There
are two reasons which induce me to submit to a special examination
the relation of Germany to Russia:
1.
Here perhaps we are dealing with the most decisive concern
of all German foreign affairs; and
2.
This question is also the touchstone for the political capacity
of the young National Socialist movements to think dearly
and to act correctly.
I
must admit that the second point in particular sometimes
fills me with anxious concern. Since our young movement
does not obtain membership material from the camp of the
indifferent, but chiefly from very extreme outlooks, it
is only too natural if these people, in the field of understanding
foreign affairs as in other fields, are burdened with the
preconceived ideas or feeble understanding of the circles
to which they previously belonged, both politically and
philosophically. And this by no means applies only to the
man who comes to us from the Left. On the contrary.
Harmful as his previous instruction with regard to such
problems might be, in part at least it was not infrequently
balanced by an existing remnant of natural and healthy instinct.
Then it was only necessary to substitute a better attitude
for the influence that was previously forced upon him, and
often the essentially healthy instinct and impulse of self-preservation
that still survived in him could be regarded as our best
ally.
It
is much harder, on the other hand to induce clear political
thinking in a man whose previous education in this field
was no less devoid of any reason and logic, but on top of
all this had also sacrificed his last remnant of natural
instinct on the altar of objectivity. Precisely the members
of our so-called intelligentsia are the hardest to move
to a really clear and logical defense of their interests
and the interests of their nation. They are not only burdened
with a dead weight of the most senseless conceptions and
prejudices, but what makes matters completely intolerable
is that they have lost and abandoned all healthy instinct
of self-preservation. The National Socialist movement is
compelled to endure hard struggles with these people, hard
because, despite total incompetence, they often unfortunately
are afflicted with an amazing conceit, which causes them
to look down without the slightest inner justification upon
other people, for the most part healthier than they. Supercilious,
arrogant know-it-alls, without any capacity for cool testing
and weighing, which, in turn, must be recognized as the
pre-condition for any will and action in the field of foreign
affairs.
Since
these very circles are beginning today to divert the tendency
of our foreign policy in the most catastrophic way from
any real defense of the folkish interests of our people,
placing it instead in the service of their fantastic ideology,
I feel it incumbent upon me to discuss for my supporters
the most important question in the field of foreign affairs,
our relation to Russia, in particular, and as thoroughly
as is necessary for the general understanding and possible
in the scope of such a work.
But
first I would like to make the following introductory remarks:
If
under foreign policy we must understand the regulation of
a nation's relations with the rest of the world, the manner
of this regulation will be determined by certain definite
facts. As National Socialists we can, furthermore, establish
the following principle concerning the nature of the foreign
policy of a folkish state:
The
foreign policy of the folkish state must safeguard the existence
on this planet of the race embodied in the state, by creating
a healthy, viable natural relation between the nation's
population and growth on the one hand and the quantity and
quality of its soil on the other hand.
As
a healthy relation we may regard only that condition which
assures the sustenance of a people on its own soil. Every
other condition, even if it endures for hundreds, nay, thousands
of years, is nevertheless unhealthy and will sooner or later
lead to the injury if not annihilation of the people in
question.
Only
an adequately large space on this earth assures a nation
of freedom of existence.
Moreover,
the necessary size of the territory to be settled cannot
be judged exclusively on the basis of present requirements,
not even in fact on the basis of the yield of the soil compared
to the population. For, as I explained in the first volume,
under 'German Alliance Policy Before the War,' in addition
to its importance as a direct source of a people's food,
another significance, that is, a military and political
one, must be attributed to the area of a state. If a
nation's sustenance as such is assured by the amount of
its soil, the safeguarding of the existing soil itself must
also be borne in mind. This lies in the general power-political
strength of the state, which in turn to no small extent
is determined by geo-military considerations.
Hence,
the German nation can defend its future only as a world
power. For more than two thousand years the defense of our
people's interests, as we should designate our more or less
fortunate activity in the field of foreign affairs, was
world history. We ourselves were witnesses to this
fact: for the gigantic struggle of the nations in the years
1914-1918 was only the struggle of the German people for
its existence on the globe, but we designated the type of
event itself as a World War.
The
German people entered this struggle as a supposed
world power. I say 'here 'supposed,' for in reality it was
none. If the German nation in 1914 had had a different relation
between area and population, Germany would really have been
a world power, and the War, aside from all other factors,
could have been terminated favorably.
Germany
today is no world power. Even if our momentary military
impotence were overcome, we should no longer have any claim
to this title. What can a formation, as miserable in its
relation of population to area as the German Reich today,
mean on this planet? In an era when the earth is gradually
being divided up among states, some of which embrace almost
entire continents we cannot speak of a world power in connection
with a formation whose political mother country is limited
to the absurd area of five hundred thousand square kilometers.
From
the purely territorial point of view, the area of the German
Reich vanishes completely as compared with that of the so-called
world powers. Let no one cite England as a proof to the
contrary, for England in reality is merely the great capital
of the British world empire which calls nearly a quarter
of the earth's surface its own. In addition, we must regard
as giant states, first of all the American Union, then Russia
and China. All are spatial formations having in part an
area more than ten times greater than the present German
Reich. And even France must be counted among these states.
Not only that she complements her army to an ever-increasing
degree from her enormous empire's reservoir of colored humanity,
but racially as well, she is making such great progress
in negrification that we can actually speak of an African
state arising on European soil. The colonial policy of present-day
France cannot be compared with that of Germany in the past.
