Lies
being taught;
Mein
Kampf is unintelligible ravings of a maniac.
Now
the Truth; It is the opposite of what press has told
you
CHAPTER XIV; GERMANY'S POLICY IN EASTERN
EUROPE Part 1 – Factors;-
There are two considerations which induce me
to make a special analysis of Germany's position in regard to Russia. These
are:
(1) This may prove to be the most decisive
point in determining Germany's foreign policy.
(2) The problem which has to be solved in
this connection is also a touchstone to test the political capacity of the
young National Socialist Movement for clear thinking and acting along the right
lines.
I must confess that the second consideration
has often been a source of great anxiety to me. The members of our movement are
not recruited from circles which are habitually indifferent to public affairs,
but mostly from among men who hold more or less extreme views. Such being the
case, it is only natural that their understanding of foreign politics should suffer
from the prejudice and inadequate knowledge of those circles to which they were
formerly attached by political and ideological ties. And this is true not
merely of the men who come to us from the Left. On the contrary, however
subversive may have been the kind of teaching they formerly received in regard
to these problems, in very many cases this was at least partly counterbalanced
by the residue of sound and natural instincts which remained. In such cases it
is only necessary to substitute a better teaching in place of the earlier
influences, in order to transform the instinct of self-preservation and other
sound instincts into valuable assets.
On the other hand, it is much more difficult
to impress definite political ideas on the minds of men whose earlier political
education was not less nonsensical and illogical than that given to the
partisans of the Left. These men have sacrificed the last residue of their
natural instincts to the worship of some abstract and entirely objective
theory. It is particularly difficult to induce these representatives of our so-called
intellectual circles to take a realistic and logical view of their own
interests and the interests of their nation in its relations with foreign
countries. Their minds are over laden with a huge burden of prejudices and
absurd ideas and they have lost or renounced every instinct of
self-preservation. With those men also the National Socialist Movement has to
fight a hard battle. And the struggle is all the harder because, though very
often they are utterly incompetent, they are so self-conceited that, without
the slightest justification, they look down with disdain on ordinary
commonsense people. These arrogant snobs who pretend to know better than other
people, are wholly incapable of calmly and coolly analysing a problem and
weighing its pros and cons, which are the necessary preliminaries of any
decision or action in the field of foreign politics.
It is just this circle which is beginning
to-day to divert our foreign policy into most disastrous directions and turn it
away from the task of promoting the real interests of the nation. Seeing that
they do this in order to serve their own fantastic ideologies, I feel myself obliged
to take the greatest pains in laying before my own colleagues a clear exposition
of the most important problem in our foreign policy, namely, our position in
relation to Russia. I shall deal with it, as thoroughly as may be necessary to
make it generally understood and as far as the limits of this book permit. Let
me begin by laying down the following postulate:
When we speak of foreign politics we
understand that domain of government which has set before it the task of
managing the affairs of a nation in its relations with the rest of the world.
Now the guiding principles which must be followed in managing these affairs
must be based on the definite facts that are at hand. Moreover, as National Socialists,
we must lay down the following axiom regarding the manner in which the foreign
policy of a People's State should be conducted:
The foreign policy of a People's State must
first of all bear in mind the duty of securing the existence of the volk which
is incorporated in this State. And this must be done by establishing a healthy and natural proportion
between the number and growth of the population on the one hand and the extent
and resources of the territory they inhabit, on the other. That balance must be
such that it accords with the vital necessities of the people.
What I call a HEALTHY proportion is that in
which the support of a people is guaranteed by the resources of its own soil
and sub-soil. Any situation
which falls short of this condition is none the less unhealthy even though it
may endure for centuries or even a thousand years. Sooner or later, this lack
of proportion must of necessity lead to the decline or even annihilation of the
people concerned.
Only a sufficiently large space on this earth
can assure the independent existence of a people.
The extent of the territorial expansion that
may be necessary for the settlement of the national population must not be
estimated by present exigencies nor even by the magnitude of its agricultural
productivity in relation to the number of the population. In the first volume
of this book, under the heading "Germany's Policy of Alliances before the
War," I have already explained that the geometrical dimensions of a State
are of importance not only as the source of the nation's foodstuffs and raw materials,
but also from the political and military standpoints. Once a people is assured
of being able to maintain itself from the resources of the national territory,
it must think of how this national territory can be defended. National security
depends on the political strength of a State, and this strength, in its turn,
depends on the military possibilities inherent in the geographical situation.
