Lies being taught;
Mein Kampf is unintelligible ravings of a
maniac.
Now the Truth; Read and know.
CHAPTER XII - THE PROBLEM OF THE TRADE UNIONS-Part
1
Owing to the rapid growth of the movement, in
1922 we felt compelled to take a definite stand on a question which has not
been fully solved even yet.
In our efforts to discover the quickest and
easiest way for the movement to reach the heart of the broad masses we were
always confronted with the objection that the worker could never completely
belong to us while his interests in the purely vocational and economic sphere
were cared for by a political organization conducted by men whose principles
were quite different from ours.
That was quite a serious objection. The
general belief was that a workman engaged in some trade or other could not
exist if he did not belong to a trade union. Not only were his professional
interests thus protected but a guarantee of permanent employment was simply
inconceivable without membership in a trade union. The majority of the workers
were in the trades unions. Generally speaking, the unions had successfully
conducted the battle for the establishment of a definite scale of wages and had
concluded agreements which guaranteed the worker a steady income. Undoubtedly
the workers in the various trades benefited by the results of that campaign.
It was difficult to discuss this problem with
the average bourgeois employer. He had no understanding (or did not wish to
have any) for either the material or moral side of the question. Finally he
declared that his own economic interests were in principle opposed to every
kind of organization which joined together the workmen that were dependent on
him. Hence it was for the most part impossible to bring these bourgeois
employers to take an impartial view of the situation. Here, therefore, as in so
many other cases, it was necessary to appeal to disinterested outsiders. With a
little good will on their part, they could much more easily understand a state
of affairs which is of the highest importance for our present and future
existence.
In the first volume of this book I have
already expressed my views on the nature and purpose and necessity of trade
unions. There I took up the standpoint that unless measures are undertaken by
the State (usually futile in such cases) or a new ideal is introduced in our
education, which would change the attitude of the employer towards the worker,
no other course would be open to the latter except to defend his own interests
himself by appealing to his equal rights as a contracting party within the
economic sphere of the nation's existence. I stated further that this would
conform to the interests of the national community if thereby social injustices
could be redressed which otherwise would cause serious damage to the whole
social structure. I stated, moreover, that the worker would always find it
necessary to undertake this protective action as long as there were men among
the employers who had no sense of their social obligations nor even of the most
elementary human rights.
This was my general idea and it remained the
same in 1922. But a clear and precise formula was still to be discovered. We
could not be satisfied with merely understanding the problem. It was necessary
to come to some conclusions that could be put into practice. The following
questions had to be answered:
(1)
Are trade unions necessary?
(2) Should the German National Socialist
Labour Party itself operate on a trade unionist basis or have its members take
part in trade unionist activities in some form or other?
(3) What form should a National Socialist
Trades Union take? What are the tasks confronting us and the ends we must try
to attain?
(4) How can we establish trade unions for
such tasks and aims?
I think that I have already answered the
first question adequately. In the present state of affairs I am convinced that
we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are
among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. For
when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a
just trade unionist movement. Before
everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building stones for the
future economic parliament, which will be made up of chambers representing the
various professions and occupations.
The second question is also easy to answer.
If the trade unionist movement is important, then it is clear that National
Socialism ought to take a definite stand on that question, not only
theoretically but also in practice. But how? That is more difficult to see
clearly. The National Socialist Movement, which aims at establishing the
National Socialist People's State, must always bear steadfastly in mind the principle
that every future institution under that State must be rooted in the movement
itself. It is a great mistake to believe that by acquiring possession of
supreme political power we can bring about a
definite reorganization, suddenly starting
from nothing, without the help of a certain reserve stock of men who have been
trained beforehand, in the spirit of the movement. The leadership principle may
be imposed on an organized political community in a dictatorial way. But this
principle can become a living reality only by passing through the stages that
are necessary for its own evolution. These stages lead from the smallest cell
of the State organism upwards. As its bearers and representatives, the
leadership principle must have a body of men who have passed through a process
of selection lasting over several years, who have been tempered by the hard
realities of life and thus rendered capable of carrying the principle into practical
effect.
The National Socialist State must guard
against all such experiments. It must grow out of an organization which has
already existed for a long time. This organization must possess National
Socialist life in itself, so that finally it may be able to establish a
National Socialist State that will be a living reality.
As I have already said, the germ cells of
this State must lie in the administrative chambers which will represent the
various occupations and professions, first of all in the trades unions. Looking
at the matter from the highest standpoint, the National Socialist Movement will
have to recognize the necessity of adopting its own trade-unionist policy.
