Volume One - A Reckoning
Chapter XI: Nation
and Race
THERE are some truths which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not seen or at least not recognized by ordinary people. They sometimes pass by such truisms as though blind and are most astonished when someone suddenly discovers what everyone really ought to know. Columbus's eggs lie around by the hundreds of thousands, but Columbuses are met with less frequently.
Thus men without exception wander about in the garden of Nature; they imagine that they know practically everything and yet with few exceptions pass blindly by one of the most patent principles of Nature's rule: the inner segregation of the species of all living beings on this earth.
Even the most superficial observation shows that Nature's restricted form of propagation and increase is an almost rigid basic law of all the innumerable forms of expression of her vital urge. Every animal mates only with a member of the same species. The titmouse seeks the titmouse, the finch the finch, the stork the stork, the field mouse the field mouse, the dormouse the dormouse, the wolf the she-wolf, etc.
Only unusual circumstances can change this, primarily the compulsion of captivity or any other cause that makes it impossible to mate within the same species. But then Nature begins to resist this with all possible means, and her most visible protest consists either in refusing further capacity for propagation to bastards or in limiting the fertility of later offspring; in most cases, however, she takes away the power of resistance to disease or hostile attacks.
This is only too natural.
Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents. This means: the offspring will probably stand higher than the racially lower parent, but not as high as the higher one. Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature for a higher breeding of all life. The precondition for this does not lie in associating superior and inferior, but in the total victory of the former. The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable.
The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice.
Therefore, here, too, the struggle among themselves arises less from inner aversion than from hunger and love. In both cases, Nature looks on calmly, with satisfaction, in fact. In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a means for improving a species' health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher development.
If the process were different, all further and higher development would cease and the opposite would occur. For, since the inferior always predominates numerically over the best, if both had the same possibility of preserving life and propagating, the inferior would multiply so much more rapidly that in the end the best would inevitably be driven into the background, unless a correction of this state of affairs were undertaken. Nature does just this by subjecting the weaker part to such severe living conditions that by them alone the number is limited, and by not permitting the remainder to increase promiscuously, but making a new and ruthless choice according to strength and health.
No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, night be ruined with one blow.
Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture. The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood.
The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following:To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the eternal creator.
- Lowering of the level of the higher race;
- Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness.
And as a sin this act is rewarded.
When man attempts to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, he comes into struggle with the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man. And this attack I must lead to his own doom.
Here, of course, we encounter the objection of the modern pacifist, as truly Jewish in its effrontery as it is stupid! 'Man's role is to overcome Nature!'
Millions thoughtlessly parrot this Jewish nonsense and end up by really imagining that they themselves represent a kind of conqueror of Nature; though in this they dispose of no other weapon than an idea, and at that such a miserable one, that if it were true no world at all would be conceivable
But quite aside from the fact that man has never yet conquered Nature in anything, but at most has caught hold of and tried to lift one or another corner of her immense gigantic veil of eternal riddles and secrets, that in reality he invents nothing but only discovers everything, that he does not dominate Nature, but has only risen on the basis of his knowledge of various laws and secrets of Nature to be lord over those other living creatures who lack this knowledge-quite aside from all this, an idea cannot overcome the preconditions for the development and being of humanity, since the idea itself depends only on man. Without human beings there is no human idea in this world, therefore the idea as such is always conditioned by the presence of human beings and hence of all the laws which created the precondition for their existence.
And not only that! Certain ideas are even tied up with certain men. This applies most of all to those ideas whose content originates, not in an exact scientific truth, but in the world of emotion, or, as it is so beautifully and clearly expressed today, reflects an 'inner experience.' All these ideas, which have nothing to do with cold logic as such, but represent only pure expressions of feeling, ethical conceptions, etc., are chained to the existence of men, to whose intellectual imagination and creative power they owe their existence. Precisely in this case the preservation of these definite races and men is the precondition for the existence of these ideas. Anyone, for example, who really desired the victory of the pacifistic idea in this world with all his heart would have to fight with all the means at his disposal for the conquest of the world by the Germans; for, if the opposite should occur, the last pacifist would die out with the last German, since the rest of the world has never fallen so deeply as our own people, unfortunately, has for this nonsense so contrary to Nature and reason. Then, if we were serious, whether we liked it or not, we would have to wage wars in order to arrive at pacifism. This and nothing else was what Wilson, the American world savior, intended, or so at least our German visionaries believed-and thereby his purpose was fulfilled.
