Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Volume Two - The National Socialist Movement
Chapter I: Philosophy and Party
On February 24th, 1920, the first great mass meeting under the auspices of
the new movement took place. In the Banquet Hall of the Hofbräuhaus
in Munich the twenty-five theses which constituted the programme of our new
party were expounded to an audience of nearly two thousand people and each
thesis was enthusiastically received.
Thus we brought to the knowledge of the public those first principles and
lines of action along which the new struggle was to be conducted for the
abolition of a confused mass of obsolete ideas and opinions which had obscure
and often pernicious tendencies. A new force was to make its appearance among
the timid and feckless bourgeoisie. This force was destined to impede the
triumphant advance of the Marxists and bring the Chariot of Fate to a standstill
just as it seemed about to reach its goal.
It was evident that this new movement could gain the public significance
and support which are necessary pre-requisites in such a gigantic struggle
only if it succeeded from the very outset in awakening a sacrosanct conviction
in the hearts of its followers, that here it was not a case of introducing
a new electoral slogan into the political field but that an entirely new
world view, which was of a radical significance, had to be promoted.
One must try to recall the miserable jumble of opinions that used to be arrayed
side by side to form the usual Party Programme, as it was called, and one
must remember how these opinions used to be brushed up or dressed in a new
form from time to time. If we would properly understand these programmatic
monstrosities we must carefully investigate the motives which inspired the
average bourgeois 'programme committee'.
Those people are always influenced by one and the same preoccupation when
they introduce something new into their programme or modify something already
contained in it. That preoccupation is directed towards the results of the
next election. The moment these artists in parliamentary government have
the first glimmering of a suspicion that their darling public may be ready
to kick up its heels and escape from the harness of the old party wagon they
begin to paint the shafts with new colours. On such occasions the party
astrologists and horoscope readers, the so-called 'experienced men' and
'experts', come forward. For the most part they are old parliamentary hands
whose political schooling has furnished them with ample experience. They
can remember former occasions when the masses showed signs of losing patience
and they now diagnose the menace of a similar situation arising. Resorting
to their old prescription, they form a 'committee'. They go around among
the darling public and listen to what is being said. They dip their noses
into the newspapers and gradually begin to scent what it is that their darlings,
the broad masses, are wishing for, what they reject and what they are hoping
for. The groups that belong to each trade or business, and even office employees,
are carefully studied and their innermost desires are investigated. The
'malicious slogans' of the opposition from which danger is threatened are
now suddenly looked upon as worthy of reconsideration, and it often happens
that these slogans, to the great astonishment of those who originally coined
and circulated them, now appear to be quite harmless and indeed are to be
found among the dogmas of the old parties.
So the committees meet to revise the old programme and draw up a new one.
For these people change their convictions just as the soldier changes his
shirt in war – when the old one is bug-eaten. In the new programme everyone
gets everything he wants. The farmer is assured that the interests of agriculture
will be safeguarded. The industrialist is assured of protection for his products.
The consumer is assured that his interests will be protected in the market
prices. Teachers are given higher salaries and civil servants will have better
pensions. Widows and orphans will receive generous assistance from the State.
Trade will be promoted. The tariff will be lowered and even the taxes, though
they cannot be entirely abolished, will be almost abolished. It sometimes
happens that one section of the public is forgotten or that one of the demands
mooted among the public has not reached the ears of the party. This is also
hurriedly patched on to the whole, should there be any space available for
it: until finally it is felt that there are good grounds for hoping that
the whole normal host of philistines, including their wives, will have their
anxieties laid to rest and will beam with satisfaction once again. And so,
internally armed with faith in the goodness of God and the impenetrable stupidity
of the electorate, the struggle for what is called 'the reconstruction of
the Reich' can now begin.
