On
February 24th, 1920, the first great mass meeting under the
auspices of the new movement took place. In the Banquet Hall of
the Hofbräuhaus in Munich the twenty-five theses which
constituted the programme of our new party were expounded to an
audience of nearly two thousand people and each thesis was
enthusiastically received.
Thus we
brought to the knowledge of the public those first principles
and lines of action along which the new struggle was to be
conducted for the abolition of a confused mass of obsolete
ideas and opinions which had obscure and often pernicious
tendencies. A new force was to make its appearance among the
timid and feckless bourgeoisie. This force was destined to
impede the triumphant advance of the Marxists and bring the
Chariot of Fate to a standstill just as it seemed about to
reach its goal.
It was
evident that this new movement could gain the public
significance and support which are necessary pre-requisites in
such a gigantic struggle only if it succeeded from the very
outset in awakening a sacrosanct conviction in the hearts of
its followers, that here it was not a case of introducing a new
electoral slogan into the political field but that an entirely
new world view, which was of a radical significance, had to be
promoted.
One must try
to recall the miserable jumble of opinions that used to be
arrayed side by side to form the usual Party Programme, as it
was called, and one must remember how these opinions used to be
brushed up or dressed in a new form from time to time. If we
would properly understand these programmatic monstrosities we
must carefully investigate the motives which inspired the
average bourgeois 'programme committee'.
Those people
are always influenced by one and the same preoccupation when
they introduce something new into their programme or modify
something already contained in it. That preoccupation is
directed towards the results of the next election. The moment
these artists in parliamentary government have the first
glimmering of a suspicion that their darling public may be
ready to kick up its heels and escape from the harness of the
old party wagon they begin to paint the shafts with new
colours. On such occasions the party astrologists and horoscope
readers, the so-called 'experienced men' and 'experts', come
forward. For the most part they are old parliamentary hands
whose political schooling has furnished them with ample
experience. They can remember former occasions when the masses
showed signs of losing patience and they now diagnose the
menace of a similar situation arising. Resorting to their old
prescription, they form a 'committee'. They go around among the
darling public and listen to what is being said. They dip their
noses into the newspapers and gradually begin to scent what it
is that their darlings, the broad masses, are wishing for, what
they reject and what they are hoping for. The groups that
belong to each trade or business, and even office employees,
are carefully studied and their innermost desires are
investigated. The 'malicious slogans' of the opposition from
which danger is threatened are now suddenly looked upon as
worthy of reconsideration, and it often happens that these
slogans, to the great astonishment of those who originally
coined and circulated them, now appear to be quite harmless and
indeed are to be found among the dogmas of the old parties.
So the
committees meet to revise the old programme and draw up a new
one.
For these
people change their convictions just as the soldier changes his
shirt in war – when the old one is bug-eaten. In the new
programme everyone gets everything he wants. The farmer is
assured that the interests of agriculture will be safeguarded.
The industrialist is assured of protection for his products.
The consumer is assured that his interests will be protected in
the market prices. Teachers are given higher salaries and civil
servants will have better pensions. Widows and orphans will
receive generous assistance from the State. Trade will be
promoted. The tariff will be lowered and even the taxes, though
they cannot be entirely abolished, will be almost abolished. It
sometimes happens that one section of the public is forgotten
or that one of the demands mooted among the public has not
reached the ears of the party. This is also hurriedly patched
on to the whole, should there be any space available for it:
until finally it is felt that there are good grounds for hoping
that the whole normal host of philistines, including their
wives, will have their anxieties laid to rest and will beam
with satisfaction once again. And so, internally armed with
faith in the goodness of God and the impenetrable stupidity of
the electorate, the struggle for what is called 'the
reconstruction of the Reich' can now begin.
