Lies being taught;
Mein Kampf is unintelligible ravings of a
maniac.
Now the Truth; Read and know
CHAPTER XV; THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE; Part
1;
When Germany surrendered in 1918 due to strike in
factories. German army was deep in enemy territory.
“After we had laid down our arms, in November 1918, a policy was adopted
which in all human probability was bound to lead gradually to our complete
subjugation. Analogous examples from history show that those nations which lay
down their arms without being absolutely forced to do so subsequently prefer to
submit to the greatest humiliations and exactions rather than try to change
their fate by resorting to arms again.
That is intelligible on purely human grounds. A shrewd conqueror will always
enforce his exactions on the conquered only by stages, as far as that is
possible. Then he may expect that a people who have lost all strength of
character--which is always the case with every nation that voluntarily submits
to the threats of an opponent--will not find in any of these acts of
oppression, if one be enforced apart from the other, sufficient grounds for
taking up arms again. The more numerous the extortions thus passively accepted
so much the less will resistance appear justified in the eyes of other people,
if the vanquished nation should end by revolting against the last act of
oppression in a long series. And that is specially so if the nation has already
patiently and silently accepted impositions which were much more exacting.
The fall of Carthage is a terrible example of the slow agony of a people
which ended in destruction and which was the fault of the people themselves.
In his THREE ARTICLES OF FAITH Clausewitz expressed this idea admirably and
gave it a definite form when he said: "The stigma of shame incurred by a
cowardly submission can never be effaced. The drop of poison which thus enters
the blood of a nation will be transmitted to posterity. It will undermine and paralyze
the strength of later generations." But, on the contrary, he added:
"Even the loss of its liberty after a sanguinary and honorable struggle
assures the resurgence of the nation and is the vital nucleus from which one
day a new tree can draw firm roots."
Naturally a nation which has lost all sense of honor and all strength of
character will not feel the force of such a doctrine. But any nation that takes
it to heart will never fall very low. Only those who forget it or do not wish
to acknowledge it will collapse. Hence those responsible for a cowardly
submission cannot be expected suddenly to take thought with themselves, for the
purpose of changing their former conduct and directing it in the way pointed
out by human reason and experience. On the contrary, they will repudiate such a
doctrine, until the people either become permanently habituated to the yoke of
slavery or the better elements of the nation push their way into the foreground
and forcibly take power away from the hands of an infamous and corrupt regime.
In the first case those who hold power will be pleased with the state of
affairs, because the conquerors often entrust them with the task of supervising
the slaves. And these utterly characterless beings then exercise that power to
the detriment of their own people, more cruelly than the most cruel-hearted
stranger that might be nominated by the enemy himself.
The events which happened subsequent to 1918 in Germany prove how the hope
of securing the clemency of the victor by making a voluntary submission had the
most disastrous influence on the political views and conduct of the broad
masses. I say the broad masses explicitly, because I cannot persuade myself
that the things which were done or left undone by the leaders of the people are
to be attributed to a similar disastrous illusion. Seeing that the direction of
our historical destiny after the war was now openly controlled by the Marxists,
it is impossible to admit that a defective knowledge of the state of affairs
was the sole cause of our misfortunes. On the contrary, the conclusion that
must be drawn from the facts is that our people were intentionally driven to ruin.
If we examine it from this point of view we shall find that the direction of
the nation's foreign policy was not so foolish as it appeared; for on scrutinizing
the matter closely we see clearly that this conduct was a procedure which had
been calmly calculated, shrewdly defined and logically carried out in the
service of the Communist idea and the communist endeavour to secure the mastery
of the world.
From 1806 to 1813 Prussia was in a state of collapse. But that period sufficed
to renew the vital energies of the nation and inspire it once more with a
resolute determination to fight. An equal period of time has passed over our
heads from 1918 until to-day, and no advantage has been derived from it. On the
contrary, the vital strength of our State has been steadily sapped.
