Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 25

by Adolf Hitler

Chapter XXV

Germany’s Post-War Alliances

After the World War the Reich’s foreign policy was worse than it had been before. But before the war there was confusion—after the war there was dishonesty.

Those who had achieved the ruinous revolution had no desire to form alliances which would reestablish a free and powerful German state. This would have interrupted their attempts to internationalize Germany economy and the rest of the world.

The perpetrators of the November crime feared that any sort of strong foreign policy would inflame national passions.

It is necessary here to distinguish between the leaders of our state, and the parliamentary people who consider themselves politicians—but aren’t, and the dull-witted sheep which are the foolishly tolerant German masses. The leaders know what they want, the parliamentarians tag along behind the leaders either because they are cowards or fools, while the masses submit because of their stupidity.

While the Nazi party was comparatively unknown, foreign affairs could not loom important to many followers. This was partly due to the fact that our movement declared that first of all in the struggle for German freedom the removal of the reasons for our collapse and the destruction of those who took advantage of it was necessary.

But when our movement became large, it was necessary for us to adopt a definite attitude on foreign affairs. One guiding rule had to decide our view on every issue:

Will it help Germany now or in the future, or will it damage us?

The aim of German foreign policy to-day must be the restoration of the national freedom which was lost in the World War.

The German
Sword

The matter of regaining lost territories is first a matter of regaining the political power and freedom of the fatherland. The interests of the lost territories must not be taken into account. Restoration cannot come through the wishes of the opposed people, but only through the power of the greatest surviving free portion of the former common state.

Only a potent sword can bring lost soil back into a common Reich—protests never win anything. The forging of this sword is the duty of the national leaders who must, as part of this task, seek allies.

Our pre-war leaders chose to attempt to work for the interests of the German people through a commercial and colonial policy—the result was the World War.

Pre-war German foreign policy should have aimed to strengthen German power through conquest of new soil in Europe, either with the aid of a British alliance, or else with the force of such a mighty and abnormal military machine that its creation would have halted cultural activity for 40 or 50 years.

This latter choice would have been entirely justified, if it was found necessary for the conquest, because the culture of a nation is directly dependent upon its national freedom.

England—The
Balance of Power

A study of European power politics of the past results in the following conclusions:

England has dominated our continent for 300 years by means of successful efforts to maintain the balance of power among the different European states, thus allowing herself to achieve her aims throughout the world without any threats from the rear. Ever since Queen Elizabeth, England has deliberately tried by every possible means to prevent the rise of any European power which could destroy this balance—if necessary England was ready to use armed force to halt any nation tending to attain too great power on the continent.

Thus after Spain and the Netherlands were destroyed as naval rivals on the high seas, Britain concentrated her power upon France until finally the threat from this quarter was ended with the smashing of Napoleon.

Germany’s lack of national cohesion kept England’s eyes off this nation for a long time, but by 1870-1871, England began to see that here a dangerous commercial and therefore political rival was appearing.

When Germany’s leaders haplessly conceived the idea of “peaceful economic conquest of the world” Britain immediately knew she had to destroy us. She gathered allies, intending to use them to strengthen British domination of the world—she was not her time procuring allies merely in order to maintain world peace.

“The Goddess of Misery threatened to crush me in her arms, hut the will to resist grew, and this will was finally victorious. I owe it to this that I learned to be hard, and that now I am able to be hard.”

Mein Kampf—Chapter II

England Lost
The World War!

But with the German revolution Britain’s fears of Germany ended, and England no longer was interested in seeing Germany blasted to bits.

Britain fought for four and one-half years to destroy Germany’s supposed domination of the European continent.

When Germany collapsed internally, a new situation suddenly arose: Germany was so completely demolished that France became overnight the great political power of the European continent.

England failed to accomplish her World War aim!

France came out of the war in 1918 a greater power and threat to Britain than Germany had been in 1914 when the war began.

In 1914 Germany was in a way stiffled because of her position between France and Russia, and because of a short coastline which, when viewed from the standpoint of its military value in a war against England, was not favorable for Germany.