When the
election day is over and the parliamentarians have held their
last public meeting for the next five years, when they can
leave their job of getting the populace to toe the line and can
now devote themselves to higher and more pleasing tasks –
then the programme committee is dissolved and the struggle for
the progressive reorganization of public affairs becomes once
again a business of earning one's daily bread, which for the
parliamentarians means merely the attendance that is required
in order to be able to draw their daily remunerations. Morning
after morning the honourable deputy wends his way to the House,
and though he may not enter the Chamber itself he gets at least
as far as the front hall, where he will find the register on
which the names of the deputies in attendance have to be
inscribed. As a part of his onerous service to his constituents
he enters his name, and in return receives a small indemnity as
a well-earned reward for his unceasing and exhausting
labours.
When four
years have passed, or in the meantime if there should be some
critical weeks during which the parliamentary corporations have
to face the danger of being dissolved, these honourable
gentlemen become suddenly seized by an irresistible desire to
act. Just as the grub-worm cannot help growing into a
cock-chafer, these parliamentarian worms leave the great House
of Puppets and flutter on new wings out among the beloved
public. They address the electors once again, give an account
of the enormous labours they have accomplished and emphasize
the malicious obstinacy of their opponents. They do not always
meet with grateful applause; for occasionally the unintelligent
masses throw rude and unfriendly remarks in their faces. When
this spirit of public ingratitude reaches a certain pitch there
is only one way of saving the situation. The prestige of the
party must be burnished up again. The programme has to be
amended. The committee is called into existence once again. And
the swindle begins anew. Once we understand the impenetrable
stupidity of our public we cannot be surprised that such
tactics turn out successful. Led by the Press and blinded once
again by the alluring appearance of the new programme, the
bourgeois as well as the proletarian herds of voters faithfully
return to the common stall and re-elect their old deceivers.
The 'people's man' and labour candidate now change back again
into the parliamentarian grub and become fat and rotund as they
batten on the leaves that grow on the tree of public life
– to be retransformed into the glittering butterfly after
another four years have passed.
Scarcely
anything else can be so depressing as to watch this process in
sober reality and to be the eyewitness of this repeatedly
recurring fraud. On a spiritual training ground of that kind it
is not possible for the bourgeois forces to develop the
strength which is necessary to carry on the fight against the
organized might of Marxism. Indeed they have never seriously
thought of doing so. Though these parliamentary quacks who
represent the white race are generally recognized as persons of
quite inferior mental capacity, they are shrewd enough to know
that they could not seriously entertain the hope of being able
to use the weapon of Western Democracy to fight a doctrine for
the advance of which Western Democracy, with all its
accessories, is employed as a means to an end. Democracy is
exploited by the Marxists for the purpose of paralysing their
opponents and gaining for themselves a free hand to put their
own methods into action. When certain groups of Marxists use
all their ingenuity for the time being to make it be believed
that they are inseparably attached to the principles of
democracy, it may be well to recall the fact that when critical
occasions arose these same gentlemen snapped their fingers at
the principle of decision by majority vote, as that principle
is understood by Western Democracy. Such was the case in those
days when the bourgeois parliamentarians, in their monumental
shortsightedness, believed that the security of the Reich was
guaranteed because it had an overwhelming numerical majority in
its favour, and the Marxists did not hesitate suddenly to grasp
supreme power in their own hands, backed by a mob of loafers,
deserters, political place-hunters and Jewish dilettanti. That
was a blow in the face for that democracy in which so many
parliamentarians believed. Only those credulous parliamentary
wizards who represented bourgeois democracy could have believed
that the brutal determination of those whose interest it is to
spread the Marxist world-pest, of which they are the carriers,
could for a moment, now or in the future, be held in check by
the magical formulas of Western Parliamentarianism. Marxism
will march shoulder to shoulder with democracy until it
succeeds indirectly in securing for its own criminal purposes
even the support of those whose minds are nationally orientated
and whom Marxism strives to exterminate. But if the Marxists
should one day come to believe that there was a danger that
from this witch's cauldron of our parliamentary democracy a
majority vote might be concocted, which by reason of its
numerical majority would be empowered to enact legislation and
might use that power seriously to combat Marxism, then the
whole parliamentarian hocus-pocus would be at an end. Instead
of appealing to the democratic conscience, the standard bearers
of the Red International would immediately send forth a furious
rallying-cry among the proletarian masses and the ensuing fight
would not take place in the sedate atmosphere of Parliament but
in the factories and the streets. Then democracy would be
annihilated forthwith. And what the intellectual prowess of the
apostles who represented the people in Parliament had failed to
accomplish would now be successfully carried out by the
crow-bar and the sledge-hammer of the exasperated proletarian
masses – just as in the autumn of 1918. At a blow they
would awaken the bourgeois world to see the madness of thinking
that the Jewish drive towards world-conquest can be effectually
opposed by means of Western Democracy.
