PREFACE

ON APRIL 1, 1924, I entered upon my prison term in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech, as sentenced by the People's Court in Munich on that day.

Thus, after years of uninterrupted work, an opportunity was for the first time offered me to embark upon a task which many had demanded and which I myself felt to be worth while for the movement. I decided to set forth, in two volumes, the aims of our movement, and also to draw a picture of its development. From this it will be possible to learn more than from any purely doctrinaire treatise.

At the same time I have had occasion to give an account of my own development, in so far as this is necessary for the understanding of the first as well as the second volume, and in so far as it may serve to destroy the foul legends about my person dished up in the Jewish press.

I do not address this work to strangers, but to those adherents of the movement who belong to it with their hearts, and whose intelligence is eager for a more penetrating enlightenment. I know that men are won over less by the written than by the spoken word, that every great movement on this earth owes it growth to great orators and not to great writers.

Nevertheless, for a doctrine to be disseminated uniformly and coherently, its basic elements must be set down for all time. To this end I wish to contribute these two volumes as foundation stones in our common edifice.

The Author

LANDSBERG AM LECH
FORTRESS PRISON

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