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In watching the course of political events I was always struck by the active part which propaganda played in them. I saw that it was an instrument which the Marxist Socialists knew how to handle in a masterly, way and to put to good practical use. Thus I soon came to realise that the right use of propaganda was an art in itself, and that this art was practically unknown to our bourgeois parties. The Christian Socialist Party alone, especially in Lueger’s time, showed a certain efficiency in the employment of this instrument and owed much of their success to it. It was during the War, however, that we had the best chance of estimating the tremendous results which could be obtained by a propaganda system properly carried out. Here again, unfortunately, everything was left to the other side, the work done on our side being worse than insignificant. It was the total failure of the whole German system of information—a failure which was perfectly obvious to every soldier—that urged me to consider the problem of propaganda in a comprehensive way. I had ample opportunity to learn a practical lesson in this matter, for unfortunately it was only too well taught us by the enemy. The lack on our side was exploited by the enemy in such an efficient manner that one could say it showed itself as a real work of genius. In that propaganda carried on by the enemy I found admirable sources of instruction. The lesson to be learned from this had, unfortunately, no attraction for the geniuses on our own side. They were simply above all such things, too clever to accept any teaching and, in any case, they did not honestly wish to learn anything. Had we any propaganda at all? Alas, I can reply only in the negative. All that was undertaken in this direction, was so utterly inadequate and misconceived from the very beginning, that not only did it prove useless, but at times harmful. In substance, it was insufficient. Psychologically, it was all wrong.
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Anybody who had carefully investigated the German propaganda must have formed that judgment of it. Our authorities did not seem to be clear even about the primary question as to whether propaganda is a means or an end. Propaganda is a means and must, therefore, be judged in relation to the end it is intended to serve. It must be organised in such a way as to be capable of attaining its objective, and, as it is quite clear that the importance of the objective may vary from the standpoint of general necessity, the essential internal character of the propaganda must vary accordingly. The cause for which we fought during the War was the noblest and highest that man could strive for. We were fighting for the freedom and independence of our country, for the security of our future welfare and the honour of the nation. Despite all views to the contrary, this honour does actually exist, or rather it ought to exist, for a nation without honour will sooner or later lose its freedom and independence. This is in accordance with the ruling of a higher justice, for a generation of poltroons is not entitled to freedom. He who would be a cowardly slave cannot have honour; for such honour would soon become an object of general scorn. Germany was waging war for her very existence. The purpose of her war propaganda should have been to strengthen the fighting spirit in that struggle and help her to victory. But when nations are fighting for their existence on this earth, when the question of ‘to be’ or ‘not to be’ has to be answered, then all humane and aesthetic considerations must be set aside, for these ideals do not exist of themselves somewhere in the air, they are the product of man’s creative imagination and will disappear when he disappears from the face of the earth. Nature knows nothing of them. Moreover, they are characteristic of only a small number of nations, or rather of races, and their value depends on the measure in which they spring from the racial feeling of the latter. Humane and aesthetic ideals will disappear from the inhabited earth when those races disappear which have been their creators and champions. All such ideals are only of secondary importance when a nation is struggling for its existence. They must be prevented from entering into the struggle the moment they threaten to weaken the stamina of the nation that is waging war.
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That is always the only visible effect whereby their place in the struggle is to be judged. In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke said that in time of war the essential thing is to get a decision as quickly as possible and that the most ruthless methods of fighting are, at the same time, the most humane. When people attempt to answer this reasoning by high-faluting talk about aesthetics, etc., only one answer can be given, namely, that the vital questions involved in the struggle of a nation for its existence must not be subordinated to any aesthetic considerations. The yoke of slavery is, and always will remain, the most unaesthetic experience that mankind can endure. Do the Schwabing decadents look upon Germany’s lot to-day as ‘aesthetic’? Of course, one does not discuss such a question with the Jews, because they are the modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their very existence is an incarnate denial of the beauty of God’s image in His creation. Since these ideas of what is beautiful and humane have no place in warfare, they are not to be used as standards of war propaganda. During the war, propaganda was a means to an end, and this end was the German nation’s struggle for existence. Propaganda, therefore, should have been regarded from the standpoint of its utility for that purpose. The cruellest weapons were then the most humane, provided they helped towards a speedier decision; and only those methods were good and beautiful which helped towards securing the dignity and freedom of the nation. Such was the only possible attitude to adopt towards war propaganda in that life-and-death struggle. If those in what are called positions of authority had realised this, there would have been no uncertainty about the form and employment of war propaganda as a weapon, for it is nothing but a weapon, and indeed a most terrifying weapon in the hands of those who know how to use it. The second question of decisive importance is this: To whom should propaganda be made to appeal? To the educated intellectual classes? Or to the uneducated masses? Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people.
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Propaganda is not meant for the intellectual classes, or what we call the intellectual classes to-day, which demand scientific enlightenment. Propaganda has as little to do with science as an advertisement poster has to do with art, as far as concerns the form in which it presents its message. The art of the advertisement poster consists in the ability of the designer to attract the attention of the crowd through the form and colours he chooses. The advertisement poster announcing an exhibition of art has no other aim than to convince the public of the importance of the exhibition. The better it does that, the better the art of the poster as such. Although its purpose is to impress upon the public the importance of the exhibition, the poster can never take the place of the artistic objects displayed in the exhibition hall. They are something entirely different. Therefore, those who wish to study art must study something that is quite different from the poster; indeed for that purpose they must do more than merely wander through the exhibition galleries. The student of art must carefully and thoroughly study each exhibition in order slowly to form a judicious opinion on it. The situation is the same in regard to what we understand by the word ‘propaganda.’ The purpose of propaganda is not the scientific instruction of the individual, but rather to attract public attention to certain facts, events, urgent needs, and so on, the importance of which can be brought home to the masses only by this means. Here the art of propaganda consists in putting a matter so clearly and forcibly before the minds of the people as to create a general conviction regarding the reality of a certain fact, the necessity of certain things and the imperativeness of something that is essential. As this art is not an end in itself and because its purpose must be exactly that of the advertisement poster, to attract the attention of the masses and not by any means to dispense individual instructions to those who already have an educated opinion on things, or who wish to form such an opinion on grounds of objective study (because that is not the purpose of propaganda), it must appeal to the feelings of the public rather than to their reasoning powers. All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those at whom it is directed.
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Thus, the larger the public to which its appeal is directed, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. When it is a question of bringing a whole nation within the circle of its influence, as happens in the case of war propaganda, then too much attention cannot be paid to the necessity of avoiding a high level, which presupposes a relatively high degree of intelligence among the public. The more modest the scientific level of this propaganda and the more it is addressed exclusively to public sentiment, the more decisive will be its success, which is the best test of the value of a piece of propaganda, and not the approbation of a small group of intellectuals or artistic people. The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to its feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the broad masses. That this is not understood by those among us whose wits are supposed to have been sharpened to the highest pitch, is only another proof of their vanity or mental inertia. Once we have understood how necessary it is to concentrate the persuasive forces of propaganda on the broad masses of the people, we can subscribe to the theory that it is a mistake to try to lend propaganda the manysidedness of scientific instruction. The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their power of understanding is slight. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials, and these must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. If this principle be forgotten, and if an attempt be made to be abstract and general, the propaganda will turn out ineffective, for the public will not be able to digest or retain what is offered to them in this way. Therefore, the greater the scope of the message that has to be presented, the more necessary is it for propaganda to choose that plan of action which is psychologically the most efficient.
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It was, for example, a fundamental mistake to ridicule the enemy, as the Austrian and German comic papers made a point of doing in their propaganda. The very principle here is a mistaken one, for, when they came face to face with the enemy, our soldiers gained quite a different impression. Therefore, the mistake had disastrous results. Once the German soldier realised what a tough enemy he had to fight, he felt that he had been deceived by the manufacturer of the information which had been given him. Therefore, instead of strengthening and stimulating his fighting spirit, this information had quite the contrary effect and, finally, he lost heart. On the other hand, British and American war propaganda was psychologically efficient. By picturing the Germans to their own people as barbarians and Huns, they were preparing their soldiers for the horrors of war and safeguarding them against delusion. The most terrific weapons which those soldiers encountered in the field merely confirmed the information they had already received, and their belief in the truth of the assertions made by their respective governments was accordingly reinforced. Thus their rage and hatred against the infamous foe was increased. The terrible havoc caused by the German weapons of war was only another illustration of the Hunnish brutality of those barbarians, whereas, on the side of the Entente, no time was left for the soldiers to meditate on the similar havoc of which their own weapons were capable. Thus the British soldier was never allowed to feel that the information which he received at home was untrue. Unfortunately, the opposite was the case with the Germans, who finally wound up by rejecting everything from home as pure swindle and humbug. This was possible because at home they thought that the work of propaganda could be entrusted to the first ass that came along, or even to someone who was fairly intelligent in other respects, and they had no conception of the fact that propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found. Thus German war propaganda afforded us an incomparable example of how the work of ‘enlightenment’ should not be done and how such an example was the result of an entire failure to take into account any psychological considerations whatsoever.
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From the enemy, however, a fund of valuable knowledge could be gained by those, who kept their eyes open, whose powers of preception had not yet become dimmed, and who during four-and-a-half years had to experience the perpetual flood of enemy propaganda. The worst thing of all was that our people did not understand the very first condition which has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda, namely, a systematically one sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with. In this respect, so many errors were committed, even from the very beginning of the war, that it was justifiable to doubt whether so much folly could be attributed solely to the stupidity of people in higher quarters. What, for example, should we say of a poster which purported to advertise some new brand of soap by insisting on the excellent qualities of the competitive brands? We should naturally shake our heads, and the same is true of political advertisement. The aim of propaganda is not to try to pass judgment on conflicting rights, giving each its due, but exclusively to emphasise the right which we’re asserting. Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice, but it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. It was a fundamental mistake to discuss the question of who was responsible for the outbreak of the war and to declare that the sole responsibility could not be attributed to Germany. The sole responsibility should have been laid on the shoulders of the enemy, even had this not been strictly true, as indeed it was. What was the consequence of these half-measures? The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but they are a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. As soon as our own propaganda made the slightest suggestion that the enemy had a certain amount of justice on his side, then we laid down the basis on which the justice of our own cause could be questioned.
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The masses are not in a position to discern where the enemy’s fault ends and where our own begins. In such a case, they become hesitant and distrustful, especially when the enemy does not make the same mistake, but heaps all the blame on his adversary. Could there be any clearer proof of this than the fact that finally our own people believed what was said by the enemy’s propaganda, which was uniform and consistent in its assertions, rather than in our own propaganda? This disbelief was, of course, increased by the mania for objectivity which afflicts our people. Everybody began to be careful about doing an injustice to the enemy, even at the cost of seriously injuring, and even ruining, his own people and State. Naturally, the masses were not conscious of the fact that those in authority had failed to study the subject from this angle. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that. Those responsible for English propaganda, especially understood this in a marvellous degree and put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half-measures, which might have given rise to doubt. Proof of how brilliantly they understood that the feeling of the masses is something primitive was shown in their policy of publishing tales of horror and outrages which fitted in with the real horrors of the time, thereby cleverly and ruthlessly preparing the ground for moral solidarity at the front, even in times of great defeats. Further, the way in which they pilloried the German enemy as solely responsible for the war—which was a brutal and absolute falsehood—and the way in which they proclaimed his guilt was excellently calculated to reach the masses, realising that these are always extremist in their feeling.
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Thus it was that this atrocious lie was positively believed. The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda is well illustrated by the fact that after four-and-a-half years, the enemy was not only still carrying on his propagandist work, but it was already undermining the stamina of our people at home. That our propaganda did not achieve similar results is not to be wondered at, because it contained the germs of inefficiency by reason of its ambiguity, and because of the very nature of its contents one could not expect it to make the necessary impression on the masses. Only our feckless ‘statesmen’ could have imagined that the enthusiasm which is necessary to kindle that spirit which leads men to die for their country could be nourished on pacifist ‘slops’ of this kind, and so this product of ours was not only worthless but detrimental. No matter what the amount of talent employed in the organisation of propaganda, it will have no result if due account is not taken of one fundamental principle. Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes and these must be presented again and again. Here, as in innumerable other cases, perseverance is the first and most important condition of success. Particularly in the field of propaganda, placid aesthetes and blasé intellectuals should never be allowed to take the lead. The former would readily transform the impressive character of real propaganda into something suitable only for literary tea-parties. As to the second class of persons, one must always beware of this pest; for, in consequence of their insensibility to normal impressions, they are constantly seeking fresh thrills. Such people grow sick and tired of everything. They always long for change and will always be incapable of putting themselves in the position of picturing the wants of their less callous fellow-creatures in their immediate neighbourhood, let alone trying to understand them. The blasé intellectuals are always the first to criticise propaganda, or rather its message, because this appears to them to be out-moded and trivial. They are always looking for something new, always yearning for change, and thus they become the mortal enemies of every effort that is made to influence the masses in an effective way.
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The moment the organisation and message of a propaganda movement begins to be orientated according to their tastes, it becomes incoherent and scattered. It is not the purpose of propaganda to provide a series of thrills with a view to pleasing these blasé gentry. Its chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd. Any variation must not alter the main theme of the propaganda, but must always emphasise the same point. The slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end the stress must always be laid on the, slogan itself. In this way alone can propaganda be consistent and dynamic in its effects. Only by following these general lines and sticking to them steadfastly, with uniform and concise emphasis, can final success be reached. Then we shall be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a persistent policy secures. The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or a political nature, depends on the consistency and perseverance with which it is employed. In this respect also, the propaganda organised by our enemies set us an excellent example. It confined itself to a few themes, which were meant exclusively for mass consumption, and it repeated these themes with untiring perseverance. Once these fundamental themes and the manner of placing them before the world were recognised as effective, they adhered to them without the slightest alteration for the whole duration of, the war. At first, all of it appeared to be idiotic in its impudent assertiveness. Later on, it was looked upon as disturbing, but finally it was believed. Four-and-a-half years later, a revolution, the slogans of which were borrowed from enemy war-time propaganda, broke out in Germany. In England they came to understand something else, namely, that the possibility of success in the use of this spiritual weapon consists in the mass employment of it, and that, when employed in this way, it brings full returns for the large expense incurred.
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In England propaganda was regarded as a weapon of the first order, whereas with us it represented the last hope of a livelihood for our unemployed politicians and a snug job for shirkers of the modest heroic type. Taken all in all, its results were negative.
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The enemy started his propaganda among our soldiers. From 1916 onwards it steadily became more intensive, and at the beginning of 1918 it had swollen into a storm-flood. One could now judge the effects of this proselytizing movement step by step. Gradually, our soldiers began to think just in the way the enemy wished them to think. On the German side there was no counter-propaganda. At that time, they army authorities, under our able and resolute Commander were willing and ready to take up the fight in the propaganda domain also, but unfortunately, they did not have the necessary means of carrying that intention into effect. Moreover, the army authorities would have made a psychological mistake had they undertaken this task of mental training. To be effective, it had to come from the home front, for only thus could it be successful among men who for nearly four years now had been performing immortal deeds of heroism and undergoing all sorts of privations for the sake of that home. But what were the people at home doing? Was their failure to act due merely to lack of intelligence or bad faith? In the summer of 1918, after the evacuation of the southern bank of the Marne, the German press adopted a policy which was so woefully inopportune, and even criminally stupid, that I daily and with growing fury used to ask myself the question, ‘Is it really true that we have nobody who dares to put an end to this process of spiritual sabotage which is being carried on among our heroic troops?’ What happened in France during those days of 1914, when our armies invaded that country and were marching in triumph from one victory to another? What happened in Italy when the Italian armies collapsed on the Isonzo front? What happened in France again during the spring of 1918, when German divisions took the main French positions by storm and heavy long-distance artillery bombarded Paris?
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How enemy propaganda whipped up the flagging courage of those troops who were retreating and fanned the fires of national enthusiasm among them! How their propaganda and their marvellous aptitude in the exercise of mass-influence reawakened the fighting spirit in that broken front and hammered into the heads of the soldiers a firm belief in final victory! Meanwhile, what were our people doing in this sphere? Nothing, or even worse than nothing. Again and again. I used to become enraged and indignant as I read the latest papers and realised the nature of the mass-murder they were committing through their influence on the minds of the people and the soldiers. More than once, I was tormented by the thought that, if Providence had put the conduct of German propaganda into my hands, instead of into the hands of those incompetent and even criminal ignoramuses and weaklings, the outcome of the struggle might have been different. During those months, I felt, for the first time that Fate was dealing adversely with me in keeping me on the fighting front and in a position where any chance bullet from some Negro’s rifle might finish me, whereas I could have done the Fatherland a real service in another sphere, for I was then presumptuous enough to believe that I would have been successful in managing the propaganda business. But I was unknown, one among eight millions. Hence, it was better for me to keep my mouth shut and do my duty as well as I could, in the position to which I had been assigned. In the summer of 1915, the first enemy leaflets were dropped on our trenches. They all told more or less the same story, with some variations in the form of it. The story was that:
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This would be done the moment ‘Prussian Militarism’ had been finally destroyed. To illustrate and substantiate all these statements, the leaflets very often contained ‘Letters from Home,’ the contents of which appeared to confirm the enemy’s propaganda message. Generally speaking, we only laughed at all these efforts. The leaflets were read, sent to base headquarters, then forgotten until a favourable wind once again blew a fresh consignment into the trenches. These were mostly dropped from aeroplanes which were used specially for that purpose. One feature of this propaganda was very striking, namely, that in sections where Bavarian troops were stationed, every effort was made by the enemy propagandists to stir up feeling against the Prussians, assuring the soldiers that Prussia, and Prussia alone, was the guilty party, who was responsible for bringing on and continuing the war, and that there was no hostility whatsoever towards the Bavarians, but that there could be no possibility of coming to their assistance so long as they continued to serve Prussian militarism and helped to pull the ‘Prussian chestnuts out of the fire.’ This persistent propaganda began to have a real influence on our soldiers in 1915. The feeling against Prussia grew quite noticeable among the Bavarian troops, but those in authority did nothing to counteract it. This was something more than a mere crime of omission, for sooner or later, not only the Prussians were bound to have to atone severely for it, but the whole German nation, and consequently the Bavarians themselves also. In this direction the enemy propaganda began to achieve undoubted success from 1916 onwards. In a similar way letters coming directly from home had long since been exercising their effect. There was now no further necessity for the enemy to broadcast such letters in leaflet form. The Government did nothing to counteract this influence from home except to issue a few supremely stupid ‘warnings’.
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The whole front was drenched in this poison which thoughtless women at home sent out, without suspecting for a moment that the enemy’s chances of final victory were thus being strengthened or that the sufferings of their own men at the front were thus being prolonged and rendered more severe. These stupid letters written by German women eventually cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of our men. Thus in 1916 several distressing phenomena were already manifest. The whole front was complaining and ‘grousing,’ discontented over many things and often justifiably so. While they were hungry and yet patient, and their relatives at home were in distress, in other quarters there was feasting and revelry. Even at the front itself everything was not as it ought to have been in this respect. Even in the early stages of the War the soldiers were sometimes prone to complain, but such criticism was of a domestic nature. The man who at one moment groused and grumbled ceased his murmur after a few moments and went about his duty silently, as if this were a matter of course. The company which had given signs of discontent a moment earlier hung on now to its bit of trench, defending it tooth and nail, as if Germany’s fate depended on those few hundred yards of mud, and shell-holes. The glorious old Army was still at its post. A sudden change in my own fortunes soon placed me in a position where I had first-hand experience of the sharp contrast between this old Army and the home front. At the end of September 1916 my division was sent into the Battle of the Somme. For us, this was the first of a series of heavy engagements, and the impression created was that of a veritable inferno, rather than war. Through weeks of incessant artillery bombardment we stood firm, at times ceding a little ground but then taking it again, and never giving way. On October 7th, I was wounded, but had the luck to be able to get back to our lines and was then ordered to be sent by ambulance-train to Germany. Two years had passed since I had left home, an almost endless period in such circumstances. I could hardly imagine what Germans looked like except in uniform. In the clearing hospital at Hermies, I was startled when I suddenly heard the voice of a German woman who was acting as nursing sister and talking with one of the wounded men lying near me.
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To hear such a voice for the first time in two years! The nearer our ambulance-train approached the German frontier, the more restless each one of us became. En route we recognised all these places through which we had passed two years before as young volunteers—Brussels, Louvain, Liege—and finally we thought we recognised the first German homestead, with its familiar high gables and picturesque window-shutters. Home! In October 1914, our hearts had been afire with wild enthusiasm as we crossed this frontier. Now silence and profound emotion reigned supreme. Each one was happy to think that Fate had permitted him to see once again this lend for the protection of which he had offered his life, and each one was almost ashamed to allow the other to see his eyes. Almost on the second anniversary of my departure for the front I entered the hospital at Beelitz, near Berlin. What a change! From the mud of the Somme battlefields to the spotless white beds in this wonderful building! One hesitated at first before entering them. It was only by slow stages that one could grow accustomed to this new world again, but, unfortunately, there were certain other respects in which this new world was different. The spirit of the Army at the front appeared to be out of place here. For the first time I encountered something which up to then was unknown at the front, namely, boasting of one’s own cowardice, for, though we certainly heard complaining and grousing at the front, this was never in the spirit of any agitation to insubordination and certainly not an attempt to glorify one’s fear. Out there at the front a coward was a coward and nothing else, and the contempt which his weakness aroused in others was general, just as the real hero was admired all round. But here in hospital the spirit was quite different in some respects. Loud-mouthed agitators were busy here in heaping ridicule on the good soldier and painting the weak-kneed poltroon in glorious colours. A couple of miserable human specimens were the ringleaders in this process of defamation. One of them boasted of having intentionally injured his hand on barbed wire entanglements in order to get sent to hospital.
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Although his wound was only a slight one, it appeared that he had been here for a very long time and would manage to remain here indefinitely, just as he had managed to get sent here in the ambulance-train through swindling. This pestilential specimen actually had the audacity to parade his knavery as the manifestation of a courage which was superior to that of the brave soldier who dies a hero’s death. There were many who heard this talk in silence, but there were others who expressed their assent to what the fellow said. Personally I was disgusted at the thought that a seditious agitator of this kind should be allowed to remain in such an institution. What could be done? The hospital authorities here must have known who and what he was, and actually they did know, but still they did nothing about it. As soon as I was able to walk once again I obtained leave to visit Berlin. Bitter want was in evidence everywhere. The metropolis, with its teeming millions, was suffering from hunger. Discontent was rife. The talk that was current in the various places of refreshment and in the hospices frequented by the soldiers was much the same as that in our hospital. The impression gained was that these fellows purposely singled out such places in order to spread their views. In Munich conditions were far worse. After my discharge from hospital I was sent to a reserve battalion there. I felt as if I were in some strange town. Anger, discontent, complaints met one’s ears wherever one went. The morale of the men in the reserve battalion itself was indescribably bad. To a certain extent this was due to the infinitely maladroit manner in which the soldiers who had returned from the front were treated by the instructors who had never seen a day’s active service and who, on that account, were partly incapable of adopting the proper attitude towards the old soldiers. Naturally those old soldiers displayed certain characteristics which had been developed from the experience; in the trenches. The officers of the reserve units could not understand these peculiarities, whereas the officer home from active service was at least in a position to understand them for himself.
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As a result he received more respect from the men than officers at the home headquarters. But, apart from all this, the general spirit was deplorable. The art of shirking was looked upon almost as a proof of superior intelligence, and devotion to duty was considered a sign of weakness or stupidity. The administrative offices were staffed by Jews. Almost every clerk was a Jew and every Jew was a clerk. I was amazed at this multitude of ‘warriors’, who belonged to the chosen race, and could not help comparing it with their slender numbers in the fighting lines. In the business world the situation was even worse. Here the Jews had actually become ‘indispensable.’ Like leeches, they were slowly sucking the blood from the pores of the national body. By means of newly-floated war-companies an instrument had been discovered whereby all national trade was throttled, so that no business could be carried on freely. Special emphasis was laid on the necessity for unhampered centralisation. Hence, as early as 1916–17, practically all production was under the control of Jewish finance. But against whom was the anger of the people directed? It was then, that I already saw the fateful day approaching which must finally bring the débâcle, unless timely preventive measures were taken. While Jewry was busy despoiling the nation and tightening the screws of its despotism, the work of inciting the people against the Prussians was intensified and just as nothing was done at the front to put a stop to this venomous propaganda, so here at home no official steps were taken against it. Nobody seemed capable of understanding that the collapse of Prussia could never bring about the rise of Bavaria. On the contrary, the collapse of the one must necessarily drag the other down with it. This kind of behaviour affected me very deeply. In it I could see only a clever Jewish trick for diverting public attention from themselves to others. While Prussians and Bavarians were squabbling, the Jews were taking away the sustenance of both from under their very noses.
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While Prussians were being abused in Bavaria, the Jews organised the revolution and with one stroke smashed both Prussia and Bavaria. I could not tolerate this execrable squabbling among people of the same German stock and preferred to be at the front once again. Therefore, just after my arrival in Munich I reported myself for service again. At the beginning of March 1917, I rejoined my old regiment at the front. Towards the end of 1917 it seemed as if we had got over the worst phases of moral depression at the front. After the Russian collapse the whole Army recovered its courage and hope, and all were gradually becoming more and more convinced that the struggle would end in our favour. We could sing once again. The ravens were ceasing to croak. Faith in the future of the Fatherland was once more in the ascendant. The Italian collapse in the autumn of 1917 had a wonderful effect, for this victory proved that it was possible to bleak through another, front besides the Russian. This inspiring thought now became dominant in the minds of millions at the front and encouraged them to look forward with confidence to the spring of 1918. It was quite obvious that the enemy was in a state of depression. During this winter the front was somewhat quieter than usual, but that was the lull before the storm. Just when preparations were being made to launch a final offensive which would bring this seemingly eternal struggle to an end, while endless columns of transports were bringing men and munitions to the front, and while the men were being trained for that final onslaught, then it was that the greatest act of treachery during the whole War was accomplished in Germany. Germany must not win the war. At that moment when victory seemed ready to alight on the German standards, a conspiracy was arranged for the purpose of striking at the heart of the Germany spring offensive with one blow from the rear and thus making victory impossible. A general strike was organised in the munitions factories. If this conspiracy had achieved its purpose, the German front would have collapsed and the wishes of the Vorwärts (the organ of the Social Democratic Party) that this time victory should not rest with the German banners, would have been fulfilled.
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For want of munitions, the front would have been broken through within a few weeks, the offensive would have been effectively stopped and the Entente saved. Then international finance would assume control over Germany and the internal objective of the Marxist betrayal of the nations would be achieved. That objective was the destruction of the national economic system and the establishment of international capitalistic domination in its stead. This goal has really been reached, thanks to the stupid credulity of the one side and the unspeakable cowardice of the other. The munitions strike, however, did not bring the final success that had been hoped for, namely, to starve the front of ammunition. It lasted too short a time for the lack of ammunition as such to bring disaster to the Army, as was originally planned, but the moral damage was much more terrible. In the first place, what was the Army fighting for if the people at home did not wish it to be victorious? For whom then were those enormous sacrifices and privations being made and endured? Must the soldiers fight for victory while the home front went on strike against it? In the second place, what effect did this move have on the enemy? In the winter of 1917–18, dark clouds hovered in the firmament of the Entente. For nearly four years onslaught after onslaught had been made against the German giant, but had failed to bring him to the ground. He had to keep them at bay with one arm that held the defensive shield, because his other arm had, to be free to wield the sword against his enemies, now in the East and now in the South. But at last these enemies were overcome and his rear was now free for the conflict in the West. Rivers of blood had been shed for the accomplishment of that task; but now the sword was free to combine in battle with the shield on the Western Front, and since the enemy had hitherto failed to break the German defence here, the Germans themselves had now to launch the attack. The enemy feared the attack and trembled for his victory. In Paris and London conferences followed one another in unending succession. Even the enemy propaganda encountered difficulties. It was no longer so easy to demonstrate that the prospect of a German victory was hopeless. A prudent silence reigned at the front, even among the troops of the Entente. The insolence of their masters had suddenly subsided.
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A disturbing truth began to dawn on them. Their opinion of the German soldier had changed. Hitherto they were able to picture him as a kind of fool whose end would be destruction, but now they found themselves face to face with the soldier who had overcome their Russian ally. The policy of restricting the offensive to the East, which had been imposed on the German military authorities by the necessities of the situation, now seemed to the Entente a tactical stroke of genius. For three years these Germans had been battering away at the Russian front without any apparent success at first. Those fruitless efforts were almost sneered at, for it was thought that in the long run the Russian giant would triumph through sheer force of numbers. Germany would be worn out through shedding so much blood, and facts appeared to confirm this hope. Since the days of September 1914, when, for the first time, interminable columns of Russian prisoners of war had poured into German, after the Battle of Tannenberg, it seemed as if the stream would never end, but that as soon as one army was defeated and routed, another took its place. The supply of soldiers which the gigantic empire placed at the disposal of the Czar seemed inexhaustible; new victims were always at hand for the holocaust of war. How long could Germany hold out in this competition? Would not the day finally have to came when, after the last victory which the Germans would achieve, there would still remain reserve armies in Russia to be mustered for the final battle? And what then? According to human standards, a Russian victory over Germany might be delayed, but it would have to come in the long run. All the hopes that had been based on Russia were now lost. The ally who had sacrificed the most blood on the altar of their mutual interests had come to the end of his resources and lay prostrate before his unrelenting foe. A feeling of terror and dismay came over the Entente soldiers who had hitherto been buoyed up by blind faith. They feared the coming spring, for, seeing that they had hitherto failed to break the Germans when the latter could concentrate only part of their fighting strength on the Western Front, how could they count on victory now that the undivided forces of that amazing land of heroes appeared to be gathering for a massed attack in the West?