If the development of France in the present style were to
be continued for three hundred years, the last remnants
of Frankish blood would be submerged in the developing European-African
mulatto state. An immense self-contained area of settlement
from the Rhine to the Congo, filled with a lower race gradually
produced from continuous bastardization.
This
distinguishes French colonial policy from the old German
one.
The
former German colonial policy, like everything we did, was
carried out by halves. It neither increased the settlement
area of the German Reich, nor did it undertake any attempt
- criminal though it would have been - to strengthen the
Reich by the use of black blood. The Askaris in German East
Africa were a short, hesitant step in this direction. Actually
they served only for the defense of the colonies themselves.
The idea of bringing black troops into a European battlefield,
quite aside from its practical impossibility in the World
War, never existed even as a design to be realized under
more favorable circumstances, while, on the contrary, it
was always regarded and felt by the French as the basic
reason for their colonial activity.
Thus,
in the world today we see a number of power states, some
of which not only far surpass the strength of our German
nation in population, but whose area above all is the chief
support of their political power. Never has the relation
of the German Reich to other existing world states been
as unfavorable as at the beginning of our history two thousand
years ago and again today. Then we were a young people,
rushing headlong into a world of great crumbling state formations,
whose last giant, Rome, we ourselves helped to fell. Today
we find ourselves in a world of great power states in process
of formation, with our own Reich sinking more and more into
insignificance.
We
must bear this bitter truth coolly and soberly in mind.
We must follow and compare the German Reich through the
centuries in its relation to other states with regard to
population and area. I know that everyone will then come
to the dismayed conclusion which I have stated at the beginning
of this discussion: Germany is no longer a world power,
regardless whether she is strong or weak from the military
point of view.
We
have lost all proportion to the other great states of the
earth, and this thanks only to the positively catastrophic
leadership of our nation in the field of foreign affairs,
thanks to our total failure to be guided by what I should
almost call a testamentary aim in foreign policy, and thanks
to the loss of any healthy instinct and impulse of self-preservation.
If
the National Socialist movement really wants to be consecrated
by history with a great mission for our nation, it must
be permeated by knowledge and filled with pain at our true
situation in this world; boldly and conscious of its goal,
it must take up the struggle against the aimlessness and
incompetence which have hitherto guided our German nation
in the line of foreign affairs. Then, without consideration
of 'traditions' and prejudices, it must find the courage
to gather our people and their strength for an advance along
the road that will lead this people from its present restricted
living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it
from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving
others as a slave nation.
The
National Socialist movement must strive to eliminate the
disproportion between our population and our area - viewing
this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power
politics - between our historical past and the hopelessness
of our present impotence.
And in this it must remain aware that we, as guardians of
the highest humanity on this earth, are bound by the highest
obligation, and the more it strives to bring the German
people to racial awareness so that, in addition to breeding
dogs, horses, and cats, they will have mercy on their own
blood, the more it will be able to meet this obligation.
*...............*...............*
If
I characterize German policy up to now as aimless and incompetent,
the proof of my assertion lies in the actual failure of
this policy. If our people had been intellectually inferior
or cowardly, the results of its struggle on the earth could
not be worse than what we see before us today. Neither must
the development of the last decades before the War deceive
us on this score; for we cannot measure the strength of
an empire by itself, but only by comparison with other states.
And just such a comparison furnishes proof that the increase
in strength of the other states was not only more even,
but also greater in its ultimate effect; that consequently,
despite its apparent rise, Germany's road actually diverged
more and more from that of the other states and fell far
behind; in short, the difference in magnitudes increased
to our disfavor. Yes, as time went on, we fell behind more
and more even in population. But since our people is certainly
excelled by none on earth in heroism, in fact, all in all
has certainly given the most blood of all the nations on
earth for the preservation of its existence, the failure
can reside only in the mistaken way in which it was given.
If
we examine the political experiences of our people for more
than a thousand years in this connection, passing all the
innumerable wars and struggles in review and examining the
present end result they created, we shall be forced to admit
that this sea of blood has given rise to only three phenomena
which we are justified in claiming as enduring fruits of
clearly defined actions in the field of foreign and general
politics:
(1)
The colonization of the Ostmark, carried out mostly
by Bavarians;
(2)
the acquisition and penetration of the territory east of
the Elbe; and
(3)
the organization by the Hohenzollerns of the Brandenburg-Prussian
state as a model and nucleus for crystallization of a new
Reich.
An
instructive warning for the future!
The
first two great successes of our foreign policy have remained
the most enduring. Without them our nation today would no
longer have any importance at all. They were the first,
but unfortunately the only successful attempt to bring the
rising population into harmony with the quantity of our
soil. And it must be regarded as truly catastrophic that
our German historians have never been able to estimate correctly
these two achievements which are by far the greatest and
most significant for the future, but by contrast have glorified
everything conceivable, praised and admired fantastic heroism,
innumerable adventurous wars and struggles, instead of finally
recognizing how unimportant most of these events have been
for the nation's great line of development.
The
third great success of our political activity lies in the
formation of the Prussian state and the resultant cultivation
of a special state idea, as also of the German army's instinct
of self-preservation and self-defense, adapted to the modern
world and put into organized form. The development of the
idea of individual militancy into the duty of national militancy
[conscription] has grown out of every state formation and
every state conception. The significance of this development
cannot be overestimated. Through the discipline of the Prussian
army organism, the German people, shot through with hyperindividualism
by their racial divisions, won back at least a part of the
capacity for organization which they had long since lost.