It must do this for a further reason, namely
because a real National Socialist education for the employer as well as for the
employee, in the spirit of a mutual co-operation within the common framework of
the national community, cannot be secured by theoretical instruction, appeals
and exhortations, but through the struggles of daily life. In this spirit and
through this spirit the movement must educate the several large economic groups
and bring them closer to one another under a wider outlook. Without this
preparatory work it would be sheer illusion to hope that a real national community
can be brought into existence. The great ideal represented by its philosophy of
life and for which the movement fights can alone form a general style of
thought steadily and slowly. And this style will show that the new state of
things rests on foundations that are internally sound and not merely an
external façade.
Hence the movement must adopt a positive
attitude towards the trade-unionist idea. But it must go further than this. For
the enormous number of members and followers of the trade-unionist movement it
must provide a practical education which will meet the exigencies of the coming
National Socialist State. The answer to
the third question follows from what has been already said.
The National Socialist Trades Union is not an
instrument for class warfare, but a representative organ of the various
occupations and callings. The National Socialist State recognizes no 'classes'.
But, under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely
equal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by side
with these, it recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rights
whatsoever.
According to the National Socialist concept,
it is not the task of the trades union to band together certain men within the
national community and thus gradually transform these men into a class, so as
to use them in a conflict against other groups similarly organized within the
national community. We certainly cannot assign this task to the trades union as
such. This was the task assigned to it the moment it became a fighting weapon
in the hands of the Marxists. The trades union is not naturally an instrument
of class warfare; but the Marxists transformed it into an instrument for use in
their own class struggle. They created the economic weapon which the
international Marxists uses for the purpose of destroying the economic
foundations of free and independent national States, for ruining their national
industry and trade and thereby enslaving free nations to serve Jewish
world-finance, which transcends all State boundaries.
In contradistinction to this, the National
Socialist Trades Union must organize definite groups and those who participate
in the economic life of the nation and thus enhance the security of the
national economic system itself, reinforcing it by the elimination of all those
anomalies which ultimately exercise a destructive influence on the social body
of the nation, damaging the vital forces of the national community, prejudicing
the welfare of the State and, by no means as a last consequence, bringing evil
and destruction on economic life itself.
Therefore in the hands of the National
Socialist Trades Union the strike is not an instrument for disturbing and
dislocating the national production, but for increasing it and making it run
smoothly, by fighting against all those annoyances which by reason of their
unsocial character hinder efficiency in business and thereby hamper the
existence of the whole nation. For individual efficiency stands always in
casual relation to the general social and juridical position of the individual in
the economic process. Individual efficiency is also the sole root of the
conviction that the economic prosperity of the nation must necessarily redound
to the benefit of the individual citizen.
The National Socialist employee will have to
recognize the fact that the economic prosperity of the nation brings with it
his own material happiness.
The National Socialist employer must
recognize that the happiness and contentment of his employees are necessary
pre-requisites for the existence and development of his own economic
prosperity.
National Socialist workers and employers are
both together the delegates and mandatories of the whole national community.
The large measure of personal freedom which is accorded to them for their
activities must be explained by the fact that experience has shown that the
productive powers of the individual are more enhanced by being accorded a
generous measure of freedom than by coercion from above. Moreover, by according
this freedom we give free play to the natural process of selection which brings
forward the ablest and most capable and most industrious. For the National
Socialist Trades Union, therefore, the strike is a means that may, and indeed
must, be resorted to as long as there is not a National Socialist State yet.
But when that State is established it will, as a matter of course, abolish the
mass struggle between the two great groups made up of employers and employees
respectively, a struggle which has always resulted in lessening the national
production and injuring the national community. In place of this struggle, the
National Socialist State will take over the task of caring for and defending
the rights of all parties concerned. It will be the duty of the Economic
Chamber itself to keep the national economic system in smooth working order and
to remove whatever defects or errors it may suffer from. Questions that are now
fought over through a quarrel that involves millions of people will then be
settled in the Representative Chambers of Trades and Professions and in the
Central Economic Parliament. Thus employers and employees will no longer find
themselves drawn into a mutual conflict over wages and hours of work, always to
the detriment of their mutual interests. But they will solve these problems
together on a higher plane, where the welfare of the national community and of
the State will be as a shining ideal to throw light on all their negotiations.
Here again, as everywhere else, the
inflexible principle must be observed, that the interests of the country must
come before party interests.
The task of the National Socialist Trades
Union will be to educate and prepare its members to conform to these ideals.
That task may be stated as follows: All must work together for the maintenance
and security of our people and the People's State, each one according to the
abilities and powers with which Nature has endowed him and which have been developed
and trained by the national community.
Adolf Hitler
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