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The shadow of the events which had taken place in South Tyrol and the spectre of General Cadorna’s defeated armies, were reflected in the gloomy faces of the Entente troops in Flanders. Faith in victory gave way to fear of defeat to come. Then, on those cold nights, when one almost heard the tread of the German armies advancing to the great assault, and the decision was being awaited in fear and trembling, suddenly a lurid light was set aglow in Germany and sent its rays into the last shell-hole on the enemy’s front. At the very moment when the German divisions were receiving their final orders for the great offensive, a general strike broke out in Germany. At first the world was dumbfounded. Then the enemy propaganda began activities once again and pounced on this theme at the eleventh hour. All of a sudden, a means had come which could be utilised to revive the sinking confidence of the Entente soldiers. The probability of victory could now be presented as certain, and the anxious foreboding in regard to coming events could now be transformed into a feeling of resolute assurance. The regiments that had to bear the brunt of the greatest German onslaught in history could now be inspired with the conviction that the final decision in this War would not be won by the audacity of the German assault, but rather by the powers of endurance on the side of the defence. Let the Germans now have whatever victories they liked, the revolution and not the victorious Army was welcomed in the Fatherland. British, French, and American newspapers began to spread this belief among their readers while a very ably-conducted propaganda encouraged the morale of their troops at the front. ‘Germany facing Revolution! Allied victory inevitable!’ That was the best medicine to set the staggering Poilu and Tommy on their feet once again. Our rifles and machine-guns could now open fire once again; but instead of effecting a panic-stricken retreat, they were now met with a determined resistance that was full of confidence. That was the result of the strike in the munitions factories. Throughout the enemy countries faith in victory was thus revived and strengthened, and that paralysing feeling of despair which had hitherto made itself felt on the Allied front was banished.
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Consequently, the strike cost the lives of thousands of German soldiers, but the despicable instigators of that dastardly strike were candidates for the highest public office in the Germany of the Revolution. At first it was apparently possible to overcome the repercussion of these events on the German soldiers, but on the enemy’s side they had a lasting effect. Here the resistance had lost all the character of an army fighting for a hopeless cause. In its place, there was now a grim determination to struggle on to victory, for as far as it was possible to foresee, victory would now be assured, if the Western Front could hold out against the German offensive even for a few months. The Allied parliaments recognised the possibilities of better future and voted huge sums of money for the continuation of the propaganda which was employed for the purpose of breaking up the internal unity of Germany. I had the luck to be able to take part in the first two offensives and in the final offensive. These have left on me the most stupendous impressions of my life—stupendous, because now, for the last time, the struggle lost its defensive character and assumed the character of an offensive, just as in 1914. A sigh of relief went up from the German trenches and dugouts, when finally, after three years of endurance in that inferno, the day for the settling of accounts had come. Once again the lusty cheering of victorious battalions was heard, as they hung the last crowns of the immortal laurel on the standards which they consecrated to Victory. Once again the strains of patriotic songs soared upwards to the heavens above the endless columns of marching troops, and for the last time the Lord smiled on his ungrateful children. In the summer of 1918, a feeling of sultry oppression hung over the front. At home they were quarrelling. About what? We heard a great deal among various units at the front. The War was now a hopeless affair, and only the foolhardy could think of victory. It was not the people, but the capitalists and the monarchy who were interested in carrying on. Such were the ideas that came from home and were discussed at the front. At first this gave rise to only a very slight reaction. What did universal suffrage matter to us?
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Is this what we had been fighting for throughout those four years? It was a dastardly piece of robbery thus to filch from the graves of our heroes the ideals for which they had fallen, It was not to the slogan, ‘Long live universal suffrage,’ that our troops in Flanders once faced certain death, but to the cry:‘Deutschland über Alles in der Welt’!—a small but by no means an unimportant difference. The majority of those who were shouting for this suffrage were absent when it came to fighting for it. All this political rabble were strangers to us at the front. During those days only a fraction of this parliamentarian gentry were to be seen where honest Germans foregathered. The old soldiers who had fought at the front had little liking for those new war aims of Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann, Barth, Liebknecht and others. We could not understand why, all of a sudden, the shirkers should arrogate all executive powers to themselves, without having any regard to the Army. From the very beginning, I had my own definite personal views. I intensely loathed the whole gang of miserable party politicians who had betrayed the people. I had long ago realised that the interests of the nation played only a very small part with this disreputable crew and that what counted with them was the possibility of filling their own empty pockets. My opinion was that those people thoroughly deserved to be hanged, because they were ready to sacrifice the peace and, if necessary, allow Germany to be defeated just to serve their own ends. To consider their wishes would mean to sacrifice the interests of the working-classes for the benefit of a gang of thieves. To meet their wishes meant to agree to sacrifice Germany. Such, too, was the opinion still held by the majority of the Army, but the reinforcements which came from home were fast becoming worse and worse —so much so that their arrival was a source of weakness rather than of strength to our fighting forces. The young recruits, in particular, were for the most part useless. Sometimes it was hard to believe that they were sons of the same nation that sent its youth into the battles that were fought round Ypres. In August and September the symptoms of moral disintegration increased more and more rapidly, although the enemy’s offensive was not at all comparable to the frightfulness, of our own former defensive battles.
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In comparison with this offensive, the battles fought on the Somme and in Flanders remained in our memories as the most terrible of all horrors. At the end of September my division occupied, for the third time, those positions which we had once taken by storm as young volunteers. What a memory! Here we had received our baptism of fire, in October and November 1914. With a burning love for the mother country in their hearts and a song on their lips, our young regiment went into action as if going to a dance. The most precious blood was sacrificed freely here in the belief that it was shed to protect the freedom and independence of the Fatherland. In July 1917, we set foot for the second time on what we regarded as sacred soil. Were not our best comrades at rest here, some of them little more than boys—the soldiers who had rushed into death for their country’s sake, their eyes glowing with enthusiastic ardour? The older ones among us, who had been with the regiment from the beginning, were deeply moved as we stood on this sacred spot where we had sworn ‘Loyalty and duty unto death.’ Three years ago the regiment had taken this position by storm; now it was called upon to defend it in a gruelling struggle. With an artillery bombardment that lasted three weeks, the British prepared for their great offensive in Flanders. There the spirit of the dead seemed to live again. The regiment dug itself into the mud, clung to its shell-holes and craters, neither flinching nor wavering, but growing smaller in numbers day by day. Finally the British launched their attack on July 31st, 1917. We were relieved in the beginning of August. The regiment had dwindled down to a few companies, who staggered back, mud-encrusted, more like phantoms than human beings. Besides a few hundred yards of shell-holes, death was all that the British gained. Now, in the autumn of 1918, we stood for the third time on the ground we had stormed in 1914. The village of Comines, which had formerly served us as base, was now within the fighting zone. Although little had changed in the surrounding district itself, the men had become different, somehow or other. They now talked politics. As everywhere else, the poison from home was having its effect here also.
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The fresh drafts proved a complete failure. They had come directly from home. During the night of October 13th–14th, the British opened an attack with gas on the front south of Ypres. They used mustard gas whose effect was unknown to us, at least from personal experience. I was destined to experience it that very night. On a hill south of Wervick, on the evening of October 13th, we were subjected for several hours to a heavy bombardment with gas-shells, which continued throughout the night with more or less even intensity. About midnight a number of us were put out of action, some for ever. Towards morning, I also began to feel pain. It increased with every quarter of an hour, and about seven o’clock my eyes were scorching as I staggered back and delivered the last dispatch I was destined to carry in this war. A few hours later my eyes were like glowing coals, and all was darkness around me. I was sent into hospital at Pasewalk in Pomerania, and there it was that I was to hear of the Revolution. For a long time there had been something in the air which was indefinable and oppressive. People were saying that something was bound to happen within the next few weeks, although I could not imagine what this meant. In the first instance I thought of a strike similar to the one which had taken place in the spring. Unfavourable rumours were constantly coming from the Navy, which was said to be in a state of ferment, but this seemed to be a crazy notion put about by certain individuals, rather than something which concerned many people. It is true that at the hospital they were all talking about the end of the war and hoping that this was not far off, but nobody thought that the decision would come immediately. I was not able to read the newspapers. In November, the general tension increased. Then one day disaster broke in upon us suddenly and without warning. Sailors came in motor-lorries and called on us to rise in revolt. A few Jews were the ‘leaders’ in that combat for the ‘Liberty, Beauty, and Dignity’ of our national existence. Not one of them had seen active service at the front. By way of a hospital for venereal diseases these three Orientals had been seat back home.
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Now they were hoisting their red rags here. During the last few days I had begun to feel somewhat better. The burning pain in my eye-sockets had become less severe. Gradually, I was able to distinguish the general outlines of my immediate surroundings, and it was permissible to hope that I would at least recover my sight sufficiently to be able to take up some profession later on. That I would ever be able to draw or design again was naturally out of the question. Thus I was on the way to recovery when the frightful hour came. My first thought was that this outbreak of high treason was only a local affair. I tried to spread this belief among my comrades. My Bavarian hospital-mates, in particular, were readily responsive. Their inclinations were anything but revolutionary. I could not imagine this madness breaking out in Munich, for it seemed to me that loyalty to the House of Wittelsbach was, after all, stronger than the will of a few Jews, and so I could not help believing that this was merely a revolt in the Navy and that it would be suppressed within the next few days. The next few days brought with them the most terrible certainty. The rumours grew more and more persistent. I was told that what I had considered to be a local affair was in reality a general revolution. In addition to this, from the front came the shameful news that they wished to capitulate! What! Was such a thing possible? On November 10th, the local pastor visited the hospital for the purpose of delivering a short address, and that was how we came to know the whole story. I was in a fever of excitement as I listened to the address. The reverend old gentleman seemed to be trembling when he informed us that the House of Hohenzollern should no longer wear the Imperial Crown, that the Fatherland had become a ‘Republic,’ that we should pray to the Almighty not to withhold His blessing from the new order of things and not to abandon our people in the days to come. In delivering this, message he could not do more than briefly express appreciation of the Royal House, its services to Pomerania, to Prussia, indeed to the whole of the German Fatherland, and at this point he broke down.
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A feeling of profound dismay fell on the people in that assembly, and I do not think there was a single eye that was not wet with tears. As for myself, I broke down completely when the old gentleman tried to resume his story by informing us that we must now end this long war, because the war was lost, he said, and we were at the mercy of the victor. The Fatherland would have to bear heavy burdens in the future. We were to accept the terms of the Armistice and trust to the magnanimity of our former enemies. It was impossible for me to stay and listen any longer. Darkness surrounded me as I staggered and stumbled back to my ward and buried my aching head between the blankets and pillow. I had not cried since the day that I stood beside my mother’s grave. Whenever Fate dealt cruelly with me in my young days the spirit of determination within me grew stronger and stronger. During all those long years of war, when Death claimed many a true friend and comrade from our ranks, to me it would have appeared sinful to have uttered a word of complaint. Did they not die for Germany? And, finally, almost in the last few days of that titanic struggle, when the waves of poison-gas enveloped me and began to penetrate my eyes, the thought of becoming permanently blind unnerved me, but the voice of conscience cried out immediately—‘You miserable fellow, would you start howling when there are thousands of others whose lot is a hundred times worse than yours?’ And so I accepted my misfortune in silence, realising that this was the only thing to be done and that personal suffering was nothing as compared with the misfortune of one’s country. All had been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations, in vain the hunger and thirst for endless months, in vain those hours that was stuck to our posts though the fear of death gripped our souls, and in vain the deaths of two millions who fell in discharging their duty. Think of those hundreds of thousands who set out with hearts full of faith in their Fatherland, and never returned; ought not their graves to open, so that the spirits of those heroes bespattered with mud and blood might come home and take vengeance on those who had so despicably betrayed the greatest sacrifice which a man can make for his country?
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Was it for this that the soldiers died in August and September 1914, for this that the volunteer regiments followed their older comrades in the autumn of the same year? Was it for this that those boys of seventeen years of age were mingled with the earth of Flanders? Was this the reason for the sacrifice which German mothers made for their Fatherland when, with heavy hearts, they said good-bye to their sons, who never returned? Had all this been done in order to enable a gang of despicable criminals to lay hands on the Fatherland? Was this, then, what the German soldier struggled for through sweltering heat and blinding snowstorm, enduring hunger and thirst and cold, fatigued from sleepless nights and endless marches? Was it for this that he lived through an inferno of artillery bombardments, lay gasping and choking during gas-attacks, neither flinching nor faltering, remembering only that it was his duty to defend the Fatherland against the enemy? Certainly those heroes also deserved the epitaph: “Traveller, when you come to Germany, tell the mother country that we lie here, true to the Fatherland and faithful unto death.” And at home? But—was this the only sacrifice that we had to consider? Was the Germany of the past a country of little worth? Did she not owe a certain duty to her own history? Were we still worthy to partake in the glory of the past? How could we justify this act to future generations? What a gang of despicable and depraved criminals! The more I tried then to gain an insight into the terrible events that had happened, the more did I bum with rage and shame. What was all the pain I suffered in my eyes compared with this tragedy? The following days were terrible to bear, and the nights still worse. I realised that all was lost. To depend on the mercy of the enemy was a precept which only fools or criminal liars could recommend. During those nights my hatred increased—hatred for the originators of this dastardly crime.
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During the days which followed my own fate became clear to me. I was forced now to scoff at the thought of my personal future, which hitherto had been the cause of so much worry to me. Was it not ludicrous to think of building up anything on such a foundation? Finally, it also became clear to me that it was the inevitable that had happened, something which I had feared for a long time, though I really had not had the heart to believe it. Emperor Wilhelm II was the first German Emperor to offer the hand of friendship to the Marxist leaders, not suspecting that they were scoundrels without any sense of honour. While they held the imperial hand in one of theirs, the other was already feeling for the dagger. There is no such thing as coming to an understanding with the Jews. It must be a hard-and-fast ‘Either-Or.’ For my part I then decided that I would take up political work.
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Towards the end of November, I returned to Munich. I went to the depot of my regiment, which was now in, the hands of the Soldiers’ Councils. As the whole business was repulsive to me, I decided to leave as soon as I possibly could. With my faithful war-comrade, Schmiedt Ernst, I went to Traunstein and remained there until the camp was broken up. In March 1919, we were back again in Munich. The situation there could not last as it was. It tended irresistibly to a further extension of the Revolution. Eisner’s death served only to hasten this development and finally led to the dictatorship of the Councils, or, to put it more correctly, to a Jewish hegemony, which turned out to be transitory, but which was the original aim of those who had contrived the Revolution. At that juncture innumerable plans took shape in my mind. I spent whole days pondering on the problem of what could be done, but unfortunately every project had to give way before the hard fact that I was quite unknown and therefore did not have even, the first qualifications necessary for effective action. Later on I shall explain the reasons why I could not decide to join any of the parties then in existence. As the new Revolution began to run its course, my activities drew down upon me the ill-will of the Central Council. In the early morning of April 27th, 1919, I was to have been arrested, but the three fellows who came to arrest me did not have the courage to face my rifle and withdrew empty-handed. A few days after the liberation of Munich I was ordered to appear before the Inquiry Commission which had been set up by the 2nd Infantry Regiment for the purpose of investigating revolutionary activities. That was my first incursion into the more or less political field. A few weeks later I received orders to attend a course of lectures which were being given to members of the Army. This course was meant to propagate certain fundamental principles on which the soldier could base his political ideas.
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For me the advantage of this organisation was that it gave me a chance of meeting fellow-soldiers who were of the same way of thinking and with whom I could discuss the actual situation. We were all more or less firmly convinced that Germany could not be saved from imminent disaster by those who had participated in the November crime—that is to say, by the Centre and the Social Democrats, and also that the so-called Bourgeois-National group could not make good the damage that had been done, even if their intentions were of the best. Certain conditions necessary for the successful undertaking of such a task were not fulfilled. The years that followed have justified the opinions which we held at that time. In our small circle we discussed the project of forming a new party. The leading ideas which we then proposed were the same as those which were carried into effect afterwards, when the German Labour Party was founded. The name of the new movement which was to be founded should be such that, of itself, it would appeal to the masses of the people, for all our efforts would turn out vain and useless if this condition were lacking. That was the reason why we chose the name ‘Social Revolutionary Party,’ particularly because the social principles of our new organisation were indeed revolutionary. There was also a more fundamental reason. The attention which I had given to economic problems during my earlier years was more or less confined to considerations arising directly out of the social problem. Subsequently my outlook broadened as I came to study the German policy of alliance. This policy was very largely the result of an erroneous valuation of the economic situation, together with a confused notion as to the basis on which the future subsistence of the German people could be guaranteed. All these ideas were based on the principle that capital is exclusively the product of labour and that, just like labour, it was subject to all the factors which can hinder or promote human activity. Hence, from the national standpoint, the significance of capital depended on the greatness, freedom and power of the State, that is to say, of the nation, and it is this dependence alone which leads capital to promote the interests of the State and the nation, from an instinct of self-preservation and for the sake of its own development.
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Consequently, the dependence of capital upon the independent and Free State would force it to defend the nation’s freedom, might, strength, etc. According to such principles the duty of the State towards capital would be comparatively simple and clear. Its only object would be to make sure that capital remained subservient to the State and did not allocate to itself the right to dominate national interests. Thus the State could confine its activities within the two following limits: on the one side, to assure a vital and independent system of national economy and, on the other, to safeguard the social rights of the workers. Previously, I did not recognise with adequate clearness the difference between that capital which is purely the product of creative labour, and the existence and nature of capital which is exclusively the result of financial speculation. Here I needed a stimulus to set my mind thinking in this direction, but that had hitherto been lacking. The requisite stimulus now came from one of the men who delivered lectures in the course I have already mentioned. This was Gottfried Feder. For the first time in my life, I heard a discussion which dealt with the principles of stock-exchange capital and capital which was used for loan activities. After hearing the first lecture delivered by Feder, the idea immediately came into my head that I had now found a way to establish one of the most essential prerequisites for the founding of a new party. To my mind, Feder’s merit consisted in the ruthless and trenchant way in which he described the speculative and political economic character of the capital used in stock exchange and loan transactions, laying bare the fact that this capital is always dependent on the payment of interest. In fundamental questions his statements were so full of common sense that even those who criticised him did not deny that au fond his ideas were sound, but they doubted whether it were possible to put these ideas into practice. To me, this seemed the strongest point in Feder’s teaching, though others considered it a weak point. It is not the business of him who lays down a theoretical programme to explain the various ways in which something can be put into practice.
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His task is to deal with the problem as such; and he has, therefore, to look to the end rather than the means. The important question is whether an idea is fundamentally right or not. The question as to whether it may or may not be difficult to carry it out in practice is quite another matter. When a man, whose task it is to lay down the principles of a programme or policy, begins to busy himself with the question as to whether it is expedient and practical, instead of confining himself to a statement of the absolute truth, his work will cease to be a guiding star to those who are looking, for light and guidance, and will become merely a recipe for everyday life. The man who lays down the programme of a movement must consider only the goal. It is for the political leader to point out the way in which that goal may be reached. The thought of the former will, therefore, be determined by those truths that are everlasting, whereas the activity of the latter must always be guided by taking practical account of the circumstances in which those truths have to be carried into effect. The greatness of the one will depend on the absolute truth of his idea considered in the abstract; whereas that of the other will depend on whether or not he correctly judges the given realities and how they may be utilised under the guidance of the truths established by the former. The test of greatness as applied to a political leader is the success of his plans and his enterprises, which means his ability to reach the goal for which he sets out; whereas the final goal set up by the political philosopher can never be reached, for human thought may grasp truths and visualise ends which it sees with crystal clarity, though such ends can ever be completely attained, because human nature is weak and imperfect. The more an idea is correct in the abstract, and, the more comprehensive it therefore is, the smaller is the possibility of putting it into practice, at least as far as this depends on human beings. The significance of a political philosopher does not depend on the practical success of the plans he lays down, but rather on their absolute truth and the influence they exert on the progress of mankind. If it were otherwise, the founders of religions could not be considered as the greatest men who have ever lived, because their moral aims will never be completely or even approximately carried out in practice.
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Even that religion which is called the religion of brotherly love is actually no more than a faint reflex of the will of its sublime Founder, but its significance lies in the orientation which it endeavoured to give to human civilisation and human virtue and morals. This very wide difference between the functions of a political philosopher and a practical political leader is the reason why the qualifications necessary for both functions are scarcely ever found combined in the same person. This applies especially to the so-called successful politician of the lesser kind, whose activity is indeed hardly more than that of practising the art of accomplishing the possible, as Bismarck modestly defined the art of politics in general. If such a politician resolutely avoids great ideas, his success will be all the easier to attain; it will be attained more expeditiously, and will frequently be more tangible. By reason of this very fact, however, such success is doomed to futility and sometimes does not even, survive the death of its author. Generally speaking, the work of such politicians is without significance for the following generation, because their temporary success was based on the expediency of avoiding all really great decisive problems and ideas which would hold good for future generations likewise. To pursue ideals which will still be of value and significance for the future is generally not a very profitable undertaking and he who follows such a course is only very rarely understood by the masses of the people, who find the price of beer and milk a more persuasive index of political values than far-sighted plans for the future, the realisation of which can only take place later on and the advantages of which can be reaped only by posterity. Because of a certain vanity, which is always one of the blood relations of unintelligence, the general run of politicians will always eschew those schemes for the future which are really difficult to put into practice; and they will avoid them in order that they may not lose the immediate favour of the mob. The importance and the success of such politicians belong exclusively to the present and will be of no consequence for the future, but that does not worry small-minded people who are quite content with momentary results.
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The position of the constructive political philosopher is quite different. The importance of his work must always be fudged from the standpoint of the future; and he is frequently described by the wordWeltfremder, or dreamer. While the ability of the politician consists in mastering the art of the possible, the founder of a political system belongs to those who are said to please the gods only because they wish for and demand the impossible. They will always have to renounce contemporary fame, but if their ideas be immortal, posterity will acclaim them. Within long spans of human progress it may occasionally happen that the practical politician and political philosopher are one. The more intimate this union is, the greater will be the obstacles which the activity of the politician will have to encounter. Such a man does not labour for the purpose of satisfying demands that are obvious to every Philistine, but he reaches out towards ends which can be understood only by the few. His life is torn asunder by hatred and love. The protest of his contemporaries, who do not understand the man, is in conflict with the recognition of posterity, for whom he also works. The greater the work which a man does for the future, the less will he be appreciated by his contemporaries. His struggle will accordingly be the more severe, and his success the rarer. When, in the course of centuries, such a man appears and is blessed with success, then, towards the end of his days, he may have a faint prevision of his future fame. Such great men are only the Marathon runners of history; the laurels of contemporary fame are only for the brow of the dying hero. The great protagonists are those who fight for their ideas and ideals despite the fact that they receive no recognition at the hands of their contemporaries. They are the men whose memories will be enshrined in the hearts of future generations. It seems then as if each individual felt it his duty to make retrospective atonement for the wrong which great men have suffered at the hands of their contemporaries. Their lives and their work are then studied with touching and grateful admiration.
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Especially in dark days of distress, such men have the power of healing broken hearts and of raising the despairing spirit of a people. To this group belong not only the genuinely great statesmen but all the great reformers as well. Besides Frederick the Great we have men such as Martin Luther and Richard Wagner. When I heard Gottfried Feder’s first lecture on ‘The Abolition of the Thraldom of Interest,’ I understood immediately that here was a truth of transcendental importance for the future of the German people. The absolute separation of stock-exchange capital from the economic life of the nation would make it possible to oppose the process of internationalisation in German business, without at the same time attacking capital as such, for to do this would jeopardise the foundations of our national independence. I clearly saw what was developing in Germany and I realised then that the stiffest fight we would have to wage would not be against an alien enemy, but against international capital. In Feder’s speech I found an effective slogan for our coming struggle. Here again, later events proved how correct was the impression we then had. The fools among our bourgeois politicians no longer mock at us on this score, for even those politicians now see if they would speak the truth that international stock-exchange capital was not only the chief instigating factor in bringing about the war, but that, now the war is over, it serves to turn the peace into a hell. The struggle against international finance capital and loan capital has become one of the most important points in the programme on which the German nation has based its fight for economic freedom and independence. Regarding the objections raised by so-called practical people, the following answer must suffice. All apprehension concerning the fearful economic consequences that would follow the abolition of the thraldom that results from interest-capital are ill-timed, for, in the first place, the economic principles hitherto followed have proved fatal to the interests of the German people. The attitude adopted when the question of preserving our national existence arose, vividly recalls similar advice once given by experts—the Bavarian Medical College, for example—on the question of introducing railroads.
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The fears expressed by that august body of experts were not realised. Those who travelled in the coaches of the new ‘Steam-horse’ did not suffer from vertigo. Those who looked on did not become ill and the hoardings which were to have been erected to conceal the new invention, were never put up. Only the blinkers which obscure the vision of the would-be ‘experts’ have remained, and this will always be so. In the second place, the following must be borne in mind. Any idea may be a source of danger if it is looked upon as an end in itself, when in reality it is only the means to an end. For me, and for all genuine National Socialists, there is only one slogan: People and Fatherland. What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of our children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfil the mission assigned to it by the Creator. All ideas and ideals, all teaching and all knowledge, must serve these ends. It is from this standpoint that everything must be examined and turned to practical use, or else discarded. Thus, a theory can never become a mere dead dogma, since everything must serve the purpose of guaranteeing our existence. The conclusions arrived at by Gottfried Feder determined me to make a fundamental study of a question with which I had hitherto not been very familiar. I began to study again and thus it was that I first came to understand perfectly what was the substance and purpose of the life-work of the Jew, Karl Marx. HisCapitalbecame intelligible to me for the first time, and in the light of it I now clearly understood the fight of the Social Democrats against national economics, a fight which was to prepare the ground for the hegemony of a real international and stock-exchange capital.
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In another direction also, this course of lectures had important consequences for me. One day I put my name down as wishing to take part in the discussion. Another of the participants thought that he would break a lance for the Jews and entered into a lengthy defence of them. This aroused my opposition. An overwhelming number of those who attended the lecture course supported my views. The consequence of it all was that, a few days later, I was assigned to a regiment then stationed in Munich and given a position there as ‘instruction officer.’ At that time the spirit of discipline was rather weak among the troops which were still suffering from the after-effects of the period when the Soldiers’ Councils were in control. Only gradually and carefully could a new spirit of military discipline and obedience be introduced in place of ‘voluntary obedience,’ a term which had been used to express the ideal of military discipline under Kurt Eisner’s higgledy-piggledy regime. The soldiers had to be taught to think and feel in a national and patriotic way. In these two directions lay my future line of action. I took up my work with the greatest zeal and devotion. Here I was presented with an opportunity of speaking before quite a large audience. I was now able to confirm what I had hitherto merely felt, namely, that I had a talent for public speaking. My voice had become so much better that I could be well understood, at least in all parts of the small hall where the soldiers assembled. No task could have been more pleasing to me than this one; for now, before being demobilised, I was in a position to render useful service to an institution which had become infinitely dear to my heart, namely, the Army. I am able to state that my talks were successful. During the course of my lectures I have led back hundreds and even thousands of my fellow-countrymen to their people and their Fatherland. I ‘nationalised’ those troops and by so doing I helped to restore general discipline. Here again I made the acquaintance of several comrades whose line of thought was similar to my own and who later became members of the first group out of which the new movement developed.
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One day I received an order from my superior officer to investigate the nature of an association which was apparently political. It called itself ‘The German Labour Party’ and was soon to hold a meeting at which Gottfried Feder would speak. I was ordered to attend this meeting and report on the nature of the association. The spirit of curiosity in which the army authorities then regarded political parties can be very well understood. The Revolution had granted the soldiers the right to take an active part in politics and it was particularly those with the smallest experience who had availed themselves of this privilege, but not until the Centre and the Social Democratic Parties were reluctantly forced to recognise that the sympathies of the soldiers had turned away from the revolutionary parties towards the national movement and the national reawakening, did they feel obliged to withdraw from the Army the right to vote, and to ban all political activity among the soldiers. The fact that the centre and Marxism had adopted this policy was instructive, because if they had not thus curtailed the ‘rights of the citizen’—as they described the political rights of the soldiers after the Revolution—the government which had been established in November 1918 would have been overthrown within a few years and the dishonour and disgrace of the nation would not have been further prolonged. At that time the soldiers were on the point of ridding the nation of the vampires and fawners who served the cause of the Entente in the interior of the country, but the fact that the so-called ‘national’ parties voted enthusiastically for the doctrinaire policy of the criminals who organised the revolution in November 1918 also helped to render the Army ineffectual as an instrument of national restoration, and thus showed once again what might be the outcome of the purely abstract notions imbibed by these most gullible people. The minds of the bourgeois middle classes had become so fossilised that they sincerely believed the Army could once again become what it had previously been, namely, a rampart of German valour, while the Centre Party and the Marxists intended only to extract the poisonous tooth of nationalism, without which an army must always remain just a polite force, but can never be in the position of a military organisation capable of fighting against an outside enemy.
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This truth was sufficiently proved by subsequent events. Or did our ‘national’ politicians believe, after all, that the development of our army could be other than national? This belief might be possible and could be explained by the fact that, during the war, they had been not soldiers, but merely talkers. In other words, they were parliamentarians, and, as such, they did not have the slightest idea of what was going on in the hearts of those men who remembered the greatness of their own past and also remembered that they had once been the first soldiers in the world. I decided to attend the meeting of this party which had hitherto been entirely unknown to me. When I arrived that evening in the guest-room of the former Sterneckerbräu—which has now become a place of historical significance for us—I found some twenty or twenty-five persons present, most of them belonging to the lower classes. The theme of Feder’s lecture was already familiar to me, for I had heard it in the lecture course of which I have spoken. I could, therefore, concentrate my attention on the society itself. The impression it made upon me was neither good nor bad. I felt that here was just another one of those many new societies which were being formed at that time. In those days everybody felt called upon to found a new party whenever he felt displeased with the course of events and had lost confidence in all the parties already existing. Thus it was that new associations sprouted up all round, to disappear just as quickly, without exercising any effect or making any impression whatsoever. Generally speaking, the founders of such associations did not have the slightest idea of what it means to bring together a number of people for the foundation of a party or a movement. Therefore, these associations disappeared because of their woeful lack of anything like an adequate grasp of the essentials of the situation. My opinion of the ‘German Labour Party’ was not very different after I had listened to their proceedings for about two hours. I was glad when Feder finally came to a close.