On the other hand, France is to-day a tremendous military power. She is without any strong enemy on the continent, possesses two almost completely safe borders—those touching Spain and Italy—while her frontier facing Germany is guaranteed because of the weakness of our Fatherland. At the same time the French coast and possessions are of great strategic value at many places from the viewpoint of attack upon vital life lines of the British Empire.

(The great weakness of this argument is a point which it would probably be utterly impossible for Hitler to believe. While England might be jealous of France, she would never have the slightest fear of military attack from that country. But Britain can never be certain that a strong Germany has only friendly intentions.)

Just as Britain traditionally desires a Balkanized Europe—a Europe split up into many small and impotent states—France desires a Balkanized Germany. Precisely as England requires a balance of power on the continent, France requires a disunited Germany, plus occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, in order to guarantee French domination of Europe.

The ultimate aim of French diplomacy will always stand in diametrical opposition to the final aim of British diplomacy.

Thus to-day England is the ally which Germany should acquire, for England is no longer interested in oppressing Germany, but now desperately desires that some power rise upon the European continent to balance the present overwhelming strength of France.

Nations can unite with one another only for the purpose—the sole purpose—of joint benefit, that is, mutual increase of power through conquest. No English, American or Italian statesman was ever really “pro-German”. Every Englishman is always, as a statesman, first of all an Englishman, an American is always above all an American, and never will an Italian be found prepared to follow anything but a pro-Italian foreign policy. Nations never form an alliance upon the basis of love for each other, but only with the expectation of profit.

Allies
Become Enemies

Despite the fact that a British statesman will never follow any policies that are not pro-English, it is still very possible to find certain pro-English policies which can overlap, and thus cooperate with pro-German policies. Of course, this condition may only last for a limited time and can after a while change Into a precisely opposite state of affairs; but the skilled diplomat knows how—in a given period—to find a foreign leader who, in his own interests, must travel the same road.

(In 1936 Hitler formed an alliance with Mussolini which exactly fits this prescription, and although Mussolini has not yet gained a solitary thing out of that alliance, Hitler has used it to make himself master of Europe. Moreover, it is possible that what Hitler here describes as “a precisely opposite state of affairs” is now developing—with Mussolini slowly realizing that Italian interests are ruined, not aided, by alliance with Germany.)

We must ask these questions at the present time:

What states are not interested in seeing France gain absolute power in Europe through the complete assassination of Germany?

What states consider such a development a threat to their own interests?

Everlasting
Enemy—France

With regard to this we must be clear about one thing:

The everlasting enemy of the German people is and remains France.

(This is undoubtedly the most-quoted sentence in Mein Kampf. It is especially popular in France!)

It doesn’t matter who reigned, reigns, or will reign in France—Bourbon, Jacobin, Bonapartist, Bourgeois democrat, cleric republican, or Bolshevic, always the final aim of French foreign policy will be to hold the Rhineland, and to guarantee this frontier for France by keeping Germany disorganized and dismembered.

England does not want a dominating Germany, but France does not want any Germany at all—an essential difference!

To-day we are not struggling to become a world power; we are struggling to become Germany.

If we want allies, two are practical and possible: England and Italy.

England wants anything but a France whose continental power, uncurtailed, enables that nation to adopt a policy which is eventually bound to conflict with British interests. Nor does England want a France made powerful by western Europe’s iron and coal, which might well give France economic rule over the entire world.

Italy—And the
Mediterranean

Like Britain, Italy also does not want France to attain supremacy in Europe. The future of Italy lies along the Mediterranean; and Italy entered the World War only in order to destroy her old Austrian enemy on the Adriatic—her purpose was not to aid France to achieve the domination of Europe. Every increase of French power means a relative decrease of Italian power, and we must not fool ourselves with any belief that kinship among the nations excludes enmity.

(Supposedly French people and Italian people are Latins, as Hitler seems to know here, and even the Italian government admitted this until very recently. In 1935 official Italian propaganda still spoke of “our French sisters”. However, now the Italians have officially become “Aryans” and government propaganda now scoffs at the French as “those lowly Latins”.