Thus the German nation could assure its own
future only by being a World Power. For nearly two thousand years the defence
of our national interests was a matter of world history, as can be seen from
our more or less successful activities in the field of foreign politics. We ourselves
have been witnesses to this, seeing that the gigantic struggle that went on
from 1914 to 1918 was only the struggle of the German people for their
existence on this earth, and it was carried out in such a way that it has
become known in history as the World War.
When Germany entered this struggle it was
presumed that she was a World Power. I say PRESUMED, because in reality she was
no such thing. In 1914, if there had been a different proportion between the
German population and its territorial area, Germany would have been really a World
Power and, if we leave other factors out of count, the War would have ended in
our favour.
It is not my task nor my intention here to
discuss what would have happened if certain conditions had been fulfilled. But
I feel it absolutely incumbent on me to show the present conditions in their
bare and unadorned reality, insisting on the weakness inherent in them, so that
at least in the ranks of the National Socialist Movement they should receive
the necessary recognition.
Germany is not at all a World Power to-day. Even
though our present military weakness could be overcome, we still would have no
claim to be called a World Power. What importance on earth has a State in which
the proportion between the size of the population and the territorial area is
so miserable as in the present German REICH? At an epoch in which the world is
being gradually portioned out among States many of whom almost embrace whole
continents one cannot speak of a World Power in the case of a State whose
political motherland is confined to a territorial area of barely
five-hundred-thousand square kilometres.
Looked at purely from the territorial point
of view, the area comprised in the German REICH is insignificant in comparison
with the other States that are called World Powers. England must not be cited here as an example
to contradict this statement; for the English motherland is in reality the
great metropolis of the British World Empire, which owns almost a fourth of the
earth's surface. Next to this we must consider the American Union as one of the
foremost among the colossal States, also Russia and China. These are enormous
spaces, some of which are more than ten times greater in territorial extent
than the present German REICH. France must also be ranked among these colossal
States. Not only because she is adding to the strength of her army in a
constantly increasing measure by recruiting coloured troops from the population
of her gigantic empire, but also because France is racially becoming more and
more negroid, so much so that now one can actually speak of the creation of an
African State on European soil. The contemporary colonial policy of France
cannot be compared with that of Germany in the past. If France develops along
the lines it has taken in our day, and should that development continue for the
next three hundred years, all traces of French blood will finally be submerged
in the formation of a Euro-African Mulatto State. This would represent a
formidable and compact colonial territory stretching from the Rhine to the
Congo, inhabited by an inferior race which had developed through a slow and steady
process of bastardization.
That process distinguishes French colonial
policy from the policy followed by the old Germany.
The former German colonial policy was carried
out by half-measures, as was almost everything they did at that time. They did
not gain an expanse of territory for the settlement of German nationals nor did
they attempt to reinforce the power of the REICH through the enlistment of black
troops, which would have been a criminal undertaking. The Askari in German East
Africa represented a small and hesitant step along this road; but in reality
they served only for the defence of the colony itself. The idea of importing
black troops to a European theatre of war--apart entirely from the practical
impossibility of this in the World War--was never entertained as a proposal to
be carried out under favourable circumstances; whereas, on the contrary, the
French always looked on such an idea as fundamental in their colonial activities.
Thus we find in the world to-day not only a
number of States that are much greater than the German in the mere numerical
size of their populations, but also possess a greater support for their
political power. The proportion between the territorial dimensions of the
German REICH and the numerical size of its population was never so unfavourable
in comparison with the other world States as at the beginning of our history
two thousand years ago and again to-day. At the former juncture we were a young
people and we stormed a world which was made up of great States that were
already in a decadent condition, of which the last giant was Rome, to whose
overthrow we contributed. To-day we find ourselves in a world of great and
powerful States, among which the importance of our own REICH is constantly
declining more and more.
