Notes on National Socialist Theory

Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf

(Volume one 1925. Volume two 1927)

Summary Extracts
From Walter Theimer's . 1939 The Penguin Political Dictionary - Entry under "Hitler - Mein Kampf (pp 108-109) provides a "brief outline". I have followed this with Theimer's entry on "Aryans"

Hitler: Mein Kampf

The essence of all life is race and blood. There is a superior race called the Aryan (or Nordic) race. This has subdued inferior races and built civilisation. However, cross-breeding with inferiors is bringing about physical decline and spiritual decadence.

The Jews desire the destruction of the Aryan race. They form a secret world-wide organisation whose principle object is the disintegration of Aryan people by influencing to the mixing of blood. They hope to create a decadent race of mongrels which will easily succumb to Jewish domination.

France is the stronghold of the Jews. It is controlled by Jewish financiers. There is a constant inflow of negroes interbreeding with the French population. This is the work of the Jews, who want to see a Mulatto State stretching from the Congo to the Rhine, as the basis for bastardising the rest of white Europe.

Germany is the world's most outspoken Aryan power. It is therefore the chief object of Jewish hostility. They organised the 1914-1918 war to destroy Germany. They instigate French hostility to Germany, and, from the other side, organised the Communist revolution in Russia. Bolshevism and marxist socialism generally are nothing but a means to obtain Jewish world domination. The same can be said for democracy. Communists, socialists, democrats and freemasons all work for jewish-bolshevist aims in all countries, particularly Germany.

Hitler's mission (Mein Kampf = my fight/struggle) was to save Germany and the Aryan race generally from the threat from the Jews and their allies. His programme was to organise a strong nationalist State under National- Socialist leadership, to suppress all other parties, to combat the Jews and to concentrate on racial improvement. Germany would rearm, undoing the treaty of Versailles, and all German-speakers would be united within the Reich. Britain and Italy should be sought as allies in the destruction of France. This would secure Germany's back so that she could pursue a policy of eastward expansion, colonising southern Russia (the Ukraine). Germany would smash bolshevist Russia and take wide new territory from her. Overseas expansion would be postponed until Germany's continental empire was built - a German Empire of 250 million people of first-class race was destined to dominate the continent in a hundred years time. World expansion would follow her European power:

"Germany will either be a World Power or she will not be at all."


Walter Theimer's entry on
Aryans

A term originating in the science of languages and erroneously applied to the field of racial and national questions.

The word " Arya " is Sanskrit, and is the name by which a warlike northern Indian people is described in ancient Indian scripts about 3000BC. The name means "lord".

It became usual in philological science to speak of an inter-related group of Indian languages as "Ayran." A German scholar, Friedrich Max Müller, who lived at Oxford from 1848 until his death in 1900, invented the theory that the mythological Aryans had not only spoken the primitive Indo-European language from which all present languages of this family (ranging from Hindustani to English) derived their origin, but had even been the Aryan or Indo-European "Urvolk", primitive race.

Nationalist and romantic writers in Germany and also England seized upon this idea, and a myth arose of this Aryan Urvolk descending from the snow-clad peaks of the Pamir and spreading not only over all India and Persia but, more important, across the wide Russian steppes into all Europe to lay the foundations for all future civilisation.

It was claimed that all speakers of Indo-European languages were descendants of this "Ayran race", to whom extraordinary qualities were attributed.

Later research has proved beyond doubt that the Indo-Persian group of languages, the "Aryan" group in the philological sense, is not the eldest or primitive Indo-European language. Nobody knows what the people who first spoke a language of this family were like, where they lived (except that it was somewhere in Asia) and whether they bore any resemblance to any of the races inhabiting Europe at present.

There is no historical proof of any " Aryan " people coming from India to Europe. The Aryan languages may as well have come to India from Europe, and, generally speaking, languages may migrate without a corresponding racial migration. The Romanic elements in the English language were not introduced by a Romanic people but by the purely Teutonic Normans. The people or peoples who brought the Indo-European languages to Europe, wherever their cradle may have stood, need in no wise have been of Indo-European or "Aryan" race. Recent studies on the Aryan language of the biblical Hittites have even suggested the idea that the Aryan-speaking Urvolk was Semitic, long-nosed and black-haired.

Müller recognised his error in later years and wrote a good deal to repeal it. He emphasised that "Aryan" was only a philological term, and meant neither blood nor bones, nor hair, nor skull. As a matter of fact, there is no such thing as an Aryan in Europe. The myth, however, has survived its creator and become the principal weapon of Anti-Semitism. Thus "Aryan " is often merely synonymous with " non-Jewish ".

Extracts from Mein Kampf

Volume One: A Retrospect

1.1 In the Home of My Parents
1.2 Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna
1.3 Political Reflections Arising out of My Sojourn in Vienna
1.4 Munich
1.5 The World War
1.6 War Propaganda
1.7 The Revolution
1.8 The Beginning of My Political Activities
1.9 The German Labour Party
1.10 Why the Second Reich Collapsed
1.11 Race and People
1.12 The First Stage in the Development of the German National Socialist Labour Party

Volume Two: The National Socialist Movement

2.1 Weltanschauung and Party
2.2 The State
2.3 Citizens and Subjects of the State
2.4 Personality and the Ideal of the People's State
2.5 Weltanschauung and Organisation
2.6 The First Period of Our Struggle
2.7 The Conflict with the Red Forces
2.8 The Strong is Strongest When Alone
2.9 Fundamental Ideas Regarding the Nature and Organisation of The Storm Troops
2.10 The Mask of Federalism
2.11 Propaganda and Organisation
2.12 The Problem of the Trade Unions
2.13 The German Post-war Policy of Alliances
2.14 Germany's Policy in Eastern Europe
2.15 The Right to Self-defence

Volume 1: A Retrospect

1.4: Munich

In the spring of 1912 I came at last to Munich.

The city itself was as familiar to me as if I had lived for years within its walls. This is accounted for by my study which at every step had led me to this metropolis of German art. Not only has one not seen Germany if one does not know Munich - no, above all, one does not know German art if one has not seen Munich.

In any case, this period before the War was the happiest and by far the most contented of my life. Even if my earnings were still extremely meager, I did not live to be able to paint, but painted only to be able to secure my livelihood or rather to enable myself to go on studying. I possessed the conviction that I should some day, in spite of all obstacles, achieve the goal I had set myself. And this alone enabled me to bear all other petty cares of daily existence lightly and without anxiety.

In addition to this, there was the heartfelt love which seized me for this city more than for any other place that I knew, almost from the first hour of my sojourn there. A German city! What a difference from Vienna! I grew sick to my stomach when I even thought back on this Babylon of races. In addition, the dialect, much closer to me, which particularly in my contacts with Lower Bavarians, reminded me of my former childhood. There were a thousand and more things which were or became inwardly dear and precious to me. But most of all I was attracted by this wonderful marriage of primordial power and fine artistic mood, this single line from the Hofbrauhaus to the Odeon, from the October Festival to the Pinakothek, etc. If today I am more attached to this city than to any other spot of earth in this world, it is partly due to the fact that it is and remains inseparably bound up with the development of my own life; if even then I achieved the happiness of a truly inward contentment, it can be attributed only to the magic which the miraculous residence of the Wittelsbachs exerts on every man who is blessed, not only with a calculating mind but with a feeling soul.

What attracted me most aside from my professional work was, here again, the study of the political events of the day, among them particularly the occurrences in the field of foreign affairs....

...

What form shall the life of the nation assume in the near future - that is to say within such a period as we can forecast? And by what means can the necessary foundation and security be guaranteed for this development within the framework of the general distribution of power among the European nations? A clear analysis of the principles on which the foreign policy of German statecraft were to be based should have led to the following conclusions:

The annual increase of population in Germany amounts to almost 900,000 souls. The difficulties of providing for this army of new citizens must grow from year to year and must finally lead to a catastrophe, unless ways and means are found which will forestall the danger of misery and hunger. There were four ways of providing against this terrible calamity:

(1) It was possible to adopt the French example and artificially restrict the number of births, thus avoiding an excess of population.

Under certain circumstances, in periods of distress or under bad climatic condition, or if the soil yields too poor a return, Nature herself tends to check the increase of population in some countries and among some races, but by a method which is quite as ruthless as it is wise. It does not impede the procreative faculty as such; but it does impede the further existence of the offspring by submitting it to such tests and privations that everything which is less strong or less healthy is forced to retreat into the bosom of tile unknown. Whatever survives these hardships of existence has been tested and tried a thousandfold, hardened and renders fit to continue the process of procreation; so that the same thorough selection will begin all over again. By thus dealing brutally with the individual and recalling him the very moment he shows that he is not fitted for the trials of life, Nature preserves the strength of the race and the species and raises it to the highest degree of efficiency.

The decrease in numbers therefore implies an increase of strength, as far as the individual is concerned, and this finally means the invigoration of the species.

But the case is different when man himself starts the process of numerical restriction. Man is not carved from Nature's wood. He is made of 'human' material. He knows more than the ruthless Queen of Wisdom. He does not impede the preservation of the individual but prevents procreation itself. To the individual, who always sees only himself and not the race, this line of action seems more humane and just than the opposite way. But, unfortunately, the consequences are also the opposite.

