Mein Kampf aka My Struggle

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The mere fact that in comparison with the enormous Jewish press there was hardly a single really significant folkish paper gave food for thought. This, as I later ascertained any number of times in practice, was in large part due to the unbusinesslike management of so-called folkish enterprises in general. They were too much conducted from the angle that loyalty takes precedence over achievement. An absolutely false standpoint, in so far as loyalty must not be an outward thing, but find its most eminent expression in achievement. Anyone who creates something really valuable for his people thus gives evidence of an equally valuable loyalty, while another, who merely displays hypocritical loyalty, but in reality performs no useful services for his people, is an enemy to any true loyalty. And his loyalty is a burden to the community.

The Völkischer Beobachter, as its very name indicates, was also a folkish organ, with all the advantages, and even more faults and weaknesses, that were characteristic of folkish institutions. Honest as its content was, the management of the enterprise was impossible from the commercial viewpoint. It, too, was run on the assumption that folkish newspapers must be supported by folkish contributions, instead of the principle that they must make their way in competition with other papers and that it is indecent to cover the negligence or mistakes of their business management by the donations of well-situated patriots.

In any case I attempted to eliminate this state of affairs, the objectionableness of which I had soon recognized, and luck favored me by making me acquainted with the man who since then, not only as business manager of the paper, but also of the party, has performed services of the greatest value for the movement. In 1914 - at the front, that is - I met Max Amann, the present general business manager of the party (then still my superior in rank). During the four years of the War, I had an almost continuous opportunity to observe the extraordinary ability, the industry and scrupulous conscientiousness of my future collaborator.

In midsummer of 1921, when the movement was in a grave crisis and I could no longer be satisfied with a number of employees, and with one in fact had had the bitterest experience, I turned to my former regimental comrade, whom chance brought to me one day, with the request that he become business manager of the movement. After long hesitation - Amann was holding a position with good prospects - he finally consented, though on condition that he would never serve as a stooge for any incompetent committees, but would exclusively recognize a single master.

It is the inextinguishable merit of this first business manager of the movement, a man of really comprehensive business training, to have brought order and neatness into the party's business affairs. Since that time they have remained exemplary and could be equaled, let alone surpassed, by none of the subdivisions of the movement, but, as always in life, outstanding ability is not seldom the cause of envy and disfavor. This, of course, had to be expected in this case and to be taken patiently into account.

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By 1922 there existed, by and large, firm directives for the business as well as the purely organizational development of the movement. There was already a complete central card index which embraced all members belonging to the movement. Likewise the financing of the movement had been brought into healthy channels. Current expenses had to be covered by current receipts; extraordinary receipts were used only for extraordinary expenses. Despite the hard times, the movement thereby remained, apart from small running accounts, almost free of debt, and even succeeded in steadily increasing its resources. We worked as in a private business: the employed personnel had to distinguish itself by achievement, and could not get by on the strength of any of your famous 'loyalty.' The loyalty of every National Socialist is demonstrated primarily by his readiness to work, his industry and ability in accomplishing the work entrusted to him by the community. Anyone who does not fulfill his duty in this should not boast of his loyalty, against which he is actually committing an offense. With the utmost energy the new business manager, in opposition to all possible influences, upheld the standpoint that party enterprises must not be a sinecure for supporters or members with no great enthusiasm for work. A movement which fights in so sharp a form against the party corruption of our present administrative apparatus must keep its own apparatus pure of such vices. There were cases where employees were taken into the administration of the newspaper, who in their previous allegiance belonged to the Bavarian People's Party, but, measured by their achievements, showed themselves excellently qualified. The result of this attempt was in general outstanding. By this honest and frank recognition of the individual's real achievement, the movement more quickly and more thoroughly won the hearts of its employees than would otherwise have been the case. They later became good National Socialists and remained so, and not only in words; they also demonstrated it by the conscientious, regular, and honest work which they performed in the service of the new movement. It goes without saying that the well-qualified party comrade was given preference over the equally qualified non-party member. But no one obtained a position on the basis of his party membership alone. The firmness with which the new business manager upheld these principles, and gradually enforced them despite all opposition, was later of the greatest benefit to the movement. Through this alone was it possible, in the difficult inflation period, when tens of thousands of businesses collapsed and thousands of newspapers had to close, for the business leadership of the movement, not only to remain above water and fulfill its tasks, but for the Völkischer Beobachter to be expanded more and more. It had entered the ranks of the great newspapers.

