Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Volume One: A Reckoning
Chapter IV: 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 foryears within its walls. This is accounted for by my study which at everystep had led me to this metropolis of German art. Not only has one not seenGermany if one does not know Munich-no, above all, one does not know Germanart if one has not seen Munich.
In any case, this period before the War was the happiest andby far the most contented of my life. Even if my earnings were still extremelymeager, I did not live to be able to paint, but painted only to be ableto secure my livelihood or rather to enable myself to go on studying. Ipossessed 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 allother petty cares of daily existence lightly and without anxiety.
In addition to this, there was the heartfelt love which seized me for thiscity more than for any other place that I knew, almost from the first hourof my sojourn there. A German city! What a difference from Vienna! I grewsick to my stomach when I even thought back on this Babylon of races. Inaddition, the dialect, much closer to me, which particularly in my contactswith Lower Bavarians, reminded me of my former childhood. There were a thousandand more things which were or became inwardly dear and precious to me. Butmost of all I was attracted by this wonderful marriage of primordial powerand 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 attachedto this city than to any other spot of earth in this world, it is partlydue to the fact that it is and remains inseparably bound up with the developmentof my own life; if even then I achieved the happiness of a truly inwardcontentment, it can be attributed only to the magic which the miraculousresidence of the Wittelsbachs exerts on every man who is blessed, not onlywith 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 particularlythe occurrences in the field of foreign affairs. I came to these latterindirectly through the German alliance policy which from my Austrian daysI considered absolutely mistaken. However, the full extent of this self-deceptionon the part of the Reich had not been clear to me in Vienna. In those daysI was inclined to assume-or perhaps I merely talked myself into it as anexcuse-that Berlin perhaps knew how weak and unreliable the ally would bein reality, yet, for more or less mysterious reasons, held back this knowledgein order to bolster up an alliance policy which after all Bismarck himselfhad founded and the sudden cessation of which could not be desirable, iffor no other reason lest the lurking foreigner be alarmed in any way, orthe shopkeeper at home be worried.
To be sure, my associations, particularly among the people itself,soon made me see to my horror that this belief was false. To my amazementI could not help seeing everywhere that even in otherwise well-informedcircles there was not the slightest glimmer of knowledge concerning thenature of the Habsburg monarchy. Particularly the common people were caughtin the mad idea that the ally could be regarded as a serious power whichin the hour of need would surely rise to the situation. Among the massesthe monarchy was still regarded as a ' German' state on which we could count.They were of the opinion that there, too, the power could be measured bythe millions as in Germany itself, and completely forgot that, in the firstplace: Austria had long ceased to be a German state; and in the second place:the internal conditions of this Empire were from hour to hour moving closerto disintegration.
I had come to know this state formation better than the so-calledofficial 'diplomats,' who blindly, as almost always, rushed headlong towardcatastrophe; for the mood of the people was always a mere discharge of whatwas funneled into public opinion from above. But the people on top madea cult of the 'ally,' as if it were the Golden Calf. They hoped to replaceby cordiality what was lacking in honesty. And words were always taken forcoin of the realm.
Even in Vienna I had been seized with anger when I reflected on the disparityappearing from time to time between the speeches of the official statesmenand the content of the Viennese press. And yet Vienna, in appearance atleast, was still a German city. How different it was if you left Vienna,or rather German-Austria, and went to the Slavic provinces of the Empire! You had only to take up the Prague newspapers to find out what they thoughtof the whole exalted hocus-pocus of the Triple Alliance. There there wasnothing but bitter scorn and mockery for this 'masterpiece of statecraft.'In the midst of peace, with both emperors pressing kisses of friendshipon each other's foreheads, the Czechs made no secret of the fact that thisalliance would be done for on the day when an attempt should be made totranslate it from the moonbeams of the Nibelungen ideal into practical reality.
What excitement seized these same people several years laterwhen the time finally came for the alliances to show their worth and Italyleapt out of the triple pact, leaving her two comrades in the lurch, andin the end even becoming their enemy ! That anyone even for a moment shouldhave dared to believe in the possibility of such a miracle-to wit, the miradethat Italy would fight side by side with Austria-could be nothing but incomprehensibleto anyone who was not stricken with diplomatic blindness. But in Austriathings were not a hair's-breadth different.
In Austria the only exponents of the alliance idea were theHabsburgs and the Germans. The Habsburgs, out of calculation and compulsion;the Germans, from good faith and political-stupidity. From good faith, forthey thought that by the Triple Alliance they were performing a great servicefor the German Reich itself, helping to strengthen and secure it; from politicalstupidity, because neither did the first-mentioned occur, but on the contrary,they thereby helped to chain the Reich to the corpse of a state which wouldinevitably drag them both into the abyss, and above all because they themselves,solely by virtue of this alliance, fell more and more a prey to de-Germanization.For by the alliance with the Reich, the Habsburgs thought they could besecure against any interference from this side, which unfortunately wasthe case, and thus they were able far more easily and safely to carry throughtheir internal policy of slowly eliminating Germanism. Not only that inview of our well-known ' objectivity' they had no need to fear any interventionon the part of the Reich government, but, by pointing to the alliance, theycould also silence any embarrassing voice among the Austrian-Germans whichmight rise in German quarters against Slavization of an excessively disgracefulcharacter.
For what was the German in Austria to do if the Germans of theReich recognized and expressed confidence in the Habsburg government? Shouldhe offer resistance and be branded by the entire German public as a traitorto his own nationality? When for decades he had been making the most enormoussacrifices precisely for his nationality!
But what value did this alliance have, once Germanism had beenexterminated in the Habsburg monarchy? Wasn't the value of the Triple Alliancefor Germany positively dependent on the preservation of German predominancein Austria? Or did they really believe that they could live in an alliancewith a SlavicHabsburg Empire?