When the election day is over and the parliamentarians have held their last
public meeting for the next five years, when they can leave their job of
getting the populace to toe the line and can now devote themselves to higher
and more pleasing tasks – then the programme committee is dissolved
and the struggle for the progressive reorganization of public affairs becomes
once again a business of earning one's daily bread, which for the
parliamentarians means merely the attendance that is required in order to
be able to draw their daily remunerations. Morning after morning the honourable
deputy wends his way to the House, and though he may not enter the Chamber
itself he gets at least as far as the front hall, where he will find the
register on which the names of the deputies in attendance have to be inscribed.
As a part of his onerous service to his constituents he enters his name,
and in return receives a small indemnity as a well-earned reward for his
unceasing and exhausting labours.
When four years have passed, or in the meantime if there should be some critical
weeks during which the parliamentary corporations have to face the danger
of being dissolved, these honourable gentlemen become suddenly seized by
an irresistible desire to act. Just as the grub-worm cannot help growing
into a cock-chafer, these parliamentarian worms leave the great House of
Puppets and flutter on new wings out among the beloved public. They address
the electors once again, give an account of the enormous labours they have
accomplished and emphasize the malicious obstinacy of their opponents. They
do not always meet with grateful applause; for occasionally the unintelligent
masses throw rude and unfriendly remarks in their faces. When this spirit
of public ingratitude reaches a certain pitch there is only one way of saving
the situation. The prestige of the party must be burnished up again. The
programme has to be amended. The committee is called into existence once
again. And the swindle begins anew. Once we understand the impenetrable stupidity
of our public we cannot be surprised that such tactics turn out successful.
Led by the Press and blinded once again by the alluring appearance of the
new programme, the bourgeois as well as the proletarian herds of voters
faithfully return to the common stall and re-elect their old deceivers. The
'people's man' and labour candidate now change back again into the
parliamentarian grub and become fat and rotund as they batten on the leaves
that grow on the tree of public life – to be retransformed into the
glittering butterfly after another four years have passed.
Scarcely anything else can be so depressing as to watch this process in sober
reality and to be the eyewitness of this repeatedly recurring fraud. On a
spiritual training ground of that kind it is not possible for the bourgeois
forces to develop the strength which is necessary to carry on the fight against
the organized might of Marxism. Indeed they have never seriously thought
of doing so. Though these parliamentary quacks who represent the white race
are generally recognized as persons of quite inferior mental capacity, they
are shrewd enough to know that they could not seriously entertain the hope
of being able to use the weapon of Western Democracy to fight a doctrine
for the advance of which Western Democracy, with all its accessories, is
employed as a means to an end. Democracy is exploited by the Marxists for
the purpose of paralysing their opponents and gaining for themselves a free
hand to put their own methods into action. When certain groups of Marxists
use all their ingenuity for the time being to make it be believed that they
are inseparably attached to the principles of democracy, it may be well to
recall the fact that when critical occasions arose these same gentlemen snapped
their fingers at the principle of decision by majority vote, as that principle
is understood by Western Democracy. Such was the case in those days when
the bourgeois parliamentarians, in their monumental shortsightedness, believed
that the security of the Reich was guaranteed because it had an overwhelming
numerical majority in its favour, and the Marxists did not hesitate suddenly
to grasp supreme power in their own hands, backed by a mob of loafers, deserters,
political place-hunters and Jewish dilettanti. That was a blow in the face
for that democracy in which so many parliamentarians believed. Only those
credulous parliamentary wizards who represented bourgeois democracy could
have believed that the brutal determination of those whose interest it is
to spread the Marxist world-pest, of which they are the carriers, could for
a moment, now or in the future, be held in check by the magical formulas
of Western Parliamentarianism. Marxism will march shoulder to shoulder with
democracy until it succeeds indirectly in securing for its own criminal purposes
even the support of those whose minds are nationally orientated and whom
Marxism strives to exterminate. But if the Marxists should one day come to
believe that there was a danger that from this witch's cauldron of our
parliamentary democracy a majority vote might be concocted, which by reason
of its numerical majority would be empowered to enact legislation and might
use that power seriously to combat Marxism, then the whole parliamentarian
hocus-pocus would be at an end. Instead of appealing to the democratic
conscience, the standard bearers of the Red International would immediately
send forth a furious rallying-cry among the proletarian masses and the ensuing
fight would not take place in the sedate atmosphere of Parliament but in
the factories and the streets. Then democracy would be annihilated forthwith.