The year 1921 had, furthermore, the significance that I gradually succeeded, through my position as chairman of the party, in withdrawing the various party services from the criticism and interference of dozens of committee members. This was important, because it was impossible to obtain a really capable mind for a job if incompetents kept on babbling and interfering, knowing everything better than anyone else and actually creating a hopeless muddle. Whereupon, to be sure, these know-it-alls usually withdrew quite modestly, to seek a new field for their inspiring supervisory activity. There were men who were possessed by a positive disease for finding something behind anything and everything, and who were in a kind of continuous pregnancy with excellent plans, ideas, projects, methods. Their highest and most ideal aim was usually the formation of a committee or controlling organ to put its expert nose into other people's serious work. It never dawned on many of these committee people how insulting and how un-National Socialist it is, when men who do not understand a thing keep interfering with real specialists. In any case, I regarded it as my duty in these years, to take all real workers, charged with responsibility in the movement, under my protection against such elements, to cover them in the rear, as it were, so as to leave them free to work forward.

The best means for making harmless such committees, who did nothing and only cooked up decisions that could not be practically carried out, was to assign them to some real work. It was laughable how silently one of these clubs would then disappear, and suddenly was impossible to locate. It made me think of our greatest institution of the sort, the Reichstag. How all its members would suddenly evaporate if, instead of talk, some real work were assigned to them; and particularly a task which every single one of these braggarts would have to perform with personal responsibility.

Even then I always raised the demand that, in the movement as everywhere in private life, we keep looking until the obviously capable official, administrator, or director for the various business sections had been found. And this man was then to receive unconditional authority and freedom of action downward, but to be charged with unlimited responsibility upward, and no one obtains authority toward subordinates who does not know the work involved better than they. In the course of two years, I enforced my opinion more and more, and today it is taken for granted in the movement, at least in so far as the top leadership is concerned.

The visible success of this attitude was shown on November 9, 1923: when I came to the movement four years previous, not even a rubber stamp was available. On November 9, the party was dissolved, its property confiscated. This, including all properties and the newspaper, already amounted to over a hundred and seventy thousand gold marks.

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End of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 11: PROPAGANDA AND ORGANIZATION

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Begin of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 12: THE TRADE-UNION QUESTION

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THE RAPID GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT compelled us in 1922 to take a position on a question which even today is not entirely solved.

In our attempts to study those methods which could most easily open up to the movement the way to the hearts of the masses, we always encountered the objection that the worker could never be entirely with us because the defense of his interests in the purely occupational and economic field lay in the hands of our enemies and their organizations.

This objection, of course, had much to be said for it. It was a matter of general belief that the worker who was active in a factory could not even exist unless he became a member of a union. Not only that his occupational interests seemed protected by this alone, but his position in the factory for any length of time was conceivable only as a union member. The majority of the workers were organized in trade unions. These, on the whole, had fought out the wage struggles and concluded the agreements which assured the worker of a certain income. Without doubt the results of these struggles benefited all the workers in the factory, and inevitably conflicts of conscience arose, especially for the decent man, if he pocketed the wage which the unions had won him, but remained aloof from the struggle.

It was hard to speak of these problems with the average bourgeois employer. They neither had (or perhaps wanted to have) any understanding for the material side of the question nor for the moral side. Finally, their own supposed economic interests argue from the start against any organizational grouping of the workers under them, and for this reason alone most of them can hardly form an unprejudiced judgment. Here, as so often, it is therefore necessary to turn to outsiders who do not succumb to the temptation of not seeing the forest for the trees. These, with good will, will much more easily achieve understanding for a matter which in any event is among the most important of our present and future life.

In the first volume I have expressed myself with regard to the nature and purpose, and the necessity, of trade unions. There I espoused the viewpoint that, as long as no change in the attitude of employer to worker is brought about either by state measures (which for the most part, however, are fruitless) or by a universal new education, there remains nothing for the worker to do but stand on his rights as an equal contracting party and defend his own interests in economic life. I further emphasized that safeguarding his interests in this way was entirely compatible with a whole national community if it can prevent social injustices which must subsequently bring about excessive damage to the entire community of a people. I further declared that this necessity must be considered to prevail as long as there exist among employers men who, left to themselves, not only have no feeling for social duties, but not even for the most primitive human rights; and from this I drew the inference that, once such a self-defense is regarded as necessary, its form can reasonably exist only in a grouping of workers on a trade-union basis.

And in the year 1922 nothing changed in this general conception of mine. But now it was necessary to seek a clear and definite formulation of our attitude toward these problems. It was not acceptable to content ourselves in future with mere knowledge; it was necessary to draw practical inferences from it.

