − | just as a weakling is always more pleasing to those who want to bend him
| |
| − | to their own uses than is a man who is made of harder metal. But the
| |
| − | fact that the enemy likes this form of government is the worst kind of
| |
| − | condemnation. They love the German Republic and tolerate its existence
| |
| − | because no better instrument could be found which would help them to
| |
| − | keep our people in slavery. It is to this fact alone that this
| |
| − | magnanimous institution owes its survival. And that is why it can
| |
| − | renounce any REAL system of national education and 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 upon to
| |
| − | defend that banner with their blood.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State will have to fight for its existence. It will not
| |
| − | gain or secure this existence by signing documents like that of the
| |
| − | Dawes Plan. But for its existence and defence it will need precisely
| |
| − | those things which our present system believes can be repudiated. The
| |
| − | more worthy its form and its inner national being. the greater will be
| |
| − | the envy and opposition of its adversaries. The best defence will not be
| |
| − | in the arms it possesses but in its citizens. Bastions of fortresses
| |
| − | will not save it, but the living wall of its men and women, filled with
| |
| − | an ardent love for their country and a passionate spirit of national
| |
| − | patriotism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the third point which will have to be considered in relation
| |
| − | to our educational system is the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State must realize that the sciences may also be made a
| |
| − | means of promoting a spirit of pride in the nation. Not only the history
| |
| − | of the world but the history of civilization as a whole must be taught
| |
| − | in the light of this principle. An inventor must appear great not only
| |
| − | as an inventor but also, and even more so, as a member of the nation.
| |
| − | The admiration aroused by the contemplation of a great achievement must
| |
| − | be transformed into a feeling of pride and satisfaction that a man of
| |
| − | one's own race has been chosen to accomplish it. But out of the
| |
| − | abundance of great names in German history the greatest will have to be
| |
| − | selected and presented to our young generation in such a way as to
| |
| − | become solid pillars of strength to support the national spirit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The subject matter ought to be systematically organized from the
| |
| − | standpoint of this principle. And the teaching 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, but a whole-hearted
| |
| − | German. So that this national feeling be sincere from the very
| |
| − | beginning, and not a mere pretence, the following fundamental and
| |
| − | inflexible principle should be impressed on the young brain while it is
| |
| − | yet malleable: The man who loves his nation can prove the sincerity of
| |
| − | this sentiment only by being ready to make sacrifices for the nation's
| |
| − | welfare. There is no such thing as a national sentiment which is
| |
| − | directed towards personal interests. And there is no such thing as a
| |
| − | nationalism that embraces only certain classes. Hurrahing proves nothing
| |
| − | and does not confer the right to call oneself national if behind that
| |
| − | shout there is no sincere preoccupation for the conservation of the
| |
| − | nation's well-being. One can be proud of one's people only if there is
| |
| − | no class left of which one need to be ashamed. When one half of a nation
| |
| − | is sunk in misery and worn out by hard distress, or even depraved or
| |
| − | degenerate, that nation presents such an unattractive picture that
| |
| − | nobody can feel proud to belong to it. It is only when a nation is sound
| |
| − | in all its members, physically and morally, that the joy of belonging to
| |
| − | it can properly be intensified to the supreme feeling which we call
| |
| − | national pride. But this pride, in its highest form, can be felt only by
| |
| − | those who know the greatness of their nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The spirit of nationalism and a feeling for social justice must be fused
| |
| − | into one sentiment in the hearts of the youth. Then a day will come when
| |
| − | a nation of citizens will arise which will be welded together through a
| |
| − | common love and a common pride that shall be invincible and
| |
| − | indestructible for ever.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The dread of chauvinism, which is a symptom of our time, is a sign of
| |
| − | its impotence. Since our epoch not only lacks everything in the nature
| |
| − | of exuberant energy but even finds such a manifestation disagreeable,
| |
| − | fate will never elect it for the accomplishment of any great deeds. For
| |
| − | the greatest changes that have taken place on this earth would have been
| |
| − | inconceivable if they had not been inspired by ardent and even
| |
| − | hysterical passions, but only by the bourgeois virtues of peacefulness
| |
| − | and order.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One thing is certain: our world is facing a great revolution. The only
| |
| − | question is whether the outcome will be propitious for the Aryan portion
| |
| − | of mankind or whether the everlasting Jew will profit by it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By educating the young generation along the right lines, the People's
| |
| − | State will have to see to it that a generation of mankind is formed
| |
| − | which will be adequate to this supreme combat that will decide the
| |
| − | destinies of the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That nation will conquer which will be the first to take this road.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The whole organization of education and training which the People's
| |
| − | State is to build up must take as its crowning task the work of
| |
| − | instilling into the hearts and brains of the youth entrusted to it the
| |
| − | racial instinct and understanding of the racial idea. No boy or girl
| |
| − | must leave school without having attained a clear insight into the
| |
| − | meaning of racial purity and the importance of maintaining the racial
| |
| − | blood unadulterated. Thus the first indispensable condition for the
| |
| − | preservation of our race will have been established and thus the future
| |
| − | cultural progress of our people will be assured.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For in the last analysis all physical and mental training would be in
| |
| − | vain unless it served an entity which is ready and determined to carry
| |
| − | on its own existence and maintain its own characteristic qualities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If it were otherwise, something would result which we Germans have cause
| |
| − | to regret already, without perhaps having hitherto recognized the extent
| |
| − | of the tragic calamity. We should be doomed to remain also in the future
| |
| − | only manure for civilization. And that not in the banal sense of the
| |
| − | contemporary bourgeois mind, which sees in a lost fellow member of our
| |
| − | people only a lost citizen, but in a sense which we should have
| |
| − | painfully to recognize: namely, that our racial blood would be destined
| |
| − | to disappear. By continually mixing with other races we might lift them
| |
| − | from their former lower level of civilization to a higher grade; but we
| |
| − | ourselves should descend for ever from the heights we had reached.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, from the racial standpoint this training also must find its
| |
| − | culmination in the military service. The term of military service is to
| |
| − | be a final stage of the normal training which the average German
| |
| − | receives.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While the People's State attaches the greatest importance to physical
| |
| − | and mental training, it has also to consider, and no less importantly,
| |
| − | the task of selecting men for the service of the State itself. This
| |
| − | important matter is passed over lightly at the present time. Generally
| |
| − | the children of parents who are for the time being in higher situations
| |
| − | are in their turn considered worthy of a higher education. Here talent
| |
| − | 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 boy may be more talented than the son of a family that has
| |
| − | occupied high positions through many generations. But the superior
| |
| − | culture of the city child has in itself nothing to do with a greater or
| |
| − | lesser degree of talent; for this culture has its roots in the more
| |
| − | copious mass of impressions which arise from the more varied education
| |
| − | and the surroundings among which this child lives. If the intelligent
| |
| − | son of peasant parents were educated from childhood in similar
| |
| − | surroundings his intellectual accomplishments would be quite otherwise.
| |
| − | In our day there is only one sphere where the family in which a person
| |
| − | has been born means less than his innate gifts. That is the sphere of
| |
| − | art. Here, where a person cannot just 'learn,' but must have innate
| |
| − | gifts that later on may undergo a more or less happy development (in the
| |
| − | sense of a wise development of what is already there), money and
| |
| − | parental property are of no account. This is a good proof that genius is
| |
| − | not necessarily connected with the higher social strata or with wealth.
| |
| − | Not rarely the greatest artists come from poor families. And many a boy
| |
| − | from the country village has eventually become a celebrated master.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It does not say much for the mental acumen of our time that advantage is
| |
| − | not taken of this truth for the sake 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 in regard to what are called the
| |
| − | applied sciences. It is true that a man can be trained to a certain
| |
| − | amount of mechanical dexterity, just as a poodle can be taught
| |
| − | incredible tricks by a clever master. But such training does not bring
| |
| − | the animal to use his intelligence in order to carry out those tricks.
| |
| − | And the same holds good in regard to man. It is possible to teach men,
| |
| − | irrespective of talent or no talent, to go through certain scientific
| |
| − | exercises, but in such cases the results are quite as inanimate and
| |
| − | mechanical as in the case of the animal. 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 the average amount of
| |
| − | knowledge; but that knowledge would remain sterile. The result would be
| |
| − | a man who might be a walking dictionary of knowledge but who will fail
| |
| − | miserably on every critical occasion in life and at every juncture where
| |
| − | vital decisions have to be taken. Such people need to be drilled
| |
| − | specially for every new and even most insignificant task and will never
| |
| − | be capable of contributing in the least to the general progress of
| |
| − | mankind. Knowledge that is merely drilled into people can at best
| |
| − | qualify them to fill government positions under our present regime.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It goes without saying that, among the sum total of individuals who make
| |
| − | up a nation, gifted people are always to be found in every sphere of
| |
| − | life. It is also quite natural that the value of knowledge will be all
| |
| − | the greater the more vitally the dead mass of learning is animated by
| |
| − | the innate talent of the individual who possesses it. Creative work in
| |
| − | this field can be done only through the marriage of knowledge and
| |
| − | talent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One example will suffice to show how much our contemporary world is at
| |
| − | fault in this matter. From time to time our 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 in that locality,
| |
| − | a Negro has become a lawyer, a teacher, a pastor, even a grand opera
| |
| − | tenor or something else of that kind. While the bourgeois blockhead
| |
| − | stares with amazed admiration at the notice that tells him how
| |
| − | marvellous are the achievements of our modern educational technique, the
| |
| − | more cunning Jew sees in this fact a new proof to be utilized for the
| |
| − | theory with which he wants to infect the public, namely that all men are
| |
| − | equal. It does not dawn on the murky bourgeois mind that the fact which
| |
| − | is published for him is a sin against reason itself, that it is an act
| |
| − | of criminal insanity to train a being who is only an anthropoid by birth
| |
| − | until the pretence can be made that he has been turned into a lawyer;
| |
| − | while, on the other hand, millions who belong to the most civilized
| |
| − | races 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 the eternal Creator to allow hundreds of thousands of highly
| |
| − | gifted people to remain floundering in the swamp of proletarian misery
| |
| − | while Hottentots and Zulus are drilled to fill positions in the
| |
| − | intellectual professions. For here we have the product only of a
| |
| − | drilling technique, just as in the case of the performing dog. If the
| |
| − | same amount of care and effort were applied among intelligent races each
| |
| − | individual would become a thousand times more capable in such matters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This state of affairs would become intolerable if a day should arrive
| |
| − | when it no longer refers to exceptional cases. But the situation is
| |
| − | already intolerable where talent and natural gifts are not taken as
| |
| − | decisive factors in qualifying for the right to a higher education. It
| |
| − | is indeed intolerable to think that year after year hundreds of
| |
| − | thousands of young people without a single vestige of talent are deemed
| |
| − | worthy of a higher education, while other hundreds of thousands who
| |
| − | possess high natural gifts have to go without any sort of higher
| |
| − | schooling at all. The practical loss thus caused to the nation is
| |
| − | incalculable. If the number of important discoveries which have been
| |
| − | made in America has grown considerably in recent years one of the
| |
| − | reasons is that the number of gifted persons belonging to the lowest
| |
| − | social classes who were given a higher education in that country is
| |
| − | proportionately much larger than in Europe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A stock of knowledge packed into the brain will not suffice for the
| |
| − | making of discoveries. What counts here is only that knowledge which is
| |
| − | illuminated by natural talent. But with us at the present time no value
| |
| − | is placed on such gifts. Only good school reports count.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here is another educative work that is waiting for the People's State to
| |
| − | do. It will not be its task to assure a dominant influence to a certain
| |
| − | social class already existing, but it will be its duty to attract the
| |
| − | most competent brains in the total mass of the nation and promote them
| |
| − | to place and honour. It is not merely the duty of the State to give 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. And above all, it must open the doors of the higher schools
| |
| − | under the State to talent of every sort, no matter in what social class
| |
| − | it may appear. This is an imperative necessity; for thus alone will it
| |
| − | be possible to develop a talented body of public leaders from the class
| |
| − | which represents learning that in itself is only a dead mass.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is still another reason why the State should provide for this
| |
| − | situation. Our intellectual class, particularly in Germany, is so shut
| |
| − | up in itself and fossilized that it lacks living contact with the
| |
| − | classes beneath it. Two evil consequences result from this: First, the
| |
| − | intellectual class neither understands nor sympathizes with the broad
| |
| − | masses. It has been so long cut off from all connection with them that
| |
| − | it cannot now have the necessary psychological ties that would enable it
| |
| − | to understand them. It has become estranged from the people. Secondly,
| |
| − | the intellectual class lacks the necessary will-power; for this faculty
| |
| − | is always weaker in cultivated circles, which live in seclusion, than
| |
| − | among the primitive masses of the people. God knows we Germans have
| |
| − | never been lacking in abundant scientific culture, but we have always
| |
| − | had a considerable lack of will-power and the capacity for making
| |
| − | decisions. For example, the more 'intellectual' our statesmen have been
| |
| − | the more lacking they have been, for the most part, in practical
| |
| − | achievement. Our political preparation and our technical equipment for
| |
| − | the world war were defective, certainly not because the brains governing
| |
| − | the nation were too little educated, but because the men who directed
| |
| − | our public affairs were over-educated, filled to over-flowing with
| |
| − | knowledge and intelligence, yet without any sound instinct and simply
| |
| − | without energy, or any spirit of daring. It was our nation's tragedy to
| |
| − | have to fight for its existence under a Chancellor who was a
| |
| − | dillydallying philosopher. If instead of a Bethmann von Hollweg we had
| |
| − | had a rough man of the people as our leader the heroic blood of the
| |
| − | common grenadier would not have been shed in vain. The exaggeratedly
| |
| − | intellectual material out of which our leaders were made proved to 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 conditions on which the others won success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here the Catholic Church presents an instructive example. Clerical
| |
| − | celibacy forces the Church to recruit its priests not from their own
| |
| − | ranks but progressively from the masses of the people. Yet there are not
| |
| − | many who recognize the significance of celibacy in this relation. But
| |
| − | therein lies the cause of the inexhaustible vigour which characterizes
| |
| − | that ancient institution. For by thus unceasingly recruiting the
| |
| − | ecclesiastical dignitaries from the lower classes of the people, the
| |
| − | Church is enabled not only to maintain the contact of instinctive
| |
| − | understanding with the masses of the population but also to assure
| |
| − | itself of always being able to draw upon that fund of energy which is
| |
| − | present in this form only among the popular masses. Hence the surprising
| |
| − | youthfulness of that gigantic organism, its mental flexibility and its
| |
| − | iron will-power.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It will be the task of the Peoples' State so to organize and administer
| |
| − | its educational system that the existing intellectual class will be
| |
| − | constantly furnished with a supply of fresh blood from beneath. From the
| |
| − | bulk of the nation the State must sift out with careful scrutiny those
| |
| − | persons who are endowed with natural talents and see that they are
| |
| − | employed in the service of the community. For neither the State itself
| |
| − | nor the various departments of State exist to furnish revenues for
| |
| − | members of a special class, but to fulfil the tasks allotted to them.
| |
| − | This will be possible, however, only if the State trains individuals
| |
| − | specially for these offices. Such individuals must have the necessary
| |
| − | fundamental capabilities and will-power. The principle does not hold
| |
| − | true only in regard to the civil service but also in regard to all those
| |
| − | who are to take part in the intellectual and moral leadership of the
| |
| − | people, no matter in what sphere they may be employed. The greatness of
| |
| − | a people is partly dependent on the condition that it must succeed in
| |
| − | training the best brains for those branches of the public service for
| |
| − | which they show a special natural aptitude and in placing them in the
| |
| − | offices where they can do their best work for the good of the community.
| |
| − | If two nations of equal strength and quality engage in a mutual conflict
| |
| − | that nation will come out victorious which has entrusted its
| |
| − | intellectual and moral leadership to its best talents and that nation
| |
| − | will go under whose government represents only a common food trough for
| |
| − | privileged groups or classes and where the inner talents of its
| |
| − | individual members are not availed of.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course such a reform seems impossible 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 civil servant, for instance, that
| |
| − | he shall work with his hands simply because somebody else whose parents
| |
| − | belong to the working-class seems more capable for a job in the civil
| |
| − | service. That argument may be valid as long as manual work is 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
| |
| − | manual labour which will be fundamentally different from that which now
| |
| − | exists. If necessary, it will have to organize a persistent system of
| |
| − | teaching which will aim at abolishing the present-day stupid habit of
| |
| − | looking down on physical labour as an occupation to be ashamed of.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The individual will have to be valued, not by the class of work he does
| |
| − | but by the way in which he does it and by its usefulness to the
| |
| − | community. This statement may sound monstrous in an epoch when the most
| |
| − | brainless columnist on a newspaper staff is more esteemed than the most
| |
| − | expert mechanic, merely because the former pushes a pen. But, as I 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 exist at all. The present unnatural state of affairs is one of those
| |
| − | general morbid phenomena that have arisen from our materialistic epoch.
| |
| − | Fundamentally every kind of work has a double value; the one material,
| |
| − | the other ideal. The material value depends on the practical importance
| |
| − | of the work to the life of the community. The greater the number of the
| |
| − | population who benefit from the work, directly or indirectly, the higher
| |
| − | will be its material value. This evaluation is expressed in the material
| |
| − | recompense which the individual receives for his labour. In
| |
| − | contradistinction to this purely material value there is the ideal
| |
| − | value. Here the work performed is not judged by its material importance
| |
| − | but by the degree to which it answers a necessity. Certainly the
| |
| − | material utility of an invention may be greater than that of the service
| |
| − | rendered by an everyday workman; but it is also certain that the
| |
| − | community needs 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 of different kinds of work according to their
| |
| − | utility to the community, and this distinction is expressed by the
| |
| − | differentiation in the scale of recompense; but on the ideal or abstract
| |
| − | plans all workmen become equal the moment each strives to do his best in
| |
| − | his own field, no matter what that field may be. It is on this that a
| |
| − | man's value must be estimated, and not on the amount of recompense
| |
| − | received.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In a reasonably directed State care must be taken that each individual
| |
| − | is given the kind of work which corresponds to his capabilities. In
| |
| − | other words, people will be trained for the positions indicated by their
| |
| − | natural endowments; but these endowments or faculties are innate and
| |
| − | cannot be acquired by any amount of training, being a gift from Nature
| |
| − | and not merited by men. Therefore, the way in which men are generally
| |
| − | esteemed by their fellow-citizens must not be according to the kind of
| |
| − | 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 be accounted to his inborn gifts and the resultant
| |
| − | training which he has received from the community, he will have to be
| |
| − | judged by the way in which he performs this work entrusted to him by the
| |
| − | community. For the work which the individual performs is not the purpose
| |
| − | of his existence, but only a means. His real purpose in life is to
| |
| − | better himself and raise himself to a higher level as a human being; but
| |
| − | this he can only do in and through the community whose cultural life he
| |
| − | shares. And this community must always exist on the foundations on which
| |
| − | the State is based. He ought to contribute to the conservation of those
| |
| − | foundations. Nature determines the form of this contribution. It is the
| |
| − | duty of the individual to return to the community, zealously and
| |
| − | honestly, what the community has given him. He who does this deserves
| |
| − | the highest respect and esteem. Material remuneration may be given to
| |
| − | him whose work has a corresponding utility for the community; but the
| |
| − | ideal recompense must lie in the esteem to which everybody has a claim
| |
| − | who serves his people with whatever powers Nature has bestowed upon him
| |
| − | and which have been developed by the training he has received from the
| |
| − | national community. Then it will no longer be dishonourable to be an
| |
| − | honest craftsman; but it will be a cause of disgrace to be an
| |
| − | inefficient State official, wasting God's day and filching daily bread
| |
| − | from an honest public. Then it will be looked upon as quite natural that
| |
| − | positions should not be given to persons who of their very nature are
| |
| − | incapable of filling them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Furthermore, this personal efficiency will be the sole criterion of the
| |
| − | right to take part on an equal juridical footing in general civil
| |
| − | affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The present epoch is working out its own ruin. It introduces universal
| |
| − | suffrage, chatters about equal rights but can find no foundation for
| |
| − | this equality. It considers the material wage as the expression of a
| |
| − | man's value and thus destroys the basis of the noblest kind of equality
| |
| − | that can exist. For equality cannot and does not depend on the work a
| |
| − | man does, but only on the manner in which each one does the particular
| |
| − | work allotted to him. Thus alone will mere natural chance be set aside
| |
| − | in determining the work of a man and thus only does the individual
| |
| − | become the artificer of his own social worth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the present time, when whole groups of people estimate each other's
| |
| − | value only by the size of the salaries which 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 the opposite: in an epoch
| |
| − | which is inwardly diseased and decaying anyone who would heal 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. It
| |
| − | will have to lift its voice above the heads of the small bourgeoisie and
| |
| − | rally together and co-ordinate all those popular forces which are ready
| |
| − | to become the protagonists of a new WELTANSCHAUUNG.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Of course the objection will be made that in general it is difficult to
| |
| − | differentiate between the material and ideal values of work and that the
| |
| − | lower prestige which is attached to physical labour is due to the fact
| |
| − | that smaller wages are paid for that kind of work. It will be said that
| |
| − | the lower wage is in its turn the reason why the manual worker has less
| |
| − | chance to participate in the culture of the nation; so that the ideal
| |
| − | side of human culture is less open to him because it has nothing to do
| |
| − | with his daily activities. It may be added that the reluctance to do
| |
| − | physical work is justified by the fact that, on account of the small
| |
| − | income, the cultural level of manual labourers must naturally be low,
| |
| − | and that this in turn is a justification for the lower estimation in
| |
| − | which manual labour is generally held.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is quite a good deal of truth in all this. But that is the very
| |
| − | reason why we ought to see that in the future 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 the saddest symptom of
| |
| − | decadence if finer intellectual work could be obtained only through the
| |
| − | stimulus of higher payment. If that point of view had ruled the world up
| |
| − | to now humanity would never have acquired its greatest scientific and
| |
| − | cultural heritage. For all the greatest inventions, the greatest
| |
| − | discoveries, the most profoundly revolutionary scientific work, and the
| |
| − | most magnificent monuments of human culture, were never given to the
| |
| − | world under the impulse or compulsion of money. Quite the contrary: not
| |
| − | rarely was their origin associated with a renunciation of the worldly
| |
| − | pleasures that wealth can purchase.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may be that money has become the one power that governs life to-day.
| |
| − | Yet a time will come when men will again bow to higher gods. Much that
| |
| − | we have to-day owes its existence to the desire for money and property;
| |
| − | but there is very little among all this which would leave the world
| |
| − | poorer by its lack.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is also one of the aims before our movement to hold out the prospect
| |
| − | of a time when the individual will be given what he needs for the
| |
| − | purposes of his life and it will be a time in which, on the other hand,
| |
| − | the principle will be upheld that man does not live for material
| |
| − | enjoyment alone. This principle will find expression in a wiser scale of
| |
| − | wages and salaries which will enable everyone, including the humblest
| |
| − | workman who fulfils his duties conscientiously, to live an honourable
| |
| − | and decent life both as a man and as a citizen. Let it not be said that
| |
| − | this is merely a visionary ideal, that this world would never tolerate
| |
| − | it in practice and that of itself it is impossible to attain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even we are not so simple as to believe that there will ever be an age
| |
| − | in which there will be no drawbacks. But that does not release us from
| |
| − | the obligation to fight for the removal of the defects which we have
| |
| − | recognized, to overcome the shortcomings and to strive towards the
| |
| − | ideal. In any case the hard reality of the facts to be faced will always
| |
| − | place only too many limits to our aspirations. But that is precisely why
| |
| − | man must strive again and again to serve the ultimate aim and no
| |
| − | failures must induce him to renounce his intentions, just as we cannot
| |
| − | spurn the sway of justice because mistakes creep into the administration
| |
| − | of the law, and just as we cannot despise medical science because, in
| |
| − | spite of it, there will always be diseases.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Man should take care not to have too low an estimate of the power of an
| |
| − | ideal. If there are some who may feel disheartened over the present
| |
| − | conditions, and if they happen to have served as soldiers, I would
| |
| − | remind them of the time when their heroism was the most convincing
| |
| − | example of the power inherent in ideal motives. It was not preoccupation
| |
| − | 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, and an
| |
| − | all round feeling for the honour of the nation. Only after the German
| |
| − | people had become estranged from these ideals, to follow the material
| |
| − | promises offered by the Revolution, only after they threw away their
| |
| − | arms to take up the rucksack, only then--instead of entering an earthly
| |
| − | paradise--did they sink into the purgatory of universal contempt and at
| |
| − | the same time universal want.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why we must face the calculators of the materialist Republic
| |
| − | with faith in an idealist REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER III
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS OF THE STATE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The institution that is now erroneously 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 are those who enjoy the
| |
| − | same rights in some other State. Between these two categories 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
| |
| − | rights anywhere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In most cases nowadays a person acquires civic rights by being born
| |
| − | within the frontiers of a State. The race or nationality to which he may
| |
| − | belong plays no role whatsoever. The child of a Negro who once lived in
| |
| − | one of the German protectorates and now takes up his residence in
| |
| − | Germany automatically becomes a 'German Citizen' in the eyes of the
| |
| − | world. In the same way the child of any Jew, Pole, African or Asian may
| |
| − | automatically become a German Citizen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Besides naturalization that is acquired through the fact of having been
| |
| − | born within the confines of a State there exists another kind of
| |
| − | naturalization which can be acquired later. This process is subject to
| |
| − | various preliminary requirements. For example one condition is that, if
| |
| − | possible, the applicant must not be a burglar or a common street thug.
| |
| − | It is required of him that his political attitude is not such as to give
| |
| − | cause for uneasiness; in other words he must be a harmless simpleton in
| |
| − | politics. It is required that he shall not be a burden to the State of
| |
| − | which he wishes to become a citizen. In this realistic epoch of ours
| |
| − | this last condition naturally only means that he must not be a financial
| |
| − | burden. If the affairs of the candidate are such that it appears likely
| |
| − | he will turn out to be a good taxpayer, that is a very important
| |
| − | consideration and will help him to obtain civic rights all the more
| |
| − | rapidly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question of race plays no part at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The whole process of acquiring civic rights is not very different from
| |
| − | that of being admitted to membership of an automobile club, for
| |
| − | instance. A person files his application. It is examined. It is
| |
| − | sanctioned. And one day the man receives a card which informs him 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 these
| |
| − | presents you are now become a German Citizen."
| |
| − | | |
| − | The President of the State can perform this piece of magic. What God
| |
| − | Himself could not do is achieved by some Theophrastus Paracelsus (Note 16)
| |
| − | of a civil servant through a mere twirl of the hand. Nothing but a stroke
| |
| − | of the pen, and a Mongolian slave is forthwith turned into a real
| |
| − | German. Not only is no question asked regarding the race to which the
| |
| − | new citizen belongs; even the matter of his physical health is not
| |
| − | inquired into. His flesh may be corrupted with syphilis; but he will
| |
| − | still be welcome in the State as it exists to-day so long as he may not
| |
| − | become a financial burden or a political danger.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 16. The last and most famous of the medieval alchemists. He was born
| |
| − | at Basleabout the year 1490 and died at Salzburg in 1541. He taught that
| |
| − | all metals could be transmuted through the action of one primary element
| |
| − | common to them all. This element he called ALCAHEST. If it could be found
| |
| − | it would proveto be at once the philosopher's stone, the universal
| |
| − | medicine and their resistible solvent. There are many aspects of his
| |
| − | teaching which are now looked upon as by no means so fantastic as they
| |
| − | were considered in his own time.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this way, year after year, those organisms which we call States take
| |
| − | up poisonous matter which they can hardly ever overcome.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Another point of distinction between a citizen and an alien is that the
| |
| − | former is admitted to all public offices, that he may possibly have to
| |
| − | do military service and that in return he is permitted to take a passive
| |
| − | or active part at public elections. Those are his chief privileges. For
| |
| − | in regard to personal rights and personal liberty the alien enjoys the
| |
| − | same amount of protection as the citizen, and frequently even more.
| |
| − | Anyhow that is how it happens in our present German Republic.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I realize fully that nobody likes to hear these things. But it would be
| |
| − | difficult to find anything more illogical or more insane than our
| |
| − | contemporary laws in regard to State citizenship.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At present there exists one State which manifests at least some modest
| |
| − | attempts that show a better appreciation of how things ought to be done
| |
| − | in this matter. It is not, however, in our model German Republic but in
| |
| − | the U.S.A. that efforts are made to conform at least partly to the
| |
| − | counsels of commonsense. By refusing immigrants to enter there if they
| |
| − | are in a bad state of health, and by excluding certain races from the
| |
| − | right to become naturalized as citizens, they have begun to introduce
| |
| − | principles similar to those on which we wish to ground the People's
| |
| − | State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State will classify its population in three groups:
| |
| − | Citizens, subjects of the State, and aliens.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The principle is that birth within the confines of the State gives only
| |
| − | the status of a subject. It does not carry with it the right to fill any
| |
| − | position under the State or to participate in political life, such as
| |
| − | taking an active or passive part in elections. Another principle is that
| |
| − | the race and nationality of every subject of the State will have to be
| |
| − | proved. A subject is at any time free to cease being a subject and to
| |
| − | become a citizen of that country to which he belongs in virtue of his
| |
| − | nationality. The only difference between an alien and a subject of the
| |
| − | State is that the former is a citizen of another country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The young boy or girl who is of German nationality and is a subject of
| |
| − | the German State is bound to complete the period of school education
| |
| − | which is obligatory for every German. Thereby he submits to the system
| |
| − | of training which will make him conscious of his race and a member of
| |
| − | the folk-community. Then he has to fulfil all those requirements laid
| |
| − | 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 to fulfil the physical and mental requirements of military
| |
| − | service. The rights of citizenship shall be conferred on every young man
| |
| − | whose health and character have been certified as good, after having
| |
| − | completed his period of military service. This act of inauguration in
| |
| − | citizenship shall be a solemn ceremony. And the diploma conferring the
| |
| − | rights of citizenship will be preserved by the young man as the most
| |
| − | precious testimonial of his whole life. It entitles him to exercise all
| |
| − | 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, as members of the nation, are the foundation and the support
| |
| − | of its existence and greatness, and those who are domiciled in the State
| |
| − | simply as earners of their livelihood there.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the occasion of conferring a diploma of citizenship the new citizen
| |
| − | must take a solemn oath of loyalty to the national community and the
| |
| − | State. This diploma must be a bond which unites together all the various
| |
| − | classes and sections of the nation. It shall be a greater honour to be a
| |
| − | citizen of this REICH, even as a street-sweeper, than to be the King of
| |
| − | a foreign State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The citizen has privileges which are not accorded to the alien. He is
| |
| − | the master in the REICH. But this high honour has also its obligations.
| |
| − | Those who show themselves without personal honour or character, or
| |
| − | common criminals, or traitors to the fatherland, can at any time be
| |
| − | deprived of the rights of citizenship. Therewith they become merely
| |
| − | subjects of the State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German girl is a subject of the State but will become a citizen when
| |
| − | she marries. At the same time those women who earn their livelihood
| |
| − | independently have the right to acquire citizenship if they are German
| |
| − | subjects.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER IV
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE PEOPLE'S STATE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | If the principal duty of the National Socialist People's State be to
| |
| − | educate and promote the existence of those who are the material out of
| |
| − | which the State is formed, it will not be sufficient to promote those
| |
| − | racial elements as such, educate them and finally train them for
| |
| − | practical life, but the State must also adapt its own organization to
| |
| − | meet the demands of this task.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would be absurd to appraise a man's worth by the race to which he
| |
| − | belongs and at the same time to make war against the Marxist principle,
| |
| − | that all men are equal, without being determined to pursue our own
| |
| − | principle to its ultimate consequences. If we admit the significance of
| |
| − | blood, that is to say, if we recognize the race as the fundamental
| |
| − | element on which all life is based, we shall have to apply to the
| |
| − | individual the logical consequences of this principle. In general I must
| |
| − | estimate the worth of nations differently, on the basis of the different
| |
| − | races from which they spring, and I must also differentiate in
| |
| − | estimating the worth of the individual within his own race. The
| |
| − | principle, that one people is not the same as another, applies also to
| |
| − | the individual members of a national community. No one brain, for
| |
| − | instance, is equal to another; because the constituent elements
| |
| − | belonging to the same blood vary in a thousand subtle details, though
| |
| − | they are fundamentally of the same quality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first consequence of this fact is comparatively simple. It demands
| |
| − | that those elements within the folk-community which show the best racial
| |
| − | qualities ought to be encouraged more than the others and especially
| |
| − | they should be encouraged to increase and multiply.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This task is comparatively simple because it can be recognized and
| |
| − | carried out almost mechanically. It is much more difficult to select
| |
| − | from among a whole multitude of people all those who actually possess
| |
| − | the highest intellectual and spiritual characteristics and assign them
| |
| − | to that sphere of influence which not only corresponds to their
| |
| − | outstanding talents but in which their activities will above all things
| |
| − | be of benefit to the nation. This selection according to capacity and
| |
| − | efficiency cannot be effected in a mechanical way. It is a work which
| |
| − | can be accomplished only through the permanent struggle of everyday life
| |
| − | itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A WELTANSCHAUUNG which repudiates the democratic principle of the rule
| |
| − | of the masses and aims at giving this world to the best people--that
| |
| − | is, to the highest quality of mankind--must also apply that same
| |
| − | aristocratic postulate to the individuals within the folk-community. It
| |
| − | must take care that the positions of leadership and highest influence
| |
| − | are given to the best men. Hence it is not based on the idea of the
| |
| − | majority, but on that of personality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyone who believes that the People's National Socialist State should
| |
| − | distinguish itself from the other States only mechanically, as it were,
| |
| − | through the better construction of its economic life--thanks to a
| |
| − | better equilibrium between poverty and riches, or to the extension to
| |
| − | broader masses of the power to determine the economic process, or to a
| |
| − | fairer wage, or to the elimination of vast differences in the scale of
| |
| − | salaries--anyone who thinks this understands only the superficial
| |
| − | features of our movement and has not the least idea of what we mean when
| |
| − | we speak of our WELTANSCHAUUNG. All these features just mentioned could
| |
| − | not in the least guarantee us a lasting existence and certainly would be
| |
| − | no warranty of greatness. A nation that could content itself with
| |
| − | external reforms would not have the slightest chance of success in the
| |
| − | general struggle for life among the nations of the world. A movement
| |
| − | that would confine its mission to such adjustments, which are certainly
| |
| − | right and equitable, would effect no far-reaching or profound reform in
| |
| − | the existing order. The whole effect of such measures would be limited
| |
| − | to externals. They would not furnish the nation with that moral armament
| |
| − | which alone will enable it effectively to overcome the weaknesses from
| |
| − | which we are suffering to-day.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order to elucidate this point of view it may be worth while to glance
| |
| − | once again at the real origins and causes of the cultural evolution of
| |
| − | mankind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first step which visibly brought mankind away from the animal world
| |
| − | was that which led to the first invention. The invention itself owes its
| |
| − | origin to the ruses and stratagems which man employed to assist him in
| |
| − | the struggle with other creatures for his existence and often to provide
| |
| − | him with the only means he could adopt to achieve success in the
| |
| − | struggle. Those first very crude inventions cannot be attributed to the
| |
| − | individual; for the subsequent observer, that is to say the modern
| |
| − | observer, recognizes them only as collective phenomena. Certain tricks
| |
| − | and skilful tactics which can be observed in use among the animals
| |
| − | strike the eye of the observer as established facts which may be seen
| |
| − | everywhere; and man is no longer in a position to discover or explain
| |
| − | their primary cause and so he contents himself with calling such
| |
| − | phenomena 'instinctive.'
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our case this term has no meaning. Because everyone who believes in
| |
| − | the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every
| |
| − | manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a
| |
| − | definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have
| |
| − | 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
| |
| − | passed into the subconscience of every member of the species, where it
| |
| − | manifested itself as 'instinct.'
| |
| − | | |
| − | This is more easily understood and more easy to believe in the case of
| |
| − | man. His first skilled tactics in the struggle with the rest of the
| |
| − | animals undoubtedly originated in his management of creatures which
| |
| − | possessed special capabilities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There can be no doubt that personality was then the sole factor in all
| |
| − | decisions and achievements, which were afterwards taken over by the
| |
| − | whole of humanity as a matter of course. An exact exemplification of
| |
| − | this may be found in those fundamental military principles which have
| |
| − | now become the basis of all strategy in war. Originally they sprang from
| |
| − | the brain of a single individual and in the course of many years, maybe
| |
| − | even thousands of years, they were accepted all round as a matter of
| |
| − | course and this gained universal validity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Man completed his first discovery by making a second. Among other things
| |
| − | he learned how to master other living beings and make them serve him in
| |
| − | his struggle for existence. And thus began the real inventive activity
| |
| − | of mankind, as it is now visible before our eyes. Those material
| |
| − | inventions, beginning with the use of stones as weapons, which led to
| |
| − | the domestication of animals, the production of fire by artificial
| |
| − | means, down to the marvellous inventions of our own days, show clearly
| |
| − | that an individual was the originator in each case. The nearer we come
| |
| − | to our own time and the more important and revolutionary the inventions
| |
| − | become, the more clearly do we recognize the truth of that statement.
| |
| − | All the material inventions which we see around us have been produced by
| |
| − | the creative powers and capabilities of individuals. And all these
| |
| − | inventions help man to raise himself higher and higher above the animal
| |
| − | world and to separate himself from that world in an absolutely definite
| |
| − | way. Hence they serve to elevate the human species and continually to
| |
| − | promote its progress. And what the most primitive artifice once did for
| |
| − | man in his struggle for existence, as he went hunting through the
| |
| − | primeval forest, that same sort of assistance is rendered him to-day in
| |
| − | the form of marvellous scientific inventions which help him in the
| |
| − | present day struggle for life and to forge weapons for future struggles.
| |
| − | In their final consequences all human thought and invention help man in
| |
| − | his life-struggle on this planet, even though the so-called practical
| |
| − | utility of an invention, a discovery or a profound scientific theory,
| |
| − | may not be evident at first sight. Everything contributes to raise man
| |
| − | higher and higher above the level of all the other creatures that
| |
| − | surround him, thereby strengthening and consolidating his position; so
| |
| − | that he develops more and more in every direction as the ruling being on
| |
| − | this earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence all inventions are the result of the creative faculty of the
| |
| − | individual. And all such individuals, whether they have willed it or
| |
| − | not, are the benefactors of mankind, both great and small. Through their
| |
| − | work millions and indeed billions of human beings have been provided
| |
| − | with means and resources which facilitate their struggle for existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus at the origin of the material civilization which flourishes to-day
| |
| − | we always see individual persons. They supplement one another and one of
| |
| − | them bases his work on that of the other. The same is true in regard to
| |
| − | the practical application of those inventions and discoveries. For all
| |
| − | the various methods of production are in their turn inventions also and
| |
| − | consequently dependent on the creative faculty of the individual. Even
| |
| − | the purely theoretical work, which cannot be measured by a definite rule
| |
| − | and is preliminary to all subsequent technical discoveries, is
| |
| − | exclusively the product of the individual brain. The broad masses do not
| |
| − | invent, nor does the majority organize or think; but always and in every
| |
| − | case the individual man, the person.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Accordingly a human community is well organized only when it facilitates
| |
| − | to the highest possible degree individual 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 of material realities or in the
| |
| − | world of abstract ideas, is the personality of the inventor himself. The
| |
| − | first and supreme duty of an organized folk community is to place the
| |
| − | inventor in a position where he can be of the greatest benefit to all.
| |
| − | Indeed the very purpose of the organization is to put this principle
| |
| − | into practice. Only by so doing can it ward off the curse of
| |
| − | mechanization and remain a living thing. In itself it must personify the
| |
| − | effort to place men of brains above the multitude and to make the latter
| |
| − | obey the former.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore not only does the organization possess no right to prevent men
| |
| − | of brains from rising above the multitude but, on the contrary, it must
| |
| − | use its organizing powers to enable and promote that ascension as far as
| |
| − | it possibly can. It must start out from the principle that the blessings
| |
| − | of mankind never came from the masses but from the creative brains of
| |
| − | individuals, who are therefore the real benefactors of humanity. It is
| |
| − | in the interest of all to assure men of creative brains a decisive
| |
| − | influence and facilitate their work. This common interest is surely not
| |
| − | served by allowing the multitude to rule, for they are not capable of
| |
| − | thinking nor are they efficient and in no case whatsoever can they be
| |
| − | said to be gifted. Only those should rule who have the natural
| |
| − | temperament and gifts of leadership.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such men of brains are selected mainly, 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 show that they are not called by
| |
| − | Destiny to fill the highest positions; and only very few are left who
| |
| − | can be classed among the elect. In the realm of thought and of artistic
| |
| − | creation, and even in the economic field, this same process of selection
| |
| − | takes place, although--especially in the economic field--its operation
| |
| − | is heavily handicapped. This same principle of selection rules in the
| |
| − | administration of the State and in that department of power which
| |
| − | personifies the organized military defence of the nation. The idea of
| |
| − | personality rules everywhere, the authority of the individual over his
| |
| − | subordinates and the responsibility of the individual towards the
| |
| − | persons who are placed over him. It is only in political life that this
| |
| − | very natural principle has been completely excluded. Though all human
| |
| − | civilization has resulted exclusively from the creative activity of the
| |
| − | individual, the principle that it is the mass which counts--through the
| |
| − | decision of the majority--makes its appearance only in the
| |
| − | administration of the national community especially in the higher
| |
| − | grades; and from there downwards the poison gradually filters into all
| |
| − | branches of national life, thus causing a veritable decomposition. The
| |
| − | destructive workings of Judaism in different parts of the national body
| |
| − | can be ascribed fundamentally to the persistent Jewish efforts at
| |
| − | undermining the importance of personality among the nations that are
| |
| − | their hosts and, in place of personality, substituting the domination of
| |
| − | the masses. The constructive principle of Aryan humanity is thus
| |
| − | displaced by the destructive principle of the Jews, They become the
| |
| − | 'ferment of decomposition' among nations and races and, in a broad
| |
| − | sense, the wreckers of human civilization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Marxism represents the most striking phase of the Jewish endeavour to
| |
| − | eliminate the dominant significance of personality in every sphere of
| |
| − | human life and replace it by the numerical power of the masses. In
| |
| − | politics the parliamentary form of government is the expression of this
| |
| − | effort. We can observe the fatal effects of it everywhere, from the
| |
| − | smallest parish council upwards to the highest governing circles of the
| |
| − | nation. In the field of economics we see the trade union movement, which
| |
| − | does not serve the real interests of the employees but the destructive
| |
| − | aims of international Jewry. Just to the same degree in which the
| |
| − | principle of personality is excluded from the economic life of the
| |
| − | nation, and the influence and activities of the masses substituted in
| |
| − | its stead, national economy, which should be for the service and benefit
| |
| − | of the community as a whole, will gradually deteriorate in its creative
| |
| − | capacity. The shop committees which, instead of caring for the interests
| |
| − | of the employees, strive to influence the process of production, serve
| |
| − | the same destructive purpose. They damage the general productive system
| |
| − | and consequently injure the individual engaged in industry. For in the
| |
| − | long run it is impossible to satisfy popular demands merely by
| |
| − | high-sounding theoretical phrases. These can be satisfied only by
| |
| − | supplying goods to meet the individual needs of daily life and by so
| |
| − | doing create the conviction that, through the productive collaboration
| |
| − | of its members, the folk community serves the interests of the
| |
| − | individual.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even if, on the basis of its mass-theory, Marxism should prove itself
| |
| − | capable of taking over and developing the present economic system, that
| |
| − | would not signify anything. The question as to whether the Marxist
| |
| − | doctrine be right or wrong cannot be decided by any test which would
| |
| − | show that it can administer for the future what already exists to-day,
| |
| − | but only by asking whether it has the creative power to build up
| |
| − | according to its own principles a civilization which would be a
| |
| − | counterpart of what already exists. Even if Marxism were a thousandfold
| |
| − | capable of taking over the economic life as we now have it and
| |
| − | maintaining it in operation under Marxist direction, such an achievement
| |
| − | would prove nothing; because, on the basis of its own principles,
| |
| − | Marxism would never be able to create something which could supplant
| |
| − | what exists to-day.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And Marxism itself has furnished the proof that it cannot do this. Not
| |
| − | only has it been unable anywhere to create a cultural or economic system
| |
| − | of its own; but it was not even able to develop, according to its own
| |
| − | principles, the civilization and economic system it found ready at hand.
| |
| − | It has had to make compromises, by way of a return to the principle of
| |
| − | personality, just as it cannot dispense with that principle in its own
| |
| − | organization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG is fundamentally distinguished from the
| |
| − | Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the
| |
| − | significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made
| |
| − | these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors
| |
| − | of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the
| |
| − | fundamental importance of this essential principle, if it should merely
| |
| − | varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the
| |
| − | majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with
| |
| − | Marxism on its own ground. For that reason it would not have the right
| |
| − | to call itself a WELTANSCHAUUNG. If the social programme of the
| |
| − | movement consisted in eliminating personality and putting the multitude
| |
| − | in its place, then National Socialism would be corrupted with the poison
| |
| − | of Marxism, just as our national-bourgeois parties are.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State must assure the welfare of its citizens by
| |
| − | recognizing the importance of personal values under all circumstances
| |
| − | and by preparing the way for the maximum of productive efficiency in all
| |
| − | the various branches of economic life, thus securing to the individual
| |
| − | the highest possible share in the general output.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the People's State must mercilessly expurgate from all the leading
| |
| − | circles in the government of the country the parliamentarian principle,
| |
| − | according to which decisive power through the majority vote is invested
| |
| − | in the multitude. Personal responsibility must be substituted in its
| |
| − | stead.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From this the following conclusion results:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The best constitution and the best form of government is that which
| |
| − | makes it quite natural for the best brains to reach a position of
| |
| − | dominant importance and influence in the community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as in the field of economics men of outstanding ability cannot be
| |
| − | designated from above but must come forward in virtue of their own
| |
| − | efforts, and just as there is an unceasing educative 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 in the
| |
| − | political field it is not possible to 'discover' political talent all in
| |
| − | a moment. Genius of an extraordinary stamp is not to be judged by normal
| |
| − | standards whereby we judge other men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In its organization the State must be established on the principle of
| |
| − | personality, starting from the smallest cell and ascending up to the
| |
| − | supreme government of the country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There are no decisions made by the majority vote, but only by
| |
| − | responsible persons. And the word 'council' is once more restored to its
| |
| − | original meaning. Every man in a position of responsibility will have
| |
| − | councillors at his side, but the decision is made by that individual
| |
| − | person alone.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The principle which made the former Prussian Army an admirable
| |
| − | instrument of the German nation will have to become the basis of our
| |
| − | statal constitution, that is to say, full authority over his
| |
| − | subordinates must be invested in each leader and he must be responsible
| |
| − | to those above him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Even then we shall not be able to do without those corporations which at
| |
| − | present we call parliaments. But they will be real councils, in the
| |
| − | sense that they will have to give advice. The responsibility can and
| |
| − | must be borne by one individual, who alone will be vested with authority
| |
| − | and the right to command.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Parliaments as such are necessary because they alone furnish the
| |
| − | opportunity for leaders to rise gradually who will be entrusted
| |
| − | subsequently with positions of special responsibility.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The following is an outline of the picture which the organization will
| |
| − | present:
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the municipal administration up to the government of the REICH, the
| |
| − | People's State will not have any body of representatives which makes its
| |
| − | decisions through the majority vote. It will have only advisory bodies
| |
| − | to assist the chosen leader for the time being and he will distribute
| |
| − | among them the various duties they are to perform. In certain fields
| |
| − | they may, if necessary, have to assume full responsibility, such as the
| |
| − | leader or president of each corporation possesses on a larger scale.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In principle the People's State must forbid the custom of taking advice
| |
| − | on certain political problems--economics, for instance--from persons
| |
| − | who are entirely incompetent because they lack special training and
| |
| − | practical experience in such matters. Consequently the State must divide
| |
| − | its representative bodies into a political chamber and a corporative
| |
| − | chamber that represents the respective trades and professions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To assure an effective co-operation between those two bodies, a selected
| |
| − | body will be placed over them. This will be a special senate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No vote will be taken in the chambers or senate. They are to be
| |
| − | organizations for work and not voting machines. The individual members
| |
| − | will have consultive votes but no right of decision will be attached
| |
| − | thereto. The right of decision belongs exclusively to the president, who
| |
| − | must be entirely responsible for the matter under discussion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This principle of combining absolute authority with absolute
| |
| − | responsibility will gradually cause a selected group of leaders to
| |
| − | emerge; which is not even thinkable in our present epoch of
| |
| − | irresponsible parliamentarianism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The political construction of the nation will thereby be brought into
| |
| − | harmony with those laws to which the nation already owes its greatness
| |
| − | in the economic and cultural spheres.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Regarding the possibility of putting these principles into practice, I
| |
| − | should like to call attention to the fact that the principle of
| |
| − | parliamentarian democracy, whereby decisions are enacted through the
| |
| − | majority vote, has not always ruled the world. On the contrary, we find
| |
| − | it prevalent only during short periods of history, and those have 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 purely theoretical character, operating from
| |
| − | above downwards; for the change I have been describing could not be
| |
| − | limited to transforming the constitution of a State but would have to
| |
| − | include the various fields of legislation and civic existence as a
| |
| − | whole. Such a revolution can be brought about only by means of a
| |
| − | movement which is itself organized under the inspiration of these
| |
| − | principles and thus bears the germ of the future State in its own
| |
| − | organism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore it is well for the National Socialist Movement to make itself
| |
| − | completely familiar with those principles to-day and actually to put
| |
| − | them into practice within its own organization, so that not only will it
| |
| − | be in a position to serve as a guide for the future State but will have
| |
| − | its own organization such that it can subsequently be placed at the
| |
| − | disposal of the State itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER V
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG AND ORGANIZATION
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The People's State, which I have tried to sketch in general outline,
| |
| − | will not become a reality in virtue of the simple fact that we know the
| |
| − | indispensable conditions of its existence. It does not suffice to know
| |
| − | what aspect such a State would present. The problem of its foundation is
| |
| − | far more important. The parties which exist at present and which draw
| |
| − | their profits from the State as it now is cannot be expected to bring
| |
| − | about a radical change in the regime or to change their attitude on
| |
| − | their own initiative. This is rendered all the more impossible because
| |
| − | the forces which now have the direction of affairs in their hands are
| |
| − | Jews here and Jews there and Jews everywhere. The trend of development
| |
| − | which we are now experiencing would, if allowed to go on unhampered,
| |
| − | lead to the realization of the Pan-Jewish prophecy that the Jews will
| |
| − | one day devour the other nations and become lords of the earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In contrast to the millions of 'bourgeois' and 'proletarian' Germans,
| |
| − | who are stumbling to their ruin, mostly through timidity, indolence and
| |
| − | stupidity, the Jew pursues his way persistently and keeps his eye always
| |
| − | fixed on his future goal. Any party that is led by him can fight for no
| |
| − | other interests than his, and his interests certainly have nothing in
| |
| − | common with those of the Aryan nations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we would transform our ideal picture of the People's State into a
| |
| − | reality we shall have to keep independent of the forces that now control
| |
| − | public life and seek for new forces that will be ready and capable of
| |
| − | taking up the fight for such an ideal. For a fight it will have to be,
| |
| − | since the first objective will not be to build up the idea of the
| |
| − | People's State but rather to wipe out the Jewish State which is now in
| |
| − | existence. As so often happens in the course of history, the main
| |
| − | difficulty is not to establish a new order of things but to clear the
| |
| − | ground for its establishment. Prejudices and egotistic interests join
| |
| − | together in forming a common front against the new idea and in trying by
| |
| − | every means to prevent its triumph, because it is disagreeable to them
| |
| − | or threatens their existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why the protagonist of the new idea is unfortunately, in spite
| |
| − | of his {254}desire for constructive work, compelled to wage a
| |
| − | destructive battle first, in order to abolish the existing state of
| |
| − | affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A doctrine whose principles are radically new and of essential
| |
| − | importance must adopt the sharp probe of criticism as its weapon, though
| |
| − | this may show itself disagreeable to the individual followers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is evidence of a very superficial insight into historical
| |
| − | developments if the so-called folkists emphasize again and again that
| |
| − | they will adopt the use of negative criticism under no circumstances but
| |
| − | will engage only in constructive work. That is nothing but puerile
| |
| − | chatter and is typical of the whole lot of folkists. It is another proof
| |
| − | 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
| |
| − | constructive work, though by this it understands only the establishment
| |
| − | of despotic rule in the hands of international Jewish finance.
| |
| − | Nevertheless for seventy years its principal work still remains in the
| |
| − | field of criticism. And what disruptive and destructive criticism it has
| |
| − | been! Criticism repeated again and again, until the corrosive acid ate
| |
| − | into the old State so thoroughly that it finally crumbled to pieces.
| |
| − | Only then did the so-called 'constructive' critical work of Marxism
| |
| − | begin. And that was natural, right and logical. An existing order of
| |
| − | things is not abolished by merely proclaiming and insisting on a new
| |
| − | one. It must not be hoped that those who are the partisans of the
| |
| − | existing order and have their interests bound up with it will be
| |
| − | converted and won over to the new movement simply by being shown that
| |
| − | something new is necessary. On the contrary, what may easily happen is
| |
| − | that two different situations will exist side by side and that a
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG is transformed into a party, above which level it will
| |
| − | not be able to raise itself afterwards. For a WELTANSCHAUUNG is
| |
| − | intolerant and cannot permit another to exist side by side with it. It
| |
| − | imperiously demands its own recognition as unique and exclusive and a
| |
| − | complete transformation in accordance with its views throughout all the
| |
| − | branches of public life. It can never allow the previous state of
| |
| − | affairs to continue in existence by its side.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And the same holds true of religions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Christianity was not content with erecting an altar of its own. It had
| |
| − | first to destroy the pagan altars. It was only in virtue of this
| |
| − | passionate intolerance that an apodictic faith could grow up. And
| |
| − | intolerance is an indispensable condition for the growth of such a
| |
| − | faith.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may be objected here that in these phenomena which we find throughout
| |
| − | the history of the world we have to recognize mostly a specifically
| |
| − | Jewish mode of thought and that such fanaticism and intolerance are
| |
| − | typical symptoms of Jewish mentality. That may be a thousandfold true;
| |
| − | and it is a fact deeply to be regretted. The appearance of intolerance
| |
| − | 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 not
| |
| − | change conditions as they exist to-day. The men who wish to liberate our
| |
| − | German nation from the conditions in which it now exists cannot cudgel
| |
| − | their brains with thinking how excellent it would be if this or that had
| |
| − | never arisen. They must strive to find ways and means of abolishing what
| |
| − | actually exists. A philosophy of life which is inspired by an infernal
| |
| − | spirit of intolerance can only be set aside by a doctrine that is
| |
| − | advanced in an equally ardent spirit and fought for with as determined a
| |
| − | will and which is itself a new idea, pure and absolutely true.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Each one of us to-day may regret the fact that the advent of
| |
| − | Christianity was the first occasion on which spiritual terror was
| |
| − | introduced into the much freer ancient world, but the fact cannot be
| |
| − | denied that ever since then the world is pervaded and dominated by this
| |
| − | kind of coercion and that violence is broken only by violence and terror
| |
| − | by terror. Only then can a new regime be created by means of
| |
| − | constructive work. Political parties are prone to enter compromises; but
| |
| − | a WELTANSCHAUUNG never does this. A political party is inclined to
| |
| − | adjust its teachings with a view to meeting those of its opponents, but
| |
| − | a WELTANSCHAUUNG proclaims its own infallibility.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the beginning, political parties have also and nearly always the
| |
| − | intention of {255}securing an exclusive and despotic domination for
| |
| − | themselves. They always show a slight tendency to become
| |
| − | WELTANSCHHAUUNGen. But the limited nature of their programme is in
| |
| − | itself enough to rob them of that heroic spirit which a WELTANSCHAUUNG
| |
| − | demands. The spirit of conciliation which animates their will attracts
| |
| − | those petty and chicken-hearted people who are not fit to be
| |
| − | protagonists in any crusade. That is the reason why they mostly become
| |
| − | struck in their miserable pettiness very early on the march. They give
| |
| − | up fighting for their ideology and, by way of what they call 'positive
| |
| − | collaboration,' they try as quickly as possible to wedge themselves into
| |
| − | some tiny place at the trough of the existent regime 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 competition of more
| |
| − | brutal manners then their only idea is to force themselves in again, by
| |
| − | force or chicanery, among the herd of all the others who have similar
| |
| − | appetites, in order to get back into the front row, and finally--even
| |
| − | at the expense of their most sacred convictions--participate anew in
| |
| − | that beloved spot where they find their fodder. They are the jackals of
| |
| − | politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But a general WELTANSCHAUUNG will never share its place with something
| |
| − | else. Therefore it can never agree to collaborate in any order of things
| |
| − | that it condemns. On the contrary it feels obliged to employ every means
| |
| − | in fighting against the old order and the whole world 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 united front 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
| |
| − | new philosophy of life will bring its ideas to victory only if the most
| |
| − | courageous and active elements of its epoch and its people are enrolled
| |
| − | under its standards and grouped firmly together in a powerful fighting
| |
| − | organization. To achieve this purpose it is absolutely necessary to
| |
| − | select from the general system of doctrine a certain number of ideas
| |
| − | which will appeal to such individuals 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 the programme of the ordinary political
| |
| − | party is nothing but the recipe for cooking up favourable results out of
| |
| − | the next general elections, the programme of a WELTANSCHAUUNG
| |
| − | represents a declaration of war against an existing order of things,
| |
| − | against present conditions, in short, against the established
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not necessary, however, that every individual fighter for such a
| |
| − | new doctrine need have a full grasp of the ultimate ideas and plans of
| |
| − | those who are the leaders of the movement. It is only necessary that
| |
| − | each should have a clear notion of the fundamental ideas and that he
| |
| − | should thoroughly assimilate a few of the most fundamental principles,
| |
| − | so that he will be convinced of the necessity of carrying the movement
| |
| − | and its doctrines to success. The individual soldier is not initiated in
| |
| − | the knowledge of high strategical plans. But he is trained to submit to
| |
| − | a rigid discipline, to be passionately convinced of the justice and
| |
| − | inner worth of his cause and that he must devote himself to it without
| |
| − | reserve. So, too, the individual follower of a movement must be made
| |
| − | acquainted with its far-reaching purpose, how it is inspired by a
| |
| − | powerful will and has a great future before it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Supposing that each soldier in an army were a general, and had the
| |
| − | training and capacity for generalship, that army would not be an
| |
| − | efficient fighting instrument. Similarly a political movement would not
| |
| − | be very efficient in fighting for a WELTANSCHAUUNG if it were made up
| |
| − | exclusively of intellectuals. No, we need the simple soldier also.
| |
| − | Without him no discipline can be established.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By its very nature, an organization can exist only if leaders of high
| |
| − | intellectual ability are served by a large mass of men who are
| |
| − | emotionally devoted to the cause. To maintain discipline in a company of
| |
| − | two hundred men who are equally intelligent and capable would turn out
| |
| − | more difficult in the long run than in a company of one hundred and
| |
| − | ninety less gifted men and ten who have had a higher education.
| |
| − | | |
| − | {256}The Social-Democrats have profited very much by recognizing this
| |
| − | truth. They took the broad masses of our people who had just completed
| |
| − | military service and learned to submit to discipline, and they subjected
| |
| − | this mass of men to the discipline of the Social-Democratic
| |
| − | organization, which was no less rigid than the discipline through which
| |
| − | the young men had passed in their military training. The
| |
| − | Social-Democratic organization consisted of an army divided into
| |
| − | officers and men. The German worker who had passed through his military
| |
| − | service became the private soldier in that army, and the Jewish
| |
| − | intellectual was the officer. The German trade union functionaries may
| |
| − | be compared to the non-commissioned officers. The fact, which was always
| |
| − | looked upon with indifference by our middle-classes, that only the
| |
| − | so-called uneducated classes joined Marxism was the very ground on which
| |
| − | this party achieved its success. For while the bourgeois parties,
| |
| − | because they mostly consisted of intellectuals, were only a feckless
| |
| − | band of undisciplined individuals, out of much less intelligent human
| |
| − | material the Marxist leaders formed an army of party combatants who obey
| |
| − | their Jewish masters just as blindly as they formerly obeyed their
| |
| − | German officers. The German middle-classes, who never; bothered their
| |
| − | heads about psychological problems because they felt themselves superior
| |
| − | to such matters, did not think it necessary to reflect on the profound
| |
| − | significance of this fact and the secret danger involved in it. Indeed
| |
| − | they believed. that a political movement which draws its followers
| |
| − | exclusively from intellectual circles must, for that very reason, be of
| |
| − | greater importance and have better grounds. for its chances of success,
| |
| − | and even a greater probability of taking over the government of the
| |
| − | country than a party made up of the ignorant masses. They completely
| |
| − | failed to realize the fact that the strength of a political party never
| |
| − | consists in the intelligence and independent spirit of the rank-and-file
| |
| − | of its members but rather in the spirit of willing obedience with which
| |
| − | they follow their intellectual leaders. What is of decisive importance
| |
| − | is the leadership itself. When two bodies of troops are arrayed in
| |
| − | mutual combat victory will not fall to that side in which every soldier
| |
| − | has an expert knowledge of the rules of strategy, but rather to that
| |
| − | side which has the best leaders and at the same time the best
| |
| − | disciplined, most blindly obedient and best drilled troops.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is a fundamental piece of knowledge which we must always bear in
| |
| − | mind when we examine the possibility of transforming a WELTANSCHAUUNG
| |
| − | into a practical reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we agree that in order to carry a WELTANSCHAUUNG into practical
| |
| − | effect it must be incorporated in a fighting movement, then the logical
| |
| − | consequence is that the programme of such a movement must take account
| |
| − | of the human material at its disposal. Just as the ultimate aims and
| |
| − | fundamental principles must be absolutely definite and unmistakable, so
| |
| − | the propagandist programme must be well drawn up and must be inspired by
| |
| − | a keen sense of its psychological appeals to the minds of those without
| |
| − | 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 definite success, from its vague and
| |
| − | vast mass of thought it will have to put forward certain definite
| |
| − | principles which of their very nature and content are calculated to
| |
| − | attract a broad mass of adherents; in other words, such a group of
| |
| − | people as can guarantee that these principles will be fought for. That
| |
| − | group of people are the German workers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why the programme of the new movement was condensed into a few
| |
| − | fundamental postulates, twenty-five in all. They are meant first of all
| |
| − | to give the ordinary man a rough sketch of what the movement is aiming
| |
| − | at. They are, so to say, a profession of faith which on the one hand is
| |
| − | meant to win adherents to the movement and, on the other, they are meant
| |
| − | to unite such adherents together in a covenant to which all have
| |
| − | subscribed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In these matters we must never lose sight of the following: What we call
| |
| − | the programme of the movement is absolutely right as far as its ultimate
| |
| − | aims are concerned, but as regards the manner in which that programme is
| |
| − | formulated, certain psychological considerations had to be taken
| |
| − | into account. Hence, in the course of time, the opinion may well arise
| |
| − | that certain principles should be expressed differently and might be
| |
| − | better formulated. But any attempt at a different formulation has a
| |
| − | fatal effect in most cases. For something that ought to be fixed and
| |
| − | unshakable thereby becomes the subject of discussion. As soon as one
| |
| − | point alone is removed from the sphere of dogmatic certainty, the
| |
| − | discussion will not simply result in a new and better formulation which
| |
| − | will have greater consistency but may easily lead to endless debates and
| |
| − | general confusion. In such cases the question must always be carefully
| |
| − | considered as to whether a new and more adequate formulation is to be
| |
| − | preferred, though it may cause a controversy within the movement, or
| |
| − | whether it may not be better to retain the old formula which, though
| |
| − | probably not the best, represents an organism enclosed in itself, solid
| |
| − | and internally homogeneous. All experience shows that the second of
| |
| − | these alternatives is preferable. For since in these changes one is
| |
| − | dealing only with external forms such corrections will always appear
| |
| − | desirable and possible. But in the last analysis the generality of
| |
| − | people think superficially and therefore the great danger is that in
| |
| − | what is merely an external formulation of the programme people will see
| |
| − | an essential aim of the movement. In that way the will and the combative
| |
| − | force at the service of the ideas are weakened and the energies that
| |
| − | ought to be directed towards the outer world are dissipated in
| |
| − | programmatic discussions within the ranks of the movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For a doctrine that is actually right in its main features it is less
| |
| − | dangerous to retain a formulation which may no longer be quite adequate
| |
| − | instead of trying to improve it and thereby allowing a fundamental
| |
| − | principle of the movement, which had hitherto been considered as solid
| |
| − | as granite, to become the subject of a general discussion which may have
| |
| − | unfortunate consequences. This is particularly to be avoided as long as
| |
| − | a movement is still fighting for victory. For would it be possible to
| |
| − | inspire people with blind faith in the truth of a doctrine if doubt and
| |
| − | uncertainty are encouraged by continual alterations in its external
| |
| − | formulation?
