Mein Kampf (Stackpole Sons)/Volume 2/Chapter 14
14. Eastward Orientation vs. Eastern
Politics
I have two reasons that cause me to examine in particular the relationship between Germany and Russia:
1. the question in this case is perhaps the most critical business in German foreign policy in general, and
2. this question is the test for the political ability of the young National-Socialist movement in respect to clear thinking and correct acting.
I must confess that especially the second point often causes me great worry. Since our movement does not get its adherents from the camp of the indifferent, but rather from the rank and file of people with radical world points of view, it is only natural that these people are at first encumbered with the prejudices and the lack of understanding of those groups, of which they were former members. This holds by no means only true in regard to the man who comes to us from the Leftists. On the contrary. His previous instruction in such problems may have been dangerous; yet frequently it was balanced by a remainder of natural and healthy instinct. In such a case it was only necessary to replace the former influence by a better attitude. Very often the still existing healthy instinct and spirit of self-preservation could be acknowledged as a very good ally.
But it is much more difficult, to educate a man to a clear political thinking whose previous education along these lines did not only lack reason and logic, but who had also sacrificed the last remnant of a natural instinct on the altar of objectivity. The members of our so-called intelligentsia are the ones who are especially slow in learning to represent their own interests and those of their people in a really clear and logical way. Not only are they weighed down by a leaden weight of foolish prejudices and ideas, but in addition they have lost and given up all natural urge for self-preservation. The National-Socialist movement, too, has to fight hard battles with these people, hard, because in spite of a complete incapacity, frequently they are extremely conceited. This conceit makes them look down upon other usually more sound people, without being at all entitled to it. They are haughty, arrogant persons who know everything better, lacking all capacity for cool testing and weighing which is of basic importance in all plans and acts in foreign policy.
Since these very groups are today in a most dangerous fashion beginning to divert our foreign policy from a real representation of the racial interests of our people in order that it may serve instead their fantastic ideology, I feel called upon to discuss with my adherent the most important question of foreign policy, namely our relation to Russia, as thoroughly and distinctly as it is possible within the scope of a book of this kind.
I will make first this general statement:
If foreign policy is the regulation of the relations of a nation to the rest of the world, the mode of regulation must be determined by certain definite facts. As National Socialists we want to make the following statement regarding the meaning of foreign policy in a racial state:
The duty of the foreign policy of a racial state is to safeguard the existence of the race forming that state on this planet by creating a natural, strong and healthy relationship between number and growth of the people on the one hand, and the size and the quality of the soil and the land on the other.
A healthy relationship is only such a state of affairs, which safeguard the sustenance of a nation on its own land and soil. Every other condition, though it may be centuries or even thousands of years old, is just the same unhealthy, and sooner or later it will lead to the injury if not to the destruction of such a nation.
Only a sufficiently large space on this earth ensures freedom of existence to a nation.
The necessary extent of the territory for colonization must not only be judged by present requirements, indeed not even by the amount of the products of the land in their proportion to the number of the people.
I have already stated in the first volume of this work under the heading: “German policy of alliances before the war,” that the area of a state is not only important as a direct source for the sustenance of a people, but that furthermore it is important from a military and political viewpoint. If a people possess land and soil in proportion to their numbers, thus their sustenance having been safeguarded, still it is necessary to think of safeguarding the land itself too. This safety lies in the general political power of the state, which in turn is determined to a large extent by military-geographical viewpoints.
Therefore the German people will be able to defend their future only as a world power. For almost two thousand years, the defense of our national interests, if we may so call our more or less fortunate activities in foreign policy, was World-history. We ourselves have been witnesses thereof: for the gigantic struggle of the nations during the years 1914 ’til 1918 was but the struggle of the German nation for its existence on earth, but the process itself we call the World War.
The German people entered this war presumably as a world power. I use the expression presumably, because in reality they were not. If in the year 1914, there had existed in the German nation a different ratio between area and number of population, then Germany would in reality have been a world power, and it would have been possible, aside from all other factors, to bring the war to a fair end.