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We required the answer to the following questions:

1. Are trade unions necessary?

2. Should the NSDAP itself engage in trade-union activity or direct its members to such activity in any form?

3. What must be the nature of a National Socialist trade union? What are our tasks and aims?

4. How shall we arrive at such unions?

I believe that I have adequately answered the first question. As things stand today, the trade unions in my opinion cannot be dispensed with. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions of the nation's economic life. Their significance lies not only in the social and political field, but even more in the general field of national politics. A people whose broad masses, through a sound trade-union movement, obtain the satisfaction of their living requirements and at the same time an education, will be tremendously strengthened in its power of resistance in the struggle for existence.

Above all, the trade unions are necessary as foundation stones of the future economic parliament or chambers of estates.

The second question, too, is easy to answer. If the trade-union movement is important, it is clear that National Socialism must take a position on it, not only from the purely theoretical, but from the practical viewpoint as well. Yet, to be sure, the how of it is harder to clarify.

The National Socialist movement, which envisions the National Socialist folkish state as the aim of its activity, cannot doubt that all future institutions of this state some day to be must grow out of the movement itself. It is the greatest error to believe that suddenly, once we have power, we can undertake a definite reorganization out of the void, unless we previously possess a certain basic stock of men who above all have been educated with regard to loyalty. Here, too, the principle applies that more important than the outward form, which can be created mechanically and very quickly, remains the spirit which fills such a form. For instance, it is quite possible dictatorially to graft the leader principle on a state organism by command. But it will only be alive if it has gradually taken shape from smallest beginnings in a development of its own, and, by the constant selection which life's hard reality incessantly performs, has obtained in the course of many years the leader material necessary for the execution of this principle.

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And so we must not imagine that we can suddenly pull the plans for a new state form out of a briefcase into the light of day and 'introduce' them by decree from above. Such a thing can be attempted, but the result will surely be incapable of survival, in most cases a stillborn child. This reminds me of the beginning of the Weimar r¨¦gime and the attempt to present the German people with not only a new r¨¦gime, but a new flag which had no inner bond with the experience of our people in the last half century.

The National Socialist state must beware of such experiments. It can, when the time comes, only grow out of an organization that has long existed. This organization must possess National Socialist life innate within itself, in order to finally create a living National Socialist state.

As already emphasized, the germ cells for the economic chambers will have to reside in bodies representing the most varied occupations, hence above all in the trade unions. And if this future body representing the estates and the central economic parliament are to constitute a National Socialist institution, these important germ cells must also embody a National Socialist attitude and conception. The institutions of the movement are to be transferred to the state, but the state cannot suddenly conjure up the required institutions from the void, unless they are to remain utterly lifeless structures.

From this highest standpoint alone, the National Socialist movement must recognize the necessity of a trade-union activity of its own.

It must, furthermore, do so because a truly National Socialist education of employers as well as workers, in the sense of an integration of both into the common framework of the national community, does not come about through theoretical instruction, proclamations, or remonstrances, but through the struggle of daily life. In it and through it the movement must educate the various great economic groups and bring them closer to one another on the main issues. Without such preliminary work, all hope that a true national community will some day arise remains pure illusion. Only the great philosophical ideal for which the movement fights can slowly form that universal style which will some day make the new era seem really solidly founded within, and not just outwardly manufactured.

And so the movement must not only take an affirmative attitude toward the idea of the trade union as such, but it must by practical participation impart to the multitudes of its members and supporters the necessary education for the coming National Socialist state.

The answer to the third question follows from what has previously been said.

The National Socialist trade union is no organ of class struggle, but an organ for representing occupational interests. The National Socialist state knows no 'classes,' but politically speaking only citizens with absolutely equal rights and accordingly equal general duties, and, alongside of these, state subjects who in the political sense are absolutely without rights.

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The trade union in the National Socialist sense does not have the function of grouping certain people within a national body and thus gradually transforming them into a class, to take up the fight against other similarly organized formations. We can absolutely not impute this function to the trade union as such; it became so only in the moment when the trade union became the instrument of Marxist struggle. Not the trade union is characterized by class struggle; Marxism has made it an instrument for the Marxist class struggle. Marxism created the economic weapon which the international world Jew uses for shattering the economic base of the free, independent national states, for the destruction of their national industry and their national commerce and, accordingly, the enslavement of free peoples in the service of supra-state world finance Jewry.

In the face of this, the National Socialist trade union must, by organizationally embracing certain groups of participants in the national economic process, increase the security of the national economy itself and intensify its strength by the corrective elimination of all those abuses which in their ultimate consequences have a destructive effect on the national body, injure the vital force of the national community, and hence also of the state, and last but not least redound to the wrack and ruin of the economy itself.