In actual fact the pacifistic-humane idea is perfectly all right perhaps when the highest type of man has previously conquered and subjected the world to an extent that makes him the sole ruler of this earth. Then this idea lacks the power of producing evil effects in exact proportion as its practical application becomes rare and finally impossible. Therefore, first struggle and then we shall see what can be done.l Otherwise mankind has passed the high point of its development and the end is not the domination of any ethical idea but barbarism and consequently chaos. At this point someone or other may laugh, but this planet once moved through the ether for millions of years without human beings and it can do so again some day if men forget that they owe their higher existence, not to the ideas of a few crazy ideologists, but to the knowledge and ruthless application of Nature's stern and rigid laws.
Everything we admire on this earth today-science and art, technology and inventions-is only the creative product of a few peoples and originally perhaps of one race. On them depends the existence of this whole culture. If they perish, the beauty of this earth will sink into the grave with them.
However much the soil, for example, can influence men, the result of the influence will always be different depending on the races in question. The low fertility of a living space may spur the one race to the highest achievements; in others it will only be the cause of bitterest poverty and final undernourishment with all its consequences. The inner nature of peoples is always determining for the manner in which outward influences will be effective. What leads the one to starvation trains the other to hard work.
All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.
The ultimate cause of such a decline was their forgetting that all culture depends on men and not conversely; hence that to preserve a certain culture the man who creates it must be preserved. This preservation is bound up with the rigid law of necessity and the right to victory of the best and stronger in this world.
Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.
Even if this were hard-that is how it is ! Assuredly, however by far the harder fate is that which strikes the man who thinks he can overcome Nature, but in the last analysis only mocks her. Distress, misfortune, and diseases are her answer.
The man who misjudges and disregards the racial laws actually forfeits the happiness that seems destined to be his. He thwarts the triumphal march of the best race and hence also the precondition for all human progress, and remains, in consequence burdened with all the sensibility of man, in the animal realm of helpless misery.It is idle to argue which race or races were the original representative of human culture and hence the real founders of all that we sum up under the word 'humanity.' It is simpler to raise this question with regard to the present, and here an easy, clear answer results. All the human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan. This very fact admits of the not unfounded inference that he alone was the founder of all higher humanity, therefore representing the prototype of all that we understand by the word 'man.' He is the Prometheus of mankind from whose bright forehead the divine spark of genius has sprung at all times, forever kindling anew that fire of knowledge which illumined the night of silent mysteries and thus caused man to climb the path to mastery over the other beings of this earth. Exclude him-and perhaps after a few thousand years darkness will again descend on the earth, human culture will pass, and the world turn to a desert.
If we were to divide mankind into three groups, the founders of culture, the bearers of culture, the destroyers of culture, only the Aryan could be considered as the representative of the first group. From him originate the foundations and walls of all human creation, and only the outward form and color are determined by the changing traits of character of the various peoples. He provides the mightiest building stones and plans for all human progress and only the execution corresponds to the nature of the varying men and races. In a few decades, for example, the entire east of Asia will possess a culture whose ultimate foundation will be Hellenic spirit and Germanic technology, just as much as in Europe. Only the outward form-in part at least-will bear the features of Asiatic character. It is not true, as some people think, that Japan adds European technology to its culture; no, European science and technology are trimmed with Japanese characteristics. The foundation of actual life is no longer the special Japanese culture, although it determines the color of life-because outwardly, in consequence of its inner difference, it is more conspicuous to the European-but the gigantic scientific-technical achievements of Europe and America; that is, of Aryan peoples. Only on the basis of these achievements can the Orient follow general human progress. They furnish the basis of the struggle for daily bread, create weapons and implements for it, and only the outward form is gradually adapted to Japanese character.
If beginning today all further Aryan influence on Japan should stop, assuming that Europe and America should perish, Japan's present rise in science and technology might continue for a short time; but even in a few years the well would dry up, the Japanese special character would gain, but the present culture would freeze and sink back into the slumber from which it was awakened seven decades ago by the wave of Aryan culture. Therefore, just as the present Japanese development owes its life to Aryan origin, long ago in the gray past foreign influence and foreign spirit awakened the Japanese culture of that time. The best proof of this is furnished by the fact of its subsequent sclerosis and total petrifaction. This can occur in a people only when the original creative racial nucleus has been lost, or if the external influence which furnished the impetus and the material for the first development in the cultural field was later lacking. But if it iS established that a people receives the most essential basic materials of its culture from foreign races, that it assimilates and adapts them, and that then, if further external influence is lacking, it rigidifies again and again, such a race may be designated as culture-bearing,' but never as 'culture-creating.' An examination of the various peoples from this standpoint points to the fact that practically none of them were originally culture-founding, but almost always culture-bearing.