What other peoples still primitively possess in their herd
community instinct, we, partially at least, regained artificially
for our national community through the process of military
training. Hence the elimination of universal conscription
- which for dozens of other peoples might be a matter of
no importance - is for us fraught with the gravest consequences.
Ten German generations without corrective and educational
military training, left to the evil effects of their racial
and hence philosophical division - and our nation would
really have lost the last remnant of an independent existence
on this planet. Only through individual men, in the bosom
of foreign nations, could the German spirit make its contribution
to culture, and its origin would not even be recognized.
Cultural fertilizer, until the last remnant of Aryan-Nordic
blood in us would be corrupted or extinguished.
It
is noteworthy that the significance of these real political
successes won by our nation in its struggles, enduring more
than a thousand years, were far better understood and appreciated
by our adversaries than by ourselves. Even today we still
rave about a heroism which robbed our people of millions
of its noblest blood-bearers, but in its ultimate result
remained totally fruitless.
The
distinction between the real political successes of our
people and the national blood spent for fruitless aims is
of the greatest importance for our conduct in the present
and the future.
We
National Socialists must never under any circumstances join
in the foul hurrah patriotism of our present bourgeois world.
In particular it is mortally dangerous to regard the last
pre-War developments as binding even in the slightest degree
for our own course. From the whole historical development
of the nineteenth century, not a single obligation can be
derived which was grounded in this period itself. In contrast
to the conduct of the representatives of this period, we
must again profess the highest aim of all foreign policy,
to wit: to bring the soil into harmony with the population.
Yes, from the past we can only learn that, in setting an
objective for our political activity, we must proceed in
two directions: Land and soil as the goal of our foreign
policy, and a new philosophically established, uniform foundation
as the aim of political activity at home.
*...............*...............*
I
still wish briefly to take a position on the question as
to what extent the demand for soil and territory seems ethically
and morally justified. This is necessary, since unfortunately,
even in so-called folkish circles, all sorts of unctuous
big-mouths step forward, endeavoring to set the rectification
of the injustice of 1918 as the aim of the German nation's
endeavors in the field of foreign affairs, but at the same
time find it necessary to assure the whole world of folkish
brotherhood and sympathy.
I
should like to make the following preliminary remarks: The
demand for restoration of the frontiers of 1914 is a political
absurdity of such proportions and consequences as to make
it seem a crime. Quite aside from the fact that the Reich's
frontiers in 1914 were anything but logical. For in reality
they were neither complete in the sense of embracing the
people of German nationality, nor sensible with regard to
geo-military expediency. They were not the result of a considered
political action, but momentary frontiers in a political
struggle that was by no means concluded; partly, in fact,
they were the results of chance. With equal right and
in many cases with more right, some other sample year of
German history could be picked out, and the restoration
of the conditions at that time declared to be the aim of
an activity in foreign affairs. The above demand is entirely
suited to our bourgeois society, which here as elsewhere
does not possess a single creative political idea for the
future, but lives only in the past, in fact, in the most
immediate past; for even their backward gaze does not extend
beyond their own times. The law of inertia binds them to
a given situation and causes them to resist any change in
it, but without ever increasing the activity of this opposition
beyond the mere power of perseverance. So it is obvious
that the political horizon of these people does not extend
beyond the year 1914. By proclaiming the restoration of
those borders as the political aim of their activity, they
keep mending the crumbling league of our adversaries. Only
in this way can it be explained that eight years after a
world struggle in which states, some of which had the most
heterogeneous desires, took part, the coalition of the victors
of those days can still maintain itself in a more or less
unbroken form.
All
these states were at one time beneficiaries of the German
collapse. Fear of our strength caused the greed and envy
of the individual great powers among themselves to recede.
By grabbing as much of the Reich as they could, they found
the best guard against a future uprising. A bad conscience
and fear of our people's strength is still the most enduring
cement to hold together the various members of this alliance.
And
we do not disappoint them. By setting up the restoration
of the borders of 1914 as a political program for Germany,
our bourgeoisie frighten away every partner who might desire
to leave the league of our enemies, since he must inevitably
fear to be attacked singly and thereby lose the protection
of his individual fellow allies. Each single state feels
concerned and threatened by this slogan.
Moreover,
it is senseless in two respects:
(1)
because the instruments of power are lacking to remove it
from the vapors of club evenings into reality; and
(2)
because, if it could actually be realized, the outcome would
again be so pitiful that, by God, it would not be worth
while to risk the blood of our people for this.
For
it should scarcely seem questionable to anyone that even
the restoration of the frontiers of 1914 could be achieved
only by blood. Only childish and naive minds can lull themselves
in the idea that they can bring about a correction of Versailles
by wheedling and begging. Quite aside from the fact that
such an attempt would presuppose a man of Talleyrand's talents,
which we do not possess. One half of our political figures
consist of extremely sly, but equally spineless elements
which are hostile toward our nation to begin with, while
the other is composed of good-natured, harmless, and easy-going
soft-heads. Moreover, the times have changed since the Congress
of Vienna: Today it is not princes and princes' mistresses
who haggle and bargain over state borders; it is the inexorable
Jew who struggles for his domination over the nations.