The attitude of official German diplomacy and of all publicopinion toward the internal Austrian problem of nationalities was beyondstupidity, it was positively insane ! They banked on an alliance, made thefuture and security of a people of seventy millions dependent on it-andlooked on while the sole basis for this alliance was from year to year,inexorably and by plan, being destroyed in the partner-nation. The day wasbound to come when a ' treaty ' with Viennese diplomacy would remain, butthe aid of an allied empire would be lost.
With Italy this was the case from the very beginning.
If people in Germany had only studied history a little moreclearly, and gone into the psycholog of nations, they would not have beenable to suppose even for an hour that the Quirinal and the Vienna Hofburgwould ever stand together n a common fighting front. Sooner would Italyhave turned into a volcano than a government have dared to send even a singleItalian to the battlefield for the fanatically hated Habsburg state, exceptas an enemy. More than once in Vienna I saw outbursts of the passionatecontempt and bottomless hatred with which the Italian was ' devoted ' tothe Austrian state. The sins of the House of Habsburg against Italian freedomand independence in the course of the centuries was too great to be forgotten,even if the will to forget them had been present. And it was not present;neither in the people nor in the Italian government. For Italy there weretherefore two possibilities for relations with Austna: either alliance orwar.
By choosing the first, the Italians were able to prepare, undisturbed,for the second.
Especially since the relation of Austria to Russia had begunto drive closer and closer to a military clash, the German alliance policywas as senseless as it was dangerous.
This was a classic case, bearing witness to the absence of anybroad and correct line of thinking.
Why, then, was an alliance concluded? Only in order better toguard the future of the Reich than, reduced to her own resources, she wouldhave been in a position to do. And this future of the Reich was nothingother than the question of preserving the German people's possibility ofexistence.
Therefore the question could be formulated only as follows:
What form must the life of the German nation assume in the tangiblefuture, and how can this development be provided with the necessary foundationsand the required security within the framework of general European relationof forces?
A clear examination of the premises for foreign activity onthe part of German statecraft inevitably led to the following conviction:
Germany has an annual increase in population of nearly ninehundred thousand souls. The difficulty of feeding this army of new citizensmust grow greater from year to year and ultimately end in catastrophe, unlessways and means are found to forestall the danger of starvation and miseryin time.
There were four ways of avoiding so terrible a development forthe future:
1. Following the French example, the increase of births couldbe artificially restricted, thus meeting the problem of overpopulation
Nature herself in times of great poverty or bad climactic conditions,as well as poor harvest, intervenes to restrict the increase of populationof certain countries or races; this, to be sure, by a method as wise asit is ruthless. She diminishes, not the power of procreation as such, butthe conservation of the procreated, by exposing them to hard trials anddeprivations with the result that all those who are less strong and lesshealthy are forced back into the womb of the eternal unknown. Those whomshe permits to survive the inclemency of existence are a thousandfold testedhardened, and well adapted to procreate-in turn, in order that the processof thoroughgoing selection may begin again from the beginning. By thus brutallyproceeding against the individual and immediately calling him back to herselfas soon as he shows himself unequal to the storm of life, she keeps therace and species strong, in fact, raises them to the highest accomplishments.
At the same time the diminution of number strengthens the individualand thus in the last analysis fortifies the species.
It is different, however, when man undertakes the limitationof his number. He is not carved of the same wood, he is ' humane.' He knowsbetter than the cruel queen of wisdom. He limits not the conservation ofthe individual, but procreation itself. This seems to him, who always seeshimself and never the race, more human and more justified than the oppositeway. Unfortunately, however, the consequences are the reverse:
While Nature, by making procreation free, yet submitting survivalto a hard trial, chooses from an excess number of individuals the best asworthy of living, thus preserving them alone and in them conserving theirspecies, man limits procreation, but is hysterically concerned that oncea being is born it should be preserved at any price. This correction ofthe divine will seems to him as wise as it is humane, and he takes delightin having once again gotten the best of Nature and even having proved herinadequacy. The number, to be sure, has really been limited, but at thesame time the value of the individual has dirninished; this, however, issomething the dear little ape of the Almighty does not want to see or hearabout.
For as soon as procreation as such is limited and the numberof births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which leaves onlythe strongest and healthiest alive is obviously replaced by the obviousdesire to ' save ' even the weakest and most sickly at any price, and thisplants the seed of a future generation which must inevitably grow more andmore deplorable the longer this mockery of Nature and her will continues.
And the end will be that such a people will some day be deprivedof its existence on this earth; for man can defy the eternal laws of thewill to conservation for a certain time, but sooner or later vengeance comes.A stronger race will drive out the weak, for the vital urge in its ultimateform will, time and again, burst all the absurd fetters of the so-calledhumanity of individuals, in order to replace it by the humanity of Naturewhich destroys the weak to give his place to the strong.
Therefore, anyone who wants to secure the existence of the Germanpeople by a self-limitation of its reproduction is robbing it of its future.
2. A second way would be one which today we, time and time again,see proposed and recommended: internal colonization. This is a proposalwhich is well meant by just as many as by most people it is misunderstood,thus doing the greatest conceivable damage that anyone can imagined
Without doubt the productivity of the soil can be increasedup to a certain limit. But only up to a certain limit, and not continuouslywithout end. For a certain time it will be possible to compensate for theincrease of the German people without having to think of hunger, by increasingthe productivity of our soil. But beside this, we must face the fact thatour demands on life ordinarily nse even more rapidly than the number ofthe population Man's requirements with regard to food and clothing increasefrom year to year, and even now, for example, stand in no relation to therequirements of our ancestors, say a hundred years ago. It IS, therefore,insane to believe that every rise in production provides the basis for anincrease in population: no; this is true only up to a certain degree, sinceat least a part of the increased production of the soil is spent in satisfyingthe increased needs of men. But even with the greatest limitation on theone hand and the utmost industry on the other, here again a limit will oneday be reached, created by the soil itself. With the utmost toil it willnot be possible to obtain any more from its and then, though postponed fora certain time, catastrophe again manifests itself. First, there will behunger from time to time, when there is famine, etc. As the population increases,this will happen more and more often, so that finally it will only be absentwhen rare years of great abundance fill the granaries. But at length thetime approaches when even then it will not be possible to satisfy men'sneeds, and hunger has become the eternal companion of such a people. ThenNature must help again and make a choice among those whom she has chosenfor life; but again man helps himself; that is, he turns to artificial restrictionof his increase with all the above-indicated dire consequences for raceand species.