(Hitler came along and persuaded Mussolini that through alliance with Germany the Mediterranean could be made into an Italian lake and the French could be driven therefrom; so the Rome-Berlin axis was forged. But Hitler thereupon seized Austria, a disaster for Italy, whose policy since the World War had been to keep this country as a buffer vassal state for protection from Germany. Next Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, ending all Italian influence in central Europe. So far Hitler has done nothing to help Mussolini dominate the Mediterranean or lessen French power on that sea, so that to date the Rome-Berlin axis has been nothing but a disaster for Italy.

(To-day it is felt in Rome that Italy’s profits from the Rome-Berlin axis—in the form of concessions exacted from France with the aid of German pressure—must come in the very near future or never. In other words, Italians are beginning to wonder if the Rome-Berlin axis was not merely an instrument which Hitler used to glorify and expand Germany—and to dupe Mussolini and turn Italy into a second rate power.

(Outraged Italian patriots may some day fling this chapter of Mein Kampf in the face of their present Duce.)

England and Italy are the two states whose own interests are at present least in opposition to the conditions necessary for the existence of the German nation; their interests are, to a degree, identical with our interest.

Three factors must not be overlooked, as we consider such alliances. The first factor concerns ourselves, the other two lie in the states under consideration.

Is it possible for any state to ally itself with present-day Germany?

No, no power with offensive aims would ally itself with the cowardly, impotent Marxist-infested Germany of to-day.

Our present unsuitability for alliances explains the unity among our despoilers—even those states with no great interest in our absolute annihilation see in participation with France in the plundering of Germany the only way of preventing our downfall from serving solely to strengthen France.

Another important point to be remembered is that an alliance cannot be formed until propaganda has done its work; the masses of a nation cannot for years understand that some nation is composed of “Huns” and “Vandals” and then suddenly be told one day that those “Huns” and “Vandals” have now become their friendly allies.

Concentrated
Hate

The other point is this: the British may no longer desire any farther weakening of Germany, but our Jew enemies are still working for our destruction. But the Marxist soldiers of International Jew capitalists can only break our state with cooperation from other powers—French armies must batter Germany until finally the Reich falls victim to the red shock brigades of Jew finance.

(In Chapter III Hitler declared, “It is part of the genius of a true leader to make even widely different enemies appear to belong to but a single category … if the masses believe that they battle but a single enemy, then belief in their own cause is strengthened and hate of the one enemy is ever more bitter, is in fact boundless.”

(Thus here, trying to arouse the fury of the German people against the French, he lumps together Communists, capitalists, Jews, and French armies attacking Germany—they are a single enemy preparing the annihilation of Germany! German people—defend yourselves against your single enemy!)

The Jew is the greatest agitator to-day for the blotting out of Germany. Jews are the inventors of every attack upon Germany, just as during the war Jew finance and the Marxist press stirred up state after state against Germany, driving one after another of them into the war against us—and against their own national interests.

The Jew works for the destruction of Germany as a step in the Hebrew plot for the enslavement of the world. The Jew works for this purpose in every great national state, in each state battling with the weapon most suited to the mentality he finds characteristic there. Thus in Germany the Jew dupes our masses with talk of “internationalism” and “pacifism”. In France the Jew takes into his service French chauvinism. In England the instrument seized upon is the economic—imperial nature—and so on.

In England and in Italy there is a difference between the aims of national statecraft and the diabolical desire of the Jews. But in France the plans of the Jew Stock Exchange and the fanatic nationalists are almost identical, and in this lies a great threat for Germany. It is because of this that France is our most terrible enemy.

The French, a people steadily destroying themselves with negro blood, are a grave danger to the survival of the European white race due to the similarity of their aims to the aims of the Jews plotting for world domination.

(Hitler has added the negro enemy to his concoction, for good measure.)

Spreading the poison of negro blood along the Rhine—in the heart of Europe—reveals the sadistic hate of this chauvinistic arch enemy of our people, just as it does the cold-blooded plot of the Jews who consider this a way to bastardize Europe and deprive the white race of its world leadership, through the devastating effect of mixture with an inferior race.