By leaving the process of procreation unchecked and by submitting the individual to the hardest preparatory tests in life, Nature selects the best from an abundance of single elements and stamps them as fit to live and carry on the conservation of the species. But man restricts the procreative faculty and strives obstinately to keep alive at any cost whatever has once been born. This correction of the Divine Will seems to him to be wise and humane, and he rejoices at having trumped Nature's card in one game at least and thus proved that she is not entirely reliable. The dear little ape of an all-mighty father is delighted to see and hear that he has succeeded in effecting a numerical restriction; but he would be very displeased if told that this, his system, brings about a degeneration in personal quality.

For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which allows only healthy and strong individuals to survive is replaced by a sheer craze to 'save' feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus the seeds are sown for a human progeny which will become more and more miserable from one generation to another, as long as Nature's will is scorned.

But if that policy be carried out the final results must be that such a nation will eventually terminate its own existence on this earth; for though man may defy the eternal laws of procreation during a certain period, vengeance will follow sooner or later. A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak; for the vital urge, in its ultimate form, will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so-called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of Nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong.

Any policy which aims at securing the existence of a nation by restricting the birth-rate robs that nation of its future.

(2) A second solution is that of internal colonisation. This is a proposal which is frequently made in our own time and one hears it lauded a good deal. It is a suggestion that is well-meant but it is misunderstood by most people, so that it is the source of more mischief than can be imagined.

It is certainly true that the productivity of the soil can be increased within certain limits; but only within defined limits and not indefinitely. By increasing the productive powers of the soil it will be possible to balance the effect of a surplus birth-rate in Germany for a certain period of time, without running any danger of hunger. But we have to face the fact that the general standard of living is rising more quickly than even the birth rate. The requirements of food and clothing are becoming greater from year to year and are out of proportion to those of our ancestors of, let us say, a hundred years ago. It would, therefore, be a mistaken view that every increase in the productive powers of the soil will supply the requisite conditions for an increase in the population. No. That is true up to a certain point only, for at least a portion of the increased produce of the soil will be consumed by the margin of increased demands caused by the steady rise in the standard of living. But even if these demands were to be curtailed to the narrowest limits possible and if at the same time we were to use all our available energies in the intenser cultivation, we should here reach a definite limit which is conditioned by the inherent nature of the soil itself. No matter how industriously we may labour we cannot increase agricultural production beyond this limit. Therefore, though we may postpone the evil hour of distress for a certain time, it will arrive at last. The first phenomenon will be the recurrence of famine periods from time to time, after bad harvests, etc. The intervals between these famines will become shorter and shorter the more the population increases; and, finally, the famine times will disappear only in those rare years of plenty when the granaries are full. And a time will ultimately come when even in those years of plenty there will not be enough to go round; so that hunger will dog the footsteps of the nation. Nature must now step in once more and select those who are to survive, or else man will help himself by artificially preventing his own increase, with all the fatal consequences for the race and the species which have been already mentioned.

It may be objected here that, in one form or another, this future is in store for all mankind and that the individual nation or race cannot escape the general fate.

At first glance, that objection seems logical enough; but we have to take the following into account:

The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of the human species, because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the perpetual increase in the population. Nature must then be allowed to use her own methods or man may possibly take the task of regulation into his own hands and establish the necessary equilibrium by the application of better means than we have at our disposal to-day. But then it will be a problem for mankind as a whole, whereas now only those races have to suffer from want which no longer have the strength and daring to acquire sufficient soil to fulfil their needs. For, as things stand to-day, vast spaces still lie uncultivated all over the surface of the globe. Those spaces are only waiting for the ploughshare. And it is quite certain that Nature did not set those territories apart as the exclusive pastures of any one nation or race to be held unutilised in reserve for the future. Such land awaits the people who have the strength to acquire it and the diligence to cultivate it.

Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart and they will be granted the sovereign right of existence.

If a nation confines itself to 'internal colonisation' while other races are perpetually increasing their territorial annexations all over the globe, that nation will be forced to restrict the numerical growth of its population at a time when the other nations are increasing theirs. This situation must eventually arrive. It will arrive soon if the territory which the nation has at its disposal be small. Now it is unfortunately true that only too often the best nations - or, to speak more exactly, the only really cultured nations, who at the same time are the chief bearers of human progress - have decided, in their blind pacifism, to refrain from the acquisition of new territory and to be content with 'internal colonisation.' But at the same time nations of inferior quality succeed in getting hold of large spaces for colonisation all over the globe. The state of affairs which must result from this contrast is the following:

Races which are culturally superior but less ruthless would be forced to restrict their increase, because of insufficient territory to support the population, while less civilised races could increase indefinitely, owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words: should that state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior but more active and energetic.

A time will come, even though in the distant future, when there can be only two alternatives: Either the world will be ruled according to our modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favour of the numerically stronger races; or the world will be governed by the law of natural distribution of power, and then those nations will be victorious who are of more brutal will and are not the nations who have practised self-denial.

Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful struggles for existence on the part of mankind. In the end the instinct of self-preservation alone will triumph. Before its consuming fire this so-called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous timidity and self-conceit, will melt away as under the March sunshine. Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace his greatness must decline.

For us Germans, the slogan of 'internal colonisation' is fatal, because it encourages the belief that we have discovered a means which is in accordance with our innate pacifism and which will enable us to work for our livelihood in a half slumbering existence. Such a teaching, once it were taken seriously by our people, would mean the end of all effort to acquire for ourselves that place in the world which we deserve. If. the average German were once convinced that by this measure he has the chance of ensuring his livelihood and guaranteeing his future, any attempt to take an active and profitable part in sustaining the vital demands of his country would be out of the question. Should the nation agree to such an attitude then any really useful foreign policy might be looked upon as dead and buried, together with all hope for the future of the German people.

Once we know what the consequences of this 'internal colonisation' theory would be we can no longer consider as a mere accident the fact that among those who inculcate this quite pernicious mentality among our people the Jew is always in the first line. He knows his softies only too well not to know that they are ready to be the grateful victims of every swindle which promises them a gold-block in the shape of a discovery that will enable them to outwit Nature and thus render superfluous the hard and inexorable struggle for existence; so that finally they may become lords of the planet partly by sheer DOLCE FAR NIENTE and partly by working when a pleasing opportunity arises.

It cannot be too strongly emphasised that any German 'internal colonisation' must first of all be considered as suited only for the relief of social grievances. To carry out a system of internal colonisation, the most important preliminary measure would be to free the soil from the grip of the speculator and assure that freedom. But such a system could never suffice to assure the future of the nation without the acquisition of new territory.

If we adopt a different plan we shall soon reach a point beyond which the resources of our soil can no longer be exploited, and at the same time we shall reach a point beyond which our man-power cannot develop.

In conclusion, the following must be said:

The fact that only up to a limited extent can internal colonisation be practised in a national territory which is of definitely small area and the restriction of the procreative faculty which follows as a result of such conditions - these two factors have a very unfavourable effect on the military and political standing of a nation.

The extent of the national territory is a determining factor in the external security of the nation. The larger the territory which a people has at its disposal the stronger are the national defences of that people. Military decisions are more quickly, more easily, more completely and more effectively gained against a people occupying a national territory which is restricted in area, than against States which have extensive territories. Moreover, the magnitude of a national territory is in itself a certain assurance that an outside Power will not hastily risk the adventure of an invasion; for in that case the struggle would have to be long and exhausting before victory could be hoped for. The risk being so great. there would have to be extraordinary reasons for such an aggressive adventure. Hence it is that the territorial magnitude of a State furnishes a basis whereon national liberty and independence can be maintained with relative ease; while, on the contrary, a State whose territory is small offers a natural temptation to the invader.

As a matter of fact, so-called national circles in the German REICH rejected those first two possibilities of establishing a balance between the constant numerical increase in the population and a national territory which could not expand proportionately. But the reasons given for that rejection were different from those which I have just expounded. It was mainly on the basis of certain moral sentiments that restriction of the birth-rate was objected to. Proposals for internal colonisation were rejected indignantly because it was suspected that such a policy might mean an attack on the big landowners, and that this attack might be the forerunner of a general assault against the principle of private property as a whole. The form in which the latter solution - internal colonisation - was recommended justified the misgivings of the big landowners.

But the form in which the colonisation proposal was rejected was not very clever, as regards the impression which such rejection might be calculated to make on the mass of the people, and anyhow it did not go to the root of the problem at all.

Only two further ways were left open in which work and bread could be secured for the increasing population.

(3) It was possible to think of acquiring new territory on which a certain portion of' the increasing population could be settled each year; or else

(4) Our industry and commerce had to be organised in such a manner as to secure an increase in the exports and thus be able to support our people by the increased purchasing power accruing from the profits made on foreign markets.

Therefore the problem was: A policy of territorial expansion or a colonial and commercial policy. Both policies were taken into consideration, examined, recommended and rejected, from various standpoints, with the result that the second alternative was finally adopted. The sounder alternative, however, was undoubtedly the first.

...

Nothing was dreaded so much as the possibility of an armed conflict; but finally, and at a most unfavourable moment, the conflict had to be faced and accepted. They thought to cut loose from the cords of destiny, but destiny held them fast.

They dreamt of maintaining a world peace and woke up to find themselves in a world war.