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I had observed enough and was just about to leave when it was announced that anybody who wished was free to take part in the discussion. Thereupon, I decided to remain, but the discussion seemed to proceed without anything of vital importance being mentioned, when suddenly a ‘professor’ commenced to speak. He began by throwing doubt on the accuracy of what Feder had said, and then, after Feder had replied very effectively, the professor suddenly took up his position on what he called ‘the basis of facts, but before this he recommended the young party most urgently to introduce the secession of Bavaria from Prussia as one of the leading points in its programme. In the most self-assured way, this man kept on insisting that German-Austria would join Bavaria and that the peace would then function much better. He made other similarly extravagant statements. At this juncture I felt bound to ask for permission to speak and to tell the learned gentleman what I thought. The result was that the honourable gentleman who had last spoken slipped out of the room, like a whipped cur, without uttering a sound. While I was speaking the audience listened with an expression of surprise on their faces. When I was just about to say good-night to the assembly and to leave, a man came after me quickly and introduced himself. I did not grasp the name correctly, but he placed in my hand a little book which was obviously a political pamphlet, and asked me very earnestly to read it. I was quite pleased, because, in this way, I could get to know about this association without having to attend its tiresome meetings. Moreover, this man, who had the appearance of a workman, made a good impression on me. Thereupon, I left the hall. At that time, I was living in one of the barracks of the 2nd Infantry Regiment. I had a little room which still bore unmistakable traces of the Revolution. During the day I was mostly out, at the quarters of the Light Infantry Regiment No. 41, or else attending meetings or lectures, held at the quarters of some other unit. I spent only the night at the barracks where I lodged. Since I usually woke up about five o’clock every morning, I got into the habit of amusing myself with watching little mice which scampered about my small room.
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I used to place a few pieces of hard bread or crust on the floor and watch the funny little creatures playing around and enjoying themselves with these delicacies. I had suffered so many privations in my life that I well knew what hunger was and could only too well picture to myself the pleasure these little creatures were experiencing. On the morning after the meeting I have mentioned, it happened that about five o’clock I lay fully awake in bed, watching the mice playing and vying with each other. As I was not able to go to sleep again, I suddenly remembered the pamphlet that one of the workers had given me at the meeting. It was a small pamphlet of which this worker was the author. In his little book he described how his mind had thrown off the shackles of the Marxist and trade-union phraseology, and how he had come back to the nationalist ideals. That was the reason why he had entitled his little book,My Political Awakening. The pamphlet secured my attention the moment I began to read, and I read it with interest to the end. The process here described was similar to that which I had experienced in my own case twelve years previously. Unconsciously, my own experiences began to stir again in my mind. During that day my thoughts returned several times to what I had read, but I finally decided to give the matter no further attention. A week or so later, however, I received a postcard which informed me, to my astonishment, that I had been admitted to the German Labour Party. I was asked to answer this communication and to intend a meeting of the party committee on Wednesday next. This manner of getting members rather amazed me, and I did not know whether to be angry or laugh at it. I had no intention of entering a party already in existence, but wanted to found one of my own. Such an invitation as I had now received, I looked upon as entirely out of the question for me. I was about to send a written reply when my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to attend the gathering on the date assigned, so that I might expound my principles to these gentlemen in person.
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Wednesday came. The tavern in which the meeting was to take place was the Altes Rosenbad in the Herrnstrasse, into which apparently only an occasional guest wandered. This was not very surprising in the year 1919, when the bill of fare even at the larger restaurants was very modest and scanty and thus not very attractive to clients, but I had never before heard of this restaurant. I went through the badly-lighted tap-room, where not a single guest was to be seen, and searched for the door which led to the side room, and there I found the ‘meeting.’ Under the dim light shed by a grimy gas-lamp, I could see four young people sitting around a table, one of them being the author of the pamphlet. He greeted me cordially and welcomed me as a new member of the German Labour Party. I was somewhat taken aback. On being informed that, actually, the ‘Reich chairman’ of the party had not yet come, I decided that I would keep back my own explanation for the time being. Finally the chairman appeared. He was the man who had been chairman at the meeting held in the Sterneckerbrau, when Feder had spoken. My curiosity was stimulated anew and I sat waiting for what was going to happen. Now I got at least as far as learning the names of the gentlemen present. The Reich chairman of the association was a certain Herr Harrer and the chairman for the Munich district was Anton Drexler. The minutes of the previous meeting were read out and a vote of confidence in the secretary was passed. Then came the treasurer’s report. The society possessed a total fund of seven marks and fifty pfennigs, whereupon the treasurer was assured that he had the confidence of the members. This was now inserted in the minutes. Then letters of reply, which had been drafted by the chairman, were read; first, to a letter received from Kiel, then to one from Dusseldorf and finally to one from Berlin. All three replies received the approval of all present. Then the incoming letters were read—one from Berlin, one from Dusseldorf and one from Kiel. The reception of these letters seemed to cause great satisfaction. This increasing bulk of correspondence was taken as the best and most obvious sign of the growing importance of the German Labour Party.
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And then? Well, there followed a long discussion of the replies which should be given to these newly received letters, It was all very awful. This was the worst kind of parish-pump clubbism. And was I supposed to become a member of such a club? The question of new members was next discussed that is to say, the question of catching me in the trap. I now began to ask questions. But I found that, apart from a few general principles, there was nothing—no programme, no pamphlet, nothing at all in print, no card of membership, not even a party stamp, nothing but obvious good faith and good intentions. I no longer felt inclined to laugh; for what else was all this but a typical sign of the most complete perplexity and deepest despair concerning all other political parties, their programmes, views and activities? The feeling which had induced those few young people to join in what seemed such a ridiculous enterprise was nothing but the call of the inner voice which told them—though more intuitively than consciously—that the whole party system as it had hitherto existed was not the kind of force that could restore the German nation or repair the damage that had been done to the German people by those who had hitherto controlled the internal affairs of the nation. I quickly read through the list of principles laid down by the party. These principles were stated on typewritten sheets. Here again I found evidence of the spirit of longing and searching, but no sign whatever of a knowledge of the conflict that had to be fought. I myself had experienced the feelings which inspired these people. It was the longing for a movement which should be more than a party, in the hitherto accepted meaning of that word. When I returned to my room in the barracks that evening, I had formed a definite opinion on this association and I was facing the most difficult problem of my life. Should I join this party or refuse? From the common-sense point of view, I felt I ought to refuse, but my feelings troubled me. The more I tried to prove to myself how senseless this club was, on the whole, the more did my feelings incline me to favour it.
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During the days which followed I was restless. I began to consider all the pros and cons. I had long ago decided to take an active part in politics. The fact that I could do so only through a new movement was quite clear to me, but I had hitherto lacked the impulse to take concrete action. I am not one of those people who will begin something to-day just to give it up the next day for the sake of something new. That was the main reason which made it so difficult for me to decide to join something newly founded; for this must become the real fulfilment of everything I dreamt, or else it had better not be started at all. I knew that such a decision would bind me for ever and then there could be no turning back. For me there could be no idle dallying, but only a cause to be championed ardently. I had already an instinctive feeling against people who took up everything, but never carried anything through to the end. I loathed these Jacks-of-all trades, and considered the activities of such people to be worse than if they were to remain entirely quiescent. Fate herself now seemed to point a finger that showed me the way. I should never have entered one of the big parties already in existence and shall explain my reasons for this later on. This ludicrous little formation, with its handful of members, seemed to have the unique advantage of not yet being fossilised into an ‘organisation’ and still offered a chance for real personal activity on the part of the individual. Here it might still be possible to do some effective work, and, as the movement was still small, one could all the more easily give it the required shape. Here it was still possible to determine the character of the movement, the aims to be achieved and the road to be taken, which would have been impossible in the case of any of the big parties already existing. The longer I reflected on the problem, the more my conviction grew, that just such a small movement would best serve as an instrument to prepare the way for the national resurgence, but that this could never be done by the political parliamentary parties which were too firmly attached to obsolete ideas or had an interest in supporting the new regime. What had to be proclaimed here was a newWeltanschauungand not a new election cry.
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It was, however, infinitely difficult to decide on putting the intention into practice. What were the qualifications which I could bring to the accomplishment of such a task? The fact that I was poor and without resources would, in my opinion, be the easiest to bear, but the fact that I was utterly unknown raised a more difficult problem. I was only one of the millions whom chance allows to exist or to cease to exist, whom even their next-door neighbours will not consent to know. Another difficulty arose from the fact that I had not gone through the regular school curriculum. The so-called ‘intellectuals’still look down with infinite superciliousness on anyone who has not been through the prescribed schools and allowed them to pump the necessary knowledge into him. The question, What can a man do? is never asked, but rather, what has he learned? ‘Educated’ people look upon any imbecile who is plastered with a number of academic certificates as being superior to the ablest young fellow who lacks these precious documents. I could therefore easily imagine how this ‘educated’ world would receive me and I was wrong only in so far as I then believed men to be for the most part better than they proved to be in the cold light of reality. Because of their being as they, are, the few exceptions stand out all the more conspicuously. I learned more and more to distinguish between those who will always be at school and those who will one day come to know something. After two days of careful brooding and reflection I became convinced that I must take the contemplated step. It was the most fateful decision of my life. No retreat was possible. Thus I declared myself ready to accept the membership tendered me by the German Labour Party and received a provisional certificate of membership which bore the number seven.
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The depth of a fall is always measured by the difference between the level of the original position from which a body has fallen and that in which it now lies. The same holds good for nations and States. The matter of greatest importance here is the height of the original level, or rather the greatest height that had been attained before the descent began. Therefore, the original position is of paramount importance, and only the fall or collapse of that which is capable of rising above the general level, can impress the beholder. The collapse of the Second Reich was all the more bewildering for those who could ponder over it and feel the effect of it in their hearts, because the, Reich had fallen from a height which can hardly be imagined in these days of misery and humiliation. The Second Reich was founded in circumstances of such dazzling splendour that the whole nation had become entranced and exalted by it. Following an unparalleled series of victories, that Reich was handed over as the guerdon of immortal heroism to the children and grandchildren of the heroes. Whether they were fully conscious of it or not, does not matter, the Germans felt that this Reich, which did not owe its existence to the machinations of parliamentary factions, was superior to the great majority of States by reason of the nobler circumstances that had accompanied its establishment. When its foundations were laid, the accompanying music was not the chatter of parliamentary debates, but the thunder and clash of war along the battle-front that encircled Paris. It was thus that an act of statesmanship was accomplished whereby the Germans, princes as well as people, established the future Reich and restored the symbol of the Imperial Crown.
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Bismarck’s State was not founded on treason and assassination by deserters and shirkers, but by the regiments that had fought at, the front. This unique birth and baptism of fire sufficed of themselves to surround the Second Reich with an aureole of historical splendour such as few of the older States could claim. What a period of prosperity then began! A position of independence in regard to the outside world guaranteed the means of livelihood at home. The nation increased in numbers and in worldly wealth. The honour of the State and thereby the honour of the people as a whole were secured and protected by an Army which was the most striking proof of the difference between this new Reich and the old German Confederation. The downfall of the Second Reich and the German nation has been so profound that everyone seems to have been dumbfounded and rendered incapable of feeling the significance of this downfall or reflecting on it. It seems as if people were utterly unable to picture in their minds the heights to which the Reich formerly attained, so visionary and unreal appears the greatness and splendour of those days in contrast to tie misery of the present. Bearing this in mind, we can understand why and how people become so dazed when they try to look back, to the sublime past that they forget to look for the symptoms of the great collapse which must certainly have been present in some form or other. Naturally this applies only to those for whom Germany was more than merely a place of abode and a source of livelihood. These are the only people who have been able to feel the present conditions as really catastrophic, whereas others have considered these conditions as the fulfilment of what they had looked forward to and hitherto silently wished. The symptoms of future collapse were definitely to be perceived in those earlier days, although very few made any attempt to deduce a practical lesson from their significance, but this is now a greater necessity than it ever was before, for just as bodily ailments can be cured only when their origin has been diagnosed, so also political disease can be treated only when it has been diagnosed.
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It is obvious, of course, that the external symptoms of any disease can be more readily detected than its internal causes, for these symptoms strike the eye more readily. This is also the reason why so many people recognise only external effects and mistake them for causes. Indeed, they will sometimes try to deny the existence of such causes, and that is why the majority of people among us recognise the German collapse only in the prevailing economic distress and the results that have followed therefrom. Almost everyone has to bear his share of this burden and that is why each one looks on the economic catastrophe as the cause of the present deplorable state of affairs. The broad masses of the people see little of the cultural, political, and moral background of this collapse. Many of them completely lack both the necessary feeling and the powers of understanding. That the masses of the people should thus estimate the causes of Germany’s downfall is quite understandable, but the fact that intelligent sections of the community regard the German collapse primarily as an economic catastrophe, and consequently think that a cure for it may be found in an economic solution, seems to me to be the reason why hitherto no improvement has been brought about. No improvement can be brought about until it is understood that economics play only a secondary role, while the main part is played by political, moral, and racial factors. Only when this is understood will it be possible to comprehend the causes of the present evils and consequently to find the ways and means of remedying them. Therefore, the question of why Germany really collapsed is one of the most urgent significance, especially for a political movement which aims at overcoming this disaster. In scrutinising the past with a view to discovering the causes of the German break-up, it is necessary to be careful lest we may be unduly impressed by external results that readily strike the eye and thus ignore the less manifest causes of these results.
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The most facile, and therefore the most generally accepted way of accounting for the present misfortune, is to say that it is the result of a lost war, and that this is the real cause of the present distress. Probably there are many who honestly believe in this absurd explanation, but there are many more in whose mouths it is a deliberate and conscious falsehood. This applies to all those who are now feeding at the government troughs, for the prophets of the Revolution again and again declared to the people that the result of the war would be immaterial to the great masses. On the contrary, they solemnly assured the public that it was high finance which was principally interested in a victorious outcome of this gigantic struggle between the nations, but that the German people and the German workers had no interest whatsoever therein. Indeed, the apostles of world conciliation habitually asserted that, far from any German downfall, the opposite was bound to take place—namely, the resurgence of the German people—once ‘militarism’ had been crushed. Did not these self-same circles sing the praises of the Entente and did they not also lay the whole blame for the sanguinary struggle on Germany? Would they have succeeded in doing so, had they not put forward the theory that a military defeat would have no political consequences for the German people? Was not the whole Revolution dressed up in the pretty phrase that, since it would check the victorious advance of the German banners, the German people would thus be assured of its liberty both at home and abroad? Is not that so, you miserable, lying rascals? That kind of impudence which is typical of the Jews was necessary in order to proclaim the defeat of the Army as the cause of the German collapse, indeed the Berlin Vorwärts, that organ and mouthpiece of sedition, wrote on this occasion that the German nation should not be permitted to bring home its banners in triumph. Yet our collapse is attributed to the military defeat. Of course it would be out of the question to enter into an argument with these liars who deny one moment what they said the moment before. I should waste no further words on them were it not for the fact that there are many thoughtless people who repeat all this parrot-fashion, without being necessarily inspired by any evil motives.
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But the observations I am making here are also meant for our fighting followers, seeing that nowadays one’s spoken words are often forgotten and their meaning distorted. The assertion that the loss of the war was the cause of the German collapse can best be answered as follows: It is admittedly a fact that the loss of the war was of tragic importance for the future of our country, but that loss was not in itself a cause. It was rather the consequence of other causes. That a disastrous ending to this life and death conflict must have involved catastrophes in its train was clearly seen by everyone of insight who could think in a straightforward manner, but unfortunately there were also people whose powers of understanding seemed to fail them at that critical moment. There were other people who had first questioned that truth and then altogether denied it, and there were people who, after their secret desire had been fulfilled, were suddenly faced with the state of affairs, that resulted from their own collaboration. Such people are responsible for the collapse, and not the lost war, though they now want to attribute everything to this. As a matter of fact, the loss of the war was a result of their activities and not the result of bad leadership, as they would now like to maintain. Our enemies were not cowards. They also knew how to die. From the very first day of the war they outnumbered the German Army, and the arsenals and armament factories of the whole world were at their disposal for the replenishment of military equipment. Indeed, it is universally admitted that the German victories, which had been steadily won during four years of warfare against the whole world, were (apart, of course, from the heroism of the troops, and the magnificent organisation) solely due to the German military leadership. That organisation and leadership of the German Army was the most mighty thing that the world has ever seen. Any shortcomings which became evident were humanly unavoidable. The collapse of that Army was not the cause of our present distress. It was itself the consequence of ether faults, but this consequence in its turn ushered in a further collapse, which was more obvious.
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That such was actually the case can be shown as follows: Must a military defeat necessarily lead to such a complete overthrow of the State and the nation? Whenever has this been the result of an unfortunate, lost war? Are nations in fact ever ruined by a lost war and by that alone? The answer to this question can be briefly stated by referring to the fact that military defeats are the result of internal decay, cowardice, want of character, and are a retribution for such things. If such were not the case, then a military defeat would lead to a national resurgence and bring the nation to a higher pitch of effort. A military defeat is not the tombstone of national life. History affords innumerable examples to confirm the truth of that statement. Unfortunately, Germany’s military overthrow was not an undeserved catastrophe, but a well-merited punishment which was in the nature of an eternal retribution. This defeat was more than deserved by us, for it represented the greatest external phenomenon of decomposition among a series of internal phenomena, which, although they were visible, were not recognised by the majority of the people, who follow the tactics of the ostrich and see only what they want to see. Let us examine the symptoms that were evident in Germany at the time that the German people accepted this defeat. Is it not true that in several circles the misfortunes of the Fatherland were even joyfully welcomed in the most shameful manner? Who could act in such a way without thereby meriting vengeance for his attitude? Were there not people who went even further and boasted that they had gone to the extent of weakening the front and causing a collapse? Therefore, it was not the enemy who brought this disgrace upon us, but rather our own countrymen. If they suffered misfortune for it afterwards, was that misfortune undeserved?
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Was there ever a case in history where a people declared itself guilty of a war, and that even against its conscience and its better judgment? No, and again no. In the manner in which the German nation reacted to its defeat we can see that the real cause of our collapse must be looked for elsewhere and not in the purely military loss of a few positions or the failure of an offensive, for if the front as such had given way and thus brought about a national disaster, then the German nation would have accepted the defeat in quite another spirit. It would have borne the subsequent misfortune with clenched teeth, or it would have been overwhelmed by sorrow. Regret and fury against an enemy into whose hands victory had been given by a chance event or the decree of Fate would have filled the hearts of the people, and in that case the nation, following the example of the Roman Senate, would have faced the defeated legions on their return and expressed their thanks for the sacrifices that had been made and would have urged them not to lose faith in the Reich. Even the capitulation would have been signed under the sway of calm reason, while the heart would have beaten in the hope of the coming revanche. That is the reception that would have been given to a military defeat which had to be attributed only to the adverse decree of Fortune. There would have been neither joy-making nor dancing. Cowardice would not have been boasted of, and the defeat would not have been honoured. On returning from the front, the troops would not have been mocked at, and the colours would not have been dragged in the dust, but above all, that disgraceful state of affairs, could never have arisen which induced a British officer, Colonel Repington, to declare with scorn, “Every third German is a traitor.” No, in such a case this plague would never have assumed the proportions of a veritable flood, which, for the past five years, has smothered every vestige of respect for the German nation in the outside world. This shows only too clearly how false it is to say that the loss of the war was the cause of the German break-up. The military defeat was in itself but the consequence of a whole series of morbid symptoms and their causes which had become active in, the German nation before the war broke out.
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The collapse was the first catastrophic consequence, visible to all, of how traditions and national morale had been poisoned and how the instinct of self-preservation had degenerated. These were the preliminary causes which, for many years, had been undermining the foundations of the nation and the Reich. It remained for the Jews, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute responsibility for the downfall precisely to the man who alone had shown superhuman will-power and energy in his, effort to prevent the catastrophe which he had foreseen and to save the nation from that hour of complete overthrow and shame. By placing responsibility for the loss of the World War on the shoulders of Ludendorff, they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to justice. All this was inspired by the principle which is quite true in itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corruptible in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily had, and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they are readily fall victims to the big lie than to the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters, but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehood. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so are put clearly before them, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation, for the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down—a fact which all expert liars in this world and all who conspire together in the art of lying know only too well and exploit in the basest manner. From time immemorial, however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, whereas in reality they are a race?
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And what a race! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. He called the Jew “the great master of lies.” Those who do not realise the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping truth to prevail. We may regard it as a great stroke of fortune for the German nation that its period of lingering suffering was so suddenly curtailed and transformed into such a terrible catastrophe, for if things had gone on as they were, the nation would, more slowly but more surely, have been ruined. The disease would have become chronic; whereas, in the acute form of the disaster, it at least showed itself clearly to the eyes of a considerable number of observers. It was not by accident that man conquered the black plague more easily than he has conquered tuberculosis. The first appeared in terrifying waves of death that shook the whole of mankind, the other advances insidiously; the first induced terror, the other gradual indifference. The result is, however, that men opposed the first with all the energy of which they were capable, whilst they try to arrest tuberculosis by feeble means. Thus man has mastered the black plague, while tuberculosis still gets the better of him. The same applies to diseases in nations. As long as these diseases are not of a catastrophic character, the population will slowly accustom itself to them and later succumb. It is then a stroke of luck—although a bitter one—when Fate decides to interfere in this slow process of decay and suddenly brings the victim face to face with the final stage of the disease. More often than not the result of a catastrophe is that a cure is at once undertaken and carried through with rigid determination, but even in such a case, the essential preliminary condition is always the recognition of the internal causes which have given rise to the disease in question. The important question here is the differentiation of the root causes from the circumstances developing out of them. This becomes all the more difficult the longer the germs of disease remain in the national body and the longer they are allowed to become an integral part of that body.
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It may easily happen that, as time goes on, it will become so difficult to recognise certain definite virulent poisons as such that they are accepted as belonging to the national being, or they are merely tolerated as a necessary evil, so that drastic attempts to locate those alien germs are not held to be necessary. During the long period of peace prior to the last war, certain evils were apparent here and there although, with one or two exception, very little effort was made to discover their origin. Here again, these exceptions were primarily those phenomena in the economic life of the nation which were more apparent to the individual rather than the evil conditions existing in a good many other spheres. There were many signs of decay which ought to have been given serious thought. As far as economics were concerned, it may be said that the amazing increase of population in Germany before the war brought the question of providing daily bread into a more and more prominent position in all spheres of political and economic thought and action. Unfortunately, those responsible could not make up their minds to arrive at the only correct solution and preferred to reach their objective by cheaper methods. Repudiation of the idea of acquiring fresh territory and the substitution for it of the mad desire for the commercial conquest of the world was bound to lead eventually to unlimited and injurious industrialisation. The first and most fatal result brought about in this way was the weakening of the agricultural classes, whose decline was proportionate to the increase in the proletariat of the urban areas, until finally the equilibrium was completely upset. The big barrier dividing rich and poor now became apparent. Luxury and poverty lived so close to each other that the consequences were bound to be deplorable. Want and frequent unemployment began to play havoc with the people and left discontent and embitterment behind them. The result of this was to divide the population into political classes. Discontent increased in spite of commercial prosperity. Matters finally reached that stage which brought about the general conviction that ‘things cannot go on as they are,’ although no one seemed able to visualise what was really going to happen.
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These were typical and visible signs of the depths which the prevailing discontent had reached. Far worse than these, however, were other consequences which became apparent as a result of the industrialisation of the nation. In proportion to the extent that commerce assumed definite control of the State, money became more and more of a god whom all had to serve and before whom all had to bow. Heavenly deities became more and more old-fashioned and were laid away in the corners to make room for the worship of Mammon. Thus began a period of utter degeneration which became especially pernicious because it set in at a time when the nation was more than ever in need of an exalted ideal, for a critical hour was threatening. Germany should have been prepared to protect with the sword her efforts to win her own daily bread in a peaceful way. Unfortunately, the predominance of money received support and sanction in the very quarter which ought to have been opposed to it. His Majesty, the Kaiser, made a mistake when he raised representatives of the new financial world to the ranks of the nobility. Admittedly, it may be offered as an excuse that even Bismarck failed to realise the threatening danger in this respect. In practice, however, all ideal virtues became secondary considerations to those of money, for it was clear that having once taken this road, the real old aristocracy would very soon rank second to the ennobled financiers. Financial operations succeed more easily than war operations. Hence it was no longer any great attraction for a true hero or even a statesman to be brought into touch with some Jewish banker. Real merit was not interested in receiving cheap decorations and therefore declined them with thanks. But from the standpoint of good breeding such a development was deeply regrettable. The aristocracy began to lose more and more those racial qualities that were a condition of its very existence, with the result that, in many cases, the term ‘plebeian’ would have been more appropriate.
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A serious state of economic disruption was being brought about by the slow elimination of the personal control of vested interests and the gradual transference of the whole economic structure into the hands of joint-stock companies. In this way labour became degraded into an object of speculation in the hands of unscrupulous exploiters. The de-personalisation of property ownership increased on a vast scale. Financial exchange circles began to triumph and made slow but sure progress in assuming control of the whole of national life. Before the war, the internationalisation of the German economic structure had already begun by the roundabout way of share issues. It is true that a section of the German industrialists made determined attempts to avert the danger, but in the end they gave way before the united attacks of money-grabbing capitalism, which was assisted in this fight by its faithful henchman, the Marxist movement. The persistent war against German ‘heavy industries’ was the visible start of the internationalisation of German economic life as envisaged by the Marxists. This, however, could only be brought to a successful conclusion by the victory which Marxism was able to gain in the Revolution. As I write these words, success is attending the general attack on the German State Railways which are now to be turned over to international capitalists. Thus ‘International Social Democracy’ has once again attained one of its main objectives. The best evidence of how far this ‘commercialisation’ of the German nation was able to progress, can be seen plainly in the fact that when the war was over, one of the leading captains of German industry and commerce gave it as his opinion that commerce as such was the only force which could put Germany on her feet again. This sort of nonsense was uttered just at the time when France was re-establishing public education on a humanitarian basis, thus doing away with the idea that national life was dependent on commerce rather than on ideal values. The statement which Stinnes broadcast to the world at that time caused incredible confusion.
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It was immediately taken up and has become the leading motto of all those humbugs and babblers—the ‘statesmen’ whom Fate let loose on Germany after the Revolution. One of the worst evidences of decadence in Germany before the war was the ever-increasing habit of doing things by halves. This was one of the consequences of the insecurity that was felt all round, and it is to be attributed also to a certain timidity which resulted from one cause or another. The latter malady was aggravated by the educational system. German education in pre-war times had an extraordinary number of weak features. It was simply and exclusively limited to the production of pure knowledge and paid little attention to the development of practical ability. Still less attention was given to the development of individual character, in so far as this is ever possible, and hardly any attention at all was paid to the development of a sense of responsibility, to strengthening the will and the power of decision. The result of this method was not to turn out stalwart men, but rather docile creatures crammed with knowledge and to produce erudite people who had a passion for knowing everything. Before the war, we Germans were accepted and estimated accordingly. The German was liked because good use could be made of him; but there was little esteem for him personally, on account of his weakness of character. For those who can read its significance aright, there is much instruction in the fact that among all nationalities Germans were the first to part with their national citizenship when they found themselves in a foreign country, and there is a world of meaning in the saying that was then prevalent, that in hand one can go through the whole country. This kind of social etiquette turned out disastrous when it prescribed the exclusive forms that had to be observed in the presence of His Majesty. These forms insisted that there should be no contract fiction whatsoever, but that everything should be praised which His Majesty condescended to like. It was just here that the frank expression of manly dignity, and not subservience, was most needed because the monarchy as an institution was bound to fall as a result of this subservience, for such it was. Servility in the presence of monarchs may be good enough for the professional lackey and place-hunter, in fact for all those decadent beings who feel more at their ease in close proximity to the throne than do honest citizens.
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These exceedingly ‘humble’ creatures, however, though the grovel before their lord and bread-giver, invariably put on airs of boundless superciliousness towards other mortals, which was particularly impudent when they posed as the only people who had the right to be called ‘monarchists.’ This was a gross piece of impertinence of which only despicable specimens among the newly-ennobled or yet-to-be-ennobled were capable. These have always been just the people who have prepared the way for the downfall of the monarchy and the monarchical principle. It could not be otherwise, for when a man is prepared to stand up for a cause, come what may, he never grovels before its representative. A man who is serious about the maintenance and welfare of an institution will cling to it with might and main and will not be able to .get over it, should that institution show certain faults and failings, and he will certainly not run around telling the world about it, as certain false democratic ‘friends’ of the monarchy have done; but he will approach His Majesty, the wearer of the crown himself, to warn him of the seriousness of the situation and persuade the monarch to act. Furthermore, he will not take up the standpoint that it must be left to His Majesty to act as the latter thinks fit, even though the course which he would take must plainly lead to disaster. The man I am thinking of will deem it his duty to protect the monarchy against the monarch himself, no matter what personal risk he may run in so doing. If the worth of the monarchical institution were dependent on the, person of the monarch himself, then it would be the worst institution imaginable; for only in rare cases are kings found to be models of wisdom, understanding and integrity of character, though we might like to think otherwise. This fact is unpalatable to the professional knaves and lackeys, but all upright men, and they are the backbone of the nation, repudiate the nonsensical fiction that all monarchs are wise, etc. For such men history is history and truth is truth, even where monarchs are concerned. It is so seldom that a nation has the good luck to possess a great king who is at the same time a great man, that it ought to consider itself fortunate if malignant Fate has not reserved for it a still more terrible lot.