Seven years after November 1918 the Locarno Treaty was signed.
Thus the development which took place was what I have indicated above. Once
the shameful Armistice had been signed our people were unable to pluck up
sufficient courage and energy to call a halt suddenly to the conduct of our
adversary as the oppressive measures were being constantly renewed. The enemy
was too shrewd to put forward all his demands at once. He confined his duress
always to those exactions which, in his opinion and that of our German
Government, could be submitted to for the moment: so that in this way they did
not risk causing an explosion of public feeling. But according as the single
impositions were increasingly subscribed to and tolerated it appeared less justifiable
to do now in the case of one sole imposition or act of duress what had not been
previously done in the case of so many others, namely, to oppose it. That is
the 'drop of poison' of which Clausewitz speaks. Once this lack of character is
manifested the resultant condition becomes steadily aggravated and weighs like
an evil inheritance on all future decisions. It may become as a leaden weight around
the nation's neck, which cannot be shaken off but which forces it to drag out
its existence in slavery.
Thus, in Germany, edicts for disarmament and oppression and economic plunder
followed one after the other, making us politically helpless. The result of all
this was to create that mood which made so many look upon the Dawes Plan as a
blessing and the Locarno Treaty as a success. From a higher point of view we
may speak of one sole blessing in the midst of so much misery. This blessing is
that, though men may be fooled, Heaven can't be bribed. For Heaven withheld its
blessing. Since that time Misery and Anxiety have been the constant companions
of our people, and Distress is the one Ally that has remained loyal to us. In this
case also Destiny has made no exceptions. It has given us our deserts. Since we
did not know how to value honor any more, it has taught us to value the liberty
to seek for bread. Now that the nation has learned to cry for bread, it may one
day learn to pray for freedom.
The collapse of our nation in the years following 1918 was bitter and manifest.
And yet that was the time chosen to persecute us in the most malicious way our
enemies could devise, so that what happened afterwards could have been foretold
by anybody then. The government to which our people submitted was as hopelessly
incompetent as it was conceited, and this was especially shown in repudiating
those who gave any warning that disturbed or displeased them. Then we saw and
today also, the greatest parliamentary nincompoops, really common saddlers and
glove-makers—not merely by trade, for that would signify very little--suddenly
raised to the rank of statesmen and sermonizing to humble mortals from that pedestal.
It did not matter, and it still does not matter, that such a 'statesman', after
having displayed his talents for six months or so as a mere windbag, is shown
up for what he is and becomes the object of public raillery and sarcasm. It
does not matter that he has given the most evident proof of complete
incompetency. No. That does not matter at all. On the contrary, the less real
service the parliamentary statesmen of this Republic render the country, the
more savagely they persecute all who expect that parliamentary deputies should
show some positive results of their activities. And they persecute everybody
who dares to point to the failure of these activities and predict similar
failures for the future. If one finally succeeds in nailing down one of these parliamentarians
to hard facts, so that this political artist can no longer deny the real
failure of his whole action and its results, then he will find thousands of
grounds for excuse, but will in no way admit that he himself is the chief cause
of the evil.
In the winter of 1922-23, at the latest, it ought to have been generally
recognized that, even after the conclusion of peace, France was still endeavouring
with iron consistency to attain those ends which had been originally envisaged
as the final purpose of the War. For nobody could think of believing that for
four and a half years France continued to pour out the not abundant supply of
her national blood in the most decisive struggle throughout all her history in
order subsequently to obtain compensation through reparations for the damages
sustained. Even Alsace and Lorraine, taken by themselves, would not account for
the energy with which the French conducted the War, if Alsace-Lorraine were not
already considered as a part of the really vast programme which French foreign
policy had envisaged for the future. The aim of that programme was:
Disintegration of Germany into a collection of small states. It was for this
that Chauvinist France waged war; and in doing so she was in reality selling
her people to be the serfs of the internationalists (Marxists).