| |
| − | | |
| − | The essentials of a teaching must never 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 a movement
| |
| − | should exclude everything that tends towards disintegration and
| |
| − | uncertainty in order to preserve the unified force that is necessary for
| |
| − | its triumph.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here again the Catholic Church has a lesson to teach us. Though
| |
| − | sometimes, and often quite unnecessarily, its dogmatic system is in
| |
| − | conflict with the exact sciences and with scientific discoveries, it is
| |
| − | not disposed to sacrifice a syllable of its teachings. It has rightly
| |
| − | recognized that its powers of resistance would be weakened by
| |
| − | introducing greater or less doctrinal adaptations to meet the temporary
| |
| − | conclusions of science, which in reality are always vacillating. And
| |
| − | thus it holds fast to its fixed and established dogmas which alone can
| |
| − | give to the whole system the character of a faith. And that is the
| |
| − | reason why it stands firmer to-day than ever before. We may prophesy
| |
| − | that, as a fixed pole amid fleeting phenomena, it will continue to
| |
| − | attract increasing numbers of people who will be blindly attached to it
| |
| − | the more rapid the rhythm of changing phenomena around it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore whoever really and seriously desires that the idea of the
| |
| − | People's State should triumph must realize that this triumph can be
| |
| − | assured only through a militant movement and that this movement must
| |
| − | ground its strength only on the granite firmness of an impregnable and
| |
| − | firmly coherent programme. In regard to its formulas it must never make
| |
| − | concessions to the spirit of the time but must maintain the form that
| |
| − | has once and for all been decided upon as the right one; in any case
| |
| − | until victory has crowned its efforts. Before this goal has been reached
| |
| − | any attempt to open a discussion on the opportuneness of this or that
| |
| − | point in the programme might tend to disintegrate the solidity and
| |
| − | fighting strength of the movement, according to the measures in which
| |
| − | its followers might take part in such an internal dispute. Some
| |
| − | 'improvements' introduced to-day might be subjected to a critical
| |
| − | examination to-morrow, in order to substitute it with something better
| |
| − | {258}the day after. Once the barrier has been taken down the road is
| |
| − | opened and we know only the beginning, but we do not know to what
| |
| − | shoreless sea it may lead.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This important principle had to be acknowledged in practice by the
| |
| − | members of the National Socialist Movement at its very beginning. In its
| |
| − | programme of twenty-five points the National Socialist German Labour
| |
| − | Party has been furnished with a basis that must remain unshakable. The
| |
| − | members of the movement, both present and future, must never feel
| |
| − | themselves called upon to undertake a critical revision of these leading
| |
| − | postulates, but rather feel themselves obliged to put them into practice
| |
| − | as they stand. Otherwise the next generation would, in its turn and with
| |
| − | equal right, expend its energy in such purely formal work within the
| |
| − | party, instead of winning new adherents to the movement and thus adding
| |
| − | to its power. For the majority of our followers the essence of the
| |
| − | movement will consist not so much in the letter of our theses but in the
| |
| − | meaning that we attribute to them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The new movement owes its name to these considerations, and later on its
| |
| − | programme was drawn up in conformity with them. They are the basis of
| |
| − | our propaganda. In order to carry the idea of the People's State to
| |
| − | victory, a popular party had to be founded, a party that did not consist
| |
| − | of intellectual leaders only but also of manual labourers. Any attempt
| |
| − | to carry these theories into effect without the aid of a militant
| |
| − | organization would be doomed to failure to-day, as it has failed in the
| |
| − | past and must fail in the future. That is why the movement is not only
| |
| − | justified but it is also obliged to consider itself as the champion and
| |
| − | representative of these ideas. Just as the fundamental principles of the
| |
| − | National Socialist Movement are based on the folk idea, folk ideas are
| |
| − | National Socialist. If National Socialism would triumph it will have to
| |
| − | hold firm to this fact unreservedly, and here again it has not only the
| |
| − | right but also the duty to emphasize most rigidly that any attempt to
| |
| − | represent the folk idea outside of the National Socialist German Labour
| |
| − | Party is futile and in most cases fraudulent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the reproach should be launched against our movement that it has
| |
| − | 'monopolized' the folk idea, there is only one answer to give.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not only have we monopolized the folk idea but, to all practical intents
| |
| − | and purposes, we have created it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For what hitherto existed under this name was not in the least capable
| |
| − | of influencing the destiny of our people, since all those ideas lacked a
| |
| − | political and coherent formulation. In most cases they are nothing but
| |
| − | isolated and incoherent notions which are more or less right. Quite
| |
| − | frequently these were in open contradiction to one another and in no
| |
| − | case was there any internal cohesion among them. And even if this
| |
| − | internal cohesion existed it would have been much too weak to form the
| |
| − | basis of any movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only the National Socialist Movement proved capable of fulfilling this
| |
| − | task.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All kinds of associations and groups, big as well as little, now claim
| |
| − | the title VÖLKISCH. This is one result of the work which National
| |
| − | Socialism has done. Without this work, not one of all these parties
| |
| − | would have thought of adopting the word VÖLKISCH at all. That expression
| |
| − | would have meant nothing to them and especially their directors would
| |
| − | never have had anything to do with such an idea. Not until the work of
| |
| − | the German National Socialist Labour Party had given this idea a
| |
| − | pregnant meaning did it appear in the mouths of all kinds of people. Our
| |
| − | party above all, by the success of its propaganda, has shown the force
| |
| − | of the folk idea; so much so that the others, in an effort to gain
| |
| − | proselytes, find themselves forced to copy our example, at least in
| |
| − | words.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as heretofore they exploited everything to serve their petty
| |
| − | electoral purposes, to-day they use the word VÖLKISCH only as an
| |
| − | external and hollow-sounding phrase for the purpose of counteracting the
| |
| − | force of the impression which the National Socialist Party makes on the
| |
| − | members of those other parties. Only the desire to maintain their
| |
| − | existence and the fear that our movement may prevail, because it is
| |
| − | based on a WELTANSCHAUUNG that is of universal importance, and because
| |
| − | they feel that the exclusive character of our movement betokens danger
| |
| − | for them--only for these reasons do they use words which they
| |
| − | repudiated eight {259}years ago, derided seven years ago, branded as
| |
| − | stupid six years ago, combated five years ago, hated four years ago, and
| |
| − | finally, two years ago, annexed and incorporated them in their present
| |
| − | political vocabulary, employing them as war slogans in their struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so it is necessary even now not to cease calling attention to the
| |
| − | fact that not one of those parties has the slightest idea of what the
| |
| − | German nation needs. The most striking proof of this is represented by
| |
| − | the superficial way in which they use the word VÖLKISCH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not less dangerous are those who run about as semi-folkists formulating
| |
| − | fantastic schemes which are mostly based on 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 of a great homogeneous
| |
| − | fighting association and could by no means serve as the basis of its
| |
| − | organization. Those people who concoct a programme which consists partly
| |
| − | of their own ideas and partly of ideas taken from others, about which
| |
| − | they have read somewhere, are often more dangerous than the outspoken
| |
| − | enemies of the VÖLKISCH idea. At best they are sterile theorists but
| |
| − | more frequently they are mischievous agitators of the public mind. They
| |
| − | believe that they can mask their intellectual vanity, the futility of
| |
| − | their efforts, and their lack of stability, by sporting flowing beards
| |
| − | and indulging in ancient German gestures.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In face of all those futile attempts, it is therefore worth while to
| |
| − | recall the time when the new National Socialist Movement began its
| |
| − | fight.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER VI
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE FIRST PERIOD OF OUR STRUGGLE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The echoes of our first great meeting, in the banquet hall of the
| |
| − | Hofbräuhaus on February 24th, 1920, had not yet died away when we began
| |
| − | preparations for our next meeting. Up to that time we had to consider
| |
| − | carefully the venture of holding a small meeting every month or at most
| |
| − | every fortnight in a city like Munich; but now it was decided that we
| |
| − | should hold a mass meeting every week. I need not say that we anxiously
| |
| − | asked ourselves on each occasion again and again: Will the people come
| |
| − | and will they listen? Personally I was firmly convinced that if once
| |
| − | they came they would remain and listen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During that period the hall of the Hofbrau Haus in Munich acquired for
| |
| − | us, National Socialists, a sort of mystic significance. Every week there
| |
| − | was a meeting, almost always in that hall, and each time the hall was
| |
| − | better filled than on the former occasion, and our public more
| |
| − | attentive.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Starting with the theme, 'Responsibility for the War,' which nobody at
| |
| − | that time cared about, and passing on to the discussion of the peace
| |
| − | treaties, we dealt with almost everything that served to stimulate the
| |
| − | minds of our audience and make them interested in our ideas. We drew
| |
| − | attention to the peace treaties. What the new movement prophesied again
| |
| − | and again before those great masses of people has been fulfilled almost
| |
| − | in every detail. To-day it is easy to talk and write about these things.
| |
| − | But in those days a public mass meeting which was attended not by the
| |
| − | small bourgeoisie but by proletarians who had been aroused by agitators,
| |
| − | to criticize the Peace Treaty of Versailles meant an attack on the
| |
| − | Republic and an evidence of reaction, if not of monarchist tendencies.
| |
| − | The moment one uttered the first criticism of the Versailles Treaty one
| |
| − | could expect an immediate reply, which became almost stereotyped: 'And
| |
| − | Brest-Litowsk?' 'Brest-Litowsk!' And then the crowd would murmur and the
| |
| − | murmur would gradually swell into a roar, until the speaker would have
| |
| − | to give up his attempt to persuade them. It would be like knocking one's
| |
| − | head against a wall, so desperate were these people. They would not
| |
| − | listen nor understand that Versailles was a scandal and a disgrace and
| |
| − | that the dictate signified an act of highway robbery against our people.
| |
| − | The disruptive work done by the Marxists and the poisonous propaganda of
| |
| − | the external enemy had robbed these people of their reason. And one had
| |
| − | no right to complain. For the guilt on this side was enormous. What had
| |
| − | the German bourgeoisie done to call a halt to this terrible campaign of
| |
| − | disintegration, to oppose it and open a way to a recognition of the
| |
| − | truth by giving a better and more 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 little coteries; but there
| |
| − | where they should have been, where the wolves were at work, they never
| |
| − | risked their appearance, unless it gave them the opportunity of yelling
| |
| − | in concert with the wolves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As for myself, I then saw clearly that for the small group which first
| |
| − | composed our movement the question of war guilt had to be cleared up,
| |
| − | and cleared up in the light of historical truth. A preliminary condition
| |
| − | for the future success of our movement was that it should bring
| |
| − | knowledge of the meaning of the peace treaties to the minds of the
| |
| − | popular masses. In the opinion of the masses, the peace treaties then
| |
| − | signified a democratic success. Therefore, it was necessary to take the
| |
| − | opposite side and dig ourselves into the minds of the people as the
| |
| − | enemies of the peace treaties; so that later on, when the naked truth of
| |
| − | this despicable swindle would be disclosed in all its hideousness, the
| |
| − | people would recall the position which we then took and would give us
| |
| − | their confidence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Already at that time I took up my stand on those important fundamental
| |
| − | questions where public opinion had gone wrong as a whole. I opposed
| |
| − | these wrong notions without regard either for popularity or for hatred,
| |
| − | and I was ready to face the fight. The National Socialist German Labour
| |
| − | Party ought not to be the beadle but rather the master of 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 to conform to the tactics of an opponent
| |
| − | and use the same battle-cries, when his tactics have succeeded in
| |
| − | leading the people to crazy conclusions or to adopt mistaken attitudes
| |
| − | towards the questions at issue. This temptation is particularly strong
| |
| − | when motives can be found, though they are entirely illusory, that seem
| |
| − | to point towards the same ends which the young movement is aiming at.
| |
| − | Human poltroonery will then all the more readily adopt those arguments
| |
| − | which give it a semblance of justification, 'from its own point of
| |
| − | view,' in participating in the criminal policy which the adversary is
| |
| − | following.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On several occasions I have experienced such cases, in which the
| |
| − | greatest energy had to be employed to prevent the ship of our movement
| |
| − | from being drawn into a general current which had been started
| |
| − | artificially, and indeed from sailing with it. The last occasion was
| |
| − | when our German Press, the Hecuba of the existence of the German nation,
| |
| − | succeeded in bringing the question of South Tyrol into a position of
| |
| − | importance 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 fear of public opinion which had been excited by the
| |
| − | Jews, and foolishly contributed to help in the struggle against a system
| |
| − | which we Germans ought, particularly in 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, our so-called patriots
| |
| − | vociferate against a man and his system which have had the courage to
| |
| − | liberate themselves from the shackles of Jewish Freemasonry at least in
| |
| − | one quarter of the globe and to set the forces of national resistance
| |
| − | against the international world-poison. But weak characters were tempted
| |
| − | to set their sails according to the direction of the wind and capitulate
| |
| − | before the shout of public opinion. For it was veritably a capitulation.
| |
| − | They are so much in the habit of lying and so morally base that men may
| |
| − | not admit this even to themselves, but the truth remains that only
| |
| − | cowardice and fear of the public feeling aroused by the Jews induced
| |
| − | certain people to join in the hue and cry. All the other reasons put
| |
| − | forward were only miserable excuses of paltry culprits who were
| |
| − | conscious of their own crime.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There it was necessary to grasp the rudder with an iron hand and turn
| |
| − | the movement about, so as to save it from a course that would have led
| |
| − | it on the rocks. Certainly to attempt such a change of course was not a
| |
| − | popular manoeuvre at that time, because all the leading forces of public
| |
| − | opinion had been active and a great flame of public feeling illuminated
| |
| − | only one direction. Such a decision almost always brings disfavour on
| |
| − | those who dare to take it. In the course of history not a few men have
| |
| − | been stoned for an act for which posterity has afterwards thanked them
| |
| − | on its knees.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But a movement must count on posterity and not on the plaudits of the
| |
| − | movement. It may well be that at such moments certain individuals have
| |
| − | to endure hours of anguish; but they should not forget that the moment
| |
| − | of liberation will come and that a movement which purposes to reshape
| |
| − | the world must serve the future and not the passing hour.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On this point it may be asserted that the greatest and most enduring
| |
| − | successes in history are mostly those which were least understood at the
| |
| − | beginning, because they were in strong contrast to public opinion and
| |
| − | the views and wishes of the time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We had experience of this when we made our own first public appearance.
| |
| − | In all truth it can be said that we did not court public favour but made
| |
| − | an onslaught on the follies of our people. In those days the following
| |
| − | happened almost always: I presented myself before an assembly of men who
| |
| − | believed the opposite of what I wished to say and who wanted the
| |
| − | opposite of what I believed in. Then I had to spend a couple of hours in
| |
| − | persuading two or three thousand people to give up the opinions they had
| |
| − | first held, in destroying the foundations of their views with one blow
| |
| − | after another and finally in leading them over to take their stand on
| |
| − | the grounds of our own convictions and our WELTANSCHAUUNG.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I learned something that was important at that time, namely, to snatch
| |
| − | from the hands of the enemy the weapons 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, were furnished with a definite
| |
| − | repertoire of arguments out of which they took points against our claims
| |
| − | which were being constantly repeated. The uniform character of this mode
| |
| − | of procedure pointed to a systematic and unified training. And so we
| |
| − | were able to recognize the incredible way in which the enemy's
| |
| − | propagandists had been disciplined, and I am proud to-day that I
| |
| − | discovered a means not only of making this propaganda ineffective but of
| |
| − | beating the artificers of it at their own work. Two years later I was
| |
| − | master of that art.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In every speech which I made it was important to get a clear idea
| |
| − | beforehand of the probable form and matter of the counter-arguments we
| |
| − | had to expect in the discussion, so that in the course of my own speech
| |
| − | these could be dealt with and refuted. To this end it was necessary to
| |
| − | mention all the possible objections and show their inconsistency; it was
| |
| − | all the easier to win over an honest listener by expunging from his
| |
| − | memory the arguments which had been impressed upon it, so that we
| |
| − | anticipated our replies. What he had learned was refuted without having
| |
| − | been mentioned by him and that made him all the more attentive to what I
| |
| − | had to say.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was the reason why, after my first lecture on the 'Peace Treaty of
| |
| − | Versailles,' which I delivered to the troops while I was still a
| |
| − | political instructor in my regiment, I made an alteration in the title
| |
| − | and subject and henceforth spoke on 'The Treaties of Brest-Litowsk and
| |
| − | Versailles.' For after the discussion which followed my first lecture I
| |
| − | quickly ascertained that in reality people knew nothing about the Treaty
| |
| − | of Brest-Litowsk and that able party propaganda had succeeded in
| |
| − | presenting that Treaty as one of the most scandalous acts of violence in
| |
| − | the history of the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a result of the persistency with which this falsehood was repeated
| |
| − | again and again before the masses of the people, millions of Germans saw
| |
| − | in the Treaty of Versailles a just castigation for the crime we had
| |
| − | committed at Brest-Litowsk. Thus they considered all opposition to
| |
| − | Versailles as unjust and in many cases there was an honest moral dislike
| |
| − | to such a proceeding. And this was also the reason why the shameless and
| |
| − | monstrous word 'Reparations' came into common use in Germany. This
| |
| − | hypocritical falsehood appeared to millions of our exasperated fellow
| |
| − | countrymen as the fulfilment of a higher justice. It is a terrible
| |
| − | thought, but the fact was so. The best proof of this was the propaganda
| |
| − | which I initiated against Versailles by explaining the Treaty of
| |
| − | Brest-Litowsk. I compared the two treaties with one another, point by
| |
| − | point, and showed how in truth the one treaty was immensely humane, in
| |
| − | contradistinction to the inhuman barbarity of the other. The effect was
| |
| − | very striking. Then I spoke on this theme before an assembly of two
| |
| − | thousand persons, during which I often saw three thousand six hundred
| |
| − | hostile eyes fixed on me. And three hours later I had in front of me a
| |
| − | swaying mass of righteous indignation and fury. A great lie had been
| |
| − | uprooted from the hearts and brains of a crowd composed of thousands of
| |
| − | individuals and a truth had been implanted in its place.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The two lectures--that 'On the Causes of the World War' and 'On the
| |
| − | Peace Treaties of Brest-Litowsk and Versailles' 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 reigned among
| |
| − | those from whom our movement recruited its first members.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Furthermore, these gatherings brought me the advantage that I slowly
| |
| − | became a platform orator at mass meetings, and gave me practice in the
| |
| − | pathos and gesture required in large halls that held thousands of
| |
| − | people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Outside of the small circles which I have mentioned, at that time I
| |
| − | found no party engaged in explaining things to the people in this way.
| |
| − | Not one of these parties was then active which talk to-day as if it was
| |
| − | they who had brought about the change in public opinion. If a political
| |
| − | leader, calling himself a nationalist, pronounced a discourse somewhere
| |
| − | or other on this theme it was only before circles which for the most
| |
| − | part were already of his own conviction and among whom the most that was
| |
| − | done was 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 whose opinions and mental attitudes held them bound to
| |
| − | the enemy's camp.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The one-page circular was also adopted by us to help in this propaganda.
| |
| − | While still a soldier I had written a circular in which I contrasted the
| |
| − | Treaty of Brest-Litowsk with that of Versailles. That circular was
| |
| − | printed and distributed in large numbers. Later on I used it for the
| |
| − | party, and also with good success. Our first meetings were distinguished
| |
| − | 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 already stated that all the formidable events
| |
| − | which have changed the aspect of the world were carried through, not by
| |
| − | the written but by the spoken word. On that point there was a long
| |
| − | discussion in a certain section of the Press during the course of which
| |
| − | our shrewd bourgeois people strongly opposed my thesis. But the reason
| |
| − | for this attitude confounded the sceptics. The bourgeois intellectuals
| |
| − | protested against my attitude simply because they themselves did not
| |
| − | have the force or ability to influence the masses through the spoken
| |
| − | word; for they always relied exclusively on the help of writers and did
| |
| − | not enter the arena themselves as orators for the purpose of arousing
| |
| − | the people. The development of events necessarily led to that condition
| |
| − | of affairs which is characteristic of the bourgeoisie to-day, namely,
| |
| − | the loss of the psychological instinct to act upon and influence the
| |
| − | masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An orator receives continuous guidance from the people before whom he
| |
| − | speaks. This helps him to correct the direction 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 the desired effect.
| |
| − | But the writer does not know his reader at all. Therefore, from the
| |
| − | outset he does not address himself to a definite human group of persons
| |
| − | which he has before his eyes but must write in a general way. Hence, up
| |
| − | to a certain extent he must fail in psychological finesse and
| |
| − | flexibility. Therefore, in general it may be said that a brilliant
| |
| − | orator writes better than a brilliant writer can speak, unless the
| |
| − | latter has continual practice in public speaking. One must also remember
| |
| − | that of itself the multitude is mentally inert, that it remains attached
| |
| − | to its old habits and that it is not naturally prone to read something
| |
| − | which does not conform with its own pre-established beliefs when such
| |
| − | writing does not contain what the multitude hopes to find there.
| |
| − | Therefore, some piece of writing which has a particular tendency 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 a
| |
| − | momentary interest in those whose opinions differ from it. The picture,
| |
| − | in all its forms, including the film, has better prospects. Here there
| |
| − | is less need of elaborating the appeal to the intelligence. It is
| |
| − | sufficient if one be careful to have quite short texts, because many
| |
| − | people are more ready to accept a pictorial presentation than to read a
| |
| − | long written description. In a much shorter time, at one stroke I might
| |
| − | say, people will understand a pictorial presentation of something which
| |
| − | it would take them a long and laborious effort of reading to understand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The most important consideration, however, is that one never knows into
| |
| − | what hands a piece of written material comes 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 the mental level of
| |
| − | the reader and suits his nature. Therefore, a book which is meant for
| |
| − | the broad masses of the people must try from the very start to gain its
| |
| − | effects through a style and level of ideas which would be quite
| |
| − | different from a book intended to be read by the higher intellectual
| |
| − | classes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only through his capacity for adaptability 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 has the genius of a great and
| |
| − | popular orator he will scarcely ever repeat the same argument or the
| |
| − | same material in the same form on two consecutive occasions. He will
| |
| − | always follow the lead of the great mass in such a way that from the
| |
| − | living emotion of his hearers the apt word which he needs will be
| |
| − | suggested to him and in its turn this will go straight to the hearts of
| |
| − | his hearers. Should he make even a slight mistake he has the living
| |
| − | correction before him. As I have already 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 in the whole of his argument,
| |
| − | and, thirdly, in how far they are convinced of the justice of what has
| |
| − | been placed before them. Should he observe, first, that his hearers do
| |
| − | not understand him he will make his explanation so elementary and clear
| |
| − | 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
| |
| − | make one idea follow another carefully and slowly until the most
| |
| − | slow-witted hearer no longer lags behind. Thirdly, as soon as he has the
| |
| − | feeling that they do not seem convinced that he is right in the way he
| |
| − | has put things to them he will repeat his argument over and over again,
| |
| − | always giving fresh illustrations, and he himself will state their
| |
| − | unspoken objection. He will repeat these objections, dissecting them and
| |
| − | refuting them, until the last group of the opposition show him by their
| |
| − | behaviour and play of expression that they have capitulated before his
| |
| − | exposition of the case.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not infrequently it is a case of overcoming ingrained prejudices which
| |
| − | are mostly unconscious and are supported by sentiment rather than
| |
| − | reason. It is a thousand times more difficult to overcome this barrier
| |
| − | of instinctive aversion, emotional hatred and preventive dissent than to
| |
| − | correct opinions which are founded on defective or erroneous knowledge.
| |
| − | False ideas and ignorance may be set aside by means of instruction, but
| |
| − | emotional resistance never can. Nothing but an appeal to these hidden
| |
| − | forces will be effective here. And that appeal can be made by scarcely
| |
| − | any writer. Only the orator can hope to make it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A very striking proof of this is found in the fact that, though we had a
| |
| − | bourgeois Press which in many cases was well written and produced and
| |
| − | had a circulation of millions among the people, it could not prevent the
| |
| − | broad masses from becoming the implacable enemies of the bourgeois
| |
| − | class. The deluge of papers and books published by the intellectual
| |
| − | circles year after year passed over the millions of the lower social
| |
| − | strata like water over glazed leather. This proves that one of two
| |
| − | things must be true: either that the matter offered in the bourgeois
| |
| − | Press was worthless or that it is impossible to reach the hearts of the
| |
| − | broad masses by means of the written word alone. Of course, the latter
| |
| − | would be specially true where the written material shows such little
| |
| − | psychological insight as has hitherto been the case.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is useless to object here, as certain big Berlin papers of
| |
| − | German-National tendencies have attempted to do, that this statement is
| |
| − | refuted by the fact that the Marxists have exercised their greatest
| |
| − | influence through their writings, and especially through their principal
| |
| − | book, published by Karl Marx. Seldom has a more superficial argument
| |
| − | been based on a false assumption. What gave Marxism its amazing
| |
| − | influence over the broad masses was not that formal printed work which
| |
| − | sets forth the Jewish system of ideas, but the tremendous oral
| |
| − | propaganda carried on for years among the masses. Out of one hundred
| |
| − | thousand German workers scarcely one hundred know of Marx's book. It has
| |
| − | been studied much more in intellectual circles and especially by the
| |
| − | Jews than by the genuine followers of the movement who come from the
| |
| − | lower classes. That work was not written for the masses, but exclusively
| |
| − | for the intellectual leaders of the Jewish machine for conquering the
| |
| − | world. The engine was heated with quite different stuff: namely, the
| |
| − | journalistic Press. What differentiates the bourgeois Press from the
| |
| − | Marxist Press is that the latter is written by agitators, whereas the
| |
| − | bourgeois Press would like to carry on agitation by means of
| |
| − | professional writers. The Social-Democrat sub-editor, who almost always
| |
| − | came directly from the meeting to the editorial offices of his paper,
| |
| − | felt his job on his finger-tips. But the bourgeois writer who left his
| |
| − | desk to appear before the masses already felt ill when he smelled the
| |
| − | very odour of the crowd and found that what he had written was useless
| |
| − | to him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What won over millions of workpeople to the Marxist cause was not the EX
| |
| − | CATHEDRA style of the Marxist writers but the formidable propagandist
| |
| − | work done by tens of thousands of indefatigable agitators, commencing
| |
| − | with the leading fiery agitator down to the smallest official in the
| |
| − | syndicate, the trusted delegate and the platform orator. Furthermore,
| |
| − | there were the hundreds of thousands of meetings where these orators,
| |
| − | standing on tables in smoky taverns, hammered their ideas into the heads
| |
| − | of the masses, thus acquiring an admirable psychological knowledge of
| |
| − | the human material they had to deal with. And in this way they were
| |
| − | enabled to select the best weapons for their assault on the citadel of
| |
| − | public opinion. In addition to all this there were the gigantic
| |
| − | mass-demonstrations with processions in which a hundred thousand men
| |
| − | took part. All this was calculated to impress on the petty-hearted
| |
| − | individual the proud conviction that, though a small worm, he was at the
| |
| − | same time a cell of the great dragon before whose devastating breath the
| |
| − | hated bourgeois world would one day be consumed in fire and flame, and
| |
| − | the dictatorship of the proletariat would celebrate its conclusive
| |
| − | victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This kind of propaganda influenced men in such a way as to give them a
| |
| − | taste for reading the Social Democratic Press and prepare their minds
| |
| − | for its teaching. That Press, in its turn, was a vehicle of the spoken
| |
| − | word rather than of the written word. Whereas in the bourgeois camp
| |
| − | professors and learned writers, theorists and authors of all kinds, made
| |
| − | attempts at talking, in the Marxist camp real speakers often made
| |
| − | attempts 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 of twisting the truth to suit his own purposes, he was an
| |
| − | effective writer but in reality his MÉTIER was that of a revolutionary
| |
| − | orator rather than a writer.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this reason the journalistic bourgeois world, setting aside the fact
| |
| − | that here also the Jew held the whip hand and that therefore this press
| |
| − | did not really interest itself in the instructtion of the broad masses,
| |
| − | was not able to exercise even the least influence over the opinions held
| |
| − | by the great masses of our people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is difficult to remove emotional prejudices, psychological bias,
| |
| − | feelings, etc., and to put others in their place. Success depends here
| |
| − | on imponderable conditions and influences. Only the orator who is gifted
| |
| − | with the most sensitive insight can estimate all this. Even the time of
| |
| − | day at which the speech is delivered has a decisive influence on its
| |
| − | results. The same speech, made by the same orator and on the same theme,
| |
| − | will have very different results according as it is delivered at ten
| |
| − | o'clock in the forenoon, at three in the afternoon, or in the evening.
| |
| − | When I first engaged in public speaking I arranged for meetings to take
| |
| − | place in the forenoon and I remember particularly a demonstration that
| |
| − | we held in the Munich Kindl Keller 'Against the Oppression of German
| |
| − | Districts.' That was the biggest hall then in Munich and the audacity of
| |
| − | our undertaking was great. In order to make the hour of the meeting
| |
| − | attractive for all the members of our movement and the other people who
| |
| − | might come, I fixed it for ten o'clock on a Sunday morning. The result
| |
| − | was depressing. But it was very instructive. The hall was filled. 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, felt
| |
| − | profoundly unhappy at the thought that I could not establish the
| |
| − | slightest contact with my audience. I do not think I spoke worse than
| |
| − | before, but the effect seemed absolutely negative. I left the hall very
| |
| − | discontented, but also feeling that I had gained a new experience. Later
| |
| − | on I tried the same kind of experiment, but always with the same
| |
| − | results.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was nothing to be wondered at. If one goes to a theatre to see a
| |
| − | matinée performance and then attends an evening performance of the same
| |
| − | play one is astounded at the difference in the impressions created. A
| |
| − | sensitive person recognizes for himself the fact that these two states
| |
| − | of mind caused by the matinee and the evening performance respectively
| |
| − | are quite different in themselves. The same is true of cinema
| |
| − | productions. This latter point is important; for one may say of the
| |
| − | theatre that perhaps in the afternoon the actor does not make the same
| |
| − | effort as in the evening. But surely it cannot be said that the cinema
| |
| − | is different in the afternoon from what it is at nine o'clock in the
| |
| − | evening. No, here the time exercises a distinct influence, just as a
| |
| − | room exercises a distinct influence on a person. There are rooms which
| |
| − | leave one cold, for reasons which are difficult to explain. There are
| |
| − | rooms which refuse steadfastly to allow any favourable atmosphere to be
| |
| − | created in them. Moreover, certain memories and traditions which are
| |
| − | present as pictures in the human mind may have a determining influence
| |
| − | on the impression produced. Thus, a representation of Parsifal at
| |
| − | Bayreuth will have an effect quite different from that which the same
| |
| − | opera produces in any other part of the world. The mysterious charm of
| |
| − | the House on the 'Festival Heights' in the old city of The Margrave
| |
| − | cannot be equalled or substituted anywhere else.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In all these cases one deals with the problem of influencing the freedom
| |
| − | of the human will. And that is true especially of meetings where there
| |
| − | are men whose wills are opposed to the speaker and who must be brought
| |
| − | around to a new way of thinking. In the morning and during the day it
| |
| − | seems that the power of the human will rebels with its strongest energy
| |
| − | against any attempt to impose upon it the will or opinion of another. On
| |
| − | the other hand, in the evening it easily succumbs to the domination of a
| |
| − | stronger will. Because really in such assemblies there is a contest
| |
| − | between two opposite forces. The superior oratorical art of a man who
| |
| − | has the compelling character of an apostle will succeed better in
| |
| − | bringing around to a new way of thinking those who have naturally been
| |
| − | subjected to a weakening of their forces of resistance rather than in
| |
| − | converting those who are in full possession of their volitional and
| |
| − | intellectual energies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The mysterious artificial dimness of the Catholic churches also serves
| |
| − | this purpose, the burning candles, the incense, the thurible, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this struggle between the orator and the opponent whom he must
| |
| − | convert to his cause this marvellous sensibility towards the
| |
| − | psychological influences of propaganda can hardly ever be availed of by
| |
| − | an author. Generally speaking, the effect of the writer's work helps
| |
| − | rather to conserve, reinforce and deepen the foundations of a mentality
| |
| − | already existing. All really great historical revolutions were not
| |
| − | produced by the written word. At most, they were accompanied by it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is out of the question to think that the French Revolution could have
| |
| − | been carried into effect by philosophizing theories if they had not
| |
| − | found an army of agitators led by demagogues of the grand style. These
| |
| − | demagogues inflamed popular passion that had been already aroused, until
| |
| − | that volcanic eruption finally broke out and convulsed the whole of
| |
| − | Europe. And the same happened in the case of the gigantic Bolshevik
| |
| − | revolution which recently took place in Russia. It was not due to the
| |
| − | writers on Lenin's side but to the oratorical activities of those who
| |
| − | preached the doctrine of hatred and that of the innumerable small and
| |
| − | great orators who took part in the agitation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The masses of illiterate Russians were not fired to Communist
| |
| − | revolutionary enthusiasm by reading the theories of Karl Marx but by the
| |
| − | promises of paradise made to the people by thousands of agitators in the
| |
| − | service of an idea.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was always so, and it will always be so.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is just typical of our pig-headed intellectuals, who live apart from
| |
| − | the practical world, to think that a writer must of necessity be
| |
| − | superior to an orator in intelligence. This point of view was once
| |
| − | exquisitely illustrated by a critique, published in a certain National
| |
| − | paper which I have already mentioned, where it was stated that one is
| |
| − | often disillusioned by reading the speech of an acknowledged great
| |
| − | orator in print. That reminded me of another article which came into my
| |
| − | hands during the War. It dealt with the speeches of Lloyd George, who
| |
| − | was then Minister of Munitions, and examined them in a painstaking way
| |
| − | under the microscope of criticism. The writer made the brilliant
| |
| − | statement that these speeches showed inferior intelligence and learning
| |
| − | and that, moreover, they were banal and commonplace productions. I
| |
| − | myself procured some of these speeches, published in pamphlet form, and
| |
| − | had to laugh at the fact that a normal German quill-driver did not in
| |
| − | the least understand these psychological masterpieces in the art of
| |
| − | influencing the masses. This man criticized these speeches exclusively
| |
| − | according to the impression they made on his own blasé mind, whereas the
| |
| − | great British 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 from this point of view, that Englishman's speeches
| |
| − | were most wonderful achievements, precisely because they showed an
| |
| − | astounding knowledge of the soul of the broad masses of the people. For
| |
| − | that reason their effect was really penetrating. Compare with them the
| |
| − | futile stammerings of a Bethmann-Hollweg. On the surface his speeches
| |
| − | were undoubtedly more intellectual, but they just proved this man's
| |
| − | inability to speak to the people, which he really could not do.
| |
| − | Nevertheless, to the average stupid brain of the German writer, who is,
| |
| − | of course, endowed with a lot of scientific learning, it came quite
| |
| − | natural to judge the speeches of the English Minister--which were made
| |
| − | for the purpose of influencing 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 compare them in the light of that impression
| |
| − | with the brilliant but futile talk of the German statesman, which of
| |
| − | course appealed to the writer's mind much more favourably. That the
| |
| − | genius of Lloyd George was not only equal but a thousandfold superior to
| |
| − | that of a Bethmann-Hollweg is proved by the fact that he found for his
| |
| − | speeches that form and expression which opened the hearts of his people
| |
| − | to him and made these people carry out his will absolutely. The
| |
| − | primitive quality itself of those speeches, the originality of his
| |
| − | expressions, his choice of clear and simple illustration, are examples
| |
| − | which prove the superior political capacity of this Englishman. For one
| |
| − | must never judge the speech of a statesman to his people by the
| |
| − | impression which it leaves on the mind of a university professor but by
| |
| − | the effect it produces on the people. And this is the sole criterion of
| |
| − | the orator's genius.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The astonishing development of our movement, which was created from
| |
| − | nothing a few years ago and is to-day singled out for persecution by all
| |
| − | the internal and external enemies of our nation, must be attributed to
| |
| − | the constant recognition and practical application of those principles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Written matter also played an important part in our movement; but at the
| |
| − | stage of which I am writing it served 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 masses of our adversaries.
| |
| − | It was only in very rare cases that a convinced and devoted Social
| |
| − | Democrat or Communist was induced to acquire an understanding of our
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG or to study a criticism of his own by procuring and
| |
| − | reading one of our pamphlets or even one of our books. Even a newspaper
| |
| − | is rarely read if it does not bear the stamp of a party affiliation.
| |
| − | Moreover, the reading of newspapers helps little; because the general
| |
| − | picture given by a single number of a newspaper is so confused and
| |
| − | produces such a fragmentary impression that it really does not influence
| |
| − | the occasional reader. And where a man has to count his pennies it
| |
| − | cannot be assumed that, exclusively for the purpose of being objectively
| |
| − | informed, he will become a regular reader or subscriber to a paper which
| |
| − | opposes his views. Only one who has already joined a movement will
| |
| − | regularly read the party organ of that movement, and especially for the
| |
| − | purpose of 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 by one person or another, all the
| |
| − | more willingly if its display title refers to a question about which
| |
| − | everybody is talking at the moment. Perhaps the reader, after having
| |
| − | read through such a leaflet more or less thoughtfully, will have new
| |
| − | viewpoints and mental attitudes and may give his attention to a new
| |
| − | movement. But with these, even in the best of cases, only a small
| |
| − | impulse will be given, but no definite conviction will be created;
| |
| − | because the leaflet can do nothing more than draw attention to something
| |
| − | and can become effective only by bringing the reader subsequently into a
| |
| − | situation where he is more fundamentally informed and instructed. Such
| |
| − | instruction must always be given at the mass assembly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Mass assemblies are also necessary for the reason that, in attending
| |
| − | them, the individual who felt himself formerly only on the point of
| |
| − | joining the new movement, now begins to feel isolated and in fear of
| |
| − | being left alone as he acquires for the first time the picture of a
| |
| − | great community which has a strengthening and encouraging effect on most
| |
| − | people. Brigaded in a company or battalion, surrounded by his
| |
| − | companions, he will march with a lighter heart to the attack than if he
| |
| − | had to march alone. In the crowd he feels himself in some way thus
| |
| − | sheltered, though in reality there are a thousand arguments against such
| |
| − | a feeling.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Mass demonstrations on the grand scale not only reinforce the will of
| |
| − | the individual but they draw him still closer to the movement and help
| |
| − | to create an ESPRIT DE CORPS. The man who appears first as the
| |
| − | representative of a new doctrine in his place of business or in his
| |
| − | factory is bound to feel himself embarrassed and has need of that
| |
| − | reinforcement which comes from the consciousness that he is a member of
| |
| − | a great community. And only a mass demonstration can impress upon him
| |
| − | the greatness of this community. If, on leaving the shop or mammoth
| |
| − | factory, in which he feels very small indeed, he should enter a vast
| |
| − | assembly for the first time and see around him thousands and thousands
| |
| − | of men who hold the same opinions; if, while still seeking his way, he
| |
| − | is gripped by the force of mass-suggestion which comes from the
| |
| − | excitement and enthusiasm of three or four thousand other men in whose
| |
| − | midst he finds himself; if the manifest success and the concensus of
| |
| − | thousands confirm the truth and justice of the new teaching and for the
| |
| − | first time raise doubt in his mind as to the truth of the opinions held
| |
| − | by himself up to now--then he submits himself to the fascination of
| |
| − | what we call mass-suggestion. The will, the yearning and indeed the
| |
| − | strength of thousands of people are in each individual. A man who enters
| |
| − | such a meeting in doubt and hesitation leaves it inwardly fortified; he
| |
| − | has become a member of a community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist Movement should never forget this, and it should
| |
| − | never allow itself to be influenced by these bourgeois duffers who think
| |
| − | they know everything but who have foolishly gambled away a great State,
| |
| − | together with their own existence and the supremacy of 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 of
| |
| − | Marxism. In that they have shown themselves most pitiably and miserably
| |
| − | impotent. So that the present opinion they have of themselves is only
| |
| − | equal to their conceit. Their pride and stupidity are fruits of the same
| |
| − | tree.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If these people try to disparage the 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.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER VII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE CONFLICT WITH THE RED FORCES
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | In 1919-20 and also in 1921 I attended some of the bourgeois meetings.
| |
| − | Invariably I had the same feeling towards 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 tasted unpleasant.
| |
| − | If it were possible to tie ropes round the German people and forcibly
| |
| − | drag them to these bourgeois meetings, keeping them there behind barred
| |
| − | doors and allowing nobody to escape until the meeting closed, then this
| |
| − | procedure might prove successful in the course of a few hundred years.
| |
| − | For my own part, I must frankly admit that, under such circumstances, I
| |
| − | could not find life 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 sane and unspoilt masses shun these 'bourgeois mass
| |
| − | meetings' as the devil shuns holy water.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I came to know the prophets of the bourgeois WELTANSCHAUUNG, and I was
| |
| − | not surprised at what I learned, as I knew that they attached little
| |
| − | importance to the spoken word. At that time I attended meetings of the
| |
| − | Democrats, the German Nationalists, the German People'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. Nearly always they
| |
| − | were made up exclusively of party members. The whole affair was more
| |
| − | like a yawning card party than an assembly of people who had just passed
| |
| − | through a great revolution. The speakers did all they could to maintain
| |
| − | this tranquil atmosphere. They declaimed, or rather read out, their
| |
| − | speeches in the style of an intellectual newspaper article or a learned
| |
| − | treatise, avoiding all striking expressions. Here and there a feeble
| |
| − | professorial joke would be introduced, whereupon the people sitting at
| |
| − | the speaker's table felt themselves obliged to laugh--not loudly but
| |
| − | encouragingly and with well-bred reserve.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And there were always those people at 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. (Note 17) The
| |
| − | speech was delivered or rather read out by a venerable old professor from
| |
| − | one or other of the universities. The committee sat on the platform: one
| |
| − | monocle on the right, another monocle on the left, and in the centre a
| |
| − | gentleman with no monocle. All three of them were punctiliously attired
| |
| − | in morning coats, and I had the impression of being present before a
| |
| − | judge's bench just as the death sentence was about to be pronounced or
| |
| − | at a christening or some more solemn religious ceremony. The so-called
| |
| − | speech, which in printed form may have read quite well, had a disastrous
| |
| − | effect. After three quarters of an hour the audience fell into a sort of
| |
| − | hypnotic trance, which was interrupted only when some man or woman left
| |
| − | the hall, or by the clatter which the waitresses made, or by the
| |
| − | increasing yawns of slumbering individuals. I had posted myself behind
| |
| − | three workmen who were present either out of curiosity or because they
| |
| − | were sent there by their parties. From time to time they glanced at one
| |
| − | another with an ill-concealed grin, nudged one another with the elbow,
| |
| − | and then silently left the hall. One could see that they had no
| |
| − | intention whatsoever of interrupting the proceedings, nor indeed was it
| |
| − | necessary to interrupt them. At long last the celebration showed signs
| |
| − | of drawing to a close. After the professor, whose voice had meanwhile
| |
| − | become more and more inaudible, finally ended his speech, the gentleman
| |
| − | without the monocle delivered a rousing peroration to the assembled
| |
| − | 'German sisters and brothers.' On behalf of the audience and himself he
| |
| − | expressed gratitude for the magnificent lecture which they had just
| |
| − | heard from Professor X and emphasized how deeply the Professor's words
| |
| − | had moved them all. If a general discussion on the lecture were to take
| |
| − | place it would be tantamount to profanity, and he thought he was voicing
| |
| − | the opinion 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 in singing the patriotic song, WIR SIND EIN EINIG VOLK
| |
| − | VON BRÜDERN. The proceedings finally closed with the anthem, DEUTSCHLAND
| |
| − | ÜBER ALLES.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 17. The Battle of Leipzig (1813), where the Germans inflicted an
| |
| − | overwhelming defeat on Napoleon, was the decisive event which put an end
| |
| − | to the French occupation of Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The occupation had lasted about twenty years. After the Great War, and
| |
| − | the partial occupation of Germany once again by French forces, the
| |
| − | Germans used to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig as a
| |
| − | symbol of their yearning.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | And then they all sang. It appeared to me that when the second verse was
| |
| − | reached the voices were fewer and that only when the refrain came on
| |
| − | they swelled loudly. When we reached the third verse my belief was
| |
| − | confirmed that a good many of those present were not very familiar with
| |
| − | the text.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But what has all this to do with the matter when such a song is sung
| |
| − | wholeheartedly and fervidly by an assembly of German nationals?
| |
| − | | |
| − | After this the meeting broke up and 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 was also my feeling. And was this the way
| |
| − | to honour an heroic struggle in which hundreds of thousands of Prussians
| |
| − | and Germans had fought? To the devil with it all!
| |
| − | | |
| − | That sort of thing might find favour with the Government, it being
| |
| − | merely a 'peaceful' meeting. The Minister responsible for law and order
| |
| − | need not fear that enthusiasm might suddenly get the better of public
| |
| − | decorum and induce these people to pour out of the room and, instead of
| |
| − | dispersing to beer halls and cafes, march in rows of four through the
| |
| − | town singing DEUTSCHLAND hoch in Ehren and causing some unpleasantness
| |
| − | to a police force in need of rest.
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. That type of citizen is of no use to anyone.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the other hand the National Socialist meetings were by no means
| |
| − | 'peaceable' affairs. Two distinct WELTANSCHHAUUNGen raged in bitter
| |
| − | opposition to one another, and these meetings did not close with the
| |
| − | mechanical rendering of a dull patriotic song but rather with a
| |
| − | passionate outbreak of popular national feeling.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was imperative from the start to introduce rigid discipline into our
| |
| − | meetings and establish the authority of the chairman absolutely. Our
| |
| − | purpose was not to pour out a mixture of soft-soap bourgeois talk; what
| |
| − | we had to say was meant to arouse the opponents at our meetings! How
| |
| − | often did they not turn up in masses with a few individual agitators
| |
| − | among them and, judging by the expression on all their faces, ready to
| |
| − | finish us off there and then.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yes, how often did they not turn up in huge numbers, those supporters of
| |
| − | the Red Flag, all previously instructed to smash up everything once and
| |
| − | for all and put an end to these meetings. More often than not everything
| |
| − | hung on a mere thread, and only the chairman's ruthless determination
| |
| − | and the rough handling by our ushers baffled our adversaries'
| |
| − | intentions. And indeed they had every reason for being irritated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that we had chosen red as the colour for our posters sufficed
| |
| − | to attract them to our meetings. The ordinary bourgeoisie were very
| |
| − | shocked to see that, we had also chosen the symbolic red of Bolshevism
| |
| − | and they regarded this as something ambiguously significant. The
| |
| − | suspicion was whispered in German Nationalist circles that we also were
| |
| − | merely another variety of Marxism, perhaps even Marxists suitably
| |
| − | disguised, or better still, Socialists. The actual difference between
| |
| − | Socialism and Marxism still remains a mystery to these people up to this
| |
| − | day. The charge of Marxism was conclusively proved when it was
| |
| − | discovered that at our meetings we deliberately substituted the words
| |
| − | 'Fellow-countrymen and Women' for 'Ladies and Gentlemen' and addressed
| |
| − | each other as 'Party Comrade'. We used to roar with laughter at these
| |
| − | silly faint-hearted bourgeoisie and their efforts to puzzle out our
| |
| − | origin, our intentions and our aims.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We chose red for our posters after particular and careful deliberation,
| |
| − | our intention being to irritate the Left, so as to arouse their
| |
| − | attention and tempt them to come to our meetings--if only in order to
| |
| − | break them up--so that in this way we got a chance of talking to the
| |
| − | people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In those years' it was indeed a delightful experience to follow the
| |
| − | constantly changing tactics of our perplexed and helpless adversaries.
| |
| − | First of all they appealed to their followers to ignore us 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 their way
| |
| − | to us and accepted our teaching. Then the leaders became nervous and
| |
| − | uneasy. They clung to their belief that such a development should not be
| |
| − | ignored 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 with the clenched hand of the
| |
| − | proletarian at the representatives of a 'monarchist and reactionary
| |
| − | agitation'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our meetings suddenly became packed with work-people fully
| |
| − | three-quarters of an hour before the proceedings were scheduled to
| |
| − | begin. These gatherings resembled a powder cask ready to explode at any
| |
| − | moment; and the fuse was conveniently at hand. But matters always turned
| |
| − | out differently. People came as enemies and left, not perhaps prepared
| |
| − | to join us, yet in a reflective mood and disposed critically to examine
| |
| − | the correctness of their own doctrine. Gradually as time went on my
| |
| − | three-hour lectures resulted in supporters and opponents becoming united
| |
| − | in one single enthusiastic group of people. Every signal for the
| |
| − | breaking-up of the meeting failed. The result was that the opposition
| |
| − | leaders became frightened and once again looked for help to those
| |
| − | quarters that had formerly discountenanced these tactics and, with some
| |
| − | show of right, had been of the opinion that on principle the 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 all over again. The instructions to
| |
| − | keep away from us were ignored; the comrades came in steadily increasing
| |
| − | numbers, until finally the advocates of the radical tactics won the day.
| |
| − | We were to be broken up.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet when, after two, three and even eight meetings, it was realized that
| |
| − | to break up these gatherings was easier said than done and that every
| |
| − | meeting resulted in a decisive weakening of the red fighting forces,
| |
| − | then suddenly the other password was introduced: 'Proletarians, comrades
| |
| − | and comradesses, avoid meetings of the National Socialist agitators'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The same eternally alternating tactics were also to be observed in the
| |
| − | Red Press. Soon they tried to silence us but discovered the uselessness
| |
| − | of such an attempt. After that they swung round to the opposite tactics.
| |
| − | Daily 'reference' was made to us solely for the purpose of absolutely
| |
| − | ridiculing us in the eyes of the working-classes. After a time these
| |
| − | gentlemen must have felt that no harm was being done to us, but that, on
| |
| − | the contrary, we were reaping an advantage in that people were asking
| |
| − | themselves why so much space was being devoted to a subject which was
| |
| − | supposed to be so ludicrous. People became curious. Suddenly there was a
| |
| − | change of tactics and for a time we were treated as veritable criminals
| |
| − | against mankind. One article followed the other, in which our criminal
| |
| − | intentions were explained and new proofs brought forward to support what
| |
| − | was said. Scandalous tales, all of them fabricated from start to finish,
| |
| − | were published in order to help to poison the public mind. But in a
| |
| − | short time even these attacks also proved futile; and in fact they
| |
| − | assisted materially because they attracted public attention to us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In those days I took up the standpoint that it was immaterial whether
| |
| − | they laughed at us or reviled us, whether they depicted us as fools or
| |
| − | criminals; the important point was that they took notice of us and that
| |
| − | in the eyes of the working-classes we came to be regarded as the only
| |
| − | force capable of putting up a fight. I said to myself that the followers
| |
| − | of the Jewish Press would come to know all about us and our real aims.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One reason why they never got so far as breaking up our meetings was
| |
| − | undoubtedly the incredible cowardice displayed by the leaders of the
| |
| − | opposition. On every critical occasion they left the dirty work to the
| |
| − | smaller fry whilst they waited outside the halls for the results of the
| |
| − | break up.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We were exceptionally well informed in regard to our opponents'
| |
| − | intentions, not only because we allowed several of our party colleagues
| |
| − | to remain members of the Red organizations for reasons of expediency,
| |
| − | but also because the Red wire-pullers, fortunately for us, were
| |
| − | afflicted with a degree of talkativeness that is still unfortunately
| |
| − | very prevalent among Germans. They could not keep their own counsel, and
| |
| − | more often 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 of how near they were to being thrown out of the
| |
| − | meetings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This state of affairs compelled us to take the work of safeguarding our
| |
| − | meetings into our own hands. No reliance could be placed on official
| |
| − | protection. On the contrary; experience showed that such protection
| |
| − | always favoured only the disturbers. The only real outcome of police
| |
| − | intervention would be that the meeting would be dissolved, that is to
| |
| − | say, closed. And that is precisely what our opponents granted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, this led the police to adopt a procedure which, to
| |
| − | say the least, was a most infamous sample of official malpractice. The
| |
| − | moment they received information of a threat that the one or other
| |
| − | meeting was to be broken up, instead of arresting the would-be
| |
| − | disturbers, they promptly advised the innocent parties that the meeting
| |
| − | was forbidden. This step the police proclaimed as a 'precautionary
| |
| − | measure in the interests of law and order'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The political work and activities of decent people could therefore
| |
| − | always be hindered by desperate ruffians who had the means at their
| |
| − | disposal. In the name of peace and order State authority bowed down to
| |
| − | these ruffians and demanded that others should not provoke them. When
| |
| − | National Socialism desired to hold meetings in certain parts and the
| |
| − | labour unions declared that their members would resist, then it was not
| |
| − | these blackmailers that were arrested and gaoled. No. Our meetings were
| |
| − | forbidden by the police. Yes, this organ of the law had the unspeakable
| |
| − | impudence to advise us in writing to this effect in innumerable
| |
| − | instances. To avoid such eventualities, it was necessary to see to it
| |
| − | that every attempt to disturb a meeting was nipped in the bud. Another
| |
| − | feature to be taken into account in this respect is that all meetings
| |
| − | which rely on police protection must necessarily bring discredit to
| |
| − | their promoters in the eyes of the general public. Meetings that are
| |
| − | only possible with the protective assistance of a strong force of police
| |
| − | convert nobody; because in order to win over the lower strata of the
| |
| − | people there must be a visible show of strength on one's own side. In
| |
| − | the same way that a man of courage will win a woman's affection more
| |
| − | easily than a coward, so a heroic movement will be more successful in
| |
| − | winning over the hearts of a people than a weak movement which relies on
| |
| − | police support for its very existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is for this latter reason in particular that our young movement was
| |
| − | to be charged with the responsibility of assuring its own existence,
| |
| − | defending itself; and conducting its own work of smashing the Red
| |
| − | opposition.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The work of organizing the protective measures for our meetings was
| |
| − | based on the following:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) An energetic and psychologically judicious way of conducting the
| |
| − | meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) An organized squad of troops to maintain order.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In those days we and no one else were masters of the situation at our
| |
| − | meetings and on no occasion did we fail to emphasize this. Our opponents
| |
| − | fully realized that any provocation would be the occasion of throwing
| |
| − | them out of the hall at once, whatever the odds against us. At meetings,
| |
| − | particularly outside Munich, we had in those days from five to eight
| |
| − | hundred opponents against fifteen to sixteen National Socialists; yet we
| |
| − | brooked 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 raging and violent mob of Reds. Those fifteen or
| |
| − | twenty men would certainly have been overwhelmed in the end had not the
| |
| − | opponents known that three or four times as many of themselves would
| |
| − | first get their skulls cracked. Arid that risk they were not willing to
| |
| − | run. We had done our best to study Marxist and bourgeois methods of
| |
| − | conducting meetings, and we had certainly learnt something.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Marxists had always exercised a most rigid discipline so that the
| |
| − | question of breaking up their meetings could never have originated in
| |
| − | bourgeois quarters. This gave the Reds all the more reason for acting on
| |
| − | this plan. In time they not only became past-masters in this art but in
| |
| − | certain large districts of the REICH they went so far as to declare that
| |
| − | non-Marxist meetings were nothing less than a cause of' provocation
| |
| − | against the proletariat. This was particularly the case when the
| |
| − | wire-pullers suspected that a meeting might call attention to their own
| |
| − | transgressions and thus expose their own treachery and chicanery.
| |
| − | Therefore the moment such a meeting was announced to be held a howl of
| |
| − | rage went up from the Red Press. These detractors of the law nearly
| |
| − | always turned first to the authorities and requested in imperative and
| |
| − | threatening language that this 'provocation of the proletariat' be
| |
| − | stopped forthwith in the 'interests of law and order'. Their language
| |
| − | was chosen according to the importance of the official blockhead they
| |
| − | were dealing with and thus success was assured. If by chance 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
| |
| − | to attend such and such a meeting on a certain date in full strength for
| |
| − | the purpose of 'putting a stop to the disgraceful machinations of the
| |
| − | bourgeoisie by means of the proletarian fist'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The pitiful and frightened manner in which these bourgeois meetings are
| |
| − | conducted must be seen in order to be believed. Very frequently these
| |
| − | threats were sufficient to call off such a meeting at once. The feeling
| |
| − | of fear was so marked that the meeting, instead of commencing at eight
| |
| − | o'clock, very seldom was opened before a quarter to nine or nine
| |
| − | o'clock. The Chairman thereupon did his best, by showering compliments
| |
| − | on the 'gentleman of the opposition' to prove how he and all others
| |
| − | present were pleased (a palpable lie) to welcome a visit from men who as
| |
| − | yet were not in sympathy with them for the reason that only by mutual
| |
| − | discussion (immediately agreed to) could they be brought closer together
| |
| − | in mutual understanding. Apart from this the Chairman also assured them
| |
| − | that the meeting had no intention whatsoever of interfering with the
| |
| − | professed convictions of anybody. Indeed no. Everyone had the right to
| |
| − | form and hold his own political views, but others should be allowed to
| |
| − | do likewise. He therefore requested that the speaker be allowed to
| |
| − | deliver his speech without interruption--the speech in any case not
| |
| − | being a long affair. People abroad, he continued, would thus not come to
| |
| − | regard this meeting as another shameful example of the bitter fraternal
| |
| − | strife that is raging in Germany. And so on and so forth
| |
| − | | |
| − | The brothers of the Left had little if any appreciation for that sort of
| |
| − | talk; the speaker had hardly commenced when he was shouted down. One
| |
| − | gathered the impression at times that these speakers were graceful for
| |
| − | being peremptorily cut short in their martyr-like discourse. These
| |
| − | bourgeois toreadors left the arena in the midst of a vast uproar, that
| |
| − | is to say, provided that they were not thrown down the stairs with
| |
| − | cracked skulls, which was very often the case.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, our methods of organization at National Socialist meetings
| |
| − | were something quite strange to the Marxists. They came to our meetings
| |
| − | in the belief that the little game which they 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 out to each other on entering
| |
| − | the meeting hall, only to be thrown out with lightning speed before they
| |
| − | had time to repeat it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first place our method of conducting a meeting was entirely
| |
| − | different. We did not beg and pray to be allowed to speak, and we did
| |
| − | not straightway give everybody the right to hold endless discussions. We
| |
| − | curtly gave everyone to understand that we were masters of the meeting
| |
| − | and that we would do as it pleased us and that everyone who dared to
| |
| − | interrupt would be unceremoniously thrown out. We stated clearly our
| |
| − | refusal to accept responsibility for anyone treated in this manner. If
| |
| − | time permitted and if it suited us, a discussion would be allowed to
| |
| − | take place. Our party colleague would now make his speech.... That kind
| |
| − | of talk was sufficient in itself to astonish the Marxists.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Secondly, we had at our disposal a well-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 of men better
| |
| − | classified as ushers who by virtue of their age thought they were
| |
| − | entitled to-authority and respect. But as Marxism has little or no
| |
| − | respect for these things, the question of suitable self-protection at
| |
| − | these bourgeois meetings was, so to speak, in practice non-existent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When our political meetings first started I made it a special point to
| |
| − | organize a suitable defensive squad--a squad composed chiefly of young
| |
| − | men. Some of them were comrades who had seen active service with me;
| |
| − | others were young party members who, right from the start, had been
| |
| − | trained and brought up to realize that only terror is capable of
| |
| − | smashing terror--that only courageous and determined people had made a
| |
| − | success of things in this world and that, finally, we were fighting for
| |
| − | an idea so lofty that it was worth the last drop of our blood. These
| |
| − | young men had been brought up to realize that where force replaced
| |
| − | common sense in the solution of a problem, the best means of defence was
| |
| − | attack and that the reputation of our hall-guard squads should stamp us
| |
| − | as a political fighting force and not as a debating society.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And it was extraordinary how eagerly these boys of the War generation
| |
| − | responded to this order. They had indeed good reason for being bitterly
| |
| − | disappointed and indignant at the miserable milksop methods employed by
| |
| − | the bourgeoise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus it became clear to everyone that the Revolution had only been
| |
| − | possible thanks to the dastardly methods of a bourgeois government. At
| |
| − | that time there was certainly no lack of man-power to suppress the
| |
| − | revolution, but unfortunately there was an entire lack of directive
| |
| − | brain power. How often did the eyes of my young men light up with
| |
| − | enthusiasm when I explained to them the vital functions connected with
| |
| − | their task and assured them time and again that all earthly wisdom is
| |
| − | useless unless it be supported by a measure of strength, that the gentle
| |
| − | goddess of Peace can only walk in company with the god of War, and that
| |
| − | every great act of peace must be protected and assisted by force. In
| |
| − | this way the idea of military service came to them in a far more
| |
| − | realistic form--not in the fossilized sense of the souls of decrepit
| |
| − | officials serving the dead authority of a dead State, but in the living
| |
| − | realization of the duty of each man to sacrifice his life at all times
| |
| − | so that his country might live.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How those young men did their job!
| |
| − | | |
| − | Like a swarm of hornets they tackled disturbers at our meetings,
| |
| − | regardless of superiority of numbers, however great, indifferent to
| |
| − | wounds and bloodshed, inspired with the great idea of blazing a trail
| |
| − | for the sacred mission of our movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As early as the summer of 1920 the organization of squads of men as hall
| |
| − | guards for maintaining order at our meetings was gradually assuming
| |
| − | definite shape. By the spring of 1921 this body of men were sectioned
| |
| − | off into squads of one hundred, which in turn were sub-divided into
| |
| − | smaller groups.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The urgency for this was apparent, as meanwhile the number of our
| |
| − | meetings had steadily increased. We still frequently met in the Munich
| |
| − | Hofbräuhaus but more frequently in the large meeting halls throughout
| |
| − | the city itself. In the autumn and winter of 1920-1921 our meetings in
| |
| − | the Bürgerbräu and Munich Kindlbräu had assumed vast proportions and it
| |
| − | was always the same picture that presented itself; namely, meetings of
| |
| − | the NSDAP (The German National Socialist Labour Party) were always
| |
| − | crowded out so that the police were compelled to close and bar the doors
| |
| − | long before proceedings commenced.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The organization of defence guards for keeping order at our meetings
| |
| − | cleared up a very difficult question. Up till then the movement had
| |
| − | possessed no party badge and no party flag. The lack of these tokens was
| |
| − | not only a disadvantage at that time but would prove intolerable in the
| |
| − | future. The disadvantages were chiefly that members of the party
| |
| − | possessed no outward broken of membership which linked them together,
| |
| − | and it was absolutely unthinkable that for the future they should remain
| |
| − | without some token which would be a symbol of the movement and could be
| |
| − | set against that of the International.