Approximately the following picture of their development always results:
Aryan races-often absurdly small numerically-subject foreign peoples, and then, stimulated by the special living conditions of the new territory (fertility, climatic conditions, etc.) and assisted by the multitude of lower-type beings standing at their disposal as helpers, develop the intellectual and organizational capacities dormant within them. Often in a few millenniums or even centuries they create cultures which originally bear all the inner characteristics of their nature, adapted to the above-indicated special qualities of the soil and subjected beings. In the end, however, the conquerors transgress against the principle of blood purity, to which they had first adhered; they begin to mix with the subjugated inhabitants and thus end their own existence; for the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion.
After a thousand years and more, the last visible trace of the former master people is often seen in the lighter skin color which its blood left behind in the subjugated race, and in a petrified culture which it had originally created. For, once the actual and spiritual conqueror lost himself in the blood of the subjected people, the fuel for the torch of human progress was lost! Just as, through the blood of the former masters, the color preserved a feeble gleam in their memory, likewise the night of cultural life is gently illumined by the remaining creations of the former light-bringers. They shine through all the returned barbarism and too often inspire the thoughtless observer of the moment with the opinion that he beholds the picture of the present people before him, whereas he is only gazing into the mirror of the past.
It is then possible that such a people will a second time, or even more often in the course of its history, come into contact with the race of those who once brought it culture, and the memory of former encounters will not necessarily be present. Unconsciously the remnant of the former master blood will turn toward. the new arrival, and what was first possible only by compulsion can now succeed through the people's own will. A new cultural wave makes its entrance and continues until those who have brought it are again submerged in the blood of foreign peoples.
It will be the task of a future cultural and world history to carry on researches in this light and not to stifle in the rendition of external facts, as is so often, unfortunately, the case with our present historical science.
This mere sketch of the development of 'culture-bearing' nations gives a picture of the growth, of the activity, and-the decline-of the true culture-founders of this earth, the Aryans themselves.
As in daily life the so-called genius requires a special cause, indeed, often a positive impetus, to make him shine, likewise the genius-race in the life of peoples. In the monotony of everyday life even significant men often seem insignificant, hardly rising above the average of their environment; as soon, however, as they are approached by a situation in which others lose hope or go astray, the genius rises manifestly from the inconspicuous average child, not seldom to the amazement of all those who had hitherto seen him in the pettiness of bourgeois life-and that is why the prophet seldom has any honor in his own country. Nowhere have we better occasion to observe this than in war. From apparently harmless children, in difficult hours when others lose hope, suddenly heroes shoot up with death-defying determination and an icy cool presence of minds If this hour of trial had not come, hardly anyone would ever have guessed that a young hero was hidden in this beardless boy. It nearly always takes some stimulus to bring the genius on the scene. The hammer-stroke of Fate which throws one man to the ground suddenly strikes steel in another, and when the shell of everyday life is broken, the previously hidden kernel lies open before the eyes of the astonished world. The world then resists and does not want to believe that the type which is apparently identical with it is suddenly a very different being; a process which is repeated with every eminent son of man.
Though an inventor, for example, establishes his fame only on the day of his invention, it is a mistake to think that genius as such entered into the man only at this hour-the spark of genius exists in the brain of the truly creative man from the hour of his birth. True genius is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned.
As already emphasized, this applies not only to the individual man but also to the race. Creatively active peoples always have a fundamental creative gift, even if it should not be recognizable to the eyes of superficial observers. Here, too, outward recognition is possible only in consequence of accomplished deeds, since the rest of the world is not capable of recognizing genius in itself, but sees only its visible manifestations in the form of inventions, discoveries, buildings, pictures, etc.; here again it often takes a long time before the world can fight its way through to this knowledge. Just as in the life of the outstanding individual, genius or extraordinary ability strives for practical realization only when spurred on by special occasions, likewise in the life of nations the creative forces and capacities which are present can often be exploited only when definite preconditions invite.