France’s deed, provoked by her own hate and urged by the Jews, is a sin against white mankind, and one day will loose upon that nation the vengeance which must inevitably follow such original sin as this degradation of mankind.

The French threat means that Germany must, forgetting all sentiment, join with those who are as unwilling as we to tolerate France’s passion for domination. There are two allies in Europe for Germany: England and Italy.

The leaders of the German revolution actually tried to win the favor of France! They groveled and whined, while the Jew wire-pullers of course never really seriously considered such an idiotic idea as friendship with France. This was merely their means of blocking any practical policy of alliance.

In the same way the Jews continue ceaselessly attempting to stir up hatred for the British among our people—in order to prevent us from making an alliance with them. The Jew in Germany starts a clamor over sea power, and the rape of our colonies—with recommendations for violent action to regain our former strength and soil—and then as soon as the Bourgeoisie fall into the trap and begin really to want these things, this Jew working in Germany turns over to a racial brother in England this valuable material—to be used there as propaganda against Germany!

South
Tyrol

The Jew has with special skill raised this ghost: South Tyrol.

Yes, South Tyrol. As I start this discussion I want to state that I am one of those who, when the fate of South Tyrol was being decided—from early August, 1914, until November, 1918—went to the actual defense of the Fatherland bearing arms.

Anyone who believes that the South Tyrol matter can be settled by protests, declarations, and pleasant demonstrations, is either a criminal or else a simple German country buffoon.

It should be recognized by this time that our lost territories will not be won back by prayers to God nor through faith in a League of Nations—but only by force of arms.

The question is: Who is willing to take up arms to regain our lost soil?

I, myself, can guarantee that I would be willing to take part in the conquest of the South Tyrol at the head of a parliamentary shock brigade composed of political quibblers and party leaders. Satan knows I would be delighted if some shrapnel would burst over the heads of such a band!

But the worst thing about the way these gentlemen chatter about retaking South Tyrol is that they well know the uselessness of all that, they know that to talk about the reconquest of South Tyrol is a much nicer occupation than it was once upon a time for others to fight in its defense. There is one basic reason which explains why the “South Tyrol issue” has become the most important element in German-Italian relations:

Jews and Hapsburg legitimists want to prevent a German Alliance policy which contains the possibility of the restoration of a free German Fatherland—and so South Tyrol is screamed about not because of love for that soil, but only to make German-Italian friendship impossible.

Mussolini
Take Note!

These lying babblers actually have the nerve to pretend that in some way we “betrayed” South Tyrol. This must be known: South Tyrol was betrayed, first of all, by every able-bodied German who from 1914 to 1918 was not at the front fighting for his Fatherland. Everyone who during the war did not try to strengthen the German nation and its solidarity betrayed South Tyrol. Everybody who took part in the November revolution or who tolerated it through cowardice destroyed the only weapon which could have protected South Tyrol. And all who signed the treaties of Versailles and Saint Germain or who supported the signers, betrayed South Tyrol.

I am guided to-day by the Knowledge that lost soil is not won back by parliamentary talk, but only by a sharp sword and a bloody conflict.

“The greatness of a powerful organization as the bearer of an idea depends upon the absolutely religious fanaticism with which it intolerantly imposes itself over everything else—fanatically convinced of its own rightness!”

Mein Kampf—Chapter XII

At this time, however, I state that the reconquest of South Tyrol by war is impossible, and moreover I would be against any attempt, for it would be impossible to create the flaming national passion which is a prerequisite of victory. Also, I believe that if sometime in the future this blood is to be sacrificed, it would be criminal to try to win merely 200,000 Germans as long as more than 7,000,000 Germans suffer under alien rule; and the Rhine is the playground of African niggers.

The German people want to end the threat to their existence in Europe. It must not make the pre-war mistake of making too many enemies—the greatest enemy must be isolated and all force must be concentrated upon the task of destroying him.