As I have
said, only a very credulous soul could think of binding himself
to observe the rules of the game when he has to face a player
for whom those rules are nothing but a mere bluff or a means of
serving his own interests, which means he will discard them
when they prove no longer useful for his purpose.
All the
parties that profess so-called bourgeois principles look upon
political life as in reality a struggle for seats in
Parliament. The moment their principles and convictions are of
no further use in that struggle they are thrown overboard, as
if they were sand ballast. And the programmes are constructed
in such a way that they can be dealt with in like manner. But
such practice has a correspondingly weakening effect on the
strength of those parties. They lack the great magnetic force
which alone attracts the broad masses; for these masses always
respond to the compelling force which emanates from absolute
faith in the ideas put forward, combined with an indomitable
zest to fight for and defend them.
At a time in
which the one side, armed with all the fighting power that
springs from a systematic conception of life – even though
it be criminal in a thousand ways – makes an attack
against the established order the other side will be able to
resist when it draws its strength from a new faith, which in
our case is a political faith. This faith must supersede the
weak and cowardly command to defend. In its stead we must raise
the battle-cry of a courageous and ruthless attack. Our present
movement is accused, especially by the so-called national
bourgeois cabinet ministers – the Bavarian representatives
of the Centre, for example – of heading towards a
revolution. We have one answer to give to those political
pigmies. We say to them: We are trying to make up for that
which you, in your criminal stupidity, have failed to carry
out. By your parliamentarian jobbing you have helped to drag
the nation into ruin. But we, by our aggressive policy, are
setting up a new philosophy of life which we shall defend with
indomitable devotion. Thus we are building the steps on which
our nation once again may ascend to the temple of freedom.
And so during
the first stages of founding our movement we had to take
special care that our militant group which fought for the
establishment of a new and exalted political faith should not
degenerate into a society for the promotion of parliamentarian
interests.
The first
preventive measure was to lay down a programme which of itself
would tend towards developing a certain moral greatness that
would scare away all the petty and weakling spirits who make up
the bulk of our present party politicians.
Those fatal
defects which finally led to Germany's downfall afford the
clearest proof of how right we were in considering it
absolutely necessary to set up programmatic aims which were
sharply and distinctly defined.
Because we
recognized the defects above mentioned, we realized that a new
conception of the State had to be formed, which in itself
became a part of our new conception of life in general.
In the first
volume of this book I have already dealt with the term
völkisch, and I said then that this term has not a
sufficiently precise meaning to furnish the kernel around which
a closely consolidated militant community could be formed. All
kinds of people, with all kinds of divergent opinions, are
parading about at the present moment under the device
völkisch on their banners. Before I come to deal with the
purposes and aims of the National Socialist Labour Party I want
to establish a clear understanding of what is meant by the
concept völkisch and herewith explain its relation to our
party movement. The word völkisch does not express any
clearly specified idea. It may be interpreted in several ways
and in practical application it is just as general as the word
'religious', for instance. It is difficult to attach any
precise meaning to this latter word, either as a theoretical
concept or as a guiding principle in practical life. The word
'religious' acquires a precise meaning only when it is
associated with a distinct and definite form through which the
concept is put into practice. To say that a person is 'deeply
religious' may be very fine phraseology; but, generally
speaking, it tells us little or nothing. There may be some few
people who are content with such a vague description and there
may even be some to whom the word conveys a more or less
definite picture of the inner quality of a person thus
described. But, since the masses of the people are not composed
of philosophers or saints, such a vague religious idea will
mean for them nothing else than to justify each individual in
thinking and acting according to his own bent. It will not lead
to that practical faith into which the inner religious yearning
is transformed only when it leaves the sphere of general
metaphysical ideas and is moulded to a definite dogmatic
belief. Such a belief is certainly not an end in itself, but
the means to an end. Yet it is a means without which the end
could never be reached at all. This end, however, is not merely
something ideal; for at the bottom it is eminently practical.