No nation can remove this hand from its throat except by
the sword. Only the assembled and concentrated might of
a national passion rearing up in its strength can defy the
international enslavement of peoples. Such a process is
and remains a bloody one.
If,
however, we harbor the conviction that the German future,
regardless what happens, demands the supreme sacrifice,
quite aside from all considerations of political expediency
as such, we must set up an aim worthy of this sacrifice
and fight for it.
The
boundaries of the year 1914 mean nothing at all for the
German future. Neither did they provide a defense of the
past, nor would they contain any strength for the future.
Through them the German nation will neither achieve its
inner integrity, nor will its sustenance be safeguarded
by them, nor do these boundaries, viewed from the military
standpoint, seem expedient or even satisfactory, nor finally
can they improve the relation in which we at present find
ourselves toward the other world powers, or, better expressed,
the real world powers. The lag behind England will not be
caught up, the magnitude of the Union will not be achieved;
not even France would experience a material diminution of
her world-political importance.
Only
one thing would be certain: even with a favorable outcome,
such an attempt to restore the borders of 1914 would lead
to a further bleeding of our national body, so much so that
there would be no worth-while blood left to stake for the
decisions and actions really to secure the nation's future.
On the contrary, drunk with such a shallow success, we should
renounce any further goals, all the more readily as 'national
honor' would be repaired and, for the moment at least, a
few doors would have been reopened to commercial development.
As
opposed to this, we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly
to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the
German people the land and soil to which they are entitled
on this earth. And this action is the only one which,
before God and our German posterity, would make any sacrifice
of blood seem justified: before God, since we have been
put on this earth with the mission of eternal struggle for
our daily bread, beings who receive nothing as a gift, and
who owe their position as lords of the earth only to the
genius and the courage with which they can conquer and defend
it; and before our German posterity in so far as we have
shed no citizen's blood out of which a thousand others are
not bequeathed to posterity. The soil on which some day
German generations of peasants can beget powerful sons will
sanction the investment of the sons of today, and will some
day acquit the responsible statesmen of blood-guilt and
sacrifice of the people, even if they are persecuted by
their contemporaries.
And
I must sharply attack those folkish pen-pushers who claim
to regard such an acquisition of soil as a 'breach of sacred
human rights' and attack it as such in their scribblings.
One never knows who stands behind these fellows. But one
thing is certain, that the confusion they can create is
desirable and convenient to our national enemies. By such
an attitude they help to weaken and destroy from within
our people's will for the only correct way of defending
their vital needs. For no people on this earth possesses
so much as a square yard of territory on the strength of
a higher will or superior right. Just as Germany's frontiers
are fortuitous frontiers, momentary frontiers in the current
political struggle of any period, so are the boundaries
of other nations' living space. And just as the shape of
our earth's surface can seem immutable as granite only to
the thoughtless soft-head, but in reality only represents
at each period an apparent pause in a continuous development,
created by the mighty forces of Nature in a process of continuous
growth, only to be transformed or destroyed tomorrow by
greater forces, likewise the boundaries of living spaces
in the life of nations.
State
boundaries are made by man and changed by man.
The
fact that a nation has succeeded in acquiring an undue amount
of soil constitutes no higher obligation that it should
be recognized eternally. At most it proves the strength
of the conquerors and the weakness of the nations. And in
this case, right lies in this strength alone. If the German
nation today, penned into an impossible area, faces a lamentable
future, this is no more a commandment of Fate than revolt
against this state of affairs constitutes an affront to
Fate. No more than any higher power has promised another
nation more territory than the German nation, or is offended
by the fact of this unjust distribution of the soil. Just
as our ancestors did not receive the soil on which we live
today as a gift from Heaven, but had to fight for it at
the risk of their lives, in the future no folkish grace
will win soil for us and hence life for our people, but
only the might of a victorious sword.
Much
as all of us today recognize the necessity of a reckoning
with France, it would remain ineffectual in the long run
if it represented the whole of our aim in foreign policy.
It can and will achieve meaning only if it offers the rear
cover for an enlargement of our people's living space in
Europe. For it is not in colonial acquisitions that we must
see the solution of this problem, but exclusively in the
acquisition of a territory for settlement, which will enhance
the area of the mother country, and hence not only keep
the new settlers in the most intimate community with the
land of their origin, but secure for the total area those
advantages which lie in its unified magnitude.
The
folkish movement must not be the champion of other peoples,
but the vanguard fighter of its own. Otherwise it is superfluous
and above all has no right to sulk about the past. For in
that case it is behaving in exactly the same way. The old
German policy was wrongly determined by dynastic considerations,
and the future policy must not be directed by cosmopolitan
folkish drivel. In particular, we are not constables guarding
the well-known 'poor little nations,' but soldiers of our
own nation.
But
we National Socialists must go further. The right to
possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its
soil a great nation seems doomed to destruction. And
most especially when not some little nigger nation or other
is involved, but the Germanic mother of life, which has
given the present-day world its cultural picture. Germany
will either be a world power or there will be no Germany.
And for world power she needs that magnitude which will
give her the position she needs in the present period, and
life to her citizens.
*...............*...............*
And
so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath
the foreign policy tendency of our prewar period. We take
up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the
endless German movement to the south and west, and turn
our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break
off the colonial and commercial policy of the prewar period
and shift to the soil policy of the future.
If
we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have
in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.