| |
| − | | |
| − | More than once in my youth the psychological importance of such a symbol
| |
| − | had become clearly evident to me and from a sentimental point of view
| |
| − | also it was advisable. In Berlin, after the War, I was present at a
| |
| − | mass-demonstration of Marxists in front of the Royal Palace and in the
| |
| − | Lustgarten. A sea of red flags, red armlets and red flowers was in
| |
| − | itself sufficient to give that huge assembly of about 120,000 persons an
| |
| − | outward appearance of strength. I was now able to feel and understand
| |
| − | how easily the man in the street succumbs to the hypnotic magic of such
| |
| − | a grandiose piece of theatrical presentation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The bourgeoisie, which as a party neither possesses or stands for any
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG, had therefore not a single banner. Their party was
| |
| − | composed of 'patriots' who went about in the colours of the REICH. If
| |
| − | these colours were the symbol of a definite WELTANSCHAUUNG then one
| |
| − | could understand the rulers of the State regarding this flag as
| |
| − | expressive of their own WELTANSCHAUUNG, seeing that through their
| |
| − | efforts the official REICH flag was expressive of their own
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But in reality the position was otherwise.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The REICH was morticed together without the aid of the German
| |
| − | bourgeoisie and the flag itself was born of the War and therefore merely
| |
| − | a State flag possessing no importance in the sense of any particular
| |
| − | ideological mission.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only in one part of the German-speaking territory--in
| |
| − | German-Austria--was there anything like a bourgeois party flag in
| |
| − | evidence. Here a section of the national bourgeoisie selected the 1848
| |
| − | colours (black, red and gold) as their party flag and therewith created
| |
| − | a symbol which, though of no importance from a weltanschauliche
| |
| − | viewpoint, had, nevertheless, a revolutionary character from a national
| |
| − | 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 the
| |
| − | Christian Socialists or clericals. They, in particular, were the ones
| |
| − | who degraded and besmirched these colours in the same way as in 1918
| |
| − | they dragged black, white and red into the gutter. Of course, the black,
| |
| − | red and gold of the German parties in the old Austria were the colours
| |
| − | of the year 1848: that is to say, of a period likely to be regarded as
| |
| − | somewhat visionary, but it was a period that had honest German souls as
| |
| − | its representatives, although the Jews were lurking unseen as
| |
| − | wire-pullers in the background. It was high treason and the shameful
| |
| − | enslavement of the German territory that first of all made these colours
| |
| − | so attractive to the Marxists of the Centre Party; so much so that
| |
| − | to-day they revere them as their most cherished possession and use them
| |
| − | as their own banners for the protection of the flag they once foully
| |
| − | besmirched.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is a fact, therefore, that, up till 1920, in opposition to the
| |
| − | Marxists there was no flag that would have stood for a consolidated
| |
| − | resistance to them. For even if the better political elements of the
| |
| − | German bourgeoisie were loath to accept the suddenly discovered black,
| |
| − | red and gold colours as their symbol after the year 1918, they
| |
| − | nevertheless were incapable of counteracting this with a future
| |
| − | programme of their own that would correspond to the new trend of
| |
| − | affairs. At the most, they had a reconstruction of the old REICH in
| |
| − | mind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And it is to this way of thinking that the black, white and red colours
| |
| − | of the old REICH are indebted for their resurrection as the flag of our
| |
| − | so-called national bourgeois parties.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was obvious that the symbol of a régime which had been overthrown by
| |
| − | the Marxists under inglorious circumstances was not now worthy to serve
| |
| − | as a banner under which the same Marxism was to be crushed in its turn.
| |
| − | However much any decent German may love and revere those old colours,
| |
| − | glorious when placed side by side in their youthful freshness, when he
| |
| − | had fought under them and seen the sacrifice of so many lives, that flag
| |
| − | had little value for the struggle of the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our Movement I have always adopted the standpoint that it was a
| |
| − | really lucky thing for the German nation that it had lost its old flag
| |
| − | (Note 18). This standpoint of mine was in strong contrast to that of the
| |
| − | bourgeois politicians. It may be immaterial to us what the Republic does
| |
| − | under its flag. But let us be deeply grateful to fate for having so
| |
| − | graciously spared the most glorious war flag for all time from becoming
| |
| − | an ignominious rag. The REICH of to-day, which sells itself and its
| |
| − | people, must never be allowed to adopt the honourable and heroic black,
| |
| − | white and red colours.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 18. The flag of the German Empire, founded in 1871, was
| |
| − | Black-White-Red. This was discarded in 1918 and Black-Red-Gold was chosen
| |
| − | as the flag of the German Republic founded at Weimar in 1919. The flag
| |
| − | designed by Hitler--red with a white disc in the centre, bearing the
| |
| − | black swastika--is now the national flag.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | As long as the November outrage endures, that outrage may continue to
| |
| − | bear its own external sign and not steal that of an honourable past. Our
| |
| − | bourgeois politicians should awaken their consciences 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 suitable only for the old
| |
| − | REICH and, thank Heaven, the Republic chose the colours best suited to
| |
| − | itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was also the reason why we National Socialists recognized that
| |
| − | hoisting the old colours would be no symbol of our special aims; for we
| |
| − | had no wish to resurrect from the dead the old REICH which had been
| |
| − | ruined through its own blunders, but to build up a new State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Movement which is fighting Marxism to-day along these lines must
| |
| − | display on its banner the symbol of the new State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The question of the new flag, that is to say the form and appearance it
| |
| − | must take, kept us very busy in those days. Suggestions poured in from
| |
| − | all quarters, which although well meant were more or less impossible in
| |
| − | practice. The new flag had not only to become a symbol expressing our
| |
| − | own struggle but on the other hand it was necessary that it should prove
| |
| − | effective as a large poster. All those who busy themselves with the
| |
| − | tastes of the public will recognize and appreciate the great importance
| |
| − | of these apparently petty matters. In hundreds of thousands of cases a
| |
| − | really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a
| |
| − | movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this reason we declined all suggestions from various quarters for
| |
| − | identifying our movement by means of a white flag with the old State or
| |
| − | rather with those decrepit parties whose sole political objective is the
| |
| − | restoration of past conditions. And, apart from this, white is not a
| |
| − | colour capable of attracting and focusing public attention. It is a
| |
| − | colour suitable only for young women's associations and not for 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 empress the will behind our movement. And,
| |
| − | finally, black is incapable of attracting attention.
| |
| − | | |
| − | White and blue was discarded, despite its admirable aesthetic appeal--as
| |
| − | being the colours of an individual German Federal State--a State that,
| |
| − | unfortunately, through its political attitude of particularist
| |
| − | narrow-mindedness did not enjoy a good reputation. And, generally
| |
| − | speaking, with these colours it would have been difficult to attract
| |
| − | attention to our movement. The same applies to black and white.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Black, red and gold did not enter the question at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And this also applies to black, white and red for reasons already
| |
| − | stated. At least, not in the form hitherto in use. But the effectiveness
| |
| − | of these three colours is far superior to all the others and they are
| |
| − | certainly the most strikingly harmonious combination to be found.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I myself was always for keeping the old colours, not only because I, as
| |
| − | a soldier, regarded them as my most sacred possession, but because in
| |
| − | their aesthetic effect, they conformed more than anything else to my
| |
| − | personal taste. Accordingly I had to discard all the innumerable
| |
| − | suggestions and designs which had been proposed for the new movement,
| |
| − | among which were many that had incorporated the swastika into the old
| |
| − | colours. I, as leader, was unwilling to make public my own design, as it
| |
| − | was possible that someone else could come forward with a design just as
| |
| − | good, if not better, than my own. As a matter of fact, a dental surgeon
| |
| − | from Starnberg submitted a good design very similar to mine, with only
| |
| − | one mistake, in that his swastika with curved corners was set upon a
| |
| − | white background.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After innumerable trials I decided upon a final form--a flag of red
| |
| − | material with a white disc bearing in its centre a black swastika. After
| |
| − | many trials I obtained the correct proportions between the dimensions of
| |
| − | the flag and of the white central disc, as well as that of the swastika.
| |
| − | And this is how it has remained ever since.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the same time we immediately ordered the corresponding armlets for
| |
| − | our squad of men who kept order at meetings, armlets of red material, a
| |
| − | central white disc with the black swastika upon it. Herr Füss, a Munich
| |
| − | goldsmith, supplied the first practical and permanent design.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The new flag appeared in public in the midsummer of 1920. It suited our
| |
| − | movement admirably, both being new and young. Not a soul had seen this
| |
| − | flag before; its effect at that time was something akin to that of a
| |
| − | blazing torch. We ourselves experienced almost a boyish delight when one
| |
| − | of the ladies of the party who had been entrusted with the making of the
| |
| − | flag finally handed it over to us. And a few months later those of us in
| |
| − | Munich were in possession of six of these flags. The steadily increasing
| |
| − | strength of our hall guards was a main factor in popularizing the
| |
| − | symbol.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And indeed a symbol it proved to be.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not only because it incorporated those revered colours expressive of our
| |
| − | homage to the glorious past and which once brought so much honour to the
| |
| − | German nation, but this symbol was also an eloquent expression of the
| |
| − | will behind the movement. We National Socialists regarded our flag as
| |
| − | being the embodiment of our party programme. The red expressed the
| |
| − | social thought underlying the movement. White the national thought. And
| |
| − | the swastika signified the mission allotted to us--the struggle for the
| |
| − | victory of Aryan mankind and at the same time the triumph of the ideal
| |
| − | of creative work which is in itself and always will be anti-Semitic.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Two years later, when our squad of hall guards had long since grown into
| |
| − | storm detachments, it seemed necessary to give this defensive
| |
| − | organization of a young WELTANSCHAUUNG a particular symbol of victory,
| |
| − | namely a Standard. I also designed this and entrusted the execution of
| |
| − | it to an old party comrade, Herr Gahr, who was a goldsmith. Ever since
| |
| − | that time this Standard has been the distinctive token of the National
| |
| − | Socialist struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The increasing interest taken in our meetings, particularly during 1920,
| |
| − | compelled us at times to hold two meetings a week. Crowds gathered round
| |
| − | our posters; the large meeting halls in the town were always filled and
| |
| − | tens of thousands of people, who had been led astray by the teachings of
| |
| − | Marxism, found their way to us and assisted in the work of fighting for
| |
| − | the liberation of the REICH. The public in Munich had got to know us. We
| |
| − | were being spoken about. The words 'National Socialist' had become
| |
| − | common property to many and signified for them a definite party
| |
| − | programme. Our circle of supporters and even of members was constantly
| |
| − | increasing, so that in the winter of 1920-21 we were able to appear as a
| |
| − | strong party in Munich.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time there was no party in Munich with the exception of the
| |
| − | Marxist parties--certainly no nationalist party--which was able to hold
| |
| − | such mass demonstrations as ours. The Munich Kindl Hall, which held
| |
| − | 5,000 people, was more than once overcrowded and up till then there was
| |
| − | only one other hall, the Krone Circus Hall, into which we had not
| |
| − | ventured.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the end of January 1921 there was again great cause for anxiety in
| |
| − | Germany. The Paris Agreement, by which Germany pledged herself to pay
| |
| − | the crazy sum of a hundred milliards of gold marks, was to be confirmed
| |
| − | by the London Ultimatum.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thereupon an old-established Munich working committee, representative of
| |
| − | so-called VÖLKISCH groups, deemed it advisable to call for a public
| |
| − | meeting of protest. I became nervous and restless 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 this was turned down,
| |
| − | as someone feared the proceedings might be wrecked by Red elements.
| |
| − | Another suggestion was a demonstration in front of the Feldherrn Hall,
| |
| − | but this also came to nothing. Finally a combined meeting in the Munich
| |
| − | Kindl Hall was suggested. Meanwhile, day after day had gone by; the big
| |
| − | parties had entirely ignored the terrible event, and the working
| |
| − | committee could not decide on a definite date for holding the
| |
| − | demonstration.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On Tuesday, February 1st, I put forward 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 take place. 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 and decided to conduct a demonstration of
| |
| − | protest on my own. At noon on Wednesday I dictated in ten minutes the
| |
| − | text of the poster and at the same time hired the Krone Circus Hall for
| |
| − | the next day, February 3rd.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In those days this was a tremendous venture. Not only because of the
| |
| − | uncertainty of filling that vast hall, but also because of the risk of
| |
| − | the meeting being wrecked.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Numerically our squad of hall guards was not strong enough for this vast
| |
| − | hall. I was also uncertain about what to do in case the meeting was
| |
| − | broken up--a huge circus building being a different proposition from an
| |
| − | ordinary meeting hall. But events showed that my fears were misplaced,
| |
| − | the opposite being the case. In that vast building a squad of wreckers
| |
| − | could be tackled and subdued more easily than in a cramped hall.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One thing was certain: A failure would throw us back for a long time to
| |
| − | come. If one meeting was wrecked our prestige would be seriously injured
| |
| − | and our opponents would be encouraged to repeat their success. That
| |
| − | would lead to sabotage of our work in connection with further meetings
| |
| − | and months of difficult struggle would be necessary to overcome this.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We had only one day in which to post our bills, Thursday. Unfortunately
| |
| − | it rained on the morning of that day and there was reason to fear that
| |
| − | many people would prefer to remain at home rather than hurry to a
| |
| − | meeting through rain and snow, especially when there was likely to be
| |
| − | violence and bloodshed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And indeed on that Thursday morning I was suddenly struck with fear that
| |
| − | the hall might never be filled to capacity, which would have made me
| |
| − | ridiculous in the eyes of the working committee. I therefore immediately
| |
| − | dictated various leaflets, had them printed and distributed in the
| |
| − | afternoon. Of course they contained an invitation to attend the meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Two lorries which I hired were draped as much as possible in red, each
| |
| − | had our new flag hoisted on it and was then filled with fifteen or
| |
| − | twenty members of our party. Orders were given the members to canvas the
| |
| − | streets thoroughly, distribute leaflets and conduct propaganda for the
| |
| − | mass meeting to be held that evening. It was the first time that lorries
| |
| − | had driven through the streets bearing flags and not manned by Marxists.
| |
| − | The public stared open-mouthed at these red-draped cars, and in the
| |
| − | outlying districts clenched fists were angrily raised at this new
| |
| − | evidence of 'provocation of the proletariat'. Were not the Marxists the
| |
| − | only ones entitled to hold meetings and drive about in motor lorries?
| |
| − | | |
| − | At seven o'clock in the evening only a few had gathered in the circus
| |
| − | hall. I was being kept informed by telephone every ten minutes and was
| |
| − | becoming uneasy. Usually at seven or a quarter 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 to take into
| |
| − | account the huge dimensions of this new meeting place. A thousand people
| |
| − | in the Hofbräuhaus was quite an impressive sight, but the same number in
| |
| − | the 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 I was informed that the hall was three-quarters filled,
| |
| − | with huge crowds still lined up at the pay boxes. I then left for the
| |
| − | meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I arrived at the Circus building at two minutes past eight. There was
| |
| − | still a crowd of people outside, partly inquisitive people and many
| |
| − | opponents who preferred to wait outside for developments.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I entered the great hall I felt the same joy I had felt a year
| |
| − | previously at the first meeting in the Munich Hofbräu Banquet Hall; but
| |
| − | it was not until I had forced my way through the solid wall of people
| |
| − | and reached the platform that I perceived the full measure of our
| |
| − | success. The hall was before me, like a huge shell, packed with
| |
| − | thousands and thousands of people. Even the arena was densely crowded.
| |
| − | More than 5,600 tickets had been sold and, allowing for the unemployed,
| |
| − | poor students and our own detachments of men for keeping order, a crowd
| |
| − | of about 6,500 must have been present.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My theme was 'Future or Downfall' and I was filled with joy at the
| |
| − | conviction that the future was represented by the crowds that I was
| |
| − | addressing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I began, and spoke for about two and a half hours. I had the feeling
| |
| − | after the first half-hour that the meeting was going to be a big
| |
| − | success. Contact had been at once established with all those thousands
| |
| − | of individuals. After the first hour the speech was already being
| |
| − | received by spontaneous outbreaks of applause, but after the second hour
| |
| − | this died down to a solemn stillness which I was to experience so often
| |
| − | later on in this same hall, and which will for ever be remembered by all
| |
| − | those present. Nothing broke this impressive silence and only when the
| |
| − | last word had been spoken did the meeting give vent to its feelings by
| |
| − | singing the national anthem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I watched the scene during the next twenty minutes, as the vast hall
| |
| − | slowly emptied itself, and only then did I leave the platform, a happy
| |
| − | man, and made my way home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Photographs were taken of this first meeting in the Krone Circus Hall in
| |
| − | Munich. They are more eloquent than words to demonstrate the success of
| |
| − | this demonstration. The bourgeois papers reproduced photographs and
| |
| − | reported the meeting as having been merely 'nationalist' in character;
| |
| − | in their usual modest fashion they omitted all mention of its promoters.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus for the first time we had developed far beyond the dimensions of an
| |
| − | ordinary party. We could no longer be ignored. And to dispel all doubt
| |
| − | that the meeting was merely an isolated success, I immediately arranged
| |
| − | for another at the Circus Hall in the following week, and again we had
| |
| − | the same success. Once more the vast hall was overflowing with people;
| |
| − | so much so that I decided to hold a third meeting during the following
| |
| − | week, which also proved a similar success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After these initial successes early in 1921 I increased our activity in
| |
| − | Munich still further. I not only held meetings once a week, but during
| |
| − | some weeks even two were regularly held and very often during midsummer
| |
| − | and autumn this increased to three. We met regularly at the Circus Hall
| |
| − | and it gave us great satisfaction to see that every meeting brought us
| |
| − | the same measure of success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The result was shown in an ever-increasing number of supporters and
| |
| − | members into our party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally, such success did not allow our opponents to sleep soundly. At
| |
| − | first their tactics fluctuated between the use of terror and silence in
| |
| − | our regard. Then they recognized that neither terror nor silence could
| |
| − | hinder the progress of our movement. So they had recourse to a supreme
| |
| − | act of terror which was intended to put a definite end to our activities
| |
| − | in the holding of meetings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a pretext for action along this line they availed themselves of a
| |
| − | very mysterious attack on one of the Landtag deputies, named Erhard
| |
| − | Auer. It was declared that someone had fired several shots at this man
| |
| − | one evening. This meant that he was not shot but that an attempt had
| |
| − | been made to shoot him. A fabulous presence of mind and heroic courage
| |
| − | on the part of Social Democratic leaders not only prevented the
| |
| − | sacrilegious intention from taking effect but also put the crazy
| |
| − | would-be assassins to flight, like the cowards that they were. They were
| |
| − | so quick and fled so far that subsequently the police could not find
| |
| − | even the slightest traces of them. This mysterious episode was used by
| |
| − | the organ of the Social Democratic Party to arouse public feeling
| |
| − | against the movement, and while doing this it delivered its old
| |
| − | rigmarole about the tactics that were to be employed the next time.
| |
| − | Their purpose was to see to it that our movement should not grow but
| |
| − | should be immediately hewn down root and branch by the hefty arm of the
| |
| − | proletariat.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A few days later the real attack came. It was decided finally to
| |
| − | interrupt one of our meetings which was billed to take place in the
| |
| − | Munich Hofbräuhaus, and at which I myself was to speak.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On November 4th, 1921, in the evening between six and seven o'clock I
| |
| − | received the first precise news that the meeting would positively be
| |
| − | broken up and that to carry out this action our adversaries had decided
| |
| − | to send to the meeting great masses of workmen employed in certain 'Red'
| |
| − | factories.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was due to an unfortunate accident that we did not receive this news
| |
| − | sooner. On that day we had given up our old business office in the
| |
| − | Sternecker Gasse in Munich and moved into other quarters; or rather we
| |
| − | had given up the old offices and our new quarters were not yet in
| |
| − | functioning order. The telephone arrangements had been cut off by the
| |
| − | former tenants and had not yet been reinstalled. Hence it happened that
| |
| − | several attempts made that day to inform us by telephone of the break-up
| |
| − | which had been planned for the evening did not reach us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Consequently our order troops were not 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 about forty-six. And our telephone
| |
| − | connections were not yet sufficiently organized to be able to give the
| |
| − | alarm in the course of an hour or so, so that a sufficiently powerful
| |
| − | number of order troops to deal with the situation could be called. It
| |
| − | must also be added that on several previous occasions we had been
| |
| − | forewarned, but nothing special happened. The old proverb, 'Revolutions
| |
| − | which were announced have scarcely ever come off', had hitherto been
| |
| − | proved true in our regard.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Possibly for this reason also sufficiently strong precautions had not
| |
| − | been taken on that day to cope with the brutal determination of our
| |
| − | opponents to break up our meeting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, we did not believe that the Hofbräuhaus in Munich was suitable
| |
| − | for the interruptive tactics of our adversaries. 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 very serviceable lesson that evening.
| |
| − | Later, we studied this whole question according to a scientific system
| |
| − | and arrived at results, both interesting and incredible, and which
| |
| − | subsequently were an essential factor in the direction of our
| |
| − | organization and in the tactics of our Storm Troops.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I arrived in the entrance halt of the Hofbräuhaus at 7.45 that
| |
| − | evening I realizcd that there could be no doubt as to what the 'Reds'
| |
| − | intended. The hall was filled, and for that reason the police had barred
| |
| − | the entrances. Our adversaries, who had arrived very early, were in the
| |
| − | hall, and our followers were for the most part outside. The small
| |
| − | bodyguard awaited me at the entrance. I had the doors leading to the
| |
| − | principal hall closed and then asked the bodyguard of forty-five or
| |
| − | forty-six men to come forward. I made it clear to the boys that perhaps
| |
| − | on that evening for the first time they would have to show their
| |
| − | unbending and unbreakable loyalty to the movement and that not one of us
| |
| − | should leave the hall unless carried out dead. I added that I would
| |
| − | remain in the hall and that I did not believe that one of them would
| |
| − | abandon me, and that if I saw any one of them act the coward I myself
| |
| − | would personally tear off his armlet and his badge. I demanded of them
| |
| − | that they should come forward if the slightest attempt to sabotage the
| |
| − | meeting were made and that they must remember that the best defence is
| |
| − | always attack.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I was greeted with a triple 'HEIL' which sounded more hoarse and violent
| |
| − | than usual.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then I advanced through the hall and could take in the situation with my
| |
| − | own eyes. Our opponents sat closely huddled together and tried to pierce
| |
| − | me through with their looks. Innumerable faces glowing with hatred and
| |
| − | rage were fixed on me, while others with sneering grimaces shouted at me
| |
| − | together. Now they would 'Finish with us. We must look out 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 knew
| |
| − | that they were there in superior numbers and they acted accordingly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yet we were able to open the meeting; and I began to speak. In the Hall
| |
| − | of the Hofbräuhaus I stood always at the side, away from the entry and
| |
| − | on top of a beer table. Therefore I was always right in the midst of the
| |
| − | audience. Perhaps this circumstance was responsible for creating a
| |
| − | certain feeling and a sense of agreement which I never found elsewhere.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before me, and especially towards my left, there were only opponents,
| |
| − | seated or standing. They were mostly robust youths and men from the
| |
| − | Maffei Factory, from Kustermann's, and from the factories on the Isar,
| |
| − | etc. Along the right-hand wall of the hall they were thickly massed
| |
| − | quite close to my table. They now began to order litre mugs of beer, one
| |
| − | after the other, and to throw the empty mugs under the table. In this
| |
| − | way whole batteries were collected. I should have been surprised had
| |
| − | this meeting 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 master of the situation. Even the
| |
| − | ringleaders of the disturbers appeared to be convinced 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 which I committed in replying to an
| |
| − | interruption, and the mistake of which I myself was conscious the moment
| |
| − | the words had left my mouth, gave the sign for the outbreak.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There were a few furious outbursts and all in a moment a man jumped on a
| |
| − | seat and shouted "Liberty". At that signal the champions of liberty
| |
| − | began their work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In a few moments the hall was filled with a yelling and shrieking mob.
| |
| − | Numerous beer-mugs flew like howitzers above their heads. Amid this
| |
| − | uproar one heard the crash of chair legs, the crashing of mugs, groans
| |
| − | and yells and screams.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a mad spectacle. I stood where I was and could observe my boys
| |
| − | doing their duty, every one of them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There I had the chance of seeing what a bourgeois meeting could be.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The dance had hardly begun when my Storm 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 of eight or ten and
| |
| − | began steadily to thrash them out of the hall. After five minutes I
| |
| − | could see hardly one of them that was not streaming with blood. Then I
| |
| − | 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 seriously wounded, attacked again and again as long as they could
| |
| − | stand on their feet. Twenty minutes long the pandemonium continued. Then
| |
| − | the opponents, who had numbered seven or eight hundred, had been driven
| |
| − | from the hall or hurled out headlong by my men, who had not numbered
| |
| − | fifty. Only in the left corner a big crowd still stood out against our
| |
| − | men and put up a bitter fight. Then two pistol shots rang out from the
| |
| − | entrance to the hall in the direction of the platform and now a wild din
| |
| − | of shooting broke out from all sides. One's heart almost rejoiced at
| |
| − | this spectacle which recalled memories of the War.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that moment it was not possible to identify the person who had fired
| |
| − | the shots. But at any rate I could see that my boys renewed the attack
| |
| − | with increased fury until finally the last disturbers were overcome and
| |
| − | flung out of the hall.
| |
| − | | |
| − | About twenty-five minutes had passed 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 remained masters of the situation. Hermann
| |
| − | Essen, who was chairman of the meeting, announced: "The meeting will
| |
| − | continue. The speaker shall proceed." So I went on with my speech.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When we ourselves declared the meeting at an end an excited police
| |
| − | officer rushed in, waved his hands and declared: "The meeting is
| |
| − | dissolved."
| |
| − | | |
| − | Without wishing to do so I had to laugh at this example of the law's
| |
| − | delay. It was the authentic constabulary officiosiousness. The smaller
| |
| − | they are the greater they must always appear.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That evening we learned a real lesson. And our adversaries never forgot
| |
| − | the lesson they had received.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Up to the autumn of 1923 the Münchener post did not again mention the
| |
| − | clenched fists of the Proletariat.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER VIII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE STRONG IS STRONGEST WHEN ALONE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | In the preceding chapter I mentioned the existence of a co-operative
| |
| − | union between the German patriotic associations. Here I shall deal
| |
| − | briefly with this question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In speaking of a co-operative union we generally mean a group of
| |
| − | associations which, for the purpose of facilitating their work,
| |
| − | establish mutual relations for collaborating with one another along
| |
| − | certain lines, appointing a common directorate with varying powers and
| |
| − | thenceforth carrying out a common line of action. The average citizen is
| |
| − | pleased and reassured when he hears that these associations, by
| |
| − | establishing a co-operative union among one another, have at long last
| |
| − | discovered a common platform on which they can stand united and have
| |
| − | eliminated all grounds of mutual difference. Therewith a general
| |
| − | conviction arises, to the effect that such a union is an immense gain in
| |
| − | strength and that small groups which 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 my opinion, important for the better
| |
| − | understanding of this question if we try to get 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 a single
| |
| − | association and it would be more reasonable if there were not a number
| |
| − | of associations fighting for the same aim. In the beginning there was
| |
| − | undoubtedly only one association which had this one fixed aim in view.
| |
| − | One man proclaimed a truth somewhere and, calling for the solution of a
| |
| − | definite question, fixed his aim and founded a movement for the purpose
| |
| − | of carrying his views into effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is how an association or a party is founded, the scope of whose
| |
| − | programme is either the abolition of existing evils or the positive
| |
| − | establishment of a certain order of things in the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once such a movement has come into existence it may lay practical claim
| |
| − | to certain priority rights. The natural course of things would now be
| |
| − | that all those who wish to fight for the same objective as this movement
| |
| − | is striving for should identify themselves with it and thus increase its
| |
| − | strength, so that the common purpose in view may be all the better
| |
| − | served. Especially men of superior intelligence must feel, one and all,
| |
| − | that by joining the movement they are establishing precisely those
| |
| − | conditions 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 one movement should be founded for the
| |
| − | purpose of attaining the one aim.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that this does not happen must 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 the weaknesses of human nature.
| |
| − | But, on going to the bottom of things, I see in both causes only facts
| |
| − | which give still another ground for strengthening our will, our energy
| |
| − | and intensity of purpose; so that finally, through the higher
| |
| − | development of the human faculties, the solution of the problem in
| |
| − | question may be rendered possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The tragic reason why it so often happens that the pursuit of one
| |
| − | definite task is not left to one association alone is as follows:
| |
| − | Generally speaking, every action carried out on the grand style in this
| |
| − | world is the expression of a desire that has already existed for a long
| |
| − | time in millions of human hearts, a longing which may have been
| |
| − | nourished in silence. Yes, it may happen that throughout centuries men
| |
| − | may have been yearning for the solution of a definite problem, because
| |
| − | they have been suffering under an unendurable order of affairs, without
| |
| − | seeing on the far horizon the coming fulfilment of the universal
| |
| − | longing. Nations which are no longer capable of finding an heroic
| |
| − | deliverance from such a sorrowful fate may be looked upon as effete.
| |
| − | But, on the other hand, nothing gives better proof of the vital forces
| |
| − | of a people and the consequent guarantee of its right to exist than that
| |
| − | one day, through a happy decree of Destiny, a man arises who is capable
| |
| − | of liberating his people from some great oppression, or of wiping out
| |
| − | some bitter distress, or of calming the national soul which had been
| |
| − | tormented through its sense of insecurity, and thus fulfilling what had
| |
| − | long been the universal yearning of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An essential characteristic of what are called the great questions of
| |
| − | the time is that thousands undertake the task 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 the free play of
| |
| − | forces the stronger and bolder shall finally be victorious and to him
| |
| − | shall be entrusted the task of solving the problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus it may happen that for centuries many are discontented with the
| |
| − | form in which their religious life expresses itself and yearn for a
| |
| − | renovation of it; and so it may happen that through 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 solve the
| |
| − | religious difficulties of the time and accordingly present themselves as
| |
| − | the prophets of a new teaching or at least as declared adversaries of
| |
| − | the standing beliefs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here also it is certain that the natural law will take its course,
| |
| − | inasmuch as the strongest will be destined to fulfil the great mission.
| |
| − | But usually the others are slow to acknowledge that only one man is
| |
| − | called. On the contrary, they all believe that they have an equal right
| |
| − | to engage in the solution of the diffculties in question and that they
| |
| − | are equally called to that task. Their contemporary world is generally
| |
| − | quite unable to decide which of all these possesses the highest gifts
| |
| − | and accordingly merits the support of all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | So in the course of centuries, or indeed often within the same epoch,
| |
| − | different men establish different movements to struggle towards the same
| |
| − | end. At least the end is declared by the founders of the movements to be
| |
| − | the same, or may be looked upon as such by the masses of the people. The
| |
| − | populace nourishes vague desires and has only general opinions, without
| |
| − | having any precise notion of their own ideals and desires or of the
| |
| − | question whether and how it is impossible for these ideals and desires
| |
| − | to be fulfilled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The tragedy lies in the fact that many men struggle to reach the same
| |
| − | objective by different roads, each one genuinely believing in his own
| |
| − | mission and holding himself in duty bound to follow his own road without
| |
| − | any regard for the others.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These movements, parties, religious groups, etc., originate entirely
| |
| − | independently of one another out of the general urge of the time, and
| |
| − | all with a view to working towards the same goal. It may seem a tragic
| |
| − | thing, at least at first sight, that this should be so, because people
| |
| − | are too often inclined to think that forces which are dispersed in
| |
| − | different directions would attain their ends far more quickly and more
| |
| − | surely if they were united in one common effort. But that is not so. For
| |
| − | Nature herself decides according to the rules of her inexorable logic.
| |
| − | She leaves these diverse groups to compete with one another and dispute
| |
| − | the palm of victory and thus she chooses the clearest, shortest and
| |
| − | surest way along which she leads the movement to its final goal.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How could one decide from outside which is the best way, if the forces
| |
| − | at hand were not allowed free play, if the final decision were to rest
| |
| − | with the doctrinaire judgment of men who are so infatuated with their
| |
| − | own superior knowledge that their minds are not open to accept the
| |
| − | indisputable proof presented by manifest success, which in the last
| |
| − | analysis always gives the final confirmation of the justice of a course
| |
| − | of action.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence, though diverse groups march along different routes towards the
| |
| − | same objective, as soon as they come to know that analogous efforts are
| |
| − | being made around them, they will have to study all the more carefully
| |
| − | whether they have chosen the best way and whether a shorter way may not
| |
| − | be found and how their efforts can best be employed to reach the
| |
| − | objective more quickly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Through this rivalry each individual protagonist develops his faculties
| |
| − | to a still higher pitch of perfection and the human race has frequently
| |
| − | owed its progress to the lessons learned from the misfortunes of former
| |
| − | attempts which have come to grief. Therefore we may conclude that we
| |
| − | come to know the better ways of reaching final results through a state
| |
| − | of things which at first sight appeared tragic; namely, the initial
| |
| − | dispersion of individual efforts, wherein each group was unconsciously
| |
| − | responsible for such dispersion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In studying the lessons of history with a view to finding a way for the
| |
| − | solution of the German problem, the prevailing opinion at one time was
| |
| − | that there were two possible paths along which that problem might be
| |
| − | solved and that these two paths should have united from the very
| |
| − | beginning. The chief representatives and champions of these two paths
| |
| − | were Austria and Prussia respectively, Habsburg and Hohenzollern. All
| |
| − | the rest, according to this prevalent opinion, ought to have entrusted
| |
| − | their united forces to the one or the other party. But at that time the
| |
| − | path of the most prominent representative, the Habsburg, would have been
| |
| − | taken, though the Austrian policy would never have led to the foundation
| |
| − | of a united German REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, a strong and united German REICH arose out of that which many
| |
| − | millions of Germans deplored in their hearts as the last and most
| |
| − | terrible manifestation of our fratricidal strife. The truth is that the
| |
| − | German Imperial Crown was retrieved on the battle field of Königgrätz
| |
| − | and not in the fights that were waged before Paris, as was commonly
| |
| − | asserted afterwards.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the foundation of the German REICH 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, though the protagonists were
| |
| − | often hardly conscious of this. And from this struggle Prussia finally
| |
| − | came out victorious. Anybody who is not so blinded by partisan politics
| |
| − | as to deny this truth will have to agree that the so-called wisdom of
| |
| − | men would never have come to the same wise decision as the wisdom of
| |
| − | Life itself, that is to say, the free play of forces, finally brought to
| |
| − | realization. For in the German lands of two hundred years before who
| |
| − | would seriously have believed that Hohenzollern Prussia, and not
| |
| − | Habsburg, would become the germ cell, the founder and the tutor of the
| |
| − | new REICH? And, on the other hand, who would deny to-day that Destiny
| |
| − | thus acted wiser than human wisdom. Who could now imagine a German REICH
| |
| − | based on the foundations of an effete and degenerate dynasty?
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. The general evolution of things, even though it took a century of
| |
| − | struggle, placed the best in the position that it had merited.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And that will always be so. Therefore it is not to be regretted if
| |
| − | different men set out to attain the same objective. In this way the
| |
| − | strongest and swiftest becomes recognized and turns out to be the
| |
| − | victor.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now there is a second cause for the fact that often in the lives of
| |
| − | nations several movements which show the same characteristics strive
| |
| − | along different ways to reach what appears to be the same goal. This
| |
| − | second cause is not at all tragic, but just something that rightly calls
| |
| − | forth pity. It arises from a sad mixture of envy, jealousy, ambition,
| |
| − | and the itch for taking what belongs to others. Unfortunately these
| |
| − | failings are often found united in single specimens of the human
| |
| − | species.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The moment a man arises who profoundly understands the distress of his
| |
| − | people and, having diagnosed the evil with perfect accuracy, takes
| |
| − | measures to cure it; the moment he fixes his aim and chooses the means
| |
| − | to reach it--then paltry and pettifogging people become all attention
| |
| − | and eagerly follow the doings of this man who has thus come before the
| |
| − | public gaze. Just like sparrows who are apparently indifferent, but in
| |
| − | reality are firmly intent on the movements of the fortunate companion
| |
| − | with the morsel of bread so that they may snatch it from him if he
| |
| − | should momentarily relax his hold on it, so it is also with the human
| |
| − | species. All that is needed is that one man should strike out on a new
| |
| − | road and then a crowd of poltroons will prick up their ears and begin to
| |
| − | sniff for whatever little booty may possibly lie at the end of that
| |
| − | road. The moment they think they have discovered where the booty is to
| |
| − | be gathered they hurry to find another way which may prove to be quicker
| |
| − | in reaching that goal.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as a new movement is founded and has formulated a definite
| |
| − | programme, people of that kind come forward and proclaim that they are
| |
| − | fighting for the same cause. This does not imply that they are ready
| |
| − | honestly to join the ranks of such a movement and thus recognize its
| |
| − | right of priority. It implies rather that they intend to steal the
| |
| − | programme and found a new party on it. In doing this they are shameless
| |
| − | enough to assure the unthinking public that for a long time they had
| |
| − | intended to take the same line of action as the other has now taken, and
| |
| − | frequently they succeed in thus placing themselves in a favourable
| |
| − | light, instead of arousing the general disapprobation which they justly
| |
| − | deserve. For it is a piece of gross impudence to take what has already
| |
| − | been inscribed on another'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 founder of this group. The impudence of such
| |
| − | conduct is particularly demonstrated when the individuals who first
| |
| − | caused dispersion and disruption by their new foundation are those
| |
| − | who--as experience has shown--are most emphatic in proclaiming the
| |
| − | necessity of union and unity the moment they find they cannot catch up
| |
| − | with their adversary's advance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is to that kind of conduct that the so-called 'patriotic
| |
| − | disintegration' is to be attributed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Certainly in the years 1918--1919 the founding of a multitude of new
| |
| − | groups, parties, etc., calling themselves 'Patriotic,' was a natural
| |
| − | phenomenon of the time, for which the founders were not at all
| |
| − | responsible. By 1920 the National Socialist German Labour Party had
| |
| − | slowly crystallized from all these parties and had become supreme. There
| |
| − | could be no better proof of the sterling honesty of certain individual
| |
| − | founders than the fact that many of them decided, in a really admirable
| |
| − | manner, to sacrifice their manifestly less successful movements to the
| |
| − | stronger movement, by joining it unconditionally and dissolving their
| |
| − | own.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This is specially true in regard to Julius Streicher, who was at that
| |
| − | time the protagonist of the German Socialist party in Nürnberg. The
| |
| − | National Socialist German Labour Party had been founded with similar
| |
| − | aims in view, but quite independently of the other. I have already said
| |
| − | that Streicher, then a teacher in Nürnberg, was the chief protagonist of
| |
| − | the German Socialist Party. He had a sacred conviction of the mission
| |
| − | and future of his own movement. As soon, however, as the superior
| |
| − | strength and stronger growth of the National Socialist Party became
| |
| − | clear and unquestionable to his mind, he gave up his work in the German
| |
| − | Socialist Party and called upon his followers to fall into line with the
| |
| − | National Socialist German Labour Party, which had come out victorious
| |
| − | from the mutual contest, and carry on the fight within its ranks for the
| |
| − | common cause. The decision was personally a difficult one for him, but
| |
| − | it showed a profound sense of honesty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When that first period of the movement was over there remained no
| |
| − | further dispersion of forces: for their honest intentions had led the
| |
| − | men of that time to the same honourable, straightforward and just
| |
| − | conclusion. What we now call the 'patriotic disintegration' owes its
| |
| − | existence exclusively to the second of the two causes which 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
| |
| − | German Labour Party became unquestionable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Suddenly programmes appeared which were mere transcripts of ours. Ideas
| |
| − | were proclaimed which had been taken from us. 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 time trodden. All kinds
| |
| − | of means were resorted to for the purpose of trying to convince the
| |
| − | public that, although the National Socialist German Labour Party had now
| |
| − | been for a long time in existence, it was found necessary to establish
| |
| − | these new parties. But all these phrases were just as insincere as the
| |
| − | motives behind them were ignoble.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In reality all this was grounded only on one dominant motive. That
| |
| − | motive was the personal ambition of the founders, who wished to play a
| |
| − | part in which their own pigmy talents could contribute nothing original
| |
| − | except the gross effrontery which they displayed in appropriating the
| |
| − | ideas of others, a mode of conduct which in ordinary life is looked upon
| |
| − | as thieving.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time there was not an idea or concept launched by other people
| |
| − | which these political kleptomaniacs did not seize upon at once for the
| |
| − | purpose of applying to their own base uses. Those who did all this were
| |
| − | the same people who subsequently, with tears in their eyes, profoundly
| |
| − | deplored the 'patriotic disintegration' and spoke unceasingly about the
| |
| − | 'necessity of unity'. In doing this they nurtured the secret hope that
| |
| − | they might be able to cry down the others, who would tire of hearing
| |
| − | these loud-mouthed accusations and would end up by abandoning all claim
| |
| − | to the ideas that had been stolen from them and would abandon to the
| |
| − | thieves not only the task of carrying these ideas into effect but also
| |
| − | the task of carrying on the movements of which they themselves were the
| |
| − | original founders.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When that did not succeed, and the new enterprises, thanks to the paltry
| |
| − | mentality of their promoters, did not show the favourable results which
| |
| − | had been promised beforehand, then they became more modest in their
| |
| − | pretences and were happy if they could land themselves in one of the
| |
| − | so-called 'co-operative unions'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that period everything which could 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 a gladiator to surrender to them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But if among all these cripples there was one who was sound of limb he
| |
| − | had to use all his strength to sustain the others and thus he himself
| |
| − | was practically paralysed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We ought to look upon the question of joining these working coalitions
| |
| − | as a tactical problem, but, in coming to a decision, we must never
| |
| − | forget the following fundamental principle:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Through the formation of a working coalition associations which are weak
| |
| − | in themselves can never be made strong, whereas it can and does happen
| |
| − | not infrequently that a strong association loses its strength by joining
| |
| − | in a coalition with weaker ones. It is a mistake to believe that a
| |
| − | factor of strength will result from the coalition of weak groups;
| |
| − | because experience shows that under all forms and all conditions the
| |
| − | majority represents the duffers and poltroons. Hence a multiplicity of
| |
| − | associations, under a directorate of many heads, elected by these same
| |
| − | associations, is abandoned to the control of poltroons and weaklings.
| |
| − | Through such a coalition the free play of forces is paralysed, the
| |
| − | struggle for the selection of the best is abolished and therewith the
| |
| − | necessary and final victory of the healthier and stronger is impeded.
| |
| − | Coalitions of that kind are inimical to the process of natural
| |
| − | development, because for the most part they hinder rather than advance
| |
| − | the solution of the problem which is being fought for.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may happen that, from considerations of a purely tactical kind, the
| |
| − | supreme command of a movement whose goal is set in the future will enter
| |
| − | into a coalition with such associations for the treatment of special
| |
| − | questions and may also stand on a common platform with them, but this
| |
| − | can be only for a short and limited period. Such a coalition must not be
| |
| − | permanent, if the movement does not wish to renounce its liberating
| |
| − | mission. Because if it should become indissolubly tied up in such a
| |
| − | combination it would lose the capacity and the right to allow its own
| |
| − | forces to work freely in following out a natural development, so as to
| |
| − | overcome rivals and attain its own objective triumphantly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must never be forgotten that nothing really great in this world has
| |
| − | ever been achieved through coalitions, but that such achievements have
| |
| − | always been due to the triumph of the individual. Successes achieved
| |
| − | through coalitions, owing to the very nature of their source, carry the
| |
| − | germs of future disintegration in them from the very start; so much so
| |
| − | that they have already forfeited what has been achieved. The great
| |
| − | revolutions which have taken place in human thought and have veritably
| |
| − | transformed the aspect of the world would have been inconceivable and
| |
| − | impossible to carry out except through titanic struggles waged between
| |
| − | individual natures, but never as the enterprises of coalitions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And, above all things, the People's State will never be created by the
| |
| − | desire for compromise inherent in a patriotic coalition, but only by the
| |
| − | iron will of a single movement which has successfully come through in
| |
| − | the struggle with all the others.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER IX
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS REGARDING THE NATURE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STORM TROOPS
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The strength of the old state rested 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 party politics. Thus the
| |
| − | essential supports of what is called the Authority of the State were
| |
| − | shattered. This authority nearly always depends on three elements, which
| |
| − | are the essential foundations of all authority.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Popular support is the first element which is necessary for the creation
| |
| − | of authority. But an authority resting on that foundation alone is still
| |
| − | quite frail, uncertain and vacillating. Hence everyone who finds himself
| |
| − | vested with an authority that is based only on popular support must take
| |
| − | measures to improve and consolidate the foundations of that authority by
| |
| − | the creation of force. Accordingly we must look upon power, that is to
| |
| − | say, the capacity to use force, as the second foundation on which all
| |
| − | authority is based. This foundation is more stable and secure, but not
| |
| − | always stronger, than the first. If popular support and power are united
| |
| − | together and can endure for a certain time, then an authority may arise
| |
| − | which is based on a still stronger foundation, namely, the authority of
| |
| − | tradition. And, finally, if popular support, power, and tradition are
| |
| − | united together, then the authority based on them may be looked upon as
| |
| − | invincible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In Germany the Revolution abolished this last foundation. There was no
| |
| − | longer even a traditional authority. With the collapse of the old REICH,
| |
| − | the suppression of the monarchical form of government, the destruction
| |
| − | of all the old insignia of greatness and the imperial symbols, tradition
| |
| − | was shattered at a blow. The result was that the authority of the State
| |
| − | was shaken to its foundations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The second pillar of statal authority, namely POWER, also ceased to
| |
| − | exist. In order to carry through the Revolution it was necessary to
| |
| − | dissolve that body which had hitherto incorporated the organized force
| |
| − | and power of the State, namely, the Army. Indeed, some detached
| |
| − | fragments of the Army itself had to be employed as fighting elements in
| |
| − | the Revolution. The Armies at the front were not subjected in the same
| |
| − | measure to this process of disruption; but as they gradually left
| |
| − | farther behind them the fields of glory on which they had fought
| |
| − | heroically for four-and-half years, they were attacked by the solvent
| |
| − | acid that had permeated the Fatherland; and when they arrived at the
| |
| − | demobilizing centres they fell into that state of confusion which was
| |
| − | styled voluntary obedience in the time of the Soldiers' Councils.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course it was out of the question to think of founding any kind of
| |
| − | authority on this crowd of mutineering soldiers, who looked upon
| |
| − | military service as a work of eight hours per day. Therefore the second
| |
| − | element, that which guarantees the stability of authority, was also
| |
| − | abolished and the Revolution had only the original element, popular
| |
| − | support, on which to build up its authority. But this basis was
| |
| − | extraordinarily insecure. By means of a few violent thrusts the
| |
| − | Revolution had shattered the old statal edifice to its deepest
| |
| − | foundations, but only because the normal equilibrium within the social
| |
| − | structure of the nation had already been destroyed by the war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Every national body is made up of three main classes. At one extreme we
| |
| − | have the best of the people, taking the word 'best' here to indicate
| |
| − | those who are highly endowed with the civic virtues and are noted for
| |
| − | their courage and their readiness to sacrifice their private interests.
| |
| − | At the other extreme are the worst dregs of humanity, in whom vice and
| |
| − | egotistic interests prevail. Between these two extremes stands the third
| |
| − | class, which is made up of the broad middle stratum, who do not
| |
| − | represent radiant heroism or vulgar vice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The stages of a nation's rise are accomplished exclusively under the
| |
| − | leadership of the best extreme.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Times of normal and symmetrical development, or of stable conditions,
| |
| − | owe their existence and outwardly visible characteristics to the
| |
| − | preponderating influence of the middle stratum. In this stage the two
| |
| − | extreme classes are balanced against one another; in other words, they
| |
| − | are relatively cancelled out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Times of national collapse are determined 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 sections are engaged in mutual
| |
| − | strife. In case one of the extreme sections comes out victorious the
| |
| − | middle section will readily submit to its domination. If the best
| |
| − | dominate, the broad masses will follow it. Should the worst extreme turn
| |
| − | out triumphant, then the middle section will at least offer no
| |
| − | opposition to it; for the masses that constitute the middle class never
| |
| − | fight their own battles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The outpouring of blood for four-and-a-half years during the war
| |
| − | destroyed the inner equilibrium between these three sections in so far
| |
| − | as it can be said--though admitting the sacrifices made by the middle
| |
| − | section--that the class which consisted of the best human elements
| |
| − | almost completely disappeared through the loss of so much of its blood
| |
| − | in the war, because it was impossible to replace the truly enormous
| |
| − | quantity of heroic German blood which had been shed during those
| |
| − | four-and-a-half years. In hundreds of thousands of cases it was always a
| |
| − | matter of 'VOLUNTEERS to the front', VOLUNTEERS for patrol and duty,
| |
| − | VOLUNTEER dispatch carriers, VOLUNTEERS for establishing and working
| |
| − | telephonic communications, VOLUNTEERS for bridge-building, VOLUNTEERS
| |
| − | for the submarines, VOLUNTEERS for the air service, VOLUNTEERS for the
| |
| − | storm battalions, and so on, and so on. During four-and-a-half years,
| |
| − | and on thousands of occasions, there was always the call for volunteers
| |
| − | and again for volunteers. And the result was always the same. Beardless
| |
| − | young fellows or fully developed men, all filled with an ardent love for
| |
| − | their country, urged on by their own courageous spirit or by a lofty
| |
| − | sense of 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, so that that kind of human material steadily grew scarcer
| |
| − | and scarcer. What did not actually fall was maimed in the fight or
| |
| − | gradually had to join the ranks of the crippled because of the wounds
| |
| − | they were constantly receiving, and thus they had to carry on
| |
| − | interminably owing to the steady decrease in the supply of such men. In
| |
| − | 1914 whole armies were composed of volunteers who, owing to a criminal
| |
| − | lack of conscience on the part of our feckless parliamentarians, had not
| |
| − | received any proper training in times of peace, and so were thrown as
| |
| − | defenceless cannon-fodder to the enemy. The four hundred thousand who
| |
| − | thus fell or were permanently maimed on the battlefields of Flanders
| |
| − | could not be replaced any more. Their loss was something far more than
| |
| − | merely numerical. With their death the scales, which were already too
| |
| − | lightly weighed at that end of the social structure which represented
| |
| − | our best human quality, now moved upwards rapidly, becoming heavier on
| |
| − | the other end with those vulgar elements of infamy and cowardice--in
| |
| − | short, there was an increase in the elements that constituted 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 an exceptional degree on the
| |
| − | battlefields, our worst people wonderfully succeeded in saving
| |
| − | themselves. For each hero who made the supreme sacrifice and ascended
| |
| − | the steps of Valhalla, there was a shirker who cunningly dodged death on
| |
| − | the plea of being engaged in business that was more or less useful at
| |
| − | home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so the picture which presented itself at the end of the war was
| |
| − | this: The great middle stratum of the nation had fulfilled its duty and
| |
| − | paid its toll of blood. One extreme of the population, which was
| |
| − | constituted of the best elements, had given a typical example of its
| |
| − | heroism and had sacrificed itself almost to a man. The other extreme,
| |
| − | which was constituted of the worst elements of the population, had
| |
| − | preserved itself almost intact, through taking advantage of absurd laws
| |
| − | and also because the authorities failed to enforce certain articles of
| |
| − | the military code.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This carefully preserved scum of our nation then made the Revolution.
| |
| − | And the reason why it could do so was that the extreme section composed
| |
| − | of the best elements was no longer there to oppose it. It no longer
| |
| − | existed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the German Revolution, from the very beginning, depended on only
| |
| − | one section of the population. This act of Cain was not committed by the
| |
| − | German people as such, but by an obscure CANAILLE of deserters,
| |
| − | hooligans, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The man at the front gladly welcomed the end of the strife in which so
| |
| − | much blood had been shed. He was happy to be able to return home and see
| |
| − | his wife and children once again. But he had no moral connection with
| |
| − | the Revolution. He did not like it, nor did he like those who had
| |
| − | provoked and organized it. During the four-and-a-half years of that
| |
| − | bitter struggle at the front he had come to forget the party hyenas at
| |
| − | home and all their wrangling had become foreign to him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Revolution was really popular only with a small section of the
| |
| − | German people: namely, that class and their accomplices who had selected
| |
| − | the rucksack as the hall-mark of all honourable citizens in this new
| |
| − | State. They did not like the Revolution for its own sake, though many
| |
| − | people still erroneously believe the contrary, but for the consequences
| |
| − | which followed in its train.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But it was very difficult to establish 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 it was ready to
| |
| − | agree to be overthrown after a short period of chaos by an elementary
| |
| − | force assembled from those last elements that still remained among the
| |
| − | best extreme of the population.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The danger which those who were responsible for the Revolution feared
| |
| − | most at that time was that, in the turmoil of the confusion which they
| |
| − | themselves had created, the ground would suddenly be taken from under
| |
| − | their feet, that they might be suddenly seized and transported to
| |
| − | another terrain by an iron grip, such as has often appeared at these
| |
| − | junctures in the history of nations. The Republic must be consolidated
| |
| − | at all costs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence it was forced almost immediately after its foundation to erect
| |
| − | another pillar beside that wavering pillar of popularity. They found
| |
| − | that power must be organized once again in order to procure a firmer
| |
| − | foundation for their authority.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When those who had been the matadors of the Revolution in December 1918,
| |
| − | and January and February 1919, felt the ground trembling beneath their
| |
| − | feet they looked around them for men who would be ready to reinforce
| |
| − | them with military support; for their feeble position 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 the
| |
| − | authority of the State rested, namely, its popularity, was grounded only
| |
| − | on a conglomeration of rowdies and thieves, burglars, deserters,
| |
| − | shirkers, etc. Therefore in that section of the nation which we have
| |
| − | called the evil extreme it was useless to look for men who would be
| |
| − | willing to sacrifice their lives on behalf of a new ideal. The section
| |
| − | which had nourished the revolutionary idea and carried out the
| |
| − | Revolution was neither able nor willing to call on the soldiers to
| |
| − | protect it. For that section had no wish whatsoever to organize a
| |
| − | republican State, but to disorganize what already existed and thus
| |
| − | satisfy its own instincts all the better. Their password was not the
| |
| − | organization and construction of the German Republic, but rather the
| |
| − | plundering of it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the cry for help sent out by the public representatives, who were
| |
| − | beset by a thousand anxieties, did not find any response among this
| |
| − | class of people, but rather provoked a feeling of bitterness and
| |
| − | repudiation. For they looked upon this step as the beginning of a breach
| |
| − | of faith and trust, and in the building up of an authority which was no
| |
| − | longer based on popular support but also on force they saw the beginning
| |
| − | of a hostile move against what the Revolution meant essentially for
| |
| − | those elements. They feared that measures might be taken against the
| |
| − | right to robbery and absolute domination on the part of a horde of
| |
| − | thieves and plunderers--in short, the worst rabble--who had broken out
| |
| − | of the convict prisons and left their chains behind.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The representatives of the people might cry out as much as they liked,
| |
| − | but they could get no help from that rabble. The cries for help were met
| |
| − | with the counter-cry 'traitors' by those very people on whose support
| |
| − | the popularity of the regime was founded.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then for the first time large numbers of young Germans were found who
| |
| − | were ready to button on the military uniform once again in the service
| |
| − | of 'Peace and Order', as they believed, shouldering the carbine and
| |
| − | rifle and donning the steel helmet to defend the wreckers of the
| |
| − | Fatherland. Volunteer corps were assembled and, although hating the
| |
| − | Revolution, they began to defend it. The practical effect of their
| |
| − | action was to render the Revolution firm and stable. In doing this they
| |
| − | acted in perfect good faith.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The real organizer of the Revolution and the actual wire-puller behind
| |
| − | it, the international Jew, had sized up the situation correctly. The
| |
| − | German people were not yet ripe to be drawn into the blood swamp of
| |
| − | Bolshevism, as the Russian people had been drawn. And that was because
| |
| − | there was a closer racial union between the intellectual classes in
| |
| − | Germany and the manual workers, and also because broad social strata
| |
| − | were permeated with cultured people, such as was the case also in the
| |
| − | other States of Western Europe; but this state of affairs was completely
| |
| − | lacking in Russia. In that country the intellectual classes were mostly
| |
| − | not of Russian nationality, or at least they did not have the racial
| |
| − | characteristics of the Slav. The thin upper layer of intellectuals which
| |
| − | then existed in Russia might be abolished at any time, because there was
| |
| − | no intermediate stratum connecting it organically with the great mass of
| |
| − | the people. There the mental and moral level of the great mass of the
| |
| − | people was frightfully low.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In Russia the moment the agitators were successful in inciting broad
| |
| − | masses of the people, who could not read or write, against the upper
| |
| − | layer of intellectuals who were not in contact with the masses or
| |
| − | permanently linked with them in any way--at that moment the destiny of
| |
| − | Russia was decided, the success of the Revolution was assured. Thereupon
| |
| − | the analphabetic Russian became the slave of his Jewish dictators who,
| |
| − | on their side, were shrewd enough to name their dictatorship 'The
| |
| − | Dictatorship of the People'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the case of Germany an additional factor must be taken into account.
| |
| − | Here the Revolution could be carried into effect only if the Army could
| |
| − | first be gradually dismembered. But the real author of the Revolution
| |
| − | and of the process of disintegration in the Army was not the soldier who
| |
| − | had fought at the front but the CANAILLE which more or less shunned the
| |
| − | light and which were either quartered in the home garrisons or were
| |
| − | officiating as 'indispensables' somewhere in the business world at home.
| |
| − | This army was reinforced by ten thousand deserters who, without running
| |
| − | any particular risk, could turn their backs on the Front. At all times
| |
| − | the real poltroon fears nothing so much as death. But at the Front he
| |
| − | had death before his eyes every day in a thousand different shapes.
| |
| − | There has always been one possible way, and one only, of making weak or
| |
| − | wavering men, or even downright poltroons, face their duty steadfastly.
| |
| − | This means that the deserter must be given to understand that his
| |
| − | desertion will bring upon him just the very thing he is flying from. At
| |
| − | the Front a man may die, but the deserter MUST die. Only this draconian
| |
| − | threat against every attempt to desert the flag can have 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 that the great struggle for the life of a
| |
| − | nation could be carried through if it were based solely on voluntary
| |
| − | fidelity arising from and sustained by the knowledge that such a
| |
| − | struggle was necessary. The voluntary fulfilment of one's duty is a
| |
| − | motive that determines the actions of only the best men, but not of the
| |
| − | average type of men. Hence special laws are necessary; just as, for
| |
| − | instance, the law against stealing, which was not made for men who are
| |
| − | honest on principle but for the weak and unstable elements. Such laws
| |
| − | are meant to hinder the evil-doer through their deterrent effect and
| |
| − | thus prevent a state of affairs from arising in which the honest man is
| |
| − | considered the more stupid, and which would end in the belief that it is
| |
| − | better to have a share in the robbery than to stand by with empty hands
| |
| − | or allow oneself to be robbed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a mistake to believe that in a struggle which, according to all
| |
| − | human foresight, might last for several years it would be possible to
| |
| − | dispense with those expedients which the experience of hundreds and even
| |
| − | of thousands of years had proved to be effective in making weak and
| |
| − | unstable men face and fulfil their duty in difficult 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 it is necessary for the cowardly
| |
| − | egoists who value their own lives more than the existence of the
| |
| − | community in the hour of national need. Such weak and characterless
| |
| − | people can be held back from surrendering to their cowardice only by the
| |
| − | application of the heaviest penalties. When men have to struggle with
| |
| − | death every day and remain for weeks in trenches of mire, often very
| |
| − | badly supplied with food, the man who is unsure of himself and begins to
| |
| − | waver cannot be made to stick to his post by threats of imprisonment or
| |
| − | even penal servitude. Only by a ruthless enforcement of the death
| |
| − | penalty can this be effected. For experience shows that at such a time
| |
| − | the recruit considers prison a thousand times more preferable than the
| |
| − | battlefield. In prison at least his precious life is not in danger. The
| |
| − | practical abolition of the death penalty during the war was a mistake
| |
| − | for which we had to pay dearly. Such omission really meant that the
| |
| − | military penal code was no longer recognized as valid. An army of
| |
| − | deserters poured into the stations at the rear or returned home,
| |
| − | especially in 1918, and there began to form that huge criminal
| |
| − | organization with which we were suddenly faced, after November 7th,
| |
| − | 1918, and which perpetrated the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Front had nothing to do with all this. Naturally, the soldiers at
| |
| − | the Front were yearning for peace. But it was precisely that fact which
| |
| − | represented a special danger for the Revolution. For when the German
| |
| − | soldiers began to draw near home, after the Armistice, the
| |
| − | revolutionaries were in trepidation and asked the same question again
| |
| − | and again: What will the troops from the Front do? Will the field-greys
| |
| − | stand for it?
| |
| − | | |
| − | During those weeks the Revolution was forced to give itself at least an
| |
| − | external appearance of moderation, if it were not to run the risk of
| |
| − | being wrecked in a moment by a few German divisions. For at that time,
| |
| − | even if the commander of one division alone had made up his mind to
| |
| − | rally the soldiers of his division, who had always remained faithful 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 with
| |
| − | trench-mortars and hand grenades, that division would have grown into an
| |
| − | army of sixty divisions in less than four weeks. The Jew wire-pullers
| |
| − | were terrified by this prospect more than by anything else; and to
| |
| − | forestall this particular danger they found it necessary to give the
| |
| − | Revolution a certain aspect of moderation. They dared not allow it to
| |
| − | degenerate into Bolshevism, so they had to face the existing conditions
| |
| − | by putting up the hypocritical picture of 'order and tranquillity'.
| |
| − | Hence many important concessions, the appeal to the old civil service
| |
| − | and to the heads of the old Army. They would be needed at least for a
| |
| − | certain time, and only when they had served the purpose of Turks' Heads
| |
| − | could the deserved kick-out be administered with impunity. Then the
| |
| − | Republic would be taken entirely out of the hands of the old servants of
| |
| − | the State and delivered into the claws of the revolutionaries.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They thought that this was the only plan which would succeed in duping
| |
| − | the old generals and civil servants and disarm any eventual opposition
| |
| − | beforehand through the apparently harmless and mild character of the new
| |
| − | regime.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Practical experience has shown to what extent the plan succeeded.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Revolution, however, was not made 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 not accord 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 were
| |
| − | taking and make that course acceptable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As Social Democracy gradually gained power it lost more and more the
| |
| − | character of a crude revolutionary party. Of course in their inner
| |
| − | hearts the Social Democrats wanted a revolution; and their leaders had
| |
| − | no other end in view. Certainly not. But what finally resulted was only
| |
| − | a revolutionary programme; but not a body of men who would be able to
| |
| − | carry it out. A revolution cannot be carried through by a party of ten
| |
| − | million members. If such a movement were attempted the leaders would
| |
| − | find that it was not an extreme section of the population on which they
| |
| − | had to depend butrather the broad masses of the middle stratum; hence
| |
| − | the inert masses.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Recognizing all this, already during the war, the Jews caused the famous
| |
| − | split in the Social Democratic Party. While the Social Democratic Party,
| |
| − | conforming to the inertia of its mass following, clung like a leaden
| |
| − | weight on the neck of the national defence, the actively radical
| |
| − | elements were extracted from it and formed into new aggressive columns
| |
| − | for purposes of attack. The Independent Socialist Party and the
| |
| − | Spartacist League were the storm battalions of revolutionary Marxism.
| |
| − | The objective assigned to them was to create a FAIT ACCOMPLI, on the
| |
| − | grounds of which the masses of the Social Democratic Party could take
| |
| − | their stand, having been prepared for this event long beforehand. The
| |
| − | feckless bourgeoisie had been estimated at its just value by the
| |
| − | Marxists and treated EN CANAILLE. Nobody bothered about it, knowing well
| |
| − | that in their canine servility the representatives of an old and
| |
| − | worn-out generation would not be able to offer any serious resistance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the Revolution had succeeded and its artificers believed that the
| |
| − | main pillars of the old State had been broken down, the Army returning
| |
| − | from the Front began to appear in the light of a sinister sphinx and
| |
| − | thus made it necessary to slow down the national course of the
| |
| − | Revolution. The main body of the Social Democratic horde occupied the
| |
| − | conquered positions, and the Independent Socialist and Spartacist storm
| |
| − | battalions were side-tracked.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But that did not happen without a struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The activist assault formations that had started the Revolution were
| |
| − | dissatisfied and felt that they had been betrayed. They now wanted to
| |
| − | continue the fight on their own account. But their illimitable
| |
| − | racketeering became odious even to the wire-pullers of the Revolution.
