Lies being taught;
Mein Kampf is unintelligible ravings of a
maniac.
Now the
Truth; Read and know. VOLUME
II: Ch IIa THE STATE
Already in 1920-1921
certain circles belonging to the effete bourgeois class accused our movement
again and again of taking up a negative attitude towards the modern State. For
that reason the motley gang of camp followers attached to the various political
parties, representing a heterogeneous conglomeration of political views,
assumed the right of utilizing all available means to suppress the protagonists
of this young movement which was preaching a new political gospel. Our opponents
deliberately ignored the fact that the bourgeois class itself stood for no
uniform opinion as to what the State really meant and that the bourgeoisie did
not and could not give any coherent definition of this institution. Those whose
duty it is to explain what is meant when we speak of the State, hold chairs in
State universities, often in the department of constitutional law, and consider
it their highest duty to find explanations and justifications for the more or
less fortunate existence of that particular form of State which provides them
with their daily bread. The more absurd such a form of State is the more obscure
and artificial and incomprehensible are the definitions which are advanced to
explain the purpose of its existence. What, for instance, could a royal and
imperial university professor write about the meaning and purpose of a State in
a country whose statal form represented the greatest monstrosity of the
twentieth century? That would be a difficult undertaking indeed, in view of the
fact that the contemporary professor of constitutional law is obliged not so
much to serve the cause of truth but rather to serve a certain definite
purpose. And this purpose is to defend at all costs the existence of that
monstrous human mechanism which we now call the State. Nobody can be surprised
if concrete facts are evaded as far as possible when the problem of the State
is under discussion and if professors adopt the tactics of concealing
themselves in morass of abstract values and duties and purposes which are
described as 'ethical' and 'moral'.
Generally speaking,
these various theorists may be classed in three groups:
1. Those who hold that
the State is a more or less voluntary association of men who have agreed to set
up and obey a ruling authority.
This is numerically
the largest group. In its ranks are to be found those who worship our present
principle of legalized authority. In their eyes the will of the people has no
part whatever in the whole affair. For them the fact that the State exists is
sufficient reason to consider it sacred and inviolable. To accept this
aberration of the human brain one would have to have a sort of canine adoration
for what is called the authority of the State. In the minds of these people the
means is substituted for the end, by a sort of sleight-of-hand movement. The
State no longer exists for the purpose of serving men but men exist for the
purpose of adoring the authority of the State, which is vested in its
functionaries, even down to the smallest official. Therewith it is no longer
either a means or an end. The State must see that public peace and order are
preserved and, in their turn, order and peace must make the existence of the
State possible. All life must move between these two poles.
2. The second group is
somewhat smaller in numbers. It includes those who would make the existence of
the State dependent on some conditions at least. They insist that not only
should there be a uniform system of government but also, if possible, that only
one language should be used, though solely for technical reasons of
administration. In this view the authority of the State is no longer the sole
and exclusive end for which the State exists. It must also promote the good of
its subjects. Ideas of 'freedom', mostly based on a misunderstanding of the
meaning of that word, enter into the concept of the State as it exists in the
minds of this group. In this view the first duty laid upon the State is to
guarantee the economic well-being of the individual citizens. Hence it is
judged from the practical standpoint and according to general principles based
on the idea of economic returns.
3. The third group is
numerically the smallest. In the State they discover a means for the
realization of tendencies that arise from a policy of power, on the part of a
people who are ethnically homogeneous and speak the same language. A common
language is postulated not only because they hope that thereby the State would
be furnished with a solid basis for the extension of its power outside its own
frontiers, but also because they think—though falling into a fundamental error
by doing so--that such a common language would enable them to carry out a
process of nationalization in a definite direction.
During the last
century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in
these circles I have just mentioned the word 'Germanization' was frivolously
played with, though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how
in the days of my youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false
to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion
expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the
Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those
people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only
as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was a process
of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost
inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a
Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German language and is
willing to speak German for the future, and even to cast his vote for a German
political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a
process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all the outstanding
and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and
finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process
of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the
annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened
only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling
the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that
after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that
thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.