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It is clear that the worth and significance of the monarchical principle cannot rest in the person of the monarch alone, unless Heaven decrees that the crown should be set on the head of a brilliant hero like Frederick the Great, or a sagacious man like Wilhelm I. This may happen once in several centuries, but hardly oftener than that. The ideal of the monarchy takes precedence over the person of the monarch, inasmuch as the meaning of the institution must lie in the institution itself. Thus, the monarch may be reckoned in the category of those whose duty it is to serve. He, too, is but a wheel in the machine and as such he is obliged to do his duty towards it. He has to adapt himself for the fulfilment of high aims and your true ‘monarchist’ is not he who allows the wearer of the crown to commit crimes in its name, but he who prevents this. If, therefore, there were no significance attached to the idea itself and everything merely centred around the ‘sacred’ person, then it would never be possible to depose a ruler who has shown himself to be an imbecile. It is essential to resist upon this truth at the present time, because recently those phenomena which were in no small measure responsible for the collapse of the monarchy have appeared again. With a certain amount of naive impudence these persons once again talk about ‘their King’—that is to say the man whom they shamefully deserted a few years ago, at a most critical, hour. Those who refrain from participating in this chorus of lies are summarily classified as ‘bad Germans.’ They who make the charge are the same class of quitters who, in 1918, took to their heels at the very sight of a red armlet, left their Kaiser in the lurch, hastily changed their rifles for walking-sticks, took to wearing neutralcoloured ties, and disappeared from the limelight camouflaged as peace-loving citizens. All of a sudden these champions of royalty were nowhere to be found at that time. Circumspectly, one by one, these ‘servants and counsellors’ of the Crown reappeared to resume their lip-service to royalty, but only after others had borne the brunt of the anti-royalist attack and suppressed the Revolution for them.
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Once again they are all there, wistfully eyeing the flesh-pots of Egypt and almost bursting with devotion for the royal cause. This will go on until the day comes when red badges are again in the ascendant. Then this whole ramshackle troupe of hangers-on of the old monarchy will scuttle off anew like mice from the cats. If monarchs were not themselves responsible for such things, one could not help sympathising with them, but they must realise: that with such champions, thrones may be lost, but never gained. All this devotion was a mistake and was the result of our whole system of education, which in this case brought about a particularly severe retribution. Such lamentable trumpery was kept up at the various courts, that the monarchy was slowly becoming undermined. When the whole structure finally did begin to totter, they vanished from mortal ken. Naturally, grovellers and lick-spittles are never willing to die for their masters. That monarchs never realise this, and seldom really take the trouble to learn it, has always been their undoing. One visible result of a wrong educational system was the fear of shouldering responsibility and the resultant weakness in dealing with obvious, vital problems of existence. The starting-point of this epidemic was, however, in our parliamentary institution where the shirking of responsibility was particularly fostered. Unfortunately, the disease slowly spread to all branches of everyday life and particularly affected the sphere of public affairs. Responsibility was being shirked everywhere and this led to insufficient or half-hearted measures being taken, personal responsibility for each action being reduced to a minimum. If we consider the attitude of various governments towards a whole series of really pernicious phenomena in public life, we shall at once recognise the fearful significance of this policy of half-measures and the lack of courage to assume responsibility. I shall single out only a few from the large number of instances known to me.
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In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the press as a ‘Great Power’ within the State. As a matter of fact its importance is immense. One cannot easily over-estimate it, for the press continues the work of education even in adult life. Generally speaking, readers of the press can be classified in three groups: First, those who believe everything they read; second, those who no longer believe anything; third, those who critically examine what they read and form their judgments accordingly. Numerically, the first group is by far the largest, being composed of the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation, but only into grades of intelligence. Under this category come all those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to do so and who, partly through incompetence end partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print. To these we must add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for himself, out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that otters have thought out, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done. The influence which the press has on all these people who constitute the broad masses of a nation, is therefore enormous. But somehow they are not in a position, or are not willing, personally to sift what is being served up to them, so that their whole attitude towards daily problems is almost solely the result of extraneous influence. All this can be advantageous where public enlightenment is of a serious and truthful character, but great harm is done when scoundrels and liars take a hand at this work. The second group is numerically smaller, being partly composed of those who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in print. They hate all newspapers.
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Either they do not read them at all or they become exceptionally annoyed at their contents, which they hold to be nothing but a conglomery of lies and mis-statements. These people are difficult to handle, for they will always be sceptical of the truth. Consequently, they are useless for any form of positive work. The third group is easily the smallest, being composed of real intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgments, while at the same time carefully sifting what they read. They will not read any newspaper without using their own intelligence to collaborate with that of the writer, and naturally this does not set writers an easy task. Journalists appreciate this type of reader only with a certain amount of reservation. Hence the trash that newspapers are capable of serving up is of little danger—much less of importance to the members of this third group of readers. In the majority of cases these readers have learnt to regard every journalist as fundamentally a rogue who sometimes speaks the truth. Most unfortunately, the value of these readers lies in their intelligence, and not in their numerical strength an unhappy state of affairs in a period where wisdom counts for nothing and majorities for everything. Nowadays, when the voting papers of the masses are the deciding factor, the decision lies in the hands of the numerically strongest group; that is to say the first group, the crowd of simpletons and the credulous. It is an all-important interest of the State and a national duty to prevent these people from falling into the hands of false, ignorant or even evil-minded teachers. Therefore it is the duty of the State to supervise their education and prevent every form of offence in this respect. Particular attention should be paid to the press; for its influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating of all, since its effect is not transitory but continual. Its immense significance lies in the uniform and persistent repetition of its teaching. Here, if anywhere, the State should never forget that all means should converge towards the same end.
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It must not be led astray by the will-o’-the-wisp of so-called ‘freedom of the press,’ or be talked into neglecting its duty, and withholding from the nation that which is good and which does good. With ruthless determination the State must keep control of this instrument of popular education and place it at the service of the State and the nation. But what sort of pabulum was it that the German press served up for the consumption of its readers in pre-war days? Was it not the most virulent poison imaginable? Was not pacifism in its worst form inoculated into our people at a time when others were preparing slowly but surely to pounce upon Germany? Did not this self-same press of ours instil into the public mind even in peace-time a doubt as to the sovereign rights of the State itself, thereby already handicapping the State in choosing its means of defence? Was it not the German press that understood how to make all the nonsensical talk about ‘Western Democracy’ palatable to our people, until an exuberant public was eventually prepared to entrust its future to the League of Nations? Was not this press instrumental in bringing about a state of moral degradation among our people? Were not morals and public decency made to look ridiculous and classed as out-of-date and banal, until finally our people also became ‘modern’? By means of persistent attacks, did not the press keep on undermining the authority of the State, until one blow sufficed to bring this institution tottering to the ground? Did not the press oppose with all its might every move to give the State that which belongs to the State, and be means of constant criticism injure the reputation of the Army, sabotage general conscription and demand refusal of military credits, etc.—until the success of this campaign was assured? The function of the so-called liberal press was to dig the grave for the German people and Reich. No mention need be made of the lying Marxist press. To it the spreading of falsehood is as much a vital necessity as hunting is to a cat. Its sole task is to break the national backbone of the people, thus preparing the nation to become the slaves of international finance and its masters, the Jews. What measures did the State take to counteract this wholesale poisoning of the public mind?
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Absolutely none. The passing of a few paltry decrees, punishment meted out in a few cases of flagrant infamy, and there the matter ended. By this policy it was hoped to win the favour of this pest by means of flattery, by a recognition of the ‘value’ of the press, is ‘importance,’ its ‘educative mission’ and similar nonsense. The Jews acknowledged all this with a knowing smile and returned thanks. The reason for this ignominious failure on the part of the State lay not so much in its refusal to realise the danger as in the out-and-out cowardly way of meeting the situation by the adoption of faulty and ineffective measures. No one had the courage to employ any energetic and radical methods. Everyone temporised in some way or other and instead of striking at its heart, only irritated the viper the more. The result was that not only did everything remain as it was, but the power of this institution, which should have been combated, grew greater from year to year. The defence put up by the government in those days against a mainly Jew-controlled press that was slowly corrupting the nation, followed no definite line of action, it had no determination ‘behind it and above all, no fixed objective’ whatsoever in view. This is where official understanding of the situation completely failed, not only in estimating the importance of the struggle, but in choosing the means and deciding on a definite plan. They merely tinkered with the problem. Occasionally when bitten, they imprisoned one or another journalistic viper for a few weeks or months, but the whole poisonous brood was allowed to carry on in peace. It must be admitted that all this was partly the result of extraordinarily crafty tactics on the part of Jewry on the one hand, and obvious, official stupidity or naivety, on the other. The Jews were too clever to allow a simultaneous attack to be made on the whole of their press. One section functioned as cover for the other. While the Marxist newspaper, in the most despicable manner possible, reviled everything that was sacred, furiously attacked the State and government and incited certain classes of the community against each other, bourgeois-democratic papers, also in Jewish hands, succeeded in camouflaging themselves as model examples of objectivity.
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They studiously avoided harsh language, knowing well that blockheads are capable of judging only by external appearances and are never able to penetrate to the real depth and meaning of anything. They measure the worth of an object by its exterior and not by its contents. This form of human frailty was carefully studied and understood by the press. By this class of blockheads, theFrankfurter Zeitungwould be acknowledged as the essence of respectability. It always carefully avoided calling a spade a spade. It deprecated the use of every form of physical force and persistently appealed to the nobility of fighting with ‘intellectual’ weapons. This method of fighting was, curiously enough, most popular with the least intellectual classes. That is one of the results of our defective education, which deprives young people of their natural instincts, pumps into them a certain amount of knowledge without, however, being able to give them real insight, since this requires not only diligence and goodwill, but innate understanding. This final insight at which man must aim is the understanding of causes which an instinctive and fundamental. Let me explain: Man must not fall into the error of thinking that he was ever meant to become lord and master of Nature. A lopsided education has helped to encourage that illusion. Man must realise that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife. He will then feel that there cannot be a separate law for mankind in a universe in which planets and suns follow their orbits, where moons and planets trace their destined paths, where the strong are always the masters of the weak and where the latter must obey or be destroyed. Man must also submit to the eternal principles of this supreme wisdom. He may try to understand them but he can never free himself from their sway. It is just for our intellectual demi-monde that the Jew writes those papers which he calls his ‘intellectual’ press.
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For them theFrankfurter ZeitungandBerliner Tageblattare written, the tone being adapted to them, and it is over these people that such papers have an influence. While studiously avoiding all forms of expression that might strike the reader as crude, the poison is injected from other vials into the hearts of the clientele. The effervescent tone and the fine phraseology lull the reader into believing that a love for knowledge and more it principle is the sole driving force that determines the policy of such papers, whereas in reality these features represent a sunning way of disarming any opposition that might be directed against the press. Some make a parade of respectability and the imbecile public is all the more ready to believe them since the others indulge only in moderate ravings which never amount to abuse of the ‘freedom of the press’ (as this system of feeding the public on lies and poisoning the public mind is called). Hence, the authorities are very slow indeed to take any steps against these journalistic bandits for fear of immediately alienating the sympathy of the so-called respectable press fear that is only too well founded, for the moment any attempt is made to proceed against any member of the gutter press all the others rush to its assistance at once, not indeed to support its policy, but simply and solely to defend the principles of freedom of the press and liberty of public opinion. This outcry will succeed in intimidating the most stalwart, for it comes from the mouth of what is called decent journalism. In this way the, poison was allowed to enter the national bloodstream and infect public life, without the government taking any effectual measures to master the course of the disease. The ridiculous half-measures that were taken were in themselves an indication of the process of disintegration that was already threatening to break up the Reich, for an institution practically surrenders its existence when it is no Longer determined to defend itself with all the weapons at its command. Every half-measure is the outward expression of an internal process of decay which must lead to an external collapse sooner or later.
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I believe that our present generation would easily master this danger, if it were led aright, for it has gone through certain experiences which must have strengthened the nerves of all those who were not broken by them. Certainly in days to come the Jews will raise a tremendous cry in their newspapers once a hand is laid on their favourite nest, once a move is made to put an end to this scandalous press and once this instrument which moulds public opinion is brought under State control and no longer left in the hands of aliens and enemies of the people. I am certain that this will be easier for us than it was for our fathers. The scream of the twelve-inch shell is more penetrating than the hiss of a thousand Jewish newspaper vipers. Therefore, let them go on with their hissing. A further example of the weak and hesitating way in which vital national problems were dealt with in pre-war Germany is the following. Hand-in-hand with the political and moral process of infecting the nation, an equally virulent process of infection had for many years been attacking the health of the nation. In large cities particularly, syphilis steadily increased and tuberculosis kept pace with it in reaping its harvest of death in almost every part of the country. Although in both cases the effect on the nation was alarming, it seemed as if nobody were in a position to undertake any decisive measures against these scourges. In the case of syphilis especially, the attitude of the State and the public authorities was one of absolute capitulation. To combat this state of affairs measures more sweeping than those actually adopted should have been enforced. The discovery of a remedy which was of a questionable nature and the excellent way in which it was placed on the market were of little assistance ill fighting such a scourge. Here again the only course to adopt is to attack the causes rather than the symptoms of the disease, but in this case, the primary cause is to be found in the manner in which love has been prostituted. Even though this did not directly bring about the fearful disease itself, the nation must still suffer serious damage thereby, for the moral havoc resulting from this prostitution would be sufficient to bring about the destruction of, the nation, slowly but surely.
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This Judaising of our spiritual life and mammonising of our natural instinct for procreation will sooner or later work havoc with our whole posterity. Instead of strong, healthy children, the product of natural feelings, we shall see miserable specimens of humanity resulting from economic calculation, for economic considerations are becoming more and more the foundation and the sole preliminary condition of marriage while love looks for an outlet elsewhere. Here as elsewhere, one may defy Nature for a certain period of time, but sooner or later she will take her inevitable revenge, and when man realises this truth, it is often too late. Our own nobility furnishes an example of the devastating consequences that result from a persistent refusal to recognise the primary conditions necessary for normal wedlock. Here we are face to face with the results of procreation which is, on the one hand, determined by social pressure and, on the other, by financial considerations. The one leads to inherited debility, and the other to adulteration of the blood-strain; for all the Jewish daughters of the department store proprietors are looked upon as eligible mates to co-operate in propagating his lordship’s stock, and the stock certainly looks it. All this leads to absolute degeneration. Nowadays our bourgeoisie is making efforts to follow in the same path. Theirs will be a similar fate. These unpleasant truths are hastily and nonchalantly brushed aside, as if by so doing the real state of affairs could also be abolished, but it cannot be denied that the population of our great towns and cities is tending more and more to avail itself of prostitution in the exercise of its amorous instincts and is thus becoming more and more contaminated by the scourge of venereal disease. On the one hand, the visible effects of this mass-infection can be observed in our lunatic asylums and, on the other hand, alas! among the children. These are the doleful and tragic products of the steadily increasing scourge that is poisoning our sexual life. Their sufferings are the visible results of parental vice.
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There are many ways of becoming resigned to this unpleasant and terrible fact. Many people go about seeing nothing or, to be more correct, not wanting to see anything. This is by far the simplest and cheapest attitude to adopt. Others cover themselves in the sacred mantle of prudery, as ridiculous as it is false. They describe the whole condition of affairs as sinful and are profoundly indignant when brought face to face with a victim. They close their eyes to this godless scourge in pious horror and pray to the Almighty that He—if possible after their own death—may rain down fire and brimstone as on Sodom and Gomorrah and so once again make a lasting example of this shameless section of humanity. Finally, there are those who are well aware of the terrible results which this scourge will inevitably bring about, but they merely shrug their shoulders, fully convinced of their inability to undertake anything against this peril. Hence, matters are allowed to take their course. Undoubtedly all this is very convenient and simple, only the fact must not be overlooked that this convenient way of approaching things can leave fatal consequences for our national life. The excuse that other nations are not faring any better does not alter the fact of our own deterioration, except that the feeling of sympathy for other stricken nations makes our own suffering easier to bear. But the important question that arises here is, Which nations will be the first to take the initiative in mastering this scourge, and which nations will succumb to it? This will be the final upshot of the whole situation. This will be an acid test of racial value. The race that fails to come through the test will simply die out and its place will be taken by the healthier ant stronger races, which will be able to endure greater hardships. As this problem primarily concerns posterity, it belongs to that category of which it is said with terrible justification that the sins of the fathers are visited on their offspring unto the tenth generation. This is a consequence which follows on an infringement of the laws of blood and race. The sin against blood and race is the hereditary sin in this world and it brings disaster on every nation that commits it.
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The attitude towards this one vital problem in pre-war Germany was most regrettable. What measures were adopted to arrest the infection of our youth in the large cities? What was done to put an end to the contamination and mammonisation of sexual life among us? What was done to fight the resultant spreading of syphilis throughout the whole of our people? The reply to this question can best be illustrated by showing what should have been done. Instead of tackling this problem in a haphazard way, the authorities should leave realised that the happiness or unhappiness of future generations depended on its solution and indeed that the nation’s entire future may, perhaps needs must, depend thereon. To have admitted this would have demanded that active measures be carried out in a ruthless manner. The primary condition would have been that the enlightened attention of the whole country should be concentrated on this terrible danger, so that every individual would realise the importance of fighting against it. It would be futile to impose obligations of a definite character which are often difficult to bear and expect them to become generally effective, unless the public were thoroughly instructed in the necessity of imposing and accepting such obligations. This demands a widespread and systematic method of enlightenment, and all other daily problems that might distract public attention from this great central problem should be relegated to the background. In every case where there are exigencies or tasks that seem impossible to deal with successfully, public opinion must be concentrated on the one problem, under the conviction that the solution of this problem alone is a matter of life or death. Only in this way can public interest be aroused to such a pitch as will urge people to combine in a great voluntary effort and achieve important results. This fundamental truth applies also to the individual, provided he is desirous of attaining some great end. He must always concentrate his efforts on one definitely limited stage of his progress which has to be completed before the next step be attempted.
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Those who do not endeavour to realise their aims step by step, and who do not concentrate their energy on reaching the individual stages, will never attain the final objective. At some stage or other they will falter and fail. This systematic way of approaching an objective is an art in itself and always calls for the expenditure of every ounce of energy in order to conquer step after step of the road. Therefore, the most essential preliminary condition necessary for an attack on such a difficult stage of the human road is that the authorities should succeed in convincing the masses that the immediate objective which is now being fought for is the only one that deserves to be considered and the only one on which everything depends. The broad masses are never able to see clearly the whole stretch of the road lying in front of them, without becoming tired and thus losing faith in their ability to complete the task. To a certain extent they will keep the objective in mind, but they are only able to survey the whole road in small stages, as in the case of the traveller who knows where his journey is going to end, but who masters the endless stretch far better by attacking it in stages. Only in this way can he keep up his determination and reach the final objective. It is in this way, with the assistance of every form of propaganda, that the problem of fighting venereal disease should be placed before the public—not as a task for the nation but as the main task. Every possible means should be employed to bring the truth about this scourge home to the minds of the people, until the whole nation has been convinced that everything depends on the solution of this problem: that is to say, a healthy future or national decay. Only after such preparatory measures have been taken—if necessary, spread over a period of many years—will public attention and public resolution be fully aroused, and only then can serious and definite measures be undertaken without the risk of these not being fully understood or of the authorities being suddenly faced with a slackening of the public will.
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It must be made clear to all that a serious fight against this scourge calls for vast sacrifices and an enormous amount of work. To wage war against syphilis means fighting against prostitution, against prejudice, against old-established customs, against current fashion, public opinion, and, last but not least, again false prudery in certain circles. The first preliminary condition to be fulfilled, before the State can claim a moral right to fight against all these things, is that the young generation should be afforded facilities for contracting early marriages. Late marriages have the sanction of a custom which, from whatever angle we view it, is, and will remain, a disgrace to humanity, an institution which ill befits a creature who is wont to regard himself as having been fashioned in God’s image. Prostitution is a disgrace to humanity and cannot be removed simply by academic or charitable methods. Its restriction and final extermination presupposes the removal of a whole series of contributory circumstances. The first remedy must always be to establish such conditions as will make early marriages possible, especially for young men—for women are, after all, only the passive factor. An illustration of the extent to which people nowadays are labouring under a delusion, is afforded by the fact that not infrequently one hears mothers in so-called ‘better’ circles openly expressing their satisfaction at having found as a husband for their daughter, a man who has already sown his wild oats, etc. As there is usually so little shortage of men of this type, the poor girl finds no difficulty in getting a mate of this description, and the children of this marriage are a visible result of such supposedly sensible unions. When one realises, apart from this, that every possible effort is being made to hinder the process of procreation and that Nature is being wilfully cheated of her rights, there remains really only one question: Why is such an institution as marriage still in existence, and what are its functions? Is it really nothing better than prostitution? Does our duty to posterity no longer play any part? Or do people not realise the nature of the curse they are inflicting on themselves and their offspring by such criminally foolish neglect of one of the primary laws of Nature?
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This is how civilised nations degenerate and gradually perish. Marriage is not an end in itself but must serve the greater end, which is that of increasing and maintaining the human species and the race. This is its only meaning and purpose. This being admitted, then it is clear that the institution of marriage must be judged by the manner in which its allotted function is fulfilled. Therefore, early marriages should be the rule, because thus the young couple will still have that pristine force which is the fountainhead of a healthy posterity with unimpaired powers of resistance. Of course early marriages cannot be made the rule unless a whole series of social measures are first introduced without which early marriage cannot even be thought of. In other words, a solution of this question, which seems a small problem in itself, cannot be brought about without adopting radical measures to alter the social background. The importance of such measures ought to be studied and properly estimated, especially at a time when the so-called ‘social’ Republic has shown itself unable to solve the housing problem and has thus made it impossible for innumerable couples to get married. That sort of policy prepares the way for the further advance of prostitution. Another reason why early marriages are impossible is our nonsensical method of regulating the scale of salaries, which pays far too little attention to the problem of family support. Prostitution, therefore, can only be really seriously tackled if, by means of a radical social reform, early marriage is made easier than hitherto. This is the first preliminary necessity for the solution of this problem. Secondly, a whole series of false notions must be eradicated from our system of bringing up and educating children, a thing which hitherto no one seems to have worried about. In our present educational system a balance will have to be established, first and foremost, between mental instruction and physical training. What is known as the Gymnasium to-day is a positive insult to the Greek institution.
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Our system of education entirely loses sight of the fact that, in the long run, a healthy mind can exist only in a healthy body. This statement applies with few exceptions, particularly to the broad masses of the nation. In the pre-war Germany there was a time when no one, took the trouble to think over this truth. Training of the body was criminally neglected, the one-sided training of the mind being regarded as a sufficient guarantee for the nation’s greatness. This mistake was destined to show its effects sooner than had been anticipated. It is not pure chance that the Bolshevist teaching flourishes in those regions whose degenerate population has been brought to the verge of starvation, as, for example, in the case of Central Germany, Saxony, and the Ruhr. In all these districts there is a marked absence of any serious resistance, even by the so-called intellectual classes, against this Jewish contagion, and the simple reason is that the intellectual classes are themselves physically degenerate, not through privation, but through education. The exclusive intellectualism of the education in vogue among our upper classes makes them unfit for life’s struggle in an epoch in which physical force, and not intellect, is the dominating factor. Thus, they are neither capable of maintaining themselves, nor of making their way in life. In nearly every case physical disability is the forerunner of personal cowardice. The extravagant emphasis laid on purely intellectual education and the consequent neglect of physical training must necessarily lead to sexual thoughts in early youth. Those boys whose constitutions have been trained and hardened by sports and gymnastics are less prone to sexual indulgence than those stay-at-homes who have been fed exclusively with mental pabulum. Sound methods of education cannot, however, afford to disregard this and we must not forget that what a healthy young man demands from a woman will differ from the demands of a weakling who has been prematurely corrupted.
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Thus in every branch of our education the day’s curriculum must be arranged so as to occupy a boy’s free time in profitable development of his physical powers. He has no right in those years to loaf about, becoming a nuisance in public streets and in cinemas; but when his day’s work, is done he ought to harden his young body so that his strength may not be found wanting when the occasion arises. To prepare for this and to carry it out should be the function of our educational system and not exclusively to cram him with knowledge. Our school system must also rid itself of the notion that the training of the body is a task that should be left to the individual himself. There is no such thing as freedom to sin against posterity and thus against the race. The fight against pollution of the mind must be waged simultaneously with the training of the body. To-day the whole of our public life may be compared to a hot-house for the forced growth of sexual notions and excitements. A glance at the till-of-fare provided by our cinemas, playhouses and theatres, suffices to prove that this is not the right food, especially for our young people. Hoardings and advertisement kiosks combine to attract the public in the most vulgar manner. Anyone who has not altogether lost contact with adolescent yearnings will realise that all this must have very grave consequences. This seductive and sensuous atmosphere puts into the heads of our youth notions of which, at their age, they ought still to be ignorant. Unfortunately, the results of this kind of education can best be seen in our contemporary youth who are prematurely grown up and, therefore, old before their time. The courts of law throw from, time to time a distressing light on the spiritual life of our fourteen and fifteen-year-old-children. Who, therefore, will be surprised to learn that venereal disease claims as victims at this age? And is it not a frightful scandal to see the number of young men physically weak and intellectually ruined, who have been introduced to the mysteries of marriage by the whores of the big cities? Those who want seriously to combat prostitution must first of all assist in removing the spiritual conditions on which it thrives.
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They will have to clean up the moral pollution of our city ‘culture’ fearlessly and without regard for the outcry that will follow. If we do not drag our youth out of the morass of their present environment they will be engulfed by it. Those people who do not want to see these things are deliberately encouraging them and are guilty of spreading the effects of prostitution to the future, for the future belongs to our younger generation. This process of cleansing ourKulturwill have to be applied in practically all spheres. The stage, art, literature, the cinema, the press and advertisement posters, all must have the stains of pollution removed and be used in the service of a national and cultural ideal. The life of the people must be freed from the asphyxiating perfume of our modern eroticism and also from every unmanly and prudish form of insincerity. In all these things, the aim and the method must be determined by thoughtful consideration for the preservation of our national well-being in body and soul. The right to personal freedom comes second in importance to the duty of preserving the race. Only after such measures have been put into practice can a medical campaign against this scourge begin with some hope of success. But here again half-measures will be valueless. Far-reaching and important decisions will have to be made. It would be doing things by halves if incurables were given the opportunity of infecting one healthy person after another. This would be practising that kind of humanitarianism which allows hundreds to perish in order to prevent the suffering of one individual. The demand that it should be made impossible for defective people to continue to propagate defective offspring is a demand that is based on most reasonable grounds, and its proper fulfilment is the most humane task that mankind has to face. Unhappy and undeserved suffering will be prevented in millions of cases, with the result that there will be a gradual improvement in national health.
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A determined decision to act in this manner will at the same time provide an obstacle against the further spread of venereal disease. It would then be a case, where necessary, of mercilessly isolating all incurables—perhaps a barbaric measure for those unfortunates—but a blessing for the present generation and for posterity. The temporary pain thus experienced in this century can, and will, save thousands of future generations from suffering. The fight against syphilis and its pace-maker, prostitution, is one of the gigantic tasks of mankind; gigantic, because it is not merely a case of solving a single problem, but of the removal of a whole series of evils which are the contributory causes of this scourge. Disease of the body in this case is merely the result of a diseased condition of the moral, social, and racial instincts. If, for reasons of indolence or cowardice, this fight is not fought to a finish, we may imagine what conditions will be like five centuries hence. Little of God’s image will be left in human nature, except to mock the Creator. What has been done in Germany to counteract this scourge? If we think calmly over the answer we shall find it distressing. It is true that in governmental circles the terrible and injurious effects of this disease were well known, but the counter-measures which were officially adopted were ineffective and a hopeless failure. They tinkered with cures for the symptoms wholly regardless of the cause of the disease. Prostitutes were medically examined and controlled as far as possible, and when signs of infection were apparent they were sent to hospital. When outwardly cured, they were once more let loose on humanity. It is true that ‘protective legislation’ was introduced which made sexual intercourse a punishable offence for all those not completely cured, or for those suffering from venereal disease. This legislation was correct in theory, but in practice, it failed completely. In the First place, in the majority of cases women will decline to appear in court as witnesses against men who have robbed them of their health.
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Women would be exposed far more than men to uncharitable remarks in such cases, and one can imagine what their position would be if they had been infected by their own husbands. Should women in that case bring a charge? Or what should they do? In the case of the man there is the additional fact that he is frequently unfortunate enough to run up against this danger when he is under the influence of alcohol. His condition makes it impossible for him to assess the qualities of his ‘amorous beauty,’ a fact which is well known to every diseased prostitute and makes her single out men in this ‘ideal’ condition for preference. The result is that the unfortunate man is not able to recollect later on who his compassionate benefactress was, which is not surprising in cities like Berlin and Munich. Many such cases are visitors from the provinces who, held helpless and enthralled by the magic charm of city life, become an easy prey for prostitutes. Finally, who is able to say whether he has been ‘infected or not? Are there not innumerable cases on record where an apparently cured person has a relapse and does untold harm without knowing it? Therefore, in practice, the results of these legislative measures are negative. The same applies to the control of prostitution, and, finally, even medical treatment and cure are to-day still unsafe and doubtful. One thing only is certain, the scourge has spread further and further in spite of all precautionary measures, and this alone suffices definitely to prove and substantiate their inefficacy. Everything else that was undertaken was just as ineffectual as it was absurd. The spiritual prostitution of the people was neither arrested nor was anything whatsoever undertaken in this direction. Those, however, who do not regard this subject as a serious one would do well to examine the statistical data of the spread of this disease, study its growth in the last century and contemplate the possibilities of its further development. The ordinary observer, unless he were particularly stupid, would experience a cold shudder if the a certain historical value, rather than the products of not merely artistic but even mental degeneration bordering on the futile.