| |
| − | For the Revolution itself had scarcely been accomplished when two camps
| |
| − | appeared. In the one camp were the elements of peace and order; in the
| |
| − | other were those of blood and terror. Was it not perfectly natural that
| |
| − | our bourgeoisie should rush with flying colours to the camp of peace and
| |
| − | order? For once in their lives their piteous political organizations
| |
| − | found it possible to act, inasmuch as the ground had been prepared for
| |
| − | them on which they were glad to get a new footing; and thus to a certain
| |
| − | extent they found themselves in coalition with that power which they
| |
| − | hated but feared. The German political bourgeoisie achieved the high
| |
| − | honour of being able to associate itself with the accursed Marxist
| |
| − | leaders for the purpose of combating Bolshevism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the following state of affairs took shape as early as December 1918
| |
| − | and January 1919:
| |
| − | | |
| − | A minority constituted of the worst elements had made the Revolution.
| |
| − | And behind this minority all the Marxist parties immediately fell into
| |
| − | step. The Revolution itself had an outward appearance of moderation,
| |
| − | which aroused against it the enmity of the fanatical extremists. These
| |
| − | began to launch hand-grenades and fire machine-guns, occupying public
| |
| − | buildings, thus threatening to destroy the moderate appearance of the
| |
| − | Revolution. To prevent this terror from developing further a truce was
| |
| − | concluded between the representatives of the new regime and the
| |
| − | adherents of the old order, so as to be able to wage a common fight
| |
| − | against the extremists. The result was that the enemies of the Republic
| |
| − | ceased to oppose the Republic as such and helped to subjugate those who
| |
| − | were also enemies of the Republic, though for quite different reasons.
| |
| − | But a further result was that all danger of the adherents of the old
| |
| − | State putting up a fight against the new was now definitely averted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This fact must always be clearly kept in mind. Only by remembering it
| |
| − | can we understand how it was possible that a 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 nation allowed the
| |
| − | Revolution to be imposed upon it by the remaining one-tenth of the
| |
| − | population.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Gradually the barricade heroes in the Spartacist camp petered out, and
| |
| − | so did the nationalist patriots and idealists on the other side. As
| |
| − | these two groups steadily dwindled, the masses of the middle stratum, as
| |
| − | always happens, triumphed. The Bourgeoisie and the Marxists met together
| |
| − | on the grounds of accomplished facts, and the Republic began to be
| |
| − | consolidated. At first, however, that did not prevent the bourgeois
| |
| − | parties from propounding their monarchist ideas for some time further,
| |
| − | especially at the elections, whereby they endeavoured to conjure up the
| |
| − | spirits of the dead past to encourage their own feeble-hearted
| |
| − | followers. It was not an honest 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 action and make itself felt in the
| |
| − | camp of the bourgeois parties. The common bourgeois politician now felt
| |
| − | better in the slime of republican corruption than in the severe 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 to strengthen statal authority by
| |
| − | creating a new factor of power. In the conditions that existed they
| |
| − | could do this only by winning over to their side the adherents of a
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG which was a direct contradiction of their own. From
| |
| − | those elements alone it was possible slowly to create a new army which,
| |
| − | limited numerically by the peace treaties, had to be subsequently
| |
| − | transformed in spirit so as to become an instrument of the new regime.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Setting aside the defects of the old State, which really became the
| |
| − | cause of the Revolution, if we ask how it was 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 dry rot in our conceptions of duty and
| |
| − | obedience.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 2. It was due also to the passive timidity of the Parties who were
| |
| − | supposed to uphold the State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To this the following must be added: The dry rot which attacked our
| |
| − | concepts of duty and obedience was fundamentally due to our wholly
| |
| − | non-national and purely State education. From this came the habit of
| |
| − | confusing means and ends. Consciousness of duty, fulfilment of duty, and
| |
| − | obedience, are not ends in themselves no more than the State is an end
| |
| − | in itself; but they all ought to be employed as means to facilitate and
| |
| − | assure the existence of a community of people who are kindred both
| |
| − | physically and spiritually. At a moment when a nation is manifestly
| |
| − | collapsing and when all outward signs show that it is on the point of
| |
| − | becoming the 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 doctrinaire formalism, and indeed pure folly; whereas, on the
| |
| − | other hand, the refusal of obedience and fulfilment of duty in such a
| |
| − | case might save the nation from collapse. According to our current
| |
| − | bourgeois idea of the State, if a divisional general received from above
| |
| − | the order not to shoot he fulfilled his duty and therefore acted rightly
| |
| − | in not shooting, because to the bourgeois mind blind formal obedience is
| |
| − | a more valuable thing than the life of a nation. But according to the
| |
| − | National Socialist concept it is not obedience to weak superiors that
| |
| − | should prevail at such moments, in such an hour the duty of assuming
| |
| − | personal responsibility towards the whole nation makes its appearance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Revolution succeeded because that concept had ceased to be a vital
| |
| − | force with our people, or rather with our governments, and died down to
| |
| − | something that was merely formal and doctrinaire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As regards the second point, it may be said that the more profound cause
| |
| − | of the fecklessness of the bourgeois parties must be attributed to the
| |
| − | fact that the most active and upright section of our people had lost
| |
| − | their lives in the war. Apart from that, the bourgeois parties, which
| |
| − | may be considered as the only political formations that stood by the old
| |
| − | State, were convinced that they ought to defend their principles only by
| |
| − | intellectual ways and means, since the use of physical force was
| |
| − | permitted only to the State. That outlook was a sign of the weakness and
| |
| − | decadence which had been gradually developing. And it was also senseless
| |
| − | at a period when there was a political adversary who had long ago
| |
| − | abandoned that standpoint and, instead of this, had openly declared that
| |
| − | he meant to attain his political ends by force whenever that became
| |
| − | possible. When Marxism emerged in the world of bourgeois democracy, as a
| |
| − | consequence of that democracy itself, the appeal sent out by the
| |
| − | bourgeois democracy to fight Marxism with intellectual weapons was a
| |
| − | piece of folly for which a terrible expiation had to be made later on.
| |
| − | For Marxism always professed the doctrine that the use of arms was a
| |
| − | matter which had to be judged from the standpoint of expediency and that
| |
| − | success justified the use of arms.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This idea was proved correct during the days from November 7 to 10,
| |
| − | 1918. The Marxists did not then bother themselves in the least about
| |
| − | parliament or democracy, but they gave the death blow to both by turning
| |
| − | loose their horde of criminals to shoot and raise hell.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the Revolution was over the bourgeois parties changed the title of
| |
| − | their firm and suddenly reappeared, the heroic leaders emerging from
| |
| − | dark cellars or more lightsome storehouses where they had sought refuge.
| |
| − | But, just as happens in the case of all representatives of antiquated
| |
| − | institutions, they had not forgotten their errors or learned anything
| |
| − | new. Their political programme was grounded in the past, even though
| |
| − | they themselves had become reconciled to the new regime. Their aim was
| |
| − | to secure a share in the new establishment, and so they continued the
| |
| − | use of words as their sole weapon.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore after the Revolution the bourgeois parties also capitulated to
| |
| − | the street in a miserable fashion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the law for the Protection of the Republic was introduced the
| |
| − | majority was not at first in favour of it. But, confronted with two
| |
| − | hundred thousand Marxists demonstrating in the streets, the bourgeois
| |
| − | 'statesmen' were so terror-stricken that they voted for the Law against
| |
| − | their wills, for the edifying reason that otherwise they feared they
| |
| − | might get their heads smashed by the enraged masses on leaving the
| |
| − | Reichstag.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so the new State developed along its own course, as if there had
| |
| − | been no national opposition at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The only organizations which at that time had the strength and courage
| |
| − | to face Marxism and its enraged masses were first of all the volunteer
| |
| − | corps (Note 19), and subsequently the organizations for self-defence, the
| |
| − | civic guards and finally the associations formed by the demobilized
| |
| − | soldiers of the old Army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 19. After the DEBACLE of 1918 several semi-military associations were
| |
| − | formed by demobilized officers who had fought at the Front. These were
| |
| − | semi-clandestine associations and were known as FREIKORPS (Volunteer
| |
| − | corps). Their principal purpose was to act as rallying centres for the
| |
| − | old nationalist elements.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the existence of these bodies did not appreciably change the course
| |
| − | of German history; and that for the following causes:
| |
| − | | |
| − | As the so-called national parties were without influence, because they
| |
| − | had no force which could effectively demonstrate in the street, the
| |
| − | Leagues of Defence could not exercise any influence because they had no
| |
| − | political idea and especially because they had no definite political aim
| |
| − | in view.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The success which Marxism once attained was due to perfect co-operation
| |
| − | between political purposes and ruthless force. What deprived nationalist
| |
| − | Germany of all practical hopes of shaping German development was the
| |
| − | lack of a determined co-operation between brute force and political aims
| |
| − | wisely chosen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Whatever may have been the aspirations of the 'national' parties, they
| |
| − | had no force whatsoever to fight for these aspirations, least of all in
| |
| − | the streets.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Defence Leagues had force at their disposal. They were masters of
| |
| − | the street and of the State, but they lacked political ideas and aims on
| |
| − | behalf of which their forces might have been or could have been employed
| |
| − | in the interests of the German nation. The cunning Jew was able in both
| |
| − | cases, by his astute powers of persuasion, in reinforcing an already
| |
| − | existing tendency to make this unfortunate state of affairs permanent
| |
| − | and at the same time to drive the roots of it still deeper.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jew succeeded brilliantly in using his Press for the purpose of
| |
| − | spreading abroad the idea that the defence associations were of a
| |
| − | 'non-political' character just as in politics he was always astute
| |
| − | enough to praise the purely intellectual character of the struggle and
| |
| − | demand that it must always be kept on that plane
| |
| − | | |
| − | Millions of German imbeciles then repeated this folly without having the
| |
| − | slightest suspicion that by so doing they were, for all practical
| |
| − | purposes, disarming themselves and delivering themselves defenceless
| |
| − | into the hands of the Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But there is a natural explanation of this also. The lack of a great
| |
| − | idea which would re-shape things anew has always meant a limitation in
| |
| − | fighting power. The conviction of the right to employ even the most
| |
| − | brutal weapons is always associated with an ardent faith in the
| |
| − | necessity for a new and revolutionary transformation of the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A movement which does not fight for such high aims and ideals will never
| |
| − | have recourse to extreme means.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The appearance of a new and great idea was the secret of success in the
| |
| − | French Revolution. The Russian Revolution owes its triumph to an idea.
| |
| − | And it was only the idea that enabled Fascism triumphantly to subject a
| |
| − | whole nation to a process of complete renovation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Bourgeois parties are not capable of such an achievement. And it was not
| |
| − | the bourgeois parties alone that fixed their aim in a restoration of the
| |
| − | past. The defence associations also did so, in so far as they concerned
| |
| − | themselves with political aims at all. The spirit of the old war legions
| |
| − | and Kyffauser tendencies lived in them and therewith helped politically
| |
| − | to blunt the sharpest weapons which the German nation then possessed and
| |
| − | allow them to rust in the hands of republican serfs. The fact that 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
| |
| − | the foolishness of the course they adopted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the consolidated REICHSWEHR Marxism gradually acquired the support of
| |
| − | force, which it needed for its authority. As a logical consequence it
| |
| − | proceeded to abolish those defence associations which it considered
| |
| − | dangerous, declaring that they were now no longer necessary. Some rash
| |
| − | leaders who defied the Marxist orders were summoned to court and sent to
| |
| − | prison. But they all got what they had deserved.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The founding of the National Socialist German Labour Party incited a
| |
| − | movement which was the first to fix its aim, 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 absurd statal
| |
| − | mechanism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the first day of its foundation the new movement took its stand on
| |
| − | the principle that its ideas had to be propagated by intellectual means
| |
| − | but that, wherever necessary, muscular force must be employed to support
| |
| − | this propaganda. In accordance with their conviction of the paramount
| |
| − | importance of the new doctrine, the leaders of the new movement
| |
| − | naturally believe that no sacrifice can be considered too great when it
| |
| − | is a question of carrying through the purpose of the movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I have emphasized that in certain circumstances a movement which is
| |
| − | meant to win over the hearts of the people must be ready to defend
| |
| − | itself with its own forces against terrorist attempts on the part of its
| |
| − | adversaries. It has invariably happened in the history of the world that
| |
| − | formal State authority has failed to break a reign of terror which was
| |
| − | inspired by a WELTANSCHAUUNG. It can only be conquered by a new and
| |
| − | different WELTANSCHAUUNG whose representatives are quite as audacious
| |
| − | and determined. The acknowledgment of this fact has always been very
| |
| − | unpleasant for the bureaucrats who are the protectors of the State, but
| |
| − | the fact remains nevertheless. The rulers of the State can guarantee
| |
| − | tranquillity and order only in case the State embodies a WELTANSCHAUUNG
| |
| − | which is shared in by the people 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 diametrically opposed to
| |
| − | official opinions. If such should be the case the State may employ the
| |
| − | most violent measures for centuries long against the terror that
| |
| − | threatens it; but in the end all these measures will prove futile, and
| |
| − | the State will have to succumb.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German State is intensely overrun by Marxism. In a struggle that
| |
| − | went on for seventy years the State was not able to prevent the triumph
| |
| − | of the Marxist idea. Even though the sentences to penal servitude and
| |
| − | imprisonment amounted in all to thousands of years, and even though the
| |
| − | most sanguinary methods of repression were in innumerable instances
| |
| − | threatened against the champions of the Marxist WELTANSCHAUUNG, in the
| |
| − | end the State was forced to capitulate almost completely. The ordinary
| |
| − | bourgeois political leaders will deny all this, but their protests are
| |
| − | futile.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Seeing that the State capitulated unconditionally to Marxism on November
| |
| − | 9th, 1918, it will not suddenly rise up tomorrow as the conqueror of
| |
| − | Marxism. On the contrary. Bourgeois simpletons sitting on office stools
| |
| − | in the various ministries babble about the necessity of 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 only are
| |
| − | they guilty of a vile falsification of the truth, but they thus try to
| |
| − | hide their own collapse before the Marxist idea and the Marxist
| |
| − | organization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In view of the complete subordination of the present State to Marxism,
| |
| − | the National Socialist Movement feels all the more bound not only to
| |
| − | prepare the way for the triumph of its idea by appealing to the reason
| |
| − | and understanding of the public but also to take upon itself the
| |
| − | responsibility of organizing its own defence against the terror of the
| |
| − | International, which is intoxicated with its own victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I have already described how practical experience in our young movement
| |
| − | led us slowly to organize a system of defence for our meetings. This
| |
| − | gradually assumed the character of a military body specially trained for
| |
| − | the maintenance of order, and tended to develop into a service which
| |
| − | would have its properly organized cadres.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This new formation might resemble the defence associations externally,
| |
| − | but in reality there were no grounds of comparison between the one and
| |
| − | the other.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have already said, the German defence organizations did not have
| |
| − | any definite political ideas of their own. They really were only
| |
| − | associations for mutual protection, and they were trained and organized
| |
| − | accordingly, so that they were an illegal complement or auxiliary to the
| |
| − | legal forces of the State. Their character as free corps arose only from
| |
| − | the way in which they were constructed and the situation in which the
| |
| − | State found itself at that time. But they certainly could not claim to
| |
| − | be free corps on the grounds that they were associations formed freely
| |
| − | and privately for the purpose of fighting for their own freely formed
| |
| − | political convictions. Such they were not, despite the fact that some of
| |
| − | their leaders and some associations as such were definitely opposed to
| |
| − | the Republic. For before we can speak of political convictions in the
| |
| − | higher sense we must be something more than merely convinced that the
| |
| − | existing regime is defective. Political convictions in the higher sense
| |
| − | mean that one has the picture of a new regime clearly before one's mind,
| |
| − | feels that the establishment of this regime is an absolute necessity and
| |
| − | sets himself to carry out that purpose as the highest task to which his
| |
| − | life can be devoted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The troops for the preservation of order, which were then formed under
| |
| − | the National Socialist Movement, were fundamentally different from all
| |
| − | the other defence associations by reason of the fact that our formations
| |
| − | were not meant in any way to defend the state of things created by the
| |
| − | Revolution, but rather that they were meant exclusively to support our
| |
| − | struggle for the creation of a new Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the beginning this body was merely a guard to maintain order at our
| |
| − | meetings. Its first task was limited to making it possible for us to
| |
| − | hold our meetings, which otherwise would have been completely prevented
| |
| − | by our opponents. These men were at that time trained merely for
| |
| − | purposes of attack, but they were not taught to adore the big stick
| |
| − | exclusively, as was then pretended in stupid German patriotic circles.
| |
| − | They used the cudgel because they knew that it can be made impossible
| |
| − | for high ideals to be put forward if the man who endeavours to propagate
| |
| − | them can be struck down with the cudgel. As a matter of fact, it has
| |
| − | happened in history not infrequently that some of the greatest minds
| |
| − | have perished under the blows of the most insignificant helots. Our
| |
| − | bodyguards did not look upon violence as an end in itself, but they
| |
| − | protected the expositors of ideal aims and purposes against hostile
| |
| − | coercion by violence. They also understood that there was no obligation
| |
| − | to undertake the defence of a State which did not guarantee the defence
| |
| − | of the nation, but that, on the contrary, they had to defend the nation
| |
| − | against those who were threatening to destroy nation and State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After the fight which took place at the meeting in the Munich
| |
| − | Hofbräuhaus, where the small number of our guards who were present won
| |
| − | everlasting fame for themselves by the heroic manner in which they
| |
| − | stormed the adversaries; these guards were called THE STORM DETACHMENT.
| |
| − | As the name itself indicates, they represent only a DETACHMENT of the
| |
| − | Movement. They are one constituent element of it, just as is the Press,
| |
| − | the propaganda, educational institutes, and other sections of the Party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We learned how necessary was the formation of such a body, not only from
| |
| − | our experience on the occasion of that memorable meeting but also when
| |
| − | we sought gradually to carry the Movement beyond Munich and extend it to
| |
| − | the other parts of Germany. Once we had begun to appear as a danger to
| |
| − | Marxism the Marxists lost no opportunity of trying to crush 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.
| |
| − | It goes without saying that all the Marxist organizations, no matter of
| |
| − | what grade or view, blindly supported the policy and activities of their
| |
| − | representations in every case. But what is to be said of the bourgeois
| |
| − | parties who, when they were reduced to silence by these same Marxists
| |
| − | and in many places did not dare to send their speakers to appear before
| |
| − | the public, yet showed themselves pleased, in a stupid and
| |
| − | incomprehensible manner, every time we received any kind of set-back in
| |
| − | our fight against Marxism. The bourgeois parties were happy to think
| |
| − | that those whom they themselves could not stand up against, but had to
| |
| − | knuckle down to, could not be broken by us. What must be said of those
| |
| − | State officials, chiefs of police, and even cabinet ministers, who
| |
| − | showed a scandalous lack of principle in presenting themselves
| |
| − | externally to the public as 'national' and yet shamelessly acted as the
| |
| − | henchmen of the Marxists in the disputes which we, National Socialists,
| |
| − | had with the latter. What can be said of persons who debased themselves
| |
| − | so far, for the sake of a little abject praise in the Jewish Press, that
| |
| − | they persecuted those men to whose heroic courage and intervention,
| |
| − | regardless of risk, they were partly indebted for not having been torn
| |
| − | to pieces by the Red mob a few years previously and strung up to the
| |
| − | lamp-posts?
| |
| − | | |
| − | One day these lamentable phenomena fired the late but unforgotten
| |
| − | Prefect Pöhner--a man whose unbending straightforwardness forced him to
| |
| − | hate all twisters and to hate them as only a man with an honest heart
| |
| − | can hate--to say: "In all my life I wished to be first a German and then
| |
| − | an official, and I never wanted to mix up with these creatures who, as
| |
| − | if they were kept officials, prostituted themselves before anybody who
| |
| − | could play lord and master for the time being."
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a specially sad thing that gradually tens of thousands of honest
| |
| − | and loyal servants of the State did not only come under the power of
| |
| − | such people but were also slowly contaminated by their unprincipled
| |
| − | morals. Moreover, these kind of men pursued honest officials with a
| |
| − | furious hatred, degrading them and driving them from their positions,
| |
| − | and yet passed themselves off as 'national' by the aid of their lying
| |
| − | hypocrisy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From officials of that kind we could expect no support, and only in very
| |
| − | rare instances was it given. Only by building up its own defence could
| |
| − | our movement become secure and attract that amount of public attention
| |
| − | and general respect which is given to those who can defend themselves
| |
| − | when attacked.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As an underlying principle in the internal development of the Storm
| |
| − | Detachment, we came to the decision that not only should it be perfectly
| |
| − | trained in bodily efficiency but that the men should be so instructed as
| |
| − | to make them indomitably convinced champions of the National Socialist
| |
| − | ideas and, finally, that they should be schooled to observe the
| |
| − | strictest discipline. This body was to have nothing to do with the
| |
| − | defence organizations of the bourgeois type and especially not with any
| |
| − | secret organization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | My reasons at that time for guarding strictly against letting the Storm
| |
| − | Detachment of the German National Socialist Labour Party appear as a
| |
| − | defence association were as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | On purely practical grounds it is impossible to build up a national
| |
| − | defence organization by means of private associations, unless the State
| |
| − | makes an enormous contribution to it. Whoever thinks otherwise
| |
| − | overestimates his own powers. Now it is entirely out of the question to
| |
| − | form organizations of any military value for a definite purpose on the
| |
| − | principle of so-called 'voluntary discipline'. Here the chief support
| |
| − | for enforcing orders, namely, the power of inflicting punishment, is
| |
| − | lacking. In the 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 that time had been through the school of the old
| |
| − | Army, but also because the kind of duty imposed there constrained the
| |
| − | individual to absolute obedience at least for a definite period of time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That spirit is entirely lacking in the volunteer defence organizations
| |
| − | of to-day. The more the defence association grows, the weaker its
| |
| − | discipline becomes and so much the less can one demand from the
| |
| − | individual members. Thus the whole organization will more and more
| |
| − | assume the character of the old non-political associations of war
| |
| − | comrades and veterans.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is impossible to carry through a voluntary training in military
| |
| − | service for larger masses unless one is assured absolute power of
| |
| − | command. There will always be few men who will voluntarily and
| |
| − | spontaneously submit to that kind of obedience which is considered
| |
| − | natural and necessary in the Army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Moreover, a proper system of military training cannot be developed where
| |
| − | there are such ridiculously scanty means as those at the disposal of the
| |
| − | defence associations. The principal task of such an institution must be
| |
| − | to impart the best and most reliable kind of instruction. Eight years
| |
| − | have passed since the end of the War, and during that time none of our
| |
| − | German youth, at an age when formerly they would have had to do military
| |
| − | service, have received any systematic training at all. The aim of a
| |
| − | defence association cannot be to enlist here and now all those who have
| |
| − | already received a military training; for in that case it could be
| |
| − | reckoned with mathematical accuracy when the last member would leave the
| |
| − | association. Even the younger soldier from 1918 will no longer be fit
| |
| − | for front-line service twenty years later, and we are approaching that
| |
| − | state of things with a rapidity that gives cause for anxiety. Thus the
| |
| − | defence associations must assume more and more the aspect of the old
| |
| − | ex-service men's societies. But that cannot be the meaning and purpose
| |
| − | of an institution which calls itself, not an association of ex-service
| |
| − | men but a DEFENCE association, indicating by this title that it
| |
| − | considers its task to be, not only to preserve the tradition of the old
| |
| − | soldiers and hold them together but also to propagate the idea of
| |
| − | national defence and be able to carry this idea into practical effect,
| |
| − | which means the creation of a body of men who are fit and trained for
| |
| − | military defence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But this implies that those elements 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. In view of the enormously
| |
| − | increasing demands which modern warfare imposes on each individual
| |
| − | soldier to-day, a military service of two years is barely sufficient to
| |
| − | transform a raw recruit into a trained soldier. At the Front during the
| |
| − | War we all saw the fearful consequences which our young recruits had to
| |
| − | suffer from their lack of a thorough military training. Volunteer
| |
| − | formations which had been drilled for fifteen or twenty weeks under an
| |
| − | iron discipline and shown unlimited self-denial proved nevertheless to
| |
| − | be no better than cannon fodder at the Front. Only when distributed
| |
| − | among the ranks of the old and experienced soldiers 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 adapted themselves
| |
| − | gradually to their task.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the light of all this, how hopeless must the attempt be to create a
| |
| − | body of fighting troops by a so-called training of one or two hours in
| |
| − | the week, without any definite power of command and without any
| |
| − | considerable means. In that way perhaps one could refresh military
| |
| − | training in old soldiers, but raw recruits cannot thus be transformed
| |
| − | into expert soldiers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How such a proceeding produces utterly worthless results may also be
| |
| − | demonstrated by the fact that at the same time as these so-called
| |
| − | volunteer defence associations, with great effort and outcry and under
| |
| − | difficulties and lack of necessities, try to educate and train a few
| |
| − | thousand men of goodwill (the others need not be taken into account) for
| |
| − | purposes of national defence, the State teaches our young men democratic
| |
| − | and pacifist ideas and thus deprives millions and millions of their
| |
| − | national instincts, poisons their logical sense of patriotism and
| |
| − | gradually turns them into a herd of sheep who will patiently follow any
| |
| − | arbitrary command. Thus they render ridiculous all those attempts made
| |
| − | by the defence associations to inculcate their ideas in the minds of the
| |
| − | German youth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Almost more important is the following consideration, which has always
| |
| − | made me take up a stand against all attempts at a so-called military
| |
| − | training on the basis of the volunteer associations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Assuming that, in spite of all the difficulties just mentioned, a
| |
| − | defence association were successful in training a certain number of
| |
| − | Germans every year to be efficient soldiers, not only as regards their
| |
| − | mental outlook but also as regards bodily efficiency and the expert
| |
| − | handling of arms, the result must necessarily be null and void in a
| |
| − | State whose whole tendency makes it not only look upon such a defensive
| |
| − | formation as undesirable but even positively hate it, because such an
| |
| − | association would completely contradict the intimate aims of the
| |
| − | political leaders, who are the corrupters of this State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But anyhow, such a result would be worthless under governments which
| |
| − | have demonstrated by their own acts that they do not lay the slightest
| |
| − | importance on the military power of the nation and are not disposed to
| |
| − | permit an appeal to that power only in case that it were necessary for
| |
| − | the protection of their own malignant existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And that is the state of affairs to-day. It is not ridiculous to think
| |
| − | of training some ten thousand men in the use of arms, and carry on that
| |
| − | training surreptitiously, when a few years previously the State, having
| |
| − | shamefully sacrificed eight-and-a-half million highly trained soldiers,
| |
| − | not merely did not require their services any more, but, as a mark of
| |
| − | gratitude for their sacrifices, held them up to public contumely. Shall
| |
| − | we train soldiers for a regime which besmirched and spat upon our most
| |
| − | glorious soldiers, tore the medals and badges from their breasts,
| |
| − | trampled on their flags and derided their achievements? Has the present
| |
| − | regime taken one step towards restoring the honour of the old army and
| |
| − | bringing those who destroyed and outraged it to answer for their deeds?
| |
| − | Not in the least. On the contrary, the people I have just referred to
| |
| − | may be seen enthroned in the highest positions under the State to-day.
| |
| − | And yet it was said at Leipzig: "Right goes with might." Since, however,
| |
| − | in our Republic to-day might is in the hands of the very men who
| |
| − | arranged for the Revolution, and since that Revolution represents a most
| |
| − | despicable act of high treason against the nation--yea, the vilest act
| |
| − | in German history--there can surely be no grounds for saying that might
| |
| − | of this character should be enhanced by the formation of a new young
| |
| − | army. It is against all sound reason.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The importance which this State attached, after the Revolution of 1918,
| |
| − | to the reinforcement of its position from the military point of view is
| |
| − | clearly and unmistakably demonstrated by its attitude towards the large
| |
| − | self-defence organizations which existed in that period. They were not
| |
| − | unwelcome as long as they were of use for the personal protection of the
| |
| − | miserable creatures cast up by the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the danger to these creatures seemed to disappear as the debasement
| |
| − | of our people gradually increased. As the existence of the defence
| |
| − | associations no longer implied a reinforcement of the national policy
| |
| − | they became superfluous. Hence every effort was made to disarm them and
| |
| − | suppress them wherever that was possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | History records only a few examples of gratitude on the part of princes.
| |
| − | But there is not one patriot among the new bourgeoisie who can count on
| |
| − | the gratitude of revolutionary incendiaries and assassins, persons who
| |
| − | have enriched themselves from the public spoil and betrayed the nation.
| |
| − | In examining the problem as to the wisdom of forming these defence
| |
| − | associations I have never ceased to ask: 'For whom shall I train these
| |
| − | young men? For what purpose will they be employed when they will have to
| |
| − | be called out?' The answer to these questions lays down at the same time
| |
| − | the best rule for us to follow.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the present State should one day have to call upon trained troops of
| |
| − | this kind it would never be for the purpose of defending the interests
| |
| − | of the nation VIS-À-VIS those of the stranger but rather to protect the
| |
| − | oppressors of the nation inside the country against the danger of a
| |
| − | general outbreak of wrath on the part of a nation which has been
| |
| − | deceived and betrayed and whose interests have been bartered away.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this reason it was decided that the Storm Detachment of the German
| |
| − | National Socialist Labour Party ought not to be in the nature of a
| |
| − | military organization. It had to be an instrument of protection and
| |
| − | education for the National Socialist Movement and its duties should be
| |
| − | in quite a different sphere from that of the military defence
| |
| − | association.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And, of course, the Storm Detachment should not be in the nature of a
| |
| − | secret organization. Secret organizations 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 not possible to build up any
| |
| − | vast organization, keeping it secret at the same time and cloaking its
| |
| − | purpose. Every attempt of that kind is destined to turn out absolutely
| |
| − | futile. It is not merely that our police officials to-day have at their
| |
| − | disposal a staff of eaves-droppers and other such rabble who are ready
| |
| − | to play traitor, like Judas, for thirty pieces of silver and will betray
| |
| − | whatever secrets they can discover and will invent what they would like
| |
| − | to reveal. In order to forestall such eventualities, it is never
| |
| − | possible to bind one's own followers to the silence that is necessary.
| |
| − | Only small groups can become really secret societies, and that only
| |
| − | after long years of filtration. But the very smallness of such groups
| |
| − | would deprive them of all value for the National Socialist Movement.
| |
| − | What we needed then and need now is not one or two hundred dare-devil
| |
| − | conspirators but a hundred thousand devoted champions of our
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG. The work must not be done through secret conventicles
| |
| − | but through formidable mass demonstrations in public. Dagger and pistol
| |
| − | and poison-vial cannot clear the way for the progress of the movement.
| |
| − | That can be done only by winning over the man in the street. We must
| |
| − | overthrow Marxism, so that for the future National Socialism will be
| |
| − | master of the street, just as it will one day become master of the
| |
| − | State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is another danger connected with secret societies. It lies in the
| |
| − | fact that their members often completely misunderstand the greatness of
| |
| − | the task in hand and are apt to believe that a favourable destiny can be
| |
| − | assured for the nation all at once by means of a single murder. Such a
| |
| − | belief may find historical justification by appealing to cases where a
| |
| − | nation had been suffering under the tyranny of some oppressor who at the
| |
| − | same time was a man of genius and whose extraordinary personality
| |
| − | guaranteed the internal solidity of his position and enabled him to
| |
| − | maintain his fearful oppression. In such cases a man may suddenly arise
| |
| − | from the ranks of the people who is ready to sacrifice himself and
| |
| − | plunge the deadly steel into the heart of the hated individual. In order
| |
| − | to look upon such a deed as abhorrent one must have the republican
| |
| − | mentality of that petty CANAILLE who are conscious of their own crime.
| |
| − | But the greatest champion (Note 20) of liberty that the German people have
| |
| − | ever had has glorified such a deed in WILLIAM TELL.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 20. Schiller, who wrote the famous drama of WILLIAM TELL.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | During 1919 and 1920 there was danger that the members of secret
| |
| − | organizations, under the influence of great historical examples and
| |
| − | overcome by the immensity of the nation's misfortunes, might attempt to
| |
| − | wreak vengeance on the destroyers of their country, under the belief
| |
| − | that this would end the miseries of the people. All such attempts were
| |
| − | sheer folly, for the reason that the Marxist triumph was not due to the
| |
| − | superior genius of one remarkable person but rather to immeasurable
| |
| − | incompetence and cowardly shirking on the part of the bourgeoisie. The
| |
| − | hardest criticism that can be uttered against our bourgeoisie is simply
| |
| − | to state the fact that it submitted to the Revolution, even though the
| |
| − | Revolution did not produce one single man of eminent worth. One can
| |
| − | always understand how it was possible to capitulate before a
| |
| − | Robespierre, a Danton, or a Marat; but it was utterly scandalous to go
| |
| − | down on all fours before the withered Scheidemann, the obese Herr
| |
| − | Erzberger, Frederick Ebert, and the innumerable other political pigmies
| |
| − | of the Revolution. There was not a single man of parts in whom one could
| |
| − | see the revolutionary man of genius. Therein lay the country's
| |
| − | misfortune; for they were only revolutionary bugs, Spartacists wholesale
| |
| − | and retail. To suppress one of them would be an act of no consequence.
| |
| − | The only result would be that another pair of bloodsuckers, equally fat
| |
| − | and thirsty, would be ready to take his place.
| |
| − | | |
| − | During those years we had to take up a determined stand against an idea
| |
| − | which owed its origin and foundation to historical episodes that were
| |
| − | really great, but to which our own despicable epoch did not bear the
| |
| − | slightest similarity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The same reply may be given when there is question of putting somebody
| |
| − | 'on the spot' who has acted as a traitor to his country. It would be
| |
| − | ridiculous and illogical to shoot a poor wretch (Note 21) who had betrayed
| |
| − | the position of a howitzer to the enemy while the highest positions of the
| |
| − | government are occupied by a rabble who bartered away a whole empire,
| |
| − | who have on their consciences the deaths of two million men who were
| |
| − | sacrificed in vain, fellows who were responsible for the millions maimed
| |
| − | in the war and who make a thriving business out of the republican regime
| |
| − | without allowing their souls to be disturbed in any way. It would be
| |
| − | absurd to do away with small traitors in a State whose government has
| |
| − | absolved the great traitors from all punishment. For it might easily
| |
| − | happen that one day an honest idealist, who, out of love for his
| |
| − | country, had removed from circulation some miserable informer that had
| |
| − | given information about secret stores of arms might now 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 creature be
| |
| − | suppressed by another small traitor, or by an idealist? In the former
| |
| − | case the result would be doubtful and the deed would almost surely be
| |
| − | revealed later on. In the second case a petty rascal is put out of the
| |
| − | way and the life of an idealist who may be irreplaceable is in jeopardy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 21. The reference here is to those who gave information to the
| |
| − | Allied Commissions about hidden stores of arms in Germany.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | For myself, I believe that small thieves should not be hanged while big
| |
| − | thieves are allowed to go free. One day a national tribunal will have to
| |
| − | judge and sentence some tens of thousands of organizers who were
| |
| − | responsible for the criminal November betrayal and all the consequences
| |
| − | that followed on it. Such an example will teach the necessary lesson,
| |
| − | once and for ever, to those paltry traitors who revealed to the enemy
| |
| − | the places where arms were hidden.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the grounds of these considerations I steadfastly forbade all
| |
| − | participation in secret societies, and I took care that the Storm
| |
| − | Detachment should not assume such a character. During those years I kept
| |
| − | the National Socialist Movement away from those experiments which were
| |
| − | being undertaken by young Germans who for the most part were inspired
| |
| − | with a sublime idealism but who became the victims of their own deeds,
| |
| − | because they could not ameliorate the lot of their fatherland to the
| |
| − | slightest degree.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If then the Storm Detachment must not be either a military defence
| |
| − | organization or a secret society, the following conclusions must result:
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1. Its training must not be organized from the military standpoint but | |
| − | from the standpoint of what is most practical for party purposes. Seeing
| |
| − | that its members must undergo a good physical training, the place of
| |
| − | chief importance must not be given to military drill but rather to the
| |
| − | practice of sports. I have always considered boxing and ju-jitsu more
| |
| − | important than some kind of bad, because mediocre, training in
| |
| − | rifle-shooting. If the German nation were presented with a body of young
| |
| − | men who had been perfectly trained in athletic sports, who were imbued
| |
| − | with an ardent love for their country and a readiness to take the
| |
| − | initiative in a fight, then the national State could make an army out of
| |
| − | that body within less than two years if it were necessary, provided the
| |
| − | cadres already existed. In the actual state of affairs only the
| |
| − | REICHSWEHR could furnish the cadres and not a defence organization that
| |
| − | was neither one thing nor the other. Bodily efficiency would develop in
| |
| − | the individual a conviction of his superiority and would give him that
| |
| − | confidence which is always based only on the consciousness of one's own
| |
| − | powers. They must also develop that athletic agility which can be
| |
| − | employed as a defensive weapon in the service of the Movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 2. In order to safeguard the Storm Detachment against any tendency
| |
| − | towards secrecy, not only must the uniform be such that it can
| |
| − | immediately be recognized by everybody, but the large number of its
| |
| − | effectives show the direction in which the Movement is going and which
| |
| − | must be known to the whole public. The members of the Storm Detachment
| |
| − | must not hold 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 them away from all temptations towards finding an outlet
| |
| − | for their activities in small conspiracies, from the very beginning we
| |
| − | had to inculcate in their minds the great idea of the Movement and
| |
| − | educate them so thoroughly to the task of defending this idea that their
| |
| − | horizon became enlarged and that the individual no longer considered it
| |
| − | his mission to remove from circulation some rascal or other, whether big
| |
| − | or small, but to devote himself entirely to the task of bringing about
| |
| − | the establishment of a new National Socialist People's State. In this
| |
| − | way the struggle against the present State was placed on a higher plane
| |
| − | than that of petty revenge and small conspiracies. It was elevated to
| |
| − | the level of a spiritual struggle on behalf of a WELTANSCHAUUNG, for
| |
| − | the destruction of Marxism in all its shapes and forms.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 3. The form of organization adopted for the Storm Detachment, as well as
| |
| − | its uniform and equipment, had to follow different models from those of
| |
| − | the old Army. They had to be specially suited to the requirements of the
| |
| − | task that was assigned to the Storm Detachment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These were the ideas I followed in 1920 and 1921. I endeavoured to
| |
| − | instil them gradually into the members of the young organization. And
| |
| − | the result was that by the midsummer of 1922 we had a goodly number of
| |
| − | formations which consisted of a hundred men each. By the late autumn of
| |
| − | that year these formations received their distinctive uniforms. There
| |
| − | were three events which turned out to be of supreme importance for the
| |
| − | subsequent development of the Storm Detachment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1. The great mass demonstration against the Law for the Protection of
| |
| − | the Republic. This demonstration was held in the late summer of 1922 on
| |
| − | the KÖNIGS-PLATZ in Munich, by all the patriotic societies. The National
| |
| − | Socialist Movement also participated in it. The march-past of our party,
| |
| − | in serried ranks, was led by six Munich companies of a hundred men each,
| |
| − | followed by the political sections of the Party. Two bands marched with
| |
| − | us and about fifteen flags were carried. When the National Socialists
| |
| − | arrived at the great square it was already half full, but no flag was
| |
| − | flying. Our entry aroused unbounded enthusiasm. I myself had the honour
| |
| − | of being one of the speakers who addressed that mass of about sixty
| |
| − | thousand people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The demonstration was an overwhelming success; especially because it was
| |
| − | proved for the first time that nationalist Munich could march on the
| |
| − | streets, in spite of all threats from the Reds. Members of the
| |
| − | organization for the defence of the Red Republic endeavoured to hinder
| |
| − | the marching columns by their terrorist activities, but they were
| |
| − | scattered by the companies of the Storm Detachment within a few minutes
| |
| − | and sent off with bleeding skulls. The National Socialist Movement had
| |
| − | then shown for the first time that in future it was determined to
| |
| − | exercise the right to march on the streets and thus take this monopoly
| |
| − | away from the international traitors and enemies of the country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The result of that day was an incontestable proof that our ideas for the
| |
| − | creation of the Storm Detachment were right, both from the psychological
| |
| − | viewpoint and as to the manner in which this body was organized.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the basis of this success the enlistment progressed so rapidly that
| |
| − | within a few weeks the number of Munich companies of a hundred men each
| |
| − | became doubled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 2. The expedition to Coburg in October 1922.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Certain People's Societies had decided to hold a German Day at Coburg. I
| |
| − | was invited to take part, with the intimation 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. Within an hour the
| |
| − | arrangements for our participation in the German Congress were ready. I
| |
| − | picked eight hundred men of the Storm Detachment to accompany me. These
| |
| − | were divided into about fourteen companies and had to be brought by
| |
| − | special train from Munich to Coburg, which had just voted by plebiscite
| |
| − | to be annexed to Bavaria. Corresponding orders were given to other
| |
| − | groups of the National Socialist Storm Detachment which had meanwhile
| |
| − | been formed in various other localities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was the first time that such a special train ran in Germany. At all
| |
| − | the places where the new members of the Storm Detachment joined us our
| |
| − | train caused a sensation. Many of the people had never seen our flag.
| |
| − | And it made a very great impression.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As we arrived at the station in Coburg we were received by a deputation
| |
| − | of the organizing committee of the German Day. They announced that it
| |
| − | had been 'arranged' at the orders of local trades unions--that is to
| |
| − | say, the Independent and Communist Parties--that we should not enter the
| |
| − | town with our flags unfurled and our band playing (we had a band
| |
| − | consisting of forty-two musicians with us) and that we should not march
| |
| − | with closed ranks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I immediately rejected these unmilitary conditions and did not fail to
| |
| − | declare before the gentlemen who had arranged this 'day' how astonished
| |
| − | I was at the idea of their negotiating with such people and coming to an
| |
| − | agreement with them. Then I announced that the Storm Troops would
| |
| − | immediately march into the town in company formation, with our flags
| |
| − | flying and the band playing.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And that is what happened.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As we came out into the station yard we were met by a growling and
| |
| − | yelling mob of several thousand, that shouted at us: 'Assassins',
| |
| − | 'Bandits', 'Robbers', 'Criminals'. These were the choice names which
| |
| − | these exemplary founders of the German Republic showered on us. The
| |
| − | young Storm Detachment gave a model example of order. The companies fell
| |
| − | into formation on the square in front of the station and at first took
| |
| − | no notice of the insults hurled at them by the mob. The police were
| |
| − | anxious. They did not pilot us to the quarters assigned to us on the
| |
| − | outskirts of Coburg, a city quite unknown to us, but to the Hofbräuhaus
| |
| − | Keller in the centre of the town. Right and left of our march the tumult
| |
| − | raised by the accompanying mob steadily increased. Scarcely had the last
| |
| − | company entered the courtyard of the Hofbräuhaus when the huge mass made
| |
| − | a rush to get in after them, shouting madly. In order to prevent this,
| |
| − | the police closed the gates. Seeing the position was untenable I called
| |
| − | the Storm Detachment to attention and then asked the police to open the
| |
| − | gates immediately. After a good deal of hesitation, they consented.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We now marched back along the same route as we had come, in the
| |
| − | direction of our quarters, and there we had to make a stand against the
| |
| − | crowd. As their cries and yells all along the route had failed to
| |
| − | disturb the equanimity of our companies, the champions of true
| |
| − | Socialism, Equality, and Fraternity now took to throwing stones. That
| |
| − | brought our patience to an end. For ten minutes long, blows fell right
| |
| − | and left, like a devastating shower of hail. Fifteen minutes later there
| |
| − | were no more Reds to be seen in the street.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The collisions which took place when the night came on were more
| |
| − | serious. Patrols of the Storm Detachment had discovered National
| |
| − | Socialists who had been attacked singly and were in an atrocious state.
| |
| − | Thereupon we made short work of the opponents. By the following morning
| |
| − | the Red terror, under which Coburg had been suffering for years, was
| |
| − | definitely smashed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Adopting the typically Marxist and Jewish method of spreading
| |
| − | falsehoods, leaflets were distributed by hand on the streets, bearing
| |
| − | the caption: "Comrades and Comradesses of the International
| |
| − | Proletariat." These leaflets were meant to arouse the wrath of the
| |
| − | populace. Twisting the facts completely around, they declared that our
| |
| − | 'bands of assasins' had commenced 'a war of extermination against the
| |
| − | peaceful workers of Coburg'. At half-past one that day there was to be a
| |
| − | 'great popular demonstration', at which it was hoped that the workers of
| |
| − | the whole district would turn up. I was determined finally to crush this
| |
| − | Red terror and so I summoned the Storm Detachment to meet at midday.
| |
| − | Their number had now increased to 1,500. I decided to march with these
| |
| − | men to the Coburg Festival and to cross the big square where the Red
| |
| − | demonstration was to take place. I wanted to see if they would attempt
| |
| − | to assault us again. When we entered the square we found that instead of
| |
| − | the ten thousand that had been advertised, there were only a few hundred
| |
| − | people present. As we approached they remained silent for the most part,
| |
| − | and some ran away. Only at certain points along the route some bodies of
| |
| − | Reds, 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 one could see how the population, which had for such a long time
| |
| − | been so wretchedly intimidated, slowly woke up and recovered their
| |
| − | courage. They welcomed us openly, and in the evening, on our return
| |
| − | march, spontaneous shouts of jubilation broke out at several points
| |
| − | along the route.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At the station the railway employees informed us all of a sudden that
| |
| − | our train would not move. Thereupon I had some of the ringleaders told
| |
| − | that if this were the case I would have all the Red Party heroes
| |
| − | arrested that fell into our hands, that we would drive the train
| |
| − | ourselves, but that we would take away with us, in the locomotive and
| |
| − | tender and in some of the carriages, a few dozen members of this
| |
| − | brotherhood of international solidarity. I did not omit to let those
| |
| − | gentry know that if we had to conduct the train the journey would
| |
| − | undoubtedly be a very risky adventure 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 and fraternity with the Red gentry.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thereupon the train departed punctually and we arrived next morning in
| |
| − | Munich safe and sound.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus at Coburg, for the first time since 1914, the equality of all
| |
| − | citizens before the law was re-established. For even if some coxcomb of
| |
| − | a higher official should assert to-day that the State protects the lives
| |
| − | of its citizens, at least in those days it was not so. For at that time
| |
| − | the citizens had to defend themselves against the representatives of the
| |
| − | present State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At first it was not possible fully to estimate the importance of the
| |
| − | consequences which resulted from that day. The victorious Storm Troops
| |
| − | had their confidence in themselves considerably reinforced and also
| |
| − | their faith in the sagacity of their leaders. Our contemporaries began
| |
| − | to pay us special attention and for the first time many recognized the
| |
| − | National Socialist Movement as an organization that in all probability
| |
| − | was destined to bring the Marxist folly to a deserving end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only the democrats lamented the fact that we had not the complaisance to
| |
| − | allow our skulls to be cracked and that we had dared, in a democratic
| |
| − | Republic, to hit back with fists and sticks at a brutal assault, rather
| |
| − | than with pacifist chants.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, the bourgeois Press was partly distressed and partly
| |
| − | vulgar, as always. Only a few decent newspapers expressed their
| |
| − | satisfaction that at least in one locality the Marxist street bullies
| |
| − | had been effectively dealt with.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And in Coburg itself at least a part of the Marxist workers who must be
| |
| − | looked upon as misled, learned from the blows of National Socialist
| |
| − | fists that these workers were also fighting for ideals, because
| |
| − | experience teaches that the human being fights only for something in
| |
| − | which he believes and which he loves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Storm Detachment itself benefited most from the Coburg events. It
| |
| − | grew so quickly in numbers that at the Party Congress in January 1923
| |
| − | six thousand men participated in the ceremony of consecrating the flags
| |
| − | and the first companies were fully clad in their new uniform.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our experience in Coburg proved how essential it is to introduce one
| |
| − | distinctive uniform for the Storm Detachment, not only for the purpose
| |
| − | of strengthening the ESPRIT DE CORPS but also to avoid confusion and the
| |
| − | danger of not recognizing the opponent in a squabble. Up to that time
| |
| − | they had merely worn the armlet, but now the tunic and the well-known
| |
| − | cap were added.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the Coburg experience had also another important result. We now
| |
| − | determined to break the Red Terror in all those localities where for
| |
| − | many years it had prevented men of other views from holding their
| |
| − | meetings. We were determined to restore the right of free assembly. From
| |
| − | that time onwards we brought our battalions together in such places and
| |
| − | little by little the red citadels of Bavaria, one after another, fell
| |
| − | before the National Socialist propaganda. The Storm Troops became more
| |
| − | and more adept at their job. They increasingly lost all semblance of an
| |
| − | aimless and lifeless defence movement and came out into the light as an
| |
| − | active militant organization, fighting for the establishment of a new
| |
| − | German State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This logical development continued until March 1923. Then an event
| |
| − | occurred which made me divert the Movement from the course hitherto
| |
| − | followed and introduce some changes in its outer formation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first months of 1923 the French occupied the Ruhr district. The
| |
| − | consequence of this was of great importance in the development of the
| |
| − | Storm Detachment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not yet possible, nor would it be in the interest of the nation,
| |
| − | to write or speak openly and freely on the subject. I shall speak of it
| |
| − | only as far as the matter has been dealt with in public discussions and
| |
| − | thus brought to the knowledge of everybody.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The occupation of the Ruhr district, which did not come as a surprise to
| |
| − | us, gave grounds for hoping that Germany would at last abandon its
| |
| − | cowardly policy of submission and therewith give the defensive
| |
| − | associations a definite task to fulfil. The Storm Detachment also, which
| |
| − | now numbered several thousand of robust and vigorous young men, should
| |
| − | not be excluded from this national service. During the spring and summer
| |
| − | of 1923 it was transformed into a fighting military organization. It is
| |
| − | to this reorganization that we must in great part attribute the later
| |
| − | developments that took place during 1923, in so far as it affected our
| |
| − | Movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Elsewhere I shall deal in broad outline with the development of events
| |
| − | in 1923. Here I wish only to state that the transformation of the Storm
| |
| − | Detachment at that time must have been detrimental to the interests of
| |
| − | the Movement if the conditions that had motivated the change were not to
| |
| − | be carried into effect, namely, the adoption of a policy of active
| |
| − | resistance against France.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The events which took place at the close of 1923, terrible as they may
| |
| − | appear at first sight, were almost a necessity if looked at from a
| |
| − | higher standpoint; because, in view of the attitude taken by the
| |
| − | Government of the German REICH, conversion of the Storm Troops into a
| |
| − | military force would be meaningless and thus a transformation which
| |
| − | would also be harmful to the Movement was ended at one stroke. At the
| |
| − | same time it was made possible for us to reconstruct at the point where
| |
| − | we had been diverted from the proper course.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the year 1925 the German National Socialist Labour Party was
| |
| − | re-founded and had to organize and train its 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 most essential task to
| |
| − | function as the instrument of defence and reinforcement in the spiritual
| |
| − | struggle to establish the ideals of the Movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Storm Detachment must not be allowed to sink to the level of
| |
| − | something in the nature of a defence organization or a secret society.
| |
| − | Steps must be taken rather to make it a vanguard of 100,000 men in the
| |
| − | struggle for the National Socialist ideal which is based on the profound
| |
| − | principle of a People's State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER X
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE MASK OF FEDERALISM
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | In the winter of 1919, and still more in the spring and summer of 1920,
| |
| − | the young Party felt bound to take up a definite stand on a question
| |
| − | which already had become quite serious during the War. In the first
| |
| − | volume of this book I have briefly recorded certain facts which I had
| |
| − | personally witnessed and which foreboded the break-up of Germany. In
| |
| − | describing these facts I made reference to the special nature of the
| |
| − | propaganda which was directed by the English as well as the French
| |
| − | towards reopening the breach that had existed between North and South in
| |
| − | Germany. In the spring of 1915 there appeared the first of a series of
| |
| − | leaflets which was systematically followed up and the aim of which was
| |
| − | to arouse feeling against Prussia as being solely responsible for the
| |
| − | war. Up to 1916 this system had been developed and perfected in a
| |
| − | cunning and shameless manner. Appealing to the basest of human
| |
| − | instincts, this propaganda endeavoured to arouse the wrath of the South
| |
| − | Germans against the North Germans and after a short time it bore fruit.
| |
| − | Persons who were then in high positions under the Government and in the
| |
| − | Army, especially those attached to headquarters in the Bavarian Army,
| |
| − | merited the just reproof of having blindly neglected their duty and
| |
| − | failed to take the necessary 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 were short-sighted enough to think
| |
| − | that such propaganda might help along the development of unification in
| |
| − | Germany but even that it might automatically bring about consolidation
| |
| − | of the federative forces. Scarcely ever in history was such a wicked
| |
| − | neglect more wickedly avenged. The weakening of Prussia, which they
| |
| − | believed would result from this propaganda, affected the whole of
| |
| − | Germany. It resulted in hastening the collapse which not only wrecked
| |
| − | Germany as a whole but even more particularly the federal states.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In that town where the artificially created hatred against Prussia raged
| |
| − | most violently the revolt against the reigning House was the beginning
| |
| − | of the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would be a mistake to think that the enemy propaganda was exclusively
| |
| − | responsible for creating an anti-Prussian feeling and that there were no
| |
| − | reasons which might excuse the people for having listened to this
| |
| − | propaganda. The incredible fashion in which the national economic
| |
| − | interests were organized during the War, the absolutely crazy system of
| |
| − | centralization which made the whole REICH its ward and exploited the
| |
| − | REICH, furnished the principal grounds for the growth of that
| |
| − | anti-Prussian feeling. The average citizen looked upon the companies for
| |
| − | the placing of war contracts, all of which had their headquarters in
| |
| − | Berlin, as identical with Berlin and Berlin itself as identical with
| |
| − | Prussia. The average citizen did not know that the organization of these
| |
| − | robber companies, which were called War Companies, was not in the hands
| |
| − | of Berlin or Prussia and not even in German hands at all. People
| |
| − | recognized only the gross irregularities and the continual encroachments
| |
| − | of that hated institution in the Metropolis of the REICH and directed
| |
| − | their anger towards Berlin and Prussia, all the more because in certain
| |
| − | quarters (the Bavarian Government) nothing was done to correct this
| |
| − | attitude, but it was even welcomed with silent rubbing of hands.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jew was far too shrewd not to understand that the infamous campaign
| |
| − | which he had organized, under the cloak of War Companies, for plundering
| |
| − | the German nation would and must eventually arouse opposition. As long
| |
| − | as that opposition did not spring directly at his own throat he had no
| |
| − | reason to be afraid. Hence he decided that the best way of forestalling
| |
| − | an outbreak on the part of the enraged and desperate masses would be to
| |
| − | inflame their wrath and at the same time give it another outlet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let Bavaria quarrel as much as it liked with Prussia and Prussia with
| |
| − | Bavaria. The more, the merrier. This bitter strife between the two
| |
| − | states assured peace to the Jew. Thus public attention was completely
| |
| − | diverted from the international maggot in the body of the nation;
| |
| − | indeed, he seemed to have been forgotten. Then when there came a danger
| |
| − | that 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 to stage a new provocation and await results.
| |
| − | Every time that was done all those who had profiteered out of the
| |
| − | conflict between North and South filled their lungs and again fanned the
| |
| − | flame of indignation until it became a blaze.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a shrewd and expert manoeuvre on the part of the Jew, to set the
| |
| − | different branches of the German people quarrelling with one another, so
| |
| − | that their attention would be turned away from himself and he could
| |
| − | plunder them all the more completely.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then came the Revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Until the year 1918, or rather until the November of that year, the
| |
| − | average German citizen, particularly the less educated lower
| |
| − | middle-class and the workers, did not rightly understand what was
| |
| − | happening and did not realize what must be the inevitable consequences,
| |
| − | especially for Bavaria, of this internecine strife between the branches
| |
| − | of the German people; but at least those sections which called
| |
| − | themselves 'National' ought to have clearly perceived these consequences
| |
| − | on the day that the Revolution broke out. For the moment the COUP D'ÉTAT
| |
| − | had succeeded, the leader and organizer of the Revolution in Bavaria put
| |
| − | himself forward as the defender of 'Bavarian' interests. The
| |
| − | international Jew, Kurt Eisner, began to play off Bavaria against
| |
| − | Prussia. This Oriental was just about the last person in the world that
| |
| − | could be pointed to as the logical defender of Bavarian interests. In
| |
| − | his trade as newspaper reporter he had wandered from place to place all
| |
| − | over Germany and to him it was a matter of sheer indifference whether
| |
| − | Bavaria or any other particular part of God's whole world continued to
| |
| − | exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In deliberately giving the revolutionary rising in Bavaria the character
| |
| − | of an offensive against Prussia, Kurt Eisner was not acting in the
| |
| − | slightest degree from the standpoint of Bavarian interests, but merely
| |
| − | as the commissioned representative of Jewry. He exploited existing
| |
| − | instincts and antipathies in Bavaria as a means which would help to make
| |
| − | the dismemberment of Germany all the more easy. When once dismembered,
| |
| − | the REICH would fall an easy prey to Bolshevism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The tactics employed by him were continued for a time after his death.
| |
| − | The Marxists, who had always derided and exploited the individual German
| |
| − | states and their princes, now suddenly appealed, as an 'Independent
| |
| − | Party' to those sentiments and instincts which had their strongest roots
| |
| − | in the families of the reigning princes and the individual states.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fight waged by the Bavarian Soviet Republic against the military
| |
| − | contingents that were sent to free Bavaria from its grasp was
| |
| − | represented by the Marxist propagandists as first of all the 'Struggle
| |
| − | of the Bavarian Worker' against 'Prussian Militarism.' This explains why
| |
| − | it was that the suppression of the Soviet Republic in Munich did not
| |
| − | have the same effect there as in the other German districts. Instead of
| |
| − | recalling the masses to a sense of reason, it led to increased
| |
| − | bitterness and anger against Prussia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The art of the Bolshevik agitators, in representing the suppression of
| |
| − | the Bavarian Soviet Republic as a victory of 'Prussian Militarism' over
| |
| − | the 'Anti-militarists' and 'Anti-Prussian' people of Bavaria, bore rich
| |
| − | fruit. Whereas on the occasion of the elections to the Bavarian
| |
| − | Legislative Diet, Kurt Eisner did not have ten thousand followers in
| |
| − | Munich and the Communist party less than three thousand, after the fall
| |
| − | of the Bavarian Republic the votes given to the two parties together
| |
| − | amounted to nearly one hundred thousand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was then that I personally began to combat that crazy incitement of
| |
| − | some branches of the German people against other branches.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I believe that never in my life did I undertake a more unpopular task
| |
| − | than I did when I took my stand against the anti-Prussian incitement.
| |
| − | During the Soviet regime in Munich great public meetings were held at
| |
| − | which hatred against the rest of Germany, but particularly against
| |
| − | Prussia, was roused up to such a pitch that a North German would have
| |
| − | risked his life in attending one of those meetings. These meetings often
| |
| − | ended in wild shouts: "Away from Prussia", "Down with the Prussians",
| |
| − | "War against Prussia", and so on. This feeling was openly expressed in
| |
| − | the Reichstag by a particularly brilliant defender of Bavarian sovereign
| |
| − | rights when he said: "Rather die as a Bavarian than rot as a Prussian".
| |
| − | | |
| − | One should have attended some of the meetings held at that time in order
| |
| − | to understand what it meant for one when, for the first time and
| |
| − | surrounded by only a handful of friends, I raised my 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 felt when
| |
| − | that raging crowd, which had lost all control of its reason, roared at
| |
| − | us and threatened to kill us. During the time that we were fighting for
| |
| − | the country the same crowd were for the most part safely ensconced in
| |
| − | the rear positions or were peacefully circulating at home as deserters
| |
| − | and shirkers. It is true that that scene turned out to be of advantage
| |
| − | to me. My small band of comrades felt for the first time absolutely
| |
| − | united with me and readily swore to stick by me through life and death.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These conflicts, which were constantly repeated in 1919, seemed to
| |
| − | become more violent soon after the beginning of 1920. There were
| |
| − | meetings--I remember especially one in the Wagner Hall in the
| |
| − | Sonnenstrasse in Munich--during the course of which my group, now grown
| |
| − | much larger, had to defend themselves against assaults of the most
| |
| − | violent character. It happened more than once that dozens of my
| |
| − | followers were mishandled, thrown to the floor and stamped upon by the
| |
| − | attackers and were finally thrown out of the hall more dead than alive.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The struggle which I had undertaken, first by myself alone and
| |
| − | afterwards with the support of my war comrades, was now continued by the
| |
| − | young movement, I might say almost as a sacred mission.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I am proud of being able to say to-day that we--depending almost
| |
| − | exclusively on our followers in Bavaria--were responsible for putting an
| |
| − | end, slowly but surely, to the coalition of folly and treason. I say
| |
| − | folly and treason because, although convinced that the masses who joined
| |
| − | in it meant well but were stupid, I cannot attribute such simplicity as
| |
| − | an extenuating circumstance in the case of the organizers and their
| |
| − | abetters. I then looked upon them, and still look upon them to-day, as
| |
| − | traitors in the payment of France. In one case, that of Dorten, history
| |
| − | has already pronounced its judgment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The situation became specially dangerous at that time by reason of the
| |
| − | fact that they were very astute in their ability to cloak their real
| |
| − | tendencies, by insisting primarily on their federative intentions and
| |
| − | claiming that those were the sole motives of the agitation. Of course it
| |
| − | is quite obvious that the agitation against Prussia had nothing to do
| |
| − | with federalism. Surely 'Federal Activities' is not the phrase with
| |
| − | which to describe an effort to dissolve and dismember another federal
| |
| − | state. For an honest federalist, for whom the formula used by Bismarck
| |
| − | to define his idea of the REICH is not a counterfeit phrase, could not
| |
| − | in the same breath express the desire to cut off portions of the
| |
| − | Prussian State, which was created or at least completed by Bismarck. Nor
| |
| − | could he publicly support such a separatist attempt.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What an outcry would be raised in Munich if some prussian conservative
| |
| − | party declared itself in favour of detaching Franconia from Bavaria or
| |
| − | took public action in demanding and promoting such a separatist policy.