In this third group
also there are people who, to a certain degree, consider the State as an end in
itself. Hence they consider its preservation as one of the highest aims of
human existence. Our analysis may be summed up as follows:
All these opinions
have this common feature and failing: that they are not grounded in a
recognition of the profound truth that the capacity for creating cultural
values is essentially based on the racial element and that, in accordance with
this fact, the paramount purpose of the State is to preserve and improve the
race; for this is an indispensable condition of all progress in human
civilization.
By eliminating from
the concept of the State all thought of the obligation which the State bears
towards the volk, without finding any other formula that might be universally
accepted, the bourgeois teaching prepared the way for that doctrine which
rejects the State as such.
The fundamental
principle is that the State is not an end in itself but the means to an end. It
is the preliminary condition under which alone a higher form of human
civilization can be developed, but it is not the source of such a development.
This is to be sought exclusively in the actual existence of a race which is
endowed with the gift of cultural creativeness.
If, for instance, the
surface of the globe should be shaken to-day by some seismic convulsion and if
a new Himalaya would emerge from the waves of the sea, this one catastrophe
alone might annihilate human civilization. No State could exist any longer. Nothing
would be left but one tremendous field of death and destruction submerged in
floods of water and mud. If, however, just a few people would survive this terrible
havoc, and if these people belonged to a definite race that had the innate
powers to build up a civilization, when the commotion had passed, the earth
would again bear witness to the creative power of the human spirit, even though
a span of a thousand years might intervene. Only with the extermination of the
last race that possesses the gift of cultural creativeness, and indeed only if
all the individuals of that race had disappeared, would the earth definitely be
turned into a desert. On the other hand, modern history furnishes examples to
show that statal institutions which owe their beginnings to members of a race which
lacks creative genius are not made of stuff that will endure. Just as many
varieties of prehistoric animals had to give way to others and leave no trace
behind them, so man will also have to give way, if he loses that definite
faculty which enables him to find the weapons that are necessary for him to
maintain his own existence.
It is not the State as
such that brings about a certain definite advance in cultural progress. The
State can only protect the race that is the cause of such progress. The State
as such may well exist without undergoing any change for hundreds of years,
though the cultural faculties and the general life of the people, which is
shaped by these faculties, may have suffered profound changes by reason of the
fact that the State did not prevent a process of racial mixture from taking
place. The present State, for instance, may continue to exist in a mere mechanical
form, but the poison of miscegenation permeating the national body brings about
a cultural decadence which manifests itself already in various symptoms that
are of a detrimental character.
From these facts the
following conclusions may be drawn:
The State is only a
means to an end. Its end and its purpose is to preserve and promote a community
of human beings who are physically as well as spiritually kindred. Above all,
it must preserve the existence of the race, thereby providing the indispensable
condition for the free development of all the forces dormant in this race.
Those States which do
not serve this purpose have no justification for their existence. They are
monstrosities. The fact that they do exist is no more of a justification than
the successful raids carried out by a band of pirates can be considered a
justification of piracy.
We National
Socialists, who are fighting for a new WELTANSCHAUUNG, must never take our
stand on the famous 'basis of facts', and especially not on mistaken facts. If
we did so, we should cease to be the protagonists of a new and great idea and
would become slaves in the service of the fallacy which is dominant to-day. We
must make a clear-cut distinction between the vessel and its contents. The
State is only the vessel and the race is what it contains. The vessel can have
a meaning only if it preserves and safeguards the contents. Otherwise it is
worthless.
When we speak of the
high mission of the State we must not forget that the high mission belongs to
the people and that the business of the State is to use its organizing powers
for the purpose of furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this people
freely to unfold its creative faculties. And if we ask what kind of statal institution
we Germans need, we must first have a clear notion as to the people which that
State must embrace and what purpose it must serve.