French war aims would have been obtained through the World War if, as was
originally hoped in Paris, the struggle had been carried out on German soil. Let us imagine the bloody battles of the
World War not as having taken place on the Somme, in Flanders, in Artois, in
front of Warsaw, Nizhni-Novogorod, Kowno, and Riga but in Germany, in the Ruhr
or on the Maine, on the Elbe, in front of Hanover, Leipzig, Nürnberg, etc. If
such happened, then we must admit that the destruction of Germany might have
been accomplished. It is very much open to question if our young federal
State could have borne the hard struggle for four and a half years, as it was
borne by a France that had been centralized for centuries, with the whole
national imagination focused on Paris. If this titanic conflict between the
nations developed outside the frontiers of our fatherland, not only is all the
merit due to the immortal service rendered by our old army but it was also very
fortunate for the future of Germany. I am fully convinced that if things had
taken a different course there would no longer be a German REICH to-day but
only 'German States'. And that is the only reason why the blood which was shed
by our friends and brothers in the War was at least not shed in vain.
The course which events took was otherwise.
In November 1918 Germany did indeed collapse with lightning suddenness. But
when the catastrophe took place at home the armies under the Commander-in-Chief
were still deep in the enemy's country. At that time France's first
preoccupation was not the dismemberment of Germany but the problem of how to
get the German armies out of France and Belgium as quickly as possible. And so, in order to put an end to the War,
the first thing that had to be done by the Paris Government was to disarm the
German armies and push them back into Germany if possible. Until this was done
the French could not devote their attention to carrying out their own
particular and original war aims. As far as it concerned England, the War was
really won when Germany was destroyed as a colonial and commercial Power and
was reduced to the rank of a second-class State. It was not in England's
interest to wipe out the German State altogether. In fact, on many grounds it
was desirable for her to have a future rival against France in Europe. Therefore
French policy was forced to carry on by peaceful means the work for which the
War had opened the way; and Clemenceau's statement, that for him Peace was
merely a continuation of the War, thus acquired an enhanced significance.
Persistently and on every opportunity that arose, the effort to dislocate
the framework of the REICH was to have been carried on. By perpetually sending
new notes that demanded disarmament, on the one hand, and by the imposition of
economic levies which, on the other hand, could be carried out as the process
of disarmament progressed, it was hoped in Paris that the framework of the
REICH would gradually fall to pieces. The more the Germans lost their sense of
national honour the more could economic pressure and continued economic
distress be effective as factors of political destruction. Such a policy of political
oppression and economic exploitation, carried out for ten or twenty years, must
in the long run steadily ruin the most compact national body and, under certain
circumstances, dismember it. Then the French war aims would have been
definitely attained.
By the winter of 1922-23 the intentions of the French must already have been
known for a long time back. There remained only two possible ways of
confronting the situation. If the German national body showed itself sufficiently
tough-skinned, it might gradually blunt the will of the French or it might
do--once and for all--what was bound to become inevitable one day: that is to
say, under the provocation of some particularly brutal act of oppression it
could put the helm of the German ship of state to roundabout and ram the enemy.
That would naturally involve a life-and-death-struggle. And the prospect of
coming through the struggle alive depended on whether France could be so far isolated
that in this second battle Germany would not have to fight against the whole
world but in defence of Germany against a France that was persistently
disturbing the peace of the world.