Hence, for the National Socialist union the strike is not a means for shattering and shaking national production, but for enhancing it and making it run smoothly by combating all those abuses which, due to their unsocial character, interfere with the efficiency of the economy and hence the existence of the totality. For the efficiency of the individual always stands in a casual connection with the general legal and social position that he occupies in the economic process and with his understanding, resulting from this alone, of the necessity that this process thrive for his own advantage.

The National Socialist worker must know that the prosperity of the national economy means his own material happiness.

The National Socialist employer must know that the happiness and contentment of his workers is the premise for the existence and development of his own economic greatness.

National Socialist workers and National Socialist employers are both servants and guardians of the national community as a whole. The high degree of personal freedom that is granted them in their activity can be explained by the fact that, as experience shows, the efficiency of the individual is increased much more by far-reaching freedom than by compulsion from above, and, furthermore, it is calculated to prevent the natural process of selection, which advances the most efficient, capable, and industrious from being thwarted.

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For the National Socialist union, therefore, the strike is an instrument which may and actually must be applied only so long as a National Socialist folkish state does not exist. This state, to be sure must, in place of the mass struggle of the two great groups - employers and workers - (which in its consequences always injures the national community as a whole by diminishing production) assume the legal care and the legal protection of all. Upon the economic chambers themselves it will be incumbent to keep the national economy functioning and eliminate the deficiencies and errors which damage it. The things for which millions fight and struggle today must in time be settled in the chambers of estates and the central economic parliament. Then employers and workers will not rage against one another in struggles over pay and wage scales, damaging the economic existence of both, but solve these problems jointly in a higher instance, which must above all constantly envision the welfare of the people as a whole and of the state, in gleaming letters.

Here, too, as everywhere, the iron principle must prevail that first comes the fatherland and then the party.

The function of the National Socialist union is the education and preparation for this aim itself, which is: All working together for the preservation and safeguarding of our people and our state, in accordance with the abilities and strength innate in the individual and trained by the national community.

The fourth question: How do we arrive at such unions? seemed at the time by far the hardest to answer.

It is in general easier to found an institution on new soil than in an old territory that already possesses a similar institution. In a town where no store of a certain type is present, it is easy to establish such a store. It is harder when a similar enterprise already is present, and hardest of all when the conditions are such that only one alone can prosper. For here the founders face the task of not only introducing their own business, but they must, in order to exist, destroy the one that has previously existed in the town.

A National Socialist union side by side with other unions is senseless. For it, too, must feel itself permeated by its philosophical task and the resultant obligation to be intolerant of other similar, let alone hostile, formations and to emphasize the exclusive necessity of its own ego. Here, too, there is no understanding and no compromise with related efforts, but only the maintenance of our absolute sole right.

There were two ways of arriving at such a development:

(1) We could found a trade union and then gradually take up the struggle against the international Marxist unions; or we could

(2) penetrate the Marxist unions and try to fill them with the new spirit; in other words, transform them into instruments of the new ideology.

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To the first method there were the following objections: Our financial difficulties at that time were still very considerable, the means that stood at our disposal were quite insignificant. The gradually and increasingly spreading inflation made the situation even more difficult, since in those years one could hardly have spoken of any tangible benefit to the member from the trade union. The individual worker, viewed from his own standpoint, had no ground at that time to pay dues to the union. Even the already existing Marxist unions were on the point of collapse until suddenly, through Herr Cuno's brilliant Ruhr action, the millions fell into their lap. This so-called 'national' chancellor may be designated as the savior of the Marxist unions.

At that time we could not count on such financial possibilities; and it could allure no one to enter a new union which, owing to its financial impotence, could not have offered him the least benefit. On the other hand, I must sharply oppose creating such an organization as a soft spot for more or less great minds to take refuge in.

All in all, the question of personalities played one of the most important parts. At that time I had not a single personality whom I would have held capable of solving this gigantic task. Anyone who at that time would really have shattered the Marxist unions, and in place of this institution of destructive class struggle, helped the National Socialist trade-union idea to victory, was among the very great men of our people, and his bust would some day have had to be dedicated to posterity in the Valhalla at Regensburg.

But I did not know of any head that would have fitted such a pedestal.

It is absolutely wrong to be diverted from this view by the fact that the international trade unions themselves have only average minds at their disposal. This in reality means nothing at all; for at the time when they were founded, there was nothing else. Today the National Socialist movement must combat a colossal gigantic organization which has long been in existence, and which is developed down to the slightest detail. The conqueror must always be more astute than the defender if he wants to subdue him. The Marxist trade-union fortress can today be administered by ordinary bosses; but it will only be stormed by the wild energy and shining ability of an outstanding great man on the other side. If such a man is not found, it is useless to argue with Fate and even more useless to attempt forcing the matter with inadequate substitutes.