Here
Fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign. By handing
Russia to Bolshevism, it robbed the Russian nation of that
intelligentsia which previously brought about and guaranteed
its existence as a state. For the organization of a Russian
state formation was not the result of the political abilities
of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of
the state-forming efficacity of the German element in an
inferior race. Numerous mighty empires on earth have been
created in this way. Lower nations led by Germanic organizers
and overlords have more than once grown to be mighty state
formations and have endured as long as the racial nucleus
of the creative state race maintained itself. For centuries
Russia drew nourishment from this Germanic nucleus of its
upper leading strata. Today it can be regarded as almost
totally exterminated and extinguished. It has been replaced
by the Jew. Impossible as it is for the Russian by himself
to shake off the yoke of the Jew by his own resources, it
is equally impossible for the Jew to maintain the mighty
empire forever. He himself is no element of organization,
but a ferment of decomposition. The Persian empire in the
east is ripe for collapse. And the end of Jewish rule in
Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. We have
been chosen by Fate as witnesses of a catastrophe which
will be the mightiest confirmation of the soundness of the
folkish theory.
Our
task, the mission of the National Socialist movement, is
to bring our own people to such political insight that they
will not see their goal for the future in the breath-taking
sensation of a new Alexander's conquest, but in the industrious
work of the German plow, to which the sword need only give
soil.
*...............*...............*
It
goes without saying that the Jews announce the sharpest
resistance to such a policy. Better than anyone else they
sense the significance of this action for their own future.
This very fact should teach all really national-minded men
the correctness of such a reorientation. Unfortunately,
the opposite is the case. Not only in German-National, but
even in 'folkish' circles, the idea of such an eastern policy
is violently attacked, and, as almost always in such matters,
they appeal to a higher authority. The spirit of Bismarck
is cited to cover a policy which is as senseless as it is
impossible and in the highest degree harmful to the German
nation. Bismarck in his time, they say, always set store
on good relations with Russia. This, to a certain extent,
is true. But they forget to mention that he set just as
great store on good relations with Italy, for example; in
fact, that the same Herr von Bismarck once made an alliance
with Italy in order to finish off Austria the more easily.
Why, then, don't they continue this policy? 'Because the
Italy of today is not the Italy of those days,' they will
say. Very well. But then, honored sirs, will you permit
the objection that present-day Russia is not the Russia
of those days either? It never entered Bismarck's head to
lay down a political course tactically and theoretically
for all time. In this respect he was too much master of
the moment to tie his hands in such a way. The question,
therefore, must not be: What did Bismarck do in his time?
But rather: What would he do today? And this question
is easier to answer. With his political astuteness, he
would never ally himself with a state that is doomed to
destruction.
Furthermore,
Bismarck even then viewed the German colonial and commercial
policy with mixed feelings, since for the moment he was
concerned only with the surest method of internally consolidating
the state formation he had created. And this was the only
reason why at that time he welcomed the Russian rear cover,
which gave him a free hand in the west. But what was profitable
to Germany then would be detrimental today.
As
early as 1920-21, when the young National Socialist movement
began slowly to rise above the political horizon, and here
and there was referred to as the movement for German freedom,
the party was approached by various quarters with an attempt
to create a certain bond between it and the movements
for freedom in other countries. This was in the line
of the 'League of Oppressed Nations,' propagated
by many. Chiefly involved were representatives of various
Balkan states, and some from Egypt and India, who as individuals
always impressed me as pompous big-mouths without any realistic
background. But there were not a few Germans, especially
in the nationalist camp, who let themselves be dazzled by
such inflated Orientals and readily accepted any old Indian
or Egyptian student from God knows where as a 'representative'
of India or Egypt. These people never realized that they
were usually dealing with persons who had absolutely nothing
behind them, and above all were authorized by no one to
conclude any pact with anyone, so that the practical result
of any relations with such elements was nil, unless the
time wasted were booked as a special loss. I always resisted
such attempts. Not only that I had better things to do than
twiddle away weeks in fruitless 'conferences,' but even
if these men had been authorized representatives of such
nations, I regarded the whole business as useless, in fact,
harmful.
Even
in peacetime it was bad enough that the German alliance
policy, for want of any aggressive intentions of our own,
ended in a defensive union of ancient states, pensioned
by world history. The alliance with Austria as well as Turkey
had little to be said for them. While the greatest military
and industrial states on earth banded into an active aggressive
union, we collected a few antique, impotent state formations
and with this decaying rubbish attempted to face an active
world coalition. Germany received a bitter accounting for
this error in foreign policy. But this accounting does not
seem to have been bitter enough to prevent our eternal dreamers
from falling headlong into the same error. For the attempt
to disarm the almighty victors through a 'League of Oppressed
Nations' is not only ridiculous, but catastrophic as
well. It is catastrophic because it distracts our people
again and again from the practical possibilities, making
them devote themselves to imaginative, yet fruitless hopes
and illusions. The German of today really resembles the
drowning man who grasps at every straw. And this can apply
even to men who are otherwise exceedingly well educated.
If any will-o'-the-wisp of hope, however unreal, turns up
anywhere, these men are off at a trot, chasing after the
phantom. Whether it is a League of Oppressed Nations, a
League of Nations, or any other fantastic new invention,
it will be sure to find thousands of credulous souls.