| |
| − | Nevertheless, one can only have sympathy for all those real and honest
| |
| − | federalists who did not see through this infamous swindle, for they were
| |
| − | its principal victims. By distorting the federalist idea in such a way
| |
| − | its own champions prepared its grave. One cannot make propaganda for a
| |
| − | federalist configuration of the REICH by debasing and abusing and
| |
| − | besmirching the essential element of such a political structure, namely
| |
| − | Prussia, and thus making such a Confederation impossible, if it ever had
| |
| − | been possible. It is all the more incredible by reason of the fact that
| |
| − | the fight carried on by those so-called federalists was directed against
| |
| − | that section of the Prussian people which was the last that could be
| |
| − | looked upon as connected with the November democracy. For the abuse and
| |
| − | attacks of these so-called federalists were not levelled against the
| |
| − | fathers of the Weimar Constitution--the majority of whom were South
| |
| − | Germans or Jews--but against those who represented the old conservative
| |
| − | Prussia, which was the antipodes of the Weimar Constitution. The fact
| |
| − | that the directors of this campaign were careful not to touch the Jews
| |
| − | is not to be wondered at and perhaps gives the key to the whole riddle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before the Revolution the Jew was successful in distracting attention
| |
| − | from himself and his War Companies by inciting the masses, and
| |
| − | especially the Bavarians, against Prussia. Similarly he felt obliged,
| |
| − | after the Revolution, to find some way of camouflaging his new plunder
| |
| − | campaign which was nine or ten times greater. And again he succeeded, in
| |
| − | this case by provoking the so-called 'national' elements against one
| |
| − | another: the conservative Bavarians against the Prussians, who were just
| |
| − | as conservative. He acted again with extreme cunning, inasmuch as he who
| |
| − | held the reins of Prussia's destiny in his hands provoked such crude and
| |
| − | tactless aggressions that again and again they set the blood boiling in
| |
| − | those who were being continually duped. Never against the Jew, however,
| |
| − | but always the German against his own brother. The Bavarian did not see
| |
| − | the Berlin of four million industrious and efficient working people, but
| |
| − | only the lazy and decadent Berlin which is to be found in the worst
| |
| − | quarters of the West End. And his antipathy was not directed against
| |
| − | this West End of Berlin but against the 'Prussian' city.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In many cases it tempted one to despair.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The ability which the Jew has displayed in turning public attention away
| |
| − | from himself and giving it another direction may be studied also in what
| |
| − | is happening to-day.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In 1918 there was nothing like an organized anti-Semitic feeling. I
| |
| − | still remember the difficulties we encountered the moment we mentioned
| |
| − | the Jew. We were either confronted with dumb-struck faces or else a
| |
| − | lively and hefty antagonism. The efforts we made at the 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 had the great merit of opening up the Jewish question once again. In
| |
| − | the winter of 1918-1919 a kind of anti-semitism began slowly to take
| |
| − | root. Later on the National Socialist Movement presented the Jewish
| |
| − | problem in a new light. Taking the question beyond the restricted
| |
| − | circles of the upper classes and small bourgeoisie we succeeded in
| |
| − | transforming it into the driving motive of a great popular movement. But
| |
| − | the moment we were successful in placing this problem before the German
| |
| − | people in the light of an idea that would unite them in one struggle the
| |
| − | Jew reacted. He resorted to his old tactics. With amazing alacrity he
| |
| − | hurled the torch of discord into the patriotic movement and opened a
| |
| − | rift there. In bringing forward the ultramontane question and in the
| |
| − | mutual quarrels that it gave rise to between Catholicism and
| |
| − | Protestantism lay the sole possibility, as conditions then were, of
| |
| − | occupying public attention with other problems and thus ward off the
| |
| − | attack which had been concentrated against Jewry. The men who dragged
| |
| − | our people into this controversy can never make amends for the crime
| |
| − | they then committed against the nation. Anyhow, the Jew has attained the
| |
| − | ends he desired. Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another
| |
| − | to their hearts' content, while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all
| |
| − | Christendom is laughing up his sleeve.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Once it was possible to occupy the attention of the public for several
| |
| − | years with the struggle between federalism and unification, wearing out
| |
| − | their energies in this mutual friction while the Jew trafficked in the
| |
| − | freedom of the nation and sold our country to the masters of
| |
| − | international high finance. So in our day he has succeeded again, this
| |
| − | time by raising ructions between the two German religious denominations
| |
| − | while the foundations on which both rest are being eaten away and
| |
| − | destroyed through the poison injected by the international and
| |
| − | cosmopolitan Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Look at the ravages from which our people are suffering daily as a
| |
| − | result of being contaminated with Jewish blood. Bear in mind the fact
| |
| − | that this poisonous contamination can be eliminated from the national
| |
| − | body only after centuries, or perhaps never. Think further of how the
| |
| − | process of racial decomposition is debasing and in some cases even
| |
| − | destroying the fundamental Aryan qualities of our German people, so that
| |
| − | our cultural creativeness as a nation is gradually becoming impotent and
| |
| − | we are running the danger, at least in our great cities, of falling to
| |
| − | the level where Southern Italy is to-day. This pestilential adulteration
| |
| − | of the blood, of which hundreds of thousands of our people take no
| |
| − | account, is being systematically practised by the Jew to-day.
| |
| − | Systematically these negroid parasites in our national body corrupt our
| |
| − | innocent fair-haired girls and thus destroy something which can no
| |
| − | longer be replaced in this world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The two Christian denominations look on with indifference at the
| |
| − | profanation and destruction of a noble and unique creature who was given
| |
| − | to the world as a gift of God's grace. For the future of the world,
| |
| − | however, it does not matter which of the two triumphs over the other,
| |
| − | the Catholic or the Protestant. But it does matter whether Aryan
| |
| − | humanity survives or perishes. And yet the two Christian denominations
| |
| − | are not contending against the destroyer of Aryan humanity but are
| |
| − | trying to destroy one another. Everybody who has the right kind of
| |
| − | feeling for his country is solemnly bound, each within his own
| |
| − | denomination, to see to it that he is not constantly talking about the
| |
| − | Will of God merely from the lips but that in actual fact he fulfils the
| |
| − | Will of God and does not allow God's handiwork to be debased. For it was
| |
| − | by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were
| |
| − | given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages
| |
| − | war against God's Creation and God's Will. Therefore everyone should
| |
| − | endeavour, each in his own denomination of course, and should consider
| |
| − | it as his 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 quarrel with those of another denomination. For, in view
| |
| − | of the religious schism that exists in Germany, to attack the essential
| |
| − | characteristics of one denomination must necessarily lead to a war of
| |
| − | extermination between the two Christian denominations. Here there can be
| |
| − | no comparison between our position and that of France, or Spain or
| |
| − | Italy. In those three countries one may, for instance, make propaganda
| |
| − | for the side that is fighting against ultramontanism without thereby
| |
| − | incurring the danger of a national rift among the French, or Spanish or
| |
| − | Italian people. In Germany, however, that cannot be so, for here the
| |
| − | Protestants would also take part in such propaganda. And thus the
| |
| − | defence which elsewhere only Catholics organize against clerical
| |
| − | aggression in political matters would assume with us the character of a
| |
| − | Protestant attack against Catholicism. What may be tolerated by the
| |
| − | faithful in one denomination even when it seems unjust to them, will at
| |
| − | once be indignantly rejected and opposed on A PRIORI grounds if it
| |
| − | should come from the militant leaders of another denomination. This is
| |
| − | so true that even men who would be ready and willing to fight for the
| |
| − | removal of manifest grievances within their own religious denomination
| |
| − | will drop their own fight and turn their activities against the outsider
| |
| − | the moment the abolition of such grievances is counselled or demanded by
| |
| − | one who is not of the same faith. They consider it unjustified and
| |
| − | inadmissible and incorrect for outsiders to meddle in matters which do
| |
| − | not affect them at all. Such attempts are not excused even when they are
| |
| − | inspired by a feeling for the supreme interests of the national
| |
| − | community; because even in our day religious feelings still have deeper
| |
| − | roots than all feeling for political and national expediency. That
| |
| − | cannot be changed by setting one denomination against another in bitter
| |
| − | conflict. It can be changed only if, through a spirit of mutual
| |
| − | tolerance, the nation can be assured of a future the greatness of which
| |
| − | will gradually operate as a conciliating factor in the sphere of
| |
| − | religion also. I have no hesitation in saying that in those men who seek
| |
| − | to-day to embroil the patriotic movement in religious quarrels I see
| |
| − | worse enemies of my country than the international communists are. For
| |
| − | the National Socialist Movement has set itself to the task of converting
| |
| − | those communists. But anyone who goes outside the ranks of his own
| |
| − | Movement and tends to turn it away from the fulfilment of its mission is
| |
| − | acting in a manner that deserves the severest condemnation. He is acting
| |
| − | as a champion of Jewish interests, whether consciously or unconsciously
| |
| − | does not matter. For it is in the interests of the Jews to-day that the
| |
| − | energies of the patriotic movement should be squandered in a religious
| |
| − | conflict, because it is beginning to be dangerous for the Jews. I have
| |
| − | purposely used the phrase about SQUANDERING the energies of the
| |
| − | Movement, because nobody but some person who is entirely ignorant of
| |
| − | history could imagine that this movement can solve a question which the
| |
| − | greatest statesmen have tried for centuries to solve, and tried in vain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyhow the facts speak for themselves. The men who suddenly discovered,
| |
| − | in 1924, that the highest mission of the patriotic movement was to fight
| |
| − | ultramontanism, have not succeeded in smashing ultramontanism, but they
| |
| − | succeeded in splitting the patriotic movement. I have to guard against
| |
| − | the possibility of some immature brain arising in the patriotic movement
| |
| − | which thinks that it can do what even a Bismarck failed to do. It will
| |
| − | be always one of the first duties of those who are directing the
| |
| − | National Socialist Movement to oppose unconditionally any attempt to
| |
| − | place the National Socialist Movement at the service of such a conflict.
| |
| − | And anybody who conducts a propaganda with that end in view must be
| |
| − | expelled forthwith from its ranks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a matter of fact we succeeded until the autumn of 1923 in keeping our
| |
| − | movement away from such controversies. The most devoted Protestant could
| |
| − | stand side by side with the most devoted Catholic in our ranks without
| |
| − | having his conscience disturbed in the slightest as far as concerned his
| |
| − | religious convictions. The bitter struggle which both waged in common
| |
| − | against the wrecker of Aryan humanity taught them natural respect and
| |
| − | esteem. And it was just in those years that our movement had to engage
| |
| − | in a bitter strife with the Centre Party not for religious ends but for
| |
| − | national, racial, political and economic ends. The success we then
| |
| − | achieved showed that we were right, but it does not speak to-day in
| |
| − | favour of those who thought they knew better.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In recent years things have gone so far that patriotic circles, in
| |
| − | god-forsaken blindness of their religious strife, could not recognize
| |
| − | the folly of their conduct even from the fact that atheist Marxist
| |
| − | newspapers advocated the cause of one religious denomination or the
| |
| − | other, according as it suited Marxist interests, so as to create
| |
| − | confusion through slogans and declarations which were often immeasurably
| |
| − | stupid, now molesting the one party and again the other, and thus poking
| |
| − | the fire to keep the blaze at its highest.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But in the case of a people like the Germans, whose history has so often
| |
| − | shown them capable of fighting for phantoms 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 problems of their
| |
| − | existence. While we were exhausting our energies in religious wars the
| |
| − | others were acquiring their share of the world. And while the patriotic
| |
| − | movement is debating with itself whether the ultramontane danger be
| |
| − | greater than the Jewish, or vice versa, the Jew is destroying the racial
| |
| − | basis of our existence and thereby annihilating our people. As far as
| |
| − | regards that kind of 'patriotic' warrior, on behalf of the National
| |
| − | Socialist Movement and therefore of the German people I pray with all my
| |
| − | heart: "Lord, preserve us from such friends, and then we can easily deal
| |
| − | with our enemies."
| |
| − | | |
| − | The controversy over federation and unification, so cunningly
| |
| − | propagandized by the Jews in 1919-1920 and onwards, forced National
| |
| − | Socialism, which repudiated the quarrel, to take up a definite stand in
| |
| − | relation to the essential problem concerned in it. Ought Germany to be a
| |
| − | confederacy or a military State? What is the practical significance of
| |
| − | these terms? To me it seems that the second question is more important
| |
| − | than the first, because it is fundamental to the understanding of the
| |
| − | whole problem and also because the answer to it may help to clear up
| |
| − | confusion and therewith have a conciliating effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What is a Confederacy? (Note 22)
| |
| − | | |
| − | [Note 22. Before 1918 Germany was a federal Empire, composed of
| |
| − | twenty-five federal states.]
| |
| − | | |
| − | By a Confederacy we mean a union of sovereign states which of their own
| |
| − | free will and in virtue of their sovereignty come together and create a
| |
| − | collective unit, ceding to that unit as much of their own sovereign
| |
| − | rights as will render the existence of the union possible and will
| |
| − | guarantee it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the theoretical formula is not wholly put into practice by any
| |
| − | confederacy that exists to-day. And least of all by the American Union,
| |
| − | where it is impossible to speak of original sovereignty in regard to the
| |
| − | majority of the states. Many of them were not included in the federal
| |
| − | complex until long after it had been established. The states that make
| |
| − | up the American Union are mostly in the nature of territories, more or
| |
| − | less, formed for technical administrative purposes, their boundaries
| |
| − | having in many cases been fixed in the mapping office. Originally these
| |
| − | states did not and could not possess sovereign rights of their own.
| |
| − | Because it was the Union that created most of the so-called states.
| |
| − | Therefore the sovereign rights, often very comprehensive, which were
| |
| − | left, or rather granted, to the various territories correspond not only
| |
| − | to the whole character of the Confederation but also to its vast space,
| |
| − | which is equivalent to the size of a Continent. Consequently, in
| |
| − | speaking of the United States of America one must not consider them as
| |
| − | sovereign states but as enjoying rights or, better perhaps, autarchic
| |
| − | powers, granted to them and guaranteed by the Constitution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nor does our definition adequately express the condition of affairs in
| |
| − | Germany. It is true that in Germany the individual states existed as
| |
| − | states before the REICH and that the REICH was formed from them. The
| |
| − | REICH, however, was not formed by the voluntary and equal co-operation
| |
| − | of the individual states, but rather because the state of Prussia
| |
| − | gradually acquired a position of hegemony over the others. The
| |
| − | difference in the territorial area alone between the German states
| |
| − | prevents any comparison with the American Union. The great difference in
| |
| − | territorial area between the very small German states that then existed
| |
| − | and the larger, or even still more the largest, demonstrates the
| |
| − | inequality of their achievements and shows that they 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 that they ever
| |
| − | enjoyed real sovereignty; and the term 'State Sovereignty' was really
| |
| − | nothing more than an administrative formula which had no inner meaning.
| |
| − | As a matter of fact, not only developments in the past but also in our
| |
| − | own time wiped out several of these so-called 'Sovereign States' and
| |
| − | thus proved in the most definite way how frail these 'sovereign' state
| |
| − | formations were.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I cannot deal here with the historical question of how these individual
| |
| − | states came to be established, but I must call attention to the fact
| |
| − | that hardly in any case did their frontiers coincide with ethical
| |
| − | frontiers of the inhabitants. They were purely political phenomena which
| |
| − | for the most part emerged during the sad epoch when the German Empire
| |
| − | was in a state of exhaustion and was dismembered. They represented both
| |
| − | cause and effect in the process of exhaustion and partition of our
| |
| − | fatherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Constitution of the old REICH took all this into account, at least
| |
| − | up to a certain degree, in so far as the individual states were not
| |
| − | accorded equal representation in the Reichstag, but a representation
| |
| − | proportionate to their respective areas, their actual importance and the
| |
| − | role which they played in the formation of the REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The sovereign rights which the individual states renounced in order to
| |
| − | form the REICH were voluntarily ceded only to a very small degree. For
| |
| − | the most part they had no practical existence or they were simply taken
| |
| − | by Prussia under the pressure of her preponderant power. The principle
| |
| − | followed by Bismarck was not to give the REICH what he could take from
| |
| − | the individual states but to demand from the individual states only what
| |
| − | was absolutely necessary for the REICH. A moderate and wise policy. On
| |
| − | the one side Bismarck showed the greatest regard for customs and
| |
| − | traditions; on the other side his policy secured for the new REICH from
| |
| − | its foundation onwards a great measure of love and willing co-operation.
| |
| − | But it would be a fundamental error to attribute Bismarck's decision to
| |
| − | any conviction on his part that the REICH was thus acquiring all the
| |
| − | rights of sovereignty which would suflice for all time. That was far
| |
| − | from Bismarck's idea. On the contrary, he wished to leave over for the
| |
| − | future what it would be difficult to carry through at the moment and
| |
| − | might not have been readily agreed to by the individual states. He
| |
| − | trusted to the levelling effect of time and to the pressure exercised by
| |
| − | the process of evolution, the steady action of which appeared more
| |
| − | effective than an attempt to break the resistance which the individual
| |
| − | states offered at the moment. 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 continually increased at the cost of the sovereignty of
| |
| − | the individual states. The passing of time has achieved what Bismarck
| |
| − | hoped it would.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German collapse and the abolition of the monarchical form of
| |
| − | government necessarily hastened this development. The German federal
| |
| − | states, which had not been grounded on ethnical foundations but arose
| |
| − | rather out of political conditions, were bound to lose their importance
| |
| − | the moment the monarchical form of government and the dynasties
| |
| − | connected with it were abolished, for it was to the spirit inherent in
| |
| − | these that the individual states owned their political origin and
| |
| − | development. Thus deprived of their internal RAISON D'ÊTRE, they
| |
| − | renounced all right to survival and were induced by purely practical
| |
| − | reasons to fuse with their neighbours or else they joined the more
| |
| − | powerful states out of their own free will. That proved in a striking
| |
| − | manner how extraordinarily frail was the actual sovereignty these small
| |
| − | phantom states enjoyed, and it proved too how lightly they were
| |
| − | estimated by their own citizens.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Though the abolition of the monarchical regime and its representatives
| |
| − | had dealt a hard blow to the federal character of the REICH, still more
| |
| − | destructive, from the federal point of view, was the acceptance of the
| |
| − | obligations that resulted from the 'peace' treaty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was only natural and logical that the federal states should lose all
| |
| − | sovereign control over the finances the moment the REICH, in consequence
| |
| − | of a lost war, was subjected to financial obligations which could never
| |
| − | be guaranteed through separate treaties with the individual states. The
| |
| − | subsequent steps which led the REICH to take over the posts and railways
| |
| − | were an enforced advance in the process of enslaving our people, a
| |
| − | process which the peace treaties gradually developed. The REICH was
| |
| − | forced to secure possession of resources which had to be constantly
| |
| − | increased in order to satisfy the demands made by further extortions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The form in which the powers of the REICH were thus extended to embrace
| |
| − | the federal states was often ridiculously stupid, but in itself the
| |
| − | procedure was logical and natural. The blame for it must be laid at the
| |
| − | door of these men and those parties that failed in the hour of need to
| |
| − | concentrate all their energies in an effort to bring the war to a
| |
| − | victorious issue. The guilt lies on those parties which, especially in
| |
| − | Bavaria, catered for their own egotistic interests during the war and
| |
| − | refused to the REICH what the REICH had to requisition to a tenfold
| |
| − | greater measure when the war was lost. The retribution of History!
| |
| − | Rarely has the vengeance 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 their own states--especially in Bavaria--before
| |
| − | those of the REICH had now to look on passively while the pressure of
| |
| − | events forced the REICH, in its own interests, to abolish the existence
| |
| − | of the individual states. They were the victims of their own defaults.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was an unparalleled example of hypocrisy to raise the cry of
| |
| − | lamentation over the loss which the federal states suffered in being
| |
| − | deprived of their sovereign rights. This cry was raised before the
| |
| − | electorate, for it is only to the electorate that our contemporary
| |
| − | parties address themselves. But these parties, without exception, outbid
| |
| − | one another in accepting a policy of fulfilment which, by the sheer
| |
| − | force of circumstances and in its ultimate consequences, could not but
| |
| − | lead to a profound alteration in the internal structure of the REICH.
| |
| − | Bismarck's REICH was free and unhampered by any obligations towards the
| |
| − | outside world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Bismarck's REICH never had to shoulder such heavy and entirely
| |
| − | unproductive obligations as those to which Germany was subjected under
| |
| − | the Dawes Plan. Also in domestic affairs Bismarck's REICH was able to
| |
| − | limit its powers to a few matters that were absolutely necessary for its
| |
| − | existence. Therefore it could dispense with the necessity of a financial
| |
| − | control over these states and could live from their contributions. On
| |
| − | the other side the relatively small financial tribute which the federal
| |
| − | states had to pay to the REICH induced them to welcome its existence.
| |
| − | But it is untrue and unjust to state now, as certain propagandists do,
| |
| − | that the federal states are displeased with the REICH merely because of
| |
| − | their financial subjection to it. No, that is not how the matter really
| |
| − | stands. The lack of sympathy for the political idea embodied in the
| |
| − | REICH is not due to the loss of sovereign rights on the part of the
| |
| − | individual states. It is much more the result of the deplorable fashion
| |
| − | in which the present régime cares for the interests of the German
| |
| − | people. Despite all the celebrations in honour of the national flag and
| |
| − | the Constitution, every section of the German people feels that the
| |
| − | present REICH is not in accordance with its heart's desire. And the Law
| |
| − | for the Protection of the Republic may prevent outrages against
| |
| − | republican institutions, but it will not gain the love of one single
| |
| − | German. In its constant anxiety to protect itself against its own
| |
| − | citizens by means of laws and sentences of imprisonment, the Republic
| |
| − | has aroused sharp and humiliating criticism of all republican
| |
| − | institutions as such.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For another reason also it is untrue to say, as certain parties affirm
| |
| − | to-day, that the REICH has ceased to be popular on account of its
| |
| − | overbearing conduct in regard to certain sovereign rights which the
| |
| − | individual states had heretofore enjoyed. Supposing the REICH had not
| |
| − | extended its authority over the individual states, there is no reason to
| |
| − | believe that it would find more favour among those states if the general
| |
| − | obligations remained so heavy as they now are. On the contrary, if the
| |
| − | individual states had to pay their respective shares of the highly
| |
| − | increased tribute which the REICH has to meet to-day in order to fulfil
| |
| − | the provisions of the Versailles Dictate, the hostility towards the
| |
| − | REICH would be infinitely greater. For then not only would it prove
| |
| − | difficult to collect the respective contributions due to the REICH from
| |
| − | the federal states, but coercive methods would have to be employed in
| |
| − | making the collections. The Republic stands on the footing of the peace
| |
| − | treaties and has neither the courage nor the intention to break them.
| |
| − | That being so, it must observe the obligations which the peace treaties
| |
| − | have imposed on it. The responsibility for this situation is to be
| |
| − | attributed solely to those parties who preach unceasingly to the patient
| |
| − | electoral masses on the necessity of maintaining the autonomy of the
| |
| − | federal states, while at the same time they champion and demand of the
| |
| − | REICH a policy which must necessarily lead to the suppression of even
| |
| − | the very last of those so-called 'sovereign' rights.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I say NECESSARILY because the present REICH has no other possible means
| |
| − | of bearing the burden of charges which an insane domestic and foreign
| |
| − | policy has laid on it. Here still another wedge is placed on the former,
| |
| − | to drive it in still deeper. Every new debt which the REICH contracts,
| |
| − | through the criminal way in which the interests of Germany are
| |
| − | represented VIS-À-VIS foreign countries, necessitates a new and stronger
| |
| − | blow which drives the under wedges still deeper, That blow demands
| |
| − | another step in the progressive abolition of the sovereign rights of the
| |
| − | individual states, so as not to allow the germs of opposition to rise up
| |
| − | into activity or even to exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The chief characteristic difference between 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 strong towards the outside
| |
| − | world, whereas the Republic shows itself weak towards the stranger and
| |
| − | oppresses its own citizens at home. In both cases one attitude
| |
| − | determines the other. A vigorous national State does not need to make
| |
| − | many laws for the interior, because of the affection and attachment of
| |
| − | its citizens. The international servile State can live only by coercing
| |
| − | its citizens to render it the services it demands. And it is a piece of
| |
| − | impudent falsehood for the present regime to speak of 'Free citizens'.
| |
| − | Only the old Germany could speak in that manner. The present Republic is
| |
| − | a colony of slaves at the service of the stranger. At best it has
| |
| − | subjects, but not citizens. Hence it does not possess a national flag
| |
| − | but only a trade mark, introduced and protected by official decree and
| |
| − | legislative measures. This symbol, which is the Gessler's cap of German
| |
| − | Democracy, will always remain alien to the spirit of our people. On its
| |
| − | side, 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 to discover how superficial is the devotion of its
| |
| − | citizens to its own symbol. The Republic 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 sovereign rights of the
| |
| − | individual states, not only for general reasons of a financial character
| |
| − | but also on principle. For by enforcing a policy of financial blackmail,
| |
| − | to squeeze the last ounce of substance out of its people, it is forced
| |
| − | also to take their last rights away from them, lest the general
| |
| − | discontent may one day flame up into open rebellion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We, National Socialists, would reverse this formula and would adopt the
| |
| − | following axiom: A strong national REICH which recognizes and protects
| |
| − | to the largest possible measure the rights of its citizens both within
| |
| − | and outside its frontiers can allow freedom to reign 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 the
| |
| − | liberties of the individual subject as well as in the liberties of the
| |
| − | constituent states without thereby weakening the ideal of the REICH; and
| |
| − | it can do this while recognizing its responsibility for the ideal of the
| |
| − | REICH, because in these particular acts and measures the individual
| |
| − | citizen recognizes a means of promoting the prestige of the nation as a
| |
| − | whole.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course, every State in the world has to face the question of
| |
| − | unification in its internal organization. And Germany is no exception in
| |
| − | this matter. Nowadays it is absurd to speak of 'statal sovereignty' for
| |
| − | the constituent states of the REICH, because that has already become
| |
| − | impossible on account of the ridiculously small size of so many of these
| |
| − | states. In the sphere of commerce as well as that of administration the
| |
| − | importance of the individual states has been steadily decreasing. Modern
| |
| − | means of communication and mechanical progress have been increasingly
| |
| − | restricting distance and space. What was once a State is to-day only a
| |
| − | province and the territory covered by a modern State had once the
| |
| − | importance of a continent. The purely technical difficulty of
| |
| − | administering a State like Germany is not greater than that of governing
| |
| − | a province like Brandenburg a hundred years ago. And to-day it is easier
| |
| − | to cover the distance from Munich to Berlin than it was to cover the
| |
| − | distance from Munich to Starnberg a hundred years ago. In view of the
| |
| − | modern means of transport, the whole territory of the REICH to-day is
| |
| − | smaller than that of certain German federal states at the time of the
| |
| − | Napoleonic wars. To close one's eyes to the consequences of these facts
| |
| − | means to live in the past. There always were, there are and always will
| |
| − | be, men who do this. They may retard but they cannot stop the
| |
| − | revolutions of history.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We, National Socialists, must not allow the consequences of that truth
| |
| − | to pass by us unnoticed. In these matters also we must not permit
| |
| − | ourselves to be misled by the phrases of our so-called national
| |
| − | bourgeois parties. I say 'phrases', because these same parodies do not
| |
| − | seriously believe that it is possible for them to carry out their
| |
| − | proposals, and because they themselves are the chief culprits and also
| |
| − | the accomplices responsible for the present state of affairs. Especially
| |
| − | in Bavaria, the demands for a halt in the process of centralization can
| |
| − | be no more than a party move behind which there is no serious idea. If
| |
| − | these parties ever had to pass from the realm of phrase-making into that
| |
| − | of practical deeds they would present a sorry spectacle. Every so-called
| |
| − | 'Robbery of Sovereign Rights' from Bavaria by the REICH has met with no
| |
| − | practical resistance, except for some fatuous barking by way of protest.
| |
| − | Indeed, when anyone seriously opposed the madness that was shown in
| |
| − | carrying out this system of centralization he was told by those same
| |
| − | parties that he understood nothing of the nature and needs of the State
| |
| − | to-day. They slandered him and pronounced him anathema and persecuted
| |
| − | him until he was either shut up in prison or illegally deprived of the
| |
| − | right of public speech. In the light of these facts our followers should
| |
| − | become all the more convinced of the profound hypocrisy which
| |
| − | characterizes these so-called federalist circles. To a certain extent
| |
| − | they use the federalist doctrine just as they use the name of religion,
| |
| − | merely as a means of promoting their own base party interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A certain unification, especially in the field of transport, appears
| |
| − | logical. But we, National Socialists, feel it our duty to oppose with
| |
| − | all our might such a development in the modern State, especially when
| |
| − | the measures proposed are solely for the purpose of screening a
| |
| − | disastrous foreign policy and making it possible. And just because the
| |
| − | present REICH has threatened to take over the railways, the posts, the
| |
| − | finances, etc., not from the high standpoint of a national policy, but
| |
| − | in order to have in its hands the means and pledges for an unlimited
| |
| − | policy of fulfilment--for that reason we, National Socialists, must take
| |
| − | every step that seems suitable to obstruct and, if possible, definitely
| |
| − | to prevent such a policy. We must fight against the present system of
| |
| − | amalgamating institutions that are vitally important for the existence
| |
| − | of our people, because this system is being adopted solely to facilitate
| |
| − | the payment of milliards and the transference of pledges to the
| |
| − | stranger, under the post-War provisions which our politicians have
| |
| − | accepted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For these reasons also the National Socialist Movement has to take up a
| |
| − | stand against such tendencies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Moreover, we must oppose such centralization because in domestic affairs
| |
| − | it helps to reinforce a system of government which in all its
| |
| − | manifestations has brought the greatest misfortunes on the German
| |
| − | nation. The present Jewish-Democratic REICH, which has become a
| |
| − | veritable curse for the German people, is seeking to negative the force
| |
| − | of the criticism offered by all the federal states which have not yet
| |
| − | become imbued with the spirit of the age, and is trying to carry out
| |
| − | this policy by crushing them to the point of annihilation. In face of
| |
| − | this we National Socialists must try to ground the opposition of the
| |
| − | individual states on such a basis that it will be able to operate with a
| |
| − | good promise of success. We must do this by transforming the struggle
| |
| − | against centralization into something that will be an expression of the
| |
| − | higher interests of the German nation as such. Therefore, while the
| |
| − | Bavarian Populist Party, acting from its own narrow and particularist
| |
| − | standpoint, fights to maintain the 'special rights' of the Bavarian
| |
| − | State, we ought to stand on quite a different ground in fighting for the
| |
| − | same rights. Our grounds ought to be those of the higher national
| |
| − | interests in opposition to the November Democracy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A still further reason for opposing a centralizing process of that kind
| |
| − | arises from the certain conviction that in great part this so-called
| |
| − | nationalization does not make for unification at all and still less for
| |
| − | simplification. In many cases it is adopted simply as a means of
| |
| − | removing from the sovereign control of the individual states certain
| |
| − | institutions which they wish to place in the hands of the revolutionary
| |
| − | parties. In German History favouritism has never been of so base a
| |
| − | character as in the democratic republic. A great portion of this
| |
| − | centralization to-day is the work of parties which once promised that
| |
| − | they would open the way for the promotion of talent, meaning thereby
| |
| − | that they would fill those posts and offices entirely with their own
| |
| − | partisans. Since the foundation of the Republic the Jews especially have
| |
| − | been obtaining positions in the economic institutions taken over by the
| |
| − | REICH and also positions in the national administration, so that the one
| |
| − | and the other have become preserves of Jewry.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For tactical reasons, this last consideration obliges us to watch with
| |
| − | the greatest attention every further attempt at centralization and fight
| |
| − | it at each step. But in doing this our standpoint must always be that of
| |
| − | a lofty national policy and never a pettifogging particularism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This last observation is necessary, lest an opinion might arise among
| |
| − | our own followers that we do not accredit to the REICH the right of
| |
| − | incorporating in itself a sovereignty which is superior to that of the
| |
| − | constituent states. As regards this right we cannot and must not
| |
| − | entertain the slightest doubt. Because for us the State is nothing but a
| |
| − | form. Its substance, or content, is the essential thing. And that is the
| |
| − | nation, the people. It is clear therefore that every other interest must
| |
| − | be subordinated to the supreme interests of the nation. In particular we
| |
| − | cannot accredit to any other state a sovereign power and sovereign
| |
| − | rights within the confines of the nation and the REICH, which represents
| |
| − | the nation. The absurdity which some federal states commit by
| |
| − | maintaining 'representations' abroad and corresponding foreign
| |
| − | 'representations' among themselves--that must cease and will cease.
| |
| − | Until this happens we cannot be surprised if certain foreign countries
| |
| − | are dubious about the political unity of the REICH and act accordingly.
| |
| − | The absurdity of these 'representations' is all the greater because they
| |
| − | do harm and do not bring the slightest advantage. If the interests of a
| |
| − | German abroad cannot be protected by the ambassador of the REICH, much
| |
| − | less can they be protected by the minister from some small federal state
| |
| − | which appears ridiculous in the framework of the present world order.
| |
| − | The real truth is that these small federal states are envisaged as
| |
| − | points of attack for attempts at secession, which prospect is always
| |
| − | pleasing to a certain foreign State. We, National Socialists, must not
| |
| − | allow some noble caste which has become effete with age to occupy an
| |
| − | ambassadorial post abroad, with the idea that by engrafting one of its
| |
| − | withered branches in new soil the green leaves may sprout again. Already
| |
| − | in the time of the old REICH our diplomatic representatives abroad were
| |
| − | such a sorry lot that a further trial of that experience would be out of
| |
| − | the question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is certain that in the future the importance of the individual states
| |
| − | will be transferred to the sphere of our cultural policy. The monarch
| |
| − | who did most to make Bavaria an important centre was not an obstinate
| |
| − | particularist with anti-German tendencies, but Ludwig I who was as much
| |
| − | devoted to the ideal of German greatness as he was to that of art. His
| |
| − | first consideration was to use the powers of the state to develop the
| |
| − | cultural position of Bavaria and not its political power. And in doing
| |
| − | this he produced better and more durable results than if he had followed
| |
| − | any other line of conduct. Up to this time Munich was a provincial
| |
| − | residence town of only small importance, but he transformed it into the
| |
| − | metropolis of German art and by doing so he made it an intellectual
| |
| − | centre which even to-day holds Franconia to Bavaria, though the
| |
| − | Franconians are of quite a different temperament. If Munich had remained
| |
| − | as it had been earlier, what has happened in Saxony would have been
| |
| − | repeated in Bavaria, with the difference that Leipzig and Bavarian
| |
| − | Nürnberg would have become, not Bavarian but Franconian cities. It was
| |
| − | not the cry of "Down with Prussia" that made Munich great. What made
| |
| − | this a city of importance was the King who wished to present it to the
| |
| − | German 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. The importance of the individual states in the future will
| |
| − | no longer lie in their political or statal power. I look to them rather
| |
| − | as important ethnical and cultural centres. But even in this respect
| |
| − | time will do its levelling work. Modern travelling facilities shuffle
| |
| − | people among one another in such a way that tribal boundaries will fade
| |
| − | out and even the cultural picture will gradually become more of a
| |
| − | uniform pattern.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The army must definitely be kept clear of the influence of the
| |
| − | individual states. The coming National Socialist State must not fall
| |
| − | back into the error of the past by imposing on the army a task 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 which
| |
| − | tribal particularisms are to be cultivated and preserved, but rather as
| |
| − | a school for teaching all the Germans to understand and adapt their
| |
| − | habits to one another. Whatever tends to have a separating influence in
| |
| − | the life of the nation ought to be made a unifying influence in the
| |
| − | army. The army must raise the German boy above the narrow horizon of his
| |
| − | own little native province and set 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 is the latter that he will have
| |
| − | to defend one day. It is therefore absurd to have the German youth do
| |
| − | his military training in his own native region. During that period he
| |
| − | ought to learn to know Germany. This is all the more important to-day,
| |
| − | since young Germans no longer travel on their own account as they once
| |
| − | used to do and thus enlarge their horizon. In view of this, is it not
| |
| − | absurd to leave the young Bavarian recruit at Munich, the recruit from
| |
| − | Baden at Baden itself and the Württemberger at Stuttgart and so on? And
| |
| − | would it not be more reasonable to show the Rhine and the North Sea to
| |
| − | the Bavarian, the Alps to the native of Hamburg and the mountains of
| |
| − | Central Germany to the boy from East Prussia? The character proper to
| |
| − | each region ought to be maintained in the troops but not in the training
| |
| − | garrisons. We may disapprove of every attempt at unification but not
| |
| − | that of unifying the army. On the contrary, even though we should wish
| |
| − | to welcome no other kind of unification, this must be greeted with joy.
| |
| − | In view of the size of the present army of the REICH, it would be absurd
| |
| − | to maintain the federal divisions among the troops. Moreover, in the
| |
| − | unification of the German army which has actually been effected we see a
| |
| − | fact which we must not renounce but restore in the future national army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally a new and triumphant idea should burst every chain which tends
| |
| − | to paralyse its efforts to push forward. National Socialism must claim
| |
| − | the right to impose its principles on the whole German nation, without
| |
| − | regard to what were hitherto the confines of federal states. And we must
| |
| − | educate the German nation in our ideas and principles. As the Churches
| |
| − | do not feel themselves bound or limited by political confines, so the
| |
| − | National Socialist Idea cannot feel itself limited to the territories of
| |
| − | the individual federal states that belong to our Fatherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist doctrine is not handmaid to the political
| |
| − | interests of the single federal states. One day it must become teacher
| |
| − | to the whole German nation. It must determine the life of the whole
| |
| − | people and shape that life anew. For this reason we must imperatively
| |
| − | demand the right to overstep boundaries that have been traced by a
| |
| − | political development which we repudiate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The more completely our ideas triumph, the more liberty can we concede
| |
| − | in particular affairs to our citizens at home.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER XI
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | PROPAGANDA AND ORGANIZATION
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The year 1921 was specially important for me from many points of view.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I entered the German Labour Party I at once took charge of the
| |
| − | propaganda, believing this branch to be far the most important for the
| |
| − | time being. Just then it was not a matter of pressing necessity to
| |
| − | cudgel one's brains over problems of organization. The first necessity
| |
| − | was to spread our ideas among as many people as possible. Propaganda
| |
| − | should go well ahead of organization and gather together the human
| |
| − | material for the latter to work up. I have never been in favour of hasty
| |
| − | and pedantic methods of organization, because in most cases the result
| |
| − | is merely a piece of dead mechanism and only rarely a living
| |
| − | organization. Organization is a thing that derives its existence from
| |
| − | organic life, organic evolution. When the same set of ideas have found a
| |
| − | lodgement in the minds of a certain number of people they tend of
| |
| − | themselves to form a certain degree of order among those people and out
| |
| − | of this inner formation something that is very valuable arises. Of
| |
| − | course here, as everywhere else, one must take account of those human
| |
| − | weaknesses which make men hesitate, especially at the beginning, to
| |
| − | submit to the control of a superior mind. If an organization is imposed
| |
| − | from above downwards in a mechanical fashion, there is always the danger
| |
| − | that some individual 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 place in the movement. The damage that results from
| |
| − | that kind of thing may have fatal consequences, especially in a new
| |
| − | movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this reason it is advisable first to propagate and publicly expound
| |
| − | the ideas on which the movement is founded. This work of propaganda
| |
| − | should continue for a certain time and should be directed from one
| |
| − | centre. When the ideas have gradually won over a number of people this
| |
| − | human material should be carefully sifted for the purpose of selecting
| |
| − | those who have ability in leadership and putting that ability to the
| |
| − | test. It will often be found that apparently insignificant persons will
| |
| − | nevertheless turn out to be born leaders.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course, it is quite a mistake to suppose that those who show a very
| |
| − | intelligent grasp of the theory underlying a movement are for that
| |
| − | reason qualified to fill responsible positions on the directorate. The
| |
| − | contrary is very frequently the case.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Great masters of theory are only very rarely great organizers also. And
| |
| − | this is because the greatness of the theorist and founder of a system
| |
| − | consists in being able to discover and lay down those laws that are
| |
| − | right in the abstract, whereas the organizer must first 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 an estimate of
| |
| − | human nature. He must take account of their weaknesses, their baseness
| |
| − | and all the other various characteristics, so as to form something out
| |
| − | of them which will be a living organism, endowed with strong powers of
| |
| − | resistance, fitted to be the carrier of an idea and strong enough to
| |
| − | ensure the triumph of that idea.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But it is still more rare to find a great theorist who is at the same
| |
| − | time a great leader. For the latter must be more of an agitator, a truth
| |
| − | that will not be readily accepted by many of those who deal with
| |
| − | problems only from the scientific standpoint. And yet what I say is only
| |
| − | natural. For an agitator who shows himself capable of expounding ideas
| |
| − | to the great masses must always be a psychologist, even though he may be
| |
| − | only a demagogue. Therefore he will always be a much more capable leader
| |
| − | than the contemplative theorist who meditates on his ideas, far from the
| |
| − | human throng and the world. For to be a leader means to be able to move
| |
| − | the masses. The gift of formulating ideas has nothing whatsoever to do
| |
| − | with the capacity for leadership. It would be entirely futile to discuss
| |
| − | the question as to which is the more important: the faculty of
| |
| − | conceiving ideals and human aims or that of being able to have them put
| |
| − | into practice. Here, as so often happens in life, the one would be
| |
| − | entirely meaningless without the other. The noblest conceptions of the
| |
| − | human understanding remain without purpose or value if the leader cannot
| |
| − | move the masses towards them. And, conversely, what would it avail to
| |
| − | have all the genius and elan of a leader if the intellectual theorist
| |
| − | does not fix the aims for which mankind must struggle. But when the
| |
| − | abilities of theorist and organizer and leader are united in the one
| |
| − | person, then we have the rarest phenomenon on this earth. And it is that
| |
| − | union which produces the great man.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have already said, during my first period in the Party I devoted
| |
| − | myself to the work of propaganda. I had to succeed in gradually
| |
| − | gathering together a small nucleus of men who would accept the new
| |
| − | teaching and be inspired by it. And in this way we should provide the
| |
| − | human material which subsequently would form the constituent elements of
| |
| − | the organization. Thus the goal of the propagandist is nearly always
| |
| − | fixed far beyond that of the organizer.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If a movement proposes to overthrow a certain order of things and
| |
| − | construct a new one in its place, then the following principles must be
| |
| − | clearly understood and must dominate in the ranks of its leadership:
| |
| − | Every movement which has gained its human material must first divide
| |
| − | this material into two groups: namely, followers and members.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is the task of the propagandist to recruit the followers and it is
| |
| − | the task of the organizer to select the members.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The follower of a movement is he who understands and accepts its aims;
| |
| − | the member is he who fights for them.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The follower is one whom the propaganda has converted to the doctrine of
| |
| − | the movement. The member is he who will be charged by the organization
| |
| − | to collaborate in winning over new followers from which in turn new
| |
| − | members can be formed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To be a follower needs only the passive recognition of the idea. To be a
| |
| − | member means to represent that idea and fight for it. From ten followers
| |
| − | one can have scarcely more than two members. To be a follower simply
| |
| − | implies that a man has accepted the teaching of the movement; whereas to
| |
| − | be a member means that a man has the courage to participate actively 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 the majority, for the majority of
| |
| − | mankind is mentally lazy and timid. To be a member one must be
| |
| − | intellectually active, and therefore this applies only to the minority.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Such being the case, the propagandist must seek untiringly to acquire
| |
| − | new followers for the movement, whereas the organizer must diligently
| |
| − | look out for the best elements among such followers, so that these
| |
| − | elements may be transformed into members. The propagandist need not
| |
| − | trouble too much about the personal worth of the individual proselytes
| |
| − | he has won for the movement. He need not inquire into their abilities,
| |
| − | their intelligence or character. From these proselytes, however, the
| |
| − | organizer will have to select those individuals who are most capable of
| |
| − | actively helping to bring the movement to victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The propagandist aims at inducing the whole people to accept his
| |
| − | teaching. The organizer includes in his body of membership only those
| |
| − | who, on psychological grounds, will not be an impediment to the further
| |
| − | diffusion of the doctrines of the movement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The propagandist inculcates his doctrine among the masses, with the idea
| |
| − | of preparing them for the time when this doctrine will triumph, through
| |
| − | the body of combatant members which he has formed from those followers
| |
| − | who have given proof of the necessary ability and will-power to carry
| |
| − | the struggle to victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The final triumph of a doctrine will be made all the more easy if the
| |
| − | propagandist has effectively converted large bodies of men to the belief
| |
| − | in that doctrine and if the organization that actively conducts the
| |
| − | fight be exclusive, vigorous and solid.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the propaganda work has converted a whole people to believe in a
| |
| − | doctrine, the organization can turn the results of this into practical
| |
| − | effect through the work of a mere handful of men. Propaganda and
| |
| − | organization, therefore follower and member, then stand towards one
| |
| − | another in a definite mutual relationship. The better the propaganda has
| |
| − | worked, the smaller will the organization be. The greater the number of
| |
| − | followers, so much the smaller can be the number of members. And
| |
| − | conversely. If the propaganda be bad, the organization must be large.
| |
| − | And if there be only a small number of followers, the membership must be
| |
| − | all the larger--if the movement really counts on being successful.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first duty of the propagandist is to win over people who can
| |
| − | subsequently be taken into the organization. And the first duty of the
| |
| − | organization is to select and train men who will be capable of carrying
| |
| − | on the propaganda. The second duty of the organization is to disrupt the
| |
| − | existing order of things and thus make room for the penetration of the
| |
| − | new teaching which it represents, while the duty of the organizer must
| |
| − | be to fight for the purpose of securing power, so that the doctrine may
| |
| − | finally triumph.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A revolutionary conception of the world and human existence will always
| |
| − | achieve decisive success when the new WELTANSCHAUUNG has been taught to
| |
| − | a whole people, or subsequently forced upon them if necessary, and when,
| |
| − | on the other hand, the central organization, the movement itself, is in
| |
| − | the hands of only those few men who are absolutely indispensable to form
| |
| − | the nerve-centres of the coming State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Put in another way, this means that in every great revolutionary
| |
| − | movement that is of world importance the idea of this movement must
| |
| − | always be spread abroad through the operation of propaganda. The
| |
| − | propagandist must never tire in his efforts to make the new ideas
| |
| − | clearly understood, inculcating them among others, or at least he must
| |
| − | place himself in the position of those others and endeavour to upset
| |
| − | their confidence in the convictions they have hitherto held. In order
| |
| − | that such propaganda should have backbone to it, it must be based on an
| |
| − | organization. The organization chooses its members from among those
| |
| − | followers whom the propaganda has won. That organization will become all
| |
| − | the more vigorous if the work of propaganda be pushed forward
| |
| − | intensively. And the propaganda will work all the better when the
| |
| − | organization back of it is vigorous and strong in itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the supreme task of the organizer is to see to it that any discord
| |
| − | or differences which may arise among the members of the movement will
| |
| − | not lead to a split and thereby cramp the work within the movement.
| |
| − | Moreover, it is the duty of the organization to see that the fighting
| |
| − | spirit of the movement does not flag or die out but that it is
| |
| − | constantly reinvigorated and restrengthened. It is not necessary the
| |
| − | number of members should increase indefinitely. Quite the contrary would
| |
| − | be better. In view of the fact that only a fraction of humanity has
| |
| − | energy and courage, a movement which increases its own organization
| |
| − | indefinitely must of necessity one day become plethoric and inactive.
| |
| − | Organizations, that is to say, groups of members, which increase their
| |
| − | size beyond certain dimensions gradually lose their fighting force and
| |
| − | are no longer in form to back up the propagation of a doctrine with
| |
| − | aggressive elan and determination.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now the greater and more revolutionary a doctrine is, so much the more
| |
| − | active will be the spirit inspiring its body of members, because the
| |
| − | subversive energy of such a doctrine will frighten way the
| |
| − | chicken-hearted and small-minded bourgeoisie. In their hearts they may
| |
| − | believe in the doctrine but they are afraid to acknowledge their belief
| |
| − | openly. By reason of this very fact, however, an organization inspired
| |
| − | by a veritable revolutionary idea will attract into the body of its
| |
| − | membership only the most active of those believers who have been won for
| |
| − | it by its 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 the prerequisite conditions for the continuation of an
| |
| − | active and spirited propaganda and also the victorious struggle for the
| |
| − | success of the idea on which the movement is based.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The greatest danger that can threaten a movement is an abnormal increase
| |
| − | in the number of its members, owing to its too rapid success. So long as
| |
| − | a movement has to carry on a hard and bitter fight, people of weak and
| |
| − | fundamentally egotistic temperament will steer very clear of it; but
| |
| − | these will try to be accepted as members the moment the party achieves a
| |
| − | manifest success in the course of its development.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is on these grounds that we are to explain why so many movements
| |
| − | which were at first successful slowed down before reaching the
| |
| − | fulfilment of their purpose and, from an inner weakness which could not
| |
| − | otherwise be explained, gave up the struggle and finally disappeared
| |
| − | from the field. As a result of the early successes achieved, so many
| |
| − | undesirable, unworthy and especially timid individuals became members of
| |
| − | the movement that they finally secured the majority and stifled the
| |
| − | fighting spirit of the others. These inferior elements then turned the
| |
| − | movement to the service of their personal interests and, debasing it to
| |
| − | the level of their own miserable 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 the bourgeois world is accustomed to
| |
| − | say very justly in such cases, the party mixed water with its wine.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this reason it is necessary that a movement should, from the sheer
| |
| − | instinct of self-preservation, close its lists to new membership the
| |
| − | moment it becomes successful. And any further increase in its
| |
| − | organization should be allowed to take place only with the most careful
| |
| − | foresight and after a painstaking sifting of those who apply for
| |
| − | membership. Only thus will it be possible to keep the kernel of the
| |
| − | movement intact and fresh and sound. Care must be taken that the conduct
| |
| − | of the movement is maintained exclusively in the hands of this original
| |
| − | nucleus. This means that the nucleus must direct the propaganda which
| |
| − | aims at securing general recognition for the movement. And the movement
| |
| − | itself, when it has secured power in its hands, must carry out all those
| |
| − | acts and measures which are necessary in order that its ideas should be
| |
| − | finally established in practice.
| |
| − | | |
| − | With those elements that originally made the movement, the organization
| |
| − | should occupy all the important positions that have been conquered and
| |
| − | from those elements the whole directorate should be formed. This should
| |
| − | continue until the maxims and doctrines 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 of the 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 is less a
| |
| − | question of human intelligence than of the play and effect of the forces
| |
| − | whose development may indeed be foreseen from the start but not
| |
| − | perpetually controlled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All great movements, whether of a political or religious nature, owe
| |
| − | their imposing success to the recognition and adoption of those
| |
| − | principles. And no durable success is conceivable if these laws are not
| |
| − | observed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As director of propaganda for the party, I took care not merely to
| |
| − | prepare the ground for the greatness of the movement in its subsequent
| |
| − | stages, but I also adopted the most radical measures against allowing
| |
| − | into the organization any other than the best material. For the more
| |
| − | radical and exciting my propaganda was, the more did it frighten weak
| |
| − | and wavering characters away, thus preventing them from entering the
| |
| − | first nucleus of our organization. Perhaps they remained followers, but
| |
| − | they did not raise their voices. On the contrary, they maintained a
| |
| − | discreet silence on the fact. Many thousands of persons then assured me
| |
| − | that they were in full agreement with us but they could not on any
| |
| − | account become members of our party. They said that the movement was so
| |
| − | radical that to take part in it as members would expose them to grave
| |
| − | censures and grave dangers, so that they would rather continue to be
| |
| − | looked upon as honest and peaceful citizens and remain aside, for the
| |
| − | time being at least, though devoted to our cause with all their hearts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And that was all to the good. If all these men who in their hearts did
| |
| − | not approve of revolutionary ideas came into our movement as members at
| |
| − | that time, we should be looked upon as a pious confraternity to-day and
| |
| − | not as a young movement inspired with the spirit of combat.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The lively and combative form which I gave to all our propaganda
| |
| − | fortified and guaranteed the radical tendency of our movement, and the
| |
| − | result was that, with a few exceptions, only men of radical views were
| |
| − | disposed to become members.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was due to the effect of our propaganda that within a short period of
| |
| − | time hundreds of thousands of citizens became convinced in their hearts
| |
| − | that we were right and wished us victory, although personally they were
| |
| − | too timid to make sacrifices for our cause or even participate in it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Up to the middle of 1921 this simple activity of gathering in followers
| |
| − | was sufficient and was of value to the movement. But in the summer of
| |
| − | that year certain events happened which made it seem opportune for us to
| |
| − | bring our organization into line with the manifest successes which the
| |
| − | propaganda had achieved.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An attempt made by a group of patriotic visionaries, supported by the
| |
| − | chairman of the party at that time, to take over the direction of the
| |
| − | party led to the break up of this little intrigue and, by a unanimous
| |
| − | vote at a general meeting, entrusted the entire direction of the party
| |
| − | to my own hands. At the same time a new statute was passed which
| |
| − | invested sole responsibility in the chairman of the movement, abolished
| |
| − | the system of resolutions in committee and in its stead introduced the
| |
| − | principle of division of labour which since that time has worked
| |
| − | excellently.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From August 1st, 1921, onwards I undertook this internal reorganization
| |
| − | of the party and was supported by a number of excellent men. I shall
| |
| − | mention them and their work individually later on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In my endeavour to turn the results gained by the propaganda to the
| |
| − | advantage of the organization and thus stabilize them, I had to abolish
| |
| − | completely a number of old customs and introduce regulations which none
| |
| − | of the other parties possessed or had adopted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the years 1920-21 the movement was controlled by a committee elected
| |
| − | by the members at a general meeting. The committee was composed of a
| |
| − | first and second treasurer, a first and second secretary, and a first
| |
| − | and second chairman at the head of it. In addition to these there was a
| |
| − | representative of the members, the director of propaganda, and various
| |
| − | assessors.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Comically enough, the committee embodied the very principle against
| |
| − | which the movement itself wanted to fight with all its energy, namely,
| |
| − | the principle of parliamentarianism. Here was a principle which
| |
| − | personified everything that was being opposed by the movement, from the
| |
| − | smallest local groups to the district and regional groups, the state
| |
| − | groups and finally the national directorate itself. It was a system
| |
| − | under which we all suffered and are still suffering.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was imperative to change this state of affairs forthwith, if this bad
| |
| − | foundation in the internal organization was not to keep the movement
| |
| − | insecure and render the fulfilment of its high mission impossible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The sessions of the committee, which were ruled by a protocol, and in
| |
| − | which decisions were made according to the vote of the majority,
| |
| − | presented the picture of a miniature parliament. Here also there was no
| |
| − | such thing as personal responsibility. And here reigned the same
| |
| − | absurdities and illogical state of affairs as flourish in our great
| |
| − | representative bodies of the State. Names were presented to this
| |
| − | committee for election as secretaries, treasurers, representatives of
| |
| − | the members of the organization, propaganda agents and God knows what
| |
| − | else. And then they all acted in common on every particular question and
| |
| − | decided it by vote. Accordingly, the director of propaganda voted on a
| |
| − | question that concerned the man who had to do with the finances and the
| |
| − | latter in his turn voted on a question that concerned only the
| |
| − | organization as such, the organizer voting on a subject that had to do
| |
| − | with the secretarial department, and so on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Why select a special man for propaganda if treasurers and scribes and
| |
| − | commissaries, etc., had to deliver judgment on questions concerning it?
| |
| − | To a person of commonsense that sort of thing seemed as incomprehensible
| |
| − | as it would be if in a great manufacturing concern the board of
| |
| − | directors were to decide on technical questions of production or if,
| |
| − | inversely, the engineers were to decide on questions of administration.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I refused to countenance that kind of folly and after a short time I
| |
| − | ceased to appear at the meetings of the committee. I did nothing else
| |
| − | except attend to my own department of propaganda and 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 approved and I was appointed as president, I
| |
| − | had the necessary authority in my hands and also the corresponding right
| |
| − | to make short shrift of all that nonsense. In the place of decisions by
| |
| − | the majority vote of the committee, the principle of absolute
| |
| − | responsibility was introduced.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The chairman is responsible for the whole control of the movement. He
| |
| − | apportions the work among the members of the committee subordinate to
| |
| − | him and for special work he selects other individuals. Each of these
| |
| − | gentlemen must bear sole responsibility for the task assigned to him. He
| |
| − | is subordinate only to the chairman, whose duty is to supervise the
| |
| − | general collaboration, selecting the personnel and giving general
| |
| − | directions for the co-ordination of the common work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This principle of absolute responsibility is being adopted little by
| |
| − | little throughout the movement. In the small local groups and perhaps
| |
| − | also in the regional and district groups it will take yet a long time
| |
| − | before the principle can be thoroughly imposed, because timid and
| |
| − | hesitant characters are naturally opposed to it. For them the idea of
| |
| − | bearing absolute responsibility for an act opens up an unpleasant
| |
| − | prospect. They would like to hide behind the shoulders of the majority
| |
| − | in the so-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 stand against that view, to make no concessions
| |
| − | whatsoever to this fear of responsibility, even though it takes some
| |
| − | time before we can put fully into effect this concept of duty and
| |
| − | ability in leadership, which will finally bring forward leaders who have
| |
| − | the requisite abilities to occupy the chief posts.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In any case, a movement which must fight against the absurdity of
| |
| − | parliamentary institutions must be immune from this sort of thing. Only
| |
| − | thus will it have the requisite strength to carry on the struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At a time when the majority dominates everywhere else a movement which
| |
| − | is based on the principle of one leader who has to bear personal
| |
| − | responsibility for the direction of the official acts of the movement
| |
| − | itself will one day overthrow the present situation and triumph over the
| |
| − | existing regime. That is a mathematical certainty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This idea made it necessary to reorganize our movement internally. The
| |
| − | logical development of this reorganization brought about a clear-cut
| |
| − | distinction between the economic section of the movement and the general
| |
| − | political direction. The principle of personal responsibility was
| |
| − | extended to all the administrative branches of the party and it brought
| |
| − | about a healthy renovation, by liberating them from political influences
| |
| − | and allowing them to operate solely on economic principles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the autumn of 1921, when the party was founded, there were only six
| |
| − | members. The party did not have any headquarters, nor officials, nor
| |
| − | formularies, nor a stamp, nor printed material of any sort. The
| |
| − | committee first held its sittings in a restaurant on the Herrengasse and
| |
| − | then in a café at Gasteig. This state of affairs could not last. So I at
| |
| − | once took action in the matter. I went around to several restaurants and
| |
| − | hotels in Munich, with the idea of renting a room in one of them for the
| |
| − | use of the Party. In the old Sterneckerbräu im Tal, there was a small
| |
| − | room with arched roof, which in earlier times was used as a sort of
| |
| − | festive tavern where the Bavarian Counsellors of the Holy Roman Empire
| |
| − | foregathered. It was dark and dismal and accordingly well suited to its
| |
| − | ancient uses, though less suited to the new purpose it was now destined
| |
| − | to serve. The little street on which its one window looked out was so
| |
| − | narrow that even on the brightest summer day the room remained dim and
| |
| − | sombre. Here we took up our first fixed abode. The rent came to fifty
| |
| − | marks per month, which was then an enormous sum for us. But our
| |
| − | exigencies had to be very modest. We dared not complain even when they
| |
| − | removed the wooden wainscoting a few days after we had taken possession.
| |
| − | This panelling had been specially put up for the Imperial Counsellors.
| |
| − | The place began to look more like a grotto than an office.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Still it marked an important step forward. Slowly we had electric light
| |
| − | installed and later on a telephone. A table and some borrowed chairs
| |
| − | were brought, an open paper-stand and later on a cupboard. Two
| |
| − | sideboards, which belonged to the landlord, served to store our
| |
| − | leaflets, placards, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As time went on it turned out impossible to direct the course of the
| |
| − | movement merely by holding a committee meeting once a week. The current
| |
| − | business administration of the movement could not be regularly attended
| |
| − | to except we had a salaried official.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But that was then very difficult for us. The movement had still so few
| |
| − | members that it was hard to find among them a suitable person for the
| |
| − | job who would be content with very little for himself and at the same
| |
| − | time would be ready to meet the manifold demands which the movement
| |
| − | would make on his time and energy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After long searching we discovered a soldier who consented to become our
| |
| − | first administrator. His name was Schüssler, an old war comrade of mine.
| |
| − | At first he came to our new office every day between six and eight
| |
| − | o'clock in the evening. Later on he came from five to eight and
| |
| − | subsequently for the whole afternoon. Finally it became a full-time job
| |
| − | and he worked in the office from morning until late at night. He was an
| |
| − | industrious, upright and thoroughly honest man, faithful and devoted to
| |
| − | the movement. He brought with him a small Adler typewriter of his own.
| |
| − | It was the first machine to be used in the service of the party.
| |
| − | Subsequently the party bought it by paying for it in installments. We
| |
| − | needed a small safe in order to keep our papers and register of
| |
| − | membership from danger of being stolen--not to guard our funds, which
| |
| − | did not then exist. On the contrary, our financial position was so
| |
| − | miserable that I often had to dip my hand into my own personal savings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After eighteen months our business quarters had become too small, so we
| |
| − | moved to a new place in the Cornelius Strasse. Again our office was in a
| |
| − | restaurant, but instead of one room we now had three smaller rooms and
| |
| − | one large room with great windows. At that time this appeared a
| |
| − | wonderful thing to us. We remained there until the end of November 1923.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In December 1920, we acquired the VÖLKISCHER BEOBACHTER. This newspaper
| |
| − | which, as its name implies, championed the claims of the people, was now
| |
| − | to become the organ of the German National Socialist Labour Party. At
| |
| − | first it appeared twice weekly; but at the beginning of 1928 it became a
| |
| − | daily paper, and at the end of August in the same year it began to
| |
| − | appear in the large format which is now well known.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a complete novice in journalism I then learned many a lesson for
| |
| − | which I had to pay dearly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In contradistinction to the enormous number of papers in Jewish hands,
| |
| − | there was at that time only one important newspaper that defended the
| |
| − | cause of the people. This was a matter for grave consideration. As I
| |
| − | have often learned by experience, the reason for that state of things
| |
| − | must be attributed to the incompetent way in which the business side of
| |
| − | the so-called popular newspapers was managed. These were conducted too
| |
| − | much according to the rule that opinion should prevail over action that
| |
| − | produces results. Quite a wrong standpoint, for opinion is of itself
| |
| − | something internal and finds its best expression in productive activity.
| |
| − | The man who does valuable work for his people expresses thereby his
| |
| − | excellent sentiments, whereas another who merely talks about his
| |
| − | opinions and does nothing that is of real value or use to the people is
| |
| − | a person who perverts all right thinking. And that attitude of his is
| |
| − | also pernicious for the community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The VÖLKISCHE BEOBACHTER was a so-called 'popular' organ, as its name
| |
| − | indicated. It had all the good qualities, but still more the errors and
| |
| − | weaknesses, inherent in all popular institutions. Though its contents
| |
| − | were excellent, its management as a business concern was simply
| |
| − | impossible. Here also the underlying idea was that popular newspapers
| |
| − | ought to be subsidized by popular contributions, without recognizing
| |
| − | that it had to make its way in competition with the others and that it
| |
| − | was dishonest to expect the subscriptions of good patriots to make up
| |
| − | for the mistaken management of the undertaking.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I took care to alter those conditions promptly, for I recognized the
| |
| − | danger lurking in them. Luck was on my side here, inasmuch as it brought
| |
| − | me the man who since that time has rendered innumerable services to the
| |
| − | movement, not only as business manager of the newspaper but also as
| |
| − | business manager of the party. In 1914, in the War, I made the
| |
| − | acquaintance of Max Amann, who was then my superior and is to-day
| |
| − | general business Director of the Party. During four years in the War I
| |
| − | had occasion to observe almost continually the unusual ability, the
| |
| − | diligence and the rigorous conscientiousness of my future collaborator.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the summer of 1921 I applied to my old regimental comrade, whom I met
| |
| − | one day by chance, and asked him to become business manager of the
| |
| − | movement. At that time the movement was passing through a grave crisis
| |
| − | and I had reason to be dissatisfied with several of our officials, with
| |
| − | one of whom I had had a very bitter experience. Amann then held a good
| |
| − | situation in which there were also good prospects for him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After long hesitation he agreed to my request, but only on condition
| |
| − | that he must not be at the mercy of incompetent committees. He must be
| |
| − | responsible to one master, and only one.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is to the inestimable credit of this first business manager of the
| |
| − | party, whose commercial knowledge is extensive and profound, that he
| |
| − | brought order and probity into the various offices of the party. Since
| |
| − | that time these have remained exemplary and cannot be equalled or
| |
| − | excelled in this by any other branches of the movement. But, as often
| |
| − | happens in life, great ability provokes envy and disfavour. That had
| |
| − | also to be expected in this case and borne patiently.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since 1922 rigorous regulations have been in force, not only for the
| |
| − | commercial construction of the movement but also in the organization of
| |
| − | it as such. There exists now a central filing system, where the names
| |
| − | and particulars of all the members are enrolled. The financing of the
| |
| − | party has been placed on sound lines. The current expenditure must be
| |
| − | covered by the current receipts and special receipts can be used only
| |
| − | for special expenditures. Thus, notwithstanding the difficulties of the
| |
| − | time the movement remained practically without any debts, except for a
| |
| − | few small current accounts. Indeed, there was a permanent increase in
| |
| − | the funds. Things are managed as in a private business. The employed
| |
| − | personnel hold their jobs in virtue of their practical efficiency and
| |
| − | could not in any manner take cover behind their professed loyalty to the
| |
| − | party. A good National Socialist proves his soundness by the readiness,
| |
| − | diligence and capability with which he discharges whatever duties are
| |
| − | assigned to him in whatever situation he holds within the national
| |
| − | community. The man who does not fulfil his duty in the job he holds
| |
| − | cannot boast of a loyalty against which he himself really sins.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Adamant against all kinds of outer influence, the new business director
| |
| − | of the party firmly maintained the standpoint that there were no
| |
| − | sinecure posts in the party administration for followers and members of
| |
| − | the movement whose pleasure is not work. A movement which fights so
| |
| − | energetically against the corruption introduced into our civil service
| |
| − | by the various political parties must be immune from that vice in its
| |
| − | own administrative department. It happened that some men were taken on
| |
| − | the staff of the paper who had formerly been adherents of the Bavarian
| |
| − | People's Party, but their work showed that they were excellently
| |
| − | qualified for the job. The result of this experiment was generally
| |
| − | excellent. It was owing to this honest and frank recognition of
| |
| − | individual efficiency that the movement won the hearts of its employees
| |
| − | more swiftly and more profoundly than had ever been the case before.
| |
| − | Subsequently they became good National Socialists and remained so. Not
| |
| − | in word only, but they proved it by the steady and honest and
| |
| − | conscientious work which they performed in the service of the new
| |
| − | movement. Naturally a well qualified party member was preferred to
| |
| − | another who had equal qualifications but did not belong to the party.
| |
| − | The rigid determination with which our new business chief applied these
| |
| − | principles and gradually put them into force, despite all
| |
| − | misunderstandings, turned out to be of great advantage to the movement.
| |
| − | To this we owe the fact that it was possible for us--during the
| |
| − | difficult period of the inflation, when thousands of businesses failed
| |
| − | and thousands of newspapers had to cease publication--not only to keep
| |
| − | the commercial department of the movement going and meet all its
| |
| − | obligations but also to make steady progress with the VÖLKISCHE
| |
| − | BEOBACHTER. At that time it came to be ranked among the great
| |
| − | newspapers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The year 1921 was of further importance for me by reason of the fact
| |
| − | that in my position as chairman of the party I slowly but steadily
| |
| − | succeeded in putting a stop to the criticisms and the intrusions of some
| |
| − | members of the committee in regard to the detailed activities of the
| |
| − | party administration. This was important, because we could not get a
| |
| − | capable man to take on a job if nincompoops were constantly allowed to
| |
| − | butt in, pretending that they knew everything much better; whereas in
| |
| − | reality they had left only general chaos behind them. Then these
| |
| − | wise-acres retired, for the most part quite modestly, to seek another
| |
| − | field for their activities where they could supervise and tell how
| |
| − | things ought to be done. Some men seemed 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 and projects and methods.
| |
| − | Naturally their noble aim and ideal were always the formation of a
| |
| − | committee which could pretend to be an organ of control in order to be
| |
| − | able to sniff as experts into the regular work done by others. But it is
| |
| − | offensive and contrary to the spirit of National Socialism when
| |
| − | incompetent people constantly interfere in the work of capable persons.
| |
| − | But these makers of committees do not take that very much into account.
| |
| − | In those years I felt it my duty to safeguard against such annoyance all
| |
| − | those who were entrusted with regular and responsible work, so that
| |
| − | there should be no spying over the shoulder and they would be guaranteed
| |
| − | a free hand in their day's work.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The best means of making committees 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 the members would silently fade away
| |
| − | and were soon nowhere to be found. It made me think of that great
| |
| − | institution of the same kind, the Reichstag. How quickly they would
| |
| − | evanesce if they were put to some real work instead of talking,
| |
| − | especially if each member were made personally responsible for the work
| |
| − | assigned to him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I always demanded that, just as in private life so also in the movement,
| |
| − | one should not tire of seeking until the best and honestest and
| |
| − | manifestly the most competent person could be found for the position of
| |
| − | leader or administrator in each section of the movement. Once installed
| |
| − | in his position he was given absolute authority and full freedom of
| |
| − | action towards his subordinates and full responsibility towards his
| |
| − | superiors. Nobody was placed in a position of authority towards his
| |
| − | subordinates unless he himself was competent in the work entrusted to
| |
| − | them. In the course of two years I brought my views more and more into
| |
| − | practice; so that to-day, at least as far as the higher direction of the
| |
| − | movement is concerned, they are accepted as a matter of course.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The manifest success of this attitude was shown on November 9th, 1923.
| |
| − | Four years previously, when I entered the movement, it did not have even
| |
| − | a rubber stamp. On November 9th, 1923, the party was dissolved and its
| |
| − | property confiscated. The total sum realized by all the objects of value
| |
| − | and the paper amounted to more than 170,000 gold marks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER XII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE PROBLEM OF THE TRADE UNIONS
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | Owing to the rapid growth of the movement, in 1922 we felt compelled to
| |
| − | take a definite stand on a question which has not been fully solved even
| |
| − | yet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In our efforts to discover the quickest and easiest way for the movement
| |
| − | to reach the heart of the broad masses we were always confronted with
| |
| − | the objection that the worker could never completely belong to us while
| |
| − | his interests in the purely vocational and economic sphere were cared
| |
| − | for by a political organization conducted by men whose principles were
| |
| − | quite different from ours.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That was quite a serious objection. The general belief was that a
| |
| − | workman engaged in some trade or other could not exist if he did not
| |
| − | belong to a trade union. Not only were his professional interests thus
| |
| − | protected but a guarantee of permanent employment was simply
| |
| − | inconceivable without membership in a trade union. The majority of the
| |
| − | workers were in the trades unions. Generally speaking, the unions had
| |
| − | successfully conducted the battle for the establishment of a definite
| |
| − | scale of wages and had concluded agreements which guaranteed the worker
| |
| − | a steady income. Undoubtedly the workers in the various trades benefited
| |
| − | by the results of that campaign and, for honest men especially,
| |
| − | conflicts of conscience must have arisen if they took the wages which
| |
| − | had been assured through the struggle fought by the trades unions and if
| |
| − | at the same time the men themselves withdrew from the fight.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was difficult to discuss this problem with the average bourgeois
| |
| − | employer. He had no understanding (or did not 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 opposed to every kind
| |
| − | of organization which joined together the workmen that were dependent on
| |
| − | him. Hence it was for the most part impossible to bring these bourgeois
| |
| − | employers to take an impartial view of the situation. Here, therefore,
| |
| − | as in so many other cases, it was necessary to appeal to disinterested
| |
| − | outsiders who would not be subject to the temptation of fixing their
| |
| − | attention on the trees and failing to see the forest. With a little good
| |
| − | will on their part, they could much more easily understand a state of
| |
| − | affairs which is of the highest importance for our present and future
| |
| − | existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first volume of this book I have already expressed my views on
| |
| − | the nature and purpose and necessity of trade unions. There I took up
| |
| − | the standpoint that unless measures are undertaken by the State (usually
| |
| − | futile in such cases) or a new ideal is introduced in our education,
| |
| − | which would change the attitude of the employer towards the worker, no
| |
| − | other course would be open to the latter except to defend his own
| |
| − | interests himself by appealing to his equal rights as a contracting
| |
| − | party within the economic sphere of the nation's existence. I stated
| |
| − | further that this would conform to the interests of the national
| |
| − | community if thereby social injustices could be redressed which
| |
| − | otherwise would cause serious damage to the whole social structure. I
| |
| − | stated, moreover, that the worker would always find it necessary to
| |
| − | undertake this protective action as long as there were men among the
| |
| − | employers who had no sense of their social obligations nor even of the
| |
| − | most elementary human rights. And I concluded by saying that if such
| |
| − | self-defence be considered necessary its form ought to be that of an
| |
| − | association made up of the workers themselves on the basis of trades
| |
| − | unions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was my general idea and it remained the same in 1922. But a clear
| |
| − | and precise formula was still to be discovered. We could not be
| |
| − | satisfied with merely understanding the problem. It was necessary to
| |
| − | come to some conclusions that could be put into practice. The following
| |
| − | questions had to be answered:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) Are trade unions necessary?