We see this most distinctly in connection with the race which has been and is the bearer of human cultural development-the Aryans. As soon as Fate leads them toward special conditions, their latent abilities begin to develop in a more and more rapid sequence and to mold themselves into tangible forms. The cultures which they found in such cases are nearly always decisively determined by the existing soil, the given climate, and-the subjected people. This last item, to be sure, is almost the most decisive. The more primitive the technical foundations for a cultural activity, the more necessary is the presence of human helpers who, organizationally assembled and employed, must replace the force of the machine. Without this possibility of using lower human beings, the Aryan would never have been able to take his first steps toward his future culture; just as without the help of various suitable beasts which he knew how to tame, he would not have arrived at a technology which is now gradually permitting him to do without these beasts. The saying, 'The Moor has worked off his debt, the Moor can go,' unfortunately has only too deep a meaning. For thousands of years the horse had to serve man and help him lay the foundations of a development which now, in consequence of the motor car, is making the horse superfluous. In a few years his activity trill have ceased, but without his previous collaboration man might have had a hard time getting where he is today.
Thus, for the formation of higher cultures the existence of lower human types was one of the most essential preconditions, since they alone were able to compensate for the lack of technical aids without which a higher development is not conceivable. It is certain that the first culture of humanity was based less on the tamed animal than on the use of lower human beings.
Only after the enslavement of subjected races did the same fate strike beasts, and not the other way around, as some people would like to think. For first the conquered warrior drew the plow-and only after him the horse. Only pacifistic fools can regard this as a sign of human depravity, failing to realize that this development had to take place in order to reach the point where today these sky-pilots could force their drivel on the world.
The progress of humanity is like climbing an endless ladder; it is impossible to climb higher without first taking the lower steps. Thus, the Aryan had to take the road to which reality directed him and not the one that would appeal to the imagination of a modern pacifist. The road of reality is hard and difficult, but in the end it leads where our friend would like to bring humanity by dreaming, but unfortunately removes more than bringing it
Hence it is no accident that the first cultures arose in places where the Aryan, in his encounters with lower peoples, subjugated them and bent them to his will. They then became the first technical instrument in the service of a developing culture.
Thus, the road which the Aryan had to take was clearly marked out As a conqueror he subjected the lower beings and regulated their practical activity under his command, according to his will and for his aims. But in directing them to a useful, though arduous activity, he not only spared the life of those he subjected; perhaps he gave them a fate that was better than their previous so-called 'freedom.' As long as he ruthlessly upheld the master attitude, not only did he really remain master, but also the preserver and increaser of culture. For culture was based exclusively on his abilities and hence on his actual survival. As soon as the subjected people began to raise themselves up and probably approached the conqueror in language, the sharp dividing wall between master and servant fell. The Aryan gave up the purity of his blood and, therefore, lost his sojourn in the paradise which he had made for himself. He became submerged in the racial mixture, and gradually, more and more, lost his cultural capacity, until at last, not only mentally but also physically, he began to resemble the subjected aborigines more than his own ancestors. For a time he could live on the existing cultural benefits, but then petrifaction set in and he fell a prey to oblivion.
Thus cultures and empires collapsed to make place for new formations.
Blood mixture and the resultant drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is contained only in pure blood.
All who are not of good race in this world are chaff.
And all occurrences in world history are only the expression of the races' instinct of self-preservation, in the good or bad sense.The question of the inner causes of the Aryan's importance can be answered to the effect that they are to be sought less in a natural instinct of self-preservation than in the special type of its expression. The will to live, subjectively viewed, is everywhere equal and different only in the form of its actual expression. In the most primitive living creatures the instinct of self-preservation does not go beyond concern for their own ego. Egoism, as we designate this urge, goes so far that it even embraces time; the moment itself claims everything, granting nothing to the coming hours. In this condition the animal lives only for himself, seeks food only for his present hunger, and fights only for his own life. As long as the instinct of self-preservation expresses itself in this way, every basis is lacking for the formation of a group, even the most primitive form of family. Even a community between male and female beyond pure mating, demands an extension of the instinct of self-preservation, since concern and struggle for the ego are now directed toward the second party; the male sometimes seeks food for the female, too, but for the most part both seek nourishment for the young. Nearly always one comes to the defense of the other, and thus the first, though infinitely simple, forms of a sense of sacrifice result. As soon as this sense extends beyond the narrow limits of the family, the basis for the formation of larger organisms and finally formal states is created.