We must always face this bitter truth with
clear and calm minds. We must study the area and population of the German REICH
in relation to the other States and compare them down through the centuries.
Then we shall find that, as I have said, Germany is not a World Power whether
its military strength be great or not.
Our movement must seek to abolish the present
disastrous proportion between our population and the area of our national
territory, considering national territory as the source of our maintenance or
as a basis of political power. And it ought to strive to abolish the contrast between
past history and the hopelessly powerless situation in which we are to-day. In
striving for this it must bear in mind the fact that we are members of the
highest species of humanity on this earth, that we have a correspondingly high
duty, and that we shall fulfill this duty only if we inspire the German people
with the racial idea, so that they will occupy themselves not merely with the
breeding of good dogs and horses and cats, but also care for the purity of
their own blood.
When I say that the foreign policy hitherto
followed by Germany has been without aim and ineffectual, the proof of my statement
will be found in the actual failures of this policy. Were our people
intellectually backward, or if they lacked courage, the final results of their
efforts could not have been worse than what we see to-day. What happened during
the last decades before the War does not permit of any illusions on this point;
because we must not measure the strength of a State taken by itself, but in
comparison with other States. Now, this comparison shows that the other States
increased their strength in such a measure that not only did it balance that of
Germany but turned out in the end to be greater; so that, contrary to
appearances, when compared with the other States Germany declined more and more
in power until there was a large margin in her disfavour. Yes, even in the size
of our population we remained far behind, and kept on losing ground. Though it
is true that the courage of our people was not surpassed by that of any other
in the world and that they poured out more blood than any other nation in defence
of their existence, their failure was due only to the erroneous way in which
that courage was turned to practical purposes.
In this connection, if we examine the chain
of political vicissitudes through which our people have passed during more than
a thousand years, recalling the innumerable struggles and wars and scrutinizing
it all in the light of the results that are before our eyes to-day, we must confess
that from the ocean of blood only three phenomena have emerged which we must
consider as lasting fruits of political happenings definitely determined by our
foreign policy.
(1) The colonization of the Eastern Mark,
which was mostly the work of the Bajuvari.
(2) The conquest and settlement of the
territory east of the Elbe.
(3) The organization of the Brandenburg-Prussian
State, which was the work of the Hohenzollerns and which became the model for
the crystallization of a new REICH.
An instructive lesson for the future.
These first two great successes of our
foreign policy turned out to be the most enduring. Without them our people
would play no role in the world to-day. These achievements were the first and
unfortunately the only successful attempts to establish a harmony between our
increasing population and the territory from which it drew its livelihood. And
we must look upon it as of really fatal import that our German historians have
never correctly appreciated these formidable facts which were so full of
importance for the following generations. In contradistinction to this, they
wrote panegyrics on many other things, fantastic heroism, innumerable
adventures and wars, without understanding that these latter had no
significance whatsoever for the main line of our national development.
The third great success achieved by our
political activity was the establishment of the Prussian State and the
development of a particular State concept which grew out of this. To the same
source we are to attribute the organization of the instinct of national
self-preservation and self-defence in the German Army, an achievement which
suited the modern world. The transformation of the idea of self-defence on the
part of the individual into the duty of national defence is derived from the Prussian
State and the new statal concept which it introduced. It would be impossible to
over-estimate the importance of this historical process. Disrupted by excessive
individualism, the German nation became disciplined under the organization of
the Prussian Army and in this way recovered at least some of the capacity to
form a national community, which in the case of other people had originally
arisen through the constructive urge of the herd instinct. Consequently the
abolition of compulsory national military service--which may have no meaning
for dozens of other nations--had fatal consequences for us. Ten generations of
Germans left without the corrective and educative effect of military training
and delivered over to the evil effects of those dissensions and divisions the
roots of which lie in their blood and display their force also in a disunity of
world-outlook--these ten generations would be sufficient to allow our people to
lose the last relics of an independent existence on this earth.
The distinction between the real political
successes which our people achieved in the course of their long history and the
futile ends for which the blood of the nation has been shed is of supreme
importance for the determination of our policy now and in the future.