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Here, in the cultural sphere, the signs of the coming political collapse first became manifest. The Bolshevisation of art is the only cultural form of life and the only spiritual manifestation of which Bolshevism is capable. Anyone to whom this statement may appear strange need only take a glance at those lucky States which have become Bolshevised and, to his horror, he will there recognise those morbid monstrosities which have been produced by insane and degenerate people. All those artistic aberrations which, since the beginning of the present century, have been classified under the names Cubism and Dadaism, are manifestations of art which have come to be officially recognised by the State itself. This phenomenon made its appearance even during the short-lived period of the Soviet Republic in Bavaria. At that time one might easily have recognised how all the official posters, propaganda pictures and newspapers, etc., showed signs not only of political, but also of cultural decadence. About sixty years ago a political collapse such as we are experiencing to-day would have been just as inconceivable as the cultural decline which has been manifested in Cubist and Futurist pictures ever since 1900. Sixty years ago an exhibition of so-called Dadaist ‘experiences’ would have been an absolutely preposterous idea. The organisers of such an exhibition would then have been certified fit for the lunatic asylum, whereas to-day they are appointed presidents of art societies. At that time such an epidemic would never have been allowed to spread. Public opinion would not have tolerated it, and the government would not have remained silent, for it is the duty of a government to save the people from being driven into such intellectual madness. Intellectual madness would have resulted from a development that followed the acceptance of this kind of art. It would have marked one of the worst changes in human history, for it would have meant that a retrogressive process had begun to take place in the human brain, the final stages of which would have been unthinkable. If we study the course of our cultural life during the last twenty-five years we shall be astonished to note how far we have already gone in this process of retrogression.
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Everywhere we find the presence of those germs which give rise to protuberant growths that must sooner or later bring about the ruin of our culture. Here we find undoubted symptoms of slow corruption, and woe to the nations that are no longer able to bring that morbid process to a halt! In almost all the various fields of German art and culture these morbid phenomena may be observed. Here everything seems to have passed the culminating point of its excellence and to have entered the curve of a hasty decline. At the beginning of the century the theatres seemed already degenerate and ceased to be cultural factors, except the Court theatres, which opposed the prostitution of the national art. Apart from these, and a few other praiseworthy exceptions, the plays produced on the stage were of such a nature that people would have benefited by not visiting them at all. A sad symptom of internal decay was manifested in the fact that it was impossible to allow adolescents to frequent most of these so-called ‘centres of art,’ a brazen admission that this was so, being the notice exhibited at the entrance-doors: Adults only. Let it be borne in mind that these precautions had to be taken in regard to institutions whose main purpose should have been to promote the education of the youth and not merely to provide amusement for sophisticated adults. What would the great dramatists of other times have said of such measures and, above all, of the conditions which made these measures necessary? How exasperated Schiller would have been, and how Goethe would have turned away in disgust! But what are Schiller, Goethe and Shakespeare when confronted with the heroes of our modern German literature? Old, frowsy, out-moded and finished, for it was typical of this epoch that not only were its own products bad, but that it reviled everything that had been really great in the past. This is a phenomenon that is very characteristic of such epochs. The more vile and miserable the men and products of an epoch, the more they will hate and denigrate the ideal achievements of former generations.
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What these people would like best would be to destroy completely every vestige of the past, in order to do away with that sole standard of comparison which prevents their own daubs from being looked upon as art. Therefore the more lamentable and wretched the products of each new era, the more it will try to obliterate all the memorials of the past. Any real innovation that is for the benefit of mankind can always face comparison with the best of what has gone before, and frequently even serves to reveal the true value of the latter. There is no fear that modem productions of real value will look pale and worthless beside the monuments of the past. What is contributed to the general treasury of human culture often fulfils a part that is necessary in order to keep the memory of old achievements alive, because this memory alone is the standard whereby our own works are properly appreciated. Only those who have nothing of value to give to the world, but pretend that they have much to bestow, will oppose everything that already exists and would have it destroyed at all costs. This holds good not only for new phenomena in the cultural domain, but also in politics. The more inferior new revolutionary movements are, the more will they try to denigrate the old forms. Here again the desire to palm off their shoddy products as great and original achievements leads them into a blind hatred against everything which belongs to the past and which is superior to their own work. As long as the historical memory of Frederick the Great, for instance, still lives, Friedrich Ebert can arouse only a problematic admiration. The relation of the hero of Sans Souci to the former publican of Bremen may be compared to that of the sun to the moon, for the moon can shine only after the direct rays of the sun have left the earth. Thus we can readily understand why it is that all the new moons in human history have hated the fixed stars. In the field of politics, if Fate should happen temporarily to place the ruling power in the hands of these nonentities, they are not only eager to defile and revile the past, but at the same time they will use any means to evade criticism of their own acts. The Law for the Protection of the Republic, which the new German State enacted, may be taken as an example illustrating this truth.
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One has good reason to be suspicious in regard to any new idea, or any doctrine or philosophy, any political or economic movement, which tries to deny everything that the past has produced or to represent it as inferior and worthless. Such an antipathy is usually due to a sense of inferiority or to malicious intention. Any new movement which is really beneficial to human progress will always have to begin its constructive work at the level at which the last stones of the structure have been laid. It need not blush to utilise those truths which have already been established, for all human culture, as well as man himself, is only the result of one long line of development, where each generation has contributed its share in the building of the whole structure. The meaning and purpose of revolutions cannot be to tear down the whole building, but to take away what has not been well fitted into it or is unsuitable, and to fill in the gap thus caused, after which the main construction of the building will be carried on. Only thus will it be possible to talk of human progress, for otherwise the world would never be free of chaos, since each generation would feel entitled to reject the past, and to destroy all the work of the past, as the necessary preliminary to any new work of its own. The saddest feature of the condition in which our whole civilisation found itself before the War was the fact that it was not only barren of any creative force to produce its own works of art and civilisation but that it hated, defiled and tried to efface the memory of the superior works produced in the past. About the end of the last century people were less interested in producing new significant works of their own—particularly in the fields of dramatic art and literature—than in defaming the best works of the past and in presenting them as inferior and antiquated. As if this period of disgraceful decadence was capable of accomplishing anything! The efforts made to conceal the past from the eyes of the present afforded clear evidence of the fact that these apostles of the future acted from an evil intent. These symptoms should have made it clear to all that it was not a question of new, though wrong, cultural ideas, but of a process which was undermining the very foundations of civilisation.
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It threw the artistic feeling which had hitherto been quite sane into utter confusion, thus spiritually preparing the way for political Bolshevism. If the creative spirit of the Periclean age be manifested in the Parthenon, then the Bolshevist era is manifested by a cubist mask. In this connection attention must be drawn once again to the want of courage displayed by one section of our people, namely, by those who, in virtue of their education and position, ought to have felt themselves obliged to take up a firm stand against this outrage against our culture, but they refrained from offering serious resistance and surrendered to what they considered the inevitable. This inaction of theirs was due, however, to sheer funk lest the apostles of Bolshevist art might raise a rumpus; for those apostles always violently attacked everyone who was not ready to recognise them as the choice spirits of artistic creation, and they tried to strangle all opposition by saying that it was the product of Philistine and backwater minds. People trembled in fear lest they might be accused by these yahoos and swindlers of lacking artistic appreciation, as if it would have been a disgrace not to be able to understand and appreciate the effusions of those mental degenerates or cunning rogues. Those cultural disciples, however, had a very simple way of presenting their own effusions as works of the highest quality. They offered incomprehensible and manifestly crazy productions to their amazed contemporaries as what they called ‘an inner experience.’ Thus they forestalled all adverse criticism, at very little cost indeed. Of course, nobody ever doubted that there could have been inner experiences like that; but some doubt ought to have arisen as to whether or not there was any justification for exhibiting these hallucinations of psychopaths or criminals to the sane portion of human society. The works produced by a Moritz von Schwind or a Bocklin were also the fruits of an inner experience, but these were the experiences of divinely gifted artists and not of buffoons. This situation afforded a good opportunity of studying the miserable cowardliness of our so-called intellectuals who shirked the duty of offering serious resistance to the poisoning of the sound instincts of our people.
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They left it to the people themselves to formulate their own attitude towards this impudent nonsense. Lest they might be considered as understanding nothing of art, they accepted every caricature of art, until, they finally lost the power of judging what was really good or bad. Taken all in all, there were superabundant symptoms to show that a diseased epoch had begun. Still another critical symptom has to be considered. In the course of the nineteenth century our towns and cities began more and more to lose their character as centres of civilisation and became more and more centres of habitation. In our great modem cities the proletariat does not show much attachment to the place where it lives. This feeling results from the fact that their dwelling-place is nothing but an accidental abode, and is also partly due to the frequent change of residence which is forced upon them by social conditions. There is no time for the growth of any attachment to the town in which they live. Another reason lies in the cultural barrenness and superficiality of our modern cities. At the time of the German Wars of Liberation our German towns and cities were not only small in number, but also very modest in size. The few that could really be called great cities were mostly the residential cities of princes; as such they had almost always a definite cultural value and also a definite cultural aspect. Those few towns which had more than fifty thousand inhabitants were, in comparison with modern cities of the same size, rich in scientific and artist, treasures. At the time when Munich had a population of not more than sixty thousand souls it was already well on the way to becoming one of the first centres of German art. Nowadays, almost every industrial town has a population at least as large as that, without having anything of real value to call its own. They are agglomerations of tenement houses and congested dwelling-houses, and nothing else. It would be a miracle if anybody should grow sentimentally attached to such a meaningless place. Nobody can grow attached to a place which offers only just as much, or as little, as any other place would offer, which, has no character of its own and where obviously pains have been taken to avoid everything that might have any resemblance to an artistic appearance.
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But this is not all. Even the great cities become more barren of real works of art the more they increase in population. They assume more and more a neutral atmosphere and present the same aspect, though on a larger scale, as the wretched little factory towns. Everything that our modern age has contributed to the cultural aspect of our great cities is absolutely deficient. All our towns are living on the glory and the treasures of the past. If we take away from the Munich of to-day everything that was created under Ludwig I, we should be horror-stricken to see how meagre has been the output of important artistic creations since that time. One might say much the same of Berlin and most of our other great towns. The following is the essential thing to be noticed. Our great modern cities have no outstanding monuments that dominate the general aspect of the city and could be pointed to as the symbols of a whole epoch, yet almost every ancient town had a monument erected to its glory. It was not in private dwellings that the characteristic art of ancient cities was displayed, but in the public monuments which were not meant to have a transitory interest but an enduring one. This was because they did not represent the wealth of some individual citizen but the greatness and importance of the community. It was under this inspiration that those monuments arose which bound the individual inhabitants to their own town in a manner that is often almost incomprehensible to us to-day. What struck the eye of the individual citizen was not a number of mediocre private buildings, but imposing structures that belonged to the whole community. In contradistinction to these, private dwellings were of only very secondary importance indeed. When we compare the size of those ancient public buildings with that of the private dwellings belonging to the same epoch, then we can understand the great importance which was attached to the principle that those works which reflected and affected the life of the community should take precedence of all others.
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Among the broken arches and vast spaces that are covered with ruins from the ancient world the colossal monuments which still arouse our wonder have not been left to us from the commercial palaces of those days but from the temples of the gods and the public edifices that belonged to the State. The community itself was the owner of those great edifices. Even in the pomp of Rome during the decadence it was not the villas and palaces of the citizens that occupied the most prominent place, but rather the temples and the baths, the stadia, the circuses, the aqueducts, the basilicas, etc., which belonged to the State and therefore to the people as a whole. In medieval Germany also, the same principle held good, although the artistic outlook was quite different. In ancient times the theme that found its expression in the Acropolis or the Pantheon was now clothed in the form of the Gothic Cathedral. In the medieval cities these monumental structures towered gigantically above the swarm of smaller buildings, with their framework walls of wood and brick, and they remain the dominant feature of these cities even to our own day, although they are becoming more and more obscured by the tenement houses. They determine the character and appearance of the locality. Cathedrals, city halls, corn-exchanges, forts, are the outward expression of an idea which has its counterpart only in the ancient world. The dimensions and quality of our public buildings to-day are in deplorable contrast to the edifices that, represent private interests. If a similar fate should befall Berlin as befell Rome, future generations might gaze upon the ruins of some Jewish department stores or joint-stock hotels and think that these were the characteristic expressions of the culture of our time. In Berlin itself, compare the shameful disproportion between the buildings which belong to the Reich and those which have been erected for the accommodation of trade and finance.
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The funds that are voted for public buildings are in most cases inadequate and really ridiculous. They are not built as structures that were meant to last, but mostly for the purpose of answering the need of the moment. No higher idea influenced those who commissioned such buildings. At the time the Berlin Schloss was built, it had quite a different significance to that which the new library has for our time, seeing that one battleship alone represents an expenditure of about sixty million marks, whereas less than half that sum was allotted for the building of the Reichstag, the most imposing structure erected for the Reich, which should have been built to last for ages. Yet, in deciding the question of internal decoration, the august House voted against the use of stone and ordered that the walls should be covered with stucco. For once, however, the parliamentarians made an appropriate decision on that occasion, for wooden heads would be out of place between stone walls. The community as such is not the dominant characteristic of our contemporary cities, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if the community does not find itself architecturally represented. Thus we must eventually arrive at a veritable civic desert which will finally be reflected in the total indifference of the individual citizen towards his own city. This is also a sign of our cultural decay and general break-up. Our era is entirely preoccupied with petty materialistic considerations, or rather it is entirely preoccupied with the question of money. Therefore, it is not to be wondered at if, with the worship of such an idol, the sense of heroism should entirely disappear, but the present is only reaping what the past had sown. All these symptoms which preceded the final collapse of the Second Reich must be attributed to the lack of a definite and uniformly acceptedWeltanschauungand the general uncertainty of outlook consequent on that lack. This uncertainty showed itself when the great questions of the time had to be considered one after another and a decisive policy adopted towards them.
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This lack is also .accountable for the habit of doing everything by halves, beginning with the educational system, the shilly-shallying, the reluctance to undertake responsibility and, finally, the cowardly tolerance of evils that were even admitted to be destructive. Visionary humanitarianism became the fashion. By weakly submitting to these aberrations and sparing the feelings of the individual, the future of millions of human beings was sacrificed. An examination of the religious situation before the War shows that the general process of disruption had extended to this sphere also. A great part of the nation itself had, for a long time past, ceased to have any convictions of a uniform and practical character in their ideological outlook on life. In this matter the point of primary importance was by no means the number of people who renounced their church membership, but rather the widespread indifference. While the two Christian denominations maintained missions in Asia and Africa, for the purpose of securing new adherents to the faith, these same denominations were losing millions and millions of their adherents at home in Europe. These former adherents either gave up religion wholly as a directive force in their lives, or they adopted their own interpretation of it. The consequences of this were specially felt in the moral life of the country. In parenthesis it may be remarked that the progress made by the missions in spreading the Christian faith abroad was very modest in comparison with the spread of Mohammedanism. It must be noted, too, that the attack on the dogmatic principles underlying ecclesiastical teaching increased steadily in violence, and yet this human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. The great masses of a nation are not composed of philosophers. For the masses of the people especially, faith is absolutely the only basis of a moralWeltanschauung. The various substitutes that have been offered have not shown any results that might warrant us in thinking that they might usefully replace the existing denominations, but if religious teaching and religious faith are to be accepted by the broad masses as active forces in their lives, then the absolute authority of the doctrines of faith must be the foundation of all reality.
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There may be a few hundreds of thousands of superior men who can live wisely and intelligently without depending on the general standards that prevail in everyday life, but the millions of others cannot do so. Now, the place which general custom fills in everyday life, corresponds to that of general laws in the State and dogma in religion. The purely spiritual idea is of itself a changeable thing that may be subjected to endless interpretations. It is only through dogma that it is given a precise and concrete form without which it could not become a living faith. Otherwise, the spiritual idea would never become anything more than a mere metaphysical concept, or rather a philosophical opinion. Accordingly, the attack on dogma is comparable to an attack on the general laws on which the State is founded, and so this attack would finally lead to complete political anarchy if it were successful, just as the attack on religion would lead to a worthless religious nihilism. The political leader should not estimate the worth of a religion by taking some of its shortcomings into account, but should ask himself whether there be any practical substitute which is obviously better. Until such a substitute is available only fools and criminals would think of abolishing the existing religion. Undoubtedly, no small amount of blame for the present unsatisfactory religious situation must be attributed to those who have encumbered the ideal of religion with purely material accessories and have thus given rise to an utterly futile conflict between religion and science. In this conflict, victory will nearly always be on the side of science, although after a bitter struggle, while religion will suffer heavily in the eyes of those who cannot penetrate beneath mere superficial learning. The greatest damage of all has come from the practice of abusing religious conviction in order to further political aims. Most severe measures should be adopted against these miserable swindlers who look on religion merely as a means that can be exploited to serve political interests, or rather commercial ends.
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The impudent and loud-mouthed liars who do this make their profession of faith before the whole world in stentorian tones so that all poor mortals may hear-not that they are ready to die for it if necessary, but rather that they may live all the better. They are ready to sell their faith for any political quid pro quo. For ten parliamentary mandates they would ally themselves with the Marxists, who are the mortal foes of all religion, and for a seat in the Cabinet they would go the length of wedlock with the devil, if the latter had not still retained some traces of decency which would lead him to refuse. If religious life in pre-war Germany had a disagreeable savour in the mouths of many people, this was because Christianity had been lowered to base uses by political parties that called themselves Christian and because of the shameful way in which they tried to identify the Catholic Faith with a political party. This substitution was fatal. It procured some worthless parliamentary mandates for the party in question, but the Church suffered damage thereby. The consequences of that situation had to be borne by the whole nation, for the laxity that resulted in religious life set in at a juncture when everything was beginning to lose stability and vacillate, and the traditional foundations of custom and of morality were threatening to fall asunder. Yet all those cracks and clefts in the social organism might not have been dangerous if no grave burdens had been laid upon it; but they became disastrous when the internal solidarity of the nation was the most important factor in withstanding the storm of big events. In the political field also, observant eyes might have noticed certain faults in the Reich which foretold disaster unless some alteration and correction took place in time. The lack of orientation in German policy, both domestic and foreign, was obvious to everyone who was not purposely blind. The best thing that could be said about the practice of making compromises is that it seemed outwardly to be in harmony with Bismarck’s saying that politics is the art of accomplishing the possible, but Bismarck was a slightly different man from the Chancellors who followed him. This difference allowed the former to apply that formula to the very essence of his policy, while in the mouths of the others it took on an utterly different significance.
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When he uttered that phrase, Bismarck meant to say that in order to attain a definite political end all possible means should be employed, or at least that all possibilities should be investigated, but his successors saw in that phrase only a solemn declaration that one is not necessarily bound to have political principles or any definite political aims at all. The political leaders of the Reich at that time had no far-seeing policy. Here again, the necessary foundation was lacking, namely, a definiteWeltanschauung, and those leaders also lacked that clear insight into the laws of political evolution which is a necessary quality in political leadership. Many people who took a gloomy view of things at that time condemned the lack of ideas and lack of orientation which were evident in directing the policy of the Reich. They recognised the inner weakness and futility of this policy, but such people played only a secondary role in politics. Those who had the government of the country in their hands were quite as indifferent to principles of civil wisdom laid down by thinkers like Houston Stewart Chamberlain as are our political leaders to-day. These people are too stupid to think for themselves, and they have too much self-conceit to take from others the instruction which they need. Oxenstierna gave expression to a truth which has lasted since time immemorial, when he said that the world is governed by only a particle of wisdom, and it can be said of practically every higher government official that he represents but a tiny atom of this particle. Since Germany became a Republic even this modicum is wanting, and that is why they had to promulgate the Law for the Defence of the Republic, which prohibits the holding of such views or the expression of them. It was fortunate for Oxenstierna that he lived at that time and not in this wise Republic of our day. Even before the war that institution which should have represented the strength of the Reich—the parliament, the Reichstag— was widely recognised as its weakest feature. Cowardliness and fear of shouldering responsibilities were associated together there to perfection. One of the silliest notions that one hears expressed to-day is that in Germany the parliamentary system has proved a failure since the Revolution. This might easily be taken to imply that the case was different before the Revolution, but in reality the parliamentary system can never function except to the detriment of the country, and it functioned thus in those days when people saw nothing or did not wish to see anything.
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The German downfall is to be attributed in no small degree, to this system, but that the catastrophe did not take place sooner is not to the credit of the Reichstag, but rather to those who opposed the influence of this institution which, during peace time, was digging the grave of the German Nation and the German Reich. From the immense mass of devastating evils that were due either directly or indirectly to the Reichstag, I shall select the one most intimately typical of this institution which was the most irresponsible of all time. The evil I speak of was seen in the appalling shilly-shally and weakness in conducting the internal and external affairs of the Reich. It was attributable in the first place to the action of the Reichstag and was one of the principal causes of the political collapse. Everything subject to the influence of this parliament was done by halves, no matter from what aspect you may regard it. The foreign policy of the Reich in the matter of alliances was an example of shilly-shally. They wished to maintain peace, but in doing so, they steered straight for war. Their Polish policy was also carried out by half-measures. It acted as an irritant, but achieved no positive results. It resulted neither in a German triumph nor a Polish conciliation, and it made enemies of the Russians. They tried to solve the Alsace-Lorraine question through half-measures. Instead of crushing the head of the French hydra once and for all with the mailed fist and granting Alsace-Lorraine equal rights with the other German states, they did neither the one nor the other. Anyhow, it was impossible for them to do otherwise, for they had among their ranks the greatest traitors to the country, such as Herr Wetterlé of the Centre Party. But still the country might have been able to bear with all this provided the half-measure policy had not victimized that force on which, as the last resort, the existence of the Reich depended, namely, the Army. The crime committed by the so-called German Reichstag in this regard was sufficient of itself to draw down upon it the curses of the German nation for all time.
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On the most miserable of pretexts these parliamentary partyhenchmen filched from the hands of the nation and threw away, the weapons which were needed to maintain its existence and thereby defend the liberty and independence of our people. If the graves on the plains of Flanders were to open to-day the blood-stained accusers would arise, hundreds of thousands of our best German youth who, thanks to those conscienceless parliamentary criminals were delivered, badly trained or only half-trained, into the arms of Death. Those youths and other millions of the killed and mutilated were lost to the Fatherland simply and solely in order that a few hundred deceivers of the people might carry out their political manoeuvres and their exactions, or even continue to recite their doctrinaire theories. By means of the Marxist and democratic press, the Jews spread the colossal falsehood about ‘German militarism’ throughout the world and tried to inculpate Germany by every possible means, while at the same time the Marxist and democratic parties refused to assent to the measures that were necessary for the adequate training of our national defence forces. The appalling crime thus committed by these persons ought to have been obvious to everybody who foresaw that in case of war the whole nation would have to be called to arms and that, because of the mean huckstering of these noble ‘representatives of the people,’ as they called themselves, millions of Germans would have to face the enemy ill-equipped and insufficiently trained. But, even apart from the consequences of the crude and brutal lack of conscience which these parliamentarian rascals displayed, it was quite clear that the lack of properly trained soldiers at the beginning of a war would most probably lead to the loss of the said war; and this probability was confirmed in a most terrible way during the course of the World War. Therefore, the German people lost the struggle for the freedom and independence of their country because of the half-hearted and defective policy employed during times of peace in the organisation and training of the defensive strength of the nation. The number of recruits trained for the land forces was too small, but the same half-heartedness was shown in regard to the Navy and made this weapon of national self-preservation more or less ineffective.
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Unfortunately, even the naval authorities themselves were contaminated with this spirit of half-heartedness. The tendency to build the ship on the stocks somewhat smaller than that just launched by the British showed little foresight and less genius. A fleet which cannot be brought to the same numerical strength as that of the probable enemy ought to compensate for this inferiority by the superior fighting power of the individual ship. It is the weight of the fighting power that counts and not any sort of traditional quality. As a matter of fact, modem technical development is so advanced and so well-proportioned among the various civilised States that it must be looked on as practically impossible for one Power to build vessels which would have a superior fighting quality to that of the vessels of equal size built by the other Powers. It is even less feasible to build vessels of smaller displacement which will be superior in action to those of larger displacement. As a matter of fact, the smaller proportions of the German vessels could be maintained only at the expense of speed and armament. The phrase used to justify this policy was in itself evidence of the lack of logical thinking on the part of the naval authorities who were in charge of these matters in times of peace. They declared that the German guns were definitely superior to the British, so that the German 28 cm. gun was just as effective as the British 30.5 cm. gun. But that was just why they should have adopted the policy of building 30.5 cm. guns also; for it ought to have been their object not to achieve equality, but superiority, in fighting strength. If that were not so, then it would have been superfluous to equip the land forces with 42 cm. mortars, since the German 21 cm. mortar was far superior to any high-angle guns which the French possessed at that time and consequently the fortresses could probably have been taken by means of 30.5 cm. mortars. The army authorities calculated correctly, the naval authorities unfortunately failed to do so. If they were willing to forego superiority of armaments as well as of speed, this was because of the fundamentally false ‘principle of risk’ which they adopted.
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The naval authorities, even in times of peace, renounced the principle of attack and thus had to follow a defensive policy from the very beginning of the war, but by this attitude they renounced also the chances of final success, which can be achieved only by taking the offensive. A vessel of slower speed and weaker armament will be crippled and battered by an adversary that is faster and stronger at a distance which gives the latter an advantage. A large number of cruisers have been through bitter experiences of this kind. How wrong the ideas prevalent among the naval authorities in times of peace were, was proved during the war. They were compelled to modify the armament of the old vessels and to equip the new ones with better armament whenever there was a chance to do so. If the German vessels in the Battle of Jutland had been of equal size, the same armament and the same speed as the British, the British Fleet would have gone down under the tempest of German 38 cm. shells, which hit their mark more accurately and were more effective. Japan had followed a different kind of naval policy. There, as a matter of principle, care was taken to create with every single new vessel a fighting force that would be superior to that of the eventual adversaries, but because of this policy, it was afterwards possible to use the fleet for the offensive. While the army authorities refused to adopt such fundamentally erroneous principles, the Navy—which unfortunately had more representatives in parliament—succumbed to the spirit that ruled there. The Navy was not organised on a strong basis, and it was later used in an unsystematic and irresolute way. The immortal glory which the Navy won, in spite of these drawbacks, must be entirely credited to the good work, the efficiency and incomparable heroism of officers and crews. If its former commanders-in-chief had been, inspired with a like degree of genius, all the sacrifices would not have been in vain. It was probably the very parliamentarian skill displayed by the chief of the Navy during the years of peace which later became the cause of the fatal collapse, since parliamentarian considerations had begun to play a more important role in the construction of the Navy than fighting considerations.
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The irresolution, the weakness and the failure to adopt a logically consistent policy, which is typical of the parliamentary system, contaminated the naval authorities. As I have already emphasised, the military authorities did not allow themselves to be led astray by such fundamentally erroneous ideas. Ludendorff, who was then a colonel on the General Staff, led a desperate struggle against the criminal vacillations with which the Reichstag treated the most vital problems of the nation, and in most cases voted against them. If the fight which this officer then waged remained unsuccessful, this must be ascribed to the parliament and partly also to the wretched and weak attitude of the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg. Yet those who are responsible for Germany’s collapse do not hesitate now to lay the blame on the shoulders of the one man who took a firm stand against the neglectful manner in which the interests of the nation were managed, but one falsehood more or less makes no difference to these born tricksters.Anybody who thinks of all the sacrifices which this nation has had to bear, as a result of the criminal neglect of those irresponsible individuals; anybody who thinks of the number of those who died or were maimed unnecessarily; anybody who thinks of the deplorable shame and dishonour which has been heaped upon us and of the illimitable distress into which our people are now plunged—anybody who realises that all this had to happen in order to prepare the way to a seat in parliament for some unscrupulous place-hunters and “pushers’, will understand that such hirelings can be called by no other name than that of rascal and criminal, for otherwise those words would have no meaning. In comparison with traitors who betrayed the nation’s trust, every other kind of twister may be looked upon as an honourable man. It was a peculiar feature of the situation that all the real faults of the old Germany were exposed to the public gaze only when the inner solidarity of the nation could be injured by doing so. Then indeed unpleasant truths were openly proclaimed in the ears of the broad masses, while many other things were at other times shamefully hushed up or their existence simply denied, especially at times when an open discussion of such problems might have led to an improvement. The higher government authorities knew little or nothing of the nature and use of propaganda in such matters.
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Only the Jew knew that by an able and persistent use of propaganda, heaven itself can be presented to the people as if it were hell and, vice versa, the most miserable kind of life can be presented as if it were paradise. The Jew knew this and acted accordingly, but the German, or rather his government, did not have the slightest suspicion of it. During the war, the heaviest of penalties had to be paid for that ignorance. Over against the innumerable drawbacks which I have mentioned here and which affected German life before the war there were many outstanding features on the positive side. If we take an impartial survey, we must admit that most of our drawbacks were in great measure prevalent also in other countries and among the other nations, and very often in a worse form than with us, whereas among us there were many real advantages which the others did not have. Chief among Germany’s advantages was the fact that, of all the European nations, the German nation was almost the only one which had made a great effort to preserve the national character of its economic structure and for this reason was less subject than other countries to the power of international finance, though indeed there were many untoward symptoms in this regard also, and yet this advantage was a perilous one and turned out later to be one of the chief causes of the World War. Even if we disregard this advantage of national independence in economic matters, there were certain other positive features of our social and political life which were of outstanding excellence. These features were represented by three institutions which were constant sources of regeneration. In their respective spheres they were models of perfection and efficiency. The first of these was the constitution as such and the manner in which it had been developed in Germany in modern times. Of course we must except those monarchs who, as human beings, were subject to the failings which afflict this world and its children. If we were not so tolerant in these matters, then the case of the present generation would be hopeless, nor if we take into consideration the personal capabilities and character of the representative figures in our present regime, it would be difficult to imagine a more modest level of intelligence and moral character.