It is neither my task nor my intention, to point out the “if’s” and “but’s.” I do however feel that it is absolutely necessary to picture the prevailing conditions soberly and without coloring them, pointing out their fearful weaknesses, be it only to deepen the knowledge of what is necessary in the ranks of the National-Socialist movement.
Today Germany is not a world power. Even if we could overcome our present military impotence, yet we could not claim this title any longer. Of what importance is today a structure on this planet which, in its proportion between population and area, is in such a pitiful condition as the present German Reich? In an age, in which the earth is gradually being divided among states, many of which themselves are almost continents, it is not possible to speak in terms of a world power of a structure whose political motherland is restricted to the ridiculous area of hardly five hundred thousand square kilometers.
Looked at from a purely territorial point of view, the area of the German Reich absolutely disappears against that of the so-called world powers. England should not be mentioned as proof to the contrary, because the British mother country is really nothing but the big capital of the British world Empire, which owns almost one-fourth of the entire globe. There are further gigantic states, such as American Union, Russia and China. Some of these countries are ten times larger than the present German Reich. Even France must be counted among these states. Not only does she constantly replenish to an increasing extent her army out of the colored population of her enormous Empire, but also from a racial viewpoint her permeation by negro blood is increasing so rapidly as to permit us to speak of the creation of an African state on European soil. The present colonial policy of France cannot be compared with that of the Germany of the past. If the present development of France should continue for another three hundred years, the last bit of Frankish blood will perish in the European-African mulatto state which is in the process of formation. A huge solid settlement, the Rhine to the Congo, populated by a lower race, formed gradually by a continuous bastardization.
This is the difference between the French and the former German colonial policy.
The former German colonial policy was a half-hearted one, as was everything we did. It neither strived to enlarge the territory for a settlement by the German race, nor did it make the attempt—though it would have been a criminal one,—to increase the power of the Reich by a utilization of negro blood. The Askari in German East Africa represented a small, hesitant step in that direction. However they only served the purpose of defending the colony. Never had anyone entertained the idea to use negro soldiers on a European battlefield, even at a time when such a plan might have been realized, aside from the actual impossibility during the World War. While the French, in the contrary, have always frankly used this plan as an argument in favor of their colonial activities.
Thus we find today upon the earth a number of powers, who not only have a considerably larger population than Germany, but whose greatest support for their powerful position lies in the size of their territory. Compared with area and population, never has the ratio between the German Reich and other rising world powers been so unfavorable as at the beginning of our history, 2000 years ago, and again today. At that time we, as a young nation, stormingly entered a world of decaying, large political structures of which we ourselves helped to do away with one of the last of the giants: Rome. Today we find ourselves in a world where large power states are forming, a world in which our own Reich gradually sinks deeper and deeper into insignificance.
It is necessary for us to keep this bitter truth cooly and soberly in our mind. It is necessary for us to study and compare the history of the German Empire in area and population throughout the centuries in connection with the other states. I am convinced that everyone will arrive with consternation at the conclusion which I have pointed out at the outset: Germany has ceased to be a world-power, regardless of whether she is strong or weak in the military sense.
We have got out of every ratio in regard to the other of the great states of the world, and that, thanks only to the disastrous leadership of our nation in matters of foreign policy, thanks to the absolute lack, I might almost say, of a testamentary defined course in regard to a definite aim in our foreign policy, and thanks to the loss of all sound instinct and urge for self-preservation.
If the National-Socialist movement wants really to appear in the light of history as having been ordained to a great mission for our people, it must fully recognize and deeply deplore their actual situation on this earth, and it must with courage and a purpose take up the fight against the aimlessness and inability which have up to now led our people on the road of foreign policy. Without paying any attention to “tradition” and prejudices it must find the courage, to unite our people and their strength to march forward on that road which will lead this people out of their present narrow territorial sphere of life to new land and soil, thus liberating them forever of the danger of perishing from the face of this earth, or serving others as slaves.