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) Should the German National Socialist Labour Party itself operate on
| |
| − | a trade unionist basis or have its members take part in trade unionist
| |
| − | activities in some form or other?
| |
| − | | |
| − | (3) What form should a National Socialist Trades Union take? What are
| |
| − | the tasks confronting us and the ends we must try to attain?
| |
| − | | |
| − | (4) How can we establish trade unions for such tasks and aims?
| |
| − | | |
| − | I think that I have already answered the first question adequately. In
| |
| − | the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly
| |
| − | dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the
| |
| − | most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only
| |
| − | are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even
| |
| − | more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of
| |
| − | a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist
| |
| − | movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence
| |
| − | will be enormously reinforced thereby.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building
| |
| − | stones for the future economic parliament, which will be made up of
| |
| − | chambers representing the various professions and occupations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The second question is also easy to answer. If the trade unionist
| |
| − | movement is important, then it is clear that National Socialism ought to
| |
| − | take a definite stand on that question, not only theoretically but also
| |
| − | in practice. But how? That is more difficult to see clearly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist Movement, which aims at establishing the National
| |
| − | Socialist People's State, must always bear steadfastly in mind the
| |
| − | principle that every future institution under that State must be rooted
| |
| − | in the movement itself. It is a great mistake to believe that by
| |
| − | acquiring possession of supreme political power we can bring about a
| |
| − | definite reorganization, suddenly starting from nothing, without the
| |
| − | help of a certain reserve stock of men who have been trained beforehand,
| |
| − | especially in the spirit of the movement. Here also the principle holds
| |
| − | good that the spirit is always more important than the external form
| |
| − | which it animates; since this form can be created mechanically and
| |
| − | quickly. For instance, the leadership principle may be imposed on an
| |
| − | organized political community in a dictatorial way. But this principle
| |
| − | can become a living reality only by passing through the stages that are
| |
| − | necessary for its own evolution. These stages lead from the smallest
| |
| − | cell of the State organism upwards. As its bearers and representatives,
| |
| − | the leadership principle must have a body of men who have passed through
| |
| − | a process of selection lasting over several years, who have been
| |
| − | tempered by the hard realities of life and thus rendered capable of
| |
| − | carrying the principle into practical effect.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is out of the question to think that a scheme for the Constitution of
| |
| − | a State can be pulled out of a portfolio at a moment's notice and
| |
| − | 'introduced' by imperative orders from above. One may try that kind of
| |
| − | thing but the result will always be something that has not sufficient
| |
| − | vitality to endure. It will be like a stillborn infant. The idea of it
| |
| − | calls to mind the origin of the Weimar Constitution and the attempt to
| |
| − | impose on the German people a new Constitution and a new flag, neither
| |
| − | of which had any inner relation to the vicissitudes of our people's
| |
| − | history during the last half century.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist State must guard against all such experiments. It
| |
| − | must grow out of an organization which has already existed for a long
| |
| − | time. This organization must possess National Socialist life in itself,
| |
| − | so that finally it may be able to establish a National Socialist State
| |
| − | that will be a living reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have already said, the germ cells of this State must lie in the
| |
| − | administrative chambers which will represent the various occupations and
| |
| − | professions, therefore first of all in the trades unions. If this
| |
| − | subsequent vocational representation and the Central Economic Parliament
| |
| − | are to be National Socialist institutions, these important germ cells
| |
| − | must be vehicles of the National Socialist concept of life. The
| |
| − | institutions of the movement are to be brought over into the State; for
| |
| − | the State cannot call into existence all of a sudden and as if by magic
| |
| − | those institutions which are necessary to its existence, unless it
| |
| − | wishes to have institutions that are bound to remain completely
| |
| − | lifeless.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Looking at the matter from the highest standpoint, the National
| |
| − | Socialist Movement will have to recognize the necessity of adopting its
| |
| − | own trade-unionist policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must do this for a further reason, namely because a real National
| |
| − | Socialist education for the employer as well as for the employee, in the
| |
| − | spirit of a mutual co-operation within the common framework of the
| |
| − | national community, cannot be secured by theoretical instruction,
| |
| − | appeals and exhortations, but through the struggles of daily life. In
| |
| − | this spirit and through this spirit the movement must educate the
| |
| − | several large economic groups and bring them closer to one another under
| |
| − | a wider outlook. Without this preparatory work it would be sheer
| |
| − | illusion to hope that a real national community can be brought into
| |
| − | existence. The great ideal represented by its philosophy of life and for
| |
| − | which the movement fights can alone form a general style of thought
| |
| − | steadily and slowly. And this style will show that the new state of
| |
| − | things rests on foundations that are internally sound and not merely an
| |
| − | external façade.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence the movement must adopt a positive attitude towards the
| |
| − | trade-unionist idea. But it must go further than this. For the enormous
| |
| − | number of members and followers of the trade-unionist movement it must
| |
| − | provide a practical education which will meet the exigencies of the
| |
| − | coming National Socialist State.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The answer to the third question follows from what has been already
| |
| − | said.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist Trades Union is not an instrument for class
| |
| − | warfare, but a representative organ of the various occupations and
| |
| − | callings. The National Socialist State recognizes no 'classes'. But,
| |
| − | under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely
| |
| − | equal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by
| |
| − | side with these, it recognizes subjects of the State who have no
| |
| − | political rights whatsoever.
| |
| − | | |
| − | According to the National Socialist concept, it is not the task of the
| |
| − | trades union to band together certain men within the national community
| |
| − | and thus gradually transform these men into a class, so as to use them
| |
| − | in a conflict against other groups similarly organized within the
| |
| − | national community. We certainly cannot assign this task to the trades
| |
| − | union as such. This was the task assigned to it the moment it became a
| |
| − | fighting weapon in the hands of the Marxists. The trades union is not
| |
| − | naturally an instrument of class warfare; but the Marxists transformed
| |
| − | it into an instrument for use in their own class struggle. They created
| |
| − | the economic weapon which the international Jew uses for the purpose of
| |
| − | destroying the economic foundations of free and independent national
| |
| − | States, for ruining their national industry and trade and thereby
| |
| − | enslaving free nations to serve Jewish world-finance, which transcends
| |
| − | all State boundaries.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In contradistinction to this, the National Socialist Trades Union must
| |
| − | organize definite groups and those who participate in the economic life
| |
| − | of the nation and thus enhance the security of the national economic
| |
| − | system itself, reinforcing it by the elimination of all those anomalies
| |
| − | which ultimately exercise a destructive influence on the social body of
| |
| − | the nation, damaging the vital forces of the national community,
| |
| − | prejudicing the welfare of the State and, by no means as a last
| |
| − | consequence, bringing evil and destruction on economic life itself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore in the hands of the National Socialist Trades Union the strike
| |
| − | is not an instrument for disturbing and dislocating the national
| |
| − | production, but for increasing it and making it run smoothly, by
| |
| − | fighting against all those annoyances which by reason of their unsocial
| |
| − | character hinder efficiency in business and thereby hamper the existence
| |
| − | of the whole nation. For individual efficiency stands always in casual
| |
| − | relation to the general social and juridical position of the individual
| |
| − | in the economic process. Individual efficiency is also the sole root of
| |
| − | the conviction that the economic prosperity of the nation must
| |
| − | necessarily redound to the benefit of the individual citizen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist employee will have to recognize the fact that the
| |
| − | economic prosperity of the nation brings with it his own material
| |
| − | happiness.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist employer must recognize that the happiness and
| |
| − | contentment of his employees are necessary pre-requisites for the
| |
| − | existence and development of his own economic prosperity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | National Socialist workers and employers are both together the delegates
| |
| − | and mandatories of the whole national community. The large measure of
| |
| − | personal freedom which is accorded to them for their activities must be
| |
| − | explained by the fact that experience has shown that the productive
| |
| − | powers of the individual are more enhanced by being accorded a generous
| |
| − | measure of freedom than by coercion from above. Moreover, by according
| |
| − | this freedom we give free play to the natural process of selection which
| |
| − | brings forward the ablest and most capable and most industrious. For the
| |
| − | National Socialist Trades Union, therefore, the strike is a means that
| |
| − | may, and indeed must, 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 the mass struggle between the two great groups
| |
| − | made up of employers and employees respectively, a struggle which has
| |
| − | always resulted in lessening the national production and injuring the
| |
| − | national community. In place of this struggle, the National Socialist
| |
| − | State will take over the task of caring for and defending the rights of
| |
| − | all parties concerned. It will be the duty of the Economic Chamber
| |
| − | itself to keep the national economic system in smooth working order and
| |
| − | to remove whatever defects or errors it may suffer from. Questions that
| |
| − | are now fought over through a quarrel that involves millions of people
| |
| − | will then be settled in the Representative Chambers of Trades and
| |
| − | Professions and in the Central Economic Parliament. Thus employers and
| |
| − | employees will no longer find themselves drawn into a mutual conflict
| |
| − | over wages and hours of work, always to the detriment of their mutual
| |
| − | interests. But they will solve these problems together on a higher
| |
| − | plane, where the welfare of the national community and of the 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 country must come before party
| |
| − | interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The task of the National Socialist Trades 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 maintenance and security of
| |
| − | our people and the People's State, each one according to the abilities
| |
| − | and powers with which Nature has endowed him and which have been
| |
| − | developed and trained by the national community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our fourth question was: How shall we establish trades unions for such
| |
| − | tasks and aims? That is far more difficult to answer.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Generally speaking, it is easier to establish something in new territory
| |
| − | than in old territory which already has its established institutions. In
| |
| − | a district where there is no existing business of a special character
| |
| − | one can easily establish a new business of this character. But it is
| |
| − | more difficult if the same kind of enterprise already exists and it is
| |
| − | most difficult of all when the conditions are such that only one
| |
| − | enterprise of this kind can prosper. For here the promoters of the new
| |
| − | enterprise find themselves confronted not only with the problem of
| |
| − | introducing their own business but also that of how to bring about the
| |
| − | destruction of the other business already existing in the district, so
| |
| − | that the new enterprise may be able to exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It would be senseless to have a National Socialist Trades Union side by
| |
| − | side with other trades unions. For this Trades Union must be thoroughly
| |
| − | imbued with a feeling for the ideological nature of its task and of the
| |
| − | resulting obligation not to tolerate other similar or hostile
| |
| − | institutions. It must also insist that itself alone is necessary, to the
| |
| − | exclusion of all the rest. It can come to no arrangement and no
| |
| − | compromise with kindred tendencies but must assert its own absolute and
| |
| − | exclusive right.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There were two ways which might lead to such a development:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) We could establish our Trades Union and then gradually take up the
| |
| − | fight against the Marxist International Trades Union.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) Or we could enter the Marxist Trades Union and inculcate a new
| |
| − | spirit in it, with the idea of transforming it into 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 much worry to us at that time
| |
| − | and our resources were quite slender. The effects of the inflation were
| |
| − | steadily spreading and made the particular situation still more
| |
| − | difficult for us, because in those years one could scarcely speak of any
| |
| − | material help which the trades unions could extend to their members.
| |
| − | From this point of view, there was no reason why the individual worker
| |
| − | should pay his dues to the union. Even the Marxist unions then existing
| |
| − | were already on the point 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 the Marxist trades unions.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We could not count on similar financial facilities. And nobody could be
| |
| − | induced to enter a new Trades Union which, on account of its financial
| |
| − | weakness, could not offer him the slightest material benefit. On the
| |
| − | other hand, I felt bound absolutely to guard against the creation of
| |
| − | such an organization which would only be a shelter for shirkers of the
| |
| − | more or less intellectual type.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time the question of personnel played the most important role. I
| |
| − | did not have a single man whom I might call upon to carry out this
| |
| − | important task. Whoever could have succeeded at that time in
| |
| − | overthrowing the Marxist unions to make way for the triumph of the
| |
| − | National Socialist corporative idea, which would then take the place of
| |
| − | the ruinous class warfare--such a person would be fit to rank with the
| |
| − | very greatest men our nation has produced and his bust should be
| |
| − | installed in the Valhalla at Regensburg for the admiration of posterity.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But I knew of no person who could qualify for such a pedestal.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this connection we must not be led astray by the fact that the
| |
| − | international trades unions are conducted by men of only mediocre
| |
| − | significance, for when those unions were founded there was nothing else
| |
| − | of a similar kind already in existence. To-day the National Socialist
| |
| − | Movement must fight against a monster organization which has existed for
| |
| − | a long time, rests on gigantic foundations and is carefully constructed
| |
| − | even in the smallest details. An assailant must always exercise more
| |
| − | intelligence than the defender, if he is to overthrow the latter. The
| |
| − | Marxist trade-unionist citadel may be governed to-day by mediocre
| |
| − | leaders, but it cannot be taken by assault except through the dauntless
| |
| − | energy and genius of a superior leader on the other side. If such a
| |
| − | leader cannot be found it is futile to struggle with Fate and even more
| |
| − | foolish to try to overthrow the existing state of things without being
| |
| − | able to construct a better in its place.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here one must apply the maxim that in life it is often better to allow
| |
| − | something to go by the board rather than try to half do it or do it
| |
| − | badly, owing to a lack of suitable means.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To this we must add another consideration, 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 in a great ideological
| |
| − | struggle in the political field it would be a grave mistake to mix up
| |
| − | economic questions with this struggle in its earlier stages. This
| |
| − | applies particularly to our German people. For if such were to happen in
| |
| − | their case the economic struggle would immediately distract the energy
| |
| − | necessary for the political fight. Once the people are brought to
| |
| − | believe that they can buy a little house with their savings they will
| |
| − | devote themselves to the task of increasing their savings and no spare
| |
| − | time will be left to them for the political struggle against those who,
| |
| − | in one way or another, will one day secure possession of the pennies
| |
| − | that have been saved. Instead of participating in the political conflict
| |
| − | on behalf of the opinions and convictions which they have 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 the
| |
| − | ground amidst all the stools.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day the National Socialist Movement is at the beginning of its
| |
| − | struggle. In great part it must first of all shape and develop its
| |
| − | ideals. It must employ every ounce of its energy in the struggle to have
| |
| − | its great ideal accepted, and the success of this effort is not
| |
| − | conceivable unless the combined energies of the movement be entirely at
| |
| − | the service of this struggle.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day we have a classical example of how the active strength of a
| |
| − | people becomes paralysed when that people is too much taken up with
| |
| − | purely economic problems.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Revolution which took place in November 1918 was not made by the
| |
| − | trades unions, but it was carried out in spite of them. And the people
| |
| − | of Germany did not wage any political fight for the future of their
| |
| − | country because they thought that the future could be sufficiently
| |
| − | secured by constructive work in the economic field.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We must learn a lesson from this experience, because in our case the
| |
| − | same thing must happen under the same circumstances. The more the
| |
| − | combined strength of our movement is concentrated in the political
| |
| − | struggle, the more confidently may we count on being successful along
| |
| − | our whole front. But if we busy ourselves prematurely with trade
| |
| − | unionist problems, settlement problems, etc., it will be to the
| |
| − | disadvantage of our own cause, taken as a whole. For, though these
| |
| − | problems may be important, they cannot be solved in an adequate manner
| |
| − | until we have political 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 the movement. And if it takes them up too soon
| |
| − | they will only be a hindrance in the effort to attain its own
| |
| − | ideological aims. It may then easily happen that trade unionist
| |
| − | considerations will control the political direction of the movement,
| |
| − | instead of the ideological aims of the movement directing the way that
| |
| − | the trades unions are to take.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The movement and the nation can derive advantage from a National
| |
| − | Socialist trade unionist organization only if the latter be so
| |
| − | thoroughly inspired by National Socialist ideas that it runs no danger
| |
| − | of falling into step behind the Marxist movement. For a National
| |
| − | Socialist Trades Union which would consider itself only as a competitor
| |
| − | against the Marxist unions would be worse than none. It must declare war
| |
| − | against the Marxist 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, in place of this, it must declare itself as the
| |
| − | defender of the various occupational and professional interests of the
| |
| − | German people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Considered from all these points of view it was not then advisable, nor
| |
| − | is it yet advisable, to think of founding our own Trades Union. That
| |
| − | seemed clear to me, at least until somebody appeared who was obviously
| |
| − | called by fate to solve this particular problem.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore there remained only two possible ways. Either to recommend our
| |
| − | own party members to leave the trades unions in which they were enrolled
| |
| − | or to remain in them for the moment, with the idea of causing as much
| |
| − | destruction in them as possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In general, I recommended the latter alternative.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Especially in the year 1922-23 we could easily do that. For, during the
| |
| − | period of inflation, the financial advantages which might be reaped from
| |
| − | a trades union organization would be negligible, because we could expect
| |
| − | to enroll only a few members owing to the undeveloped condition of our
| |
| − | movement. The damage which might result from such a policy was all the
| |
| − | greater because its bitterest critics and opponents were to be found
| |
| − | among the followers of the National Socialist Party.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I had already entirely discountenanced all experiments which were
| |
| − | destined from the very beginning to be unsuccessful. I would have
| |
| − | considered it criminal to run the risk of depriving a worker of his
| |
| − | scant earnings in order to help an organization which, according to my
| |
| − | inner conviction, could not promise real advantages to its members.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Should a new political party fade out of existence one day nobody would
| |
| − | be injured thereby and some would have profited, but none would have a
| |
| − | right to complain. For what each individual contributes to a political
| |
| − | movement is given with the idea that it may ultimately come to nothing.
| |
| − | But the man who pays his dues to a trade union has the right to expect
| |
| − | some guarantee in return. If this is not done, then the directors of
| |
| − | such a trade union are swindlers or at least careless people who ought
| |
| − | to be brought to a sense of their responsibilities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We took all these viewpoints into consideration before making our
| |
| − | decision in 1922. Others thought otherwise and founded trades unions.
| |
| − | They upbraided us for being short-sighted and failing to see into the
| |
| − | future. But it did not take long for these organizations to disappear
| |
| − | and the result was what would have happened in our own case. But the
| |
| − | difference was that we should have deceived neither ourselves nor those
| |
| − | who believed in us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER XIII
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE GERMAN POST-WAR POLICY OF ALLIANCES
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | The erratic manner in which the foreign affairs of the REICH were
| |
| − | conducted was due to a lack of sound guiding principles for the
| |
| − | formation of practical and useful alliances. Not only was this state of
| |
| − | affairs continued after the Revolution, but it became even worse.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the confused state of our political ideas in general before the War
| |
| − | may be looked upon as the chief cause of our defective statesmanship;
| |
| − | but in the post-War period this cause must be attributed to a lack of
| |
| − | honest intentions. It was natural that those parties who had fully
| |
| − | achieved their destructive purpose by means of the Revolution should
| |
| − | feel that it would not serve their interests if a policy of alliances
| |
| − | were adopted which must ultimately result in the restoration of a free
| |
| − | German State. A development in this direction would not be in conformity
| |
| − | with the purposes of the November crime. It would have interrupted and
| |
| − | indeed put an end to the internationalization of German national economy
| |
| − | and German Labour. But what was feared most of all was that a successful
| |
| − | effort to make the REICH independent of foreign countries might have an
| |
| − | influence in domestic politics which one day would turn out disastrous
| |
| − | for those who now hold supreme power in the government of the REICH. One
| |
| − | cannot imagine the revival of a nation unless that revival be preceded
| |
| − | by a process of nationalization. Conversely, every important success in
| |
| − | the field of foreign politics must call forth a favourable reaction at
| |
| − | home. Experience proves that every struggle for liberty increases the
| |
| − | national sentiment and national self-consciousness and therewith gives
| |
| − | rise to a keener sensibility towards anti-national elements and
| |
| − | tendencies. A state of things, and persons also, that may be tolerated
| |
| − | and even pass unnoticed in times of peace will not only become the
| |
| − | object of aversion when national enthusiasm is aroused but will even
| |
| − | provoke positive opposition, which frequently turns out disastrous for
| |
| − | them. In this connection we may recall the spy-scare that became
| |
| − | prevalent when the war broke out, when human passion suddenly manifested
| |
| − | itself to such a heightened degree as to lead to the most brutal
| |
| − | persecutions, often without any justifiable grounds, although everybody
| |
| − | knew that the danger resulting from spies is greater during the long
| |
| − | periods of peace; but, for obvious reasons, they do not then attract a
| |
| − | similar amount of public attention. For this reason the subtle instinct
| |
| − | of the State parasites who came to the surface of the national body
| |
| − | through the November happenings makes them feel at once that a policy of
| |
| − | alliances which would restore the freedom of our people and awaken
| |
| − | national sentiment might possibly ruin their own criminal existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus we may explain the fact that since 1918 the men who have held the
| |
| − | reins of government adopted an entirely negative attitude towards
| |
| − | foreign affairs and that the business of the State has been almost
| |
| − | constantly conducted in a systematic way against the interests of the
| |
| − | German nation. For that which at first sight seemed a matter of chance
| |
| − | proved, on closer examination, to be a logical advance along the road
| |
| − | which was first publicly entered upon by the November Revolution of
| |
| − | 1918.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Undoubtedly a distinction ought to be made between (1) the responsible
| |
| − | administrators of our affairs of State, or rather those who ought to be
| |
| − | responsible; (2) the average run of our parliamentary politicasters, and
| |
| − | (3) the masses of our people, whose sheepish docility corresponds to
| |
| − | their want of intelligence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first know what they want. The second fall into line with them,
| |
| − | either because they have been already schooled in what is afoot or
| |
| − | because they have not the courage to take an uncompromising stand
| |
| − | against a course which they know and feel to be detrimental. The third
| |
| − | just submit to it because they are too stupid to understand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | While the German National Socialist Labour Party was only a small and
| |
| − | practically unknown society, problems of foreign policy could have only
| |
| − | a secondary importance in the eyes of many of its members. This was the
| |
| − | case especially because our movement has always proclaimed the
| |
| − | principle, and must proclaim it, that the freedom of the country in its
| |
| − | foreign relations is not a gift that will be bestowed upon us by Heaven
| |
| − | or by any earthly Powers, but can only be the fruit of a development of
| |
| − | our inner forces. We must first root out the causes which led to our
| |
| − | collapse and we must eliminate all those who are profiting by that
| |
| − | collapse. Then we shall be in a position to take up the fight for the
| |
| − | restoration of our freedom in the management of our foreign relations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It will be easily understood therefore why we did not attach so much
| |
| − | importance to foreign affairs during the early stages of our young
| |
| − | movement, but preferred to concentrate on the problem of internal
| |
| − | reform.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But when the small and insignificant society expanded and finally grew
| |
| − | too large for its first framework, the young organization assumed the
| |
| − | importance of a great association and we then felt it incumbent on us to
| |
| − | take a definite stand on problems regarding the development of a foreign
| |
| − | policy. It was necessary to lay down the main lines of action which
| |
| − | would not only be in accord with the fundamental ideas of our
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG but would actually be an expansion of it in the
| |
| − | practical world of foreign affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just because our people have had no political education in matters
| |
| − | concerning our relations abroad, it was necessary to teach the leaders
| |
| − | in the various sections of our movement, and also the masses of the
| |
| − | people, the chief principles which ought to guide the development of our
| |
| − | foreign relations. That was one of the first tasks to be accomplished in
| |
| − | order to prepare the ground for the practical carrying out of a foreign
| |
| − | policy which would win back the independence of the nation in managing
| |
| − | its external affairs and thus restore the real sovereignty of the REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fundamental and guiding principles which we must always bear in mind
| |
| − | when studying this question is that foreign policy is only a means to an
| |
| − | end and that the sole end to be pursued is the welfare of our own
| |
| − | people. Every problem in foreign politics must be considered from this
| |
| − | point of view, and this point of view alone. Shall such 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 preoccupation that must occupy our minds in dealing
| |
| − | with a question. Party politics, religious considerations, humanitarian
| |
| − | ideals--all such and all other preoccupations must absolutely give way
| |
| − | to this.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Before the War the purpose to which German foreign policy should have
| |
| − | been devoted was to assure the supply of material necessities for the
| |
| − | maintenance of our people and their children. And the way should have
| |
| − | been prepared which would lead to this goal. Alliances should have been
| |
| − | established which would have proved beneficial to us from this point of
| |
| − | view and would have brought us the necessary auxiliary support. The task
| |
| − | to be accomplished is the same to-day, but with this difference: In
| |
| − | pre-War times it was a question of caring for the maintenance of the
| |
| − | German people, backed up by the power which a strong and independent
| |
| − | State then possessed, but our task to-day is to make our nation powerful
| |
| − | once again by re-establishing a strong and independent State. The
| |
| − | re-establishment of such a State is the prerequisite and necessary
| |
| − | condition which must be fulfilled in order that we may be able
| |
| − | subsequently to put into practice a foreign policy which will serve to
| |
| − | guarantee the existence of our people in the future, fulfilling their
| |
| − | needs and furnishing them with those necessities of life which they
| |
| − | lack. In other words, the aim which Germany ought to pursue to-day in
| |
| − | her foreign 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 steadily before our minds. It is this: The possibility of
| |
| − | winning back the independence of a nation is not absolutely bound up
| |
| − | with the question of territorial reintegration but it will suffice if a
| |
| − | small remnant, no matter how small, of this nation and State will exist,
| |
| − | provided it possesses the necessary independence to become not only the
| |
| − | vehicle of' the common spirit of the whole people but also to prepare
| |
| − | the way for the military fight to reconquer the nation's liberty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When a people who amount to a hundred million souls tolerate the yoke of
| |
| − | common slavery in order to prevent the territory belonging to their
| |
| − | State from being broken up and divided, that is worse than if such a
| |
| − | State and such a people were dismembered while one fragment still
| |
| − | retained its complete independence. Of course, the natural proviso here
| |
| − | is that this fragment must be inspired with a consciousness of the
| |
| − | solemn duty that devolves upon it, not only to proclaim persistently the
| |
| − | inviolable unity of its spiritual and cultural life with that of its
| |
| − | detached members but also to prepare the means that are necessary for
| |
| − | the military conflict which will finally liberate and re-unite the
| |
| − | fragments that are suffering under oppression.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One must also bear in mind the fact that the restoration of lost
| |
| − | districts which were formerly parts of the State, both ethnically and
| |
| − | politically, must in the first instance be a question of winning back
| |
| − | political power and independence for the motherland itself, and that in
| |
| − | such cases the special interests of the lost districts must be
| |
| − | uncompromisingly regarded as a matter of secondary importance in the
| |
| − | face of the 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 province cannot achieve their liberation through the
| |
| − | expression of yearnings and protests on the part of the oppressed and
| |
| − | abandoned, but only when the portion which has more or less retained its
| |
| − | sovereign independence can resort to the use of force for the purpose of
| |
| − | reconquering those territories that once belonged to the common
| |
| − | fatherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore, in order to reconquer lost territories the first condition to
| |
| − | be fulfilled is to work energetically for the increased welfare and
| |
| − | reinforcement of the strength of that portion of the State which has
| |
| − | remained over after the partition. Thus the unquenchable yearning which
| |
| − | slumbers in the hearts of the people must be awakened and restrengthened
| |
| − | by bringing new forces to its aid, so that when the hour comes all will
| |
| − | be devoted to the one purpose of liberating and uniting the whole
| |
| − | people. Therefore, the interests of the separated territories must be
| |
| − | subordinated to the one purpose. That one purpose must aim at obtaining
| |
| − | for the central remaining portion such a measure of power and might that
| |
| − | will enable it to enforce its will on the hostile will of the victor and
| |
| − | thus redress the wrong. For flaming protests will not restore the
| |
| − | oppressed territories to the bosom of a common REICH. That can be done
| |
| − | only through the might of the sword.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The forging of this sword is a work that has to be done through the
| |
| − | domestic policy which must be adopted by a national government. To see
| |
| − | that the work of forging these arms is assured, and to recruit the men
| |
| − | who will bear them, that is the task of the foreign policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the first volume of this book I discussed the inadequacy of our
| |
| − | policy of alliances before the War. There were four possible ways to
| |
| − | secure the necessary foodstuffs for the maintenance of our people. Of
| |
| − | these ways the fourth, which was the most unfavourable, was chosen.
| |
| − | Instead of a sound policy of territorial expansion in Europe, our rulers
| |
| − | embarked on a policy of colonial and trade expansion. That policy was
| |
| − | all the more mistaken inasmuch as they presumed that in this way the
| |
| − | danger of an armed conflict would be averted. The result of the attempt
| |
| − | to sit on many stools at the same time might have been foreseen. It let
| |
| − | us fall to the ground in the midst of them all. And the World War was
| |
| − | only the last reckoning presented to the REICH to pay for the failure of
| |
| − | its foreign policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The right way that should have been taken in those days was the third
| |
| − | way I indicated: namely, to increase the strength of the REICH as a
| |
| − | Continental Power by the acquisition of new territory in Europe. And at
| |
| − | the same time a further expansion, through the subsequent acquisition of
| |
| − | colonial territory, might thus be brought within the range of practical
| |
| − | politics. Of course, this policy could not have been carried through
| |
| − | except in alliance with England, or by devoting such abnormal efforts to
| |
| − | the increase of military force and armament that, for forty or fifty
| |
| − | years, all cultural undertakings would have to be completely relegated
| |
| − | to the background. This responsibility might very well have been
| |
| − | undertaken. The cultural importance of a nation is almost always
| |
| − | dependent on its political freedom and independence. Political freedom
| |
| − | is a prerequisite condition for the existence, or rather the creation,
| |
| − | of great cultural undertakings. Accordingly no sacrifice can be too
| |
| − | great when there is question of securing the political freedom of a
| |
| − | nation. What might have to be deducted from the budget expenses for
| |
| − | cultural purposes, in order to meet abnormal demands for increasing the
| |
| − | military power of the State, can be generously paid back later on.
| |
| − | Indeed, it may be said that after a State has concentrated all its
| |
| − | resources in one effort for the purpose of securing its political
| |
| − | independence a certain period of ease and renewed equilibrium sets in.
| |
| − | And it often happens that the cultural spirit of the nation, which had
| |
| − | been heretofore cramped and confined, now suddenly blooms forth. Thus
| |
| − | Greece experienced the great Periclean era after the miseries it had
| |
| − | suffered during the Persian Wars. And the Roman Republic turned its
| |
| − | energies to the cultivation of a higher civilization when it was freed
| |
| − | from the stress and worry of the Punic Wars.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course, it could not be expected that a parliamentary majority of
| |
| − | feckless and stupid people would be capable of deciding on such a
| |
| − | resolute policy for the absolute subordination of all other national
| |
| − | interests to the one sole task of preparing for a future conflict of
| |
| − | arms which would result in establishing the security of the State. The
| |
| − | father of Frederick the Great sacrificed everything in order to be ready
| |
| − | for 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, the military preparation necessary to
| |
| − | enable us to conquer new territory in Europe was only very mediocre, so
| |
| − | that it was difficult to obtain the support of really helpful allies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Those who directed our foreign affairs would not entertain even the idea
| |
| − | of systematically preparing for war. They rejected every plan for the
| |
| − | acquisition of territory in Europe. And by preferring a policy of
| |
| − | colonial and trade expansion, they sacrificed the alliance with England,
| |
| − | which was then possible. At the same time they neglected to seek the
| |
| − | support of Russia, which would have been a logical proceeding. Finally
| |
| − | they stumbled into the World War, abandoned by all except the
| |
| − | ill-starred Habsburgs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The characteristic of our present foreign policy is that it follows no
| |
| − | discernible or even intelligible lines of action. Whereas before the War
| |
| − | a mistake was made in taking the fourth way that I have mentioned, and
| |
| − | this was pursued only in a halfhearted manner, since the Revolution 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 a
| |
| − | systematic plan, except the systematic attempts that are made to destroy
| |
| − | the last possibility of a national revival.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we make an impartial examination of the situation existing in Europe
| |
| − | to-day as far as concerns the relation of the various Powers to one
| |
| − | another, we shall arrive at the following results:
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the past three hundred years the history of our Continent has been
| |
| − | definitely determined by England's efforts to keep the European States
| |
| − | opposed to one another in an equilibrium of forces, thus assuring the
| |
| − | necessary protection of her own rear while she pursued the great aims of
| |
| − | British world-policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The traditional tendency of British diplomacy ever since the reign of
| |
| − | Queen Elizabeth has been to employ systematically every possible means
| |
| − | to prevent any one Power from attaining a preponderant position over the
| |
| − | other European Powers and, if necessary, to break that preponderance by
| |
| − | means of armed intervention. The only parallel to this has been the
| |
| − | tradition of the Prussian Army. England has made use of various forces
| |
| − | to carry out its purpose, choosing them according to the actual
| |
| − | situation or the task to be faced; but the will and determination to use
| |
| − | them has always been the same. The more difficult England's position
| |
| − | became in the course of history the more the British Imperial Government
| |
| − | considered it necessary to maintain a condition of political paralysis
| |
| − | among the various European States, as a result of their mutual
| |
| − | rivalries. When the North American colonies obtained their political
| |
| − | independence it became still more necessary for England to use every
| |
| − | effort to establish and maintain the defence of her flank in Europe. In
| |
| − | accordance with this policy she reduced Spain and the Netherlands 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 therewith
| |
| − | destroyed the military hegemony of France, which was the most dangerous
| |
| − | rival that England had to fear.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The change of attitude in British statesmanship towards Germany took
| |
| − | place only very slowly, not only because the German nation did not
| |
| − | represent an obvious danger for England as long as it lacked national
| |
| − | unification, but also because public opinion in England, which had been
| |
| − | directed to other quarters by a system of propaganda that had been
| |
| − | carried out for a long time, could be turned to a new direction only by
| |
| − | slow degrees. In order to reach the proposed ends the calmly reflecting
| |
| − | statesman had to bow to popular sentiment, which is the most powerful
| |
| − | motive-force and is at the same time the most lasting in its energy.
| |
| − | When the statesman has attained one of his ends, he must immediately
| |
| − | turn his thoughts to others; but only by degrees and the slow work of
| |
| − | propaganda can the sentiment of the masses be shaped into an instrument
| |
| − | for the attainment of the new aims which their leaders have decided on.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As early as 1870-71 England had decided on the new stand it would take.
| |
| − | On certain occasions minor oscillations in that policy were caused by
| |
| − | the growing influence of America in the commercial markets of the world
| |
| − | and also by the increasing political power of Russia; 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 a Power which was of world importance
| |
| − | commercially and politically and which, partly because of its enormous
| |
| − | industrial development, assumed such threatening proportions that the
| |
| − | two countries already contended against one another in the same sphere
| |
| − | and with equal energy. The so-called peaceful conquest of the world by
| |
| − | commercial enterprise, which, in the eyes of those who governed our
| |
| − | public affairs at that time, represented the highest peak of human
| |
| − | wisdom, was just the thing that led English statesmen to adopt a policy
| |
| − | of resistance. That this resistance assumed the form of an organized
| |
| − | aggression on a vast scale was in full conformity with a type of
| |
| − | statesmanship which did not aim at the maintenance of a dubious world
| |
| − | peace but aimed at the consolidation of British world-hegemony. In
| |
| − | carrying out this policy, England allied herself with those countries
| |
| − | which had a definite military importance. And that was in keeping with
| |
| − | her traditional caution in estimating the power of her adversary and
| |
| − | also in recognizing her own temporary weakness. That line of conduct
| |
| − | cannot be called unscrupulous; because such a comprehensive organization
| |
| − | for war purposes must 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 down heroically but rather that it survives in
| |
| − | a practical way. Hence every road that leads to this goal is opportune
| |
| − | and the failure to take it must be looked upon as a criminal neglect of
| |
| − | duty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the German Revolution took place England's fears of a German world
| |
| − | hegemony came to a satisfactory end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From that time it was not an English interest to see Germany totally
| |
| − | cancelled from the geographic map of Europe. On the contrary, the
| |
| − | astounding collapse which took place in November 1918 found British
| |
| − | diplomacy confronted with a situation which at first appeared untenable.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For four-and-a-half years the British Empire had fought to break the
| |
| − | presumed preponderance of a Continental Power. A sudden collapse now
| |
| − | happened which removed this Power from the foreground of European
| |
| − | affairs. That collapse disclosed itself finally in the lack of even the
| |
| − | primordial instinct of self-preservation, so that European equilibrium
| |
| − | was destroyed within forty-eight hours. Germany was annihilated and
| |
| − | France became the first political Power on the Continent of Europe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The tremendous propaganda which was carried on during this war for the
| |
| − | purpose of encouraging the British public to stick it out to the end
| |
| − | aroused all the primitive instincts and passions of the populace and was
| |
| − | bound eventually to hang as a leaden weight on the decisions of British
| |
| − | statesmen. With the colonial, economical and commercial destruction of
| |
| − | Germany, England's war aims were attained. Whatever went 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
| |
| − | Great Continental Power in Europe. In November 1918, however, and up to
| |
| − | the summer of 1919, 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 own people, England could not change
| |
| − | its foreign policy; and another reason which made that impossible was
| |
| − | the military strength to which other European Powers had now attained.
| |
| − | France had taken the direction of peace negotiations into her own hands
| |
| − | and could impose her law upon the others. During those months of
| |
| − | negotiations and bargaining the only Power that could have altered the
| |
| − | course which things were taking was Germany herself; but Germany was
| |
| − | torn asunder by a civil war, and her so-called statesmen had declared
| |
| − | themselves ready to accept any 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 an active member it sinks to the
| |
| − | level of an enslaved nation and its territory will have to suffer the
| |
| − | fate of a colony.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To prevent the power of France from becoming too great, the only form
| |
| − | which English negotiations could take was that of participating in
| |
| − | France's lust for aggrandizement.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a matter of fact, England did not attain the ends for which she went
| |
| − | to war. Not only did it turn out impossible to prevent a Continental
| |
| − | Power from obtaining a preponderance over the ratio of strength in the
| |
| − | Continental State system of Europe, but a large measure of preponderance
| |
| − | had been obtained and firmly established.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In 1914 Germany, considered as a military State, was wedged in between
| |
| − | two countries, one of which had equal military forces at its disposal
| |
| − | and the other had greater military resources. Then there was England's
| |
| − | overwhelming supremacy at sea. France and Russia alone hindered and
| |
| − | opposed the excessive aggrandizement of Germany. The unfavourable
| |
| − | geographical situation of the REICH, from the military point of view,
| |
| − | might be looked upon as another coefficient of security against an
| |
| − | exaggerated increase of German power. From the naval point of view, the
| |
| − | configuration of the coast-line was unfavourable in case of a conflict
| |
| − | with England. And though the maritime frontier was short and cramped,
| |
| − | the land frontier was widely extended and open.
| |
| − | | |
| − | France's position is different to-day. It is the first military Power
| |
| − | without a serious rival on the Continent. It is almost entirely
| |
| − | protected by its southern frontier against Spain and Italy. Against
| |
| − | Germany it is safeguarded by the prostrate condition of our country. A
| |
| − | long stretch of its coast-line faces the vital nervous system of the
| |
| − | British Empire. Not only could French aeroplanes and long-range
| |
| − | batteries attack the vital centres of the British system, but submarines
| |
| − | can threaten the great British commercial routes. A submarine campaign
| |
| − | based on France's long Atlantic coast and on the European and North
| |
| − | African coasts of the Mediterranean would have disastrous consequences
| |
| − | for England.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the political results of the war to prevent the development of
| |
| − | German power was the creation of a French hegemony on the Continent. The
| |
| − | military result was the consolidation of France as the first Continental
| |
| − | Power and the recognition of American equality on the sea. The economic
| |
| − | result was the cession of great spheres of British interests to her
| |
| − | former allies and associates.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Balkanization of Europe, up to a certain degree, was desirable and
| |
| − | indeed necessary in the light of the traditional policy of Great
| |
| − | Britain, just as France desired the Balkanization of Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What England has always desired, and will continue to desire, is to
| |
| − | prevent any one Continental Power in Europe from attaining a position of
| |
| − | world importance. Therefore England wishes to maintain a definite
| |
| − | equilibrium of forces among the European States--for this equilibrium
| |
| − | 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 homogeneous Power. Therefore France
| |
| − | wants to maintain a system of small German States whose forces would
| |
| − | balance one another and over which there should be no central
| |
| − | government. Then, by acquiring possession of the left bank of the Rhine,
| |
| − | she would have fulfilled the pre-requisite conditions for the
| |
| − | establishment and security of her hegemony in Europe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The final aims of French diplomacy must be in perpetual opposition to
| |
| − | the final tendencies of British statesmanship.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Taking these considerations as a starting-point, anyone who investigates
| |
| − | the possibilities that exist for Germany to find allies must come to the
| |
| − | conclusion that there remains no other way of forming an alliance except
| |
| − | to approach England. The consequences of England's war policy were and
| |
| − | are disastrous for Germany. However, we cannot close our eyes to the
| |
| − | fact that, as things stand to-day, the necessary interests of England no
| |
| − | longer demand the destruction of Germany. On the contrary, British
| |
| − | diplomacy must tend more and more, from year to year, towards curbing
| |
| − | France's unbridled lust after hegemony. Now, a policy of alliances
| |
| − | cannot be pursued by bearing past grievances in mind, but it can be
| |
| − | rendered fruitful by taking account of past experiences. Experience
| |
| − | should have taught us that alliances formed for negative purposes suffer
| |
| − | from intrinsic weakness. The destinies of nations can be welded together
| |
| − | only under the prospect of a common success, of common gain and
| |
| − | conquest, in short, a common extension of power for both contracting
| |
| − | parties.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The ignorance of our people on questions of foreign politics is clearly
| |
| − | demonstrated by the reports in the daily Press which talk about
| |
| − | "friendship towards Germany" on the part of one or the other foreign
| |
| − | statesman, whereby this professed friendship is taken as a special
| |
| − | guarantee that such persons will champion a policy that will be
| |
| − | advantageous to our people. That kind of talk is absurd to an incredible
| |
| − | degree. It means speculating on the unparalleled simplicity of the
| |
| − | average German 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 of every American. And no Italian
| |
| − | statesman would be prepared to adopt a policy that was not pro-Italian.
| |
| − | Therefore, anyone who expects to form alliances with foreign nations on
| |
| − | the basis of a pro-German feeling among the statesmen of other countries
| |
| − | is either an ass or a deceiver. The necessary condition for linking
| |
| − | together the destinies of nations is never mutual esteem or mutual
| |
| − | sympathy, but rather the prospect of advantages accruing to the
| |
| − | contracting parties. It is true that a British statesman will always
| |
| − | follow a pro-British and not a pro-German policy; but it is also true
| |
| − | that certain definite interests involved in this pro-British policy may
| |
| − | coincide on various grounds with German interests. Naturally that can be
| |
| − | so only to a certain degree and the situation may one day be completely
| |
| − | reversed. But the art of statesmanship is shown when at certain periods
| |
| − | there is question of reaching a certain end and when allies are found
| |
| − | who must take the same road in order to defend their own interests.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The practical application of these principles at the present time must
| |
| − | depend on the answer given to the following questions: What States are
| |
| − | not vitally interested in the fact that, by the complete abolition of a
| |
| − | German Central Europe, the economic and military power of France has
| |
| − | reached a position of absolute hegemony? Which are the States that, in
| |
| − | consideration of the conditions which are essential to their own
| |
| − | existence and in view of the tradition that has hitherto been followed
| |
| − | in conducting their foreign policy, envisage such a development as a
| |
| − | menace to their own future?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, we must be quite clear on the 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, whether Bourbon or
| |
| − | Jacobin, Napoleonic or Bourgeois-Democratic, Clerical Republican or Red
| |
| − | Bolshevik, their foreign policy will always be directed towards
| |
| − | acquiring possession of the Rhine frontier and consolidating France's
| |
| − | position on this river by disuniting and dismembering Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | England did not want Germany to be a 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 for our position as a
| |
| − | World-Power but only for the existence of our country, for national
| |
| − | unity and the daily bread of our children. Taking this point of view
| |
| − | into consideration, only two States remain to us as possible allies in
| |
| − | Europe--England and Italy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | England is not pleased to see a France on whose military power there is
| |
| − | no check in Europe, so that one day she might undertake the support of a
| |
| − | policy which in some way or other might come into conflict with British
| |
| − | interests. Nor can England be pleased to see France in possession of
| |
| − | such enormous coal and iron mines in Western Europe as would make it
| |
| − | possible for her one day to play a role in world-commerce which might
| |
| − | threaten danger to British interests. Moreover, England can never be
| |
| − | pleased to see a France whose political position on the Continent, owing
| |
| − | to the dismemberment of the rest of Europe, seems so absolutely assured
| |
| − | that she is not only able to resume a French world-policy on great lines
| |
| − | but would even find herself compelled to do so. The bombs which were
| |
| − | once dropped by the Zeppelins might be multiplied by the thousand every
| |
| − | night. The military predominance of France is a weight that presses
| |
| − | heavily on the hearts of the World Empire over which Great Britain
| |
| − | rules.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nor can Italy desire, nor will she desire, any further strengthening of
| |
| − | France's power in Europe. The future of Italy will be conditioned by the
| |
| − | development of events in the Mediterranean and by the political
| |
| − | situation in the area surrounding that sea. The reason that led Italy
| |
| − | into the War was not a desire to contribute towards the aggrandizement
| |
| − | of France but rather to deal her hated Adriatic rival a mortal blow. Any
| |
| − | further increase of France's power on the Continent would hamper the
| |
| − | development of Italy's future, and Italy does not deceive herself by
| |
| − | thinking that racial kindred between the nations will in any way
| |
| − | eliminate rivalries.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Serious and impartial consideration proves that it is these two States,
| |
| − | Great Britain and Italy, whose natural interests not only do not
| |
| − | contrast with the conditions essential to the existence of the German
| |
| − | nation but are identical with them, to a certain extent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But when we consider the possibilities of alliances we must be careful
| |
| − | not to lose sight of three factors. The first factor concerns ourselves;
| |
| − | the other two concern the two States I have mentioned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Is it at all possible to conclude an alliance with Germany as it is
| |
| − | to-day? Can a Power which would enter into an alliance for the purpose
| |
| − | of securing assistance in an effort to carry out its own OFFENSIVE
| |
| − | aims--can such a Power form an alliance with a State whose rulers have
| |
| − | for years long presented a spectacle of deplorable incompetence and
| |
| − | pacifist cowardice and where the majority of the people, blinded by
| |
| − | democratic and Marxist teachings, betray the interests of their own
| |
| − | people and country in a manner that cries to Heaven for vengeance? As
| |
| − | things stand to-day, can any Power hope to establish useful relations
| |
| − | and hope to fight together for the furtherance of their common interests
| |
| − | with this State which manifestly has neither the will nor the courage to
| |
| − | move a finger even in the defence of its bare existence? Take the case
| |
| − | of a Power for which an alliance must be much more than a pact to
| |
| − | guarantee a state of slow decomposition, such as happened with the old
| |
| − | and disastrous Triple Alliance. Can such a Power associate itself for
| |
| − | life or death with a State whose most characteristic signs of activity
| |
| − | consist of a rampant servility in external relations and a scandalous
| |
| − | repression of the national spirit at home? Can such a Power be
| |
| − | associated with a State in which there is nothing of greatness, because
| |
| − | its whole policy does not deserve it? Or can alliances be made with
| |
| − | Governments which are in the hands of men who are despised by their own
| |
| − | fellow-citizens and consequently are not respected abroad?
| |
| − | | |
| − | No. A self-respecting Power which expects something more from alliances
| |
| − | than commissions for greedy Parliamentarians will not and cannot enter
| |
| − | into an alliance with our present-day Germany. Our present inability to
| |
| − | form alliances furnishes the principle and most solid basis for the
| |
| − | combined action of the enemies who are robbing us. Because Germany does
| |
| − | not defend itself in any other way except by the flamboyant protests of
| |
| − | our parliamentarian elect, there is no reason why the rest of the world
| |
| − | should take up the fight in our defence. And God does not follow the
| |
| − | principle of granting freedom to a nation of cowards, despite all the
| |
| − | implications of our 'patriotic' associations. Therefore, for those
| |
| − | States which have not a direct interest in our annihilation no other
| |
| − | course remains open except to participate in France's campaign of
| |
| − | plunder, at least to make it impossible for the strength of France to be
| |
| − | exclusively aggrandized thereby.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the second place, we must not forget that among the nations which
| |
| − | were formerly our enemies mass-propaganda has turned the opinions and
| |
| − | feelings of large sections of the population in a fixed direction. When
| |
| − | for years long a foreign nation has been presented to the public as a
| |
| − | horde of 'Huns', 'Robbers', 'Vandals', etc., they cannot suddenly be
| |
| − | presented as something different, and the enemy of yesterday cannot be
| |
| − | recommended as the ally of tomorrow.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But the third factor deserves greater attention, since it is of
| |
| − | essential importance for establishing future alliances in Europe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From the political point of view it is not in the interests of Great
| |
| − | Britain that Germany should be ruined even still more, but such a
| |
| − | proceeding would be very much in the interests of the international
| |
| − | money-markets manipulated by the Jew. The cleavage between the official,
| |
| − | or rather traditional, British statesmanship and the controlling
| |
| − | influence of the Jew on the money-markets is nowhere so clearly
| |
| − | manifested as in the various attitudes taken towards problems of British
| |
| − | foreign policy. Contrary to the interests and welfare of the British
| |
| − | State, Jewish finance demands not only the absolute economic destruction
| |
| − | of Germany but its complete political enslavement. The
| |
| − | internationalization of our German economic system, that is to say, the
| |
| − | transference of our productive forces to the control of Jewish
| |
| − | international finance, can be completely carried out only in a State
| |
| − | that has been politically Bolshevized. But the Marxist fighting forces,
| |
| − | commanded by international and Jewish stock-exchange capital, cannot
| |
| − | finally smash the national resistance in Germany without friendly help
| |
| − | from outside. For this purpose French armies would first have to invade
| |
| − | and overcome the territory of the German REICH until a state of
| |
| − | international chaos would set in, and then the country would have to
| |
| − | succumb to Bolshevik storm troops in the service of Jewish international
| |
| − | finance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Hence it is that at the present time 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 the world the Jew is always the
| |
| − | instigator. In peace-time, as well as during the War, the Jewish-Marxist
| |
| − | stock-exchange Press systematically stirred up hatred against Germany,
| |
| − | until one State after another abandoned its neutrality and placed itself
| |
| − | at the service of the world coalition, even against the real interests
| |
| − | of its own people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jewish way of reasoning thus becomes quite clear. The Bolshevization
| |
| − | of Germany, that is to say, the extermination of the patriotic and
| |
| − | national German intellectuals, thus making it possible to force German
| |
| − | Labour to bear the yoke of international Jewish finance--that is only
| |
| − | the overture to the movement for expanding Jewish power on a wider scale
| |
| − | and finally subjugating the world to its rule. As has so often happened
| |
| − | in history, Germany is the chief pivot of this formidable struggle. If
| |
| − | our people and our State should fall victims to these oppressors of the
| |
| − | nations, lusting after blood and money, the whole earth would become the
| |
| − | prey of that hydra. Should Germany be freed from its grip, a great
| |
| − | menace for the nations of the world would thereby be eliminated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is certain that Jewry uses all its subterranean activities not only
| |
| − | for the purpose of keeping alive old national enmities against Germany
| |
| − | but even to spread them farther and render them more acute wherever
| |
| − | possible. It is no less certain that these activities are only very
| |
| − | partially in keeping with the true interests of the nations among whose
| |
| − | people the poison is spread. As a general principle, Jewry carries on
| |
| − | its campaign in the various countries by the use of arguments that are
| |
| − | best calculated to appeal to the mentality of the respective nations and
| |
| − | are most likely to produce the desired results; for Jewry knows what the
| |
| − | public feeling is in each country. Our national stock has been so much
| |
| − | adulterated by the mixture of alien elements that, in its fight for
| |
| − | power, Jewry can make use of the more or less 'cosmopolitan' circles
| |
| − | which exist among us, inspired by the pacifist and international
| |
| − | ideologies. In France they exploit the well-known and accurately
| |
| − | estimated chauvinistic spirit. In England they exploit the commercial
| |
| − | and world-political outlook. In short, they always work upon the
| |
| − | essential characteristics that belong to the mentality of each nation.
| |
| − | When they have in this way achieved a decisive influence in the
| |
| − | political and economic spheres they can drop the limitations which their
| |
| − | former tactics necessitated, now disclosing their real intentions and
| |
| − | the ends for which they are fighting. Their work of destruction now goes
| |
| − | ahead more quickly, reducing one State after another to a mass of ruins
| |
| − | on which they will erect the everlasting and sovereign Jewish Empire.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In England, and in Italy, the contrast between the better kind of solid
| |
| − | statesmanship and the policy of the Jewish stock-exchange often becomes
| |
| − | strikingly evident.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only in France there exists to-day more than ever before a profound
| |
| − | accord between the views of the stock-exchange, controlled by the Jews,
| |
| − | and the chauvinistic policy pursued by French statesmen. This identity
| |
| − | of views constitutes an immense, danger for Germany. And it is just for
| |
| − | this reason that France is and will remain by far the most dangerous
| |
| − | enemy. The French people, who are becoming more and more obsessed by
| |
| − | negroid ideas, represent a threatening menace to the existence of the
| |
| − | white race in Europe, because they are bound up with the Jewish campaign
| |
| − | for world-domination. For the contamination caused by the influx of
| |
| − | negroid blood on the Rhine, in the very heart of Europe, is in accord
| |
| − | with the sadist and perverse lust for vengeance on the part of the
| |
| − | hereditary enemy of our people, just as it suits the purpose of the cool
| |
| − | calculating Jew who would use this means of introducing a process of
| |
| − | bastardization in the very centre of the European Continent and, by
| |
| − | infecting the white race with the blood of an inferior stock, would
| |
| − | destroy the foundations of its independent existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | France's activities in Europe to-day, spurred on by the French lust for
| |
| − | vengeance and systematically directed by the Jew, are a criminal attack
| |
| − | against the life of the white race and will one day arouse against the
| |
| − | French people a spirit of vengeance among a generation which will have
| |
| − | recognized the original sin of mankind in this racial pollution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As far as concerns Germany, the danger which France represents involves
| |
| − | the duty of relegating all sentiment to a subordinate place and
| |
| − | extending the hand to those who are threatened with the same menace and
| |
| − | who are not willing to suffer or tolerate France's lust for hegemony.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For a long time yet to come there will be only two Powers in Europe with
| |
| − | which it may be possible for Germany to conclude an alliance. These
| |
| − | Powers are Great Britain and Italy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we take the trouble to cast a glance backwards on the way in which
| |
| − | German foreign policy has been conducted since the Revolution we must,
| |
| − | in view of the constant and incomprehensible acts of submission on the
| |
| − | part. of our governments, either lose heart or become fired with rage
| |
| − | and take up the cudgels against such a regime. Their way of acting
| |
| − | cannot be attributed to a want of understanding, because what seemed to
| |
| − | every thinking man to be inconceivable was accomplished by the leaders
| |
| − | of the November parties with their Cyclopean intellects. They bowed to
| |
| − | France and begged her favour. Yes, during all these recent years, with
| |
| − | the touching simplicity of incorrigible visionaries, they went on their
| |
| − | knees to France again 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 rope they recognized a visible change of
| |
| − | feeling. Our real political wire-pullers never shared in this absurd
| |
| − | credulity. The idea of establishing a friendship with France was for
| |
| − | them only a means of thwarting every attempt on Germany's part to adopt
| |
| − | a practical policy of alliances. They had no illusions about French aims
| |
| − | or those of the men behind the scenes in France. What induced them to
| |
| − | take up such an attitude and to act as if they honestly believed that
| |
| − | the fate of Germany could possibly be changed in this way was the cool
| |
| − | calculation that if this did not happen our people might take the reins
| |
| − | into their own hands and choose another road.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course it is difficult for us to propose England as our possible ally
| |
| − | in the future. Our Jewish Press has always been adept in concentrating
| |
| − | hatred against England particularly. And many of our good German
| |
| − | simpletons perch on these branches which the Jews have limed to capture
| |
| − | them. They babble about a restoration of German sea power and protest
| |
| − | against the robbery of our colonies. Thus they furnish material which
| |
| − | the contriving Jew transmits to his clansmen in England, so that it can
| |
| − | be used there for purposes of practical propaganda. For our
| |
| − | simple-minded bourgeoisie who indulge in politics can take in only
| |
| − | little by little the idea that to-day we have not to fight for
| |
| − | 'sea-power' and such things. Even before the War it was absurd to direct
| |
| − | the national energies of Germany towards this end without first having
| |
| − | secured our position in Europe. Such a hope to-day reaches that peak of
| |
| − | absurdity which may be called criminal in the domain of politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Often one becomes really desperate on seeing how the Jewish wire-pullers
| |
| − | succeeded in concentrating the attention of the people on things which
| |
| − | are only of secondary importance to-day, They incited the people to
| |
| − | demonstrations and protests while at the same time France was tearing
| |
| − | our nation asunder bit by bit and systematically removing the very
| |
| − | foundations of our national independence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this connection I have to think of the Wooden Horse in the riding of
| |
| − | which the Jew showed extraordinary skill during these years. I mean
| |
| − | South Tyrol.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yes, South Tyrol. The reason why I take up this question here is just
| |
| − | because I want to call to account that shameful CANAILLE who relied on
| |
| − | the ignorance and short memories of large sections of our people and
| |
| − | stimulated a national indignation which is as foreign to the real
| |
| − | character of our parliamentary impostors as the idea of respect for
| |
| − | private property is to a magpie.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I should like to state here that I was one of those who, at the time
| |
| − | when the fate of South Tyrol was being decided--that is to say, from
| |
| − | August 1914 to November 1918--took my place where that country also
| |
| − | could have been effectively defended, namely, in the Army. I did my
| |
| − | share in the fighting during those years, not merely to save South Tyrol
| |
| − | from being lost but also to save every other German province for the
| |
| − | Fatherland.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The parliamentary sharpers did not take part in that combat. The whole
| |
| − | CANAILLE played party politics. On the other hand, we carried on the
| |
| − | fight in the belief that a victorious issue of the War would enable the
| |
| − | German nation to keep South Tyrol also; but the loud-mouthed traitor
| |
| − | carried on a seditious agitation against such a victorious issue, until
| |
| − | the fighting Siegfried succumbed to the dagger plunged in his back. It
| |
| − | was only natural that the inflammatory and hypocritical speeches of the
| |
| − | elegantly dressed parliamentarians on the Vienna RATHAUS PLATZ or in
| |
| − | front of the FELDHERRNHALLE in Munich could not save South Tyrol for
| |
| − | Germany. That could be done only by the fighting battalions at the
| |
| − | Front. Those who broke up that fighting front betrayed South Tyrol, as
| |
| − | well as the other districts of Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyone who thinks that the South Tyrol question can be solved to-day by
| |
| − | protests and manifestations and processions organized by various
| |
| − | associations is either a humbug or merely a German philistine.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this regard it must be quite clearly understood that we cannot get
| |
| − | back the territories we have lost if we depend on solemn imprecations
| |
| − | before the throne of the Almighty God or on pious hopes in a League of
| |
| − | Nations, but only by the force of arms.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the only remaining question is: Who is ready to take up arms
| |
| − | for the restoration of the lost territories?
| |
| − | | |
| − | As far as concerns myself personally, I can state with a good conscience
| |
| − | that I would have courage enough to take part in a campaign for the
| |
| − | reconquest of South Tyrol, at the head of parliamentarian storm
| |
| − | battalions consisting of parliamentarian gasconaders and all the party
| |
| − | leaders, also the various Councillors of State. Only the Devil knows
| |
| − | whether I might have the luck of seeing a few shells suddenly burst over
| |
| − | this 'burning' demonstration of protest. I think that if a fox were to
| |
| − | break into a poultry yard his presence would not provoke such a
| |
| − | helter-skelter and rush to cover as we should witness in the band of
| |
| − | 'protesters'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The vilest part of it all is that these talkers themselves do not
| |
| − | believe that anything can be achieved in this way. Each one of them
| |
| − | knows very well how harmless and ineffective their whole pretence is.
| |
| − | They do it only because it is easier now to babble about the restoration
| |
| − | of South Tyrol than to fight for its preservation in days gone by.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Each one plays the part that he is best capable of playing in life. In
| |
| − | those days we offered our blood. To-day these people are engaged in
| |
| − | whetting their tusks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is particularly interesting to note to-day how legitimist circles in
| |
| − | Vienna preen themselves on their work for the restoration of South
| |
| − | Tyrol. Seven years ago their august and illustrious Dynasty helped, by
| |
| − | an act of perjury and treason, to make it possible for the victorious
| |
| − | world-coalition to take away South Tyrol. At that time these circles
| |
| − | supported the perfidious policy adopted by their Dynasty and did not
| |
| − | trouble themselves in the least about the fate of South Tyrol or any
| |
| − | other province. Naturally it is easier to-day to take up the fight for
| |
| − | this territory, since the present struggle is waged with 'the weapons of
| |
| − | the mind'. Anyhow, it is easier to join in a 'meeting of protestation'
| |
| − | and talk yourself hoarse in giving vent to the noble indignation that
| |
| − | fills your breast, or stain your finger with the writing of a newspaper
| |
| − | article, than to blow up a bridge, for instance, during the occupation
| |
| − | of the Ruhr.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The reason why certain circles have made the question of South Tyrol the
| |
| − | pivot of German-Italian relations during the past few years is quite
| |
| − | evident. Jews and Habsburg legitimists are greatly interested in
| |
| − | preventing Germany from pursuing a policy of alliance which might lead
| |
| − | one day to the resurgence of a free German fatherland. It is not out of
| |
| − | love for South Tyrol that they play this role to-day--for their policy
| |
| − | would turn 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 and calumny lies in the nature of these people,
| |
| − | and that explains how they can calmly and brazenly attempt to twist
| |
| − | things in such a way as to make it appear that we have 'betrayed' South
| |
| − | Tyrol.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is one clear answer that must be given to these gentlemen. It is
| |
| − | this: Tyrol has been betrayed, in the first place, by every German who
| |
| − | was sound in limb and body and did not offer himself for service at the
| |
| − | Front during 1914-1918 to do his duty towards his country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the second place, Tyrol was betrayed by every man who, during those
| |
| − | years did not help to reinforce the national spirit and the national
| |
| − | powers of resistance, so as to enable the country to carry through the
| |
| − | War and keep up the fight to the very end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the third place, South Tyrol was betrayed by everyone who took part
| |
| − | in the November Revolution, either directly by his act or indirectly by
| |
| − | a cowardly toleration of it, and thus broke the sole weapon that could
| |
| − | have saved South Tyrol.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the fourth place, South Tyrol was betrayed by those parties and their
| |
| − | adherents who put their signatures to the disgraceful treaties of
| |
| − | Versailles and St. Germain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And so the matter stands, my brave gentlemen, who make your protests
| |
| − | only with words.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day I am guided by a calm and cool recognition of the fact that the
| |
| − | lost territories cannot be won back by the whetted tongues of
| |
| − | parliamentary spouters but only by the whetted sword; in other words,
| |
| − | through a fight where blood will have to be shed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now, I have no hesitations in saying that to-day, once the die has been
| |
| − | cast, it is not only impossible to win back South Tyrol through a war
| |
| − | but I should definitely take my stand against such a movement, because I
| |
| − | am convinced that it would not be possible to arouse the national
| |
| − | enthusiasm of the German people and maintain it in such a way as would
| |
| − | be necessary in order to carry through such a war to a successful issue.
| |
| − | On the contrary, I believe that if we have to shed German blood once
| |
| − | again it would be criminal to do so for the sake of liberating 200,000
| |
| − | Germans, when more than seven million neighbouring Germans are suffering
| |
| − | under foreign domination and a vital artery of the German nation has
| |
| − | become a playground for hordes of African niggers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the German nation is to put an end to a state of things which
| |
| − | threatens to wipe it off the map of Europe it must not fall into the
| |
| − | errors of the pre-War period and make the whole world its enemy. But it
| |
| − | must ascertain who is its most dangerous enemy so that it can
| |
| − | concentrate all its forces in a struggle to beat him. And if, in order
| |
| − | to carry through this struggle to victory, sacrifices should be made in
| |
| − | other quarters, future generations will not condemn us for that. They
| |
| − | will take account of the miseries and anxieties which led us to make
| |
| − | such a bitter decision, and in the light of that consideration they will
| |
| − | more clearly recognize the brilliancy of our success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Again I must say here that we must always be guided by the fundamental
| |
| − | principle that, as a preliminary to winning back lost provinces, the
| |
| − | political independence and strength of the motherland must first be
| |
| − | restored.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The first task which has to be accomplished is to make that independence
| |
| − | possible and to secure it by a wise policy of alliances, which
| |
| − | presupposes an energetic management of our public affairs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But it is just on this point that we, National Socialists, have to guard
| |
| − | against being dragged into the tow of our ranting bourgeois patriots who
| |
| − | take their cue from the Jew. It would be a disaster if, instead of
| |
| − | preparing for the coming struggle, our Movement also were to busy itself
| |
| − | with mere protests by word of mouth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was the fantastic idea of a Nibelungen alliance with the decomposed
| |
| − | body of the Habsburg State that brought about Germany's ruin. Fantastic
| |
| − | sentimentality in dealing with the possibilities of foreign policy
| |
| − | to-day would be the best means of preventing our revival for innumerable
| |
| − | years to come.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here I must briefly answer the objections which may be raised in regard
| |
| − | to the three questions I have put.