We must always bear in mind the fact that, generally speaking,
the highest ideals are always the outcome of some profound
vital need, just as the most sublime beauty owes its nobility
of shape, in the last analysis, to the fact that the most
beautiful form is the form that is best suited to the purpose
it is meant to serve.
By helping to
lift the human being above the level of mere animal existence,
Faith really contributes to consolidate and safeguard its own
existence. Taking humanity as it exists today and taking into
consideration the fact that the religious beliefs which it
generally holds and which have been consolidated through our
education, so that they serve as moral standards in practical
life, if we should now abolish religious teaching and not
replace it by anything of equal value the result would be that
the foundations of human existence would be seriously shaken.
We may safely say that man does not live merely to serve higher
ideals, but that these ideals, in their turn, furnish the
necessary conditions of his existence as a human being. And
thus the circle is closed.
Of course,
the word 'religious' implies some ideas and beliefs that are
fundamental. Among these we may reckon the belief in the
immortality of the soul, its future existence in eternity, the
belief in the existence of a Higher Being, and so on. But all
these ideas, no matter how firmly the individual believes in
them, may be critically analysed by any person and accepted or
rejected accordingly, until the emotional concept or yearning
has been transformed into an active service that is governed by
a clearly defined doctrinal faith. Such a faith furnishes the
practical outlet for religious feeling to express itself and
thus opens the way through which it can be put into
practice.
Without a
clearly defined belief, the religious feeling would not only be
worthless for the purposes of human existence but even might
contribute towards a general disorganization, on account of its
vague and multifarious tendencies.
What I have
said about the word 'religious' can also be applied to the term
völkisch. This word also implies certain fundamental
ideas. Though these ideas are very important indeed, they
assume such vague and indefinite forms that they cannot be
estimated as having a greater value than mere opinions, until
they become constituent elements in the structure of a
political party. For in order to give practical force to the
ideals that grow out of philosophical ideals and to answer the
demands which are a logical consequence of such ideals, mere
sentiment and inner longing are of no practical assistance,
just as freedom cannot be won by a universal yearning for it.
No. Only when the idealistic longing for independence is
organized in such a way that it can fight for its ideal with
military force, only then can the urgent wish of a people be
transformed into a potent reality.
Every
philosophy of life, even if it is a thousand times correct and
of the highest benefit to mankind, will be of no practical
service for the maintenance of a people as long as its
principles have not yet become the rallying point of a militant
movement. And, on its own side, this movement will remain a
mere party until is has brought its ideals to victory and
transformed its party doctrines into the new foundations of a
State which gives the national community its final shape.
If an
abstract conception of a general nature is to serve as the
basis of a future development, then the first prerequisite is
to form a clear understanding of the nature and character and
scope of this conception. For only on such a basis can a
movement he founded which will be able to draw the necessary
fighting strength from the internal cohesion of its principles
and convictions. From general ideas a political programme must
be constructed and general ideas must receive the stamp of a
definite political faith. Since this faith must be directed
towards ends that have to be attained in the world of practical
reality, not only must it serve the general ideal as such but
it must also take into consideration the means that have to be
employed for the triumph of the ideal. Here the practical
wisdom of the statesman must come to the assistance of the
abstract idea, which is correct in itself. In that way an
eternal ideal, which has everlasting significance as a guiding
star to mankind, must be adapted to the exigencies of human
frailty so that its practical effect may not be frustrated at
the very outset through those shortcomings which are general to
mankind. The exponent of truth must here go hand in hand with
him who has a practical knowledge of the soul of the people, so
that from the realm of eternal verities and ideals what is
suited to the capacities of human nature may be selected and
given practical form.