I insist on this point, and I am profoundly convinced of it, namely, that
this second alternative will one day be chosen and will have to be chosen and
carried out in one way or another. I shall never believe that France will of
herself alter her intentions towards us, because, in the last analysis, they are
only the expression of the French instinct for self-preservation. Were I a
Frenchman and were the greatness of France so dear to me as that of Germany
actually is, in the final reckoning I could not and would not act otherwise
than a Clemenceau. The French nation, which is slowly dying out, not so much
through depopulation as through the progressive disappearance of the best
elements of the race, can continue to play an important role in the world only
if Germany be destroyed. French policy may make a thousand detours on the march
towards its fixed goal, but the destruction of Germany is the end which it
always has in view as the fulfilment of the most profound yearning and ultimate
intentions of the French. Now it is a mistake to believe that if the will on
one side should remain only PASSIVE and intent on its own self-preservation it
can hold out permanently against another will which is not less forceful but is
ACTIVE. As long as the eternal conflict between France and Germany is waged
only in the form of a German defence against the French attack, that conflict
can never be decided; and from century to century Germany will lose one
position after another. If we study the changes that have taken place, from the
twelfth century up to our day, in the frontiers within which the German language
is spoken, we can hardly hope for a successful issue to result from the
acceptance and development of a line of conduct which has hitherto been so
detrimental for us.
Only when the Germans have taken all this fully into account will they cease
from allowing the national will-to-life to wear itself out in merely passive
defence, but they will rally together for a last decisive contest with France.
And in this contest the essential objective of the German nation will be fought
for. Only then will it be possible to put an end to the eternal Franco-German
conflict which has hitherto proved so sterile. Of course it is here presumed
that Germany sees in the suppression of France nothing more than a means which
will make it possible for our people finally to expand in another quarter.
To-day there are eighty million Germans in Europe. And our foreign policy will be
recognized as rightly conducted only when, after barely a hundred years, there
will be 250 million Germans living on this Continent, not packed together as
the coolies in the factories of another Continent but as tillers of the soil
and workers whose labour will be a mutual assurance for their existence.
In December 1922 the situation between Germany and France assumed a particularly
threatening aspect. France had new and vast oppressive measures in view and
needed sanctions for her conduct. Political pressure had to precede the
economic plunder, and the French believed that only by making a violent attack
against the central nervous system of German life would they be able to make
our 'recalcitrant' people bow to their galling yoke. By the occupation of the
Ruhr District, it was hoped in France that not only would the moral backbone of
Germany be broken finally but that we should be reduced to such a grave
economic condition that we should be forced, for weal or woe, to subscribe to
the heaviest possible obligations.
It was a question of bending and breaking Germany. At first Germany bent
and subsequently broke in pieces completely.
Through the occupation of the Ruhr, Fate once more reached out its hand to
the German people and bade them arise. For what at first appeared as a heavy
stroke of misfortune was found, on closer examination, to contain extremely encouraging
possibilities of bringing Germany's sufferings to an end.
As regards foreign politics, the action of France in occupying the Ruhr really
estranged England for the first time in quite a profound way. Indeed it
estranged not merely British diplomatic circles, which had concluded the French
alliance and had upheld it from motives of calm and objective calculation, but
it also estranged large sections of the English nation. The English business
world in particular scarcely concealed the displeasure it felt at this
incredible forward step in strengthening the power of France on the Continent.
From the military standpoint alone France now assumed a position in Europe such
as Germany herself had not held previously. Moreover, France thus obtained
control over economic resources which practically gave her a monopoly that consolidated
her political and commercial strength against all competition. The most
important iron and coal mines of Europe were now united in the hand of one
nation which, in contrast to Germany, had hitherto defended her vital interests
in an active and resolute fashion and whose military efficiency in the Great
War was still fresh in the memories of the whole world. The French occupation
of the Ruhr coal field deprived England of all the successes she had gained in
the War. And the victors were now Marshal Foch and the France he represented,
no longer the calm and painstaking British statesmen.
In Italy also the attitude towards France, which had not been very favourable
since the end of the War, now became positively hostile. The great historic
moment had come when the Allies of yesterday might become the enemies of
to-morrow. If things happened otherwise and if the Allies did not suddenly come
into conflict with one another, as in the Second Balkan War, that was due to
the fact that Germany had no Enver Pasha but merely a Cuno as Chancellor of the
REICH.