And that dream of peace was a most significant reason why the above-mentioned third alternative for the future development of Germany was not even taken into consideration. The fact was recognised that new territory could be gained only in the East; but this meant that there would be fighting ahead, whereas they wanted peace at any cost. The slogan of German foreign policy at one time used to be: The use of all possible means for the maintenance of the German nation. Now it was changed to: Maintenance of world peace by all possible means. We know what the result was. I shall resume the discussion of this point in detail later on.

There remained still another alternative, which we may call the fourth. This was: Industry and world trade, naval power and colonies.

Such a development might certainly have been attained more easily and more rapidly. To colonise a territory is a slow process, often extending over centuries. Yet this fact is the source of its inner strength, for it is not through a sudden burst of enthusiasm that it can be put into effect, but rather through a gradual and enduring process of growth quite different from industrial progress, which can be urged on by advertisement within a few years. The result thus achieved, however, is not of lasting quality but something frail, like a soap-bubble. It is much easier to build quickly than to carry through the tough task of settling a territory with farmers and establishing farmsteads. But the former is more quickly destroyed than the latter.

In adopting such a course Germany must have known that to follow it out would necessarily mean war sooner or later. Only children could believe that sweet and unctuous expressions of goodness and persistent avowals of peaceful intentions could get them their bananas through this 'friendly competition between the nations', with the prospect of never having to fight for them.

...

Now, the truth is that the State in itself has nothing whatsoever to do with any definite economic concept or a definite economic development. It does not arise from a compact made between contracting parties, within a certain delimited territory, for the purpose of serving economic ends. The State is a community of living beings who have kindred physical and spiritual natures, organised for the purpose of assuring the conservation of their own kind and to help towards fulfilling those ends which Providence has assigned to that particular race or racial branch. Therein, and therein alone, lie the purpose and meaning of a State. Economic activity is one of the many auxiliary means which are necessary for the attainment of those aims. But economic activity is never the origin or purpose of a State, except where a State has been originally founded on a false and unnatural basis. And this alone explains why a State as such does not necessarily need a certain delimited territory as a condition of its establishment. This condition becomes a necessary pre-requisite only among those people who would provide and assure subsistence for their kinsfolk through their own industry, which means that they are ready to carry on the struggle for existence by means of their own work. People who can sneak their way, like parasites, into the human body politic and make others work for them under various pretences can form a State without possessing any definite delimited territory. This is chiefly applicable to that parasitic nation which, particularly at the present time preys upon the honest portion of mankind; I mean the Jews.

The Jewish State has never been delimited in space. It has been spread all over the world, without any frontiers whatsoever, and has always been constituted from the membership of one race exclusively. That is why the Jews have always formed a State within the State. One of the most ingenious tricks ever devised has been that of sailing the Jewish ship-of-state under the flag of Religion and thus securing that tolerance which Aryans are always ready to grant to different religious faiths. But the Mosaic Law is really nothing else than the doctrine of the preservation of the Jewish race. Therefore this Law takes in all spheres of sociological, political and economic science which have a bearing on the main end in view.

The instinct for the preservation of one's own species is the primary cause that leads to the formation of human communities. Hence the State is a racial organism, and not an economic organisation. The difference between the two is so great as to be incomprehensible to our contemporary so-called 'statesmen'. That is why they like to believe that the State may be constituted as an economic structure, whereas the truth is that it has always resulted from the exercise of those qualities which are part of the will to preserve the species and the race. But these qualities always exist and operate through the heroic virtues and have nothing to do with commercial egoism; for the conservation of the species always presupposes that the individual is ready to sacrifice himself. Such is the meaning of the poet's lines:

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

[and if you do not stake your life,
you will never win life for yourself.]

Note: Lines quoted from the "Song of the Curassiers" in Schiller's Wallenstein - External link to Gutenburg text]

The sacrifice of the individual existence is necessary in order to assure the conservation of the race. Hence it is that the most essential condition for the establishment and maintenance of a State is a certain feeling of solidarity, wounded [grounded?] in an identity of character and race and in a resolute readiness to defend these at all costs. With people who live on their own territory this will result in a development of the heroic virtues; with a parasitic people it will develop the arts of subterfuge and gross perfidy unless we admit that these characteristics are innate and that the varying political forms through which the parasitic race expresses itself are only the outward manifestations of innate characteristics. At least in the beginning, the formation of a State can result only from a manifestation of the heroic qualities I have spoken of. And the people who fail in the struggle for existence, that is to say those, who become vassals and are thereby condemned to disappear entirely sooner or later, are those who do not display the heroic virtues in the struggle, or those who fall victims to the perfidy of the parasites. And even in this latter case the failure is not so much due to lack of intellectual powers, but rather to a lack of courage and determination. An attempt is made to conceal the real nature of this failing by saying that it is the humane feeling.

The qualities which are employed for the foundation and preservation of a State have accordingly little or nothing to do with the economic situation. And this is conspicuously demonstrated by the fact that the inner strength of a State only very rarely coincides with what is called its economic expansion. On the contrary, there are numerous examples to show that a period of economic prosperity indicates the approaching decline of a State. If it were correct to attribute the foundation of human communities to economic forces, then the power of the State as such would be at its highest pitch during periods of economic prosperity, and not vice versa.

It is specially difficult to understand how the belief that the State is brought into being and preserved by economic forces could gain currency in a country which has given proof of the opposite in every phase of its history. The history of Prussia shows in a manner particularly clear and distinct, that it is out of the moral virtues of the people and not from their economic circumstances that a State is formed. It is only under the protection of those virtues that economic activities can be developed and the latter will continue to flourish until a time comes when the creative political capacity declines. Therewith the economic structure will also break down, a phenomenon which is now happening in an alarming manner before our eyes. The material interest of mankind can prosper only in the shade of the heroic virtues. The moment they become the primary considerations of life they wreck the basis of their own existence.

Whenever the political power of Germany was specially strong the economic situation also improved. But whenever economic interests alone occupied the foremost place in the life of the people, and thrust transcendent ideals into the back.-ground, the State collapsed and economic ruin followed readily.

If we consider the question of what those forces actually are which are necessary to the creation and preservation of a State, we shall find that they are: The capacity and readiness to sacrifice the individual to the common welfare. That these qualities have nothing at all to do with economics can be proved by referring to the simple fact that man does not sacrifice himself for material interests. In other words, he will die for an ideal but not for a business. The marvellous gift for public psychology which the English have was never shown better than the way in which they presented their case in the World War. We were fighting for our bread; but the English declared that they were fighting for 'freedom', and not at all for their own freedom. Oh, no, but for the freedom of the small nations. German people laughed at that effrontery and were angered by it; but in doing so they showed how political thought had declined among our so-called diplomats in Germany even before the War. These diplomatists did not have the slightest notion of what that force was which brought men to face death of their own free will and determination.

As long as the German people, in the War of 1914, continued to believe that they were fighting for ideals they stood firm. As soon as they were told that they were fighting only for their daily bread they began to give up the struggle.

...

1.5: The World War

The War of 1914 was certainly not forced on the masses; it was even desired by the whole people.
...
My own attitude towards the conflict was... simple and clear. I believed that it was not a case of Austria fighting to get satisfaction from Serbia but rather a case of Germany fighting for her own existence - the German nation for its own to-be-or-not-to-be, for its freedom and for its future. The work of Bismarck must now be carried on. Young Germany must show itself worthy of the blood shed by our fathers ... And if this struggle should bring us victory our people will again rank foremost among the great nations. Only then could the German Empire assert itself as the mighty champion of peace, without the necessity of restricting the daily bread of its children for the sake of maintaining the peace.
...
I had so often sung Deutschland über alles and so often roared Heil that I now thought it was as a kind of retro-active grace that I was granted the right of appearing before the Court of Eternal Justice to testify to the truth of those sentiments.
...
In the August of 1914 the German worker was looked upon as an adherent of Marxist socialism. That was a gross error. When those fateful hours dawned the German worker shook off the poisonous clutches of that plague; otherwise he would not have been so willing and ready to fight. And people were stupid enough to imagine that Marxism had now become 'national', another apt illustration of the fact that those in authority had never taken the trouble to study the real tenor of the Marxist teaching. If they had done so, such foolish errors would not have been committed.

Marxism, whose final objective was and is and will continue to be the destruction of all non-Jewish national States, had to witness in those days of July 1914 how the German working classes, which it had been inveigling, were aroused by the national spirit and rapidly ranged themselves on the side of the Fatherland. Within a few days the deceptive smoke-screen of that infamous national betrayal had vanished into thin air and the Jewish bosses suddenly found themselves alone and deserted. It was as if not a vestige had been left of that folly and madness with which the masses of the German people had been inoculated for sixty years. That was indeed an evil day for the betrayers of German Labour. The moment, however, that the leaders realised the danger which threatened them they pulled the magic cap of deceit over their ears and, without being identified, played the part of mimes in the national reawakening.