(Obviously, Hitler is here sliding out of a difficult situation. He wants alliance with Italy, remilitarization of the Rhine zone, and absorption of Austria’s 7,000,000 people much more than he wants the German people and soil of South Tyrol, so he here disclaims the possibility of conquering the Tyrol. Until 1930 a portion of one of the 25 Nazi points formulated as the credo of the movement listed South Tyrol as one of the lost territories which the Nazis intended to take back into the Fatherland; but in 1930 South Tyrol disappeared from this list.

(It is important to note that here in Mein Kampf Hitler hints that South Tyrol might loom important again after more vital victories have been won—and while in 1925 when Mein Kampf was written, and in 1930 when the point in the Nazi credo was changed, these victories were still to be won, to-day the Rhineland has been fortified by Hitler and Austria has been conquered.

(At present the Tyrolean minority in Italy is composed of probably the most abused Germans in the world. Mussolini’s efforts to Italianize them are so complete that at birth a Tyrolean cannot be given a German name, and those older ones who were Christened in the days of the Austrian Empire cannot, even in death, have a German name inscribed on their tombstones.

(Undoubtedly Hitler hopes some day to take South Tyrol away from Italy—when the Rome-Berlin axis is no longer of value to him. Possession of the port of Trieste would give Hitler a German Reich slicing across Europe from the North Sea to the Adriatic, making him a Mediterranean power.

(This would be an easy conquest today for Germany, for the Italians could easily be overwhelmed by the German military machine, and one can scarcely visualize Chamberlain or Daladier at last taking action—in defense of Mussolini’s Trieste!)

Starting in August, 1914, the German people showed a courage which has never been surpassed in the history of the world—yet since the war our government has done nothing to recreate that spirit, which was so cruelly betrayed.

“Bless
Our Arms”

When Versailles was imposed upon the German people in 1919 the ruthless oppression of the German people written into that document should have been turned into a spark with which to ignite great flames of national passion.

How Versailles could have been used!

Its injustice should have been burned into the minds of sixty million people until a common hatred and a will of steel raised the cry:

“We want arms!”

Yes, a treaty of peace can be turned to that purpose!

Everything, from the child’s primer to the last newspaper, every theatre and every cinema, every billboard and every blank wall, should have united in service of this one mission, until the fearful prayer of our drawing-room patriots, “Lord deliver us!” changed and became, “Almighty God, Bless our Arms; judge whether we deserve freedom; Lord, Bless our Battle!”

(Admittedly the Treaty of Versailles was harsh, and War Reparations brought great economic hardship on Germany. But too much sympathy need not be wasted. As fast as Germany paid out Reparations, she borrowed from America and other countries—and has repaid a mere fraction of the debts. She ceased paying Reparations after the Hoover Moratorium in 1932. The Treaty of Versailles has by now long ceased to exist.)

But none of this was done—so what can the world do but see us as a dog, eager to lick the hand that has beaten us!

At the moment, it would be difficult or impossible for Germany to form any useful alliance, because the general anti-German psychosis inspired by propaganda in the minds of the peoples of the nations against whom we fought during the World War still exists. Only when a revival of the German spirit of self-preservation is again apparent, revealing the true character of our state, can we hope to make alliances.

Only when we have a secure government can we hope to form foreign alliances, and only then can public sentiment against all thought of such alliance be changed after years of clever work.

“Demonstrations
Against God”

To-day our parlor nationalists and parliamentary morons wander about demanding a new navy, restoration of our colonies, etc.—and all this, of course, is exploited in England as argument against friendly relations with Germany.

Thus we tire ourselves out in damaging demonstrations against God and the World!

A principle which must always be remembered is: whatever you do, do it thoroughly. By wasting our energies in too many directions, we neglect our greatest enemy and destroy the possibility of the alliance we need for our battle.

We mutter and denounce England and Italy—from a safe distance—but meanwhile allow to exist among us the villains who sold us for thirty pieces of silver.

If we refuse to ally ourselves with England, because she stole our colonies, and refuse to make friends with Italy because she took South Tyrol, and for other reasons have to do with Poland or Czecho-Slovakia, then there is no one else in Europe except France.

There remains the final question as to whether we can ever accomplish anything while our mortal enemy, the Jew, works against us unmolested.