And what the intellectual prowess of the apostles who represented the people
in Parliament had failed to accomplish would now be successfully carried
out by the crow-bar and the sledge-hammer of the exasperated proletarian
masses – just as in the autumn of 1918. At a blow they would awaken
the bourgeois world to see the madness of thinking that the Jewish drive
towards world-conquest can be effectually opposed by means of Western Democracy.
As I have said, only a very credulous soul could think of binding himself
to observe the rules of the game when he has to face a player for whom those
rules are nothing but a mere bluff or a means of serving his own interests,
which means he will discard them when they prove no longer useful for his
purpose.
All the parties that profess so-called bourgeois principles look upon political
life as in reality a struggle for seats in Parliament. The moment their
principles and convictions are of no further use in that struggle they are
thrown overboard, as if they were sand ballast. And the programmes are
constructed in such a way that they can be dealt with in like manner. But
such practice has a correspondingly weakening effect on the strength of those
parties. They lack the great magnetic force which alone attracts the broad
masses; for these masses always respond to the compelling force which emanates
from absolute faith in the ideas put forward, combined with an indomitable
zest to fight for and defend them.
At a time in which the one side, armed with all the fighting power that springs
from a systematic conception of life – even though it be criminal in
a thousand ways – makes an attack against the established order the
other side will be able to resist when it draws its strength from a new faith,
which in our case is a political faith. This faith must supersede the weak
and cowardly command to defend. In its stead we must raise the battle-cry
of a courageous and ruthless attack. Our present movement is accused, especially
by the so-called national bourgeois cabinet ministers – the Bavarian
representatives of the Centre, for example – of heading towards a
revolution. We have one answer to give to those political pigmies. We say
to them: We are trying to make up for that which you, in your criminal stupidity,
have failed to carry out. By your parliamentarian jobbing you have helped
to drag the nation into ruin. But we, by our aggressive policy, are setting
up a new philosophy of life which we shall defend with indomitable devotion.
Thus we are building the steps on which our nation once again may ascend
to the temple of freedom.
And so during the first stages of founding our movement we had to take special
care that our militant group which fought for the establishment of a new
and exalted political faith should not degenerate into a society for the
promotion of parliamentarian interests.
The first preventive measure was to lay down a programme which of itself
would tend towards developing a certain moral greatness that would scare
away all the petty and weakling spirits who make up the bulk of our present
party politicians.
Those fatal defects which finally led to Germany's downfall afford the clearest
proof of how right we were in considering it absolutely necessary to set
up programmatic aims which were sharply and distinctly defined.
Because we recognized the defects above mentioned, we realized that a new
conception of the State had to be formed, which in itself became a part of
our new conception of life in general.
In the first volume of this book I have already dealt with the term
völkisch, and I said then that this term has not a sufficiently precise
meaning to furnish the kernel around which a closely consolidated militant
community could be formed. All kinds of people, with all kinds of divergent
opinions, are parading about at the present moment under the device
völkisch on their banners. Before I come to deal with the purposes and
aims of the National Socialist Labour Party I want to establish a clear
understanding of what is meant by the concept völkisch and herewith
explain its relation to our party movement. The word völkisch does not
express any clearly specified idea. It may be interpreted in several ways
and in practical application it is just as general as the word
'religious', for instance. It is difficult to attach any precise meaning
to this latter word, either as a theoretical concept or as a guiding principle
in practical life. The word 'religious' acquires a precise meaning only when
it is associated with a distinct and definite form through which the concept
is put into practice. To say that a person is 'deeply religious' may be very
fine phraseology; but, generally speaking, it tells us little or nothing.