Unfortunately the
German national being is not based on a uniform racial type. The process of
welding the original elements together has not gone so far as to warrant us in
saying that a new race has emerged. On the contrary, the poison which has
invaded the national body, especially since the Thirty Years' War, has
destroyed the uniform constitution not only of our blood but also of our
national soul. The open frontiers of our native country, the association with
non-German foreign elements in the territories that lie all along those
frontiers, and especially the strong influx of foreign blood into the interior
of the REICH itself, has prevented any complete assimilation of those various
elements, because the influx has continued steadily. Out of this melting-pot no
new race arose. The heterogeneous elements continue to exist side by side. And
the result is that, especially in times of crisis, when the herd usually flocks
together, the Germans disperse in all directions. The fundamental racial
elements are not only different in different districts, but there are also
various elements in the single districts. Beside the Nordic type we find the
East-European type, beside the Eastern there is the Dinaric, the Western type
intermingling with both, and hybrids among them all. That is a grave drawback
for us. Through it the Germans lack that strong herd instinct which arises from
unity of blood and saves nations from ruin in dangerous and critical times; because
on such occasions small differences disappear, so that a united herd faces the
enemy.
He who talks of the
German people as having a mission to fulfil on this earth must know that this
cannot be fulfilled except by the building up of a State whose highest purpose
is to preserve and promote those nobler elements of our race and of the whole
of mankind which have remained unimpaired.
Thus for the first
time a high inner purpose is accredited to the State. In face of the ridiculous
phrase that the State should do no more than act as the guardian of public
order and tranquillity, so that everybody can peacefully dupe everybody else,
it is given a very high mission indeed to preserve and encourage the highest
type of humanity which a beneficent Creator has bestowed on this earth. Out of
a dead mechanism which claims to be an end in itself a living organism shall
arise which has to serve one purpose exclusively: and that, indeed, a purpose
which belongs to a higher order of ideas.
As a State the German
REICH shall include all Germans. Its task is not only to gather in and foster
the most valuable sections of our people but to lead them slowly and surely to
a dominant position in the world.
Thus a period of
stagnation is superseded by a period of effort. And here, as in every other
sphere, the proverb holds good that to rest is to rust; and furthermore the
proverb that victory will always be won by him who attacks. The higher the
final goal which we strive to reach, and the less it be understood at the time
by the broad masses, the more magnificent will be its success. That is what the
lesson of history teaches. And the achievement will be all the more significant
if the end is conceived in the right way and the fight carried through with unswerving
persistence. Many of the officials who direct the affairs of State nowadays may
find it easier to work for the maintenance of the present order than to fight
for a new one. They will find it more comfortable to look upon the State as a
mechanism, whose only purpose is its own preservation. For these weak minds the
State and the authority of the State is nothing but an aim in itself.
Therefore, in the
fight for our new idea, which conforms completely to the primal meaning of
life, we shall find only a small number of comrades in a social order which has
become decrepit not only physically but mentally also. From these strata of our
population only a few exceptional people will join our ranks, only those few
old people whose hearts have remained young and whose courage is still
vigorous, but not those who consider it their duty to maintain the state of
affairs that exists. Against us we have the innumerable army of all those who
are lazy-minded and indifferent rather than evil, and those whose self-interest
leads them to uphold the present state of affairs. On the apparent hopelessness
of our great struggle is based the magnitude of our task and the possibilities
of success. A battle-cry which from the very start will scare off all the petty
spirits, or at least discourage them, will become the signal for a rally of all
those temperaments that are of the real fighting metal. And it must be clearly
recognized that if a highly energetic and active body of men emerge from a
nation and unite in the fight for one goal, thereby ultimately rising above the
inert masses of the people, this small percentage will become masters of the
whole. World history is made by minorities if these numerical minorities represent
in themselves the will and energy and initiative of the people as a whole.”
Adolf Hitler.
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