Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 14
Chapter XIV
The State
Even so early as 1921-22, our young movement was reproached by the tired Bourgeois world because we were hostile to the present state. They did not realize that really, lacking any definite idea of what a state was, no state really existed.
There exist today several different views of a state; some of these views include all that “ethical” and “moral” junk, which so obviously denies reality. Broadly, these views of the state are represented by three groups:
(a) A group of those who think of the state simply as a more or less voluntary coming-together of people under some government.
This group is the largest, and its members respect the law of the state—its legitimacy—so much that they worship it like a dog worships a master, and think that it is in itself sacred. The heads of these people thus confuse a means with an end—and they think state authority must only consider the preservation of peace and order.
(b) Much smaller is the second group, for these people attach at least a few conditions to the existence of a state.
They desire, if possible, equal administration and a uniform language, sometimes only for the sake of mechanical perfection of administration.
To these people state authority is not the sole purpose of the state; it must consider the welfare of its subjects. They take into consideration ideas of “liberty”—and most of these ideas are misunderstandings. They examine the government according to its expediency.
The chief representatives of this group are our common German Bourgeoisie, and the first thing they think about when they think of the state is whether it satisfies their economic ideas.
(c) The third group is the smallest—it sees the state as a means to the realization of vague longing for political power; and they think of a state as something welded together simply become a number of people speak the same language.
I remember how in the days of the old Austrian Empire, the pro-German element used to believe that if the government would enforce the German language on the Austrian Slavs, the Empire could in that way be Germanized. If a negro or a Chinaman learns to speak German, or is forced to learn to speak it, is he thus Germanized?
It is obvious that if such a policy had been carried out in the Austrian Empire it would have led to de-Germanization, for the outward difference between Slavs and Germans would have become difficult to see, and the result would have been racial mixture and destruction, therefore, of the German element.
It is fortunate for the German nation that the Hapsburgs did not adopt this policy.
What’s in
A Name?
If the Slavs of the Austrian Empire had been compelled to speak German, the German people today could not rightly be called a culture factor.
- (When, in March, 1939, Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, and overwhelmed the Czechs and the Slavs, the names of countless streets, squares, villages, rivers, and mountains were changed overnight, German proper names replacing Czech and Slovak names.)
People of an alien race expressing their alien thoughts in the German language would be disastrous to the dignity of our nationality because of the certain inferiority of this alien race.
How horrible it is—how much damage is done to the German race—by the fact that the quarreling German Jew, when he goes to America, is judged to be a German, due to the ignorance of many Americans!
The only thing profitably Germanized by our forefathers was soil acquired by wielding the sword, and thereafter settled with German peasants. Conquests which introduced foreign blood to our national body split the inner life and unity of the German super-individualism, and therefore were catastrophes.
- (Thus, even from Hitler’s own standpoint, the 1939 German conquest of millions of Czechs and Slovaks was a catastrophe for Germany.
- (Many people hold the view that it is the nature of a dictatorship such as Hitler’s, or Mussolini’s, that it can never rest. It must continually express itself in violent action, for otherwise the subjected people would have time to think of what is happening to them, and then they would revolt. It is quite possible that Hitler was, against his will, forced to conquer Czecho-Slovakia—he perhaps felt that some violent act or emotion, such as springs out of military conquest, was vitally needed if he was to preserve eternal peace in Nazi Germany. The easiest thing was to take over betrayed Czecho-Slovakia, so that is what he chose to do.
- (In September, 1938, Hitler’s axis partner, Mussolini, published in his Milan newspaper, Popolo d’Italia, a letter addressed to Lord Runciman, in which he stated that be was in a position to reveal, confidentially, that if Hitler were offered all the millions of Czechs and the Slovaks for inclusion in the German state, Hitler would “politely but firmly decline to take them”.
- (Clearly, at that time, less than six months before Hitler absorbed the Czechs and the Slovaks, he told his ally, Mussolini, that he did not want them.)
To sum up, none of these three views of the state realize that the great forces which create culture and all things worthy of man are based upon race—and that therefore the state must above all consider the ends of the race.
The Jew, Karl Marx, realized that to break the Bourgeois world from the idea of the racial state opened the way for his terrible doctrine which denies the state itself. Thus, when they fell victim to the wiles of the internationalists, the Bourgeoisie could no longer preserve their race, and therefore their world was doomed to death unless they were awakened.
For this reason the first duty of a new movement which is based upon the racial view of life is to see that the state is clearly understood to be guardian of the race.
The state cannot create culture—it can only serve and protect the race which creates culture.
Thus the achievement of ever higher humanity does not depend upon any state, but upon the existence and flourishing life of the race capable of creating it.
Therefore it is an incredible outrage to say that the Germans of pre-Christian ages were uncivilized barbarians. They never were cultureless people. The hardness of their Nordic home merely forced upon them conditions which prevented the flowering of their creative talents.
How He Welcomed World War!
“I am not ashamed to say that, swept off my feet by a storm of passion, I fell on my knees and thanked Heaven with all my heart that it had granted me the fortune to live this day.