In the lowest peoples of the earth this quality is present only to a very slight extent, so that often they do not go beyond the formation of the family. The greater the readiness to subordinate purely personal interests, the higher rises the ability to establish comprehensive communities.
This self-sacrificing will to give one's personal labor and if necessary one's own life for others is most strongly developed in the Aryan. The Aryan is not greatest in his mental qualities as such, but in the extent of his willingness to put all his abilities in the service of the community. In him the instinct of self-preservation has reached the noblest form, since he willingly subordinates his own ego to-the life of the community and, if the hour demands, even sacrifices it.
Not in his intellectual gifts lies the source of the Aryan's capacity for creating and building culture. If he had just this alone, he could only act destructively, in no case could he organize; for the innermost essence of all organization requires that the individual renounce putting forward his personal opinion and interests and sacrifice both in favor of a larger group. Only byway of this general community does he again recover his share. Now, for example, he no longer works directly for himself, but with his activity articulates himself with the community, not only for his own advantage, but for the advantage of all. The most wonderful elucidation of this attitude is provided by his word 'work,' by which he does not mean an activity for maintaining life in itself, but exclusively a creative effort that does not conflict with the interests of the community. Otherwise he designates human activity, in so far as it serves the instinct of self-preservation without consideration for his fellow men, as theft, usury, robbery, burglary, etc.
This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture. From it alone can arise all the great works of mankind, which bring the founder little reward, but the richest blessings to posterity. Yes from it alone can we understand how so many are able to bear up faithfully under a scanty life which imposes on them nothing but poverty and frugality, but gives the community the foundations of its existence. Every worker, every peasant, every inventor, official, etc., who works without ever being able to achieve any happiness or prosperity for himself, is a representative of this lofty idea, even if the deeper meaning of his activity remains hidden in him.
What applies to work as the foundation of human sustenance and all human progress is true to an even greater degree for the defense of man and his culture. In giving one's own life for the existence of the community lies the crown of all sense of sacrifice. It is this alone that prevents what human hands have built from being overthrown by human hands or destroyed bat Nature.
Our own German language possesses a word which magnificently designates this kind of activity: Pflichterfullung (fulfillment of duty); it means not to be self-sufficient but to serve the community.
The basic attitude from which such activity arises, we call-to distinguish it from egoism and selfishness-idealism. By this we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men.
How necessary it is to keep realizing that idealism does not represent a superfluous expression of emotion, but that in truth it has been, is, and will be, the premise for what we designate as human culture, yes, that it alone created the concept of 'man' It is to this inner attitude that the Aryan owes his position in this world, and to it the world owes man; for it alone formed from pure spirit the creative force which, by a unique pairing of the brutal fist and the intellectual genius, created the monuments of human culture.
Without his idealistic attitude all, even the most dazzling faculties of the intellect, would remain mere intellect as such
outward appearance without inner value, and never creative force.
But, since true idealism is nothing but the subordination of the interests and life of the individual to the community, and this in turn is the precondition for the creation of organizational forms of all kinds, it corresponds in its innermost depths to the ultimate will of Nature. It alone leads men to voluntary recognition of the privilege of force and strength, and thus makes them into a dust particle of that order which shapes and forms the whole universe.
The purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge.
How correct this is, and how little true idealism has to do with playful flights of the imagination, can be seen at once if we let the unspoiled child, a healthy boy, for example, judge. The same boy who feels like throwing up I when he hears the tirades of a pacifist 'idealist' is ready to give his young life for the ideal of his nationality.
Here the instinct of knowledge unconsciously obeys the deeper necessity of the preservation of the species, if necessary at the cost of the individual, and protests against the visions of the pacifist windbag who in reality is nothing but a cowardly, though camouflaged, egoist, transgressing the laws of development; for development requires willingness on the part of the individual to sacrifice himself for the community, and not the sickly imaginings of cowardly know-it-alls and critics of Nature.
Especially, therefore, at times when the ideal attitude threatens to disappear, we can at once recognize a diminution of that force which forms the community and thus creates the premises of culture. As soon as egoism becomes the ruler of a people, the bands of order are loosened and in the chase after their own happiness men fall from heaven into a real hell.