There may be some few people who are content with such a vague description
and there may even be some to whom the word conveys a more or less definite
picture of the inner quality of a person thus described. But, since the masses
of the people are not composed of philosophers or saints, such a vague religious
idea will mean for them nothing else than to justify each individual in thinking
and acting according to his own bent. It will not lead to that practical
faith into which the inner religious yearning is transformed only when it
leaves the sphere of general metaphysical ideas and is moulded to a definite
dogmatic belief. Such a belief is certainly not an end in itself, but the
means to an end. Yet it is a means without which the end could never be reached
at all. This end, however, is not merely something ideal; for at the bottom
it is eminently practical. We must always bear in mind the fact that, generally
speaking, the highest ideals are always the outcome of some profound vital
need, just as the most sublime beauty owes its nobility of shape, in the
last analysis, to the fact that the most beautiful form is the form that
is best suited to the purpose it is meant to serve.
By helping to lift the human being above the level of mere animal existence,
Faith really contributes to consolidate and safeguard its own existence.
Taking humanity as it exists today and taking into consideration the fact
that the religious beliefs which it generally holds and which have been
consolidated through our education, so that they serve as moral standards
in practical life, if we should now abolish religious teaching and not replace
it by anything of equal value the result would be that the foundations of
human existence would be seriously shaken. We may safely say that man does
not live merely to serve higher ideals, but that these ideals, in their turn,
furnish the necessary conditions of his existence as a human being. And thus
the circle is closed.
Of course, the word 'religious' implies some ideas and beliefs that are
fundamental. Among these we may reckon the belief in the immortality of the
soul, its future existence in eternity, the belief in the existence of a
Higher Being, and so on. But all these ideas, no matter how firmly the individual
believes in them, may be critically analysed by any person and accepted or
rejected accordingly, until the emotional concept or yearning has been
transformed into an active service that is governed by a clearly defined
doctrinal faith. Such a faith furnishes the practical outlet for religious
feeling to express itself and thus opens the way through which it can be
put into practice.
Without a clearly defined belief, the religious feeling would not only be
worthless for the purposes of human existence but even might contribute towards
a general disorganization, on account of its vague and multifarious tendencies.
What I have said about the word 'religious' can also be applied to the term
völkisch. This word also implies certain fundamental ideas. Though these
ideas are very important indeed, they assume such vague and indefinite forms
that they cannot be estimated as having a greater value than mere opinions,
until they become constituent elements in the structure of a political party.
For in order to give practical force to the ideals that grow out of
philosophical ideals and to answer the demands which are a logical consequence
of such ideals, mere sentiment and inner longing are of no practical assistance,
just as freedom cannot be won by a universal yearning for it. No. Only when
the idealistic longing for independence is organized in such a way that it
can fight for its ideal with military force, only then can the urgent wish
of a people be transformed into a potent reality.
Every philosophy of life, even if it
is a thousand times correct and of the highest benefit to mankind,
will be of no practical service for the maintenance of a people
as long as its principles have not yet become the rallying point of a militant
movement. And, on its own side, this movement will remain a mere party until
is has brought its ideals to victory and transformed its party doctrines
into the new foundations of a State which gives the national community its
final shape.
If an abstract conception of a general nature is to serve as the basis of
a future development, then the first prerequisite is to form a clear
understanding of the nature and character and scope of this conception. For
only on such a basis can a movement he founded which will be able to draw
the necessary fighting strength from the internal cohesion of its principles
and convictions. From general ideas a political programme must be constructed
and general ideas must receive the stamp of a definite
political faith. Since this faith must be directed towards ends that have
to be attained in the world of practical reality, not only must it serve
the general ideal as such but it must also take into consideration the means
that have to be employed for the triumph of the ideal. Here the practical
wisdom of the statesman must come to the assistance of the abstract idea,
which is correct in itself. In that way an eternal ideal, which has everlasting
significance as a guiding star to mankind, must be adapted to the exigencies
of human frailty so that its practical effect may not be frustrated at the
very outset through those shortcomings which are general to mankind. The
exponent of truth must here go hand in hand with him who has a practical
knowledge of the soul of the people, so that from the realm of eternal verities
and ideals what is suited to the capacities of human nature may be selected
and given practical form.