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If we measure the ‘valise’ of the German Revolution by the personal worth and calibre of the individuals whom this revolution has presented to the German people since November 1918, then we may feel ashamed indeed in thinking of the judgment which posterity will pass on these individuals, when the Law for the Protection of the Republic can no longer silence public opinion. Coming generations will surely decide that the intelligence and integrity of our new German leaders were in inverse ratio to their boasting and their vices. It must be admitted that the monarchy had become alien in spirit to many citizens and especially to the broad masses. This resulted from the fact that the monarchs were not always surrounded by, let us say, the highest intellect and certainly not always by persons of the most upright character. Unfortunately, many of them preferred flatterers to honest-spoken men and hence received their ‘information’ from the former. This was a source of grave danger at a time when the world was passing through a period in which many of the old conditions were changing and when this change was affecting even the traditions of the Court. The average man or woman could not have felt any particular enthusiasm when, for example, at the close of the century, a princess in uniform and on horseback had the soldiers file past her on parade. Those high circles had apparently no idea of the impression which such a parade made on the minds of ordinary people, else such unfortunate occurrences would not have taken place. The sentimental humanitarianism—not always very sincere—which was professed in those high circles was often more repulsive than attractive. When, for instance, the Princess X condescended to taste the products of a soup-kitchen and found them excellent, as usual, such a gesture might have made an excellent impression in times long past, but on this occasion it had the opposite effect to that which was intended, for, even if we take it for granted that Her Highness did not have the slightest idea that, on the day she sampled it, the food was not quite the same as on other days, it sufficed that the people knew it.
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Even the best of intentions thus became an object of ridicule or a cause of exasperation. Descriptions of the proverbial frugality practised by the monarch, his much too early rise in the morning and the drudgery he had to go through all day long until late at night, and especially the constantly expressed fears lest he might become undernourished—all this gave rise to ominous remarks on the part of the people. Nobody was keen to know what and how much the monarch ate or drank. Nobody grudged him a full meal, or the necessary amount of sleep. Everybody was pleased when the monarch, as a man and a personality, brought honour on his family and his country and fulfilled his duties as a sovereign. All the legends which were circulated about him helped little and did much damage. These and such things, however, are mere bagatelles: What was much worse was the feeling, which spread throughout large sections of the nation, that the affairs of the individual were being taken care of from above and that he did not need to bother himself with them. As long as the government was really good, or at least moved by goodwill, no serious objections could be raised, but the country was destined to disaster when the old government, which had at least striven for the best, was replaced by a new regime which was not of the same quality. Then the docile obedience and infantile credulity which formerly offered no resistance was bound to be one of the most fatal evils that can be imagined. In contrast to these and other defects there were, however, certain qualities which undoubtedly had a positive effect. First of all, the monarchical form of government guarantees stability in the direction of public affairs and safeguards public offices from the speculative turmoil of ambitious politicians. Furthermore, the venerable tradition which this institution possesses, arouses a feeling which gives it weight and authority.
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Beyond this there is the fact that the whole corps of officials, and the Army in particular, are raised above the level of political party obligations, and still another positive feature was that the supreme rulership of the State was embodied in the monarch, as an individual person, who could serve as the symbol of responsibility which a monarch has to bear more seriously than any anonymous parliamentary majority. Indeed, the proverbial honesty and integrity of the German administration must be attributed chiefly to this fact. Finally, the monarchy fulfilled a high cultural function among the German people, which made amends for many of its defects. The German residential cities have remained, given in our time, centres of that artistic spirit which now threatens to disappear and is becoming more and more materialistic. The German princes gave a great deal of excellent and practical encouragement to art and science, especially during the nineteenth century. Our present age certainly has nothing of equal worth. During that process of disintegration which was slowly extending throughout the social order, the most positive factor was the Army. This was the strongest source of education which the German people possessed. For that reason all the hatred of our enemies was directed against this defender of our national self-preservation and our liberty. The strongest testimony in favour of this unique institution is the fact that it was derided, hated and fought against, but also feared, by worthless elements all round. The fact that the international profiteers who gathered at Versailles, further to exploit and plunder the nations, directed their enmity specially against the old German Army, proved once again that it deserved to be regarded as the institution which protected the liberties of our people against the forces of the International Stock Exchange. If the Army had not been there to sound—the alarm and stand on guard, the aims of the Versailles representatives would have been carried out much sooner. There is only one word to express what the German people owes to this Army—everything! It was the Army that still kept a sense of responsibility alive among the people when this quality had become very rare and when the, habit of shirking every kind of responsibility was steadily spreading.
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This habit had grown up under the evil influences of parliament, which was itself the very model of irresponsibility. The Army trained the people to personal courage at a time when the virtue of timidity threatened to become an epidemic and when the spirit of sacrificing one’s personal interests for the good of the community was considered as something that amounted almost to weak-mindedness. At a time when only those were estimated as intelligent who knew how to safeguard and promote their own egotistic interests, the Army was the school through which individual Germans were taught not to seek the salvation of their nation in the false ideology of international fraternisation between Negroes, Germans, Chinese, French and English, etc., but in the strength and unity of their own national being. The Army developed the individual’s powers of resolute decision, and this at a time when a spirit of indecision and scepticism governed human conduct. At a time when the wiseacres were everywhere setting the fashion, it needed courage to uphold the principle that any command is better than none. This one principle represents a robust and sound style of thought, of which not a trace would have been left in the other branches of life if the Army had not furnished a constant source of this fundamental strength. A sufficient proof of this may be found in the appalling lack of decision which our present government authorities display. They cannot shake off their mental and moral lethargy and decide on some definite line of action, except when they are forced to sign some new dictate for the exploitation of the German people. In that case they decline all responsibility, while at the same time they sign everything which the other side places before them, and they sign with the readiness of an official stenographer. Their conduct is here explicable, on the ground, that, in this case, they are not under the necessity of coming to a decision, for the decision is dictated to them. The Army imbued its members with a spirit of idealism and developed their readiness to sacrifice themselves for their country and its honour, while greed and materialism dominated in all the other branches of life.
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The Army united a people which was split up into classes, and in this respect had only one defect, which was the one-year term of voluntary military service, a privilege granted to those who had passed through the higher grade schools. It was a defect, because the principle of absolute equality was thereby violated, and those who had a better education were thus placed outside the cadres to which the rest of their comrades belonged. The reverse would have been better. Since our upper classes were really ignorant of what was going on in the body corporate of the nation and were becoming more and more estranged from the life of the people, the Army would have accomplished a very beneficial mission if it had refused to discriminate in favour of the so-called intellectuals, especially within its own ranks. It was a mistake that this was not done, but can we in this world of ours find any institution that has nit at least one defect? And in the Army, the good features were so absolutely predominant that the few defects it had, were far below the average that generally arises from human weakness. The greatest merit of the Army of the old Reich was that, at a time when the person of the individual counted for nothing and the majority was everything, it placed individual personal values above majority values. By insisting on its faith in personality, the Army opposed that typically Jewish and democratic apotheosis of the power of numbers. The Army trained what at that time was most sorely needed, namely, real men. During a period when men were falling prey to effeminacy and laxity, three hundred and fifty thousand vigorously trained young men went forth from the ranks of the Army each year. In the course of their two years training they had lost the softness of their young days and had developed bodies as tough as steel. The young man who had been taught obedience for two years was now fitted to command. The trained soldier could be recognised even by his walk. This was the great school of the German nation, and it was not without reason that it drew upon its head all the bitter hatred of those who wanted the Reich to be weak and defenceless, because they were jealous of its greatness and were themselves possessed by a spirit of rapacity and greed.
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The rest of the world recognised a fact which many Germans did not wish to see, either because they were blind to facts or because, out of malice, they did not wish to see it. This fact was that the German Army was the most powerful weapon for the defence and freedom of the German nation and the best guarantee for the livelihood of its citizens. There was a third institution of positive worth, which has to be considered apart from the monarchy and the Army. This was the unrivalled civil service in the old Germany. German administration was better organised and better carried out than the administration of other countries. There may have been objections to the bureaucratic routine of the officials, but from this point of view, the state of affairs was similar, if not worse, in the other countries. The other States did not have the wonderful solidarity which this organisation possessed in Germany, nor were their civil servants of that same high level of scrupulous honesty. It is certainly better to be a trifle over-bureaucratic, honest and loyal than to be over-sophisticated, modem and of an inferior type of character and, as often happens to-day, ignorant and inefficient. If it be insinuated to-day that the German administration of the pre-war period may have been excellent so far as bureaucratic technique went, but that from the practical business point of view it was incompetent, I can only give the following reply: What other country in the world possessed a betterorganised and administered business enterprise than the German State Railways, for instance? It was left to the Revolution to destroy this model organisation, until the time was ripe for it to be taken out of the hands of the nation and ‘nationalised,’ in the sense which the founders of the Republic had given to that word, namely, making it subservient to the International Stock Exchange capitalists, who were the wire-pullers of the German Revolution. The most outstanding trait in the civil service and the whole body of the civil administration was its independence of the vicissitudes of government, the political mentality of which could exercise no influence on the attitude of the German State officials.
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Since the Revolution, this situation has been completely changed. Efficiency and capability have been replaced by the test of party adherence; and independence of character and initiative are no longer appreciated as positive qualities in a public official. They rather tell against him. The wonderful might and power of the old Reich was based on the monarchical form of government, the Army and the civil service, of these three foundations rested that great strength which is now entirely lacking, namely, the authority of the State, for the authority of the State cannot be based on the babbling that goes on in parliament or in the provincial diets, upon laws made to protect the State, or upon sentences passed by the law courts to frighten those who have had the hardihood to deny the authority of the State, but only on the general confidence which the management and administration of the community establishes among the people. This confidence is, in its turn, nothing else than the result of an unshakable inner conviction that the government and administration of a country is inspired by disinterested and honest goodwill and of the feeling that the Spirit of the law is in complete harmony with the moral convictions of the people. In the long run, systems of government are not maintained by terrorism but by the belief of the people in the merits and sincerity of those who are there to administer and promote public interests. Though it is true that in the period preceding the war certain grave evils tended to infect and corrode the inner strength of the nation, it must be remembered that the other States suffered even more than Germany from these drawbacks, and yet those other States did not fail and break down when the time of crisis came. If we remember further that those defects in pre-war Germany were outweighed by great positive qualities, we shall have to look elsewhere for the real cause of the collapse, and it did lie elsewhere.
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The ultimate and most profound reason of the German downfall is to be found in the fact that the racial problem was ignored and that its importance in the historical development of nations was not grasped, for the events that take place in the life of nations are not due to chance but are the natural results of the effort to conserve and multiply, the species and the race, even though men may not be able consciously to picture in their minds the profound motives of their conduct.
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There are certain truths which are so obvious that the general run of people disregard them. People are so blind to some of the simplest facts in everyday life that they are highly surprised when somebody calls attention to what everybody ought to know. Examples of the Columbus egg are around us in hundreds of thousands, but Columbuses are rare. Walking about in the garden of Nature, most men have the self-conceit to think that they know everything, yet almost all are blind to one of the outstanding principles that Nature employs in her work. This principle may be called the inner isolation which characterises each and every living species on this earth. Even a superficial glance is sufficient to show that all the innumerable forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a fundamental law—one may call it an iron law of Nature—which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind. Each animal mates only with one of its own species. The titmouse cohabits only with the titmouse, the finch with the finch, the stork with the stork, the field-mouse with the field-mouse, the house-mouse with the house-mouse, the wolf with the she-wolf, etc. Deviations from this law take place only in exceptional circumstances. This happens especially under the compulsion of captivity, or when some other obstacle makes procreative intercourse impossible between individuals of the same species. Nature abhors such irregular intercourse with all her might and her protest is most clearly demonstrated by the fact that the hybrid is either sterile, or the fecundity of its descendants is limited. In most cases hybrids and their progeny are denied the ordinary powers of resistance to disease or the natural means of defence against attack. Such a dispensation of Nature is quite logical. Every crossing of two
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breeds which are not, of equal standing results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to that parent which belongs to a biologically lower order of beings, but not so high as the superior parent. For this reason, it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature towards the selective improvement of life in general. The favourable preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and lower orders of being, but rather to allow the complete triumph of the higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so, it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind, for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all. This urge for the maintenance of the unmixed breed which is a phenomenon that prevails throughout the whole of the natural world, results not only in the sharply defined outward distinction between one species and another, but also in the internal similarity of characteristic qualities which are peculiar to each breed or species. The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger. The only difference that can exist within the species is in the various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed. It would be impossible to find a fox which has a kindly and protective disposition towards geese, just as no cat exists which has a friendly disposition towards mice. That is why the struggle between the various species does not arise from a feeling of mutual antipathy, but rather from hunger and love.
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In both cases Nature looks on calmly and is even pleased with what happens. The struggle for daily livelihood leaves behind in the ruck everything that is weak, diseased or wavering; while the fight of the male to possess the female gives to the strongest the right, or at least the possibility, to propagate its kind. This struggle is a means of furthering the health and powers of resistance of the species, thus it is one of the causes underlying the process of development towards a higher grade of being. If this were otherwise the progressive process would cease, and even retrogression might set in. Since the inferior always outnumber the superior, the former would always increase more rapidly if they possessed the same capacity for survival and for the procreation of their kind, and the final consequence would be that the best in quality would be forced to recede into the background. Therefore, a corrective measure must intervene in favour of the better quality. Nature supplies this by establishing rigorous conditions of life, to which the weaker will have to submit and will thereby be numerically restricted, but even that portion which survives cannot multiply indiscriminately, for here a new and rigorous selection takes place, according to strength and health. If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one, because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may be rendered futile. History furnishes us with innumerable instances that prove this law. It shows, with startling clarity, that whenever Aryans have mingled their blood with that of an inferior race, the result has been the downfall of the people who were the champions of a higher culture. In North America, where the population is prevalently Teutonic, and where those elements intermingled with the inferior race only to a very small degree, we have a quality of mankind and a civilisation which are different from those of Central and South America. In these latter countries the immigrants—who belonged mainly to the Latin races—mated with the aborigines, sometimes to a very large extent indeed.
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In this case, we have a clear and decisive example of the effect produced by the mixture of races. In North America the Teutonic element, which has kept its racial stock pure and did not mix it with any other racial stock, has come to dominate the American Continent and will remain master of it as long as that element does not fall a victim to the habit of adulterating its blood. In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following:
(a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered.
(b) Physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap.
The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator, and as a sin this act will be avenged. Man’s effort to build up something that contradicts the iron logic of Nature brings him into conflict with those principles to which he himself exclusively, owes his own existence. By acting against the laws of Nature he prepares the way that leads to his ruin. Here we meet with the insolent objection, which is Jewish in its inspiration and is typical of the modem pacifist, that “Man can overcome Nature.” There are millions who repeat by rote that piece of Jewish babble and end up by imagining that somehow they themselves are the conquerors of Nature. Yet their only weapon is a mere idea, and a very preposterous idea into the bargain, because if one accepted it, then it would be impossible to form a conception of the world. The real truth is, that not only has man failed to overcome Nature in any sphere whatsoever, but that at best he has merely succeeded in getting hold of and lifting a tiny corner of the enormous veil which she has spread over her eternal mysteries and secrets.
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He never invents anything; all he can do is to discover something. He does not master Nature, but has only come to be master of those living beings who have not gained the knowledge he has arrived at by penetrating into some of Nature’s laws and mysteries. Apart from all this, an idea can never subject to its own sway those condition; which are necessary for the existence and development of mankind, for the idea itself has come only from man. Without man there would be no human idea in this world. The idea as such is, therefore, always dependent on the existence of man and is consequently dependent on those laws which furnish the conditions of his existence. Not only that. Certain ideas are even confined to certain people. This holds true with regard to those ideas, in particular, which have not their roots in objective scientific truth, but in the world of feeling. In other words, to use a phrase which is current to-day and which well and clearly expresses this truth: They reflect an inner experience. All such ideas, which have nothing to do with cold logic as such, but represent mere manifestations of feeling, such as ethical and moral conceptions, etc., are inextricably bound up with man’s existence. It is to the creative powers of man’s imagination that such ideas owe their existence. For this very reason, a necessary condition for the preservation of such ideas is the existence of certain races and certain types of men. For example, anyone who sincerely wishes the pacifist idea to prevail in this world ought to do all he is capable of doing to help the Germans conquer the world, for in case the reverse should happen, it may easily be that the last pacifist would disappear with the last German. I say this because, unfortunately, scarcely any other people in the world has ever fallen a prey to this nonsensical and illogical idea to the same degree as our own. Whether of the effect that outer circumstances have upon it. Then, if you are serious, whether you like it or not, you must make up your mind to wage wars in order to pave the way for pacifism.
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This was in factthe plan of Woodrow Wilson, the American world-redeemer (at least so our visionaries believed) and that was all that was required. The pacifist-humanitarian idea may indeed become an excellent one when the most superior type of manhood will have succeeded in subjugating the world to such an extent that this type is then sole master of the earth. This idea could have an injurious effect only in the measure in which its application became difficult and finally impossible. So, first of all, the fight, and then pacifism. If it were otherwise, it would mean that mankind has already passed the zenith of its development, and accordingly, the end would not be the supremacy of some moral ideal, but degeneration into barbarism and consequent chaos. People may laugh at this statement, but our planet moved through space for millions of years, uninhabited by men, and at some future date may easily begin to do so again, if men should forget that wherever they have reached a superior level of existence, it was not as a result of following the ideas of crazy visionaries but by acknowledging and rigorously observing the iron laws of Nature. What reduces one race to starvation stimulates another to harder work. All the great civilisations of the past became decadent because the originally creative race died out, as a result of contamination of the blood. The most profound cause of such a decline is to be found in the fact that the people ignored the principle that all culture depends on men, and not the reverse. In other words, in order to preserve a certain culture, the type of manhood that creates such a culture must be preserved, but such a preservation goes hand in hand with the inexorable law that it is the strongest and the best who must triumph and that they have the right to endure. He who would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist. Such a saying may sound hard, but, after all, that is how the matter really stands. Yet far harder is the lot of him who believes that he can overcome Nature, and thus in reality insults her. Distress, misery, and disease, are her rejoinders.
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Whoever ignores or despises the laws of race really deprives himself of the happiness to which he believes he can attain, for he places an obstacle in the victorious path of the superior race and, by so doing, he interferes with a prerequisite condition of, all human progress. Loaded with the burden of human sentiment, he falls back to the level of a helpless animal. It would be futile to attempt to discuss the question as to what race or races were the original champions of human culture and were thereby the real founders of all that we understand by the word ‘humanity.’ It is much simpler to deal with this question in so far as it relates to the present time. Here the answer is simple and clear. Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes to-day, is almost, exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power. All that we admire in the world to-day, its science and its art, its technical developments and discoveries, are the products of the creative activities of a few peoples, and it may be true that their first beginnings must be attributed to one race. The existence of civilisation is wholly dependent on such peoples. Should they perish, all that makes this earth beautiful will descend with them into the grave. However great, for example, be the influence which the soil exerts on men, this influence will always vary according to the race on which it produces its effect. Dearth of soil may stimulate one race to the most strenuous efforts and highest achievements; while, for another race, the poverty of the soil may be the cause of misery, and finally of undernourishment, with all its consequence. This very fact fully justifies the conclusion that it was the Aryan alone who founded a superior type of humanity; therefore he represents the archetype of what, we understand by the term: MAN. He is the Prometheus of mankind, from whose shining brow the divine spark of genius has at all times flashed forth, always kindling anew that fire which, in the form of knowledge, illuminated the dark night by drawing aside the veil of mystery and thus showing man how to rise and become master over all the other beings on the earth.
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Should he be forced to disappear, a profound darkness will descend on the earth; within a few thousand years human culture will vanish and the world will become a desert. If we divide mankind into three categories—founders of culture, champions of culture, and destroyers of culture—the Aryan alone can be considered as representing the first category. It was he who laid the groundwork and erected the walls of every great structure in human culture. Only the shape and colour of such structures are to be attributed to the individual characteristics of the various nations. It is the Aryan who has furnished the great building-stones and plans for the edifices of all human progress; only the way in which these plans have been executed is to be attributed to the traits of each individual race. Within a few decades the whole of Eastern Asia, for instance, appropriated a culture and called this culture its own, whereas the basis of that culture was the Greek mind and Teutonic technical skill as we know it. Only the external form—at least to a certain degree—shows the traits of an Asiatic inspiration. It is not true, as some believe, that Japan adds European technology to a culture of her own. The truth rather is that European science and technology are just decked out with the peculiar characteristics of Japanese civilisation. The foundations of actual life in Japan to-day are not those of the native Japanese culture, although this characterises the external features of the country, which features strike the eye of European observers on account of their fundamental difference from our own; but the real foundations of contemporary Japanese life are the enormous scientific and technical achievements of Europe and America, that is to say, of Aryan peoples. Only by adopting these achievements as the foundations of their own progress can the various nations of the Orient take a place in contemporary world progress. The scientific and technical achievements of Europe and America provide the basis on which the struggle for daily livelihood is carried on in the Orient. They provide the necessary arms and instruments for this struggle, and only the outer forms of these instruments have become gradually adapted to Japanese ways of life.
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If, from to-day onwards, the Aryan influence on Japan were to cease, and if we suppose that Europe and America were to collapse, then the present progress of Japan in science and technique might still last for a short duration; but within a few decades the inspiration would dry up, and native Japanese character would triumph, while the present civilisation would become fossilised and fall back into the sleep from which it was aroused about seventy years ago, by the impact of Aryan culture. We may, therefore, draw the conclusion that, just as the present Japanese development has been due to Aryan influence, so in the immemorial past an outside influence and an outside culture brought into existence the Japanese culture of that day. This opinion is very strongly supported by the fact that the ancient civilisation of Japan actually became fossilised and petrified. Such a process can take place only if a people loses the racial cell which had originally been creative, or if the outside influence should be withdrawn after having awakened and maintained the first cultural developments in that region. If it be shown that a people owes the fundamental elements of its culture to foreign races, assimilating and elaborating such elements, and if subsequently that culture becomes fossilised whenever the external influence ceases, then such a race may be called the champion, but never the creator, of a culture. If we subject the different peoples to a strict test from this standpoint, we shall find that scarcely any one of them has originally created a culture, but almost all have been merely the recipients of a culture created elsewhere. This development may be depicted as always happening somewhat in the following way. Aryan tribes, often almost ridiculously small in number, subjugated foreign peoples and, stimulated by the conditions of life which their new country offered them (fertility, the nature of the climate, etc.), and profiting also by the abundance of manual labour furnished them by the inferior race, they developed intellectual and organising faculties which had hitherto been dormant in themselves.
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Within the course of a few thousand years, or even centuries, they gave life to cultures whose characteristics completely corresponded to the character of the founders, though modified by adaptation to the peculiarities of the soil and the characteristics of the subjugated people. But finally the conquering race offended against the principles which they had first observed, namely, the preservation of their racial stock unmixed, and began to intermingle with the subjugated people. Thus they put an end to their own separate existence, for the original sin committed in Paradise has always been followed by the expulsion of the guilty parties. After a thousand years or more the last visible traces of those former masters may then be found in a lighter tint of the skin which the Aryan blood had bequeathed to the subjugated race, and in a fossilised culture of which those Aryans had been the original creators; for, just as the blood of the conqueror, who was a conqueror not only in body but also in spirit, became submerged in the blood of the subject race, so the substance disappeared from which the torch of human culture and progress was kindled. In so far as the blood of the former ruling race has left a light nuance of colour in the blood of its descendants, as a token and a memory, the night of cultural life is rendered less dim and dark by a mild light radiated from the products of those who were the bearers of the original fire. Their radiance shines across the barbarism to which the subjected race has reverted and might often lead the superficial observer to believe that he sees before him an image of the present race, when he is really looking into a mirror, wherein only the past is reflected. It may happen that in the course of their history such a people will come into contact a second time, and even oftener, with the original founders of their culture and may not even remember that distant association. Instinctively, the remnants of blood, left from that old ruling race will be drawn towards this new phenomenon, and what had formerly been possible only under compulsion, can now be successfully achieved in a voluntary way. A new cultural wave flows in and lasts until the blood of those who brought it becomes once again adulterated by intermixture with the originally conquered race.
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It will be the task of those who set themselves to write a universal history of civilisation, to investigate history from this point of view instead of allowing themselves to be smothered under the mass of external data, as is only too often the case with our present historical science. This short sketch of the changes that take place among those races that are only the depositories of a culture, also furnishes a picture of the development, the activity and the disappearance of those who are the true founders of culture on this earth, namely the Aryans themselves. Just as in our daily life the so-called man of genius needs a particular occasion, and sometimes needs a special stimulus to bring his genius to light, so too, in the life of the peoples the race that has genius in it needs the occasion and stimulus to give that genius expression. In the monotony and routine of everyday life even persons of significance seem just like the others and do not rise beyond the average level of their fellow-men, but as soon as such men find themselves in a special situation which disconcerts and unbalances the others, the humble person of apparently common qualities reveals traits of genius often to the amazement of those who have hitherto known him in the petty round of everyday life. That is the reason why a prophet is seldom honoured in his own country. War offers an excellent occasion for observing this phenomenon. In times of distress, when the others despair, apparently harmless, boys suddenly spring up and become heroes, full of determination, undaunted in the presence of Death and manifesting wonderful powers of calm reflection in such circumstances. If such an hour of trial did not come, nobody would have thought that the soul of a hero lurked in the body of that beardless youth. A special impulse is, almost always necessary to bring a man of genius into the foreground. The sledge-hammer of Fate, which strikes down the one so easily, suddenly finds the counter-impact of steel when it strikes at the other, and, after the common shell of everyday life is broken, the core that lay hidden is displayed to the eyes of an astonished world. This surrounding world then grows perverse and will not believe that what had seemed so like itself is really of that different quality so suddenly displayed.
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This is a process which is repeated probably every time a man of outstanding significance appears. Though an inventor, for example, does not establish his fame until the very day on which he completes his invention, it would be a mistake to believe that the creative genius did not become alive in him until that moment. From the very hour of his birth the spark of genius is alive within the man who has been endowed with the real creative faculty. True genius is an innate quality. It can never be the result of education or training. As I have stated already, this holds good not merely of the individual, but also of the race. Those peoples who manifest creative ability in certain periods of their history have always been fundamentally creative. It belongs to their very nature, even though this fact may escape the eyes of the superficial observer. Here also, recognition from outside is only the consequence of practical achievement. Since the rest of the world is incapable of recognising genius as such, it can only see the visible manifestations of genius in the form of inventions, discoveries, buildings, painting, etc., but even here a long time passes before recognition is given. Just as the individual person who has been endowed with the gift of genius, or at least talent of a very high order, cannot develop that gift to the full, until he comes under the urge of special circumstances, so in the life of the nations their creative capacities and powers frequently have to wait until certain conditions stimulate them to action. The most obvious example of this truth is furnished by that race which has been, and still is, the champion of human progress; I mMean the Aryan race. As soon as Fate brings them face to face with special circumstances their powers begin to develop progressively and to be manifested in tangible form. The characteristic cultures which they create in such circumstances are almost always conditioned by the soil, the climate and the people they subjugate.
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The last factor—that of the character of the people—is the most decisive one. The more primitive the technical condition under which the civilizing process takes place, the more necessary the existence of manual labour which can be organised and employed so as to take the place of mechanical power. Had it not been possible for them to employ members of the inferior race which they conquered, the Aryans would never have been in a position to take the first steps on the road which led them to their culture of a later era; just as, without the help of certain suitable animals, which they were able to tame, they would never have come to the invention of mechanical power, which has subsequently enabled them to do without these animals. The remark that the Moor, having lone his duty, could now go, can, unfortunately, be applied more or less universally. For thousands of years the horse has been the faithful servant of man and has helped him to lay the foundations of human progress; but now, motor power has rendered the horse superfluous. In a few years’ time the use of the horse will cease entirely; and yet without its collaboration man could scarcely have reached the stage of development at which he now is. For the establishment of superior types of civilisation the members of inferior races formed one of the most essential prerequisites. They alone could supply the lack of mechanical means, without which no progress is possible. It is certain that the first stages of human civilisation were not based so much on the use of tame animals as on the employment of human beings who were members of an inferior race. Only after subjugated races were employed as slaves was a similar fate allotted to animals, and not vice versa, as some people would have us believe. At first it was the conquered enemy who had to draw the plough and only afterwards did the ox and horse take his place. Nobody but puling pacifists can consider this fact a sign of human degradation. Such people fail to recognise that this evolution had to take place in order that man might reach that degree of civilisation which these apostles now exploit in an attempt to make the world pay attention to their rigmarole.
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The progress of mankind may be compared to the process of ascending an infinite ladder. One does not reach the higher level without first having climbed the lower rungs. The Aryan, therefore, had to take that road which his sense of reality pointed out to him, and not that of which the modern pacifist dreams. The path of reality is, however, difficult and hard to tread; yet it is the only one which finally leads to the goal where the others envisage mankind in their dreams. The real truth is that those dreamers help to lead man away from his goal rather than towards it. It was not by mere chance that the first forms of civilisation arose where the Aryan came into contact with inferior races, subjugated them and forced them to obey his command. The members of the inferior race became the first mechanical tools in the service of a growing civilisation. Thereby the way was clearly indicated which the Aryan had to follow. As a conqueror, he subjugated inferior races and turned their physical powers into organised channels under his own leadership, forcing them to follow his will and purpose. By imposing on them a useful, though hard, manner of employing their powers, he not only spared the lives of those whom he had conquered, but probably made their lives easier than they had been in the former state of so-called ‘freedom.’ While he ruthlessly maintained his, position as their master, he not only remained master, but he also preserved and advanced civilisation, for this depended exclusively on his inborn abilities and, therefore, on the preservation of the Aryan race as such. As soon, however, as his subjects began to rise and approach the level of their conqueror, a phase of which ascension was probably the use of his language, the barriers that had distinguished master from servant broke down. The Aryan neglected to maintain his own racial stock unmixed and thereby lost the right to live in the paradise which he himself had created.