Here we must apply the maxim that in life it is sometimes better to let a thing lie for the present than to begin it badly or by halves for want of suitable forces.

There was also another consideration which should not be designated as demagogic. I had at that time and still possess today the unshakable conviction that it is dangerous to tie up a great politico-philosophical struggle with economic matters at too early a time. This is particularly true with our German people. For here, in such a case, the economic struggle will at once withdraw the energy from the political struggle. Once people have won the conviction that by thrift they can acquire a little house, they will dedicate themselves only to this task and will have no more time to spare for the political struggle against those who are planning to take away their saved-up pennies some day in one way or another. Instead of fighting in the political struggle for the insight and conviction they have won, they give themselves up entirely to their idea of 'settlement,' and in the end as a rule find themselves holding the bag.

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The National Socialist movement today stands at the beginning of its struggle. In large part it has still to form and complete its philosophical picture. It must fight with all the fiber of its energy for the accomplishment of its great ideas, and success is thinkable only if all its strength goes completely into the service of this fight.

To what an extent concern with purely economic problems can paralyze active fighting strength, we can see at this very moment in a classical example:

The revolution of November, 1918, was not made by trade unions, but was accomplished against them. And the German bourgeoisie is carrying on no political struggle for the German future because it believes this future to be sufficiently guaranteed by the constructive work in the economic sphere.

We should learn from such experiences; for it would be no different with us. The more we muster the entire strength of our movement for the political struggle, the sooner may we count on success all along the line; but the more we prematurely burden ourselves with trade-union, settlement, and similar problems, the smaller will be the benefit for our cause taken as a whole. For important as these matters may be, their fulfillment will only occur on a large scale, when we are in a position to put the state power into the service of these ideas. Until then, these problems would paralyze the movement all the more, the sooner it concerned itself with them and the more its philosophical will was limited by them. Then it might easily come about that trade-union motives would guide the movement instead of the philosophy forcing the trade union into its channels.

Real benefit for the movement as well as our people can only arise from a trade-union movement, if philosophically this movement is already so strongly filled with our National Socialist ideas that it no longer runs the risk of falling into Marxist tracks. For a trade-union movement which sees its mission only in competition with the Marxist unions would be worse than none at all. It must declare war on the Marxist union, not only as an organization, but above all as an idea. In the Marxist union it must strike down the herald of the class struggle and the class idea and in its stead must become the protector of the occupational interests of German citizens.

All these criteria then argued and still argue against the foundation of our own trade unions, unless suddenly a man should appear who is obviously chosen by Fate for the solution of this very question.

And so there were only two other possibilities: either to recommend that our own party comrades leave the unions, or that they remain in them and work as destructively as possible.

In general I recommended this latter way.

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Especially in the year 1922-23 this could be done without difficulty; for the financial benefit which during the inflation period accrued to the trade union from our members in their ranks, who due to the youth of our movement were not yet very numerous, was practically nil. But the damage to it was very great, for the National Socialist supporters were its sharpest critics and thus its inner disrupters.

At that time I totally rejected all experiments which contained the seeds of failure to begin with. I would have viewed it as a crime to take so and so much of a worker's meager earnings for an institution of whose benefit to its members I was at heart not convinced.

If one fine day a new political party disappears, it is scarcely ever a loss but almost always a benefit, and no one has any right to moan about it; for what the individual gives to a political movement, he gives ¨¤ fonds perdu. But anyone who pays money into a union has a right to the fulfillment of the promised return services. If this is not taken into account, the leaders of such a union are swindlers, or at least frivolous characters who must be called to account.

And in 1922 we acted according to this view. Others thought they knew better and founded trade unions. They attacked our lack of unions as the most visible sign of our mistaken and limited views. But it was not long before these organizations themselves vanished, so that the final result was the same as with us. Only with the one difference, that we had deceived neither ourselves nor others.