The objection may still be raised that this future will facethe whole of humanity in any case and that consequently the individual nationcan naturally not avoid this fate.
At first glance this seems perfectly correct. Yet here the followingmust be borne in mind:
Assuredly at a certain time the whole of humanity will be compelled,in consequence of the impossibility of making the fertility of the soilkeep pace with the continuous increase in population, to halt the increaseof the human race and either let Nature again decide or, by self-help ifpossible, create the necessary balance, though, to be sure, in a more correctway than is done today. But then this will strike all peoples, while todayonly those races are stricken with such suffering which no longer possessthe force and strength to secure for themselves the necessary territoriesin this world. For as matters stand there are at the present time on thisearth immense areas of unusued soil, only waiting for the men to till them.But it is equally true that Nature as such has not reserved this soil forthe future possession of any particular nation or race; on the contrary,this soil exists for the people which possesses the force to take it andthe industry to cultivate it.
Nature knows no political boundaries. First, she puts livingcreatures on this globe and watches the free play of forces. She then confersthe master's right on her favorite child, the strongest in courage and industry.
When a people limits itself to internal colonization becauseother races are clinging fast to greater and greater surfaces of this earth,it will be forced to have recourse to self-limitation at a time when theother peoples are still continuing to increase. Some day this situationwill arise, and the smaller the living space at the disposal of the people,the sooner it will happen. Since in general, unfortunately, the best nations,or, even more correctly, the only truly cultured races, the standard-bearersof all human progress, all too frequently resolve in their pacifistic blindnessto renounce new acquisitions of soil and content themselves with 'internal'colonization, while the inferior races know how to secure immense livingareas in this world for themselves-this would lead to the following finalresult:
The culturally superior, but less ruthless races, would in consequenceof their limited soil, have to limit their increase at a time when the culturallyinferior but more brutal and more natural t peoples, in consequence of theirgreater living areas, would still be in a position to increase without limit.In other words: some day the world will thus come into possession of theculturally inferior but more active men.
Then, though in a perhaps very distant future, there will bebut two possibilities either the world will be governed according to theideas of our modern democracy, and then the weight of any decision willresult in favor of the numerically stronger races, or the world will bedominated in accordance with the laws of the natural order of force, andthen it is the peoples of brutal will who will conquer, and consequentlyonce again not the nation of selfrestriction.
No one can doubt that this world will some day be exposed tothe severest struggles for the existence of mankind. In the end, only theurge for self-preservation can conquer. Beneath it socalled humanity, theexpression of a mixture of stupidity, cowardice, and know-it-all conceit,will melt like snow in the March sun. Mankind has grown great in eternalstruggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish.
For us Germans the slogan of 'inner colonization' is catastrophic,if for no other reason because it automatically reinforces us in the opinionthat we have found a means which, in accordance with the pacifistic tendency,allows us ' to earn ' our right to exist by labor in a life of sweet slumbers.Once this doctrine were taken seriously in our country, it would mean theend of every exertion to preserve for ourselves the place which is our due.Once the average German became convinced that he could secure his life andfuture in this way, all attempts at an active, and hence alone fertile,defense of German vital necessities would be doomed to failure. In the faceof such an attitude on the part of the nation any really beneficial foreignpolicy could be regarded as buried, and with it the future of the Germanpeople as a whole.
Taking these consequences into account, it is no accident thatit is always primarily the Jew who tries and succeeds in planting such mortallydangerous modes of thought in our people. He knows his customers too wellnot to realize that they gratefully let themselves be swindled by any gold-bricksalesman who can make them think he has found a way to play a little trickon Nature, to make the hard, inexorable struggle for existence superfluous,and instead, sometimes by work, but sometimes by plain doing nothing, dependingon how things 'come out,' to become the lord of the planet.
It cannot be emphasized sharply enough that any German internalcolonization must serve to eliminate social abuses particularly to withdrawthe soil from widespread speculation, best can never suffice to secure thefuture of the nation without the acquisition of new soil.
If we do not do this, we shall in a short time have arrived,not only at the end of our soil, but also at the end of our strength.
Finally, the following must be stated:
The limitation to a definite small area of soil, inherent ininternal colonization, like the same final effect obtained by restrictionof procreation, leads to an exceedingly unfavorable politicomilitary situationin the nation in question.
The size of the area inhabited by a people constitutes in itselfan essential factor for determining its outward security. The greater thequantity of space at the disposal of a people, the greater its natural protection;for military decisions against peoples living in a small restricted areahave always been obtained more quickly and hence more easily, and in particularmore effectively and completely than can, conversely, be possible againstterritorially extensive states. In the size of a state's territory therealways lies a certain protection against frivolous attacks, since successcan be achieved only after hard struggles, and therefore the risk of a rashassault will seem too great unless there are quite exceptional grounds forit. Hence the very size of a state offers in itself a basis for more easilypreserving the freedom and independence of a people, while, conversely,the smallness of such a formation is a positive invitation to seizure.
Actually the two first possibilities for creating a balancebetween the rising population and the stationary amount of soil were rejectedin the so-called national circles of the Reich. The reasons for this positionwere, to be sure, different from those above mentioned: government circlesadopted a negative attitude toward the limitation of births out of a certainmoral feeling; they indignantly rejected internal colonization because init they scented an attack against large landholdings and therein the beginningof a wider struggle against private property in general. In view of theform in which particularly the latter panacea was put forward, they mayvery well have been right in this assumption.