To take abstract and general principles,
derived from a philosophy which is based on a solid foundation of truth,
and transform them into a militant community whose members have the same
political faith – a community which is precisely defined, rigidly organized,
of one mind and one will – such a transformation is the most important
task of all; for the possibility of successfully carrying out the idea is
dependent on the successful fulfilment of that task. Out of the army of millions
who feel the truth of these ideas, and even may understand them to some extent,
one man must arise. This man must have the gift of being able to expound
general ideas in a clear and definite form, and, from the world of vague
ideas shimmering before the minds of the masses, he must formulate principles
that will be as clear-cut and firm as granite. He must fight for these principles
as the only true ones, until a solid rock of common faith and common will
emerges above the troubled waves of vagrant ideas.
The general justification
of such action is to be sought in the necessity for it and the individual
will be justified by his success.
If we try to penetrate to the inner meaning of the word völkisch we
arrive at the following conclusions:
The current political conception of the world is that the State, though it
possesses a creative force which can build up civilizations, has nothing
in common with the concept of race as the foundation of the State. The State
is considered rather as something which has resulted from economic necessity,
or, at best, the natural outcome of the play of political forces and impulses.
Such a conception of the foundations of the State, together with all its
logical consequences, not only ignores the primordial racial forces that
underlie the State, but it also leads to a policy in which the importance
of the individual is minimized. If it be denied that races differ from one
another in their powers of cultural creativeness, then this same erroneous
notion must necessarily influence our estimation of the value of the individual.
The assumption that all races are alike leads to the assumption that nations
and individuals are equal to one another. And international Marxism is nothing
but the application – effected by the Jew, Karl Marx – of a general
conception of life to a definite profession of political faith; but in reality
that general concept had existed long before the time of Karl Marx. If it
had not already existed as a widely diffused infection the amazing political
progress of the Marxist teaching would never have been possible. In reality
what distinguished Karl Marx from the millions who were affected in the same
way was that, in a world already in a state of gradual decomposition, he
used his keen powers of prognosis to detect the essential poisons, so as
to extract them and concentrate them, with the art of a necromancer, in a
solution which would bring about the rapid destruction of the independent
nations on the globe. But all this was done in the service of his race.
Thus the Marxist doctrine is the concentrated extract of the mentality which
underlies the general concept of life today. For this reason alone it is
out of the question and even ridiculous to think that what is called our
bourgeois world can put up any effective fight against Marxism. For this
bourgeois world is permeated with all those same poisons and its conception
of life in general differs from Marxism only in degree and in the character
of the persons who hold it. The bourgeois world is Marxist but believes in
the possibility of a certain group of people – that is to say, the
bourgeoisie – being able to dominate the world, while Marxism itself
systematically aims at delivering the world into the hands of the Jews.
Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes
that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for
mankind. In principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end
and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind.
Therefore on the völkisch principle we cannot admit that one race is
equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, the völkisch
concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality. On
the basis of this recognition it feels bound in conformity with the eternal
Will that dominates the universe, to postulate the victory of the better
and stronger and the subordination of the inferior and weaker. And so it
pays homage to the truth that the principle underlying all Nature's operations
is the aristocratic principle and it believes that this law holds good even
down to the last individual organism. It selects individual values from the
mass and thus operates as an organizing principle, whereas Marxism acts as
a disintegrating solvent. The völkisch belief holds that humanity must
have its ideals, because ideals are a necessary condition of human existence
itself. But, on the other hand, it denies that an ethical ideal has the right
to prevail if it endangers the existence of a race that is the standard-bearer
of a higher ethical ideal. For in a world which would be composed of mongrels
and negroids all ideals of human beauty and nobility and all hopes of an
idealized future for our humanity would be lost forever.