… Only one thing bothered me—I was afraid I would reach the front too late. The thought tortured me, only this disturbing my peace.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter V
If these Germans had instead come to the more favorable regions to the south, and if they had found there elementary technical tools among the inferior people (meaning the Italians!) the culture-creating powers slumbering in them would have blossomed as gloriously as was the case with the Hellenes.
But it must not be assumed that the creative spark in the Aryan is the result of his Northern home; the Laplander, transported to the south, would still be as culturally sterile as the Eskimo.
No, only the Aryan possesses this grand creative talent—no matter whether it is carried about in a hidden condition, asleep, or whether it is actively at work because of favorable climatic conditions.
The Dull,
Bleating Herd
The state is a means to an end.
The only purpose of the state is the preservation and promotion of a community of physically and mentally equal creatures.
States that don’t serve this purpose are monstrosities. The fact of their existence proves nothing.
We Nazis as the bearers of a new view of the world, must never stand on the “basis of facts”. If we did we would not be fighters for something new—we would be slaves of things now existing.
Thus the great purpose of the state is to protect those racial elements which create culture and build the beauty and superbness of a higher man.
We are convinced, as Aryans, that people who live after us will understand.
We must carefully ask how the state needed by us Germans is to be formed—and must first see clearly what sort of people it is to bring together. Blood poisoning has led to decomposition of our bodies and souls; we have Nordics beside Orientals, and beside Orientals stand Occidentals, while in between these classifications there are mixtures.
A great disadvantage cropping out of this racial mixture is that the German people lack that dependable herd instinct which will always arise out of blood unity.
If throughout history the German people had preserved the unity enjoyed by some other peoples, the German Empire today would rule the world!
Slavedrivers?
No one knows whether, if things had worked themselves out in that way, that peace which today so many ignorant pacifists hope to achieve by groaning and weeping would not have come anyway: a peace founded on the mighty sword of overlords setting the world to work for a greater culture, and not a peace supported by the olive branches of tearful pacifist female mourners.
Fortunately, however, not all German blood has been contaminated by this mongrelizing process. Today, from the standpoint of our new understanding, we must study and evaluate that which was prevented by Fate from entirely disappearing.
He who speaks of a German mission on this earth must know that it can only rest upon the formation of a state which sees as its greatest task the salvation and advancement of the noblest surviving element of our race, that is, of the greatest element of mankind.
The German Reich must include all Germans, with the task not only of taking the most valuable racial elements among that people onto itself and preserving them, but also with the duty of raising them slowly and surely to a dominating position.
The state is the great, powerful weapon to be used by a race in the battle, the eternal battle, for life—a weapon to which everyone must submit, because it expresses a common will.
Nature’s law (that is, Hitler’s law) that racial mixture destroys the higher race must never be forgotten, and more, it should never be broken even by the individual—for the danger is great that race barriers will gradually come to be overlooked. At that time, the mission of mankind could be looked upon as at an end.
Racial Mass
Production
No, there is only one most sacred human right, which is also the most sacred duty—the preservation of blood purity.
Thus a racial state must first of all take marriage out of the level of race degradation, consecrating it as an institution intended to beget images of the Lord, and not bastards that are half man and half ape.
The fertility of the healthy woman must not be limited by the financial mismanagement of the state which allows conditions to arise making children a curse for parents. Race, and healthy offspring which mean worthy future generations, must become the center of state life.
That it is within the realm of possibility to raise racial propagation to this high plane cannot be denied in this world in which hundreds of thousands of men voluntarily impose celibacy upon themselves, obligated and bound by nothing more than a command of the Church.
Is not the same renunciation possible if replaced by the warning finally to halt the original sin of race poisoning and to give God such beings as He Himself first created?
Of course, at this the miserable Bourgeoisie will complain bitterly, or argue in their eternal manner: “That would all be very nice in itself, perhaps, but it’s impossible!”
With you, of course, it is impossible. You know only a single care—your personal lives; and one God—your money!
But we don’t appeal to you—we turn to the masses, and above all, 1o the great and powerful German youth.
If an entire continent today at last takes up the battle against liquor, freeing a people from the poison of this devastating vice, our European Bourgeois world can only shake its head, give a blank stare, and then begin a sort of a superficial ridicule of all this.
The first task of the state is to develop its best racial elements—and that geniuses are occasionally physically malformed, and even sick, is the exception which proves the rule.
Body—
Not Mind
The racial state must have as the aim of its education the breeding of superior bodies—the development of intellectual powers must stand in second place. The schools must devote much more time than present “educational institutions” do to sport, and here boxing, which so many “nationalists” consider brutal and undignified, must not be overlooked. No sport is equal to boxing in building up the aggressive spirit!
It is more ignoble for a man to run away yelping for a policeman when he is attacked, than it is for him to counter-attack with his fists.
But above all, the healthy youngster must learn to endure the heaviest blows.
This may seem wild to our “spiritual fighters”, but the racial state is not concerned with the task of breeding a colony of peaceful aesthetes and physical weaklings.