On the whole, the defense against the broad masses was not veryskillful and by no means struck at the heart of the problem.
Thus there remained but two ways of securing work and bread for the risingpopulation.
3. Either new soil could be acquired and the superfluous millionssent off each year, thus keeping the nation on a selfsustaining basis; orwe could
4. Produce for foreign needs through industry and commerce,and defray the cost of living from the proceeds.
In other words: either a territorial policy, or a colonial andcommercial policy.
Both ways were contemplated, examined, recommended, and combatedby different political tendencies, and the last was finally taken.
The healthier way of the two would, to be sure, have been thefirst.
The acquisition of new soil for the settlement of the excesspopulation possesses an infinite number of advantages, particularly if weeturn from the present to the future.
For once thing, the possibility of preserving a healthy peasantclass as a foundation for a whole nation can never be valued highly enough.Many of our present-day sufferings are only the consequence of the unhealthyrelationship between rural and city population A solid stock of small andmiddle peasants has at all times been the best defense against social illssuch as we possess today. And, moreover this is the only solution whichenables a nation to earn its daily bread within the inner circuit of itseconomy. Industry and commerce recede from their unhealthy leading positionand adjust themselves to the general framework of a national economy ofbalanced supply and demand. Both thus cease to be the basis of the nation'ssustenance and become a mere instrument to that end. Since they now haveonly a balance ' Aberdeen domestic production and demand in all fields,they make the Subsistence of the people as a whole more or less independentforeign countries, and thus help to secure the freedom of the stite andthe independence of the nation, particularly in difficult Periods.
It must be said that such a territorial policy cannot be fulfilled in theCameroons, but today almost exclusively in Europe. We must, therefore, coollyand objectively adopt the standpoint that it can certainly not be the intentionof Heaven to give one people fifty times as much land and soil in this worldas another. In this case we must not let political boundaries obscure forus the boundaries of eternal justice. If this earth really has room forall to live in, let us be given the soil we need for our livelihood.
True, they will no t willingly do this. But then the law ofselfpreservaion goes into effect; and what is refused to amicable methods,it is up to the fist to take. If our forefathers had let their decisionsdepend on the same pacifistic nonsense as our contemporaries, we shouldpossess only a third of our present territory; but in that case there wouldscarcely be any German people for us to worry about in Europe today. No-itis to our natural determination to fight for our own existence that we owethe two Ostmarks of the Reich and hence that inner strength arising fromthe greatness of our state and national territory which alone has enabledus to exist up to the present.
And for another reason this would have been the correct solution
Today many European states are like pyramids stood on theirheads. Their European area is absurdly small in comparison to their weightof colonies, foreign trade, etc. We may say: summit in Europe, base in thewhole world; contrasting with the American Union which possesses its basein its own continent and touches the rest of the earth only with its summit.And from this comes the immense inner strength of this state and the weaknessof most European colonial powers.
Nor is England any proof to the contrary, since in considerationof the British Empire we too easily forget the Anglo-Saxon world as such.The position of England, if only because of her linguistic and culturalbond with the American Union, can be compared to no other state in Europe.
For Germany, consequently, the only possibility for carryingout a healthy territorial policy lay in the acquisition of new land in Europeitself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose unless they seem in large partsuited for settlement by Europeans. But in the nineteenth century such colonialterritories were no longer obtainable by peaceful means. Consequently, sucha colonial policy could only have been carried out by means of a hard strugglewhich, however, would have been carried on to much better purpose, not forterritories outside of Europe, but for land on the home continent itself.
Such a decision, it is true, demands undivided devotion. Itis not permissible to approach with half measures or even with hesitationa task whose execution seems possible only by the harnessing of the verylast possible ounce of energy. This means that the entire political leadershipof the Reich should have devoted itself to this exclusive aim; never shouldany step have been taken, guided by other considerations than the recognitionof this task and its requirements. It was indispensable to see dearly thatthis aim could be achieved only by struggle, and consequently to face thecontest of arms with calm and composure.
All alliances, therefore, should have been viewed exclusivelyfrom this standpoint and judged according to their possible utilization.If land was desired in Europe, it could be obtained by and large only atthe expense of Russia, and this meant that the new Reich must again setitself on the march along the road of the Teutonic Knights of old, to obtainby the German sword sod for the German plow and daily bread for the nation.
For such a policy there was but one ally in Europe: England.
With England alone was it possible, our rear protected, to beginthe new Germanic march. Our right to do this would have been no less thanthe right of our forefathers. None of our pacifists refuses to eat the breadof the East, although the first plowshare in its day bore the name of 'sword'!
Consequently, no sacrifice should have been too great for winningEngland's willingness. We should have renounced colonies and sea power,and spared English industry our competition.
Only an absolutely clear orientation could lead to such a goal:renunciation of world trade and colonies; renunciation of a German war fleet;concentration of all the state's instruments of power on the land army.
The result, to be sure, would have been a momentary limitationbut a great and mighty future.
There was a time when England would have listened to reasonon this point, since she was well aware that Germany as a result of herincreased population had to seek some way out and either find it with Englandin Europe or without England in the world.
And it can primarily be attributed to this realization if atthe turn of the century London itself attempted to approach Germany. Forthe first time a thing became evident which in the last years we have hadoccasion to observe in a truly terrifying fashion. People were unpleasantlyaffected by the thought of having to pull Fngland's chestnuts out of thefire; as though there ever could be an alliance on any other basis thana mutual business deal. And with England such a deal could very well havebeen made. British diplomacy was still clever enough to realize that noservice can be expected without a return.
Just suppose that an astute German foreign policy had takenover the role of Japan in 1904, and we can scarcely measure the consequencesthis would have had for Germany.
There would never have been any 'World War.'
The bloodshed in the year 1904 would have saved ten times asmuch in the years 1914 to 1918.
And what a position Germany would occupy in the world today!