The time seemed to have arrived for proceeding against the whole Jewish gang of public pests. Then it was that action should have been taken regardless of any consequent whining or protestation. At one stroke, in the August of 1914, all the empty nonsense about international solidarity was knocked out of the heads of the German working classes. A few weeks later, instead of this stupid talk sounding in their ears, they heard the noise of American-manufactured shrapnel bursting above the heads of the marching columns, as a symbol of international comradeship. Now that the German worker had rediscovered the road to nationhood, it ought to have been the duty of any Government which had the care of the people in its keeping, to take this opportunity of mercilessly rooting out everything that was opposed to the national spirit.
...
Of course this suggestion would give rise to the question: Is it possible to eradicate ideas by force of arms? Could a Weltanschauung be attacked by means of physical force?

At that time I turned these questions over and over again in my mind. By studying analogous cases, exemplified in history, particularly those which had arisen from religious circumstances, I came to the following fundamental conclusion:

Ideas and philosophical systems as well as movements grounded on a definite spiritual foundation, whether true or not, can never be broken by the use of force after a certain stage, except on one condition: namely, that this use of force is in the service of a new idea or Weltanschauung which burns with a new flame.

The application of force alone, without moral support based on a spiritual concept, can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind. Now in the majority of cases the result of such a course has been to exclude such a State, either temporarily or for ever, from the comity of States that are of political significance; but experience has also shown that such a sanguinary method of extirpation arouses the better section of the population under the persecuting power. As a matter of fact, every persecution which has no spiritual motives to support it is morally unjust and raises opposition among the best elements of the population; so much so that these are driven more and more to champion the ideas that are unjustly persecuted.
...
... nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine, without having some spiritual basis of attack against it, and also to wipe out all the organisations it has created, have led in many cases to the very opposite being achieved...

1.8 The Beginning of My Political Activities

1.8.1: Towards the end of November [1918] I returned to Munich. I went to the depot of my regiment, which was now in the hands of the 'Soldiers' Councils'. As the whole administration was quite repulsive to me, I decided to leave it as soon as I possibly could. With my faithful war-comrade, Ernst-Schmidt, I came to Traunstein and remained there until the camp was broken up. In March 1919 we were back again in Munich.

1.8.2: The situation there could not last as it was. It tended irresistibly to a further extension of the Revolution. Eisner's death served only to hasten this development and finally led to the dictatorship of the Councils - or, to put it more correctly, to a Jewish hegemony, which turned out to be transitory but which was the original aim of those who had contrived the Revolution.

1.8.3: At that juncture innumerable plans took shape in my mind. I spent whole days pondering on the problem of what could be done, but unfortunately every project had to give way before the hard fact that I was quite unknown and therefore did not have even the first pre-requisite necessary for effective action. Later on I shall explain the reasons why I could not decide to join any of the parties then in existence.

1.8.4: As the new Soviet Revolution began to run its course in Munich my first activities drew upon me the ill-will of the Central Council. In the early morning of April 27th, 1919, I was to have been arrested; but the three fellows who came to arrest me did not have the courage to face my rifle and withdrew just as they had arrived.

1.8.5: A few days after the liberation of Munich I was ordered to appear before the Inquiry Commission which had been set up in the 2nd Infantry Regiment for the purpose of watching revolutionary activities. That was my first incursion into the more or less political field.

1.8.6: After another few weeks I received orders to attend a course of lectures which were being given to members of the army. This course was meant to inculcate certain fundamental principles on which the soldier could base his political ideas. For me the advantage of this organisation was that it gave me a chance of meeting fellow soldiers who were of the same way of thinking and with whom I could discuss the actual situation. We were all more or less firmly convinced that Germany could not be saved from imminent disaster by those who had participated in the November treachery - that is to say, the Centre and the Social-Democrats; and also that the so-called Bourgeois-National group could not make good the damage that had been done, even if they had the best intentions. They lacked a number of requisites without which such a task could never be successfully undertaken. The years that followed have justified the opinions which we held at that time.

1.8.7: In our small circle we discussed the project of forming a new party. The leading ideas which we then proposed were the same as those which were carried into effect afterwards, when the German Labour Party was founded. The name of the new movement which was to be founded should be such that of itself, it would appeal to the mass of the people; for all our efforts would turn out vain and useless if this condition were lacking. And that was the reason why we chose the name 'Social-Revolutionary Party', particularly because the social principles of our new organisation were indeed revolutionary.

1.8.8: But there was also a more fundamental reason. The attention which I had given to economic problems during my earlier years was more or less confined to considerations arising directly out of the social problem. Subsequently this outlook broadened as I came to study the German policy of the Triple Alliance. This policy was very largely the result of an erroneous valuation of the economic situation, together with a confused notion as to the basis on which the future subsistence of the German people could be guaranteed. All these ideas were based on the principle that capital is exclusively the product of labour and that, just like labour, it was subject to all the factors which can hinder or promote human activity. Hence, from the national standpoint, the significance of capital depended on the greatness and freedom and power of the State, that is to say, of the nation, and that it is this dependence alone which leads capital to promote the interests of the State and the nation, from the instinct of self-preservation and for the sake of its own development.

1.8.9: On such principles the attitude of the State towards capital would be comparatively simple and clear. Its only object would be to make sure that capital remained subservient to the State and did not allocate to itself the right to dominate national interests. Thus it could confine its activities within the two following limits: on the one side, to assure a vital and independent system of national economy and, on the other, to safeguard the social rights of the workers.

1.8.10: Previously I did not recognise with adequate clearness the difference between capital which is purely the product of creative labour and the existence and nature of capital which is exclusively the result of financial speculation. Here I needed an impulse to set my mind thinking in this direction; but that impulse had hitherto been lacking.

1.8.11: The requisite impulse now came from one of the men who delivered lectures in the course I have already mentioned. This was Gottfried Feder.

1.8.12: For the first time in my life I heard a discussion which dealt with the principles of stock-exchange capital and capital which was used for loan activities. After hearing the first lecture delivered by Feder, the idea immediately came into my head that I had now found a way to one of the most essential pre-requisites for the founding of a new party.

1.8.13: To my mind, Feder's merit consisted in the ruthless and trenchant way in which he described the double character of the capital engaged in stock-exchange and loan transaction, laying bare the fact that this capital is ever and always dependent on the payment of interest.

...

1.8.28: ... the following must be borne in mind: Any idea may be a source of danger if it be looked upon as an end in itself, when really it is only the means to an end. For me and for all genuine National-Socialists there is only one doctrine: People and Fatherland.

1.8.29: What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfil the mission assigned to it by the Creator.

1.8.30: All ideas and ideals, all teaching and all knowledge, must serve these ends. It is from this standpoint that everything must be examined and turned to practical uses or else discarded. Thus a theory can never become a mere dead dogma since everything will have to serve the practical ends of everyday life.

1.9 The German Labour Party
1.9 The German Workers Party

1939 - 1969 p.199

1.9.10: ... I was living in one of the barracks of the 2nd Infantry Regiment. I had a little room which still bore the unmistakable traces of the Revolution. During the day I was mostly out, at the quarters of Light Infantry No. 41 or else attending meetings or lectures, held at some other branch of the army. I spent only the night at the quarters where I lodged. Since I usually woke up about five o'clock every morning I got into the habit of amusing myself with watching little mice which played around in my small room. I used to place a few pieces of hard bread or crust on the floor and watch the funny little beasts playing around and enjoying themselves with these delicacies. I had suffered so many privations in my own life that I well knew what hunger was and could only too well picture to myself the pleasure these little creatures were experiencing.

1.9.11: So on the morning after the meeting I have mentioned, it happened that about five o'clock I lay fully awake in bed, watching the mice playing and vying with each other. As I was not able to go to sleep again, I suddenly remembered the pamphlet that one of the workers had given me at the meeting. It was a small pamphlet of which this worker was the author. In his little book he described how his mind had thrown off the shackles of the Marxist and trades-union phraseology, and that he had come back to the nationalist ideals. That was the reason why he had entitled his little book: "My Political Awakening". The pamphlet secured my attention the moment I began to read, and I read it with interest to the end. The process here described was similar to that which I had experienced in my own case ten years previously. Unconsciously my own experiences began to stir again in my mind. During that day my thoughts returned several times to what I had read; but I finally decided to give the matter no further attention. A week or so later, however, I received a postcard which informed me, to my astonishment, that I had been admitted into the German Labour Party. I was asked to answer this communication and to attend a meeting of the Party Committee on Wednesday next.

1.9.12: This manner of getting members rather amazed me, and I did not know whether to be angry or laugh at it. Hitherto I had not any idea of entering a party already in existence but wanted to found one of my own. Such an invitation as I now had received I looked upon as entirely out of the question for me.

1.9.13: I was about to send a written reply when my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to attend the gathering at the date assigned, so that I might expound my principles to these gentlemen in person.
....
1.9.15: I went through the badly-lighted guest-room, where not a single guest was to be seen, and searched for the door which led to the side room; and there I was face-to-face with the 'Congress'. Under the dim light shed by a grimy gas-lamp I could see four young people sitting around a table, one of them the author of the pamphlet. He greeted me cordially and welcomed me as a new member of the German Labour Party.
....
1.9.17: ... The Reich National President of the Association was a certain Herr Harrer and the President for the Munich district was Anton Drexler.

1.9.18: The minutes of the previous meeting were read out and a vote of confidence in the secretary was passed. Then came the treasurer's report...

1.9.19: It was all very awful. This was the worst kind of parish-pump clubbism. And was I supposed to become a member of such a club?