If our intellectual class had been taught boxing instead of refined social manners, a German revolution by pimps, deserters, and such riffraff would have been impossible.
Today our down-trodden German nation, helpless against the kicks of the world, is in this condition because if lacks the force of self confidence. German youth must be educated so that out of his physical strength and skill he comes to believe once more in the invincibility of all Germany.
Even the clothes that young people wear should be shaped to this purpose. The girl should be made to know her knight. If today physical beauty was not shoved into the background by our stilted world of fashion, the seduction of hundreds of thousands of girls by bowlegged, disgusting Jewish bastards would be impossible. For the sake of the nation the most beautiful bodies should be helped in the quest for one another, so that beauty can be produced for the nation.
Today conditions are especially bad, because the guidance which widespread military training used to give to the relationship of the sexes is lacking. In former times the girl preferred—and she still prefers, or would prefer—the soldier to the civilian.
It is insanity to think that when school is over the state’s right of supervision over the citizen is at an end. This right is a permanent duty, but the present state criminally allows youth to decay in the streets and brothels.
The education adopted by the racial state must have as its goal primarily the training of youth for army service. Discipline must be taught! The youth must learn to be silent, not only when he is justly blamed for something, but also youth must learn to bear injustice with the same silence.
At the end of his army service, he is to be given two documents: his diploma as a state citizen, which permits him public life, and his health certificate, which pronounces him physically fit for marriage.
The racial state can also educate the girl, from the same viewpoint. The greatest stress must be placed upon physical culture, secondly on spiritual development, and last of all on intellectual concerns. The inalterable aim of education of the female must be the preparation of a future mother.
- (Goering has expressed this very nicely: “Woman—her place is in the home, and her duty is the recreation of the tired warrior”.)
Only as of secondary importance must a racial state devote itself to character building.
The training of will and resolution, and of willingness to accept responsibility, is important. Today it is lack of will, not lack of arms, that leaves us helpless; this weakness prevents every decision involving risk, as though the greatness of a deed did not consist of daring in the face of overwhelming danger and odds. This cowardice of our people is the result of the education policy followed by the past and present state.
Education
For Apes
The racial state will be able to take over the present academic organization, but must make three changes:
(1) Young brains must not be bothered with the things which are not ever needed, and therefore soon forgotten. The teaching of foreign languages, which are used by only perhaps two in one hundred people in later life, is especially ridiculous. Such useless materials should be eliminated, because in this way necessary time is gained for physical education.
(2) It is the duty of the racial state to see that at last a world history is written in which race is elevated to a dominating position.
The state must choose the history that is to be taught—and carefully make its interpretation. Individuals should be trained for their speceific tasks in life, but not given too broad an education. But the individual must be taught that his trade or profession cannot flourish except in a well formed, racial state.
When the World War came revenge was taken upon Germany for its failure to train the people into a fanatic national passion.
Since the revolution history has been taught as the mere acquisition of knowledge. And who could get excited about a republic!
Actually, this nation owes its present existence to its willingness to pay any tribute, and to sign any shameful surrender of territory. Others like the German nation now, because it is a weakling.
The enemy’s fondness for our present form of government is really the most devastating possible criticism of it.
But the racial state will have to fight for life!
(3) Science must be impressed into the service of racial pride. Not only world history but all the history of culture, must be taught with this in mind. An inventor must be made to seem great not only an inventor, but as a member of one’s own race.
Youth must be so taught that upon leaving school he is no pacifist, democrat, or anything of that nature, but a genuine German—and nothing else.
The present-day fear of chauvinism is proof of decadence. Bourgeois virtues of peace and good order could never have brought the great upheavals of history, all of which have been borne in fanatical and hysterical passion.
Boys and girls must come out of the schools of the racial state with the principle of blood purity branded forever in their brains.
Another thing to remember is that there is no use teaching the incompetents, the members of the great masses, things which they can never appreciate or use for the aggrandizement of the state.
From time to time the little German Bourgeois man reads in his illustrated magazine that for the first time some negro has become a lawyer or teacher, or a singer or something. The Jew seizes upon this opportunity and begins to talk of the equality of man. The stupid Bourgeois world does not realize the criminal foolishness of training a half ape until it is thought that he has become a lawyer, while God is at the same time sinned against because hundreds of thousands of his most talented creatures rot in the proletarian marshes.
The racial state must make certain through its educational system that fresh transfusions of blood from below continually stimulate the upper intellectual layers. A nation will collapse if its leadership is allowed to become a feed-bin for certain groups of classes without any consideration of natural abilities.
The good state will judge a man according to the type and the quality of service he renders to the community. Nature decides what each individual is to contribute. Services rendered to the state are the only measure for law as regards to general, equal, and legal life within the state.
This age is committing suicide: it introduces universal suffrage and babbles about equal rights, but can offer no justification for them.
The National Socialist movement, ignoring the mediocre, must rearrange the nation and put at its head those capable of leading it.
We must set up against the masters of this material republic a new faith in an idealistic Reich.