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He became submerged in the racial mixture and gradually lost his cultural creativeness, until he finally grew, not only mentally but also physically, more like the aborigines whom he had subjected, rather than his own ancestors. For some time he could continue to live on the capital of that culture which still remained; but a condition of fossilisation soon set in and he sank into oblivion. That is how cultures and empires decline and yield their places to new structures. The adulteration of the blood and racial deterioration conditioned thereby are the only causes that account for the decline of ancient civilisations, for it is never by war that nations are ruined, but by the loss of their powers of resistance, which are exclusively a characteristic of pure racial blood. In this world everything that is not of sound racial stock is like chaff. Every historical event in the world is nothing more nor less than a manifestation of the instinct of racial self-preservation, whether for weal or woe. The question as to the basic reasons for the predominant importance of Aryanism can be answered by pointing out that it is not so much that the Aryans are endowed with a stronger instinct for self-preservation, but rather that this manifests itself in a way which is peculiar to themselves. Considered from the subjective standpoint, the will to live is, of course, equally strong all round and only the forms in which it is expressed are different. Among the most primitive organisms the instinct for self-preservation does not extend beyond the care of the individual ego. Egotism, as we call this passion, is so predominant that it includes even the time element, which means that the present moment is deemed the most important and that nothing is left to the future. The animal lives only for itself, searching for food only when it feels hunger, and fighting only for the preservation of its own life. As long as the instinct for self-preservation manifests itself exclusively in such a way, there is no basis for the establishment of a community, not even the most primitive form of all, that is to say, the family.
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The community formed by the male with the female, where it goes beyond the mere conditions of mating, calls for the extension of the instinct of self-preservation, since the readiness to fight for one’s own ego has to be extended also to the mate. The male sometimes provides food for the female, but in most cases both parents provide food for the offspring. Almost always they are ready to protect and defend each other, so that here we find the first, though infinitely simple, manifestation of the spirit of sacrifice. As soon as this spirit extends beyond the narrow limits of the family, we have the conditions under which a larger community and finally even States can be formed. The lowest species of human beings give evidence of this quality only to a very small degree, so that often they do not go beyond the foundation of the family. With an increasing readiness to place their immediate personal interests in the background, the capacity for organising more extensive communities develops. The readiness to sacrifice one’s personal work and, if necessary, even one’s life, for others shows its most highly developed form in the Aryan race. The greatness of the Aryan is not based on his intellectual powers, but rather on his willingness to devote all his faculties to the service of the community. Here the instinct for self-preservation has reached its noblest form, for the Aryan willingly subordinates his own ego to the common weal and, when necessity calls, he will even sacrifice his own life for the community. The constructive powers of the Aryan and that peculiar ability he has for the building up of a culture are not grounded in his intellectual gifts alone. If that were so, he might only be destructive and could never have the ability to organise; for the essence of organising activity consists in the readiness of the individual to renounce his own personal opinions and interests and to lay both at the service of the human group.
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By serving the common weal he receives his reward in return; he does not, for example, work directly for himself but makes his productive work a part of the activity of the group to which he belongs, not only for his own benefit but for the general welfare. The spirit underlying this attitude is expressed by the word, WORK which to him does not at all signify a means of earning one’s daily livelihood but rather a productive activity which cannot clash with the interests of the community. Whenever human activity, is directed exclusively to the service of the instinct for self-preservation, regardless of the general weal, it is called theft, usury, robbery, burglary, and so on. This mental attitude, which forces self-interest to recede into the background in favour of the common weal, is the first prerequisite for any kind of really human civilisation. It is out of this spirit alone that great human achievements have sprung, for which the original doers have scarcely ever received any recompense, but which turn out to be the source of abundant benefit for their descendants. It is this spirit alone which can explain why it so often happens that people can endure a harsh but honest existence which offers them no return for their toil except a poor and modest livelihood, but such a livelihood helps to consolidate the foundations on which the community exists. Every worker, every peasant, every inventor, every government official, etc., who works without ever achieving fortune or prosperity for himself, is a representative of this sublime ideal, even though he may never become conscious of the profound meaning of his own activity. Everything that may be said of that kind of work which is the fundamental condition for providing food and the basic means of human progress is true even in a higher sense of work that is done for the protection of man and his civilisation. The renunciation of one’s own life for the sake of the community is the crowning significance of the idea of all sacrifice. In this way only is it possible to protect what has been built up by man and to ensure that this will not be destroyed by the hand of man or of Nature. In the German language we have a word which admirably expresses the significance underlying all work.
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It is Pflichterfüllung (fulfilment of duty), which means the service of the common weal before the consideration of one’s own interests. The fundamental spirit out of which this kind of activity springs is the reverse of ‘egotism,’ and we call it ‘idealism.’ By this we mean to signify the willingness of the individual to, make sacrifices for the community and his fellow-men. It is of the utmost importance to insist again and again, that idealism is not merely a superfluous manifestation of sentiment, but rather something which has been, is and always will be, a necessary pre-condition of human civilisation; it is to this that the very conception ‘human’ owes its origin. To this kind of mentality the Aryan owes his position in the world, and, the world is indebted to the Aryan mind for having developed the concept of ‘mankind,’ for it was out of this spirit alone that the creative force grew, which in a unique way, combined robust muscular power with a first-class intellect, and thus created the monuments of human civilisation. Were it not for idealism, all the faculties of the intellect, even the most brilliant, would be nothing but intellect itself, a mere external phenomenon without inner value, and never a creative force. Since true idealism, however, is essentially the subordination of the interests and life of the individual to the interests and life of the community, and since this subordination in turn represents the prerequisite condition for every form of organisation, this idealism accords in its innermost essence with the final purpose of Nature. This idealism alone makes men voluntarily acknowledge, that strength and power are entitled to take the lead and makes them a constituent particle of that order out of which the whole universe is shaped and formed. Without being conscious of it, the purest idealism is always associated with the most profound knowledge. How True this is and how little genuine idealism has to do with fantastic self-dramatization will become clear the moment we ask an unspoilt child, a healthy boy, for example, to give his opinion. The very same boy who listens to the rantings of an ‘idealistic’ pacifist without understanding them, and even rejects them, would readily sacrifice his young life for the ideal of his people.
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Unconsciously, his instinct will submit to the knowledge that the preservation of the species, even at the cost of the individual life, is a primal necessity and he will protest against the fantasies of pacifist ranters, who are in reality nothing better than cowardly, though camouflaged, egotists, who contradict the laws of human development. It is an essential aspect of human evolution that the individual should be imbued with the spirit of sacrifice in favour of the common weal that he: should not be influenced by the morbid notions of those who pretend to know better than Nature and who have the impudence to criticise her decrees. It is just at those junctures when the idealistic attitude threatens to disappear that we notice a weakening of this force which is a necessary constituent in the founding and maintenance of the community and is therefore a necessary condition of civilisation. As soon as the spirit of egotism begins to prevail among a people, then the bonds of the social order break, and man, by seeking his own personal happiness, tumbles out of heaven and falls into hell. Posterity will not remember those who pursued only their own individual interests, but it will praise those heroes who renounced their own happiness. The Jew offers the most striking contrast to the Aryan. There is probably no other people in the world which has so developed the instinct of self-preservation as the so-called ‘chosen’ race. The best proof of this statement is to be found in the simple fact that this race still exists. Where is another people to be found that in the course of the last two thousand years has undergone so few changes in mental, outlook and character as the ‘Jewish people? And yet what other people has played such a constant part in the great revolutions? Even after having passed through the most gigantic catastrophes that have overwhelmed mankind, the Jews remain the same as ever. What an infinitely tenacious will to live, to preserve one’s kind, is demonstrated by that fact!
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The intellectual faculties of the Jew have been trained throughout thousands of years. To-day the Jew is looked upon as especially ‘clever’ and in a certain sense, he has been so throughout the ages. His intellectual powers, however, are not the result of an inner evolution but have rather been shaped by the object lessons which he has received from others. The human spirit cannot climb upwards without taking successive steps. For every step upwards it needs the foundation of what has been constructed before, namely, the past, which, in the comprehensive sense here employed, can have been laid only by a general civilisation. All thinking originates only to a very small degree in personal experience. The largest part is based on the accumulated experiences of the past. The general level of civilisation provides the individual, who, in most cases, is not consciously aware of the fact, with such an abundance of preliminary knowledge, that with this equipment he can more easily take further steps on the road of progress. The boy of to-day, for example, grows up among such an overwhelming mass of technical achievement, which has accumulated during the last century, that he takes for granted many things which, a hundred years ago, were still mysteries even to the greatest minds of those times. Yet these things that are now so much a matter of course are of enormous importance to those who would understand the progress we have made in certain spheres and would carry that progress a step farther. If a man of genius belonging to the twenties of the last century were to rise from his grave to-day, he would find it more difficult to understand our present age than the contemporary boy of fifteen years of age who may even have only an average intelligence. The man of genius, thus come back from the past, would need to provide himself with an extraordinary, amount of preliminary information which our contemporary youth receives automatically, so to speak, during the time it is growing up among the products of our modern civilisation. Since the Jew—for reasons that I shall deal with immediately—never had a civilisation of his own, he has always been furnished by others with a basis for his intellectual work.
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His intellect has always been developed by the use of those cultural achievements which he has found ready to hand around him. The process has never been the reverse. Although among the Jews the instinct of self-preservation has not been weaker, but much stronger than among other peoples, and although the impression may easily be created that the intellectual powers of the Jew are at least equal to those of other races, the Jews completely lack the most essential prerequisite of a cultural people, namely, the idealistic spirit. With the Jewish people the spirit of self-sacrifice does not extend beyond the simple instinct of individual preservation. In their case, the feeling of racial solidarity which they apparently manifest, is nothing but a very primitive gregarious instinct, similar to that which may be found among other organisms in this world. It is a remarkable fact that this herd instinct brings individuals together for mutual protection, only as long as there is a common danger which makes mutual assistance expedient or inevitable. The same pack of wolves which, a moment ago, joined together in a common attack on their victim will dissolve into individual wolves as soon as their hunger has been satisfied. This is also true of horses, which unite to defend themselves against any aggressor, but separate the moment the danger is over. It is much the same with the Jew. His spirit of sacrifice is only apparent. It manifests itself only as long as the existence of the individual makes this a matter of absolute necessity, but as soon as the common foe is conquered, the danger which threatened the individual Jew overcome and the prey secured, then the apparent harmony disappears and the original conditions obtain again. Jews act in concord only when a common danger threatens them or a common prey attracts them. Where these two motives no longer exist, then the most brutal egotism appears and these people, who had previously lived together in unity, will turn into a swarm of rats that fight bitterly against each other.
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If the Jews were the only people in the world, they would be wallowing in filth and mire and would exploit one another and try to exterminate one another in a bitter struggle, except in so far as their utter lack of the ideal of sacrifice, which shows itself in their cowardly spirit, would prevent this struggle from developing. It would, therefore, be a complete mistake to interpret the mutual help, which the Jews render one another when they have to fight or, to put it more accurately, to exploit their fellow-beings, as the expression of a certain idealistic spirit of sacrifice. Here again, the Jew merely follows the call of his individual egotism. That is why the Jewish State, which ought to be a vital organisation to serve the purpose of preserving or increasing the race, has absolutely no territorial boundaries, for the territorial delimitation of a State always demands a certain idealism of spirit on the part of the race which forms that State, and especially a proper acceptance of the idea of work. A State which is territorially delimited cannot be established or maintained, unless the general attitude towards work is a positive one. If this attitude is lacking, then the necessary basis of a civilisation is also lacking. That is why the Jewish people, despite the intellectual powers with which they are apparently endowed, have not a culture, certainly not a culture of their own. The culture which the Jew enjoys to-day is the product of the work of others and this product is debased in the hands of the Jew. In order to form a correct judgment of the place which the Jew holds in relation to the whole problem of human civilisation, we must bear in mind the essential fact that there never has been any Jewish art, and consequently that nothing of this kind exists to-day. We must realise that, especially in the two royal domains of art, namely, architecture and music, the Jew has done no original creative work. When the Jew comes to producing something in the field of art he merely ‘borrows’ from something already in existence, or simply steals the intellectual work of others. The Jew essentially lacks the qualities which are characteristic of those creative races that are the founders of civilisation.
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To what extent the Jew appropriates the civilisation built up by others— or to speak more accurately, corrupts it,—is indicated by the fact that he cultivates chiefly the art which calls for the smallest amount of original invention, namely the dramatic arts, and even here, he is nothing better than a kind of juggler or, perhaps more correctly, a kind of monkey imitator, for in this domain also he lacks the creative élan which is necessary for the production of all really great work. Even here, therefore, he is not a creative genius, but rather a superficial imitator who, in spite of all his retouching and tricks, cannot disguise the fact that there is no inner vitality in the shape he gives his products. At this juncture, the Jewish press comes in and renders friendly assistance by shouting hosannas over the head of even the most ordinary bungler of a Jew, until the rest of the world is persuaded into thinking that the object of so much praise must really be an artist, whereas in reality, he may be nothing more than a low-class mimic. The Jews have not the creative ability which is necessary for the founding of a civilisation, for in them there is not, and never hits been, that spirit of idealism which is an absolutely necessary element in the higher development of mankind. Therefore, the Jewish intellect will never be constructive, but always destructive. At best, it may serve as a stimulus in rare cases, but only in the limited meaning of the poet’s lines, “The Power which always wills the bad, and always works the good” (Die stets Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.). It is not through him, but in spite of him, that mankind makes progress. Since the Jew has never had a State which was based on territorial delimitations, and therefore never a civilisation of his own, the idea arose that here we were dealing with a people who had to be considered as nomads. That is a great and mischievous mistake. The true nomad does actually possess a definite delimited territory where he lives. It is merely that he does not cultivate it, as the settled farmer does, but that he lives on the products of his herds with which he wanders over his domain. The natural reason for this mode of existence is to be found in the fact that the soil is not fertile and that it does not give the steady produce which makes a fixed abode possible.
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Outside of this natural cause, however, there is a more profound cause, namely, that no mechanical civilisation is at hand to make up for the natural poverty of the region in question. There are territories where the Aryan can establish fixed settlements by means of the technical skill which he has developed in the course of more than a thousand years, even though these territories would otherwise have to be abandoned, unless the Aryan were willing to wander about them in nomadic fashion, but age-long tradition of settled residence have made the nomadic life unbearable for him. We ought to remember that during the first period of American colonisation, numerous Aryans earned their daily livelihood as trappers, hunters, etc., frequently wandering about in large groups with their women and children, their mode of existence very much resembling that of ordinary nomads. The moment, however, that they grew more numerous and were able to accumulate larger resources, they cleared the land and drove out the aborigines, at the same time establishing settlements which rapidly increased all over the country. The Aryan himself was probably at first, a nomad and became a settler in the course of the ages, but yet he was never of the Jewish kind. The Jew is not a nomad, for the nomad has already a definite attitude towards the concept of ‘work,’ and this attitude served as the basis of a later cultural development when the necessary intellectual conditions existed. There is a certain amount of idealism in the general attitude of the nomad, even though it is rather primitive. His whole character may, therefore, be foreign to Aryan feeling, but it will never be repulsive. Not even the slightest trace of idealism exists, however, in the Jewish character. The Jew has never been a nomad, but always a parasite, battening on the substance of others. If he occasionally abandoned regions where he had hitherto lived, he did not do it voluntarily. He did it because, from time to time, he was driven out by people who were tired of having their hospitality, abused by such guests. Jewish self-expansion is a parasitic phenomenon, since the Jew is always looking for ‘pastures new’ for his race.
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But this has nothing to do with nomadic life as such, because the Jew does not ever think of leaving a territory which he has once occupied. He sticks where he is with such tenacity that he can hardly be driven out even by superior physical force. He expands into new territories only when certain conditions for his existence are provided therein; but even then—unlike the nomad—he will not change his former abode. He is, and remains, a parasite, a sponger who, like a pernicious bacillus, spreads over wider and wider areas according as some favourable area attracts him. The effect produced by his presence is also like that of the vampire, for wherever he establishes himself the people who grant him hospitality are bound to be bled to death sooner or later. Thus the Jew has at all times lived in States that have belonged to other rags, and within the organisation of those States, he has formed a State of his own, which is, however, hidden behind the mask of a ‘religious community,’ as long as external circumstances do not make it advisable for this community to declare its true nature. As soon as the Jew feels himself sufficiently established in his position to be able to hold it without a disguise, he lifts the mask and suddenly appears in the character which so many did not formerly believe or wish to see, namely, that of the Jew. The life which the Jew lives as a parasite thriving on the substance of other nations and States has resulted in developing that specific character which Schopenhauer once described when he spoke of the Jew as ‘the great master of lies.’ The kind of existence which he leads, forces the Jew to the systematic use of falsehood, just as naturally as the inhabitants of northern climates are forced to wear warm clothes. He can live among other nations and States only as long as he succeeds in persuading them that the Jews are not a distinct people, but the representatives of a religious faith who thus constitute a ‘religious community,’ though this is of a peculiar character. As a matter of fact, however, this is the first of his great falsehoods. He is obliged to conceal his own particular character and mode of life, in order that he may be allowed to continue his existence as a parasite among the nations.
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The greater the intelligence of the individual Jew, the better will he succeed in deceiving others. His success in this line may even go so far that the people who grant him hospitality are led to believe that the Jew among them is a genuine Frenchman, for instance, or Englishman or German or Italian, who just happens to belong to a religious denomination which is different from that prevailing in these countries. Especially in circles concerned with the executive administration of the State, where the officials generally have only a minimum of historical sense, the Jew is able to impose his infamous deception with comparative ease. In these circles, independent thinking is considered a sin against the sacred rules according to which official promotion takes place. It is, therefore, not surprising that even to-day in the Bavarian government offices, for example, there is not the slightest suspicion that the Jews form a distinct nation in themselves and are not merely the adherents of a ‘confession,’ though one glance at the press which belongs to the Jews ought to furnish sufficient evidence to the contrary even for those who possess only the smallest degree of intelligence.The Jewish Echo, however, is not an official gazette and therefore not authoritative in the eyes of these government potentates. The Jews have always been a people of a definite racial character and never merely the adherents of a religion. At a very early date, urged on by the desire to make their way in the world, they began to cast about for a means whereby they might distract such attention as might prove inconvenient for them. What could be more effective, and at the same time above suspicion, than to borrow and utilise the idea of the religious community? Here also everything is copied, or rather stolen, for the Jew could not possess any religious institution which had developed out of his own consciousness, seeing that he lacks every kind of idealism, which means that belief in a life beyond this terrestrial existence is foreign to him. In the Aryan mind no religion can ever be imagined unless it embodies the conviction that life in some form of other will continue after death.
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As a matter of fact, the Talmud is not a book that lays down principles according to which the individual should prepare for the life to come. It only furnishes rules for a practical and convenient life in this world. The religious teaching of the Jews is principally a collection of instructions for maintaining the Jewish blood pure and for regulating intercourse between Jew and Jew and between Jews and the rest of the world, that is to say non-Jews. The Jewish religious teaching is not concerned with moral problems. It is concerned rather with economic problems, and very petty ones at that. In regard to the moral value of the religious teaching of the Jews there exist, and always have existed, exhaustive studies (not from the Jewish side, for whatever the Jews have written on this question has naturally always been of a tendentious character), which show up the kind of religion that the Jews have in a light which makes it look very uncanny to the Aryan mind. The Jew himself is the best example of the kind of product which this religious training evolves. His life is of this world only and his mentality is as foreign to the true spirit of Christianity, as his character was foreign to the great Founder of the new creed two thousand years ago. The Founder of Christianity made no secret of His estimation of the Jewish people; when He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God, because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. At that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews, whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics, and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation. On this first and fundamental lie, the purpose of which is to make people believe that Jewry is not a people, but a religion, other lies are subsequently based. One of these further lies concerns, for example, the language spoken by the Jew.
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For him language is not an instrument for the expression of his inner thoughts, but rather a means of cloaking them. When talking French his thoughts are Jewish, and when writing German rhymes he only gives expression to the character of his own race. As long as the Jew has not succeeded in mastering other peoples, he is forced to speak their language whether he likes it or not, but the moment that the world became the slave of the Jew, it would have to learn some universal language (Esperanto, for example), so that by this means the Jew could dominate it the more easily. How much the whole existence of this people is based on a permanent falsehood is proved in a unique way by ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ which are so violently repudiated by the Jews. With groans and moans, theFrankfurter Zeitungrepeats again and again that these are forgeries. This alone is evidence in favour of their authenticity. What many Jews unconsciously wish to do is here clearly set forth. It is not necessary to ask out of what Jewish brain these revelations sprang, but what is of vital interest is that they disclose, with an almost terrifying precision, the mentality and methods of action characteristic of the Jewish people and these writings expound, in all their various aspects, the final aims towards which the Jews are striving. The study of real happenings, however, is the best way of judging the authenticity of these documents. If the historical developments, which have taken place within the last century, be studied in the light of this book, we shall understand why the Jewish press incessantly repudiates and denounces it, for the Jewish peril will be stamped out the moment the general public comes into possession of that book and understands it. In order to get to know the Jew properly, it is necessary to study the road which he has been following among the other peoples during the last few centuries. One example will suffice to make this clear. Since his career has been the same throughout the ages—just as the people at whose expense he has lives, have remained the same—it will be best for the purpose of making the requisite analysis, to mark his progress by stages. For the sake of simplicity, we shall indicate these stages by letters of the alphabet.
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The first Jews came into what was then called Germanic during the period of the Roman invasion, and, as usual, they came as merchants. During the turmoil caused by the great migrations of the German tribes the Jews seem to have disappeared. We may, therefore, consider the period when the Germans formed the first political communities as the beginning of that process whereby Central and Northern Europe were again, and this time permanently, Judaised. A development then began which has always been the same or similar, wherever and whenever Jews came into contact with Aryan peoples.
(a) As soon as the first permanent settlements had been established, the Jew was suddenly ‘there.’ He arrived as a merchant and, in the beginning, did not trouble to disguise his nationality. He still remained openly a Jew, partly it may be, because his appearance betrayed the racial difference between him and the people of the country in which he dwelt, or because he knew too little of the language. It may also be that people of other races refused to mix with him, so that he could not very well adopt any other pose than that of a foreign merchant. Because of his subtlety and cunning and the lack of experience on the part of the people whose guest he became, it was not to his disadvantage openly to retain his Jewish character. This may even have been advantageous to him, for the foreigner was received kindly.
(b) Slowly but steadily, he began to take part in the economic life around him, not as a producer, however, but only as a middleman. His commercial cunning, acquired through thousands of years of negotiation as an intermediary, made him superior in this field to the Aryans, who were still quite ingenuous and indeed clumsy, and whose honesty was unlimited, so that after a short time commerce seemed destined to become, a Jewish monopoly. The Jew began by lending out money and, as usual, at a usurious rate of interest. It was he who first introduced the payment of interest on borrowed money.
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The danger which this innovation involved was not at first recognised; indeed, the innovation was welcomed, because it offered momentary advantages.
(c) At this stage the Jew had become firmly settled; that is to say, he inhabited special sections of the cities and towns and had his own quarter in the market-towns. Thus he gradually came to form a State within the State. He came to look upon the commercial domain and all monetary transactions, as a privilege belonging exclusively to himself, and exploited it ruthlessly.
(d) At this stage finance and trade had become his complete monopoly. Finally, his usurious rate of interest aroused opposition, and the increasing impudence which the Jew began to manifest all round stirred up popular indignation, while his display of wealth gave rise to popular envy. The cup of his iniquity became full to the brim, when he included landed property among his commercial wares and degraded the land to the level of a market commodity. Since he himself never cultivated the soil, but considered it as an object to be exploited, allowing the peasant to remain on the land, but only on condition that he submitted to the most heartless exactions of his new master, public antipathy against the Jew steadily increased and finally turned into open animosity. His extortionate tyranny became so unbearable that people rebelled against his control and used physical violence against him. They began to scrutinise this foreigner somewhat more closely and then began to discover the repulsive traits aid characteristics inherent in him, until finally the gulf between the Jews and their hosts could no longer be bridged. In times of distress a wave of public anger has usually arisen against the Jew; the masses have taken the law into their own hands; they have seized Jewish property and ruined the Jew in their urge to protect themselves against what they consider to be a scourge of God. Having come to know the Jew intimately in the course of centuries, they looked upon his presence among them as a public danger comparable only to the plague.
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(e) Then the Jew began to reveal his true character. He paid court to governments, with servile flattery, used his money to ingratiate himself further and thus regularly secured for himself once again the privilege of exploiting his victims. Although public wrath flared up against this eternal profiteer and drove him out, after a few years he reappeared in those same place, and carried on as before. No persecution could force him to give up his trade of exploiting other people and no amount of harrying succeeded in driving him out permanently. He always returned after a short time and it was always the old story with him. In an effort to prevent at least the worst from happening, laws were passed which debarred the Jew from obtaining possession of land.
(f) In proportion as the powers of kings and princes increased, the Jew sidled up to them. He begged for ‘charters’ and ‘privileges’ which those gentlemen, who were generally in financial straits, gladly granted if they received adequate payment in return. However high the price he has to pay, the Jew will succeed in getting it back within a few years with interest and even with compound interest thanks to the privilege he has acquired. He is a real leech who clings to the body of his unfortunate victims and cannot be removed, so that when the princes found themselves in need once again they took the blood from his swollen veins with their own hands. This game was repeated unendingly. In the case of those who were called the ‘German princes,’ the part they played was quite as contemptible as that played by the Jew. They were a real scourge to their people. Their compeers may be found in some of the government ministers of our time. It was due to the German princes that the German nation could not succeed in definitely freeing itself from the Jewish peril. Unfortunately, the situation did not change at a later period. The princes finally received the reward which they had a thousand-fold deserved for all the crimes committed by them against their own people. They had allied themselves with Satan and later on they discovered that they were in Satan’s power.
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(g) By permitting themselves to be entangled in the toils of the Jew, the princes prepared their own downfall. The position which they held among their people was slowly but steadily undermined, not only by their continued failure to guard the interests of their subjects, but by their positive exploitation of them. The Jew calculated exactly the time when the downfall of the princes was approaching and did his best to hasten it. He intensified their financial difficulties by hindering them in the exercise of their duty towards their people, by encouraging them, through the most servile flattery, to indulge in vicious habits, whereby he made himself more and more indispensable to them. His astuteness, or rather, his utter unscrupulousness in money affairs enabled him to exact fresh payments from the princes subjects, to squeeze the money out of them and then have it spent as quickly as possible. Every Court had its ‘Court Jew,’ as this plague was called, who tortured the innocent victims until they were driven to despair, while at the same time he provided the means which the princes squandered on their own pleasures. It is not to be wondered at that these ornaments of the human race became the recipients of official honours and were even admitted to the ranks of the hereditary nobility, thus contributing not only to expose that social institution to ridicule, but also to contaminate it from the inside. Naturally, the Jew could now exploit the position which he had attained and advance even more rapidly than before. Finally, he only needed to be baptised in order to become entitled to all the rights and privileges which belonged to the children of the nation on which he preyed. This was an excellent stroke of business for him, and he often availed himself of it, to the great joy of the Church, which was proud of having gained a new child in the Faith, and also to the joy of Israel, which was happy at seeing the trick pulled off successfully.
(h) At this stage a transformation began to take place in the world of Jewry. Up to now they had been Jews, that is to say, they had not hitherto set any great value on pretending to be something else, and anyhow, the distinctive characteristics which separated them from other races could not be easily overcome.
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Even as late as the time of Frederick the Great nobody looked upon the Jews as other than a ‘foreign’ people, and Goethe rose up in revolt against the failure legally to prohibit marriage between Christians and Jews. Goethe was certainly no reactionary and no timeserver; through him there spoke the voice of the blood and the voice of reason. Notwithstanding the disgraceful happenings taking place in Court circles, the people recognised instinctively that the Jew was the foreign body in their own flesh and their attitude towards him was dictated by recognition of that fact. But a change was now destined to take place. In the course of more than a thousand years the Jew had learned to master the language of his hosts so thoroughly that he considered he might now lay less stress on his Jewish character and emphasise his ‘Germanism’ more. Though it must have appeared ridiculous and absurd at first sight, he was impudent enough to call himself a ‘Teuton,’ which in this case, meant a German. In that way began one of the most infamous impositions that can be imagined. The Jew did not possess the slightest traces of the German character. He had only acquired the art of twisting the German language to his own uses, and that in a disgusting way, without having assimilated any other feature of the German character. Therefore, his command of the language was the sole ground on which he could pretend to be a German. It is not, however, by the tie of language, but exclusively by the tie of blood that the members of a race are bound together, and the Jew himself knows this better than any other, seeing that he attaches so little importance to the preservation of his own language while at the same time he strives his utmost to keep his blood free from intermixture with that of other races. A man may acquire and use a new language without much trouble, but it is only his old ideas that he expresses through the new language; his inner nature is not modified thereby. The best proof of this is furnished by the Jew himself. He may speak a thousand tongues and yet his Jewish nature will always remain one and the same.