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1. Is it possible at all to form an alliance with the present Germany,
| |
| − | whose weakness is so visible to all eyes?
| |
| − | | |
| − | 2. Can the ex-enemy nations change their attitude towards Germany?
| |
| − | | |
| − | 3. In other nations is not the influence of Jewry stronger than the
| |
| − | recognition of their own interests, and does not this influence thwart
| |
| − | all their good intentions and render all their plans futile?
| |
| − | | |
| − | I think that I have already dealt adequately with one of the two aspects
| |
| − | of the first point. Of course nobody will enter into an alliance with
| |
| − | the present Germany. No Power in the world would link its fortunes with
| |
| − | a State whose government does not afford grounds for the slightest
| |
| − | confidence. As regards the attempt which has been made by many of our
| |
| − | compatriots to explain the conduct of the Government by referring to the
| |
| − | woeful state of public feeling and thus excuse such conduct, I must
| |
| − | strongly object to that way of looking at things.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The lack of character which our people have shown during the last six
| |
| − | years is deeply distressing. The indifference with which they have
| |
| − | treated the most urgent necessities of our nation might veritably lead
| |
| − | one to despair. Their cowardice is such that it often cries to heaven
| |
| − | for vengeance. But one must never forget that we are dealing with a
| |
| − | people who gave to the world, a few years previously, an admirable
| |
| − | example of the highest human qualities. From the first days of August
| |
| − | 1914 to the end of the tremendous struggle between the nations, no
| |
| − | people in the 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 will dare to assert that the lack of character
| |
| − | among our people to-day is typical of them. What we have to endure
| |
| − | to-day, among us and around us, is due only to the influence of the sad
| |
| − | and distressing effects that followed the high treason committed on
| |
| − | November 9th, 1918. More than ever before the word of the poet is true:
| |
| − | that evil can only give rise to evil. But even in this epoch those
| |
| − | qualities among our people which are fundamentally sound are not
| |
| − | entirely lost. They slumber in the depths of the national conscience,
| |
| − | and sometimes in the clouded firmament we see certain qualities like
| |
| − | shining lights which Germany will one day remember as the first symptoms
| |
| − | of a revival. We often see young Germans assembling and forming
| |
| − | determined resolutions, as they did in 1914, freely and willingly to
| |
| − | offer themselves as a sacrifice on the altar of their beloved
| |
| − | Fatherland. Millions of men have resumed work, whole-heartedly and
| |
| − | zealously, as if no revolution had ever affected them. The smith is at
| |
| − | his anvil once again. And the farmer drives his plough. The scientist is
| |
| − | in his laboratory. And everybody is once again attending to his duty
| |
| − | with the same zeal and devotion as formerly.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The oppression which we suffer from at the hands of our enemies is no
| |
| − | longer taken, as it formerly was, as a matter for laughter; but it is
| |
| − | resented with bitterness and anger. There can be no doubt that a great
| |
| − | change of attitude has taken place.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This evolution has not yet taken the shape of a conscious intention and
| |
| − | movement to restore the political power and independence of our nation;
| |
| − | but the blame for this must be attributed to those utterly incompetent
| |
| − | people who have no natural endowments to qualify them for statesmanship
| |
| − | and yet have been governing our nation since 1918 and leading it to
| |
| − | ruin.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Yes. If anybody accuses our people to-day he ought to be asked: What is
| |
| − | being done to help them? What are we to say of the poor support which
| |
| − | the people give to any measures introduced by the Government? Is it not
| |
| − | true that such a thing as a Government hardly exists at all? And must we
| |
| − | consider the poor support which it receives as a sign of a lack of
| |
| − | vitality in the nation itself; or is it not rather a proof of the
| |
| − | complete failure of the methods employed in the management of this
| |
| − | valuable trust? What have our Governments done to re-awaken in the
| |
| − | nation a proud spirit of self-assertion, up-standing manliness, and a
| |
| − | spirit of righteous defiance towards its enemies?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In 1919, when the Peace Treaty was imposed on the German nation, there
| |
| − | were grounds for hoping that this instrument of unrestricted oppression
| |
| − | would help to reinforce the outcry for the freedom of Germany. Peace
| |
| − | treaties which make demands that fall like a whip-lash on the people
| |
| − | turn out not infrequently to be the signal of a future revival.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To what purpose could the Treaty of Versailles have been exploited?
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the hands of a willing Government, how could this instrument of
| |
| − | unlimited blackmail and shameful humiliation have been applied for the
| |
| − | purpose of arousing national sentiment to its highest pitch? How could a
| |
| − | well-directed system of propaganda have utilized the sadist cruelty of
| |
| − | that treaty so as to change the indifference of the people to a feeling
| |
| − | of indignation and transform that indignation into a spirit of dauntless
| |
| − | resistance?
| |
| − | | |
| − | Each point of that Treaty could have been engraved on the minds and
| |
| − | hearts of the German people and burned into them until sixty million men
| |
| − | and women would find their souls aflame with a feeling of rage and
| |
| − | shame; and a torrent of fire would burst forth as from a furnace, 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 be used for such a purpose. Its unbounded
| |
| − | oppression and its impudent demands were an excellent propaganda weapon
| |
| − | to arouse the sluggish spirit of the nation and restore its vitality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Then, from the child's story-book to the last newspaper in the country,
| |
| − | and every theatre and cinema, every pillar where placards are posted and
| |
| − | every free space on the hoardings should be utilized in the service of
| |
| − | this one great mission, until the faint-hearted cry, "Lord, deliver us,"
| |
| − | which our patriotic associations send up to Heaven 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 neglected and nothing was done.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Who will be surprised now if our people are not such as they should be
| |
| − | or might be? The rest of the world looks upon us only as its valet, or
| |
| − | as a kindly dog that will lick its master's hand after he has been
| |
| − | whipped.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course the possibilities of forming alliances with other nations are
| |
| − | hampered by the indifference of our own people, but much more by our
| |
| − | Governments. They have been and are so corrupt that now, after eight
| |
| − | years of indescribable oppression, there exists only a faint desire for
| |
| − | liberty.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In order that our nation may undertake a policy of alliances, it must
| |
| − | restore its prestige among other nations, and it must have an
| |
| − | authoritative Government that is not a drudge in the service of foreign
| |
| − | States and the taskmaster of its own people, but rather the herald of
| |
| − | the national will.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If our people had a government which would look upon this as its
| |
| − | mission, six years would not have passed before a courageous foreign
| |
| − | policy on the part of the REICH would find a corresponding support among
| |
| − | the people, whose desire for freedom would be encouraged and intensified
| |
| − | thereby.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The third objection referred to the difficulty of changing the ex-enemy
| |
| − | nations into friendly allies. That objection may be answered as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The general anti-German psychosis which has developed in other countries
| |
| − | through the war propaganda must of necessity continue to exist as long
| |
| − | as there is not a renaissance of the national conscience among the
| |
| − | German people, so that the German REICH may once again become a State
| |
| − | which is able to play its part on the chess-board of European politics
| |
| − | and with whom the others feel that they can play. Only when the
| |
| − | Government and the people feel absolutely certain of being able to
| |
| − | undertake a policy of alliances can one Power or another, whose
| |
| − | interests coincide with ours, think of instituting a system of
| |
| − | propaganda for the purpose of changing public opinion among its own
| |
| − | people. Naturally it will take several years of persevering and ably
| |
| − | directed work to reach such a result. Just because a long period is
| |
| − | needed in order to change the public opinion of a country, it is
| |
| − | necessary to reflect calmly before such an enterprise be undertaken.
| |
| − | This means that one must not enter upon this kind of work unless one is
| |
| − | absolutely convinced that it is worth the trouble and that it will bring
| |
| − | results which will be valuable in the future. One must not try to change
| |
| − | the opinions and feelings of a people by basing one's actions on the
| |
| − | vain cajolery of a more or less brilliant Foreign Minister, but only if
| |
| − | there be a tangible guarantee that the new orientation will be really
| |
| − | useful. Otherwise public opinion in the country dealt with may be just
| |
| − | thrown into a state of complete confusion. The most reliable guarantee
| |
| − | that can be given for the possibility of subsequently entering into an
| |
| − | alliance with a certain State cannot be found in the loquacious suavity
| |
| − | of some individual member of the Government, but in the manifest
| |
| − | stability of a definite and practical policy on the part of the
| |
| − | Government as a whole, and in the support which is given to that policy
| |
| − | by the public opinion of the country. The faith of the public in this
| |
| − | policy will be strengthened all the more if the Government organize one
| |
| − | active propaganda to explain its efforts and secure public support for
| |
| − | them, and if public opinion favourably responds to the Government's
| |
| − | policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore a nation in such a position as ours will be looked upon as a
| |
| − | possible ally if public opinion supports the Government's policy and if
| |
| − | both are united in the same enthusiastic determination to carry through
| |
| − | the fight for national freedom. That condition of affairs must be firmly
| |
| − | established before any attempt can be made to change public opinion in
| |
| − | other countries which, for the sake of defending their most elementary
| |
| − | interests, are disposed to take the road shoulder-to-shoulder with a
| |
| − | companion who seems able to play his part in defending those interests.
| |
| − | In other words, this means that they will be ready to establish an
| |
| − | alliance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this purpose, however, one thing is necessary. Seeing that the task
| |
| − | of bringing about a radical change in the public opinion of a country
| |
| − | calls for hard work, and many do not at first understand what it means,
| |
| − | it would be both foolish and criminal to commit mistakes which could be
| |
| − | used as weapons in the hands of those who are opposed to such a change.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One must recognize the fact that it takes a long time for a people to
| |
| − | understand completely the inner purposes which a Government has in view,
| |
| − | because it is not possible to explain the ultimate aims of the
| |
| − | preparations that are being made to carry through a certain policy. In
| |
| − | such cases the Government has to count on the blind faith of the masses
| |
| − | or the intuitive instinct of the ruling caste that is more developed
| |
| − | intellectually. But since many people lack this insight, this political
| |
| − | acumen and faculty for seeing into the trend of affairs, and since
| |
| − | political considerations forbid a public explanation of why such and
| |
| − | such a course is being followed, a certain number of leaders in
| |
| − | intellectual circles will always oppose new tendencies which, because
| |
| − | they are not easily grasped, can be pointed to as mere experiments. And
| |
| − | that attitude arouses opposition among conservative circles regarding
| |
| − | the measures in question.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For this reason a strict duty devolves upon everybody not to allow any
| |
| − | weapon to fall into the hands of those who would interfere with the work
| |
| − | of bringing about a mutual understanding with other nations. This is
| |
| − | specially so in our case, where we have to deal with the pretentions and
| |
| − | fantastic talk of our patriotic associations and our small bourgeoisie
| |
| − | 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
| |
| − | out in practice will not be denied by anyone who thinks over the matter
| |
| − | calmly and seriously. These harmless and sometimes half-crazy spouters
| |
| − | in the war of protests are serving the interests of our mortal enemy,
| |
| − | while the manner in which their vapourings are exploited for political
| |
| − | purposes in England cannot be considered as advantageous to Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | They squander their energies in futile demonstrations against the whole
| |
| − | world. These demonstrations are harmful to our interests and those who
| |
| − | indulge in them forget the fundamental principle which is a preliminary
| |
| − | condition of all success. What thou doest, do it thoroughly. Because we
| |
| − | keep on howling against five or ten States we fail to concentrate all
| |
| − | the forces of our national will and our physical strength for a blow at
| |
| − | the heart of our bitterest enemy. And in this way we sacrifice the
| |
| − | possibility of securing an alliance which would reinforce our strength
| |
| − | for that decisive conflict.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here, too, there is a mission for National Socialism to fulfil. It must
| |
| − | teach our people not to fix their attention on the little things but
| |
| − | rather on the great things, not to exhaust their energies on secondary
| |
| − | objects, and not to forget that the object we shall have to fight for
| |
| − | one day is the bare existence of our people and that the sole enemy we
| |
| − | shall have to strike at is that Power which is robbing us of this
| |
| − | existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It may be that we shall have many a heavy burden to bear. But this is by
| |
| − | no means an excuse for refusing to listen to reason and raise
| |
| − | nonsensical outcries against the rest of the world, instead of
| |
| − | concentrating all our forces against the most deadly enemy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Moreover, the German people will have no moral right to complain of the
| |
| − | manner in which the rest of the world acts towards them, as long as they
| |
| − | themselves have not called to account those criminals who sold and
| |
| − | betrayed their own country. We cannot hope to be taken very seriously if
| |
| − | we indulge in long-range abuse and protests against England and Italy
| |
| − | and then allow those scoundrels to circulate undisturbed in our own
| |
| − | country who were in the pay of the enemy war propaganda, took the
| |
| − | weapons out of our hands, broke the backbone of our resistance and
| |
| − | bartered away the REICH for thirty pieces of silver.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The enemy did only what was expected. And we ought to learn from the
| |
| − | stand he took and the way he acted.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyone who cannot rise to the level of this outlook must reflect that
| |
| − | otherwise there would remain nothing else than to renounce the idea of
| |
| − | adopting any policy of alliances for the future. For if we cannot form
| |
| − | an alliance with England because she has robbed us of our colonies, or
| |
| − | with Italy because she has taken possession of South Tyrol, or with
| |
| − | Poland or Czechoslovakia, then there remains no other possibility of an
| |
| − | alliance in Europe except with France which, inter alia, has robbed us
| |
| − | of Alsace and Lorraine.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There can scarcely be any doubt as to whether this last alternative
| |
| − | would be advantageous to the interests of the German people. But if it
| |
| − | be defended by somebody one is always doubtful whether that person be
| |
| − | merely a simpleton or an astute rogue.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As far as concerns the leaders in these activities, I think the latter
| |
| − | hypothesis is true.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A change in public feeling among those nations which have hitherto been
| |
| − | enemies and whose true interests will correspond in the future with ours
| |
| − | could be effected, as far as human calculation goes, if the internal
| |
| − | strength of our State and our manifest determination to secure our own
| |
| − | existence made it clear that we should be valuable allies. Moreover, it
| |
| − | is necessary that our incompetent way of doing things and our criminal
| |
| − | conduct in some matters should not furnish grounds which may be utilized
| |
| − | for purposes of propaganda by those who would oppose our projects of
| |
| − | establishing an alliance with one or other of our former enemies.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The answer to the third question is still more difficult: Is it
| |
| − | conceivable that they who represent the true interests of those nations
| |
| − | which may possibly form an alliance with us could put their views into
| |
| − | practice against the will of the Jew, who is the mortal enemy of
| |
| − | national and independent popular States?
| |
| − | | |
| − | For instance, could the motive-forces of Great Britain's traditional
| |
| − | statesmanship smash the disastrous influence of the Jew, or could they
| |
| − | not?
| |
| − | | |
| − | This question, as I have already said, is very difficult to answer. The
| |
| − | answer depends on so many factors that it 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 so firmly
| |
| − | established in the public estimation and so absolutely at the service of
| |
| − | the country's interests that the forces of international Jewry could not
| |
| − | possibly organize a real and effective obstruction against measures
| |
| − | considered to be politically necessary.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fight which Fascist Italy waged against Jewry's three principal
| |
| − | weapons, the profound reasons for which may not have been consciously
| |
| − | understood (though I do not believe this myself) furnishes the best
| |
| − | proof that the poison fangs of that Power which transcends all State
| |
| − | boundaries are being drawn, even though in an indirect way. The
| |
| − | prohibition of Freemasonry and secret societies, the suppression of the
| |
| − | supernational Press and the definite abolition of Marxism, together with
| |
| − | the steadily increasing consolidation of the Fascist concept of the
| |
| − | State--all this will enable the Italian Government, in the course of
| |
| − | some years, to advance more and more the interests of the Italian people
| |
| − | without paying any attention to the hissing of the Jewish world-hydra.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The English situation is not so favourable. In that country which has
| |
| − | 'the freest democracy' the Jew dictates his will, almost unrestrained
| |
| − | but indirectly, through his influence on public opinion. And yet there
| |
| − | is a perpetual struggle in England between those who are entrusted with
| |
| − | the defence of State interests and the protagonists of Jewish
| |
| − | world-dictatorship.
| |
| − | | |
| − | After the War it became clear for the first time how sharp this contrast
| |
| − | is, when British statesmanship took one stand on the Japanese problem
| |
| − | and the Press took a different stand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just after the War had ceased the old mutual antipathy between America
| |
| − | and Japan began to reappear. Naturally the great European Powers could
| |
| − | not remain indifferent to this new war menace. In England, despite the
| |
| − | ties of kinship, there was a certain amount of jealousy and anxiety over
| |
| − | the growing importance of the United States in all spheres of
| |
| − | international economics and politics. What was formerly a colonial
| |
| − | territory, the daughter of a great mother, seemed about to become the
| |
| − | new mistress of the world. It is quite understandable that to-day
| |
| − | England should re-examine her old alliances and that British
| |
| − | statesmanship should look anxiously to the danger of a coming moment
| |
| − | when the cry would no longer be: "Britain rules the waves", 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 than the encircled German REICH.
| |
| − | Should a day come when the die which will finally decide 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 out her hand to
| |
| − | a member of the yellow race and enters an alliance which, from the
| |
| − | racial point of view is perhaps unpardonable; but from the political
| |
| − | viewpoint it represents the sole possibility of reinforcing Britain's
| |
| − | world position in face of the strenuous developments taking place on the
| |
| − | American continent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Despite the fact that they fought side by side on the European
| |
| − | battlefields, the British Government did not decide to conclude an
| |
| − | alliance with the Asiatic partner, yet the whole Jewish Press opposed
| |
| − | the idea of a Japanese alliance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | How can we explain the fact that up to 1918 the Jewish Press championed
| |
| − | the policy of the British Government against the German REICH and then
| |
| − | suddenly began to take its own way and showed itself disloyal to the
| |
| − | Government?
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was not in the interests of Great Britain to have Germany
| |
| − | annihilated, but primarily a Jewish interest. And to-day the destruction
| |
| − | of Japan would serve British political interests less than it would
| |
| − | serve the far-reaching intentions of those who are leading the movement
| |
| − | that hopes to establish a Jewish world-empire. While England is using
| |
| − | all her endeavours to maintain her position in the world, the Jew is
| |
| − | organizing his aggressive plans for the conquest of it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He already sees the present European States as pliant instruments in his
| |
| − | hands, whether indirectly through the power of so-called Western
| |
| − | Democracy or in the form of a direct domination through Russian
| |
| − | Bolshevism. But it is not only the old world that he holds in his snare;
| |
| − | for a like fate threatens the new world. Jews control the financial
| |
| − | forces of America on the stock exchange. Year after year the Jew
| |
| − | increases his hold on Labour in a nation of 120 million souls. But a
| |
| − | very small section still remains quite independent and is thus the cause
| |
| − | of chagrin to the Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Jews show consummate skill in manipulating public opinion and using
| |
| − | it as an instrument in fighting for their own future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The great leaders of Jewry are confident that the day is near at hand
| |
| − | when the command given in the Old Testament will be carried out and the
| |
| − | Jews will devour the other nations of the earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Among this great mass of denationalized countries which have become
| |
| − | Jewish colonies one independent State could bring about the ruin of the
| |
| − | whole structure at the last moment. The reason for doing this would be
| |
| − | that Bolshevism as a world-system cannot continue to exist unless it
| |
| − | encompasses the whole earth. Should one State preserve its national
| |
| − | strength and its national greatness the empire of the Jewish satrapy,
| |
| − | like every other tyranny, would have to succumb to the force of the
| |
| − | national idea.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As a result of his millennial experience in accommodating himself to
| |
| − | surrounding circumstances, the Jew knows very well that he can undermine
| |
| − | the existence of European nations by a process of racial bastardization,
| |
| − | but that he could hardly do the same to a national Asiatic State like
| |
| − | Japan. To-day he can ape the ways of the German and the Englishman, the
| |
| − | American and the Frenchman, but he has no means of approach to the
| |
| − | yellow Asiatic. Therefore he seeks to destroy the Japanese national
| |
| − | State by using other national States as his instruments, so that he may
| |
| − | rid himself of a dangerous opponent before he takes over supreme control
| |
| − | of the last national State and transforms that control into a tyranny
| |
| − | for the oppression of the defenceless.
| |
| − | | |
| − | He does not want to see a national Japanese 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 in stirring up antipathy towards Japan among
| |
| − | the other nations, as he stirred it up against Germany. Thus it may
| |
| − | happen that while British statesmanship is still endeavouring to ground
| |
| − | its policy in the alliance with Japan, the Jewish Press in Great Britain
| |
| − | may be at the same time leading a hostile movement against that ally and
| |
| − | preparing for a war of destruction by pretending that it is for the
| |
| − | triumph of democracy and at the same time raising the war-cry: Down with
| |
| − | Japanese militarism and imperialism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus in England to-day the Jew opposes the policy of the State. And for
| |
| − | this reason the struggle against the Jewish world-danger will one day
| |
| − | begin also in that country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And here again the National Socialist Movement has a tremendous task
| |
| − | before it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must open the eyes of our people in regard to foreign nations and it
| |
| − | must continually remind them of the real enemy who menaces the world
| |
| − | to-day. In place of preaching hatred against Aryans from whom we may be
| |
| − | separated on almost every other ground but with whom the bond of kindred
| |
| − | blood and the main features of a common civilization unite us, we must
| |
| − | devote ourselves to arousing general indignation against the maleficent
| |
| − | enemy of humanity and the real author of all our sufferings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Socialist Movement must see to it that at least in our own
| |
| − | country the mortal enemy is recognized and that the fight against him
| |
| − | may be a beacon light pointing to a new and better period for other
| |
| − | nations as well as showing the way of salvation for Aryan humanity in
| |
| − | the struggle for its existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Finally, may reason be our guide and will-power our strength. And may
| |
| − | the sacred duty of directing our conduct as I have pointed out give us
| |
| − | perseverance and tenacity; and may our faith be our supreme protection.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | CHAPTER XIV
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | GERMANY'S POLICY IN EASTERN EUROPE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | There are two considerations which induce me to make a special analysis
| |
| − | of Germany's position in regard to Russia. These are:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) This may prove to be the most decisive point in determining
| |
| − | Germany's foreign policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) The problem which has to be solved in this connection is also a
| |
| − | touchstone to test the political capacity of the young National
| |
| − | Socialist Movement for clear thinking and acting along the right lines.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I must confess that the second consideration has often been a source of
| |
| − | great anxiety to me. The members of our movement are not recruited from
| |
| − | circles which are habitually indifferent to public 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 foreign politics should
| |
| − | suffer from the prejudice and inadequate knowledge of those circles 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 the
| |
| − | contrary, however subversive may have been the kind of teaching they
| |
| − | formerly received in regard to these problems, in very many cases this
| |
| − | was at least partly counterbalanced by the residue of sound and natural
| |
| − | instincts which remained. In such cases it is only necessary to
| |
| − | substitute a better teaching in place of the earlier influences, in
| |
| − | order to transform the instinct of self-preservation and other sound
| |
| − | instincts into valuable assets.
| |
| − | | |
| − | On the other hand, it is much more difficult to impress definite
| |
| − | political ideas on the minds of men whose earlier political education
| |
| − | was not less nonsensical and illogical than that given to the partisans
| |
| − | of the Left. These men have sacrificed the last residue of their natural
| |
| − | instincts to the worship of some abstract and entirely objective theory.
| |
| − | It is particularly difficult to induce these representatives of our
| |
| − | so-called intellectual circles to take a realistic and logical view of
| |
| − | their own interests and the interests of their nation in its relations
| |
| − | with foreign countries. Their minds are overladen with a huge burden of
| |
| − | prejudices and absurd ideas and they have lost or renounced every
| |
| − | instinct of self-preservation. With those men also the National
| |
| − | Socialist Movement has to fight a hard battle. And the struggle is all
| |
| − | the harder because, though very often they are utterly incompetent, they
| |
| − | are so self-conceited that, without the slightest justification, they
| |
| − | look down with disdain on ordinary commonsense people. These arrogant
| |
| − | snobs who pretend to know better than other people, are wholly incapable
| |
| − | of calmly and coolly analysing a problem and weighing its pros and cons,
| |
| − | which are the necessary preliminaries of any decision or action in the
| |
| − | field of foreign politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is just this circle which is beginning to-day to divert our foreign
| |
| − | policy into most disastrous directions and 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, I feel myself obliged to
| |
| − | take the greatest pains in laying before my own colleagues a clear
| |
| − | exposition of the most important problem in our foreign policy, namely,
| |
| − | our position in relation to Russia. I shall deal with it, as thoroughly
| |
| − | as may be necessary to make it generally understood and as far as the
| |
| − | limits of this book permit. Let me begin by laying down the following
| |
| − | postulate:
| |
| − | | |
| − | When we speak of foreign politics we understand that domain of
| |
| − | government which has set before it the task of managing 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 affairs must be
| |
| − | based on the definite facts that are at hand. Moreover, as National
| |
| − | Socialists, we must lay down the following axiom regarding the manner in
| |
| − | which the foreign policy of a People's State should be conducted:
| |
| − | | |
| − | The foreign policy of a People's State must first of all bear in mind
| |
| − | the duty of securing the existence of the race which is incorporated in
| |
| − | this State. And this must be done by establishing a healthy and natural
| |
| − | proportion between the number and growth of the population on the one
| |
| − | hand and the extent and resources of the territory they inhabit, on the
| |
| − | other. That balance must be such that it accords with the vital
| |
| − | necessities of the people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What I call a HEALTHY proportion is that in which the support of a
| |
| − | people is guaranteed by the resources of its own soil and sub-soil. Any
| |
| − | situation which falls short of this condition is none the less unhealthy
| |
| − | even though it may endure for centuries or even a thousand years. Sooner
| |
| − | or later, this lack of proportion must of necessity lead to the decline
| |
| − | or even annihilation of the people concerned.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only a sufficiently large space on this earth can assure the independent
| |
| − | existence of a people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The extent of the territorial expansion that may be necessary for the
| |
| − | settlement of the national population must not be estimated by present
| |
| − | exigencies nor even by the magnitude of its agricultural productivity in
| |
| − | relation to the number of the population. In the first volume of this
| |
| − | book, under the heading "Germany's Policy of Alliances before the War,"
| |
| − | I have already explained that the geometrical dimensions of a State are
| |
| − | of importance not only as the source of the nation's foodstuffs and raw
| |
| − | materials, but also from the political and military standpoints. Once a
| |
| − | people is assured of being able to maintain itself from the resources of
| |
| − | the national territory, it must think of how this national territory can
| |
| − | be defended. National security depends on the political strength of a
| |
| − | State, and this strength, in its turn, depends on the military
| |
| − | possibilities inherent in the geographical situation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the German nation could assure its own future only by being a World
| |
| − | Power. For nearly two thousand years the defence of our national
| |
| − | interests was a matter of world history, as can be seen from our more or
| |
| − | less successful activities in the field of foreign politics. We
| |
| − | ourselves have been witnesses to this, seeing that the gigantic struggle
| |
| − | that went on from 1914 to 1918 was only the struggle of the German
| |
| − | people for their existence on this earth, and it was carried out in such
| |
| − | a way that it has become known in history as the World War.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When Germany entered this struggle it was presumed that she was a World
| |
| − | Power. I say PRESUMED, because in reality she was no such thing. In
| |
| − | 1914, if there had been a different proportion between the German
| |
| − | population and its territorial area, Germany would have been really a
| |
| − | World Power and, if we leave other factors out of count, the War would
| |
| − | have ended in our favour.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is not my task nor my intention here 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 in their bare
| |
| − | and unadorned reality, insisting on the weakness inherent in them, so
| |
| − | that at least in the ranks of the National Socialist Movement they
| |
| − | should receive the necessary recognition.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Germany is not at all a World Power to-day. Even though our present
| |
| − | military weakness could be overcome, we still would have no claim to be
| |
| − | called a World Power. What importance on earth has a State in which the
| |
| − | proportion between the size of the population and the territorial area
| |
| − | is so miserable as in the present German REICH? At an epoch in which the
| |
| − | world is being gradually portioned out among States many of whom almost
| |
| − | embrace whole continents one cannot speak of a World Power in the case
| |
| − | of a State whose political motherland is confined to a territorial area
| |
| − | of barely five-hundred-thousand square kilometres.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Looked at purely from the territorial point of view, the area comprised
| |
| − | in the German REICH is insignificant in comparison with the other States
| |
| − | that are called World Powers. England must not be cited here as an
| |
| − | example to contradict this statement; for the English motherland is in
| |
| − | reality the great metropolis of the British World Empire, which owns
| |
| − | almost a fourth of the earth's surface. Next to this we must consider
| |
| − | 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
| |
| − | than ten times greater in territorial extent than the present German
| |
| − | REICH. France must also be ranked among these colossal States. Not only
| |
| − | because she is adding to the strength of her army in a constantly
| |
| − | increasing measure by recruiting coloured troops from the population of
| |
| − | her gigantic empire, but also because France is racially becoming more
| |
| − | and more negroid, so much so that now one can actually speak of the
| |
| − | creation of an African State on European soil. The contemporary colonial
| |
| − | policy of France cannot be compared with that of Germany in the past. If
| |
| − | France develops along the lines it has taken in our day, and should that
| |
| − | development continue for the next three hundred years, all traces of
| |
| − | French blood will finally be submerged in the formation of a
| |
| − | Euro-African Mulatto State. This would represent a formidable and
| |
| − | compact colonial territory stretching from the Rhine to the Congo,
| |
| − | inhabited by an inferior race which had developed through a slow and
| |
| − | steady process of bastardization.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That process distinguishes French colonial policy from the policy
| |
| − | followed by the old Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The former German colonial policy was carried out by half-measures, as
| |
| − | was almost everything they did at that time. They did not gain an
| |
| − | expanse of territory for the settlement of German nationals nor did they
| |
| − | attempt to reinforce the power of the REICH through the enlistment of
| |
| − | black troops, which would have been a criminal undertaking. The Askari
| |
| − | in German East Africa represented a small and hesitant step along this
| |
| − | road; but in reality they served only for the defence of the colony
| |
| − | itself. The idea of importing black troops to a European theatre of
| |
| − | war--apart entirely from the practical impossibility of this in the
| |
| − | World War--was never entertained as a proposal to be carried out under
| |
| − | favourable circumstances; whereas, on the contrary, the French always
| |
| − | looked on such an idea as fundamental in their colonial activities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus we find in the world to-day not only a number of States that are
| |
| − | much greater than the German in the mere numerical size of their
| |
| − | populations, but also possess a greater support for their political
| |
| − | power. The proportion between the territorial dimensions of the German
| |
| − | REICH and the numerical size of its population was never so unfavourable
| |
| − | in comparison with the other world States as at the beginning of our
| |
| − | history two thousand years ago and again to-day. At the former juncture
| |
| − | we were a young people and we stormed a world which was made up of great
| |
| − | States that were already in a decadent condition, of which the last
| |
| − | giant was Rome, to whose overthrow we contributed. To-day we find
| |
| − | ourselves in a world of great and powerful States, among which the
| |
| − | importance of our own REICH is constantly declining more and more.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We must always face this bitter truth with clear and calm minds. We must
| |
| − | study the area and population of the German REICH in relation to the
| |
| − | other States and compare them down through the centuries. Then we shall
| |
| − | find that, as I have said, Germany is not a World Power whether its
| |
| − | military strength be great or not.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There is no proportion between our position and that of the other States
| |
| − | throughout the world. And this lack of proportion is to be attributed to
| |
| − | the fact that our foreign policy never had a definite aim to attain, and
| |
| − | also to the fact that we lost every sound impulse and instinct for
| |
| − | self-preservation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If the historians who are to write our national history at some future
| |
| − | date are to give the National Socialist Movement the credit of having
| |
| − | devoted itself to a sacred duty in the service of our people, this
| |
| − | movement will have to recognize the real truth of our situation in
| |
| − | regard to the rest of the world. However painful this recognition may
| |
| − | be, the movement must draw courage from it and a sense of practical
| |
| − | realities in fighting against the aimlessness and incompetence which has
| |
| − | hitherto been shown by our people in the conduct of their foreign
| |
| − | policy. Without respect for 'tradition,' and without any preconceived
| |
| − | notions, the movement must find the courage to organize our national
| |
| − | forces and set them on the path which will lead them away from that
| |
| − | territorial restriction which is the bane of our national life to-day,
| |
| − | and win new territory for them. Thus the movement will save the German
| |
| − | people from the danger of perishing or of being slaves in the service of
| |
| − | any other people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Our movement must seek to abolish the present disastrous proportion
| |
| − | between our population and the area of our national territory,
| |
| − | considering national territory as the source of our maintenance or as a
| |
| − | basis of political power. And it ought to strive to abolish the contrast
| |
| − | between past history and the hopelessly powerless situation in which we
| |
| − | are to-day. In striving for this it must bear in mind the fact that we
| |
| − | are members of the highest species of humanity on this earth, that we
| |
| − | have a correspondingly high duty, and that we shall fulfil this duty
| |
| − | only if we inspire the German people with the racial idea, so that they
| |
| − | will occupy themselves not merely with the breeding of good dogs and
| |
| − | horses and cats, but also care for the purity of their own blood.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When I say that the foreign policy hitherto followed by Germany has been
| |
| − | without aim and ineffectual, the proof of my statement will be found in
| |
| − | the actual failures of this policy. Were our people intellectually
| |
| − | backward, or if they lacked courage, the final results of their efforts
| |
| − | could not have been worse than what we see to-day. What happened during
| |
| − | the last decades before the War does not permit of any illusions on this
| |
| − | point; because we must not measure the strength of a State taken by
| |
| − | itself, but in comparison with other States. Now, this comparison shows
| |
| − | that the other States increased their strength in such a measure that
| |
| − | not only did it balance that of Germany but turned out in the end to be
| |
| − | greater; so that, contrary to appearances, when compared with the other
| |
| − | States Germany declined more and more in power until there was a large
| |
| − | margin in her disfavour. Yes, even in the size of our population we
| |
| − | remained far behind, and kept on losing ground. Though it is true that
| |
| − | the courage of our people was not surpassed by that of any other in the
| |
| − | world and that they poured out more blood than any other nation in
| |
| − | defence of their existence, their failure was due only to the erroneous
| |
| − | way in which that courage was turned to practical purposes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In this connection, if we examine the chain of political vicissitudes
| |
| − | through which our people have passed during more than a thousand years,
| |
| − | recalling the innumerable struggles and wars and scrutinizing it all in
| |
| − | the light of the results that are before our eyes to-day, we must
| |
| − | confess that from the ocean of blood only three phenomena have emerged
| |
| − | which we must consider as lasting fruits of political happenings
| |
| − | definitely determined by our foreign policy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) The colonization of the Eastern Mark, which was mostly the work of
| |
| − | the Bajuvari.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) The conquest and settlement of the territory east of the Elbe.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (3) The organization of the Brandenburg-Prussian State, which was the
| |
| − | work of the Hohenzollerns and which became the model for the
| |
| − | crystallization of a new REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | An instructive lesson for the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | These first two great successes of our foreign policy turned out to be
| |
| − | the most enduring. Without them our people would play no role in the
| |
| − | world to-day. These achievements were the first and unfortunately the
| |
| − | only successful attempts to establish a harmony between our increasing
| |
| − | population and the territory from which it drew its livelihood. And we
| |
| − | must look upon it as of really fatal import that our German historians
| |
| − | have never correctly appreciated these formidable facts which were so
| |
| − | full of importance for the following generations. In contradistinction
| |
| − | to this, they wrote panegyrics on many other things, fantastic heroism,
| |
| − | innumerable adventures and wars, without understanding that these latter
| |
| − | had no significance whatsoever for the main line of our national
| |
| − | development.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The third great success achieved by our political activity was the
| |
| − | establishment of the Prussian State and the development of a particular
| |
| − | State concept which grew out of this. To the same source we are to
| |
| − | attribute the organization of the instinct of national self-preservation
| |
| − | and self-defence in the German Army, an achievement which suited the
| |
| − | modern world. The transformation of the idea of self-defence on the part
| |
| − | of the individual into the duty of national defence is derived from the
| |
| − | Prussian State and the new statal concept which it introduced. It would
| |
| − | be impossible to over-estimate the importance of this historical
| |
| − | process. Disrupted by excessive individualism, the German nation became
| |
| − | disciplined under the organization of the Prussian Army and in this way
| |
| − | recovered at least some of the capacity to form a national community,
| |
| − | which in the case of other people had originally arisen through the
| |
| − | constructive urge of the herd instinct. Consequently the abolition of
| |
| − | compulsory national military service--which may have no meaning for
| |
| − | dozens of other nations--had fatal consequences for us. Ten generations
| |
| − | of Germans left without the corrective and educative effect of military
| |
| − | training and delivered over to the evil effects of those dissensions and
| |
| − | divisions the roots of which lie in their blood and display their force
| |
| − | also in a disunity of world-outlook--these ten generations would be
| |
| − | sufficient to allow our people to lose the last relics of an independent
| |
| − | existence on this earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The German spirit could then make its contribution to civilization only
| |
| − | through individuals living under the rule of foreign nations and the
| |
| − | origin of those individuals would remain unknown. They would remain as
| |
| − | the fertilizing manure of civilization, until the last residue of
| |
| − | Nordic-Aryan blood would become corrupted or drained out.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is a remarkable fact that the real political successes achieved by
| |
| − | our people during their millennial struggles are better appreciated and
| |
| − | understood among our adversaries than among ourselves. Even still to-day
| |
| − | we grow enthusiastic about a heroism which robbed our people of millions
| |
| − | of their best racial stock and turned out completely fruitless in the
| |
| − | end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The distinction between the real political successes which our people
| |
| − | achieved in the course of their long history and the futile ends for
| |
| − | which the blood of the nation has been shed is of supreme importance for
| |
| − | the determination of our policy now and in the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We, National Socialists, must never allow ourselves to re-echo the
| |
| − | hurrah patriotism of our contemporary bourgeois circles. It would be a
| |
| − | fatal danger for us to look on the immediate developments before the War
| |
| − | as constituting a precedent which we should be obliged to take into
| |
| − | account, even though only to the very smallest degree, in choosing our
| |
| − | own way. We can recognize no obligation devolving on us which may have
| |
| − | its historical roots in any part of the nineteenth century. In
| |
| − | contradistinction to the policy of those who represented that period, we
| |
| − | must take our stand on the principles already mentioned in regard to
| |
| − | foreign policy: namely, the necessity of bringing our territorial area
| |
| − | into just proportion with 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 must be twofold: namely (1) the
| |
| − | acquisition of territory as the objective of our foreign policy and (2)
| |
| − | the establishment of a new and uniform foundation as the objective of
| |
| − | our political activities at home, in accordance with our doctrine of
| |
| − | nationhood.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I shall briefly deal with the question of how far our territorial aims
| |
| − | are justified according to ethical and moral principles. This is all the
| |
| − | more necessary here because, in our so-called nationalist circles, there
| |
| − | are all kinds of plausible phrase-mongers who try to persuade the German
| |
| − | people that the great aim of their foreign policy ought to be to right
| |
| − | the wrongs of 1918, while at the same time they consider it incumbent on
| |
| − | them to assure the whole world of the brotherly spirit and sympathy of
| |
| − | the German people towards all other nations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In regard to this point I should like to make the following statement:
| |
| − | To demand that the 1914 frontiers should be restored is a glaring
| |
| − | political absurdity that is fraught with such consequences as to make
| |
| − | the claim itself appear criminal. The confines of the REICH as they
| |
| − | existed in 1914 were thoroughly illogical; because they were not really
| |
| − | complete, in the sense of including all the members of the German
| |
| − | nation. Nor were they reasonable, in view of the geographical exigencies
| |
| − | of military defence. They were not the consequence of a political plan
| |
| − | which had been well considered and carried out. But they were temporary
| |
| − | frontiers established in virtue of a political struggle that had not
| |
| − | been brought to a finish; and indeed they were partly the chance result
| |
| − | of circumstances. One would have just as good a right, and in many cases
| |
| − | a better right, to choose some other outstanding year than 1914 in the
| |
| − | course of our history and demand that the objective of our foreign
| |
| − | policy should be the re-establishment of the conditions then existing.
| |
| − | The demands I have mentioned are quite characteristic of our bourgeois
| |
| − | compatriots, who in such matters take no political thought of the
| |
| − | 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 of inertia binds them to the present order of things, leading them
| |
| − | to oppose every attempt to change this. Their opposition, however, never
| |
| − | passes over into any kind of active defence. It is only mere passive
| |
| − | obstinacy. Therefore, we must regard it as quite natural that the
| |
| − | political horizon of such people should not reach beyond 1914. In
| |
| − | proclaiming that the aim of their political activities is to have the
| |
| − | frontiers of that time restored, they only help to close up the rifts
| |
| − | that are already becoming apparent in the league which our enemies have
| |
| − | formed against us. Only on these grounds can we explain the fact that
| |
| − | eight years after a world conflagration in which a number of Allied
| |
| − | belligerents had aspirations and aims that were partly in conflict with
| |
| − | one another, the coalition of the victors still remains more or less
| |
| − | solid.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Each of those States in its turn profited by the German collapse. In the
| |
| − | fear which they all felt before the proof of strength that we had given,
| |
| − | the Great Powers maintained a mutual silence about their individual
| |
| − | feelings of envy and enmity towards one another. They felt that the best
| |
| − | guarantee against a resurgence of our strength in the future 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 durable
| |
| − | cement which has held the members of that league together, even up to
| |
| − | the present moment.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And our conduct does not tend to change this state of affairs. Inasmuch
| |
| − | as our bourgeoisie sets up the restoration of the 1914 frontiers as the
| |
| − | aim of Germany's political programme, each member of the enemy coalition
| |
| − | who otherwise might be inclined to withdraw from the combination sticks
| |
| − | to it, out of fear lest he might be attacked by us if he isolated
| |
| − | himself and in that case would not have the support of his allies. Each
| |
| − | individual State feels itself aimed at and threatened by this programme.
| |
| − | And the programme is absurd, for the following two reasons:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) Because there are no available means of extricating it from the
| |
| − | twilight atmosphere of political soirees and transforming it into
| |
| − | reality.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) Even if it could be really carried into effect the result would be
| |
| − | so miserable that, surely to God, it would not be worth while to risk
| |
| − | the blood of our people once again for such a purpose.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For there can be scarcely any doubt whatsoever that only through
| |
| − | bloodshed could we achieve the restoration of the 1914 frontiers. One
| |
| − | must have the simple mind of a child to believe that the revision of the
| |
| − | Versailles Treaty can be obtained by indirect means and by beseeching
| |
| − | the clemency of the victors; without taking into account the fact that
| |
| − | for this we should need somebody who had the character of a
| |
| − | Talleyrand, and there is no Talleyrand among us. Fifty percent of our
| |
| − | politicians consists of artful dodgers who have no character and are
| |
| − | quite hostile to the sympathies of our people, while the other fifty per
| |
| − | cent is made up of well-meaning, harmless, and complaisant incompetents.
| |
| − | Times have changed since the Congress of Vienna. It is no longer princes
| |
| − | or their courtesans who contend and bargain about State frontiers, but
| |
| − | the inexorable cosmopolitan Jew who is fighting for his own dominion
| |
| − | over the nations. The sword is the only means whereby a nation can
| |
| − | thrust that clutch from its throat. Only when national sentiment is
| |
| − | organized and concentrated into an effective force can it defy that
| |
| − | international menace which tends towards an enslavement of the nations.
| |
| − | But this road is and will always be marked with bloodshed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If we are once convinced that the future of Germany calls for the
| |
| − | sacrifice, in one way or another, of all that we have and are, then we
| |
| − | must set aside considerations of political prudence and devote ourselves
| |
| − | wholly to the struggle for a future that will be worthy of our country.
| |
| − | | |
| − | For the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers are of no
| |
| − | significance. They did not serve to protect us 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 compact unit, nor can
| |
| − | they be assured of their maintenance. From the military viewpoint these
| |
| − | frontiers are not advantageous or even such as not to cause anxiety. And
| |
| − | while we are bound to such frontiers it will not be possible for us to
| |
| − | improve our present position in relation to the other World Powers, or
| |
| − | rather in relation to the real World Powers. We shall not lessen the
| |
| − | discrepancy between our territory and that of Great Britain, nor shall
| |
| − | we reach the magnitude of the United States of America. Not only that,
| |
| − | but we cannot substantially lessen the importance of France in
| |
| − | international politics.
| |
| − | | |
| − | One thing alone is certain: The attempt 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 future sacrifice would be possible to
| |
| − | carry out effectively such measures as would be necessary to assure the
| |
| − | future existence of the nation. On the contrary, under the intoxication
| |
| − | of such a superficial success further aims would be renounced, all the
| |
| − | more so because the so-called 'national honour' would seem to be
| |
| − | revindicated and new ports would be opened, at least for a certain time,
| |
| − | to our commercial development.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Against all this we, National Socialists, must stick firmly to the aim
| |
| − | that we have set for our foreign policy; namely, that the German people
| |
| − | must be assured the territorial area which is necessary for it to exist
| |
| − | on this earth. And only for such action as is undertaken to secure those
| |
| − | ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and our German posterity to
| |
| − | allow the blood of our people to be shed once again. Before God, because
| |
| − | we are sent into this world with the commission to struggle for our
| |
| − | daily bread, as creatures to whom nothing is donated and who must be
| |
| − | able to win and hold their position as lords of the earth only through
| |
| − | their own intelligence and courage. And this justification must be
| |
| − | established also before our German posterity, on the grounds that for
| |
| − | each one who has shed his blood the life of a thousand others will be
| |
| − | guaranteed to posterity. The territory on which one day our German
| |
| − | peasants will be able to bring forth and nourish their sturdy sons will
| |
| − | justify the blood of the sons of the peasants that has to be shed
| |
| − | to-day. And the statesmen who will have decreed this sacrifice may be
| |
| − | persecuted by their contemporaries, but posterity will absolve them from
| |
| − | all guilt for having demanded this offering from their people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here I must protest as sharply as possible against those nationalist
| |
| − | scribes who pretend that such territorial extension would be a
| |
| − | "violation of the sacred rights of man" and accordingly pour out their
| |
| − | literary effusions against it. One never knows what are the hidden
| |
| − | forces behind the activities of such persons. But it is certain that the
| |
| − | confusion which they provoke suits the game our enemies are playing
| |
| − | against our nation and is in accordance with their wishes. By taking
| |
| − | such an attitude these scribes contribute criminally to weaken from the
| |
| − | inside and to destroy the will of our people to promote their own vital
| |
| − | interests by the only effective means that can be used for that purpose.
| |
| − | For no nation on earth possesses a square yard of ground and soil by
| |
| − | decree of a higher Will and in virtue of a higher Right. The German
| |
| − | frontiers are the outcome of chance, and are only temporary frontiers
| |
| − | that have been established as the result of political struggles which
| |
| − | took place at various times. The same is also true of the frontiers
| |
| − | which demarcate the territories on which other nations live. And just as
| |
| − | only an imbecile could look on the physical geography of the globe as
| |
| − | fixed and unchangeable--for in reality it represents a definite stage in
| |
| − | a given evolutionary epoch which is due to the formidable forces of
| |
| − | Nature and may 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 their sustenance are subject to change.
| |
| − | | |
| − | State frontiers are established by human beings and may be changed by
| |
| − | human beings.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fact that a nation has acquired an enormous territorial area is no
| |
| − | reason why it should hold that territory perpetually. At most, the
| |
| − | possession of such territory is a proof of the strength of the conqueror
| |
| − | and the weakness of those who submit to him. And in this strength alone
| |
| − | lives the right of possession. If the German people are imprisoned
| |
| − | within an impossible territorial area and for that reason are face to
| |
| − | face with a miserable future, this is not by the command of Destiny, and
| |
| − | the refusal to accept such a situation is by no means a violation of
| |
| − | Destiny's laws. For just as no Higher Power has promised more territory
| |
| − | to other nations than to the German, so it cannot be blamed for an
| |
| − | unjust distribution of the soil. The soil on which we now live was not a
| |
| − | gift bestowed by Heaven on our forefathers. But they had to conquer it
| |
| − | by risking their lives. So also in the future our people will not obtain
| |
| − | territory, and therewith the means of existence, as a favour from any
| |
| − | other people, but will have to win it by the power of a triumphant
| |
| − | sword.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day we are all convinced of the necessity of regulating our situation
| |
| − | in regard to France; but our success here will be ineffective in its
| |
| − | broad results if the general aims of our foreign policy will have to
| |
| − | stop at that. It can have significance for us only if it serves to cover
| |
| − | our flank in the struggle for that extension of territory which is
| |
| − | necessary for the existence of our people in Europe. For colonial
| |
| − | acquisitions will not solve that question. It can be solved only by the
| |
| − | winning of such territory for the settlement of our people as will
| |
| − | extend the area of the motherland and thereby will not only keep the new
| |
| − | settlers in the closest communion with the land of their origin, but
| |
| − | will guarantee to this territorial ensemble the advantages which arise
| |
| − | from the fact that in their expansion over greater territory the people
| |
| − | remain united as a political unit.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The National Movement must not be the advocate for other nations, but
| |
| − | the protagonist for its own nation. Otherwise it would be something
| |
| − | superfluous and, above all, it would have no right to clamour against
| |
| − | the action of the past; for then it would be repeating the action of the
| |
| − | past. The old German policy suffered from the mistake of having been
| |
| − | determined by dynastic considerations. The new German policy must not
| |
| − | follow the sentimentality of cosmopolitan patriotism. Above all, we must
| |
| − | not form a police guard for the famous 'poor small nations'; but we must
| |
| − | be the soldiers of the German nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | We National Socialists have to go still further. The right to territory
| |
| − | may become a duty when a great nation seems destined to go under unless
| |
| − | its territory be extended. And that is particularly true when the nation
| |
| − | in question is not some little group of negro people but the Germanic
| |
| − | mother of all the life which has given cultural shape to the modern
| |
| − | world. Germany will either become a World Power or will not continue to
| |
| − | exist at all. But in order to become a World Power it needs that
| |
| − | territorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance to-day and
| |
| − | assures the existence of its citizens.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore we National Socialists have purposely drawn a line through the
| |
| − | line of conduct followed by pre-War Germany in foreign policy. We put an
| |
| − | end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the South and West of Europe
| |
| − | and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East. We finally put a stop
| |
| − | to the colonial and trade policy of pre-War times and pass over to the
| |
| − | territorial policy of the future.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But when we speak of new territory in Europe to-day we must principally
| |
| − | think of Russia and the border States subject to her.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Destiny itself seems to wish to point out the way for us here. In
| |
| − | delivering Russia over to Bolshevism, Fate robbed the Russian people of
| |
| − | that intellectual class which had once created the Russian State and
| |
| − | were the guarantee of its existence. For the Russian State was not
| |
| − | organized by the constructive political talent of the Slav element in
| |
| − | Russia, but was much more a marvellous exemplification of the capacity
| |
| − | for State-building possessed by the Germanic element in a race of
| |
| − | inferior worth. Thus were many powerful Empires created all over the
| |
| − | earth. More often than once inferior races with Germanic organizers and
| |
| − | rulers as their leaders became formidable States and continued to exist
| |
| − | as long as the racial nucleus remained which had originally created each
| |
| − | respective State. For centuries Russia owed the source of its livelihood
| |
| − | as a State to the Germanic nucleus of its governing 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 shake off the
| |
| − | Jewish yoke by exerting his own powers, so, too, it is impossible for
| |
| − | the 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 of decomposition. This colossal Empire in the East is ripe for
| |
| − | dissolution. And the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be
| |
| − | the end of Russia as a State. We are chosen by Destiny to be the
| |
| − | witnesses of a catastrophe which will afford the strongest confirmation
| |
| − | of the nationalist theory of race.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But it is our task, and it is the mission of the National Socialist
| |
| − | Movement, to develop in our people that political mentality which will
| |
| − | enable them to realize that the aim which they must set to themselves
| |
| − | for the fulfilment of their future must not be some wildly enthusiastic
| |
| − | adventure in the footsteps of Alexander the Great but industrious labour
| |
| − | with the German plough, for which the German sword will provide the
| |
| − | soil.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That the Jew should declare himself bitterly hostile to such a policy is
| |
| − | only quite natural. For the Jews know better than any others what the
| |
| − | adoption of this line of conduct must mean for their own future. That
| |
| − | fact alone ought to teach all genuine nationalists that this new
| |
| − | orientation is the right and just one. But, unfortunately, the opposite
| |
| − | is the case. Not only among the members of the German-National Party but
| |
| − | also in purely nationalist circles violent opposition is raised against
| |
| − | this Eastern policy. And in connection with that opposition, as in all
| |
| − | such cases, the authority of great names is appealed to. The spirit of
| |
| − | Bismarck is evoked in defence of a policy which is as stupid as it is
| |
| − | impossible, and is in the highest degree detrimental to the interests of
| |
| − | the German people. They say that 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 laid equal stress on the importance
| |
| − | of good relations with Italy, for example. Indeed, the same Herr von
| |
| − | Bismarck once concluded an alliance with Italy so that he might more
| |
| − | easily settle accounts with Austria. Why is not this policy now
| |
| − | advocated? They will reply that the Italy of to-day is not the Italy of
| |
| − | that time. Good. But then, honourable sirs, permit me to remind you that
| |
| − | the Russia of to-day is no longer the Russia of that time. Bismarck
| |
| − | never laid down a policy which would be permanently binding under all
| |
| − | circumstances and should be adhered to on principle. He was too much the
| |
| − | master of the moment to burden himself with that kind of obligation.
| |
| − | Therefore, the question ought not to be what Bismarck then did, but
| |
| − | rather what he would do to-day. And that question is very easy to
| |
| − | answer. His political sagacity would never allow him to ally himself
| |
| − | with a State that is doomed to disappear.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Moreover, Bismarck looked upon the colonial and trade policy of his time
| |
| − | with mixed feelings, because what he most desired was to assure the best
| |
| − | possibilities of consolidating and internally strengthening the state
| |
| − | system which he himself had created. That was the sole ground on which
| |
| − | he then welcomed the Russian defence in his rear, so as to give him a
| |
| − | free hand for his activities in the West. But what was advantageous then
| |
| − | to Germany would now be detrimental.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As early as 1920-21, when the young movement began slowly to appear on
| |
| − | the political horizon and movements for the liberation of the German
| |
| − | nation were formed here and there, the Party was approached from various
| |
| − | quarters in an attempt to bring it into definite connection with the
| |
| − | liberationist movements in other countries. This was in line with the
| |
| − | plans of the 'League of Oppressed Nations', which had been advertised in
| |
| − | many quarters and was composed principally of representatives of some of
| |
| − | the Balkan States and also of Egypt and India. These always impressed me
| |
| − | as charlatans who gave themselves big airs but had no real background at
| |
| − | all. Not a few Germans, however, especially in the nationalist camp,
| |
| − | allowed themselves to be taken in by these pompous Orientals, and in the
| |
| − | person of some wandering Indian or Egyptian student they believed at
| |
| − | once that they were face to face with a 'representative' of India or
| |
| − | Egypt. They did not realize that in most cases they were dealing with
| |
| − | persons who had no backing whatsoever, who were not authorized by
| |
| − | anybody to conclude any sort of agreement whatsoever; so that the
| |
| − | practical result of every negotiation with such individuals was negative
| |
| − | and the time spent in such dealings had to be reckoned as utterly lost.