On this planet of ours human culture and civilization are indissolubly bound
up with the presence of the Aryan. If he should be exterminated or subjugated,
then the dark shroud of a new barbarian era would enfold the earth.
To undermine the existence of human culture by exterminating its founders
and custodians would be an execrable crime in the eyes of those who believe
that the folk-idea lies at the basis of human existence. Whoever would dare
to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures
would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate
in the expulsion from Paradise.
Hence the folk concept of the world is in profound accord with Nature's will;
because it restores the free play of the forces which will lead the race
through stages of sustained reciprocal education towards a higher type, until
finally the best portion of mankind will possess the earth and will be free
to work in every domain all over the world and even reach spheres that lie
outside the earth.
We all feel that in the distant future many may be faced with problems which
can be solved only by a superior race of human beings, a race destined to
become master of all the other peoples and which will have at its disposal
the means and resources of the whole world.
It is self-evident that so general a
statement of the meaningful content of a folkish philosophy can be
easily interpreted in a thousand different ways.
As a matter of fact there is scarcely one of our recent political movements
that does not refer at some point to this conception of the world. But the
fact that this conception of the world still maintains its independent existence
in face of all the others proves that their ways of looking at life are quite
difierent from this. Thus the Marxist conception, directed by a central
organization endowed with supreme authority, is opposed by a motley crew
of opinions which is not very impressive in face of the solid phalanx presented
by the enemy. Victory cannot be achieved with such weak weapons. Only when
the international idea, politically organized by Marxism, is confronted by
the folk idea, equally well organized in a systematic way and equally well
led – only then will the fighting energy in the one camp be able to
meet that of the other on an equal footing; and victory will be found on
the side of eternal truth.
But a general conception of life can never be given an organic embodiment
until it is precisely and definitely formulated. The function which dogma
fulfils in religious belief is parallel to the function which party principles
fulfil for a political party which is in the process of being built up.
Therefore, for the conception of life
that is based on the folk idea it is necessary that an instrument be forged
which can be used in fighting for this ideal, similar to the Marxist party
organization which clears the way for internationalism.
This is the goal pursued by the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
The folk conception must therefore be definitely formulated so that it may
be organically incorporated in the party. That is a necessary prerequisite
for the success of this idea. And that it is so is very clearly proved even
by the indirect acknowledgment of those who oppose such an amalgamation of
the folk idea with party principles. The very people who never tire of insisting
again and again that the conception of life based on the folk idea can never
be the exclusive property of a single group, because it lies dormant or
'lives' in myriads of hearts, only confirm by their own statements the simple
fact that the general presence of such ideas in the hearts of millions of
men has not proved sufficient to impede the victory of the opposing ideas,
which are championed by a political party organized on the principle of class
conflict. If that were not so, the German people ought already to have gained
a gigantic victory instead of finding themselves on the brink of the abyss.
The international ideology achieved success because it was organized in a
militant political party which was always ready to take the offensive. If
hitherto the ideas opposed to the international concept have had to give
way before the latter the reason is that they lacked a united front to fight
for their cause. A doctrine which forms a definite outlook on life cannot
struggle and triumph by allowing the right of free interpretation of its
general teaching, but only by defining that teaching in certain articles
of faith that have to be accepted and incorporating it in a political
organization.
Therefore I considered it my special duty to extract from the extensive but
vague contents of a general world view the ideas which were essential
and give them a more or less dogmatic form. Because of their precise and
clear meaning, these ideas are suited to the purpose of uniting in a common
front all those who are ready to accept them as principles. In other words:
The National Socialist German Workers' Party extracts the essential
principles from the general conception of the world which is based on the
folk idea. On these principles it establishes a political doctrine which
takes into account the practical realities of the day, the nature of the
times, the available human material and all its deficiencies. Through this
political doctrine it is possible to bring great masses of the people into
an organization which is constructed as rigidly as it could be. Such an
organization is the main preliminary that is necessary for the final
triumph of this world view.
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