In that light, to be sure, the alliance with Austria was anabsurdity.
For this mummy of a state allied itself with Germany, not inorder to fight a war to its end, but for the preservation of an eternalpeace which could astutely be used for the slow but certain exterminationof Germanism in the monarchy.
This alliance was an impossibility for another reason: becausewe could not expect a state to take the offensive in championing nationalGerman interests as long as this state did not possess the power and determinationto put an end to the process of de-Germanization on its own immediate borders.If Germany did not possess enough national awareness and ruthless determinationto snatch power over the destinies of ten million national comrades fromthe hands of the impossible Habsburg state, then truly we had no right toexpect that she would ever lend her hand to such farseeing and bold plans.The attitude of the old Reich on the Austrian question was the touchstoneof its conduct in the struggle for the destiny of the whole nation.
In any case we were not justified in looking on, as year afteryear Germanism was increasingly repressed, since the value of Aushia's fitnessfor alliance was determined exclusively by the preservation of the Germanelement.
This road, however, was not taken at all.
These people feared nothing so much as struggle, yet they werefinally forced into it at the most unfavorable hour.
They wanted to run away from destiny, and it caught up withthem. They dreamed of preserving world peace, and landed in the World War.
And this was the most significant reason why this third wayof molding the German future was not even considered. They knew that theacquisition of new soil was possible only in the East, they saw the strugglethat would be necessary and yet wanted peace at any price; for the watchwordof German foreign policy had long ceased to be: preservation of the Germannation by all methods; but rather: preservation of world peace by all means.With what success, everyone knows.
I shall return to this point in particular.
Thus there remained the fourth possibility
Industry and world trade, sea power and colonies.
Such a development, to be sure, was at first easier and alsomore quickly attainable. The settlement of land is a slow process, oftenlasting centuries; in fact, its inner strength is to be sought preciselyin the fact that it is not a sudden blaze, but a gradual yet solid and continuousgrowth, contrasting with an industrial development which can be blown upin the course of a few years, but in that case is more like a soapbubblethan solid strength. A fieet, to be sure, can be built more quickly thanfarms can be established in stubborn struggle and settled with peasants,but it is also more rapidly destroyed than the latter.
If, nevertheless, Germany took this road, she should at leasthave clearly recognized that this development would some day likewise endin struggle. Only children could have thought that they could get theirbananas in the 'peaceful contest of nations,' by friendly and moral conductand constant emphasis on their peaceful intentions, as they so high-soundinglyand unctuously babbled; in other words, without ever having to take up arms.No: if we chose this road, England would some day inevitably become ourenemy. It was more than senseless-but quite in keeping with our own innocence-towax indignant over the fact that England should one day take the libertyto oppose our peaceful activity with the brutality of a violent egoist.
It is true that we, I am sorry to say, would never have donesuch a thing.
If a European territorial policy was only possible against Russiain alliance with England, conversely, a policy of colonies and world tradewas conceivable only against England and with Russia. But then we had dauntlesslyto draw the consequences- and, above all, abandon Austria in all haste.
Viewed from all angles, this alliance with Austria was realmadness by the turn of the century.
But we did not think of concluding an alliance with Russia againstEngland, any more than with England against Russia, for in both cases theend would have been war, and to prevent this we decided in favor of a policyof commerce and industry. In the 'peaceful economic ' conquest of the worldwe possessed a recipe which was expected to break the neck of the formerpolicy of violence once and for all.l Occasionally, perhaps, we were notquite sure of ourselves, particularly when from time to time incomprehensiblethreats came over from England; therefore, we decided to build a fleet,though not to attack and destroy England, but for the 'defense' of our oldfriend 'world peace' and 'peaceful ' conquest of the world. Consequently,it was kept on a somewhat more modest scale in all respects, not only innumber but also in the tonnage of the individual ships as well as in armament,so as in the final analysis to let our 'peaceful' intentions shine throughafter all.
The talk about the 'peaceful economic' conquest of the worldwas possibly the greatest nonsense which has ever been exalted to be a guidingprinciple of state policy. What made this nonsense even worse was that itsproponents did not hesitate to call upon England as a crown witness forthe possibility of such an achievement. The crimes of our academic doctrineand conception of history in this connection can scarcely be made good andare only a striking proof of how many people there are who 'learn' historywithout understanding or even comprehending it. England, in particular,should have been recognized as the striking refutation of this theory; forno people has ever with greater brutality better prepared its economic conquestswith the sword, and later ruthlessly defended theme than the English nation.Is it not positively the distinguishing feature of British statesmanshipto draw economic acquisitions from political strength, and at once to recastevery gain in economic strength into political power? And what an errorto believe that England is personally too much of a coward to stake herown blood for her economic policy! The fact that the English people possessedno 'people's army' in no way proved the contrary; for what matters is notthe momentary military form of the fighting forces, but rather the willand determination to risk those which do exist. England has always possessedwhatever armament she happened to need. She always fought with the weaponswhich success demanded. She fought with mercenaries as long as mercenariessufficed; but she reached down into the precious blood of the whole nationwhen only such a sacrifice could bring victory; but the determination forvictory, the tenacity and ruthless pursuit of this struggle, remained unchanged.
In Germany, however, the school, the press, and comic magazinescultivated a conception of the Englishman's character, and almost more soof his empire, which inevitably led to one of the most insidious delusions;for gradually everyone was infected by this nonsense, and the consequencewas an underestimation for which we would have to pay most bitterly. Thisfalsification went so deep that people became convinced that in the Englishmanthey faced a business man as shrewd as personally he was unbelievably cowardly.The fact that a world empire the size of the British could not be put togetherby mere subterfuge and swindling was unfortunately something that nevereven occurred to our exalted professors of academic science. The few whoraised a voice of warning were ignored or killed by silence. I rememberwell my comrades' looks of astonishment when we faced the Tommies in personin Flanders. After the very first days of battle the conviction dawned oneach and every one of them that these Scotsmen did not exactly jibe withthe pictures they had seen fit to give us in the comic magazines and pressdispatches.