I
still remember the hopes, as childish as they were incomprehensible,
which suddenly arose in folkish circles in 1920-21, to the
effect that British power was on the verge of collapse in
India. Some Asiatic jugglers, for all I care they may have
been real 'fighters for Indian freedom,' who at that time
were wandering around Europe, had managed to sell otherwise
perfectly reasonable able people the idée fixe that
the British Empire, which has its pivot in India, was on
the verge of collapse at that very point. Of course, it
never entered their heads that here again their own wish
was the sole father of all their thoughts. No more did the
inconsistency of their own hopes. For by expecting the end
of the British Empire to follow from a collapse of British
rule in India, they themselves admitted that India was of
the most paramount importance to England.
It
is most likely, however, that this vitally important question
is not a profound secret known only to German-folkish prophets;
presumably it is known also to the helmsmen of English destiny.
It is really childish to suppose that the men in England
cannot correctly estimate the importance of the Indian Empire
for the British world union. And if anyone imagines that
England would let India go without staking her last drop
of blood, it is only a sorry sign of absolute failure to
learn from the World War, and of total misapprehension and
ignorance on the score of Anglo-Saxon determination. It
is, furthermore, a proof of the German's total ignorance
regarding the whole method of British penetration and administration
of this empire. England will lose India either if her
own administrative machinery falls a prey to racial decomposition
(which at the moment is completely out of the question in
India) or if she is bested by the sword of a powerful
enemy. Indian agitators, however, will never achieve
this. How hard it is to best England, we Germans have sufficiently
learned. Quite aside from the fact that I, as a man of Germanic
blood, would, in spite of everything, rather see India under
English rule than under any other.
Just
as lamentable are the hopes in any mythical uprising in
Egypt. The 'Holy War' can give our German Schafkopf
players the pleasant thrill of thinking that now perhaps
others are ready to shed their blood for us - for this cowardly
speculation, to tell the truth, has always been the silent
father of all hopes; in reality it would come to an infernal
end under the fire of English machine-gun companies and
the hail of fragmentation bombs.
It
just happens to be impossible to overwhelm with a coalition
of cripples a powerful state that is determined to stake,
if necessary, its last drop of blood for its existence.
As a folkish man, who appraises the value of men on a racial
basis, I am prevented by mere knowledge of the racial inferiority
of these so-called 'oppressed nations' from linking the
destiny of my own people with theirs.
And
today we must take exactly the same position toward Russia.
Present-day Russia, divested of her Germanic upper stratum,
is, quite aside from the private intentions of her new masters,
no ally for the German nation's fight for freedom. Considered
from the purely military angle, the relations would be simply
catastrophic in case of war between Germany and Russia and
Western Europe, and probably against all the rest of the
world. The struggle would take place, not on Russian, but
on German soil, and Germany would not be able to obtain
the least effective support from Russia. The present German
Reich's instruments of power are so lamentable and so useless
for a foreign war, that no defense of our borders against
Western Europe, including England, would be practicable,
and particularly the German industrial region would lie
defenselessly exposed to the concentrated aggressive arms
of our foes. There is the additional fact that between Germany
and Russia there lies the Polish state, completely in French
hands. In case of a war between Germany and Russia and Western
Europe, Russia would first have to subdue Poland before
the first soldier could be sent to the western front. Yet
it is not so much a question of soldiers as of technical
armament. In this respect, the World War situation would
repeat itself, only much more horribly. Just as German industry
was then drained for our glorious allies, and, technically
speaking, Germany had to fight the war almost single-handed,
likewise in this struggle Russia would be entirely out of
the picture as a technical factor. We could oppose practically
nothing to the general motorization of the world, which
in the next war will manifest itself overwhelmingly and
decisively. For not only that Germany herself has remained
shamefully backward in this all-important field, but from
the little she possesses she would have to sustain Russia,
which even today cannot claim possession of a single factory
capable of producing a motor vehicle that really runs. Thus,
such a war would assume the character of a plain massacre.
Germany's youth would be bled even more than the last time,
for as always the burden of the fighting would rest only
upon us, and the result would be inevitable defeat.
But
even supposing that a miracle should occur and that such
a struggle did not end with the total annihilation of Germany,
the ultimate outcome would only be that the German nation,
bled white, would remain as before bounded by great military
states and that her real situation would hence have changed
in no way.
Let
no one argue that in concluding an alliance with Russia
we need not immediately think of war, or, if we did, that
we could thoroughly prepare for it. An alliance whose
aim does not embrace a plan for war is senseless and worthless.
Alliances are concluded only for struggle. And even if the
clash should be never so far away at the moment when the
pact is concluded, the prospect of a military involvement
is nevertheless its cause. And do not imagine that any power
would ever interpret the meaning of such an alliance in
any other way. Either a German-Russian coalition would remain
on paper, or from the letter of the treaty it would be translated
into visible reality - and the rest of the world would be
warned. How naïve to suppose that in such a case England
and France would wait a decade for the German-Russian alliance
to complete its technical preparations. No, the storm would
break over Germany with the speed of lightning.
And
so the very fact of the conclusion of an alliance with Russia
embodies a plan for the next war. Its outcome would
be the end of Germany.
On
top of this there is the following:
1.
The present rulers of Russia have no idea of honorably
entering into an alliance, let alone observing one.