We, National Socialists, must never allow
ourselves to re-echo the hurrah patriotism of our contemporary bourgeois
circles. It would be a fatal danger for us to look on the immediate
developments before the War as constituting a precedent which we should be
obliged to take into account, even though only to the very smallest degree, in
choosing our own way. We can recognize no obligation devolving on us which may
have its historical roots in any part of the nineteenth century. In contradistinction
to the policy of those who represented that period, we must take our stand on
the principles already mentioned in regard to foreign policy: namely, the
necessity of bringing our territorial area into just proportion with the number
of our population. From the past we can learn only one lesson. And this is that
the aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct must be twofold: namely
(1) the acquisition of territory as the objective of our foreign policy and
(2) the establishment of a new and uniform
foundation as the objective of our political activities at home, in accordance
with our doctrine of nationhood.
I shall briefly deal with the question of how
far our territorial aims are justified according to ethical and moral
principles. This is all the more necessary here because, in our so-called
nationalist circles, there are all kinds of plausible phrase-mongers who try to
persuade the German people that the great aim of their foreign policy ought to
be to right the wrongs of 1918, while at the same time they consider it
incumbent on them to assure the whole world of the brotherly spirit and
sympathy of the German people towards all other nations.
In regard to this point I should like to make
the following statement:
To demand that the 1914 frontiers should be
restored is a glaring political absurdity that is fraught with such consequences
as to make the claim itself appear criminal. The confines of the REICH as they existed
in 1914 were thoroughly illogical; because they were not really complete, in
the sense of including all the members of the German nation. Nor were they reasonable,
in view of the geographical exigencies of military defence. They were not the
consequence of a political plan which had been well considered and carried out.
But they were temporary frontiers established in virtue of a political struggle
that had not been brought to a finish; and indeed they were partly the chance
result of circumstances. One would have just as good a right, and in many cases
a better right, to choose some other outstanding year than 1914 in the course
of our history and demand that the objective of our foreign policy should be
the re-establishment of the conditions then existing. The demands I have
mentioned are quite characteristic of our bourgeois compatriots, who in such
matters take no political thought of the future, They live only in the past and
indeed only in the immediate past; for their retrospect does not go back beyond
their own times. The law of inertia binds them to the present order of things,
leading them to oppose every attempt to change this. Their opposition, however,
never passes over into any kind of active defence. It is only mere passive obstinacy.
Therefore, we must regard it as quite natural that the political horizon of
such people should not reach beyond 1914. In proclaiming that the aim of their
political activities is to have the frontiers of that time restored, they only
help to close up the rifts that are already becoming apparent in the league
which our enemies have formed against us. Only on these grounds can we explain
the fact that eight years after a world conflagration in which a number of
Allied belligerents had aspirations and aims that were partly in conflict with one
another, the coalition of the victors still remains more or less solid.
Each of those States in its turn profited by
the German collapse. In the fear which they all felt before the proof of
strength that we had given, the Great Powers maintained a mutual silence about
their individual feelings of envy and enmity towards one another. They felt
that the best guarantee against a resurgence of our strength in the future
would be to break up and dismember our REICH as thoroughly as possible. A bad conscience
and fear of the strength of our people made up the durable cement which has
held the members of that league together, even up to the present moment.
And our conduct does not tend to change this
state of affairs. Inasmuch as our bourgeoisie sets up the restoration of the
1914 frontiers as the aim of Germany's political programme, each member of the
enemy coalition who otherwise might be inclined to withdraw from the
combination sticks to it, out of fear lest he might be attacked by us if he
isolated himself and in that case would not have the support of his allies.
Each individual State feels itself aimed at and threatened by this programme.
And the programme is absurd, for the
following two reasons:
(1) Because there are no available means of
extricating it from the twilight atmosphere of political soirees and
transforming it into reality.
(2) Even if it could be really carried into
effect the result would be so miserable that, surely to God, it would not be
worth while to risk the blood of our people once again for such a purpose.