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End of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 12: THE TRADE-UNION QUESTION

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Begin of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 13: GERMAN ALLIANCE POLICY AFTER THE WAR

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THE HEEDLESSNESS OF THE LEADERS of the Reich's foreign policy when it came to establishing basic principles for an expedient alliance policy was not only continued after the revolution but was even exceeded. For if before the War general confusion of political concepts could be regarded as the cause of our faulty leadership in foreign policy, after the War it was a lack of honorable intentions. It was natural that the circles who saw their destructive aims finally achieved by the revolution could possess no interest in an alliance policy whose final result would inevitably be the re-establishment of a free German state. Not only that such a development would have run counter to the inner sense of the November crime, not only that it would have interrupted or actually ended the internationalization of the German economy: but also the domestic political effects resulting from a victorious fight for freedom in the field of foreign policy would in the future have meant doom for the present holders of power in the Reich. For the resurrection of a nation is not conceivable without its preceding nationalization, as, conversely, every great success in the sphere of foreign affairs inevitably produces reactions in the same direction. Every fight for freedom, as experience shows, leads to an intensification of national sentiment, of self-reliance, and hence also to a sharper sensibility toward anti-national elements and tendencies. Conditions and persons who are tolerated in peaceable times, who often, in fact, pass unnoticed, are not only rebuffed in times of seething national enthusiasm, but encounter a resistance that is not seldom fatal to them. Just recall, for example, the general fear of spies which at the outbreak of wars suddenly bursts forth in the fever heat of human passions and leads to the most brutal, sometimes even unjust persecutions, though everyone might tell himself that the danger of spies will be greater in the long years of a peaceful period, even though, for obvious reasons, it does not receive general attention to the same extent.

For this reason alone the subtle instinct of the government parasites washed to the surface by the November events senses that an uprising of our people for freedom, supported by an intelligent alliance policy and the resultant outburst of national passions, would mean the possible end of their own criminal existence.

Thus, it becomes understandable why the government authorities in power since 1918 have failed us in the field of foreign affairs and why the leaders of the state have almost always worked systematically against the real interests of the German nation. For what at first sight might appear planless is revealed on closer examination as merely the logical continuation of the road which the November revolution for the first time openly trod.

Here, to be sure, we must distinguish between the responsible or rather 'should-be-responsible' leaders of our state affairs, the average parliamentary politicasters, and the great stupid sheep's herd of patient lamblike people.

The first know what they want. The others play along, either because they know it or are too cowardly to ruthlessly oppose what they have recognized and felt to be harmful. And the others submit from incomprehension and stupidity.

As long as the National Socialist German Workers' Party possessed only the scope of a small and little known club, problems of foreign policy could possess only a subordinate importance in the eyes of many adherents. This especially because our movement in particular has always upheld and must always uphold the conception that external freedom comes neither as a gift from heaven nor from earthly powers, but can only be the fruit of development of inner strength. Only the elimination of the causes of our collapse, as well as the destruction of its beneficiaries can create the premise for our outward fight for freedom.

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And so it is understandable if, due to such considerations, in the first period of the young movement the value of questions of foreign policy was set below the importance of its domestic reform plans.

But once the limits of the small, insignificant club were broadened and finally broken, and the young formation obtained the importance of a big organization, the necessity arose of taking a position on the questions pertaining to the developments in foreign affairs. It became necessary to lay down guiding principles which would not only not contradict the fundamental view of our world concept, but actually represent an emanation of this line of thought.

Precisely from our people's lack of schooling in foreign affairs, there results for the young movement an obligation to transmit to the individual leaders as well as the great masses through broad guiding principles a line of thought in matters of foreign policy, which is the premise for any practical execution in the future of the preparations in the field of foreign policy for the work of recovering the freedom of our people as well as a real sovereignty of the Reich.

The essential fundamental and guiding principle, which we must always bear in mind in judging this question, is that foreign policy is only a means to an end, and that the end is solely the promotion of our own nationality. No consideration of foreign policy can proceed from any other criterion than this: Does it benefit our nationality now or in the future, or will it be injurious to it?

This is the sole preconceived opinion permissible in dealing with this question. Partisan, religious humanitarian, and all other criteria in general, are completely irrelevant.

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If before the War the task of a German foreign policy was to safeguard the sustenance of our people and its children on this globe by the preparation of the roads that can lead to this goal, as well as the winning of the necessary helpers in the form of expedient allies, today it is the same, with the single difference: Before the War, it was a question of helping to preserve the German nationality, taking into account the existing strength of the independent power state, today it is necessary first to restore to the nation its strength in the form of a free power state, which is the premise for the subsequent implementation of a practical foreign policy which will preserve, promote, and sustain our people for the future.

In other words: The aim of a German foreign policy of today must be the preparation for the reconquest of freedom for tomorrow.

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And here a fundamental principle must always be kept in mind: The possibility of regaining independence for a nationality is not absolutely bound up with the integrity of a state territory, but rather with the existence of a remnant, even though small, of this people and state, which, in possession of the necessary freedom, not only can embody the spiritual community of the whole nationality, but also can prepare the military fight for freedom.