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His distinguishing characteristics were the same when, as a grain merchant, he spoke the Latin language at Ostia two thousand years ago, as they are to-day when he tries to sell adulterated flour with the aid of his German gibberish. He is always the same Jew. That so simple a fact is not recognised by the average head-clerk in a German government department, or by an officer in the police force, is also self-evident and obvious, since it would be difficult to find another class of people who are so lacking in instinct and intelligence as the civil servants employed by our modern German state authorities. The reason why, at the stage I am dealing with, the Jew so suddenly decided to transform himself into a German is not difficult to discover. He felt the power of the princes slowly crumbling and therefore looked about to find a new social plank on which he might stand. Furthermore, his financial domination in all the spheres of economic life had become so great that he felt he could no longer sustain that enormous structure, or extend his influence, unless he were admitted to the full enjoyment of the ‘rights of citizenship.’ He aimed at both, preservation and expansion; for the higher he could climb, the more alluring became the prospect of reaching the old goal, which was promised to him in ancient times, namely world domination to which he now looked forward with feverish eyes, as he thought he saw it within his grasp. Therefore, all his efforts were now directed to becoming a fully-fledged citizen, endowed with all civil and political rights. That was the reason for his emancipation from the ghetto.
(i) Thus the Court Jew slowly developed into the democratic Jew, but naturally, he still remained associated with persons in higher quarters, and he even attempted to push his way further into the inner circles of the ruling set. At the same time some other representatives of his race were currying favour with the people. If we remember the crimes the Jew had committed against the masses of the people in the course of so many centuries, how repeatedly and ruthlessly he had exploited them and how he had sucked the very marrow of their substance, and when we further remember how they gradually came to hate him and finally considered him as public scourge then we can well understand how difficult the Jew must have found this final transformation; indeed, it must have taxed all his powers to be able to present himself as ‘the friend of humanity’ to the poor victims whom he had bled white.
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Therefore, the Jew began by making public amends for the crimes which he had committed against the people in the past. He started his metamorphosis by first appearing as the ‘benefactor’ of humanity. Since his new philanthropic policy had a very concrete aim in view, he could not very well apply to himself the biblical counsel, not to allow his left hand to know what his right hand was doing. He felt obliged to let as many people as possible know how deeply the sufferings of the masses grieved him and to what excesses of personal sacrifice he was ready to-go in order to help them. With this manifestation of innate modesty, so typical of the Jew, he trumpeted his virtues to the world until finally the world actually began to believe him. Those who refused to share this belief were considered to be doing him an injustice. Thus, after a little while he began to twist things round, so as to make it appear that it was he who had always been wronged, and not vice versa. There were actually some particularly foolish people who could not help pitying this poor unfortunate creature of a Jew. Attention may be called to the fact that, in spite of his proclaimed readiness to make personal sacrifices, the Jew never becomes poor thereby. He has a happy knack of always making both ends meet. Occasionally, his benevolence might be compared to the manure which is not spread over the field merely out of kindness, but rather with a view to future produce. Anyhow, after a comparatively short period of time, the world was given to know that the Jew had become a general benefactor and philanthropist. What a unique transformation!
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What is looked upon as more or less natural when done by other people, here became an object of astonishment, and even sometimes of admiration, because it was considered so unusual in a Jew. That is why he has received more credit for his acts of benevolence than ordinary mortals. And something more! The Jew became liberal all of a sudden and began to talk enthusiastically of how human progress must be encouraged. Gradually he assumed the air of being the herald of a new age. Yet, at the same time, he continued to undermine the groundwork of that economic system which is of most benefit to the people. He bought up stock in the various national undertakings and thus pushed his influence into the circle of national production, making this latter an object of buying and selling on the Stock Exchange, or rather what might be called a pawn in a financial game of chess, thus ruining the only basis on which personal proprietorship is possible. Only with the entrance of the Jew did that feeling of estrangement between employers and employees begin which led at a later date to the political class-struggle. Finally, the Jew gained an increasing influence in all economic undertakings by means of his predominance on the Stock Exchange. He secured, if not the ownership, at least the control of the working capacity of the nation. In order to strengthen his political position, he directed his efforts towards removing the barrier of racial and civic discrimination which had hitherto hindered his advance at every turn. With characteristic tenacity he championed the cause of religious tolerance for this purpose, and in the Freemason organisation, which had fallen completely into his hands, he found a magnificent weapon which helped him to achieve his ends. Government circles, as well as the higher sections of the political and commercial bourgeoisie, fell prey to his plans through his manipulation of the masonic net, though they themselves did not even suspect what was happening. Only the people as such, or rather the masses which were just becoming conscious of their own power and were beginning to use it in the fight for their rights and liberties, had hitherto escaped the grip of the Jew.
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At least, his influence had not yet penetrated to the deeper and wider sections of the people, This was unsatisfactory to him. The most important phase of his policy was therefore to secure control over the people. The Jew realised that in his efforts to reach the position of public despot he would need a ‘pace-maker,’ and he thought he could find a pace-maker if he could whip-in sufficiently large sections of the bourgeoisie, but the Freemasons failed to catch the glove-manufacturers and the linen-weavers in the frail meshes of their net, and so it became necessary to find a grosser and withal a more effective means. Thus another weapon beside that of freemasonry had to be secured. This was the press. The Jew exercised all his skill and tenacity in getting hold of it. By means of the press he began gradually to control public life in its entirety. He began to drive it along the road which he had chosen for the purpose of reaching his own ends, for he was now in a position to create and direct that force which, under the name of ‘public opinion’ is better known to-day than it was some decades ago. Simultaneously, the Jew gave himself the air of thirsting after knowledge. He lauded every phase of progress, particularly those phases which led to the ruin of others, for he judges all progress and development from the standpoint of the advantages which these bring to his own people. When it brings him no such advantages, he is the deadly enemy of enlightenment and hates all culture which is real culture as such. All the knowledge which he acquires in the schools of others is exploited by him exclusively in the service of his own race. He now guarded his Jewish ‘nationality’ more jealously than ever before. Though bubbling over with talk of ‘enlightenment,’ ‘progress,’ ‘liberty,’ ‘humanity,’ etc., his first care was to preserve the racial integrity of his own people. He occasionally bestowed one of his female offspring on an influential Christian, but the racial stock of his male descendants was always preserved unmixed on principle. He poisoned the blood of others, but preserved his own blood unadulterated.
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The Jew scarcely ever married a Christian girl, but the Christian took a Jewess to wife. The mongrels that were the issue of this latter union always took after the Jewish side. Thus a part of the higher nobility in particular became completely degenerate. The Jew was well aware of this fact and systematically used this means of disarming the intellectual leaders of the opposite race. To mask his tactics and fool his victims, he talked of the equality of all men, no matter what their race or colour, and the simpletons began to believe him. Since his whole nature still retained too much that was alien for the broad masses of the people to allow themselves to be caught in his snare, he used the press to put before the public a picture of himself which was entirely untrue to life, but well designed to serve his purpose. In the comic papers special efforts were made to represent the Jews as an inoffensive little race which, like all others, had its peculiarities. The comic papers presented the Jews as fundamentally goodhearted and honourable in spite of their manners, which might seem a bit strange. An attempt was generally made to make them appear insignificant, rather than dangerous. During this phase of his progress the chief goal of the Jew was the victory of democracy, or rather the supreme hegemony of the parliamentary system, which embodied his concept of democracy. This institution harmonised best with his purpose, for thus the personal element was eliminated and in its place we had the dunder-headed majority, inefficiency and, last but by no means least, cowardice. The final result must necessarily have been the overthrow of the monarchy, which had to come sooner or later.
(j) A tremendous economic development transformed the social structure of the nation. As the small handicrafts gradually disappeared, the manual worker was robbed of the chance of earning his bread independently, and sank to the level of the proletariat. In his stead came the factory worker, whose essential characteristic is
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that he is seldom in a position to support himself independently in later life. In the true sense of the word, he is ‘disinherited.’ His old age is a misery to hint and can hardly be called a life at all. In earlier times a similar situation had been created, which had imperatively demanded a solution and for which a solution was found. Side by side with the peasant and the artisan, a new class had gradually developed, namely, that of officials and employees, especially those employed in the various’services of the State. They also were a ‘disinherited’ class, in the true sense of the word, but the State found a remedy for this unhealthy situation by taking upon itself the duty of providing for the State official who was not in a position to make provision for his old age. Thus the system of pensions and retiring allowances was introduced. Private enterprises slowly followed this example in increasing numbers, so that to-day every permanent non-manual worker receives a pension in his later years, if the firm which he has served is one that has reached or exceeded a certain limit of size. It was only by virtue of the assurance given to State officials, that they would be cared for in their old age, that such a high degree of unselfish devotion to duty was developed, which in pre-war times was one of the distinguishing characteristics of German officials. Thus a whole class which had no personal property was saved from destitution by an intelligent system of provision, and found a place in the social structure of the national community. The problem has once again arisen for the State and the nation, but this time it is more comprehensive. When the new industries sprang up and developed, millions of people left the countryside and the villages to take up employment in the big factories. The conditions under which this new class found itself forced to live were worse than miserable. The more or less mechanical transformation of the methods of work hitherto in vogue among the artisans and peasants did not fit in well with the habits or mentality of this new working-class.
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The way in which the peasants and artisans had formerly worked had nothing comparable to the intensive labour of the new factory-worker. In the old trades, time did not play a highly important role, but it became an essential element in the new industrial system. The formal taking over of the old working hours by the mammoth industrial enterprises had fatal results. The actual amount of work hitherto accomplished within a certain time was comparatively small, because the modern methods of intensive production were then unknown. Therefore, although under the older system a working day of fourteen or even fifteen hours was not unendurable, now it was beyond the limits of human endurance, because under the new system every minute was utilised to the extreme. This absurd transference of the old working hours to the new industrial system proved fatal in two directions. Firstly, it ruined the health of the workers; secondly, it destroyed their faith in a superior law of justice. Finally, on the one hand, a miserable wage was received and, on the other, the employer held a much more lucrative position than before. In the open country there could be no social problem, because the master and the farm-hand were doing the same kind of work and doing it together. They ate their food in common, and sometimes even out of the same dish. But this, too, was altered. The division created between employer and employee seems now to have extended to all branches of life. How far this Judaising process has been allowed to take effect among our people is illustrated by the fact that manual labour not only receives practically no recognition, but is even considered degrading. That is not a natural German attitude. It is due to the introduction of a foreign element into our lives, and that foreign element is the Jewish spirit, one of the effects of which has been to transform the high esteem in which our handicrafts were once held into a certain contempt for all manual labour. Thus a new social class has grown up which stands in low esteem, and the day must come when we shall have to face the question of whether the nation will be able to make this class an integral part of the social community, or whether the difference of status now existing will become a permanent gulf separating this class from the others.
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One thing, however, is certain, namely, that this class does not include the worst elements of the community in its ranks, on the contrary, it includes the most energetic elements of the nation. The sophistication which is the result of a so-called civilisation has not yet exercised its disintegrating and degenerating influence on this class. The broad masses of this new lower class, consisting of the manual labourers, have not yet fallen prey to the morbid weakness of pacifism. They are still robust and, if necessary, they can be brutal. While our bourgeois middle class paid no attention at all to this momentous problem and indifferently allowed events to take their course, the Jew realised the manifold possibilities which the situation offered him for the future. While, on the one hand, he organised capitalistic methods of exploitation to the highest possible degree, he curried favour with the victims of his policy and his power and in a short while became the leader of their struggle against himself. ‘Against himself’ is here only a figurative way of speaking; for this ‘great master of lies’ knows how to appear in the guise of the innocent and throw the guilt on others. Since he had the impudence to take a personal lead among the masses, they never for a moment suspected that they were falling a prey to one of the most infamous deceptions ever practised. Yet that is what it actually was. The moment this new class had arisen out of the general economic situation and taken shape as, a definite body in the social order, the Jew clearly saw where he would find the necessary pace-maker for his own progressive march. At first he had used the bourgeois class as a battering-ram against the feudal order, and now he used the worker against the bourgeois world. Just as he succeeded in obtaining civic rights by intrigues carried on under the protection of the bourgeois class, he now hoped that by joining in the struggle which the workers were waging for their own existence, he would be able to obtain the mastery he desired.
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When that moment arrives, the only objective the workers will have to fight for will be the future of the Jewish people. Without knowing it, the worker is placing himself at the service of the very power against which he believes he is fighting. Apparently he is being made to fight against capital and thus he is all the more easily brought to fight for capitalistic interests. Outcries are systematically raised against international capital, but in reality it is against the national economic structure that these slogans are directed. The idea is to demolish this structure and on its ruins triumphantly erect the structure of the International Stock Exchange. The method of procedure of the Jew was as follows: He kowtowed to the worker, hypocritically pretended to feel pity for him and his lot, and even to be indignant at the misery and poverty which he had to endure. That is the way in which the Jew endeavoured to gain the confidence of the working class. He showed himself eager to study their various hardships, whether real or imaginary, and strove to awaken a yearning on the part of the workers to change the conditions under which they lived. The Jew artfully enkindled that innate yearning for social justice which is a typical Aryan characteristic. Once that yearning became alive, it was transformed into hatred against those in more fortunate circumstances of life. The next stage was to give a precise ideological aspect to the struggle for the elimination of social wrongs, and thus the Marxist doctrine was invented. By presenting this doctrine as part and parcel of a just vindication of social rights, the Jew propagated it all the more effectively, but at the same time he provoked the opposition of decent people who refused to admit these demands which, because of the form and pseudo-philosophical trimmings in which they were presented, seemed fundamentally unjust and unrealisable, for, under the cloak of purely social concepts there were hidden aims which were of a Satanic character. These aims are even openly expounded wish the clarity of unlimited impudence. This Marxist doctrine is an indivisible mixture of human reason and human absurdity, but the combination is arranged in such a way that only the absurd part of it could ever be put into practice, never the reasonable part. By categorically repudiating the personal worth of the individual and also of the nation and its racial constitution, this doctrine destroys the fundamental basis of all civilisation, for civilisation depends essentially on these very factors.
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Such is the true essence of the MarxistWeltanschauung, in so far as the wordWeltanschauungcan be applied at all to these phantoms arising from a criminal brain. The destruction of the concept of personality and of race removes the chief obstacle which barred the way to domination of the social body by its inferior elements, which are the Jews. The very absurdity of the economic and political theories of Marxism gives the doctrine its peculiar significance. Because of, its pseudo-logic, intelligent people refuse to support it, while all those who are less accustomed to use their intellectual faculties, or who have only a rudimentary notion of economic principles, join the Marxist cause whole-heartedly. The intelligence behind the movement—for even this movement needs intelligence if it is to subsist—is supplied by the Jews themselves, as a ‘sacrifice’ on their part. Thus arose a movement which was composed exclusively of manual workers under the leadership of Jews. To all external appearances, this movement strives to ameliorate the conditions under which the workers live, but in reality its aim is to enslave and thereby annihilate the non-Jewish peoples. The propaganda which the Freemasons had carried on among the so-called intelligentsia, whereby their pacifist teaching paralysed the instinct for national self-preservation, was now extended to the broad masses of the workers and the bourgeoisie by means of the press, which was almost everywhere in Jewish hands. To those two instruments of disintegration, a third and still more ruthless one was added, namely, the organisation of brute force. Massed columns of Marxist attackers were intended to complete the work of attrition which the two weapons formerly employed had brought to the verge of fulfilment. The combined activity of all these forces has been marvellously managed, and it will not be surprising if it turns out that those institutions which have always appeared as the organs of the more or less traditional authority of the State should now fall before the Marxist attack.
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With very few exceptions, the Jew has found the most complacent promoters of his work of destruction among the higher, and even the highest, government officials. An attitude of sneaking servility towards ‘superiors’ and supercilious arrogance towards ‘inferiors’ are the characteristics of this class of people, as well as an appalling stupidity which is exceeded only by its amazing self-conceit. These qualities are of the greatest utility to the Jew in his dealings with our authorities and consequently he appreciates them. If I were to sketch roughly the actual struggle which is now beginning I should describe it somewhat thus: Not satisfied with the economic conquest of the world, but demanding that it must also come under his political control, the Jew subdivides the organised Marxist power into two parts, which correspond to the ultimate objectives that are to be fought for in this struggle which is carried on under his direction. To outward appearance, these seem to be two independent movements, but in reality they constitute an indivisible unity. The two divisions are the political movement and the trade-union movement. The trade-union movement has to gather in the recruits. It offers assistance and protection to the workers in the hard struggle which they have to wage for the bare means of existence, a struggle which has been occasioned by the greediness and narrow-mindedness of many of the industrialists. Unless the workers are ready to surrender all claims to an existence which the mere dignity of human nature itself demands, and unless they are ready to submit their fate to the will of employers who, in many cases, have no, sense of human responsibility and are utterly callous to human wants, then the worker must necessarily take matters into his own hands, seeing that the organised social community—that is to say, the State—pays no attention to his needs.
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The so-called national-minded bourgeoisie, blinded by its own material interests, opposes this life-and-death struggle of the workers and places the most difficult obstacles in their way. Not only does this bourgeoisie hinder all efforts to bring in legislation which would shorten the inhumanly long hours of work, prohibit child-labour, grant security and protection to women and improve the hygienic conditions in the workshops and the dwellings of the working class, but while it is engaged in so doing, the shrewd Jew takes the cause of the oppressed into his own hands. He gradually becomes the leader of the trade-union movement, which is an easy task for him, because he does not genuinely intend to find remedies for the social wrong; he pursues only one objective, namely, to gather and consolidate a body of followers who will act under his command as an armed weapon in the economic war for the destruction of national economic independence. For, while a sound social policy has to aim at a double objective, that of securing a decent standard of public health and welfare on the one hand, and that of safeguarding the independence of the economic life of the nation, on the other, the Jew does not take these two aims into account at all. The destruction of both is one of his main objects. He would ruin, rather than safeguard, the independence of the national economic system. Therefore, as the leader of the trade-union movement, he has no scruples about putting forward demands which not only go beyond the declared purpose of the movement, but could not be carried into effect without ruining the national economic structure. On the other hand, he has no interest in seeing a healthy and sturdy population develop; he would be more content to see the people degenerate into an unthinking herd which could be reduced to total subjection. Because these are his final objectives, he can afford to put forward the most absurd claims. He knows very well that these claims can never be realised and that, therefore, nothing in the actual state of affairs can be altered by them, but that the most they can do is to arouse the spirit of unrest among the masses.
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That is exactly the purpose which he wishes such propaganda to serve and not a real and honest improvement of the social status of the worker. The Jews will, therefore, remain the unquestioned leaders of the trade-union movement as long as no far-reaching campaign is undertaken for the enlightenment of the masses, in order that they may be better enabled to understand the causes of their misery. The same end might be achieved if the government authorities were to get rid of the Jew and his work, for as long as the masses remain as illinformed as they actually are to-day, and as long as the State remains as indifferent to their lot as it now is, the masses will follow whatever leaders make them the most extravagant promises in regard to economic matters. The Jew is a past-master in this art and his activities are not hampered by moral considerations of any kind. Naturally, it takes him only a short time to defeat all his competitors in this field and drive them from the scene of action. In accordance with the general brutality and rapacity of his nature, he turns the trade-union movement into an organisation for the exercise of physical violence. The resistance and antipathy of those whose insight has hitherto saved them from swallowing the Jewish bait, have been broken down by terrorism. The success of that kind of activity is enormous. Actually, the Jew is using the trade-union, which could be a blessing to the nation, as a weapon with which to destroy the foundations of the national economic structure. Side by side with this, the political organisation advances. It operates hand-in-hand with the trade-union movement, inasmuch as the latter prepares the masses for the political organisation and even forces them into it. This is also the source that provides the money which the political organisation needs to keep its enormous apparatus in action. The trade-union organisation is the organ of control for the political activity of its members and whips in the masses for all great political demonstrations. In the end, it ceases to struggle for economic interests, but places its chief weapon, refusal to continue work (which takes the form of a general strike) at the disposal of the political movement.
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In a press, the reading matter of which is adapted to the level of the most ignorant readers, the political and trade-union organisations are provided with an instrument which prepares the lowest stratum of the nation for a campaign of ruthless destruction. It is not considered part of the purpose of this press to inspire its readers with ideals which might help them to lift their minds above the sordid conditions of their daily lives, but, on the contrary, it panders to their lowest instincts. Among the lazy-minded and self-seeking sections of the masses this kind of speculation turns out lucrative. It is this press, above all, which carries on a fanatical campaign of calumny, strives to tear down everything that might be considered mainstay of national independence, cultural standing and economic self-sufficiency. It aims its attacks especially against all men of character who refuse to fall into line with the Jewish efforts to obtain control over the State, or who appear dangerous to the Jews merely because of their superior intelligence. In order to incur the enmity of the Jew it is not necessary to show any open hostility towards him; it is sufficient if a man is considered capable of opposing the Jew at some time in the future, or of using his abilities and character to enhance the power and position of a nation which the Jew considers hostile to himself. The Jew’s instinct, which never fails where these problems have to be dealt with, readily discerns the true mentality of those whom he meets in everyday life and those who are not of a kindred spirit may be sure of being listed among his enemies. Since the Jew is not the object of aggression, but himself the aggressor, he considers as his enemies not only those who attack him, but also those who may be capable of resisting him. The means which he employs to break people of this kind who show themselves decent and upright, is no honourable conflict, but falsehood and calumny. He will stop at nothing. His utterly lowdown conduct is so appalling that one really cannot be surprised if, in the imagination of our people, Satan, as the incarnation of all evil, assumes the form and features of the Jew.
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The ignorance of the broad masses as regards the inner character of the Jew, and the lack of instinct and insight displayed by our upper classes, are among the reasons which explain how it is that so many people fall an easy prey to the systematic campaign of falsehood which the Jew carries on. While the upper classes, with their innate cowardliness, turn away from anyone whom the Jew thus attacks with lies and calumny, the common people are credulous of everything, whether because of their ignorance or their simple-mindedness. Government authorities wrap themselves in a cloak of silence, but more frequently they persecute the victims of Jewish attacks in order to stop the campaign in the Jewish press. To the fatuous mind of the government official, such a line of conduct appears to be in line with the policy of upholding the authority of the State and preserving public order. Gradually, the Marxist weapon in the hands of the Jew becomes a constant bogey to decent people and weighs upon them like a kind of nightmare. People begin to quail before this fearful foe and thereby become his victims.
(k) The domination of the Jew in the State seems now so fully assured that not only can he afford to call himself a Jew once again, but he even acknowledges freely and openly his ideas on racial and political questions. A section of the Jews avows itself quite openly as an alien people, but even here there is another falsehood. When the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the new national consciousness of the Jews will be satisfied by the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, the Jews thereby adopt another means to dupe the simple-minded Aryan. They have not the slightest intention of building up a Jewish State in Palestine so as to live in it. What they are really aiming at is to establish a central organisation for their international swindling and cheating. As a sovereign State, this cannot, be controlled by any of the other States.
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Therefore, it can serve as a refuge for swindlers who have been found out, and at the same time, a high school for the training of other swindlers. As a sign of their growing confidence and sense of security, a certain section of them openly and impudently proclaims its Jewish nationality, while another section hypocritically pretend to be German, French or English, as the case may be. Their blatant behaviour in their relations with other people shows how clearly they envisage their day of triumph in the near future. The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, Satanically glaring at and spying on the unsuspecting girl whom he plans to seduce, adulterating her blood and removing her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew uses every possible means to undermine the racial foundations of a people to be subjugated. In his systematic efforts to ruin girls and women, he strives to break down the last barriers of racial discrimination. The Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate, and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate. As long as a people remains racially pure and race-conscious, it can never be overcome by the Jew. Never in this world can the Jew become master of any people except a bastardised people. That is why the Jew systematically endeavours to lower the racial quality of a people by permanently adulterating the blood of the individuals who make up that people. In the field of politics he now begins to replace the idea of democracy by that of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the masses organised under the Marxist banners he has found a weapon which makes it possible for him to discard democracy, so as to subjugate and rule the nations in a dictatorial fashion by the aid of brute force. He works systematically in order to bring about this revolution by two methods, the economic and the political.
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Aided by international influences, he forms a ring of enemies around those nations which have proved themselves too sturdy for him, in withstanding attacks from within. He tries to force them into war and then, if it should be necessary to his plans, he will unfurl the banners of revolt even while the troops are actually fighting at the front. Economically, he brings about the destruction of the State by a systematic method of sabotaging social enterprises until these become so costly that they are taken out of the hands of the State and submitted to the control of Jewish finance. Politically, he works to withdraw from the State its means of subsistence, inasmuch as he undermines the foundations of national resistance and defence, destroys the confidence which the people have in their government, reviles the past and its history and drags everything really great into the gutter. Culturally, his activity consists in poisoning art, literature and the theatre, holding the expression of natural sentiment up to scorn, overturning all concepts of the sublime and beautiful, the worthy and the good, finally dragging the people down to the level of his own low mentality. Of religion he makes a mockery. Morality and decency are described as antiquated prejudices and thus a systematic attack is made for the purpose of undermining those last foundations on which the national being must rest if the nation is to struggle for its existence in this world.
(l) Now begins the great and final revolution. As soon as the Jew is in possession of political power he drops all pretence. Out of the democratic Jew, the Jew of the people, arises the Jew lusting for blood, the tyrant of the peoples. In the course of a few years he endeavours to exterminate all those who represent the national intelligentsia, and by thus depriving the peoples of their natural intellectual leaders, he orepares them for their fate as slaves under a lasting despotism. Russia furnishes the most terrible example of such slavery. In that country the Jew killed or starved thirty millions of the people in a bout of savage fanaticism and resorted to the employment of inhuman torture. He did this so that a gang of Jewish would-be literati and financial bandits should dominate over a great people.
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The final consequence is not merely that the people lose all their freedom under the domination of the Jews, but that in the end, these parasites themselves disappear. The death of the victim is followed sooner or later by that of the vampire. If we review all the causes which contributed to bring about the downfall of the German people we shall find that the most profound acid decisive cause lies in lack of insight into the racial problem and especially in failure to recognise the Jewish menace. It would have been easy enough to endure the defeats suffered on the battlefields in August 1918. They were nothing as compares with the military victories which our nation had achieved. Our downfall was not the result of those defeats; we were overthrown by that force which had prepared those defeats by systematically operating for several decades to destroy those political instincts and that moral stamina which alone enable a people to struggle for its existence and thereby secure the right to exist. By neglecting the problem of preserving the racial foundations of our national life, the old Reich abrogated the sole right which entitles a people to live on this planet. Nations that make mongrels of their people or allow their people to be turned into mongrels, sin against the Will of Eternal Providence, and thus their overthrow at the hands of a stronger opponent cannot be looked upon as a wrong but, on the contrary, as a restoration of justice. If a people refuses to guard and uphold the qualities with which it has been endowed by Nature and which have their roots in the racial blood, then such a people has no right to complain over the loss of its earthly existence. Everything on this earth can be changed for the better. Every defeat may be made the foundation of a future victory. Every lost war may be the cause of a later resurgence. Every form of distress can give, a new impetus to human energy, and from oppression those forces can develop which bring about a re-birth of the national soul—provided always that the racial blood is kept pure. The loss of racial purity will wreck inner happiness for ever.
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It degrades men for all time to come, and the physical and moral consequences can never be wiped out. If this unique problem be studied and compared with the other problems of life we shall easily recognise how small is their importance in comparison with this. They are all limited in time, but the problem of the maintenance or loss of the purity of the racial blood will last as long as man himself exists. All the symptoms of decline which manifested themselves in pre-war times can be traced back to the racial problem. Whether one is dealing with questions of general law, of monstrous wrongs in economic life, of phenomena which point to a cultural decline or political degeneration whether it be a question of defects in the school-system or of the evil influence which the press exerts over the adult population in every case there phenomena are caused by a lack of consideration for the interests of the race to which one’s own nation belongs, or by failure to recognise the danger that comes from allowing a foreign race to exist within the national body. That is why all attempts at reform, all institutions for social relief, all political striving, all economic progress and all apparent increase in the general stock of knowledge, were doomed to be unproductive of any significant results. The nation, as well as the organisation which enables it to exist, namely, the State, were not developing in inner strength and stability but were, on the contrary, visibly losing their vitality. The false brilliance of the Second Reich could not disguise its inner weakness, and every attempt to invigorate it anew failed, because the main and most important problem was left out of consideration. It would be a mistake to think that the followers of the various political parties which tried to doctor the condition of the German people, or even all their leaders, were bad in themselves or meant wrong. Their activity was doomed to fail, merely because, at best, they saw nothing but the symptoms of our general malady and they tried to doctor the symptoms while they overlooked the real cause of the disease.
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If one makes a methodical study of the lines along which the old Reich developed, one cannot help seeing, after a careful political analysis, that a process of inner degeneration had already set in, even at the time when the united Reich was established and the German nation was enjoying prosperity. The general situation was declining, in spite of apparent political success and in spite of increasing economic wealth. At the Reichstag elections the growing number of Marxist votes indicated that the internal breakdown and the political collapse were rapidly approaching. All the victories of the so-called bourgeois parties were fruitless, not only because they could not prevent the numerical increase is the growing mass of Marxist votes, even when the bourgeois parties triumphed at the polls, but mainly because they themselves were already infected with the germs of decay. Though quite unaware of, it, the bourgeois world was infected from within with the deadly virus of Marxist ideas. The fact that they sometimes openly resisted was to be attributed to rivalry between ambitious political leaders, rather than to any opposition on principle between adversaries who were determined to fight one another to the bitter end. During all those years only one protagonist was fighting with steadfast perseverance. This was the Jew. The Star of David steadily ascended, as the will to national self-preservation declined. Therefore, it was not a nation filled with the determination to attack, which rushed to the battlefields in August 1914, but it was rather the manifestation of the last flickering instinct of national self-preservation in the face of the progress of the paralysis with which the pacifist and Marxist doctrine threatened our people. Even in those days when the fate of the nation hung in the balance, the internal enemy was not recognised and therefore all efforts to resist the external enemy were bound to be in vain. Providence did not grant the reward to the victorious sword, but followed the eternal law of retributive justice. A profound recognition of all this was the source of those principles and tendencies which inspire our new Movement. We were convinced that only by recognising such truths could we stop the national decline in Germany and lay a granite foundation on which the State could again be built up, a State which would not be a piece of mechanism alien to our people, constituted for economic needs and interests, but an organism created from the soul of the people themselves.
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