Yes, even posterity forgets the men who have only served their own advantage and praises the heroes who have renounced their own happiness.The mightiest counterpart to the Aryan is represented by the Jew. In hardly any people in the world is the instinct of self-preservation developed more strongly than in the so-called 'chosen.' Of this, the mere fact of the survival of this race may be considered the best proof. Where is the people which in the last two thousand years has been exposed to so slight changes of inner disposition, character, etc., as the Jewish people? What people, finally, has gone through greater upheavals than this one-and nevertheless issued from the mightiest catastrophes of mankind unchanged? What an infinitely tough will to live and preserve the species speaks from these facts !
The mental qualities of the Jew have been schooled in the course of many centuries. Today he passes as 'smart,' and this in a certain sense he has been at all times. But his intelligence is not the result of his own development, but of visual instruction through foreigners. For the human mind cannot climb to the top without steps; for every step upward he needs the foundation of the past, and this in the comprehensive sense in which it can be revealed only in general culture. All thinking is based only in small part on man's own knowledge, and mostly on the experience of the -time that has preceded. The general cultural level provides the individual man, without his noticing it as a rule, with such a profusion of preliminary knowledge that, thus armed, he can more easily take further steps of his own. The boy of today, for example, grows up among a truly vast number of technical acquisitions of the last centuries, so that he takes for granted and no longer pays attention to much that a hundred years ago was a riddle to even the greatest minds, although for following and understanding our progress in the field in question it is of decisive importance to him. If a very genius from the twenties of the past century should suddenly leave his grave today, it would be harder for him even intellectually to find his way in the present era than for an average boy of fifteen today. For he would lack all the infinite preliminary education which our present contemporary unconsciously, so to speak, assimilates while growing up amidst the manifestations of our present general civilization.
Since the Jew-for reasons which will at once become apparent-was never in possession of a culture of his own, the foundations of his intellectual work were always provided by others. His intellect at all times developed through the cultural world surrounding him.
The reverse process never took place.
For if the Jewish people's instinct of self-preservation is not smaller but larger than that of other peoples, if his intellectual faculties can easily arouse the impression that they are equal to the intellectual gifts of other races, he lacks completely the most essential requirement for a cultured people, the idealistic attitude.
In the Jewish people the will to self-sacrifice does not go beyond the individual's naked instinct of self-preservation. Their apparently great sense of solidarity is based on the very primitive herd instinct that is seen in many other living creatures in this world. It is a noteworthy fact that the herd instinct leads to mutual support only as long as a common danger makes this seem useful or inevitable. The same pack of wolves which has just fallen on its prey together disintegrates when hunger abates into its individual beasts. The same is true of horses which try to defend themselves against an assailant in a body, but scatter again as soon as the danger is past.
It is similar with the Jew. His sense of sacrifice is only apparent. It exists only as long as the existence of the individual makes it absolutely necessary. However, as soon as the common enemy is conquered, the danger threatening all averted and the booty hidden, the apparent harmony of the Jews among themselves ceases, again making way for their old causal tendencies. The Jew is only united when a common danger forces him to be or a common booty entices him; if these two grounds are lacking, the qualities of the crassest egoism come into their own, and in the twinkling of an eye the united people turns into a horde of rats, fighting bloodily among themselves.
If the Jews were alone in this world, they would stifle in filth and offal; they would try to get ahead of one another in hate-filled struggle and exterminate one another, in so far as the absolute absence of all sense of self-sacrifice, expressing itself in their cowardice, did not turn battle into comedy here too.
So it is absolutely wrong to infer any ideal sense of sacrifice in the Jews from the fact that they stand together in struggle, or, better expressed, in the plundering of their fellow men.
Here again the Jew is led by nothing but the naked egoism of the individual.
That is why the Jewish state-which should be the living organism for preserving and increasing a race-is completely unlimited as to territory. For a state formation to have a definite spatial setting always presupposes an idealistic attitude on the part of the state-race, and especially a correct interpretation of the concept of work. In the exact measure in which this attitude is lacking, any attempt at forming, even of preserving, a spatially delimited state fails. And thus the basis on which alone culture can arise is lacking.
Hence the Jewish people, despite all apparent intellectual qualities, is without any true culture, and especially without any culture of its own. For what sham culture the Jew today possesses is the property of other peoples, and for the most part it is ruined in his hands.
In judging the Jewish people's attitude on the question of human culture, the most essential characteristic we must always bear in mind is that there has never been a Jewish art and accordingly there is none today either; that above all the two queens of all the arts, architecture and music, owe nothing original to the Jews. What they do accomplish in the field of art is either patchwork or intellectual theft. Thus, the Jew lacks those qualities which distinguish the races that are creative and hence culturally blessed.