There exists one state where the government is so strongly in power that it serves national interests absolutely, and has obliterated the strength of international Jew forces.

The battle of Fascist Italy against the three chief weapons of Jewry is the best sign that the fangs of this monster can be torn out. Suppression of Free Mason secret groups, smashing of the Marxist press, and the flowering of the Fascist state view all means that the Fascist government can more and more serve the interests of the Italian people, unperturbed by the hissing of the Jewish world hydra.

(Ignoring, as usual, all consideration of economics, Hitler here praises Mussolini because he has in Italy eliminated the “Marxist” and the “Jew”—whom Hitler chooses to consider one and the same thing.

(Few Americans are now deceived by the old Nazi and Fascist propaganda that these movements afford “protection” from “Reds”. Under Fascism there simply are no property rights when the State wants to interfere. The business man is completely regimented. Profits and dividends for the most part are confiscated by the State.

(In Italy not only are taxes higher than anything we have ever dreamed of in America, but there actually have been three capital levies in the past two years on property holders, corporations, and private companies. Most important, it is never certain that the dictatorship economy will not break down tomorrow. Shrouded in secrecy, every measure adopts the character of “emergency”.

(Labor in Italy—as in Germany—is of course forced. There are no unions.)

America
Versus England

This matter is much different in England, for the Jew in this “Free Democracy” is still able to dictate with complete power over public opinion through control of the press and other weapons of propaganda. Thus in England sometimes the interests of the state are the opposite of the interests of the Jew internationalists. This was apparent after the war when the Japanese question arose, when the old animosity between America and Japan cropped up. European powers could not remain uninterested in this threat of war, yet despite all the close relationships, the British could not keep down a certain envy of the growth of the United States, politically and economically. Frightened England visions the emergence of a new mistress of the world, and in dread awaits the time when the cry will no longer be:

“England rules the waves!” but “The seas for America!”

It was much more difficult to attack giant America with its vast reaches of virgin soil than it is to attack the well-surrounded German Reich. England would be lost if she stood alone at the outbreak of the American-Japanese war, so she eagerly grasped the yellow hand with an alliance which, though to be condemned from a racial viewpoint, nevertheless affords the only possibility of strengthening Britain in the face of growing American power.

Yet while Britain, despite the common battle fought in Europe, refused to drop its alliance with this Asiatic partner, the British Jew press bitterly attacked this alliance!

It was the Jews primarily, not the British, who wanted to destroy Germany, and in the same way, the Jews pray for the destruction of Japan to clear the way for Jewish world domination.

The Jew dominates Europe, whether that domination is expressed through “democracy” or by Russian Bolshevism. Also, the Jews are the masters of the American Stock Exchange. Year by year, their power grows over the productive power of 120,000,000 souls. A solitary great man, Ford, exasperates them, as he still retains his independence.

(Back in Chapter XV, Hitler praised the United States as the one racially conscious and progressive state in the world.)

The Jew plot to devour the nations, transforming the people of the world into a herd of denationalized colonial people, cannot succeed as long as a single nation retains its individual power. The Jew knows that it is within his power to undermine the European nations and to raise them as sexless bastards, but he faces a different problem with an Asiatic state such as Japan.

“Reason
Guide Us”

The Jew can ape a German and an Englishman, and pass himself off as an American or a Frenchman, but he has not a chance when it comes to the yellow Asiatics. So he endeavors to destroy the Japanese state with the aid of existing similar states before he has overwhelmed the last state in which he can masquerade.

The Jew must destroy Japan before he can create his own dictatorship. That is why he now incites the nations against Japan, as he did against Germany; and so while British diplomats try to keep their alliance with Japan, the British Jewish Press cries: “Down with Japanese militarism and imperialism!”

Thus the Jew is the rebel today in England.

It is here that the Nazi struggle against world Jewry begins:

We Nazis must remind the people of the world that the great enemy is the Jew. We must not hate Aryans, for they are people united to us by common blood and culture. Our struggle against the Jew must be the guiding star of a new epoch, demonstrating to other nations the way to the salvation of Aryan civilization.

And so, Reason guide us, and Will strengthen us.