When a nation of a hundred million people, in order to preserve its state integrity, suffers the yoke of slavery in common; it is worse than if such a state and such a people had been shattered and only a part of them remained in possession of full freedom. On condition, to be sure, that this last remnant were filled with the holy mission of not only proclaiming its spiritual and cultural inseparability, but also of accomplishing the military preparation for the final liberation and reunion of the unfortunate oppressed portions.

It should further be borne in mind that the question of regaining lost sections of a people's and state's territory is always primarily a question of regaining the political power and independence of the mother country; that, therefore, in such a case the interests of lost territories must be ruthlessly subordinated to the interest of regaining the freedom of the main territory. For the liberation of oppressed, separated splinters of a nationality or of provinces of a country does not take place on the basis of a desire on the part of the oppressed people or of a protest on the part of those left behind, but through the implements of power of those remnants of the former common fatherland that are still more or less sovereign.

Therefore, the presupposition for the gaining of lost territories is the intensive promotion and strengthening of the remaining remnant state and the unshakable decision slumbering in the heart to dedicate the new force thus arising to the freedom and unification of the entire nationality in the proper hour: therefore, subordination of the interests of the separated territories to the single interest of winning for the remaining remnant that measure of political power and strength which is the precondition for a correction of the will of hostile victors. For oppressed territories are led back to the bosom of a common Reich, not by flaming protests, but by a mighty sword.

To forge this sword is the task of a country's internal political leadership; to safeguard the work of forging and seek comrades in arms is the function of diplomatic leadership.

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In the first volume of this work I have discussed the halfheartedness of our alliance policy before the War. Of the four roads to a future preservation of our nationality and its sustenance, the fourth and least favorable was chosen. In place of a healthy European land policy, a colonial and commercial policy was chosen. This was all the more fallacious as it was thought that an armed settlement could in this way be avoided. The result of this attempt to sit on several chairs was the proverbial fall between them, and the World War was only the last reckoning submitted the Reich for its faulty conduct of foreign affairs.

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The correct road would even then have been the third: a strengthening of our continental power by gaining new soil in Europe, and precisely this seemed to place a completion by later acquisitions of colonial territory within the realm of the naturally possible. This policy, to be sure, could only have been carried out in alliance with England or with so abnormal an emphasis on the military implements of power that for forty or fifty years cultural tasks would have been forced into the background. This would have been quite justifiable. The cultural importance of a nation is almost always bound up with its political freedom and independence; therefore, the latter is the presupposition for the existence, or, better, the establishment, of the former. Therefore, no sacrifice can be too great for the securing of political freedom. What general cultural matters lose through an excessive promotion of the state's implements of military power, it will later be possible to restore most abundantly. Yes, it may be said that, after such a concentrated exertion in the sole direction of preserving state independence, a certain relaxation or compensation customarily ensues in the form of a really amazing golden age of the hitherto neglected cultural forces of a nation. From the hardships of the Persian Wars arose the Age of Pericles, and through the cares of the Punic Wars the Roman state began to dedicate itself to the service of a higher culture.

To be sure, such a complete subordination of all a nation's other interests to the sole task of preparing a coming contest of arms for the future security of the state cannot be entrusted to the decision of a majority of parliamentary idiots or good-for-nothings. The father of a Frederick the Great was able to prepare for a contest of arms, disregarding all other concerns, but the fathers of our democratic parliamentary nonsense of the Jewish variety cannot do so.

For this very reason the military preparation for an acquisition of land and soil in Europe could be only a limited one, and the support of suitable allies could hardly be dispensed with.

Since, however, our leaders wanted to know nothing of a systematic preparation for war,. they renounced the acquisition of land in Europe and, by turning instead to a colonial and commercial policy, sacrificed the alliance with England which would otherwise have been possible, but did not, as would have been logical, seek the support of Russia, and finally, forsaken by all except the Habsburg hereditary evil, stumbled into the World War.

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In characterizing our present foreign policy, it must be said that there exists no visible or even intelligible line. Before the War the fourth road was erroneously taken, and that pursued only by halves, while since the revolution no road at all has been discernible, even to the sharpest eye. Even more than before the War, any systematic thought is lacking, except perhaps an attempt to smash the last possibility of a resurrection of our people.

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A cool appraisal of the present European relations of power leads to the following conclusion:

For three hundred years the history of our continent has been basically determined by the attempt of England to obtain the necessary protection in the rear for great British aims in world politics, indirectly through balanced, mutually interlocking relations of power.