1.9.20: The question of new members was next discussed - that is to say, the question of catching myself in the trap.

1.9.21: I now began to ask questions. But I found that, apart from a few general principles, there was nothing - no programme, no pamphlet, nothing at all in print, no card of membership, not even a party stamp, nothing but obvious good faith and good intentions.

1.9.22: I no longer felt inclined to laugh; for what else was all this but a typical sign of the most complete perplexity and deepest despair in regard to all political parties, their programmes and views and activities? The feeling which had induced those few young people to join in what seemed such a ridiculous enterprise was nothing but the call of the inner voice which told them - though more intuitively than consciously - that the whole party system as it had hitherto existed was not the kind of force that could restore the German nation or repair the damages that had been done to the German people by those who hitherto controlled the internal affairs of the nation. I quickly read through the list of principles that formed the platform of the party. These principles were stated on typewritten sheets. Here again I found evidence of the spirit of longing and searching, but no sign whatever of a knowledge of the conflict that had to be fought.

1.9.23: I myself had experienced the feelings which inspired those people. It was the longing for a movement which should be more than a party, in the hitherto accepted meaning of that word.

1.9.24 When I returned to my room in the barracks that evening I had formed a definite opinion on this association and I was facing the most difficult problem of my life. Should I join this party or refuse?

...

1.10 Why the Second Reich Collapsed

1.10.16 ... are nations ever ruined by a lost war and by that alone? ... military defeats are the result of internal decay, cowardice, want of character, and are a retribution for such things. If such were not the causes then a military defeat would lead to a national resurgence and bring the nation to a higher pitch of effort. ...

1.10.22 But it remained for the Jews... and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute responsibility for the downfall... on the shoulders of Ludendorff... they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to Justice. All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

1.10.23 From time immemorial. however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, whereas in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. He (Schopenhauer) called the Jew "The Great Master of Lies". Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail.

1.10.24 We may regard it as a great stroke of fortune for the German nation that its period of lingering suffering was so suddenly curtailed and transformed into such a terrible catastrophe. For if things had gone on as they were the nation would have more slowly, but more surely, gone to ruin. The disease would have become chronic; whereas, in the acute form of the disaster, it at least showed itself clearly to the eyes of a considerable number of observers. It was not by accident that man conquered the black plague more easily than he conquered tuberculosis. The first appeared in terrifying waves of death that shook the whole of mankind, the other advances insidiously; the first induces terror, the other gradual indifference. The result is, however, that men opposed the first with all the energy they were capable of, whilst they try to arrest tuberculosis by feeble means. Thus man has mastered the black plague, while tuberculosis still gets the better of him.

1.10.25 The same applies to diseases in nations. So long as these diseases are not of a catastrophic character, the population will slowly accustom itself to them and later succumb. It is then a stroke of luck--although a bitter one--when Fate decides to interfere in this slow process of decay and suddenly brings the victim face to face with the final stage of the disease. More often than not the result of a catastrophe is that a cure is at once undertaken and carried through with rigid determination.

1.10.26 But even in such a case the essential preliminary condition is always the recognition of the internal causes which have given rise to the disease in question.

1.10.27 The important question here is the differentiation of the root causes from the circumstances developing out of them. This becomes all the more difficult the longer the germs of disease remain in the national body and the longer they are allowed to become an integral part of that body. It may easily happen that, as time goes on, it will become so difficult to recognize certain definite virulent poisons as such that they are accepted as belonging to the national being; or they are merely tolerated as a necessary evil, so that drastic attempts to locate those alien germs are not held to be necessary.

1.10.28 During the long period of peace prior to the last war certain evils were apparent here and there although, with one or two exceptions, very little effort was made to discover their origin. Here again these exceptions were first and foremost those phenomena in the economic life of the nation which were more apparent to the individual than the evil conditions existing in a good many other spheres.

1.10.29 There were many signs of decay which ought to have been given serious thought. As far as economics were concerned, the following may be said:--

The amazing increase of population in Germany before the war brought the question of providing daily bread into a more and more prominent position in all spheres of political and economic thought and action. But unfortunately those responsible could not make up their minds to arrive at the only correct solution and preferred to reach their objective by cheaper methods. Repudiation of the idea of acquiring fresh territory and the substitution for it of the mad desire for the commercial conquest of the world was bound to lead eventually to unlimited and injurious industrialization.

1.10.30 The first and most fatal result brought about in this way was the weakening of the agricultural classes, whose decline was proportionate to the increase in the proletariat of the urban areas, until finally the equilibrium was completely upset.

1.10.31 The big barrier dividing rich and poor now became apparent. Luxury and poverty lived so close to each other that the consequences were bound to be deplorable. Want and frequent unemployment began to play havoc with the people and left discontent and embitterment behind them. The result of this was to divide the population into political classes. Discontent increased in spite of commercial prosperity. Matters finally reached that stage which brought about the general conviction that 'things cannot go on as they are', although no one seemed able to visualize what was really going to happen.

1.10.32 These were typical and visible signs of the depths which the prevailing discontent had reached. Far worse than these, however, were other consequences which became apparent as a result of the industrialization of the nation.

1.10.33 In proportion to the extent that commerce assumed definite control of the State, money became more and more of a God whom all had to serve and bow down to. Heavenly Gods became more and more old-fashioned and were laid away in the corners to make room for the worship of mammon. And thus began a period of utter degeneration which became specially pernicious because it set in at a time when the nation was more than ever in need of an exalted idea, for a critical hour was threatening. Germany should have been prepared to protect with the sword her efforts to win her own daily bread in a peaceful way.

1.10.34 Unfortunately, the predominance of money received support and sanction in the very quarter which ought to have been opposed to it. His Majesty, the Kaiser, made a mistake when he raised representatives of the new finance capital to the ranks of the nobility. Admittedly, it may be offered as an excuse that even Bismarck failed to realize the threatening danger in this respect. In practice, however, all ideal virtues became secondary considerations to those of money, for it was clear that having once taken this road, the nobility of the sword would very soon rank second to that of finance.

1.10.35 Financial operations succeed easier than war operations. Hence it was no longer any great attraction for a true hero or even a statesman to be brought into touch with the nearest Jew banker. Real merit was not interested in receiving cheap decorations and therefore declined them with thanks. But from the standpoint of good breeding such a development was deeply regrettable. The nobility began to lose more and more of the racial qualities that were a condition of its very existence, with the result that in many cases the term 'plebeian' would have been more appropriate.

1.10.36 A serious state of economic disruption was being brought about by the slow elimination of the personal control of vested interests and the gradual transference of the whole economic structure into the hands of joint stock companies.

1.10.37 In this way labour became degraded into an object of speculation in the hands of unscrupulous exploiters.

1.10.38 The de-personalization of property ownership increased on a vast scale. Financial exchange circles began to triumph and made slow but sure progress in assuming control of the whole of national life.

1.10.39 Before the War the internationalization of the German economic structure had already begun by the roundabout way of share issues. It is true that a section of the German industrialists made a determined attempt to avert the danger, but in the end they gave way before the united attacks of money-grabbing capitalism, which was assisted in this fight by its faithful henchmen in the Marxist movement.

1.10.40 The persistent war against German 'heavy industries' was the visible start of the internationalization of German economic life as envisaged by the Marxists. This, however, could only be brought to a successful conclusion by the victory which Marxism was able to gain in the Revolution. As I write these words, success is attending the general attack on the German State Railways which are now to be turned over to international capitalists. Thus 'International Social-Democracy' has once again attained one of its main objectives.

1.10.41 The best evidence of how far this 'commercialization' of the German nation was able to go can be plainly seen in the fact that when the War was over one of the leading captains of German industry and commerce gave it as his opinion that commerce as such was the only force which could put Germany on its feet again.
...
1.10.100 What is known as Gymnasium (Grammar School) to-day is a positive insult to the Greek institution. Our system of education entirely loses sight of the fact that in the long run a healthy mind can exist only in a healthy body. This statement, with few exceptions, applies particularly to the broad masses of the nation.

In the pre-War Germany there was a time when no one took the trouble to think over this truth. Training of the body was criminally neglected, the one-sided training of the mind being regarded as a sufficient guarantee for the nation's greatness. This mistake was destined to show its effects sooner than had been anticipated. It is not pure chance that the Bolshevic teaching flourishes in those regions whose degenerate population has been brought to the verge of starvation, as, for example, in the case of Central Germany, Saxony, and the Ruhr Valley. In all these districts there is a marked absence of any serious resistance, even by the so-called intellectual classes, against this Jewish contagion. And the simple reason is that the intellectual classes are themselves physically degenerate, not through privation but through education. The exclusive intellectualism of the education in vogue among our upper classes makes them unfit for life's struggle at an epoch in which physical force and not mind is the dominating factor. Thus they are neither capable of maintaining themselves nor of making their way in life. In nearly every case physical disability is the forerunner of personal cowardice.

1.11: Race and People

1.11.3: ... all the innumerable forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a fundamental law - ...an iron law of Nature - which compels... species to keep within ... their own life-forms... Each animal mates only with one of its own species.

1.11.4: Deviations from this law take place only in exceptional circumstances... under the compulsion of captivity, or when some other obstacle makes procreative intercourse impossible between individuals of the same species. But then Nature abhors such intercourse with all her might; and her protest is most clearly demonstrated by the fact that the hybrid is either sterile or the fecundity of its descendants is limited. In most cases hybrids and their progeny are denied the ordinary powers of resistance to disease or the natural means of defence against outer attack.