It was then that I began my first reflections about the importanceof the form of propaganda.
This falsification, however, did have one good side for those who spreadit: by this example, even though it was incorrect, they were able to demonstratethe correctness of the economic conquest of the world. If the Englishmanhad succeeded, we too were bound to succeed, and our definitely greaterhonesty, the absence in us of that specifically English 'perfidy,' was regardedas a very special plus. For it was hoped that this would enable us to winthe affection, particularly of the smaller nations, and the confidence ofthe large ones the more easily.
It did not occur to us that our honesty was a profound horrorto the others, if for no other reason because we ourselves believed allthese things seriously while the rest of the world regarded such behavioras the expression of a special slyness and disingenuousness, until, to theirgreat, infinite amazement, the revolution gave them a deeper insight intothe boundless stupidity of our honest convictions.
However, the absurdity of this 'economic conquest' at once madethe absurdity of the Triple Alliance clear and comprehensible. For withwhat other state could we ally ourselves? In alliance with Austria, to besure, we could not undertake any military conquest, even in Europe alone.Precisely therein consisted the inner weakness of the alliance from thevery first day. A Bismarck could permit himself this makeshift, but notby a long shot every bungling successor, least of all at a time when certainessential premises of Bismarck's alliance had long ceased to exist; forBismarck still believed that in Austria he had to do with a German state.But with the gradual introduction of universal suffrage, this country hadsunk to the status of an unGerman hodgepodge with a parliamentary government.
Also from the standpoint of racial policy, the alliance withAustria was simply ruinous. It meant tolerating the growth of a new Slavicpower on the borders of the Reich, a power which sooner or later would haveto take an entirely different attitude toward Germany than, for example,Russia. And from year to year the alliance itself was bound to grow inwardlyhollower and weaker in proportion as the sole supporters of this idea inthe monarchy lost influence and were shoved out of the most decisive positions.
By the turn of the century the alliance with Austria had enteredthe very same stage as Austria's pact with Italy.
Here again there were only two possibilities: either we werein a pact with the Habsburg monarchy or we had to lodge protest againstthe repression of Germanism. But once a power embarks on this kind of undertaking,it usually ends in open struggle.
Even psychologically the value of the Triple Alliance was small,since the stability of an alliance increases in proportion as the individualcontracting parties can hope to achieve definite and tangible expansiveaims. And, conversely, it will be the weaker the more it limits itself tothe preservation of an existing condition. Here, as everywhere else, strengthlies not in defense but in attack.
Even then this was recognized in various quarters, unfortunatelynot by the so-called 'authorities.' Particularly Ludendorff, then a coloneland officer in the great general staff, pointed to these weaknesses in amemorial written in 1912. Of course, none of the 'statesmen' attached anyvalue or significance to the matter; for clear common sense is expectedto manifest itself expediently only in common mortals, but may on principleremain absent where 'diplomats' are concenned.
For Germany it was sheer good fortune that in 1914 the war brokeout indirectly through Austria, so that the Habsburgs were forced to takepart; for if it had happened the other way around Germany would have beenalone. Never would the Habsburg state have been able, let alone willing,to take part in a confiict which would have arisen through Germany. Whatwe later so condemned in Italy would then have happened even earlier withAustria: they would have remained 'neutral' in order at least to save thestate from a revolution at the very start. Austrian Slavdom would ratherhave shattered the monarchy even in 1914 than permit aid to Germany.
How great were the dangers and difficulties entailed by thealliance with the Danubian monarchy, only very few realized a' that time.
In the first place, Austria possessed too many enemies who wereplanning to grab what they could from the rotten state to prevent a certainhatred from arising in the course of time against Germany, in whom theysaw the cause of preventing the generally hoped and longed-for collapseof the monarchy. They came to the conviction that Vienna could finally bereached only by a detour through Berlin.
In the second place, Germany thus lost her best and most hopefulpossibilities of alliance. They were replaced by an evermounting tensionwith Russia and even Italy. For in Rome the general mood was just as pro-Germanas it was antiAustrian, slumbering in the heart of the very last Italianand often brightly flanng up.
Now, since we had thrown ourselves into a policy of commerceand industry, there was no longer the slightest ground for war against Russiaeither. Only the enemies of both nations could still have an active interestin it. And actually these were primarily the Jews and the Marxists, who,with every means, incited and agitated for war between the two states.
Thirdly and lastly, this alliance inevitably involved an infiniteperil for Germany, because a great power actually hostile to Bismarck'sReich could at any time easily succeed in mobilizing a whole series of statesagainst Germany, since it was in a position to promise each of them enrichmentat the expense of our Austrian ally.
The whole East of Europe could be stirred up against the Danubianmonarchy-particularly Russia and Italy. Never would the world coalitionwhich had been forming since the initiating efforts of King Edward havecome into existence if Austria as Germany's ally had not represented tootempting a legacy. This alone made it possible to bring states with otherwiseso heterogeneous desires and aims into a single offensive front. Each onecould hope that in case of a general action against Germany it, too, wouldachieve enrichment at Austria's expense. The danger was enormously increasedby the fact that Turkey seemed to be a silent partner in this unfortunatealliance.
International Jewish world finance needed these lures to enableit to carry out its long-desired plan for destroying the Germany which thusfar did not submit to its widespread superst3te control of finance and economics.Only in this way could they forge a coalition made strong and courageousby the sheer numbers of the gigantic armies now on the march and preparedto attack the horny Siegfried at last.
The alliance with the Habsburg monarchy, which even in Austriahad filled me with dissatisfaction, now became the source of long innertrials which in the time to come reinforced me even more in the opinionI had already conceived.