To what an extent the Jew takes over foreign culture, imitating or rather ruining it, can be seen from the fact that he is mostly found in the art which seems to require least original invention, the art of acting. But even here, in reality, he is only a ' juggler,' or rather an ape; for even here he lacks the last touch that is required for real greatness; even here he is not the creative genius, but a superficial imitator, and all the twists and tricks that he uses are powerless to conceal the inner lifelessness of his creative gift. Here the Jewish press most lovingly helps him along by raising such a roar of hosannahs about even the most mediocre bungler, just so long as he is a Jew, that the rest of the world actually ends up by thinking that they have an artist before them, while in truth it is only a pitiful comedian.
No, the Jew possesses no culture-creating force of any sort, since the idealism, without which there is no true higher development of man, is not present in him and never was present. Hence his intellect will never have a constructive effect, but will be destructive, and in very rare cases perhaps will at most be stimulating, but then as the prototype of the ' force which always wants evil and nevertheless creates good.' Not through him does any progress of mankind occur, but in spite of him.
Since the Jew never possessed a state with definite territorial limits and therefore never called a culture his own, the conception arose that this was a people which should be reckoned among the ranks of the nomads. This is a fallacy as great as it is dangerous. The nomad does possess a definitely limited living space, only he does not cultivate it like a sedentary peasant, but lives from the yield of his herds with which he wanders about in his territory. The outward reason for this is to be found in the small fertility of a soil which simply does not permit of settlement. The deeper cause, however, lies in the disparity between the technical culture of an age or people and the natural poverty of a living space. There are territories in which even the Aryan is enabled only by his technology, developed in the course of more than a thousand years, to live in regular settlements, to master broad stretches of soil and obtain from it the requirements of life. If he did not possess this technology, either he would have to avoid these territories or likewise have to struggle along as a nomad in perpetual wandering, provided that his thousand-year-old education and habit of settled residence did not make this seem simply unbearable to him. We must bear in mind that in the time when the American continent was being opened up, numerous Aryans fought for their livelihood as trappers, hunters, etc., and often in larger troops with wife and children, always on the move, so that their existence was completely like that of the nomads. But as soon as their increasing number and better implements permitted them to clear the wild soil and make a stand against the natives, more and more settlements sprang up in the land.
Probably the Aryan was also first a nomad, settling in the course of time, but for that very reason he was never a Jew! No, the Jew is no nomad; for the nomad had also a definite attitude toward the concept of work which could serve as a basis for his later development in so far as the necessary intellectual premises were present. In him the basic idealistic view is present, even if in infinite dilution, hence in his whole being he may seem strange to the Aryan peoples, but not unattractive. In the Jew, however, this attitude is not at all present; for that reason he was never a nomad, but only and always a parasite in the body of other peoples. That he sometimes left his previous living space has nothing to do with his own purpose, but results from the fact that from time to time he was thrown out by the host nations he had misused. His spreading is a typical phenomenon for all parasites; he always seeks a new feeding ground for his race.
This, however, has nothing to do with nomadism, for the reason that a Jew never thinks of leaving a territory ·hat he has occupied, but remains where he is, and he sits so fast that even by force it is very hard to drive him out. His extension to ever-new countries occurs only in the moment in which certain conditions for his existence are there present, without which- unlike the nomad-he would not change his residence. He is and remains the typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favorable medium invites him. And the effect of his existence is also like that of spongers: wherever he appears, the host people dies out after a shorter or longer period.
Thus, the Jew of all times has lived in the states of other peoples, and there formed his own state, which, to be sure, habitually sailed under the disguise of 'religious community' as long as outward circumstances made a complete revelation of his nature seem inadvisable. But as soon as he felt strong enough to do without the protective cloak, he always dropped the veil and suddenly became what so many of the others previously did not want to believe and see: the Jew.
The Jew's life as a parasite in the body of other nations and states explains a characteristic which once caused Schopenhauer, as has already been mentioned, to call him the 'great master in lying.' Existence impels the Jew to lies and to lie perpetually, just as it compels the inhabitants of the northern countries to wear warm clothing.
His life within other peoples can only endure for any length of time if he succeeds in arousing the opinion that he is not a.people but a 'religious community,' though of a special sort.