1.11.5: Such a dispensation of Nature is quite logical. Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature towards the selective improvements of life in general. The favourable preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and lower orders of being but rather to allow the complete triumph of the higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.

1.11.6: This urge for the maintenance of the unmixed breed, which is a phenomenon that prevails throughout the whole of the natural world, results not only in the sharply defined outward distinction between one species and another but also in the internal similarity of characteristic qualities which are peculiar to each breed or species... The only difference that can exist within the species must be in... degrees... It would be impossible to find a fox which has a kindly and protective disposition towards geese, just as no cat exists which has a friendly disposition towards mice.

1.11.7: ... the struggle between... species does not arise from ... mutual antipathy but ... from hunger and love. In both cases Nature looks on calmly and is even pleased with what happens. The struggle for the daily livelihood leaves behind in the ruck everything that is weak or diseased or wavering; while the fight of the male to possess the female gives to the strongest the right, or at least, the possibility to propagate its kind. And this struggle is a means of furthering the health and powers of resistance in the species. Thus it is one of the causes underlying the process of development towards a higher quality of being.

1.11.8: If the case were different the progressive process would cease, and even retrogression might set in. Since the inferior always outnumber the superior, the former would always increase more rapidly if they possessed the same capacities for survival and for the procreation of their kind; and the final consequence would be that the best in quality would be forced to recede into the background. Therefore a corrective measure in favour of the better quality must intervene. Nature supplies this by establishing rigorous conditions of life to which the weaker will have to submit and will thereby be numerically restricted; but even that portion which survives cannot indiscriminately multiply, for here a new and rigorous selection takes place, according to strength and health.

1.11.9: If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.

1.11.10: History ... shows, with a startling clarity, that whenever Aryans have mingled their blood with that of an inferior race the result has been the downfall of the people who were the standard-bearers of a higher culture. In North America, where the population is prevalently Teutonic, and where those elements intermingled with the inferior race only to a very small degree, we have a quality of mankind and a civilisation which are different from those of Central and South America. In these latter countries the immigrants - who mainly belonged to the Latin races - mated with the aborigines, sometimes to a very large extent indeed. In this case we have a clear and decisive example of the effect produced by the mixture of races. But in North America the Teutonic element, which has kept its racial stock pure and did not mix it with any other racial stock, has come to dominate the American Continent and will remain master of it as long as that element does not fall a victim to the habit of adulterating its blood.

1.11.11: In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following:

(a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered;

(b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap.

The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged.

1.11.12: Man's effort to build up something that contradicts the iron logic of Nature brings him into conflict with those principles to which he himself exclusively owes his own existence. By acting against the laws of Nature he prepares the way that leads to his ruin.

1.11.13: Here we meet the insolent objection, which is Jewish in its inspiration and is typical of the modern pacifist. It says: "Man can control even Nature."

1.11.14: There are millions who repeat by rote that piece of Jewish babble and end up by imagining that somehow they themselves are the conquerors of Nature. And yet their only weapon is just a mere idea, and a very preposterous idea into the bargain; because if one accepted it, then it would be impossible even to imagine the existence of the world.

1.11.15: The real truth is that, not only has man failed to overcome Nature in any sphere whatsoever but that at best he has merely succeeded in getting hold of and lifting a tiny corner of the enormous veil which she has spread over her eternal mysteries and secret. He never creates anything. All he can do is to discover something. He does not master Nature but has only come to be the master of those living beings who have not gained the knowledge he has arrived at by penetrating into some of Nature's laws and mysteries. Apart from all this, an idea can never subject to its own sway those conditions which are necessary for the existence and development of mankind; for the idea itself has come only from man. Without man there would be no human idea in this world. The idea as such is therefore always dependent on the existence of man and consequently is dependent on those laws which furnish the conditions of his existence.

1.11.16: ... Certain ideas are even confined to certain people. This holds true with regard to those ideas in particular which have not their roots in objective scientific truth but in the world of feeling. ... They reflect an inner experience. All such ideas, which have nothing to do with cold logic as such but represent mere manifestations of feeling, such as ethical and moral conceptions, etc., are inextricably bound up with man's existence. It is to the creative powers of man's imagination that such ideas owe their existence.

1.11.16b: ... anyone who sincerely wishes that the pacifist idea should prevail in this world ought to do all he is capable of doing to help the Germans conquer the world

... you would have to make up your mind to forget wars if you would achieve the pacifist ideal. Nothing less than this was the plan of the American world-redeemer, Woodrow Wilson. Anyhow that was what our visionaries believed, and they thought that through his plans their ideals would be attained.

1.11.17: The pacifist-humanitarian idea may indeed become an excellent one when the most superior type of manhood will have succeeded in subjugating the world... So, first of all, the fight and then pacifism... wherever [men] have reached a superior level of existence, it was not the result of following the ideas of crazy visionaries but by acknowledging and rigorously observing the iron laws of Nature.

1.11.18: All that we admire in the world to-day, its science, its art, its technical developments and discoveries, are the products of the creative activities of a few peoples, and it may be true that their first beginnings must be attributed to one race. The maintenance of civilisation is wholly dependent on such peoples. Should they perish, all that makes this earth beautiful will descend with them into the grave.

1.11.19: However great... the influence which the soil exerts on men, this influence will always vary according to the race in which it produces its effect. Dearth of soil may stimulate one race to the most strenuous efforts and highest achievement; while, for another race, the poverty of the soil may be the cause of misery and finally of undernourishment, with all its consequences. The internal characteristics of a people are always the causes which determine the nature of the effect that outer circumstances have on them. What reduces one race to starvation trains another race to harder work.

1.11.20: All the great civilisations of the past became decadent because the originally creative race died out, as a result of contamination of the blood.

1.11.21: ... in order to preserve a certain culture, the type of manhood that creates such a culture must be preserved. But such a preservation goes hand-in-hand with the inexorable law that it is the strongest and the best who must triumph and that they have the right to endure.

1.11.22: He who would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.

...


1.11.25: 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.

1.11.26: If we divide mankind into three categories - founders of culture, bearers of culture, and destroyers of culture - the Aryan alone can be considered as representing the first category. It was he who laid the groundwork and erected the walls of every great structure in human culture.
...
the real foundations of contemporary Japanese life are the enormous scientific and technical achievements of Europe and America, that is to say, of Aryan peoples. Only by adopting these achievements as the foundations of their own progress can the various nations of the Orient take a place in contemporary world progress.

...

1.11.43: 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.

1.11.44: The question as to the ground reasons for the predominant importance of Aryanism can be answered by pointing out that it is not so much that the Aryans are endowed with a stronger instinct for self-preservation, but rather that this manifests itself in a way which is peculiar to themselves. Considered from the subjective standpoint, the will-to-live is of course equally strong all round and only the forms in which it is expressed are different.

Among the most primitive organisms the instinct for self-preservation does not extend beyond the care of the individual ego. Egotism, as we call this passion, is so predominant that it includes even the time element; which means that the present moment is deemed the most important and that nothing is left to the future. The animal lives only for itself, searching for food only when it feels hunger and fighting only for the preservation of its own life. As long as the instinct for self-preservation manifests itself exclusively in such a way, there is no basis for the establishment of a community; not even the most primitive form of all, that is to say the family. The society formed by the male with the female, where it goes beyond the mere conditions of mating, calls for the extension of the instinct of self-preservation, since the readiness to fight for one's own ego has to be extended also to the mate. The male sometimes provides food for the female, but in most cases both parents provide food for the offspring. Almost always they are ready to protect and defend each other; so that here we find the first, though infinitely simple, manifestation of the spirit of sacrifice. As soon as this spirit extends beyond the narrow limits of the family, we have the conditions under which larger associations and finally even States can be formed.

1.11.45: The lowest species of human beings give evidence of this quality only to a very small degree, so that often they do not go beyond the formation of the family society. With an increasing readiness to place their immediate personal interests in the background, the capacity for organising more extensive communities develops.

1.11.46: The readiness to sacrifice one's personal work and, if necessary, even one's life for others shows its most highly developed form in the Aryan race. The greatness of the Aryan is not based on his intellectual powers, but rather on his willingness to devote all his faculties to the service of the community. Here the instinct for self-preservation has reached its noblest form; for the Aryan willingly subordinates his own ego to the common weal and when necessity calls he will even sacrifice his own life for the community.
...
1.11.57: Posterity will not remember those who pursued only their own individual interests, but it will praise those heroes who renounced their own happiness.

1.11.58: The Jew offers the most striking contrast to the Aryan. There is probably no other people in the world who have so developed the instinct of self-preservation as the so-called 'chosen' people. The best proof of this statement is found in the simple fact that this race still exists. Where can another people be found that in the course of the last two thousand years has undergone so few changes in mental outlook and character as the Jewish people? And yet what other people has taken such a constant part in the great revolutions? But even after having passed through the most gigantic catastrophes that have overwhelmed mankind, the Jews remain the same as ever. What an infinitely tenacious will-to-live, to preserve one's kind, is demonstrated by that fact!
...
1.11.78:... As long as the Jew has not succeeded in mastering other peoples he is forced to speak their language... But the moment that the world would become the slave of the Jew it would have to learn some other language (Esperanto, for example) so that by this means the Jew could dominate all the more easily.