For there can be scarcely any doubt
whatsoever that only through bloodshed could we achieve the restoration of the
1914 frontiers. One must have the simple mind of a child to believe that the
revision of the Versailles Treaty can be obtained by indirect means and by
beseeching the clemency of the victors; without taking into account the fact
that for this we should need somebody who had the character of a Talleyrand,
and there is no Talleyrand among us. Fifty percent of our politicians consists
of artful dodgers who have no character and are quite hostile to the sympathies
of our people, while the other fifty per cent is made up of well-meaning,
harmless, and complaisant incompetents. Times have changed since the Congress
of Vienna. It is no longer princes or their courtesans who contend and bargain
about State frontiers, but the inexorable cosmopolitan marxist who is fighting
for his own dominion over the nations. The sword is the only means whereby a
nation can thrust that clutch from its throat. Only when national sentiment is organized
and concentrated into an effective force can it defy that international menace
which tends towards an enslavement of the nations. But this road is and will
always be marked with bloodshed.
If we are once convinced that the future of
Germany calls for the sacrifice, in one way or another, of all that we have and
are, then we must set aside considerations of political prudence and devote
ourselves wholly to the struggle for a future that will be worthy of our
country.
For the future of the German nation the 1914
frontiers are of no significance. They did not serve to protect us in the past,
nor do they offer any guarantee for our defence in the future. With these
frontiers the German people cannot maintain themselves as a compact unit, nor
can they be assured of their maintenance. From the military viewpoint these frontiers
are not advantageous or even such as not to cause anxiety. And while we are
bound to such frontiers it will not be possible for us to improve our present
position in relation to the other World Powers, or rather in relation to the
real World Powers. We shall not lessen the discrepancy between our territory
and that of Great Britain, nor shall we reach the magnitude of the United
States of America. Not only that, but we cannot substantially lessen the
importance of France in international politics.
One thing alone is certain: The attempt to
restore the frontiers of 1914, even if it turned out successful, would demand
so much bloodshed on the part of our people that no future sacrifice would be
possible to carry out effectively such measures as would be necessary to assure
the future existence of the nation. On the contrary, under the intoxication of
such a superficial success further aims would be renounced, all the more so
because the so-called 'national honour' would seem to be revindicated and new
ports would be opened, at least for a certain time, to our commercial
development.
Against all this we, National Socialists,
must stick firmly to the aim that we have set for our foreign policy; namely,
that the German people must be assured the territorial area which is necessary
for it to exist on this earth. And only for such action as is undertaken to
secure those ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and our German posterity
to allow the blood of our people to be shed once again. Before God, because we
are sent into this world with the commission to struggle for our daily bread,
as creatures to whom nothing is donated and who must be able to win and hold
their position as lords of the earth only through their own intelligence and
courage. And this justification must be established also before our German
posterity, on the grounds that for each one who has shed his blood the life of
a thousand others will be guaranteed to posterity. The territory on which one
day our German peasants will be able to bring forth and nourish their sturdy
sons will justify the blood of the sons of the peasants that has to be shed to-day.
And the statesmen who will have decreed this sacrifice may be persecuted by
their contemporaries, but posterity will absolve them from all guilt for having
demanded this offering from their people.
Here I must protest as sharply as possible
against those nationalist scribes who pretend that such territorial extension
would be a "violation of the sacred rights of man" and accordingly
pour out their literary effusions against it. One never knows what are the
hidden forces behind the activities of such persons. But it is certain that the
confusion which they provoke suits the game our enemies are playing against our
nation and is in accordance with their wishes. By taking such an attitude these
scribes contribute criminally to weaken from the inside and to destroy the will
of our people to promote their own vital interests by the only effective means
that can be used for that purpose. For no nation on earth possesses a square
yard of ground and soil by decree of a higher Will and in virtue of a higher
Right. The German frontiers are the outcome of chance, and are only temporary
frontiers that have been established as the result of political struggles which
took place at various times. The same is also true of the frontiers which
demarcate the territories on which other nations live. And just as only an
imbecile could look on the physical geography of the globe as fixed and
unchangeable--for in reality it represents a definite stage in a given
evolutionary epoch which is due to the formidable forces of Nature and may be
altered to-morrow by more powerful forces of destruction and change--so, too,
in the lives of the nations the confines which are necessary for their
sustenance are subject to change. State frontiers are established by human
beings and may be changed by human beings.
Adolf Hitler