Never
forget that the rulers of present-day Russia are common
blood-stained criminals; that they are the scum of humanity
which, favored by circumstances, overran a great state in
a tragic hour, slaughtered and wiped out thousands of her
leading intelligentsia in wild blood lust, and now for almost
ten years have been carrying on the most cruel and tyrannical
régime of all time. Furthermore, do not forget that these
rulers belong to a race which combines, in a rare mixture,
bestial cruelty and an inconceivable gift for lying, and
which today more than ever is conscious of a mission to
impose its bloody oppression on the whole world. Do not
forget that the international Jew who completely dominates
Russia today regards Germany, not as an ally, but as a state
destined to the same fate. And you do not make pacts
with anyone whose sole interest is the destruction of his
partner. Above all, you do not make them with elements
to whom no pact would be sacred, since they do not live
in this world as representatives of honor and sincerity,
but as champions of deceit, lies, theft, plunder, and rapine.
If a man believes that he can enter into profitable connections
with parasites, he is like a tree trying to conclude for
its own profit an agreement with a mistletoe.
2.
The danger to which Russia succumbed is always present
for Germany. Only a bourgeois simpleton is capable of
imagining that Bolshevism has been exorcised. With his superficial
thinking he has no idea that this is an instinctive process;
that is, the striving of the Jewish people for world domination,
a process which is just as natural as the urge of the Anglo-Saxon
to seize domination of the earth. And just as the Anglo-Saxon
pursues this course in his own way and carries on the fight
with his own weapons, likewise the Jew. He goes his way,
the way of sneaking in among the nations and boring from
within, and he fights with his weapons, with lies and slander,
poison and corruption, intensifying the struggle to the
point of bloodily exterminating his hated foes. In Russian
Bolshevism we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews
in the twentieth century to achieve world domination.
Just as in other epochs they strove to reach the same goal
by other, though inwardly related processes. Their endeavor
lies profoundly rooted in their essential nature. No more
than another nation renounces of its own accord the pursuit
of its impulse for the expansion of its power and way of
life, but is compelled by outward circumstances or else
succumbs to impotence due to the symptoms of old age, does
the Jew break off his road to world dictatorship out of
voluntary renunciation, or because he represses presses
his eternal urge. He, too, will either be thrown back in
his course by forces lying outside himself, or all his striving
for world domination will be ended by his own dying out.
But the impotence of nations, their own death from old age,
arises from the abandonment of their blood purity. And this
is a thing that the Jew preserves better than any other
people on earth. And so he advances on his fatal road until
another force comes forth to oppose him, and in a mighty
struggle hurls the heaven-stormer back to Lucifer.
Germany
is today the next great war aim of Bolshevism. It requires
all the force of a young missionary idea to raise our people
up again, to free them from the snares of this international
serpent, and to stop the inner contamination of our blood,
in order that the forces of the nation thus set free can
be thrown in to safeguard our nationality, and thus can
prevent a repetition of the recent catastrophes down to
the most distant future. If we pursue this aim, it is sheer
lunacy to ally ourselves with a power whose master is the
mortal enemy of our future. How can we expect to free our
own people from the fetters of this poisonous embrace if
we walk right into it? How shall we explain Bolshevism to
the German worker as an accursed crime against humanity
if we ally ourselves with the organizations of this spawn
of hell, thus recognizing it in the larger sense? By what
right shall we condemn a member of the broad masses for
is sympathy with an outlook if the very leaders of the state
choose the representatives of this outlook for allies?
The
fight against Jewish world Bolshevization requires a clear
attitude toward Soviet Russia. You cannot drive out the
Devil with Beelzebub.
If
today even folkish circles rave about an alliance with Russia,
they should just look around them in Germany and see whose
support they find in their efforts. Or have folkish men
lately begun to view an activity as beneficial to the German
people which is recommended and promoted by the international
Marxist press? Since when do folkish men fight with armor
held out to them by a Jewish squire?
There
is one main charge that could be raised against the old
German Reich with regard to its alliance policy: not, however,
that it failed to maintain good relations with Russia, but
only that it ruined its relations with everyone by continuous
shilly-shallying, in the pathological weakness of trying
to preserve world peace at any price.
I
openly confess that even in the prewar period I would have
thought it sounder if Germany, renouncing her senseless
colonial policy and renouncing her merchant marine and war
fleet, had concluded an alliance with England against Russia,
thus passing from a feeble global policy to a determined
European policy of territorial acquisition on the continent.
I
have not forgotten the insolent threat which the pan-Slavic
Russia of that time dared to address to Germany; I have
not forgotten the constant practice mobilizations, whose
sole purpose was an affront to Germany; I cannot forget
the mood of public opinion in Russia, which outdid itself
in hateful outbursts against our people and our Reich; I
cannot forget the big Russian newspapers, which were always
more enthusiastic about France than about us.
But
in spite of all that, before the War there would still have
been a second way: we could have propped ourselves on Russia
and turned against England.
Today
conditions are different. If before the War we could have
choked down every possible sentiment and gone with Russia,
today it is no longer possible. The hand of the world clock
has moved forward since then, and is loudly striking the
hour in which the destiny of our nation must be decided
in one way or another. The process of consolidation in which
the great states of the earth are involved at the moment
is for us the last warning signal to stop and search our
hearts, to lead our people out of the dream world back to
hard reality, and show them the way to the future which
alone will lead the old Reich to a new golden age.
If
the National Socialist movement frees itself from all illusions
with regard to this great and all-important task, and accepts
reason as its sole guide, the catastrophe of 1918 can some
day become an infinite blessing for the future of our nation.