1.11.79: How much the whole existence of this people is based on a permanent falsehood is proved in a unique way by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion [external link], which are so violently repudiated by the Jews... the Frankfurter Zeitung repeats again and again that these are forgeries. This alone is evidence in favour of their authenticity. What many Jews unconsciously wish to do is here clearly set forth. It is not necessary to ask out of what Jewish brain these revelations sprang; but what is of vital interest is that they disclose, with an almost terrifying precision, the mentality and methods of action characteristic of the Jewish people and these writings expound in all their various directions the final aims towards which the Jews are striving. The study of real happenings, however, is the best way of judging the authenticity of those documents. If the historical developments which have taken place within the last few centuries be studied in the light of this book we shall understand why the Jewish Press incessantly repudiates and denounces it. For the Jewish peril will be stamped out the moment the general public come into possession of that book and understand it.

...

1.12 The First Stage in the Development of the German National Socialist Labour Party

...

Nothing can take the place of the individual, especially if the individual embodies in himself not the mechanical element but the element of cultural creativeness. No pupil can take the place of the master in completing a great picture which he has left unfinished; and just in the same way no substitute can take the place of the great poet or thinker, or the great statesman or military general. For the source of their power is in the realm of artistic creativeness. It can never be mechanically acquired, because it is an innate product of divine grace.

The greatest revolutions and the greatest achievements of this world, its greatest cultural works and the immortal creations of great statesmen, are inseparably bound up with one name which stands as a symbol for them in each respective case. The failure to pay tribute to one of those great spirits signifies a neglect of that enormous source of power which lies in the remembrance of all great men and women.

The Jew himself knows this best. He, whose great men have always been great only in their efforts to destroy mankind and its civilisation, takes good care that they are worshipped as idols. But the Jew tries to degrade the honour in which nations hold their great men and women. He stigmatizes this honour as 'the cult of personality'.

As soon as a nation has so far lost its courage as to submit to this impudent defamation on the part of the Jews it renounces the most important source of its own inner strength. This inner force cannot arise from a policy of pandering to the masses but only from the worship of men of genius, whose lives have uplifted and ennobled the nation itself.

...

Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement

2.1: Weltanschauung and Party
...
2.2: The State

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.
...
... the supreme purpose of the ethnical State is to guard and preserve those racial elements which, through their work in the cultural field, create that beauty and dignity which are characteristic of a higher mankind. As Aryans, we can consider the State only as the living organism of a people, an organism which does not merely maintain the existence of a people, but functions in such a way as to lead its people to a position of supreme liberty by the progressive development of the intellectual and cultural faculties.

2.13: The German Post-war Policy of Alliances

Only in France there exists to-day more than ever before a profound accord between the views of the stock-exchange, controlled by the Jews, and the chauvinistic policy pursued by French statesmen. This identity of views constitutes an immense, danger for Germany. And it is just for this reason that France is and will remain by far the most dangerous enemy. The French people, who are becoming more and more obsessed by negroid ideas, represent a threatening menace to the existence of the white race in Europe, because they are bound up with the Jewish campaign for world-domination. For the contamination caused by the influx of negroid blood on the Rhine, in the very heart of Europe, is in accord with the sadist and perverse lust for vengeance on the part of the hereditary enemy of our people, just as it suits the purpose of the cool calculating Jew who would use this means of introducing a process of bastardisation in the very centre of the European Continent and, by infecting the white race with the blood of an inferior stock, would destroy the foundations of its independent existence.

2.14 Germany's Policy in Eastern Europe
2.14 Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy

1939 - 1969 p.

The foreign policy of a People's State must first of all bear in mind the duty of securing the existence of the race which is incorporated in this State. And this must be done by establishing a healthy and natural proportion between the number and growth of the population on the one hand and the extent and resources of the territory they inhabit, on the other. That balance must be such that it accords with the vital necessities of the people.
...

1939 - 1969 pp 597 following

2.14.36: The National Movement must not be the advocate for other nations, but the protagonist for its own nation. Otherwise it would be something superfluous and, above all, it would have no right to clamour against the action of the past; for then it would be repeating the action of the past. The old German policy suffered from the mistake of having been determined by dynastic considerations. The new German policy must not follow the sentimentality of cosmopolitan patriotism. Above all, we must not form a police guard for the famous 'poor small nations'; but we must be the soldiers of the German nation.

2.14.37: We National Socialists have to go still further. The right to territory may become a duty when a great nation seems destined to go under unless its territory be extended. And that is particularly true when the nation in question is not some little group of negro people but the Germanic mother of all the life which has given cultural shape to the modern world. Germany will either become a world power or will not continue to exist at all. But in order to become a world power it needs that territorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance to-day and assures the existence of its citizens.

1969 pp 597-598: 2.14.37: But we National Socialists must go further. The right to possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its soil a great nation seems doomed to destruction. And most especially when not some little nigger nation or other is involved, but the Germanic mother of life, which has given the present-day world its cultural picture. Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany. And for world power she needs that magnitude which will give her the position she needs in the present period, and life to her citizens.

*   *   *

2.14.38: Therefore we National Socialists have purposely drawn a line through the line of conduct followed by pre-war Germany in foreign policy. We put an end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the south and west of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the east. We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of pre-war times and pass over to the territorial policy of the future.




Citation suggestion

Referencing

My referencing suggestion for Hitler extracts on page is a bibliography entry:

Hitler, A. 1925/1927 Mein Kampf
Paragraph numbers from the web copy at
http://studymore.org.uk/ynazi.htm

With intext references to "(Hitler, A. 1925/1927 par -)"

See ABC Referencing for general advice.

Adolf Hitler's speech at the opening of the "Great German Art Exhibition" in the new House of German Art in Munich (München) 18.7.1937

At the festive laying of the foundaton stone for this building four years ago, we were all aware that not only the stone for a new house was to be laid but that the ground had to be pepard for a new and truly German art. We had to bring about a change [turning point] in the development of the entire German cultural creation.

[ . . . ]

The collapse and general decay of Germany was ... not only economic or political but, perhaps to a much greater extent, cultural. This cannot be explained by the fact of the lost war alone. Such disasters happen to peoples and states, and they are often the motivation for their purification.. The flood of mud and debris that the year 1918 brought to the surface of our lives was not caused by the loss of the war, but was only released by it. A thoroughly corrupt body learned only by the defeat the whole extent of its internal decomposition. After the collapse of the seeming order of our previous social, governmental and cultural forms, the already existing vulgarity began to triumph in all areas of our lives.

The economic decline was naturally the most tangible, because it imposed itself most insistently on the people's consciousness. The political collapse was simply denied by many Germans or at least not recognized. The cultural was neither seen nor understood by the vast majority of our people.

It is noteworthy that along with the general decline and collapse, buzz- words and phrases began to triumph in the very same proportions. But it was difficult to fight a very real economic collapse with bombastic pale theories. Certainly, there was much talk of modern achievements socialist or communist content, of liberal economic views, of the eternal laws national economic facts or conditionalities. The general poverty, especially the unemployment of millions was not altered, nor were those affected dissuade the consequences. So it was much harder to hide by buzzwords or phrases, the economic collapse of the nation, or its politcal collapse.

Some concealment of the problem was achieved for a certain period of time by the November Republic. This was born along with democratic and Marxist phrases and continued references to international solidarity, the effectiveness of international institutions, etc. The effect on the German people was to obstruct their understanding of the full extent of the disaster.

In the long run, buzz-words succumbed to the impact of the facts - but only thanks to the Nazi Enlightenment (nationalsozialistischen Aufklärung). More and more people realised that what the marxist-parliamentary democracy and economic management had done was to constantly increase ideological and political fragmentation, undermining the possibility of a unified national feeling and thus the national community, and paralysing the inner and outer life force of our people. This weakening of the internal German body led to that international lawlessness in which foreign policy was a constant denial of equal rights for Germany. It is only a belief in the forgetfulness of people when foreign politicians or diplomats give the impression that all would be well if we had a democracy. Well, having a parliamentary-democratic, foreign form of government, copied from abroad, did not prevent Germany being blackmailed and plundered a few years ago.

No: For very understandable reasons our internal and external enemies tried to put the German collapse [swoon - faint] into a different language [spell it differently] with a haze of formal international customary phrases. But the hardness of the facts has helped to educate the German people, and to open its eyes about the extent of the collapse and decay it had suffered under the auspices of his Western- oriented democratic League of Nations ideologues (Völkerbundsideologen). Much more successful and especially persistent contrast was achieved by Keyword and Phrase confusion of views about the nature of culture in general and of German cultural life and cultural decay in particular.

First is

1. The circle of people involved in cultural matters is not nearly as large as the number who have to deal with economic tasks;

2. Judaism has more control of resources and facilities in this area as in every other area that shapes public opinion. The Jews have especially taken advantage of their position in the press, by means of so-called art criticism, gradually to confuse not only the natural views about the nature and function of art as well as their purpose, but even to destroy the overall healthy feeling in this field.