Even then, among those few people whom I frequented I made nosecret of my conviction that our catastrophic alliance with a state on thebrink of ruin would also lead to a fatal collapse of Germany unless we knewenough to release ourselves from it on time. This conviction of mine wasfirm as a rock, and I did not falter ill it for one moment when at lastthe storm of the World War seemed to have excluded all reasonable thoughtand a frenzy of enthusiasm had seized even those quarters for which thereshould have been only the coldest consideration of reality. And while Imyself was at the front, I put forwards whenever these problems were discussed,my opinion that the alliance had to be broken off, the quicker the betterfor the German nation, and that the sacrifice of the Habsburg monarchy wouldbe no sacrifice at all to make if Germany thereby could achieve a restrictionof her adversaries; for it was not for the preservation of a debauched dynastythat the millions had donned the steel helmet, but for the salvation ofthe German nation.
On a few occasions before the War it seemed as though, in onecamp at least, a gentle doubt was arising as to the correctness of the alliancepolicy that had been chosen. German conservative circles began from timeto time to warn against excessive confidence, but, like everything elsethat was sensible, this was thrown to the winds. They were convinced thatthey were on the path to a world ' conquest,' whose success would be tremendousand which would entail practically no sacrifices.
There was nothing for those not in authority to do but to watchin silence why and how the ' authorities' marched straight to destruction,drawing the dear people behind them like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
The deeper cause that made it possible to represent the absurdityof an ' economic conquest ' as a practical political method, and the preservationof 'world peace' as a political goal for a whole people, and even to makethese things intelligible, lay in the general sickening of our whole politicalthinking.
With the victorious march of German technology and industry,the rising successes of German commerce, the realization was increasinglylost that all this was only possible on the basis of a strong state. Onthe contrary, many circles went so far as to put forward the convictionthat the state owed its very existence to these phenomena, that the stateitself Drimarilv represented an economic institution, that it could be governedaccording to economic requirements, and that its very existence dependedon economics, a state of affairs which was regarded and glorified as byfar the healthiest and most natural.
But the state has nothing at all to do with any definite economicconception or development.
It is not a collection of economic contracting parties in adefinite delimited living space for the fulfillment of economic tasks, butthe organization of a community of physically and psychologically similarliving beings for the better facilitation of the maintenance of their speciesand the achievement of the aim which has been allotted to this species byProvidence. This and nothing else is the aim and meaning of a state. Economicsis only one of the many instruments required for the achievement of thisaim. It is never the cause or the aim of a state unless this state is basedon a false, because unnatural, foundation to begin with. Only in this waycan it be explained that the state as such does not necessarily presupposeterritorial limitation. This will be necessary only among the peoples whowant to secure the maintenance of their national comrades by their own resources;in other words, are prepared to fight the struggle for existence by theirown labor. Peoples who can sneak their way into the rest of mankind likedrones, to make other men work for them under all sorts of pretexts, canform states even without any definitely delimited living space of theirown. This applies first and foremost to a people under whose parasitismthe whole of honest humanity is suffering, today more than ever: the Jews.
The Jewish state was never spatially limited in itself, butuniversally unlimited as to space, though restricted in the sense of embracingbut one race. Consequently, this people has always formed a state withinstates. It is one of the most ingenious tricks that was ever devised, tomake this state sail under the fiag of 'religion,' thus assuring it of thetolerance which the Aryan is always ready to accord a religious creed. Foractually the Mosaic religion is nothing other than a doctrine for the preservationof the Jewish race. It therefore embraces almost all sociological, political,and economic fields of knowledge which can have any bearing on this function.
The urge to preserve the species is the first cause for theformation of human communities; thus the state is a national organism andnot an economic organization. A difference which is just as large as itis incomprehensible, particularly to our so-called ' statesmen ' of today.That is why they think they can build up the state through economics whilein reality it results and always will result solely from the action of thosequalities which lie in line with the will to preserve the species and race.And these are always heroic virtues and never the egoism of shopkeepers,since the preservation of the existence of a species presupposes a spiritof sacrifice in the individual. The sense of the poet's words, 'If you willnot stake your life, you will win no life,' is that the sacrifice of personalexistence is necessary to secure the preservation of the species. Thus,the most sensible prerequisite for the formation and preservation of a stateis the presence of a certain feeling of cohesion based on similarity ofnature and species, and a willingness to stake everything on it with allpossible means, something which in peoples with soil of their own will createheroic virtues, but in parasites will create lying hypocrisy and malignantcruelty, or else these qualities must already be present as the necessaryand demonstrable basis for their existence as a state so different in form.The formation of a state, originally at least, will occur through the exerciseof these qualities, and in the subsequent struggle for self-preservationthose nations will be defeated- that is, will fall a prey to subjugationand thus sooner or later die out which in the mutual struggle possess thesmallest share of heroic virtues, or are not equal to the lies and trickeryof the hostile parasite. But in this case, too, this must almost alwaysbe attributed less to a lack of astuteness than to a lack of determinationand courage, which only tries to conceal itself beneath a cloak of humaneconvictions.
How little the state-forming and state-preserving qualitiesare connected with economics is most clearly shown by the fact that theinner strength of a state only in the rarest cases coincides with so-calledeconomic prosperity, but that the latter, in innumerable cases, seems toindicate the state's approaching decline. If the formation of human societieswere primarily attributable to economic forces or even impulses, the highesteconomic development would have to mean the greatest strength of the stateand not the opposite.
Belief in the state-forming and state-preserving power of economicsseems especially incomprehensible when it obtains in a country which inall things clearly and penetratingly shows the historic reverse. Prussia,in particular, demonstrates with marvelous sharpness that not material qualitiesbut ideal virtues alone make possible the formation of a state. Only undertheir protection can economic life flourish, until with the collapse ofthe pure state-forming faculties the economy collapses too; a process whichwe can observe in so terrible and tragic a form right now. The materialinterests of man can always thrive best as long as they remain in the shadowof heroic virtues; but as soon as they attempt to enter the primary sphereof existence, they destroy the basis for their own existence.