And this is the first great lie.
In order to carry on his existence as a parasite on other peoples, he is forced to deny his inner nature. The more intelligent the individual Jew is, the more he will succeed in this deception. Indeed, things can go so far that large parts of the host people will end by seriously believing that the Jew is really a Frenchman or an Englishman, a German or an Italian, though of a special religious faith. Especially state authorities, which always seem animated by the historical fraction of wisdom, most easily fall a victim to this infinite deception. Independent thinking sometimes seems to these circles a true sin against holy advancement, so that we may not be surprised if even today a Bavarian state ministry, for example, still has not the faintest idea that the Jews are members of a people and not of a ' religion' though a glance at the Jew's own newspapers should indicate this even to the most modest mind. The Jewish Echo is not yet an official organ, of course, and consequently is unauthoritative as far as the intelligence of one of these government potentates is concerned.
The Jew has always been a people with definite racial characteristics and never a religion; only in order to get ahead he early sought for a means which could distract unpleasant attention from his person. And what would have been more expedient and at the same time more innocent than the 'embezzled' concept of a religious community? For here, too, everything is borrowed or rather stolen. Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world.
The Jewish religious doctrine consists primarily in prescriptions for keeping the blood of Jewry pure and for regulating the relation of Jews among themselves, but even more with the rest of the world; in other words, with non-Jews. But even here it is by no means ethical problems that are involved, but extremely modest economic ones. Concerning the moral value of Jewish religious instruction, there are today and have been at all times rather exhaustive studies (not by Jews; the drivel of the Jews themselves on the subject is, of course, adapted to its purpose) which make this kind of religion seem positively monstrous according to Aryan conceptions. The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-and this against their own nation.
On this first and greatest lie, that the Jews are not a race but a religion, more and more lies are based in necessary consequence. Among them is the lie with regard to the language of the Jew. For him it is not a means for expressing his thoughts, but a means for concealing them. When he speaks French, he thinks Jewish, and while he turns out German verses, in his life he only expresses the nature of his nationality. As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples, he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they became his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!), so that by this additional means the Jews could more easily dominate them!
To what an extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. What many Jews may do unconsciously is here consciously exposed. And that is what matters. It is completely indifferent from what Jewish brain these disclosures originate; the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims. The best criticism applied to them, however, is reality. Anyone who examines the historical development of the last hundred years from the standpoint of this book will at once understand the screaming of the Jewish press. For once this book has become the common property of a people, the Jewish menace may be considered as broken.The best way to know the Jew is to study the road which he has taken within the body of other peoples in the course of the centuries. It suffices to follow this up in only one example, to arrive at the necessary realizations. As his development has always and at all times been the same, just as that of the peoples corroded by him has also been the same, it is advisable in such an examination to divide his development into definite sections which in this case for the sake of simplicity I designate alphabetically. The first Jews came to ancient Germany in the course of the advance of the Romans, and as always they came as merchants. In the storms of the migrations, however, they seem to have disappeared again, and thus the time of the first Germanic state formation may be viewed as the beginning of a new and this time lasting Jewification of Central and Northern Europe. A development set in which has always been the same or similar wherever the Jews encountered Aryan peoples.
Mein Kampf by Adolf
Hitler
Volume Two - The
National Socialist Movement
Chapter II: The
State
By 1920-1921 certain
circles belonging to the present outlived 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 protect
the madness of human brains, a positively dog-like adoration of so-called
state authority is needed. 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 'Germanize' 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 Negro 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 today 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
today 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 today 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 philosophy of life 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
today. 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 folkish State is to guard and preserve those original racial
elements which, through their work in the cultural field, create that beauty
and dignity which are characteristic of a higher mankind. We, as Aryans,
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 today 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 today 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 today, 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:
The quality 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. Thus, conversely, 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 today. 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 today 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 today 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.
Mein Kampf by Adolf
Hitler
Volume Two - The
National Socialist Movement
Chapter III: Subjects
and Citizens
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 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 today so long as he may not become
a financial burden or a political danger.
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.
Mein Kampf by Adolf
Hitler
Volume Two - The
National Socialist Movement
Chapter IV: Personality
and the Conception of the Folkish 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 philosophy of
life 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 Weltanschhauung. 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 today.
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 today 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 today 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 today, 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
today.
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 folkish philosophy
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 view of life.
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 philosophy of life. 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 today 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.