To take
abstract and general principles, derived from a philosophy
which is based on a solid foundation of truth, and transform
them into a militant community whose members have the same
political faith – a community which is precisely defined,
rigidly organized, of one mind and one will – such a
transformation is the most important task of all; for the
possibility of successfully carrying out the idea is dependent
on the successful fulfilment of that task. Out of the army of
millions who feel the truth of these ideas, and even may
understand them to some extent, one man must arise. This
man must have the gift of being able to expound general ideas
in a clear and definite form, and, from the world of vague
ideas shimmering before the minds of the masses, he must
formulate principles that will be as clear-cut and firm as
granite. He must fight for these principles as the only true
ones, until a solid rock of common faith and common will
emerges above the troubled waves of vagrant ideas.
The general
justification of such action is to be sought in the necessity
for it and the individual will be justified by his success.
If we try to
penetrate to the inner meaning of the word völkisch we
arrive at the following conclusions:
The current
political conception of the world is that the State, though it
possesses a creative force which can build up civilizations,
has nothing in common with the concept of race as the
foundation of the State. The State is considered rather as
something which has resulted from economic necessity, or, at
best, the natural outcome of the play of political forces and
impulses. Such a conception of the foundations of the State,
together with all its logical consequences, not only ignores
the primordial racial forces that underlie the State, but it
also leads to a policy in which the importance of the
individual is minimized. If it be denied that races differ from
one another in their powers of cultural creativeness, then this
same erroneous notion must necessarily influence our estimation
of the value of the individual. The assumption that all races
are alike leads to the assumption that nations and individuals
are equal to one another. And international Marxism is nothing
but the application – effected by the Jew, Karl Marx
– of a general conception of life to a definite profession
of political faith; but in reality that general concept had
existed long before the time of Karl Marx. If it had not
already existed as a widely diffused infection the amazing
political progress of the Marxist teaching would never have
been possible. In reality what distinguished Karl Marx from the
millions who were affected in the same way was that, in a world
already in a state of gradual decomposition, he used his keen
powers of prognosis to detect the essential poisons, so as to
extract them and concentrate them, with the art of a
necromancer, in a solution which would bring about the rapid
destruction of the independent nations on the globe. But all
this was done in the service of his race.
Thus the
Marxist doctrine is the concentrated extract of the mentality
which underlies the general concept of life today. For this
reason alone it is out of the question and even ridiculous to
think that what is called our bourgeois world can put up any
effective fight against Marxism. For this bourgeois world is
permeated with all those same poisons and its conception of
life in general differs from Marxism only in degree and in the
character of the persons who hold it. The bourgeois world is
Marxist but believes in the possibility of a certain group of
people – that is to say, the bourgeoisie – being able
to dominate the world, while Marxism itself systematically aims
at delivering the world into the hands of the Jews.
Over against
all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes
that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest
significance for mankind. In principle, the State is looked
upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation
of the racial characteristics of mankind. Therefore on the
völkisch principle we cannot admit that one race is equal
to another. By recognizing that they are different, the
völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior
and inferior quality. On the basis of this recognition it feels
bound in conformity with the eternal Will that dominates the
universe, to postulate the victory of the better and stronger
and the subordination of the inferior and weaker. And so it
pays homage to the truth that the principle underlying all
Nature's operations is the aristocratic principle and it
believes that this law holds good even down to the last
individual organism. It selects individual values from the mass
and thus operates as an organizing principle, whereas Marxism
acts as a disintegrating solvent. The völkisch belief
holds that humanity must have its ideals, because ideals are a
necessary condition of human existence itself. But, on the
other hand, it denies that an ethical ideal has the right to
prevail if it endangers the existence of a race that is the
standard-bearer of a higher ethical ideal. For in a world which
would be composed of mongrels and negroids all ideals of human
beauty and nobility and all hopes of an idealized future for
our humanity would be lost forever.