Always when in Germany there was an upsurge of political power, the economicconditions began to improve; but always when economics became the sole contentof our people's life, stifling the ideal virtues, the state collapsed andin a short time drew economic life along with it.
If, however, we consider the question, what, in reality, arethe state-forming or even state-preserving forces, we can sum them up underone single head: the ability and will of the individual to sacrifice himselffor the totality. That these virtues have nothing at all to do with economicscan be seen from the simple realization that man never sacrifices himselffor the latter, or, in other words: a man does not die for business, butonly for ideals. Nothing proved the Englishman's superior psychologicalknowledge of the popular soul better than the motivation which he gave tohis struggle. While we fought for bread, England fought for 'freedom'; andnot even for her own, no, for that of the small nations. In our countrywe laughed at this effrontery, or were enraged at it, and thus only demonstratedhow emptyheaded and stupid the so-called statesmen of Germany had becorneeven before the War. We no longer had the slightest idea concerning theessence of the force which can lead men to their death of their own freewill and decision.
In 1914 as long as the German people thought they were fightingfor ideals, they stood firm; but as soon as they were told to fight fortheir daily bread, they preferred to give up the game.
And our brilliant 'statesmen' were astonished at this changein attitude. It never became clear to them that from the moment when a manbegins to fight for an economic interest, he avoids death as much as possible,since death wo lid forever deprive him of his reward for fighting. Anxietyfor the rescue of her own child makes a heroine of even the feeblest mother,and only the struggle for the preservation of the species and the hearth,or the state that protects it, has at all times driven men against the spearsof their enemies.
The following theorem may be established as an eternally validtruth:
Never yet has a state been founded by peaceful economic means,but always and exclusively by the instincts of preservation of the speciesregardless whether these are found in the province of heroic virtue or ofcunning craftiness; the one results in Aryan states based on work and culture,the other in Jewish colonies of parasites. As soon as economics as suchbegins to choke out these Instincts in a people or in a state, it becomesthe seductive cause of subjugation and oppression.
The belief of pre-war days that the world could be peacefullyopened up to, let alone conquered for, the German people by a commercialand colonial policy was a classic sign of the loss of real state-formingand state-preserving virtues and of all the insight, will power, and activedetermination which follow from them; the penalty for this, inevitable asthe law of nature, was the World War with its consequences.
For those who do not look more deeply into the matter, thisattitude of the German nation-for it was really as good as general-couldonly represent an insoluble riddle: for was not Germany above all othercountries a marvelous example of an empire which had risen from foundationsof pure political power? Prussia, the germ-cell of the Empire, came intobeing through resplendent heroism and not through financial operations orcommercial deals, and the Reich itself in turn was only the glorious rewardof aggressive political leadership and the death defying courage of itssoldiers. How could this very German people have succumbed to such a sickeningof its political instinct? For here we face, not an isolated phenomenon,but forces of decay which in truly terrifying number soon began to flareup like will-o'-the-wisps, brushing up and down the body politic, or eatinglike poisonous abscesses into the nation, now here and now there. It seemedas though a continuous stream of poison was being driven into the outermostblood-vessels of this once heroic body by a mysterious power, and was inducingprogressively greater paralysis of sound reason and the simple instinctof selfpreservation .
As innumerable times I passed in review all these questions,arising through my position on the German alliance policy and the economicpolicy of the Reich in the years 1912 to 1914-the only remaining solutionto the riddle became to an ever-increasing degree that power which, froman entirely different viewpoint, I had come to know earlier in Vienna: theMarxist doctrine and philosophy, and their organizational results.
For the second time I dug into this doctrine of destruction-this time no longer led by the impressions and effects of my daily associations,but directed by the observation of general processes of political life.I again immersed myself in the theoretical literature of this new world,attempting to achieve clarity concerning its possible effects, and thencompared it with the actual phenomena and events it brings about in political,cultural, and economic life.
Now for the first time I turned my attention to the attemptsto master this world plague.
I studied Bismarck's Socialist legislation 1 in its intentionstruggle, and success. Gradually I obtained a positively granite foundationfor my own conviction, so that since that time I have never been forcedto undertake a shift in my own inner view on this question. Likewise therelation of Marxism to the Jews was submitted to further thorough examination.
Though previously in Vienna, Germany above all had seemed tome an unshakable colossus, now anxious misgivings sometimes entered my mind.In silent solitude and in the small circles of my acquaintance, I was filledwith wrath at German foreign policy and likewise with what seemed to methe incredibly frivolous way in which the most important problem then existingfor Germany, Marxism, was treated. It was really beyond me how people couldrush so blindly into a danger whose effects, pursuant to the Marxists' ownintention, were bound some day to be monstrous. Even then, among my acquaintance,just as today on a large scale, I warned against the phrase with which allwretched cowards comfort themselves: 'Nothing can happen to us!' This pestilentialattitude had once been the downfall of a gigantic empire. Could anyone believethat Germany alone was not subject to exactly the same laws as all otherhuman organisms?
In the years 1913 and 1914, I, for the first time in variouscircles which today in part faithfully support the National Socialist movement,expressed the conviction that the question of the future of the German nationwas the question of destroying Marxism.
In the catastrophic German alliance policy I saw only one ofthe consequences called forth by the disruptive work of this doctrine; forthe terrible part of it was that this poison almost invisibly destroyedall the foundations of a healthy conception of economy and state, and thatoften those affected by it did not themselves realize to what an extenttheir activities and desires emanated from this philosophy srhich they otherwisesharply ejected.
The internal decline of the German nation had long since begun,yet, as so often in life, people had not achieved clarity concerning theforce that was destroying their existence. Sometimes they tinkered aroundwith the disease, but confused the forms of the phenomenon with the virusthat had caused it. Since they did not know or want to know the cause, thestruggle against Malsisrs was no better than bungling quackery.