[ . . . ]

There was now no art of peoples, or rather of races, anymore, but only arts of the times. According to this theory, Greek art was not shaped by the Greeks, but is an expression of the time in which it was created. ... Therefore there is now no German, no French, Japanese or Chinese art, but it is just "modern"... marked today with the word "modern" and therefore tomorrow unfashionable because it will be outdated.

... And according to the principle: Every year something different. Once Impressionism, then Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, etc.

[ . . . ]

Wenn ich mir nun anmaße, hier ein Urteil abzugeben, meine Auffassungen zu äußern und entsprechend diesen Erkenntnissen zu handeln, dann nehme ich zunächst das Recht hierzu in Anspruch nicht nur aus meiner Einstellung zur deutschen Kunst überhaupt, sondern vor allem auch aus meinem eigenen Beitrag, den ich für die Wiederherstellung der deutschen Kunst geleistet habe.

If I presume to make a judgment, speak my opinion, and act accordingly, I do this not just because of my outlook on German art, but I claim this right because of the contribution I myself have made to the restoration of German art. Because our present state, which I and my comrades in the struggle have created, has alone provided German art with the conditions for a new, vigorous flowering.

It was not Bolshevik art collectors or their literary henchmen who laid the foundation for a new art or even secured the continued existence of art in Germany. No, we were the ones who created this state and have since then provided vast sums for the encouragement of art. We have given art great new tasks.

[ . . . ]

For art happens to be no fashion. As little as changing the essence and blood of our people, the art must lose the character of the ephemeral to be, instead, in their continued enhancing a pictorial creations worthy expression of the life course of our people. Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism, Impressionism, etc. have nothing to do with our German people. For all these terms are neither old nor are they fashionable, but they are just the ramblings contrived by people to whom God denied the grace of a truly artistic talent and has it given the gift of the clamorous or deceptive.

I declare here and now that it is my irrevocable resolve that just as in the sphere of political bewilderment, I am going to make a clean sweep of phrases in the artistic life of Germany. "Works of art" which cannot be comprehended and are validated only through bombastic instructions for use ... from now on will no longer be foisted upon the German people!

All these buzzwords such as "inner experience", "strong spirit", "powerful will", "promising sensation," "heroic attitude", "significant empathy", "experienced time order", "original primitive", etc., all those stupid, hypocritical excuses, phrases, or chatter will make any excuse or endorsement for worthless in itself, simply because ungekonnte more products. Whether someone has a strong will or an inner experience, which he likes for his work and not through chattering harsh words prove.

We are more interested in ability than in so-called intent. An artist who is counting on having his works displayed, in this House or anywhere else in Germany, must possess ability. The will is surely self-evident from the start! For it would be the highest of all, if a man molested his fellow citizens with works in which he did not even want to do. These windbags have tried to make their works more palatable by representing them as expressions of a new age; but they need to be told that art does not create a new age, that it is the general life of peoples which fashions itself anew and therefore often seeks to express itse lf anew. Only that which spoke in the last decades in Germany of new art that has the new German time at any rate not understood. Because writers are not the designer of a new era, but the fighting men who truly shape, and lead lead people and make history. For this purpose, these poor, confused or Pinsler scribblers will but hardly expected.

Aside from that, it is either impudent effrontery or an inscrutable stupidity to exhibit to our own age works that might have been made ten or twenty thousand years ago by a man of the Stone Age. They talk of primitive art, but they forget that it is not the function of art to retreat backward from the level of development a people has already reached. The function of art can only be to symbolize the vitality of this development.

The new age of today is at work on a new human type. Tremendous efforts are being made in countless spheres of life in order to elevate our people, to make our men, boys, lads, girls, and women healthier and thus stronger and more beautiful. From this strength and beauty streams forth a new feeling of life, and a new joy in life.

Never before was humanity in its external appearance and perceptions closer to the ancient world than it is today.

Sports, competition and fighting games steels million youthful body and show it to us now rising in a form and constitution, as they might have been a thousand years not seen hardly guessed. A bright beautiful type of person, to grow, pays homage to the beautiful old adage for the highest performance: Acid weeks, but happy festivals.

The type of person we saw appear before the whole world last year during the Olympic games in his brilliant, proud, physical strength - this type of person, gentlemen prehistoric art stutterer is the type of the new age.

But what do you manufacture? Deformed cripples and cretins, women who inspire only disgust, men who are more like wild beasts, children who, if they were alive, would be regarded as God's curse! How dare these cruel amateurs ... imagine this as the art of our time, that is as the expression of what shapes the present time and stamps it image on it.

Let no one say that that is how these artists see things. From the pictures submitted for exhibition, I must assume that the eye of some men shows them things different from the way they really are. There really are men who can see in the shapes of our people only decayed cretins; who feel that meadows are blue, the heavens green, clouds sulfur-yellow. They like to say that they experience these things in this way.

I do not want to argue about whether or not they really experience this. But in the name of the German people I only want to prevent these pitiable unfortunates, who clearly suffer from defective vision, from attempting with their chatter to force on their contemporaries the results of their faulty observations, and indeed from presenting them as "art."

Here there are only two possibilities open: either these so - called artists really do see things this way and believe in that which they create - and if so, one has to investigate how this defective vision arose - if it is a mechanical problem or if it came about through heredity. The first case would be pitiable, while the second would be a matter for the Ministry of the Interior, which would then deal with the problem of preventing the perpetuation of such horrid disorders. Or they themselves do not believe in the reality of such impressions, but are for different reasons attempting to ann oy the nation with this humbug. If this is the case, then it is a matter for a criminal court.

This House, in any case, was not planned or built for the works of art incompetents or for maltreaters of art. A thousand workmen did not labor for four and a h alf years on this building only to have creations exhibited here by people who are lazy to excess and who spend but five hours bespattering a canvas, while hoping confidently that the boldness of the pricing would produce the desired effect and result in t he hailing of the work as the most brilliant lightning - birth of a genius. No, the hard work of the builders of this House demands equally hard work from those who want to exhibit here. I do not care in the least if these pseudo - artists then are left to cackle over each other's eggs!

The artist does not create for the artist, but for the people! We will see to it that from here on the people will be called on to judge their own art. No one must say that the people have no appreciation for a truly valuable e nrichment of its cultural life. Long before the critics did justice to the genius of a Richard Wagner he had the people on his side. For their part, however, during the last few years the people have had no affinity for the so - called modern art that was pl aced before them. The mass of the people moved through our art exhibits in a completely uninterested fashion or stayed away altogether. The people's healthy perceptions recognized that all these smearings of canvas were really the outcome of an impudent an d unashamed arrogance or of a simply shocking lack of skill. Millions of people felt instinctively that these art - stammerings of the last few decades were more like the achievements that might have been produced by untalented children of from eight to ten years old and could under no circumstances be regarded as the expression of our own time or of the German future.

Since we know today that the development of millions of years repeats itself in every individual but is compressed into a few decades, we hav e the proof that an artistic creation that does not surpass the achievement of eight - year - old children is not "modern" or even "futuristic" but is, on the contrary, highly archaic. It probably is not as developed as the art of the Stone Age period, when pe ople scratched pictures of their environment on the walls of caves. [ . . . ]

I know, therefore, that when the Volk passes through these galleries it will recognize in me its own spokesman and counselor [ . . . ] it will draw a sigh of relief and joyously express its agreement with this purification of art. And this is decisive, for an art that cannot count on the ready inner agreement of the broad, healthy mass of the people, but which must instead rely on the support of small, partially indifferent cliqu es, is intolerable. [ . . . ] We are convinced that the German people will again fully support and joyously appreciate the future truly great artists from within their ranks. [ . . . ]

This exhibition then is but a beginning. [ . . . ] But the opening of this exhibit is also the beginning of the end of the stultification of German art and the end of the cultural destruction of our people.

[ . . . ]

Many of our young artists will recognize the path they will have to take; they will draw inspiration from the greatness of the time in which we all live, and they will draw the courage to work hard and will in the end complete the task. And when a sacred conscientiousness at last comes into its own, then, I have no doubt, the Almighty will lift from this mass of decent creators of art, several individuals who will rise to the eternal star - covered heaven of immortal, God - favored artists of great ages. [ . . . ] We believe that especially today, when in so many spheres the highest individual achievements are standin g the test, so also in the sphere of art will the highest value of personality again emerge to assert itself

[ . . . ]

I hereby declare the great German Art Exhibition 1937 of Munich opened!



Top of Page Take a Break - Read a Poem

Andrew Roberts likes to hear from users:
To contact him, please use the Communication Form


home page for society  and
science home page to all of Andrew
Roberts' web site the ABC Study Guide home page


Index

1914-1818 war
Aryan
bastardising Europe
Bolshevism
blood
Britain
civilisation
colonising Ukraine
communists
Community
Congo to Rhine
continental empire
cross-breeding
democracy
eastward expansion
essence of life
financiers
first-class race
France
freemasons
germs
German Empire
Germany
Germany's back
German speakers
Hitler's mission
inferior race
Italy
Jews
marxist socialism
mongrels
Mein Kampf
nationalist state
National-Socialist lead
negroes
negroid
Nordic
Mulatto State
overseas expansion
parties
racial decadence
racial improvement
race
rearming Germany
Reich
Russia
secret organisation
smashing Russia
socialists
spiritual decline
superior race
Versailles
world power