On this
planet of ours human culture and civilization are indissolubly
bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he should be
exterminated or subjugated, then the dark shroud of a new
barbarian era would enfold the earth.
To undermine
the existence of human culture by exterminating its founders
and custodians would be an execrable crime in the eyes of those
who believe that the folk-idea lies at the basis of human
existence. Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against
that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against
the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in
the expulsion from Paradise.
Hence the
folk concept of the world is in profound accord with Nature's
will; because it restores the free play of the forces which
will lead the race through stages of sustained reciprocal
education towards a higher type, until finally the best portion
of mankind will possess the earth and will be free to work in
every domain all over the world and even reach spheres that lie
outside the earth.
We all feel
that in the distant future many may be faced with problems
which can be solved only by a superior race of human beings, a
race destined to become master of all the other peoples and
which will have at its disposal the means and resources of the
whole world.
It is
self-evident that so general a statement of the meaningful
content of a folkish philosophy can be easily interpreted in a
thousand different ways. As a matter of fact there is scarcely
one of our recent political movements that does not refer at
some point to this conception of the world. But the fact that
this conception of the world still maintains its independent
existence in face of all the others proves that their ways of
looking at life are quite difierent from this. Thus the Marxist
conception, directed by a central organization endowed with
supreme authority, is opposed by a motley crew of opinions
which is not very impressive in face of the solid phalanx
presented by the enemy. Victory cannot be achieved with such
weak weapons. Only when the international idea, politically
organized by Marxism, is confronted by the folk idea, equally
well organized in a systematic way and equally well led –
only then will the fighting energy in the one camp be able to
meet that of the other on an equal footing; and victory will be
found on the side of eternal truth.
But a general
conception of life can never be given an organic embodiment
until it is precisely and definitely formulated. The function
which dogma fulfils in religious belief is parallel to the
function which party principles fulfil for a political party
which is in the process of being built up.
Therefore,
for the conception of life that is based on the folk idea it is
necessary that an instrument be forged which can be used in
fighting for this ideal, similar to the Marxist party
organization which clears the way for internationalism.
This is the
goal pursued by the National Socialist German Workers'
Party.
The folk
conception must therefore be definitely formulated so that it
may be organically incorporated in the party. That is a
necessary prerequisite for the success of this idea. And that
it is so is very clearly proved even by the indirect
acknowledgment of those who oppose such an amalgamation of the
folk idea with party principles. The very people who never tire
of insisting again and again that the conception of life based
on the folk idea can never be the exclusive property of a
single group, because it lies dormant or 'lives' in myriads of
hearts, only confirm by their own statements the simple fact
that the general presence of such ideas in the hearts of
millions of men has not proved sufficient to impede the victory
of the opposing ideas, which are championed by a political
party organized on the principle of class conflict. If that
were not so, the German people ought already to have gained a
gigantic victory instead of finding themselves on the brink of
the abyss. The international ideology achieved success because
it was organized in a militant political party which was always
ready to take the offensive. If hitherto the ideas opposed to
the international concept have had to give way before the
latter the reason is that they lacked a united front to fight
for their cause. A doctrine which forms a definite outlook on
life cannot struggle and triumph by allowing the right of free
interpretation of its general teaching, but only by defining
that teaching in certain articles of faith that have to be
accepted and incorporating it in a political organization.
Therefore I
considered it my special duty to extract from the extensive but
vague contents of a general world view the ideas which were
essential and give them a more or less dogmatic form. Because
of their precise and clear meaning, these ideas are suited to
the purpose of uniting in a common front all those who are
ready to accept them as principles. In other words: The
National Socialist German Workers' Party extracts the essential
principles from the general conception of the world which is
based on the folk idea. On these principles it establishes a
political doctrine which takes into account the practical
realities of the day, the nature of the times, the available
human material and all its deficiencies. Through this political
doctrine it is possible to bring great masses of the people
into an organization which is constructed as rigidly as it
could be. Such an organization is the main preliminary that is
necessary for the final triumph of this world view.