| |
| − | I was always on my guard against these attempts. Not only that I had
| |
| − | something better to do than to waste weeks in such sterile
| |
| − | 'discussions', but also because I believed that even if one were dealing
| |
| − | with genuine representatives that whole affair would be bound to turn
| |
| − | out futile, if not positively harmful.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In peace-time it was already lamentable enough that the policy of
| |
| − | alliances, because it had no active and aggressive aims in view, ended
| |
| − | in a defensive association with antiquated States that had been
| |
| − | pensioned off by the history of the world. The alliance with 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 together in a
| |
| − | league for purposes of active aggression, a few old and effete States
| |
| − | were collected, and with this antique bric-à-brac an attempt was made to
| |
| − | face an active world coalition. Germany had to pay dearly for that
| |
| − | mistaken foreign policy and yet not dearly enough to prevent our
| |
| − | incorrigible visionaries from falling back into the same error again.
| |
| − | For the attempt to make possible the disarmament of the all-powerful
| |
| − | victorious States through a 'League of Oppressed Nations' is not only
| |
| − | ridiculous but disastrous. It is disastrous because in that way the
| |
| − | German people are again being diverted from real possibilities, which
| |
| − | they abandon for the sake of fruitless hopes and illusions. In reality
| |
| − | the German of to-day is like a drowning man that clutches at any straw
| |
| − | which may float beside him. And one finds people doing this who are
| |
| − | otherwise highly educated. Wherever some will-o'-the-wisp of a fantastic
| |
| − | hope appears these people set off immediately to chase it. Let this be a
| |
| − | League of 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 and incomprehensible hopes which arose
| |
| − | suddenly in nationalist circles in the years 1920-21 to the effect that
| |
| − | England was just nearing its downfall in India. A few Asiatic
| |
| − | mountebanks, who put themselves forward as "the champions of Indian
| |
| − | Freedom", then began to peregrinate throughout Europe and succeeded in
| |
| − | inspiring otherwise quite reasonable people with the fixed notion that
| |
| − | the British World Empire, which had its pivot in India, was just about
| |
| − | to collapse there. They never realized that their own wish was the
| |
| − | father of all these ideas. Nor did they stop to think how absurd their
| |
| − | wishes were. For inasmuch as they expected the end of the British Empire
| |
| − | and of England's power to follow the collapse of its dominion over
| |
| − | India, they themselves admitted that India was of the most outstanding
| |
| − | importance for England.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Now in all likelihood the deep mysteries of this most important problem
| |
| − | must have been known not only to the German-National prophets but also
| |
| − | to those who had the direction of British history in their hands. It is
| |
| − | right down puerile to suppose that in England itself the importance of
| |
| − | India for the British Empire was not adequately appreciated. And it is a
| |
| − | proof of having learned nothing from the world war and of thoroughly
| |
| − | misunderstanding or knowing nothing about Anglo-Saxon determination,
| |
| − | when they imagine that England could lose India without first having 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 to the manner in which the spirit of England permeates and
| |
| − | administers her Empire. England will never lose India unless she admits
| |
| − | racial disruption in the machinery of her administration (which at
| |
| − | present is entirely out of the question in India) or unless she is
| |
| − | overcome by the sword of some powerful enemy. But Indian risings will
| |
| − | never bring this about. We Germans have had sufficient experience 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 under
| |
| − | that of any other nation.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The hopes of an epic rising in Egypt were just as chimerical. The 'Holy
| |
| − | War' may bring the pleasing illusion to our German nincompoops that
| |
| − | others are now ready to shed their blood for them. Indeed, this cowardly
| |
| − | speculation is almost always the father of such hopes. But in reality
| |
| − | the illusion would soon be brought to an end under the fusillade from a
| |
| − | few companies of British machine-guns and a hail of British bombs.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A coalition of cripples cannot attack a powerful State which is
| |
| − | determined, if necessary, to shed the last drop of its blood to maintain
| |
| − | its existence. To me, as a nationalist who appreciates the worth of the
| |
| − | racial basis of humanity, I must recognize the racial inferiority of the
| |
| − | so-called 'Oppressed Nations', and that is enough to prevent me from
| |
| − | linking the destiny of my people with the destiny of those inferior
| |
| − | races.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day we must take up the same sort of attitude also towards Russia.
| |
| − | The Russia of to-day, deprived of its Germanic ruling class, is not a
| |
| − | possible ally in the struggle for German liberty, setting aside entirely
| |
| − | the inner designs of its new rulers. From the purely military viewpoint
| |
| − | a Russo-German coalition waging war against Western Europe, and probably
| |
| − | against the whole world on that account, would be catastrophic for us.
| |
| − | The struggle would have to be fought out, not on Russian but on German
| |
| − | territory, without Germany being able to receive from Russia the
| |
| − | slightest effective support. The means of power at the disposal of the
| |
| − | present German REICH are so miserable and so inadequate to the waging of
| |
| − | a foreign war that it would be impossible to defend our frontiers
| |
| − | against Western Europe, England included. And the industrial area of
| |
| − | Germany would have to be abandoned undefended to the concentrated attack
| |
| − | of our adversaries. It must be added that between Germany and Russia
| |
| − | there is the Polish State, completely in the hands of the French. In
| |
| − | case Germany and Russia together should wage war against Western Europe,
| |
| − | Russia would have to overthrow Poland before the first Russian soldier
| |
| − | could arrive on the German front. But it is not so much a question of
| |
| − | soldiers as of technical equipment. In this regard we should have our
| |
| − | situation in the world war repeated, but in a more terrible manner. At
| |
| − | that time German industry had to be drained to help our glorious allies,
| |
| − | and from the technical side Germany had to carry on the war almost
| |
| − | alone. In this new hypothetical war Russia, as a technical factor, would
| |
| − | count for nothing. We should have practically nothing to oppose to the
| |
| − | general motorization of the world, which in 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 with the little it
| |
| − | has it would have to reinforce Russia, which at the present moment does
| |
| − | not possess a single factory capable of producing a motor gun-wagon.
| |
| − | Under such conditions the presupposed coming struggle would assume the
| |
| − | character of sheer slaughter. The German youth would have to shed more
| |
| − | of its blood than it did even in the world war; for, as always, the
| |
| − | honour of fighting will fall on us alone, and the result would be an
| |
| − | inevitable catastrophe. But even admitting that a miracle were produced
| |
| − | and that this war did not end in the total annihilation of Germany, the
| |
| − | final result would be that the German nation would be bled white, and,
| |
| − | surrounded by great military States, its real situation would be in no
| |
| − | way ameliorated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It is useless to object here that in case of an alliance with Russia we
| |
| − | should not think of an immediate war or that, 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 no value. Even
| |
| − | though at the moment when an alliance is concluded the prospect of war
| |
| − | is a distant one, still the idea of the situation developing towards war
| |
| − | is the profound reason for entering into an alliance. It is out of the
| |
| − | question to think that the other Powers would be deceived as to the
| |
| − | purpose of such an alliance. A Russo-German coalition would remain
| |
| − | either a matter of so much paper--and in this case it would have no
| |
| − | meaning for us--or the letter of the treaty would be put into practice
| |
| − | visibly, and in that case the rest of the world would be warned. It
| |
| − | would be childish to think that in such circumstances England and France
| |
| − | would wait for ten years to give the Russo-German alliance time to
| |
| − | complete its technical preparations. No. The storm would break over
| |
| − | Germany immediately.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Therefore the fact of forming an alliance with Russia would be the
| |
| − | signal for a new war. And the result of that would be the end of
| |
| − | Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To these considerations the following must be added:
| |
| − | | |
| − | (1) Those who are in power in Russia to-day have no idea of forming an
| |
| − | honourable alliance or of remaining true to it, if they did.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It must never be forgotten that the present rulers of Russia are
| |
| − | blood-stained criminals, that here we have the dregs of humanity which,
| |
| − | favoured by the circumstances of a tragic moment, overran a great State,
| |
| − | degraded and extirpated millions of educated people out of sheer
| |
| − | blood-lust, and that now for nearly ten years they have ruled with such
| |
| − | a savage tyranny as was never known before. It must not be forgotten
| |
| − | that these rulers belong to a people in whom the most bestial cruelty is
| |
| − | allied with a capacity for artful mendacity and believes itself to-day
| |
| − | more than ever called to impose its sanguinary despotism on the rest of
| |
| − | the world. It must not be forgotten that the international Jew, who is
| |
| − | to-day the absolute master of Russia, does not look upon Germany as an
| |
| − | ally but as a State condemned to the same doom as Russia. One does not
| |
| − | form an alliance with a partner whose only aim is the destruction of his
| |
| − | fellow-partner. Above all, one does not enter into alliances with people
| |
| − | for whom no treaty is sacred; because they do not move about this earth
| |
| − | as men of honour and sincerity but as the representatives of lies and
| |
| − | deception, thievery and plunder and robbery. The man who thinks that he
| |
| − | can bind himself by treaty with parasites is like the tree that believes
| |
| − | it can form a profitable bargain with the ivy that surrounds it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (2) The menace to which Russia once succumbed is hanging steadily over
| |
| − | Germany. Only a bourgeois simpleton could imagine that Bolshevism can be
| |
| − | tamed. In his superficial way of thinking he does not suspect that here
| |
| − | we are dealing with a phenomenon that is due to an urge of the blood:
| |
| − | namely, the aspiration of the Jewish people to become the despots of the
| |
| − | world. That aspiration is quite as natural as the impulse of the
| |
| − | Anglo-Saxon to sit in the seats of rulership all over the earth. And as
| |
| − | the Anglo-Saxon chooses his own way of reaching those ends and fights
| |
| − | for them with his characteristic weapons, so also does the Jew. The Jew
| |
| − | wriggles his way in among the body of the nations and bores them hollow
| |
| − | from inside. The weapons with which he works are lies and calumny,
| |
| − | poisonous infection and disintegration, until he has ruined his hated
| |
| − | adversary. In Russian Bolshevism we ought to recognize the kind of
| |
| − | attempt which is being made by the Jew in the twentieth century to
| |
| − | secure dominion over the world. In other epochs he worked towards the
| |
| − | same goal but with different, though at bottom similar, means. The kind
| |
| − | of effort which the Jew puts forth springs from the deepest roots in the
| |
| − | nature of his being. A people does not of itself renounce the impulse to
| |
| − | increase its stock and power. Only external circumstances or senile
| |
| − | impotence can force them to renounce this urge. In the same way the Jew
| |
| − | will never spontaneously give up his march towards the goal of world
| |
| − | dictatorship or repress his external urge. He can be thrown back on his
| |
| − | road only by forces that are exterior to him, for his instinct towards
| |
| − | world domination will die out only with himself. The impotence of
| |
| − | nations and their extinction through senility can come only when their
| |
| − | blood has remained no longer pure. And the Jewish people preserve the
| |
| − | purity of their blood better than any other nation on earth. Therefore
| |
| − | the Jew follows his destined road until he is opposed by a force
| |
| − | superior to him. And then a desperate struggle takes place to send back
| |
| − | to Lucifer him who would assault the heavens.
| |
| − | | |
| − | To-day Germany is the next battlefield for Russian Bolshevism. All the
| |
| − | force of a fresh missionary idea is needed to raise up our nation once
| |
| − | more, to rescue it from the coils of the international serpent and stop
| |
| − | the process of corruption which is taking place in the internal
| |
| − | constitution of our blood; so that the forces of our nation, once
| |
| − | liberated, may be employed to preserve our nationality and prevent the
| |
| − | repetition of the recent catastrophe from taking place even in the most
| |
| − | distant future. If this be the goal we set to ourselves it would be
| |
| − | folly to ally ourselves with a country whose master is the mortal enemy
| |
| − | of our future. How can we release our people from this poisonous grip if
| |
| − | we accept the same grip ourselves? How can we teach the German worker
| |
| − | that Bolshevism is an infamous crime against humanity if we ally
| |
| − | ourselves with this infernal abortion and recognize its existence as
| |
| − | legitimate. With what right shall we condemn the members of the broad
| |
| − | masses whose sympathies lie with a certain WELTANSCHAUUNG if the rulers
| |
| − | of our State choose the representatives of that WELTANSCHAUUNG as their
| |
| − | allies? The struggle against the Jewish Bolshevization of the world
| |
| − | demands that we should declare our position towards Soviet Russia. We
| |
| − | cannot cast out the Devil through Beelzebub. If nationalist circles
| |
| − | to-day grow enthusiastic about the idea of an alliance with Bolshevism,
| |
| − | then let them look around only in Germany and recognize from what
| |
| − | quarter they are being supported. Do these nationalists believe that a
| |
| − | policy which is recommended and acclaimed by the Marxist international
| |
| − | Press can be beneficial for the German people? Since when has the Jew
| |
| − | acted as shield-bearer for the militant nationalist?
| |
| − | | |
| − | One special reproach which could be made against the old German REICH
| |
| − | with regard to its policy of alliances was that it spoiled its relations
| |
| − | towards all others by continually swinging now this way and now that way
| |
| − | and by its weakness in trying to preserve world peace at all costs. But
| |
| − | one reproach which cannot be made against it is that it did not continue
| |
| − | to maintain good relations with Russia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I admit frankly that before the War I thought it would have been better
| |
| − | if Germany had abandoned her senseless colonial policy and her naval
| |
| − | policy and had joined England in an alliance against Russia, therewith
| |
| − | renouncing her weak world policy for a determined European policy, with
| |
| − | the idea of acquiring new territory on the Continent. I do not forget
| |
| − | the constant insolent threats which Pan-Slavist Russia made against
| |
| − | Germany. I do not forget the continual trial mobilizations, the sole
| |
| − | object of which was to irritate Germany. I cannot forget the tone of
| |
| − | public opinion in Russia which in pre-War days excelled itself in
| |
| − | hate-inspired outbursts against our nation and REICH. Nor can I forget
| |
| − | the big Russian Press which was always more favourable to France than to
| |
| − | us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But, in spite of everything, there was still a second way possible
| |
| − | before the War. We might have won the support of Russia and turned
| |
| − | against England. Circumstances are entirely different to-day. If, before
| |
| − | the War, throwing all sentiment to the winds, we could have marched by
| |
| − | the side of Russia, that is no longer possible for us to-day. Since then
| |
| − | the hand of the world-clock has moved forward. The hour has struck and
| |
| − | struck loudly, when the destiny of our people must be decided one way or
| |
| − | another.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The present consolidation of the great States of the world is the last
| |
| − | warning signal for us to look to ourselves and bring our people back
| |
| − | from their land of visions to the land of hard truth and point the way
| |
| − | into the future, on which alone the old REICH can march triumphantly
| |
| − | once again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | If, in view of this great and most important task placed before it, the
| |
| − | National Socialist Movement sets aside all illusions and takes reason as
| |
| − | its sole effective guide the catastrophe of 1918 may turn out to be an
| |
| − | infinite blessing for the future of our nation. From the lesson of that
| |
| − | collapse it may formulate an entirely new orientation for the conduct of
| |
| − | its foreign policy. Internally reinforced through its new
| |
| − | WELTANSCHAUUNG, the German nation may reach a final stabilization of
| |
| − | its policy towards the outside 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 she was able to base correct decisions for
| |
| − | her own interests: namely, A Political Testament. Political Testament of
| |
| − | the German Nation ought to lay down the following rules, which will be
| |
| − | always valid for its conduct towards the outside world:
| |
| − | | |
| − | Never permit two Continental Powers to arise in Europe. Should any
| |
| − | attempt be made to organize a second military Power on the German
| |
| − | frontier by the creation of a State which may become a Military Power,
| |
| − | with the prospect of an aggression against Germany in view, such an
| |
| − | event confers on Germany not only the right but the duty to prevent by
| |
| − | every means, including military means, the creation of such a State and
| |
| − | to crush it if created. See to it that the strength of our nation does
| |
| − | not rest on colonial foundations but on those of our own native
| |
| − | territory in Europe. Never consider the REICH secure unless, for
| |
| − | centuries to come, it is in a position to give every descendant of our
| |
| − | race a piece of ground and soil that he can call his own. Never forget
| |
| − | that the most sacred of all rights in this world is man's right to the
| |
| − | earth which he wishes to cultivate for himself and that the holiest of
| |
| − | all sacrifices is that of the blood poured out for it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I should not like to close this chapter without referring once again to
| |
| − | the one sole possibility of alliances that exists for us in Europe at
| |
| − | the present moment. In speaking of the German alliance problem in the
| |
| − | present chapter I mentioned England and Italy as the only countries with
| |
| − | which it would be worth while for us to strive to form a close alliance
| |
| − | and that this alliance would be advantageous. I should like here to
| |
| − | underline again the military importance of such an alliance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The military consequences of forming this alliance would be the direct
| |
| − | opposite of the consequences of an alliance with Russia. Most important
| |
| − | of all is the fact that a RAPPROCHEMENT with England and Italy would in
| |
| − | no way involve a danger of war. The only Power that could oppose such an
| |
| − | arrangement would be France; and France would not be in a position to
| |
| − | make war. But the alliance should allow to Germany the possibility of
| |
| − | making those preparations in all tranquillity which, within the
| |
| − | framework of such a coalition, might in one way or another be requisite
| |
| − | in view of a regulation of accounts with France. For the full
| |
| − | significance of such an alliance lies in the fact that on its conclusion
| |
| − | Germany would no longer be subject to the threat of a sudden invasion.
| |
| − | The coalition against her would disappear automatically; that is to say,
| |
| − | the Entente which brought such disaster 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 would be sufficient to give
| |
| − | Germany such liberty of action as we cannot now imagine. For the new
| |
| − | Anglo-German-Italian alliance would hold the political initiative and no
| |
| − | longer France.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A further success would be that at one stroke Germany would be delivered
| |
| − | from her unfavourable strategical situation. On the one side her flank
| |
| − | would be strongly protected; and, on the other, the assurance of being
| |
| − | able to import her foodstuffs and raw materials would be a beneficial
| |
| − | result of this new alignment of States. But almost of greater importance
| |
| − | would be the fact that this new League would include States that possess
| |
| − | technical qualities which mutually supplement each other. For the first
| |
| − | time Germany would have allies who would not be as vampires on her
| |
| − | economic body but would contribute their part to complete our technical
| |
| − | equipment. And we must not forget a final fact: namely, that in this
| |
| − | case we should not have allies resembling Turkey and Russia to-day. The
| |
| − | greatest World Power on this earth and a young national State would
| |
| − | supply far other elements for a struggle in Europe than the putrescent
| |
| − | carcasses of the States with which Germany was allied in the last war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As I have already said, great difficulties would naturally be made to
| |
| − | hinder the conclusion of such an alliance. But was not the formation of
| |
| − | the Entente somewhat more difficult? Where King Edward VII succeeded
| |
| − | partly against interests that were of their nature opposed to his work
| |
| − | we must and will succeed, if the recognition of the necessity of such a
| |
| − | development so inspires us that we shall be able to act with skill and
| |
| − | conquer our own feelings in carrying the policy through. This will be
| |
| − | possible when, incited to action by the miseries of our situation, we
| |
| − | shall adopt a definite purpose and follow it out systematically instead
| |
| − | of the defective foreign policy of the last decades, which never had a
| |
| − | fixed purpose in view.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The future goal of our foreign policy ought not to involve an
| |
| − | orientation to the East or the West, but it ought to be an Eastern
| |
| − | policy which will have in view the acquisition of such territory as is
| |
| − | necessary for our German people. To carry out this policy we need that
| |
| − | force which the mortal enemy of our nation, France, now deprives us of
| |
| − | by holding us in her grip and pitilessly robbing us of our strength.
| |
| − | Therefore we must stop at no sacrifice in our effort to destroy the
| |
| − | French striving towards hegemony over Europe. As our natural ally to-day
| |
| − | we have every Power on the Continent that feels France's lust for
| |
| − | hegemony in Europe unbearable. No attempt to approach those Powers ought
| |
| − | to appear too difficult for us, and no sacrifice should be considered
| |
| − | too heavy, if the final outcome would be to make it possible for us to
| |
| − | overthrow our bitterest enemy. The minor wounds will be cured by the
| |
| − | beneficent influence of time, once the ground wounds have been
| |
| − | cauterized and closed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally the internal enemies of our people will howl with rage. But
| |
| − | this will not succeed in forcing us as National Socialists to cease our
| |
| − | preaching in favour of that which our most profound conviction tells us
| |
| − | to be necessary. We must oppose the current of public opinion which will
| |
| − | be driven mad by Jewish cunning in exploiting our German
| |
| − | thoughtlessness. The waves of this public opinion often rage and roar
| |
| − | against us; but the man who swims with the current attracts less
| |
| − | attention than he who buffets it. To-day we are but a rock in the river.
| |
| − | In a few years Fate may raise us up as a dam against which the general
| |
| − | current will be broken, only to flow forward in a new bed. Therefore it
| |
| − | is necessary that in the eyes of the rest of the world our movement
| |
| − | should be recognized as representing a definite and determined political
| |
| − | programme. We ought to bear on our visors the distinguishing sign of
| |
| − | that task which Heaven expects us to fulfil.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When we ourselves are fully aware of the ineluctable necessity which
| |
| − | determines our external policy this knowledge will fill us with the grit
| |
| − | which we need in order to stand up with equanimity under the bombardment
| |
| − | launched against us by the enemy Press and to hold firm when some
| |
| − | insinuating voice whispers that we ought to give ground here and there
| |
| − | in order not to have all against us and that we might sometimes howl
| |
| − | 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 bound to lead gradually to our
| |
| − | complete subjugation. Analogous examples from history show that those
| |
| − | nations which lay down their arms without being absolutely forced to do
| |
| − | so subsequently prefer to submit to the greatest humiliations and
| |
| − | exactions rather than try to change their fate by resorting to arms
| |
| − | again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is intelligible on purely human grounds. A shrewd conqueror will
| |
| − | always enforce his exactions on the conquered only by stages, as far as
| |
| − | that is possible. Then he may expect that a people who have lost all
| |
| − | strength of character--which is always the case with every nation that
| |
| − | voluntarily submits to the threats of an opponent--will not find in any
| |
| − | of these acts of oppression, if one be enforced apart from the other,
| |
| − | sufficient grounds for taking up arms again. The more numerous the
| |
| − | extortions thus passively accepted so much the less will resistance
| |
| − | appear justified in the eyes of other people, if the vanquished nation
| |
| − | should end by revolting against the last act of oppression in a long
| |
| − | series. And that is specially so if the nation has already patiently and
| |
| − | silently accepted impositions which were much more exacting.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The fall of Carthage is a terrible example of the slow agony of a people
| |
| − | which ended in destruction and which was the fault of the people
| |
| − | themselves.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In his THREE ARTICLES OF FAITH Clausewitz expressed this idea admirably
| |
| − | and gave it a definite form when he said: "The stigma of shame incurred
| |
| − | by a cowardly submission can never be effaced. The drop of poison which
| |
| − | thus enters the blood of a nation will be transmitted to posterity. It
| |
| − | will undermine and paralyse the strength of later generations." But, on
| |
| − | the contrary, he added: "Even the loss of its liberty after a sanguinary
| |
| − | and honourable struggle assures the resurgence of the nation and is the
| |
| − | vital nucleus from which one day a new tree can draw firm roots."
| |
| − | | |
| − | Naturally a nation which has lost all sense of honour and all strength
| |
| − | of character will not feel the force of such a doctrine. But any nation
| |
| − | that takes it to heart will never fall very low. Only those who forget
| |
| − | it or do not wish to acknowledge it will collapse. Hence those
| |
| − | responsible for a cowardly submission cannot be expected suddenly to
| |
| − | take thought with themselves, for the purpose of changing their former
| |
| − | conduct 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 either become permanently habituated to the yoke of slavery
| |
| − | or the better elements of the nation push their way into the foreground
| |
| − | and forcibly take power away from the hands of an infamous and corrupt
| |
| − | regime. In the first case those who hold power will be pleased with the
| |
| − | state of affairs, because the conquerors often entrust them with the
| |
| − | task of supervising the slaves. And these utterly characterless beings
| |
| − | then exercise that power to the detriment of their own people, more
| |
| − | cruelly than the most cruel-hearted stranger that might be nominated by
| |
| − | the enemy himself.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The events which happened subsequent to 1918 in Germany prove how the
| |
| − | hope of securing the clemency of the victor by making a voluntary
| |
| − | submission had the most disastrous influence on the political views and
| |
| − | conduct of the broad masses. I say the broad masses explicitly, because
| |
| − | I cannot persuade myself that the things which were done or left undone
| |
| − | by the leaders of the people are to be attributed to a similar
| |
| − | disastrous illusion. Seeing that the direction of our historical destiny
| |
| − | after the war was now openly controlled by the Jews, it is impossible to
| |
| − | admit that a defective knowledge of the state of affairs was the sole
| |
| − | cause of our misfortunes. On the contrary, the conclusion that must be
| |
| − | drawn from the facts is that our people were intentionally driven to
| |
| − | ruin. If we examine it from this point of view we shall find that the
| |
| − | direction of the nation's foreign policy was not so foolish as it
| |
| − | appeared; for on scrutinizing the matter closely we see clearly that
| |
| − | this conduct was a procedure which had been calmly calculated, shrewdly
| |
| − | defined and logically carried out in the service of the Jewish idea and
| |
| − | the Jewish endeavour to secure the mastery of the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | From 1806 to 1813 Prussia was in a state of collapse. But that period
| |
| − | sufficed to renew the vital energies of the nation and inspire it once
| |
| − | more with a resolute determination to fight. An equal period of time has
| |
| − | passed over our heads from 1918 until to-day, and no advantage has been
| |
| − | derived from it. On the contrary, the vital strength of our State has
| |
| − | been steadily sapped.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Seven years after November 1918 the Locarno Treaty was signed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus the development which took place was what I have indicated above.
| |
| − | Once the shameful Armistice had been signed our people were unable to
| |
| − | pluck up sufficient courage and energy to call a halt suddenly to the
| |
| − | conduct of our adversary as the oppressive measures were being
| |
| − | constantly renewed. The enemy was too shrewd to put forward all his
| |
| − | demands at once. He confined his duress always to those exactions which,
| |
| − | in his opinion and that of our German Government, could be submitted to
| |
| − | for the moment: so that in this way they did not risk causing an
| |
| − | explosion of public feeling. But according as the single impositions
| |
| − | were increasingly subscribed to and tolerated it appeared less
| |
| − | justifiable to do now in the case of one sole imposition or act of
| |
| − | duress what had not been previously done in the case of so many others,
| |
| − | namely, to oppose it. That is the 'drop of poison' of which Clausewitz
| |
| − | speaks. Once this lack of character is manifested the resultant
| |
| − | condition becomes steadily aggravated and weighs like an evil
| |
| − | inheritance on all future decisions. It may become as a leaden weight
| |
| − | around the nation's neck, which cannot be shaken off but which forces it
| |
| − | to drag out its existence in slavery.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus, in Germany, edicts for disarmament and oppression and economic
| |
| − | plunder followed one after the other, making us politically helpless.
| |
| − | The result of all this was to create that mood which made so many look
| |
| − | upon the Dawes Plan as a blessing and the Locarno Treaty as a success.
| |
| − | From a higher point of view we may speak of one sole blessing in the
| |
| − | midst of so much misery. This blessing is that, though men may be
| |
| − | fooled, Heaven can't be bribed. For Heaven withheld its blessing. Since
| |
| − | that time Misery and Anxiety have been the constant companions of our
| |
| − | people, and Distress is the one Ally that has remained loyal to us. In
| |
| − | this case also Destiny has made no exceptions. It has given us our
| |
| − | deserts. Since we did not know how to value honour any more, it has
| |
| − | taught us to value the liberty to seek for bread. Now that the nation
| |
| − | has learned to cry for bread, it may one day learn to pray for freedom.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The collapse of our nation in the years following 1918 was bitter and
| |
| − | manifest. And yet that was the time chosen to persecute us in the most
| |
| − | malicious way our enemies could devise, so that what happened afterwards
| |
| − | could have been foretold by anybody then. The government to which our
| |
| − | people submitted was as hopelessly incompetent as it was conceited, and
| |
| − | this was especially shown in repudiating those who gave any warning that
| |
| − | disturbed or displeased. Then we saw--and to-day also--the greatest
| |
| − | parliamentary nincompoops, really common saddlers and glove-makers--not
| |
| − | merely by trade, for that would signify very little--suddenly raised to
| |
| − | the rank of statesmen and sermonizing to humble mortals from that
| |
| − | pedestal. It did not matter, and it still does not matter, that such a
| |
| − | 'statesman', after having displayed his talents for six months or so as
| |
| − | a mere windbag, is shown up for what he is and becomes the object of
| |
| − | public raillery and sarcasm. It does not matter that he has given the
| |
| − | most evident proof of complete incompetency. No. That does not matter at
| |
| − | all. On the contrary, the less real service the parliamentary statesmen
| |
| − | of this Republic render the country, the more savagely they persecute
| |
| − | all who expect that parliamentary deputies should show some positive
| |
| − | results of their activities. And they persecute everybody who dares to
| |
| − | point to the failure of these activities and predict similar failures
| |
| − | for the future. If one finally succeeds in nailing down one of these
| |
| − | parliamentarians to hard facts, so that this political artist can no
| |
| − | longer deny the real failure of his whole action and its results, then
| |
| − | he will find thousands of grounds for excuse, but will in no way admit
| |
| − | that he himself is the chief cause of the evil.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the winter of 1922-23, at the latest, it ought to have been generally
| |
| − | recognized that, even after the conclusion of peace, France was still
| |
| − | endeavouring with iron consistency to attain those ends which had been
| |
| − | originally envisaged as the final purpose of the War. For nobody could
| |
| − | think of believing that for four and a half years France continued to
| |
| − | pour out the not abundant supply of her national blood in the most
| |
| − | decisive struggle throughout all her history in order subsequently to
| |
| − | obtain compensation through reparations for the damages sustained. Even
| |
| − | Alsace and Lorraine, taken by themselves, would not account for the
| |
| − | energy with which the French conducted the War, if Alsace-Lorraine were
| |
| − | not already considered as a part of the really vast programme which
| |
| − | French foreign policy had envisaged for the future. The aim of that
| |
| − | programme was: Disintegration of Germany into a collection 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 the
| |
| − | international Jew.
| |
| − | | |
| − | French war aims would have been obtained through the World War if, as
| |
| − | was originally hoped in Paris, the struggle had been carried out on
| |
| − | German soil. Let us imagine the bloody battles of the World War not as
| |
| − | having taken place on the Somme, in Flanders, in Artois, in front of
| |
| − | Warsaw, Nizhni-Novogorod, Kowno, and Riga but in Germany, in the Ruhr or
| |
| − | on the Maine, on the Elbe, in front of Hanover, Leipzig, Nürnberg, etc.
| |
| − | If such happened, then we must admit that the destruction of Germany
| |
| − | might have been accomplished. It is very much open to question if our
| |
| − | young federal State could have borne the hard struggle for four and a
| |
| − | half years, as it was borne by a France that had been centralized for
| |
| − | centuries, with the whole national imagination focused on Paris. If this
| |
| − | titanic conflict between the nations developed outside the frontiers of
| |
| − | our fatherland, not only is all the merit due to the immortal service
| |
| − | rendered by our old army but it was also very fortunate for the future
| |
| − | of Germany. I am fully convinced that if things had taken a different
| |
| − | course there would no longer be a German REICH to-day but only 'German
| |
| − | States'. And that is the only reason why the blood which was shed by our
| |
| − | friends and brothers in the War was at least not shed in vain.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The course which events took was otherwise. In November 1918 Germany did
| |
| − | indeed collapse with lightning suddenness. But when the catastrophe took
| |
| − | place at home the armies under the Commander-in-Chief were still deep in
| |
| − | the enemy's country. At that time France's first preoccupation was not
| |
| − | the dismemberment of Germany but the problem of how to get the German
| |
| − | armies out of France and Belgium as quickly as possible. And so, in
| |
| − | order to put an end to the War, the first thing that had to be done by
| |
| − | the Paris Government was to disarm the German armies and push them back
| |
| − | into Germany if possible. Until this was done the French could not
| |
| − | devote their attention to carrying out their own particular and original
| |
| − | war aims. As far as concerned England, the War was really won when
| |
| − | Germany was destroyed as a colonial and commercial Power and was reduced
| |
| − | to the rank of a second-class State. It was not in England's interest to
| |
| − | wipe out the German State altogether. In fact, on many grounds it was
| |
| − | desirable for her to have a future rival against France in Europe.
| |
| − | Therefore French policy was forced to carry on by peaceful means the
| |
| − | work for which the War had opened the way; and Clemenceau's statement,
| |
| − | that for him Peace was merely a continuation of the War, thus acquired
| |
| − | an enhanced significance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Persistently and on every opportunity that arose, the effort to
| |
| − | dislocate the framework of the REICH was to have been carried on. By
| |
| − | perpetually sending new notes that demanded disarmament, on the one
| |
| − | hand, and by the imposition of economic levies which, on the other hand,
| |
| − | could be carried out as the process of disarmament progressed, it was
| |
| − | hoped in Paris that the framework of the REICH would gradually fall to
| |
| − | pieces. The more the Germans lost their sense of national honour the
| |
| − | more could economic pressure and continued economic distress be
| |
| − | effective as factors of political destruction. Such a policy of
| |
| − | political oppression and economic exploitation, carried out for ten or
| |
| − | twenty years, must in the long run steadily ruin the most compact
| |
| − | national body and, under certain circumstances, dismember it. Then the
| |
| − | French war aims would have been definitely attained.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By the winter of 1922-23 the intentions of the French must already have
| |
| − | been known for a long time back. There remained only two possible ways
| |
| − | of confronting the situation. If the German national body showed itself
| |
| − | sufficiently tough-skinned, it might gradually blunt the will of the
| |
| − | French or it might do--once and for all--what was bound to become
| |
| − | inevitable one day: that is to say, under the provocation of some
| |
| − | particularly brutal act of oppression it could put the helm of the
| |
| − | German ship of state to roundabout and ram the enemy. That would
| |
| − | naturally involve a life-and-death-struggle. And the prospect of coming
| |
| − | through the struggle alive depended on whether France could be so far
| |
| − | isolated that in this second battle Germany would not have to fight
| |
| − | against the whole world but in defence of Germany against a France that
| |
| − | was persistently disturbing the peace of the world.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I insist on this point, and I am profoundly convinced of it, namely,
| |
| − | that this second alternative will one day be chosen and will have to be
| |
| − | chosen and carried out in one way or another. I shall never believe that
| |
| − | France will of herself alter her intentions towards us, because, in the
| |
| − | last analysis, they are only the expression of the French instinct for
| |
| − | self-preservation. Were I a Frenchman and were the greatness of France
| |
| − | so dear to me as that of Germany actually is, in the final reckoning I
| |
| − | could not and would not act otherwise than a Clemenceau. The French
| |
| − | nation, which is slowly dying out, not so much through depopulation as
| |
| − | through the progressive disappearance of the best elements of the race,
| |
| − | can continue to play an important role in the world only if Germany be
| |
| − | destroyed. French policy may make a thousand detours on the march
| |
| − | towards its fixed goal, but the destruction of Germany is the end which
| |
| − | it always has in view as the fulfilment of the most profound yearning
| |
| − | and ultimate intentions of the French. Now it is a mistake to believe
| |
| − | that if the will on one side should remain only PASSIVE and intent on
| |
| − | its own self-preservation it can hold out permanently against another
| |
| − | will which is not less forceful but is ACTIVE. As long as the eternal
| |
| − | conflict between France and Germany is waged only in the form of a
| |
| − | German defence against the French attack, that conflict can never be
| |
| − | decided; and from century to century Germany will lose one position
| |
| − | after another. If we study the changes that have taken place, from the
| |
| − | twelfth century up to our day, in the frontiers within which the German
| |
| − | language is spoken, we can hardly hope for a successful issue to result
| |
| − | from the acceptance and development of a line of conduct which has
| |
| − | hitherto been so detrimental for us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Only when the Germans have taken all this fully into account will they
| |
| − | cease from allowing the national will-to-life to wear itself out in
| |
| − | merely passive defence, but they will rally together for a last decisive
| |
| − | contest with France. And in this contest the essential objective of the
| |
| − | German nation will be fought for. Only then will it be possible to put
| |
| − | an end to the eternal Franco-German conflict which has hitherto proved
| |
| − | so sterile. Of course it is here presumed that Germany sees in the
| |
| − | suppression of France nothing more than a means which will make it
| |
| − | possible for our people finally to expand in another quarter. To-day
| |
| − | there are eighty million Germans in Europe. And our foreign policy will
| |
| − | be recognized as rightly conducted only when, after barely a hundred
| |
| − | years, there will be 250 million Germans living on this Continent, not
| |
| − | packed together as the coolies in the factories of another Continent but
| |
| − | as tillers of the soil and workers whose labour will be a mutual
| |
| − | assurance for their existence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In December 1922 the situation between Germany and France assumed a
| |
| − | particularly threatening aspect. France had new and vast oppressive
| |
| − | measures in view and needed sanctions for her conduct. Political
| |
| − | pressure had to precede the economic plunder, and the French believed
| |
| − | that only by making a violent attack against the central nervous system
| |
| − | of German life would they be able to make our 'recalcitrant' people bow
| |
| − | to their galling yoke. By the occupation of the Ruhr District, it was
| |
| − | hoped in France that not only would the moral backbone of Germany be
| |
| − | broken finally but that we should be reduced to such a grave economic
| |
| − | condition that we should be forced, for weal or woe, to subscribe to the
| |
| − | heaviest possible obligations.
| |
| − | | |
| − | It was a question of bending and breaking Germany. At first Germany bent
| |
| − | and subsequently broke in pieces completely.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Through the occupation of the Ruhr, Fate once more reached out its hand
| |
| − | to the German people and bade them arise. For what at first appeared as
| |
| − | a heavy stroke of misfortune was found, on closer examination, to
| |
| − | contain extremely encouraging possibilities of bringing Germany's
| |
| − | sufferings to an end.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As regards foreign politics, the action of France in occupying the Ruhr
| |
| − | really estranged England for the first time in quite a profound way.
| |
| − | Indeed it estranged not merely British diplomatic circles, which had
| |
| − | concluded the French alliance and had upheld it from motives of calm and
| |
| − | objective calculation, but it also estranged large sections of the
| |
| − | English nation. The English business world in particular scarcely
| |
| − | concealed the displeasure it felt at this incredible forward step in
| |
| − | strengthening the power of France on the Continent. From the military
| |
| − | standpoint alone France now assumed a position in Europe such as Germany
| |
| − | herself had not held previously. Moreover, France thus obtained control
| |
| − | over economic resources which practically gave her a monopoly that
| |
| − | consolidated her political and commercial strength against all
| |
| − | competition. The most important iron and coal mines of Europe 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
| |
| − | and whose military efficiency in the Great War was still fresh in the
| |
| − | memories of the whole world. The French occupation of the Ruhr coal
| |
| − | field deprived England of all the successes she had gained in the War.
| |
| − | And the victors were now Marshal Foch and the France he represented, no
| |
| − | longer the calm and painstaking British statesmen.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In Italy also the attitude towards France, which had not been very
| |
| − | favourable since the end of the War, now became positively hostile. The
| |
| − | great historic moment had come when the Allies of yesterday might become
| |
| − | the enemies of to-morrow. If things happened otherwise and if the Allies
| |
| − | did not suddenly come into conflict with one another, as in the Second
| |
| − | Balkan War, that was due to the fact that Germany had no Enver Pasha but
| |
| − | merely a Cuno as Chancellor of the REICH.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Nevertheless, the French invasion of the Ruhr opened up great
| |
| − | possibilities for the future not only in Germany's foreign politics but
| |
| − | also in her internal politics. A considerable section of our people who,
| |
| − | thanks to the persistent influence of a mendacious Press, had looked
| |
| − | upon France as the champion of progress and liberty, were suddenly cured
| |
| − | of this illusion. In 1914 the dream of international solidarity suddenly
| |
| − | vanished from the brain of our German working class. They were brought
| |
| − | back into the world of everlasting struggle, where one creature feeds on
| |
| − | the other and where the death of the weaker implies the life of the
| |
| − | stronger. The same thing happened in the spring of 1923.
| |
| − | | |
| − | When the French put their threats into effect and penetrated, at first
| |
| − | hesitatingly and cautiously, into the coal-basin of Lower Germany the
| |
| − | hour of destiny had struck for Germany. It was a great and decisive
| |
| − | moment. If at that moment our people had changed not only their frame of
| |
| − | mind but also their conduct the German Ruhr District could have been
| |
| − | made for France what Moscow turned out to be for Napoleon. Indeed, there
| |
| − | were only two possibilities: either to leave this move also to take its
| |
| − | course and do nothing or to turn to the German people in that region of
| |
| − | sweltering forges and flaming furnaces. An effort might have been made
| |
| − | to set their wills afire with determination to put an end to this
| |
| − | persistent disgrace and to face a momentary terror rather than submit to
| |
| − | a terror that was endless.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Cuno, who was then Chancellor of the REICH, can claim the immortal merit
| |
| − | of having discovered a third way; and our German bourgeois political
| |
| − | parties merit the still more glorious honour of having admired him and
| |
| − | collaborated with him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here I shall deal with the second way as briefly as possible.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By occupying the Ruhr France committed a glaring violation of the
| |
| − | Versailles Treaty. Her action brought her into conflict with several of
| |
| − | the guarantor Powers, especially with England and Italy. She could no
| |
| − | longer hope that those States would back her up in her egotistic act of
| |
| − | brigandage. She could count only on her own forces to reap anything like
| |
| − | a positive result from that adventure, for such it was at the start. For
| |
| − | a German National Government there was only one possible way left open.
| |
| − | And this was the way which honour prescribed. Certainly at the beginning
| |
| − | we could not have opposed France with an active armed resistance. But it
| |
| − | should have been clearly recognized that any negotiations which did not
| |
| − | have the argument of force to back them up would turn out futile and
| |
| − | ridiculous. If it were not possible to organize an active resistance,
| |
| − | then it was absurd to take up the standpoint: "We shall not enter into
| |
| − | any negotiations." But it was still more absurd finally to enter into
| |
| − | negotiations without having organized the necessary force as a support.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Not that it was possible for us by military means to prevent the
| |
| − | occupation of the Ruhr. Only a madman could have recommended such a
| |
| − | decision. But under the impression produced by the action which France
| |
| − | had taken, and during the time that it was being carried out, measures
| |
| − | could have been, and should have been, undertaken without any regard to
| |
| − | the Versailles Treaty, which France herself had violated, to provide
| |
| − | those military resources which would serve as a collateral argument to
| |
| − | back up the negotiations later on. For it was quite clear from the
| |
| − | beginning that the fate of this district occupied by the French would
| |
| − | one day be decided at some conference table or other. But it also must
| |
| − | have been quite to everybody that even the best negotiators could have
| |
| − | little success as long as the ground on which they themselves stood and
| |
| − | the chair on which they sat were not under the armed protection of their
| |
| − | own people. A weak pigmy cannot contend against athletes, and a
| |
| − | negotiator without any armed defence at his back must always bow in
| |
| − | obeisance when a Brennus throws the sword into the scales on the enemy's
| |
| − | side, unless an equally strong sword can be thrown into the scales at
| |
| − | the other end and thus maintain the balance. It was really distressing
| |
| − | to have to observe the comedy of negotiations which, ever since 1918,
| |
| − | regularly preceded each arbitrary dictate that the enemy imposed upon
| |
| − | us. We offered a sorry spectacle to 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 and programmes which had already
| |
| − | been drawn up and passed a long time before, and which we were permitted
| |
| − | to discuss, but from the beginning had to be considered as unalterable.
| |
| − | It is true that in scarcely a single instance were our negotiators men
| |
| − | of more than mediocre abilities. For the most part they justified only
| |
| − | too well the insolent observation made by Lloyd George when he
| |
| − | sarcastically remarked, in the presence of a former Chancellor of the
| |
| − | REICH, Herr Simon, that the Germans were not able to choose men of
| |
| − | intelligence as their leaders and representatives. But in face of the
| |
| − | resolute determination and the power which the enemy held in his hands,
| |
| − | on the one side, and the lamentable impotence of Germany on the other,
| |
| − | even a body of geniuses could have obtained only very little for
| |
| − | Germany.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the spring of 1923, however, anyone who might have thought of seizing
| |
| − | the opportunity of the French invasion of the Ruhr to reconstruct the
| |
| − | military power of Germany would first have had to restore to the nation
| |
| − | its moral weapons, to reinforce its will-power, and to extirpate those
| |
| − | who had destroyed this most valuable element of national strength.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Just as in 1918 we had to pay with our blood for the failure to crush
| |
| − | the Marxist serpent underfoot once and for all in 1914 and 1915, now we
| |
| − | have to suffer retribution for the fact that in the spring of 1923 we
| |
| − | did not seize the opportunity then offered us for finally wiping out the
| |
| − | handiwork done by the Marxists who betrayed their country and were
| |
| − | responsible for the murder of our people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Any idea of opposing French aggression with an efficacious resistance
| |
| − | was only pure folly as long as the fight had not been taken up against
| |
| − | those forces which, five years previously, had broken the German
| |
| − | resistance on the battlefields by the influences which they exercised at
| |
| − | home. Only bourgeois minds could have arrived at the incredible belief
| |
| − | that Marxism had probably become quite a different thing now and that
| |
| − | the CANAILLE of ringleaders in 1918, who callously used the bodies of
| |
| − | our two million dead as stepping-stones on which they climbed into the
| |
| − | various Government positions, would now, in the year 1923, suddenly show
| |
| − | themselves ready to pay their tribute to the national conscience. It was
| |
| − | veritably a piece of incredible folly to expect that those traitors
| |
| − | would suddenly appear as the champions of German freedom. They had no
| |
| − | intention of doing it. Just as a hyena will not leave its carrion, a
| |
| − | Marxist will not give up indulging in the betrayal of his country. It is
| |
| − | out of the question to put forward the stupid retort here, that so many
| |
| − | of the workers gave their blood for Germany. German workers, yes, but no
| |
| − | longer international Marxists. If the German working class, in 1914,
| |
| − | consisted of real Marxists the War would have ended within three weeks.
| |
| − | Germany would have collapsed before the first soldier had put a foot
| |
| − | beyond the frontiers. No. The fact that the German people carried on the
| |
| − | War 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 back into the hands of the Marxist leaders, and the
| |
| − | number of those who thus relapsed became lost to their country. At the
| |
| − | beginning of the War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen
| |
| − | thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to
| |
| − | submit to poison-gas, just as hundreds of thousands of our best German
| |
| − | workers from every social stratum and from every trade and calling had
| |
| − | to face it in the field, then the millions of sacrifices made at the
| |
| − | front would not have been in vain. On the contrary: If twelve thousand
| |
| − | of these malefactors had been eliminated in proper time probably the
| |
| − | lives 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 be slaughtered on the battlefields, while they looked
| |
| − | upon ten or twelve thousand public traitors, profiteers, usurers and
| |
| − | swindlers, as the dearest and most sacred national treasure and
| |
| − | proclaimed their persons to be inviolable. Indeed it would be hard to
| |
| − | say what is the most outstanding feature of these bourgeois circles:
| |
| − | mental debility, moral weakness and cowardice, or a mere down-at-heel
| |
| − | mentality. 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 quite similar to that of 1918. No matter what
| |
| − | form of resistance was decided upon, the first prerequisite for taking
| |
| − | action was the elimination of the Marxist poison from the body of the
| |
| − | nation. And I was convinced that the first task then of a really
| |
| − | National Government was to seek and find those forces that were
| |
| − | determined to wage a war of destruction against Marxism and to give
| |
| − | these forces 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 dealing the Fatherland a death-blow and when high treason
| |
| − | was lurking behind every street corner at home. No. A really National
| |
| − | Government ought then to have welcomed disorder and unrest if this
| |
| − | turmoil would afford an opportunity of finally settling with the
| |
| − | Marxists, who are the mortal enemies of our people. If this precaution
| |
| − | were neglected, then it was sheer folly to think of resisting, no matter
| |
| − | what form that resistance might take.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course, such a settlement of accounts with the Marxists as would be
| |
| − | of real historical importance could not be effected along lines laid
| |
| − | down by some secret council or according to some plan concocted by the
| |
| − | shrivelled mind of some cabinet minister. It would have to be in
| |
| − | accordance with the eternal laws of life on this Earth which are and
| |
| − | will remain those of a ceaseless struggle for existence. It must always
| |
| − | be remembered that in many instances a hardy and healthy nation has
| |
| − | emerged from the ordeal of the most bloody civil wars, while from peace
| |
| − | conditions which had been artificially maintained there often resulted a
| |
| − | state of national putrescence that reeked to the skies. The fate of a
| |
| − | nation cannot be changed in kid gloves. And so in the year 1923 brutal
| |
| − | action should have been taken to stamp out the vipers that battened on
| |
| − | the body of the nation. If this were done, then the first prerequisite
| |
| − | for an active opposition would have been fulfilled.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time I often talked myself hoarse 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 and the following years we
| |
| − | must necessarily come to the same kind of catastrophe as in 1918. I
| |
| − | frequently implored of them to let Fate have a free hand and to make it
| |
| − | possible for our Movement to settle with the Marxists. But I preached to
| |
| − | deaf ears. They all thought they knew better, including the Chief of the
| |
| − | Defence Force, until finally they found themselves forced to subscribe
| |
| − | to the vilest capitulation that history records.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I then became profoundly convinced that the German bourgeoisie had come
| |
| − | to the end of its mission and was not capable of fulfilling any further
| |
| − | function. And then also I recognized the fact that all the bourgeois
| |
| − | parties had been fighting Marxism merely from the spirit of competition
| |
| − | without sincerely wishing to destroy it. For a long time they had been
| |
| − | accustomed to assist in the destruction of their country, and their one
| |
| − | great care was to secure good seats at the funeral banquet. It was for
| |
| − | this alone that they kept on 'fighting'.
| |
| − | | |
| − | At that time--I admit it openly--I conceived a profound admiration for
| |
| − | the great man beyond the Alps, whose ardent love for his people inspired
| |
| − | him not to bargain with Italy's internal enemies 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 not to share Italy
| |
| − | with the Marxists but to redeem his country from Marxism by destroying
| |
| − | internationalism.
| |
| − | | |
| − | What miserable pigmies our sham statesmen in Germany appear by
| |
| − | comparison with him. And how nauseating it is to witness the conceit and
| |
| − | effrontery of these nonentities in criticizing a man who is a thousand
| |
| − | times greater than them. And how painful it is to think that this takes
| |
| − | place in a country which could point to a Bismarck as its leader as
| |
| − | recently as fifty years ago.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The attitude adopted by the bourgeoisie in 1923 and the way in which
| |
| − | they dealt kindly with Marxism decided from the outset the fate of any
| |
| − | attempt at active resistance in the Ruhr. With that deadly enemy in our
| |
| − | own ranks it was sheer folly to think of fighting France. The most that
| |
| − | could then be done was to stage a sham fight in order to satisfy the
| |
| − | German national element to some extent, to tranquillize the 'boiling
| |
| − | state of the public mind', or dope it, which was what was really
| |
| − | intended. Had they really believed in what they did, they ought to have
| |
| − | recognized that the strength of a nation lies, first of all, not in its
| |
| − | arms but in its will, and that before conquering the external enemy the
| |
| − | enemy at home would have to be eliminated. If not, then disaster must
| |
| − | result if victory be not achieved on the very first day of the fight.
| |
| − | The shadow of one defeat is sufficient to break up the resistance of a
| |
| − | nation that has not been liberated from its internal enemies, and give
| |
| − | the adversary a decisive victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the spring of 1923 all this might have been predicted. It is useless
| |
| − | to ask whether it was then possible to count on a military success
| |
| − | against France. For if the result of the German action in regard to the
| |
| − | French invasion of the Ruhr had been only the destruction of Marxism at
| |
| − | home, success would have been on our side. Once liberated from the
| |
| − | deadly enemies of her present and future existence, Germany would
| |
| − | possess forces which no power in the world could strangle again. On the
| |
| − | day when Marxism is broken in Germany the chains that bind Germany will
| |
| − | be smashed for ever. For never in our history have we been conquered by
| |
| − | the strength of our outside enemies but only through our own failings
| |
| − | and the enemy in our own camp.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Since it was not able to decide on such heroic action at that time, the
| |
| − | Government could have chosen the first way: namely, to allow things to
| |
| − | take their course and do nothing at all.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But at that great moment Heaven made Germany a present of a great man.
| |
| − | This was Herr Cuno. He was neither a statesman nor a politician by
| |
| − | profession, still less a politician by birth. But he belonged to that
| |
| − | type of politician who is merely used for liGYMNASIUMating some definite
| |
| − | question. Apart from that, he had business experience. It was a curse
| |
| − | for Germany that, in the practice of politics, this business man looked
| |
| − | upon politics 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 sake of its coal?" What could come more
| |
| − | naturally to the mind of Herr Cuno than the 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 would certainly have to get
| |
| − | out of the Ruhr again if the occupation did not prove to be a paying
| |
| − | business. Such were approximately the lines along which that OUTSTANDING
| |
| − | NATIONAL STATESMAN reasoned. At Stuttgart and other places he spoke to
| |
| − | 'his people' and this people became lost in admiration for him. Of
| |
| − | course they needed the Marxists for the strike, because the workers
| |
| − | would have to be the first to go on strike. Now, in the brain of a
| |
| − | bourgeois statesman such as Cuno, a Marxist and a worker are one and the
| |
| − | same thing. Therefore it was necessary to bring the worker into line
| |
| − | with all the other Germans in a united front. One should have seen how
| |
| − | the countenances of these party politicians beamed with the light of
| |
| − | their moth-eaten bourgeois culture when the great genius spoke the word
| |
| − | of revelation to them. Here was a nationalist and also a man of genius.
| |
| − | At last they had discovered what they had so long sought. For now the
| |
| − | abyss between Marxism and themselves could be bridged over. And thus it
| |
| − | became possible for the pseudo-nationalist to ape the German manner and
| |
| − | adopt nationalist phraseology in reaching out the ingenuous hand of
| |
| − | friendship to the internationalist traitors of their country. The
| |
| − | traitor readily grasped that hand, because, just as Herr Cuno had need
| |
| − | of the Marxist chiefs for his 'united front', the Marxist chiefs needed
| |
| − | Herr Cuno's money. So that both parties mutually 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 to pursue their
| |
| − | glorious mission, which was to destroy the national economic system. It
| |
| − | was an immortal thought, that of saving a nation by means of a general
| |
| − | strike in which the strikers were paid by the State. It was a command
| |
| − | that could be enthusiastically obeyed by the most indifferent of
| |
| − | loafers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Everybody knows that prayers will not make a nation free. But that it is
| |
| − | possible to liberate a nation by giving up work has yet to be proved by
| |
| − | historical experience. Instead of promoting a paid general strike at
| |
| − | that time, and making this the basis of his 'united front', if Herr Cuno
| |
| − | had demanded two hours more work from every German, then the swindle of
| |
| − | the 'united front' would have been disposed of within three days.
| |
| − | Nations do not obtain their freedom by refusing to work but by making
| |
| − | sacrifices.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Anyhow, the so-called passive resistance could not last long. Nobody but
| |
| − | a man entirely ignorant of war could imagine that an army of occupation
| |
| − | might be frightened and driven out by such ridiculous means. And yet
| |
| − | this could have been the only purpose of an action for which the country
| |
| − | had to pay out milliards and which contributed seriously to devaluate
| |
| − | the national currency.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Of course the French were able to make themselves almost at home in the
| |
| − | Ruhr basin the moment they saw that such ridiculous measures were being
| |
| − | adopted against them. They had received the prescription directly from
| |
| − | ourselves of the best way to bring a recalcitrant civil population to a
| |
| − | sense of reason if its conduct implied a serious danger for the
| |
| − | officials which the army of occupation had placed in authority. Nine
| |
| − | years previously we wiped out with lightning rapidity bands of Belgian
| |
| − | FRANCS-TIREURS and made the civil population clearly understand the
| |
| − | seriousness of the situation, when the activities of these bands
| |
| − | threatened grave danger for the German army. In like manner if the
| |
| − | passive resistance of the Ruhr became really dangerous for the French,
| |
| − | the armies of occupation would have needed no more than eight days to
| |
| − | bring the whole piece of childish nonsense to a gruesome end. 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
| |
| − | really got on the nerves of our opponents and they proceeded to suppress
| |
| − | it with force and 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 we should be faced with the same situation
| |
| − | as would have faced us in the case of an active resistance. In other
| |
| − | words, we should have to fight. Therefore the so-called passive
| |
| − | resistance would be logical only if supported by the determination to
| |
| − | come out and wage an open fight in case of necessity or adopt a kind of
| |
| − | guerilla warfare. Generally speaking, one undertakes such a struggle
| |
| − | when there is a possibility of success. The moment a besieged fortress
| |
| − | is taken by assault there is no practical alternative left to the
| |
| − | defenders except to surrender, if instead of probable death they are
| |
| − | assured that their lives will be spared. Let the garrison of a citadel
| |
| − | which has been completely encircled by the enemy once lose all hope of
| |
| − | being delivered by their friends, then the strength of the defence
| |
| − | collapses totally.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is why passive resistance in the Ruhr, when one considers the final
| |
| − | consequences which it might and must necessarily have if it were to turn
| |
| − | out really successful, had no practical meaning unless an active front
| |
| − | had been organized to support it. Then one might have demanded immense
| |
| − | efforts from our people. If each of these Westphalians in the Ruhr could
| |
| − | have been assured that the home country had mobilized an army of eighty
| |
| − | or a hundred divisions to support them, the French would have found
| |
| − | themselves treading on thorns. Surely a greater number of courageous men
| |
| − | could be found to sacrifice themselves for a successful enterprise than
| |
| − | for an enterprise that was manifestly futile.
| |
| − | | |
| − | This was the classic occasion that induced us National Socialists to
| |
| − | take up a resolute stand against the so-called national word of command.
| |
| − | And that is what we did. During those months I was attacked by people
| |
| − | whose patriotism was a mixture of stupidity and humbug and who took part
| |
| − | in the general hue and cry because of the pleasant sensation they felt
| |
| − | at being suddenly enabled to show themselves as nationalists, without
| |
| − | running any danger thereby. In my estimation, this despicable 'united
| |
| − | front' was one of the most ridiculous things that could be imagined. And
| |
| − | events proved that I was right.
| |
| − | | |
| − | As soon as the Trades Unions had nearly filled their treasuries with
| |
| − | Cuno's contributions, and the moment had come when it would be necessary
| |
| − | to transform the passive resistance from a mere inert defence into
| |
| − | active aggression, the Red hyenas suddenly broke out of the national
| |
| − | sheepfold and returned to be what they always had been. Without sounding
| |
| − | any drums or trumpets, Herr Cuno returned to his ships. Germany was
| |
| − | richer by one experience and poorer by the loss of one great hope.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Up to midsummer of that year several officers, who certainly were not
| |
| − | the least brave and honourable of their kind, had not really believed
| |
| − | that the course of things could take a turn that was so humiliating.
| |
| − | They had all hoped that--if not openly, then at least secretly--the
| |
| − | necessary measures would be taken to make this insolent French invasion
| |
| − | a turning-point in German history. In our ranks also there were many who
| |
| − | counted at least on the intervention of the REICHSWEHR. That conviction
| |
| − | was so ardent that it decisively influenced the conduct and especially
| |
| − | the training of innumerable young men.
| |
| − | | |
| − | But when the disgraceful collapse set in and the most humiliating kind
| |
| − | of capitulation was made, indignation against such a betrayal of our
| |
| − | unhappy country broke out into a blaze. Millions of German money had
| |
| − | been spent in vain and thousands of young Germans had been sacrificed,
| |
| − | who were foolish enough to trust in the promises made by the rulers of
| |
| − | the REICH. Millions of people now became clearly convinced that Germany
| |
| − | could be saved only if the whole prevailing system were destroyed root
| |
| − | and branch.
| |
| − | | |
| − | There never had been a more propitious moment for such a solution. On
| |
| − | the one side an act of high treason had been committed against the
| |
| − | country, openly and shamelessly. On the other side a nation found itself
| |
| − | delivered over to die slowly of hunger. Since the State itself had
| |
| − | trodden down all the precepts of faith and loyalty, made a mockery of
| |
| − | the rights of its citizens, rendered the sacrifices of millions of its
| |
| − | 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. This hatred against those who had ruined the people and the
| |
| − | country was bound to find an outlet in one form or another. In this
| |
| − | connection I shall quote here the concluding sentence of a speech which
| |
| − | I delivered at the great court trial that took place in the spring of
| |
| − | 1924.
| |
| − | | |
| − | "The judges of this State may tranquilly condemn us for our conduct at
| |
| − | that time, but History, the goddess of a higher truth and a better legal
| |
| − | code, will smile as she tears up this verdict and will acquit us all of
| |
| − | the crime for which this verdict demands punishment."
| |
| − | | |
| − | But History will then also summon before its own tribunal those who,
| |
| − | invested with power to-day, have trampled on law and justice, condemning
| |
| − | our people to misery and ruin, and who, in the hour of their country's
| |
| − | misfortune, took more account of their own ego than of the life of the
| |
| − | community.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Here I shall not relate the course of events which led to November 8th,
| |
| − | 1923, and closed with that date. I shall not do so because I cannot see
| |
| − | that this would serve any beneficial purpose in the future and also
| |
| − | because no good could come of opening old sores that have been just only
| |
| − | closed. Moreover, it would be out of place to talk about the guilt of
| |
| − | men who perhaps in the depths of their hearts have as much love for
| |
| − | their people as I myself, and who merely did not follow the same road as
| |
| − | I took or failed to recognize it as the right one to take.
| |
| − | | |
| − | In the face of the great misfortune which has befallen our fatherland
| |
| − | and affects all us, I must abstain from offending and perhaps disuniting
| |
| − | those men who must at some future date form one great united front which
| |
| − | will be made up of true and loyal Germans and which will have to
| |
| − | withstand the common front presented by the enemy of our people. For I
| |
| − | know that a time will come when those who then treated us as enemies
| |
| − | will venerate the men who trod the bitter way of death for the sake of
| |
| − | their people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | I have dedicated the first volume of this book to our eighteen fallen
| |
| − | heroes. Here at the end of this second volume let me again bring those
| |
| − | men to the memory of the adherents and champions of our ideals, as
| |
| − | heroes who, in the full consciousness of what they were doing,
| |
| − | sacrificed their lives for us all. We must never fail to recall those
| |
| − | names in order to encourage the weak and wavering among us when duty
| |
| − | calls, that duty which they fulfilled with absolute faith, even to its
| |
| − | extreme consequences. Together with those, and as one of the best of
| |
| − | all, I should like to mention the name of a man who devoted his life to
| |
| − | reawakening his and our people, through his writing and his ideas and
| |
| − | finally through positive action. I mean: Dietrich Eckart.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | EPILOGUE
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | On November 9th, 1923, four and a half years after its foundation, the
| |
| − | German National Socialist Labour Party was dissolved and forbidden
| |
| − | throughout the whole of the REICH. To-day, in November 1926, it is again
| |
| − | established throughout the REICH, enjoying full liberty, stronger and
| |
| − | internally more compact than ever before.
| |
| − | | |
| − | All persecutions of the Movement and the individuals at its head, all
| |
| − | the imputations and calumnies, have not been able to prevail against it.
| |
| − | Thanks to the justice of its ideas, the integrity of its intentions and
| |
| − | the spirit of self-denial that animates its members, it has overcome all
| |
| − | oppression and increased its strength through the ordeal. If, in our
| |
| − | contemporary world of parliamentary corruption, our Movement remains
| |
| − | always conscious of the profound nature of its struggle and feels that
| |
| − | it personifies the values of individual personality and race, and orders
| |
| − | its action accordingly--then it may count with mathematical certainty on
| |
| − | achieving victory some day in the future. And Germany must necessarily
| |
| − | win the position which belongs to it on this Earth if it is led and
| |
| − | organized according to these principles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | A State which, in an epoch of racial adulteration, devotes itself to the
| |
| − | duty of preserving the best elements of its racial stock must one day
| |
| − | become ruler of the Earth.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The adherents of our Movements must always remember this, whenever they
| |
| − | may have misgivings lest the greatness of the sacrifices demanded of
| |
| − | them may not be justified by the possibilities of success.
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | THE END
| |