Nevertheless, the French invasion of the Ruhr opened up great possibilities
for the future not only in Germany's foreign politics but also in her internal
politics. A considerable section of our people who, thanks to the persistent
influence of a mendacious Press, had looked upon France as the champion of
progress and liberty, were suddenly cured of this illusion. In 1914 the dream
of international solidarity suddenly vanished from the brain of our German
working class. They were brought back into the world of everlasting struggle,
where one creature feeds on the other and where the death of the weaker implies
the life of the stronger. The same thing happened in the spring of 1923.
When the French put their threats into effect and penetrated, at first hesitatingly
and cautiously, into the coal-basin of Lower Germany the hour of destiny had
struck for Germany. It was a great and decisive moment. If at that moment our
people had changed not only their frame of mind but also their conduct the
German Ruhr District could have been made for France what Moscow turned out to
be for Napoleon. Indeed, there were only two possibilities: either to leave
this move also to take its course and do nothing or to turn to the German
people in that region of sweltering forges and flaming furnaces. An effort
might have been made to set their wills afire with determination to put an end
to this persistent disgrace and to face a momentary terror rather than submit
to a terror that was endless.
Cuno, who was then Chancellor of the REICH, can claim the immortal merit
of having discovered a third way; and our German bourgeois political parties
merit the still more glorious honour of having admired him and collaborated
with him.
Here I shall deal with the second way as briefly as possible.
By occupying the Ruhr France committed a glaring violation of the Versailles
Treaty. Her action brought her into conflict with several of the guarantor
Powers, especially with England and Italy. She could no longer hope that those
States would back her up in her egotistic act of brigandage. She could count
only on her own forces to reap anything like a positive result from that adventure,
for such it was at the start. For a German National Government there was only
one possible way left open. And this was the way which honour prescribed.
Certainly at the beginning we could not have opposed France with an active
armed resistance. But it should have been clearly recognized that any
negotiations which did not have the argument of force to back them up would
turn out futile and ridiculous. If it were not possible to organize an active
resistance, then it was absurd to take up the standpoint: "We shall not
enter into any negotiations." But it was still more absurd finally to
enter into negotiations without having organized the necessary force as a
support.
Not that it was possible for us by military means to prevent the occupation
of the Ruhr. Only a madman could have recommended such a decision. But under
the impression produced by the action which France had taken, and during the
time that it was being carried out, measures could have been, and should have
been, undertaken without any regard to the Versailles Treaty, which France
herself had violated, to provide those military resources which would serve as
a collateral argument to back up the negotiations later on. For it was quite
clear from the beginning that the fate of this district occupied by the French
would one day be decided at some conference table or other. But it also must have
been quite to everybody that even the best negotiators could have little
success as long as the ground on which they themselves stood and the chair on
which they sat were not under the armed protection of their own people. A weak
pigmy cannot contend against athletes, and a negotiator without any armed
defence at his back must always bow in obeisance when a Brennus throws the
sword into the scales on the enemy's side, unless an equally strong sword can
be thrown into the scales at the other end and thus maintain the balance. It
was really distressing to have to observe the comedy of negotiations which,
ever since 1918, regularly preceded each arbitrary dictate that the enemy
imposed upon us. We offered a sorry spectacle to the eyes of the whole world
when we were invited, for the sake of derision, to attend conference tables simply
to be presented with decisions and programmes which had already been drawn up
and passed a long time before, and which we were permitted to discuss, but from
the beginning had to be considered as unalterable.
It is true that in scarcely a single instance were our negotiators men of
more than mediocre abilities. For the most part they justified only too well
the insolent observation made by Lloyd George when he sarcastically remarked,
in the presence of a former Chancellor of the REICH, Herr Simon, that the
Germans were not able to choose men of intelligence as their leaders and
representatives. But in face of the resolute determination and the power which
the enemy held in his hands, on the one side, and the lamentable impotence of
Germany on the other, even a body of geniuses could have obtained only very
little for Germany. “
Adolf Hitler
to be continued .....
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