Out of this collapse our nation will arrive at a complete
reorientation of its activity in foreign relations, and,
furthermore, reinforced within by its new philosophy of
life, will also achieve outwardly a final stabilization
of its foreign policy. Then at last it will acquire what
England possesses and even Russia possessed, and what again
and again induced France to make the same decisions, essentially
correct from the viewpoint of her own interests, to wit:
A political testament.
The
political testament of the German nation to govern its outward
activity for all time should and must be:
Never
suffer the rise of two continental powers in Europe. Regard
any attempt to organize a second military power on the German
frontiers, even if only in the form of creating a state
capable of military strength, as an attack on Germany, and
in it see not only the right, but also the duty, to employ
all means up to armed force to prevent the rise of such
a state, or, if one has already arisen, to smash it again.
- See to it that the strength of our nation is founded,
not on colonies but on the soil of our European homeland.
Never regard the Reich as secure unless for centuries to
come it can give every scion of our people his own parcel
of soil. Never forget that the most sacred right on this
earth is a man's right to have earth to till with his own
hands, and the most sacred sacrifice the blood that a man
sheds for this earth.
*...............*...............*
I
should not like to conclude these reflections without pointing
once again to the sole alliance possibility which exists
for us at the moment in Europe. In the previous chapter
on the alliance problem I have already designated England
and Italy as the only two states in Europe with which a
closer relationship would be desirable and promising for
us. Here I shall briefly touch on the military importance
of such an alliance.
The
military consequences of concluding this alliance would
in every respect be the opposite of the consequences of
an alliance with Russia. The most important consideration,
first of all, is the fact that in itself an approach
to England and Italy in no way conjures up a war danger.
France, the sole power which could conceivably oppose the
alliance, would not be in a position to do so. And consequently
the alliance would give Germany the possibility of peacefully
making those preparations for a reckoning with France, which
would have to be made in any event within the scope of such
a coalition. For the significant feature of such an
alliance lies precisely in the fact that upon its conclusion
Germany would not suddenly be exposed to a hostile invasion,
but that the opposing alliance would break of its own accord;
the Entente, to which we owe such infinite misfortune, would
be dissolved, and hence France, the mortal enemy of our
nation, would be isolated. Even if this success is limited
at first to moral effect, it would suffice to give Germany
freedom of movement to an extent which today is scarcely
conceivable. For the law of action would be in the hands
of the new European Anglo-German-Italian alliance and no
longer with France.
The
further result would be that at one stroke Germany would
be freed from her unfavorable strategic position. The
most powerful protection on our flank on the one hand, complete
guaranty of our food and raw materials on the other, would
be the beneficial effect of the new constellation of states.
But
almost more important would be the fact that the new league
would embrace states which in technical productivity almost
complement one another in many respects. For the first
time Germany would have allies who would not drain our own
economy like leeches, but could and would contribute their
share to the richest supplementation of our technical armament.
And
do not overlook the final fact that in both cases we should
be dealing with allies who cannot be compared with Turkey
or present-day Russia. The greatest world power on earth
and a youthful national state would offer different premises
for a struggle in Europe than the putrid state corpses with
which Germany allied herself in the last war.
Assuredly,
as I emphasized in the last chapter, the difficulties opposing
such an alliance are great. But was the formation of the
Entente, for instance, any less difficult? What the genius
of a King Edward VII achieved, in part almost counter to
natural interests, we, too, must and will achieve, provided
we are so inspired by our awareness of the necessity of
such a development that with astute self-control we determine
our actions accordingly. And this will become possible
in the moment when, imbued with admonishing distress, we
pursue, not the diplomatic aimlessness of the last decades,
but a conscious and determined course, and stick to it.
Neither western nor eastern orientation must be the future
goal of our foreign policy, but an eastern policy in the
sense of acquiring the necessary soil for our German people.
Since for this we require strength, and since France, the
mortal enemy of our nation, inexorably strangles us and
robs us of our strength, we must take upon ourselves every
sacrifice whose consequences are calculated to contribute
to the annihilation of French efforts toward hegemony in
Europe. Today every power is our natural ally, which like
us feels French domination on the continent to be intolerable.
No path to such a power can be too hard for us, and no renunciation
can seem unutterable if only the end result offers the possibility
of downing our grimmest enemy. Then, if we can cauterize
and close the biggest wound, we can calmly leave the cure
of our slighter wounds to the soothing effects of time.
Today,
of course, we are subjected to the hateful yapping of the
enemies of our people within. We National Socialists must
never let this divert us from proclaiming what in our innermost
conviction is absolutely necessary. Today, it is true, we
must brace ourselves against the current of a public opinion
confounded by Jewish guile exploiting German gullibility;
sometimes, it is true, the waves break harshly and angrily
about us, but he who swims with the stream is more easily
overlooked than he who bucks the waves. Today we are a reef;
in a few years Fate may raise us up as a dam against which
the general stream will break, and flow into a new bed.
It
is, therefore, necessary that the National Socialist movement
be recognized and established in the eyes of all as the
champion of a definite political purpose. Whatever Heaven
may have in store for us, let men recognize us by our very
visor!
Once
we ourselves recognize the crying need which must determine
our conduct in foreign affairs, from this knowledge will
flow the force of perseverance which we sometimes need when,
beneath the drumfire of our hostile press hounds, one or
another of us is seized with fear and there creeps upon
him a faint desire to grant a concession at least in some
field, and howl with the wolves, in order not to have everyone
against him.