The traditional tendency of British diplomacy, which in Germany can only be compared with the tradition of the Prussian army, was, since the efforts of Queen Elizabeth, directed solely toward preventing by all possible means the rise of any European great power above its place in the general hierarchy, and, if possible, to break it by military intervention. The instruments of power which England was accustomed to apply in this case varied according to the existing or presented task; but the determination and will power for using them were always the same. Indeed, the more difficult England's situation became in the course of time, the more necessary it seemed to the leaders of the British Empire to keep the individual state powers of Europe in a state of general paralysis resulting from mutual rivalries. The political separation of the former North American colonial territory led, in the ensuing period, to the greatest exertions to keep the European rear absolutely covered. And so - after the destruction of Spain and the Netherlands as great sea powers - the strength of the English was concentrated against aspiring France until finally, with the fall of Napoleon, the danger to England of this most dangerous military power's hegemony could be regarded as broken.

The shift of British policy against Germany was undertaken only slowly, not only because, due to the lack of a national unification of the German nation, a visible danger for England did not exist, but also because public opinion, prepared by propaganda for a particular political goal, is slow in following new aims. The sober knowledge of the statesman seems transposed into emotional values which are not only more fruitful in their momentary efficacy, but also more stable with regard to duration. Therefore the statesman, after achieving one purpose, can without further ado turn his thought processes toward new goals, but it will be possible to transform the masses emotionally into an instrument of their leader's new view only by slow propagandist efforts.

As early as 1870-71, England had meanwhile formulated her new position. Fluctuations which occurred at times, due to the importance of America in world economy as well as Russia's development as a political power, were unfortunately not utilized by Germany, so that a steady intensification of the original tendency in British statesmanship was bound to result.

England saw in Germany the power whose importance in commercial and hence in world politics, not least as a result of her enormous industrialization, was increasing to such a menacing extent that the strength of the two states in identical fields could already be balanced. The 'peaceful, economic' conquest of the world which to the helmsmen of our state seemed the highest emanation of the ultimate wisdom, became for the English politicians the ground for the organization of resistance against us. That this resistance assumed the form of a comprehensively organized attack was fully in keeping with the essence of a diplomacy whose aims did not lie in the preservation of a questionable world peace, but in the reinforcement of British world domination. That England used as allies all states which were in any way possible in the military sense was equally in keeping with her traditional caution in the estimation of the adversary's strength as with the appreciation of her own momentary weakness. This can, therefore, not be characterized as 'unscrupulousness,' because such a comprehensive organization of a war is to be judged by criteria, not of heroism, but of expediency. Diplomacy must see to it that a people does not heroically perish, but is practically preserved. Every road that leads to this is then expedient, and not taking it must be characterized as criminal neglect of duty.

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With the revolutionization of Germany, the British concern over a threatening Germanic world hegemony found an end, to the relief of British statesmen.

Since then England has had no further interest in the complete effacement of Germany from the map of Europe. On the contrary, the terrible collapse which occurred in the November days of 1918 placed British diplomacy in a new situation which at first was not even considered possible.

For four and a half years the British world empire had fought in order to break the supposed preponderance of a continental power. Now suddenly a crash occurred which seemed to remove this power entirely from the picture. There was manifested such an absence of even the most primitive instinct of self-preservation that the European balance seemed thrown off its hinges by an action of scarcely forty-eight hours: Germany destroyed and France the first continental power of Europe.

The enormous propaganda which had made the British people persevere and hold out in this war, which recklessly incited them and stirred up all their deepest instincts and passions, now inevitably weighed like lead on the decisions of British statesmen. With the colonial, economic, and commercial destruction of Germany, the British war aim was achieved; anything beyond this was a curtailment of English interests. Through wiping out a German power state in continental Europe, only the enemies of England could gain. Nevertheless, in the November days of 1918 and up to midsummer of 1919, a reorientation of English diplomacy, which in this long war more than ever before had used up the emotional powers of the great masses, was no longer possible. It was not possible from the viewpoint of the existing attitude of their own people, and was not possible in view of the disposition of the military relation of forces. France had seized upon the law of action and could dictate to the others. The single power, however, which in these months of haggling and bargaining might have brought about a change, Germany herself, lay in the convulsions of inner civil war and only kept on proclaiming, through the mouth of her so-called statesmen, her readiness to accept any dictate whatsoever.

Now, if in the life of peoples, a nation, in consequence of its total lack of an instinct of self-preservation, ceases to be a possible 'active' ally, she customarily sinks to the level of a slave nation and her land succumbs to the fate of a colony.

Precisely to prevent France's power from becoming excessive, a participation of England in her predatory lusts was the sole possible form for England herself.

Actually England did not achieve her war aim. The rise of a European power above the relations of forces of the continental state system of Europe was not only not prevented but was given increased support.

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