The Nationalist-Socialist movement must attempt to remove the disparity between our population and the scope of our territory—the latter seen both as the source of sustenance and the fulcrum of political power—between our historic past and our present impotence. In doing so it must always keep in mind that we as ambassadors of the highest humanity upon this earth are bound by a most solemn duty and so much the more will it meet these requirements, the more it endeavors to make the German people race-conscious, so that they show mercy on their own blood, besides breeding dogs, horses and cats.
If I designate the former German foreign policy as impotent, the proof for my assertion lies in the actual failure of this policy. If our people had been mentally deficient or cowardly, even then the results of their struggle on earth could not have been worse than those we see before us today. Also the development of the last decades before the war must not deceive us in this respect; for the standard of measuring the strength of an empire is not the empire itself, but a comparison with other states. Such comparison, however, furnishes the proof that the increase in power of other states has not only been a more steady one, but also a greater one in the final analysis and also that in spite of all apparent ascension, the road which Germany traveled actually led more and more away from the other states, leaving her way behind thus increasing the difference in size in our disfavor. Even in regard to the number of our population we were left more and more behind. Now, since our nation is certainly not surpassed by any other people on earth as far as heroic courage is concerned, and since, taking all things together, it has sacrificed its own blood to a much larger extent for the maintenance of its existence than any other people on earth, this failure can only be ascribed to the fact that we played the wrong horse.
If we examine in this connection the political experiences of our people during the last thousand or more years, review all the countless wars and battles, and scrutinize the final result that lies before us, we will have to confess that out of this sea of blood actually only three phenomena have appeared which we might designate as being lasting fruits of a definite foreign policy or of a general political process:
- The colonization of the Ostmark, chiefly accomplished by the Bavarians of old.
- The conquest and the penetration of the territory east of the Elbe, and
- The organization of the Brandenburg-Prussian State as a pattern and nucleus of a new Reich.
A warning object lesson for the future!
The two first great successes of our foreign policy have become the most lasting ones. Without them our people would not play any role whatsoever today. They represent the first and, unfortunately, also the only successful attempt to harmonize the increasing population with the size of land and soil. And it must be looked upon as a calamity that our German historians have never appreciated these two facts which were by far of the greatest importance for the future generations, instead they glorified everything else under the sun—fantastic heroism, praising admiringly numerous battles and wars, rather, than recognize of what little importance most of these events have been for the great line of the development of the nation.
The third big success of our political activities is the formation of the Prussian State, and, through it, the cultivation of a special idea of state, as well as the modernized and organized form of the spirit of self preservation and self-defense as revealed in the German army. The change from the idea of individual defense to a compulsory national defense originated with this State and its newly developed conception of state. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this event. Germany, disintegrated by her over individualistic provincial dismemberment, regained through the discipline of the German army organization at least part of her long lost capacity for organization. What other nations still possess through a primitive urge to stay together in a flock, we regained for our nation at least partly and artificially through the process of military training. Therefore the abolition of compulsory military service—which may be of no importance whatsoever to dozens of other nations—of grave significance for us. If ten generations had been delivered up to the evil effects of their disunited conditions of vice and world view without the corrective and educational influence of a military training, then our nation would indeed have lost the last remainder of an independent existence on this planet. The German spirit could have made its contributions to civilization solely within the pale of foreign nations, its origin having been lost in oblivion. Just cultural fertilizer, until even the remainder of Aryan-Nordic blood in us would have been spoiled or exterminated.
It is worthy of notice that the significance of these real political successes which our people gained in their battles over a period of more than a thousand years, have been recognized and appreciated far better by our opponents than by ourselves. Even today we still rave about a heroism that robbed our nation of millions of its noblest representatives, and which in the end did not bear any fruit.
It is highly important for our present and future attitude that we distinguish between the real political successes of our nation and the profitless objects, for which its national blood was spilt.
We National-Socialists must never join in the common hurrah-patriotism of our present bourgeois world. It is especially deadly dangerous to regard ourselves as being in the least bound by the last developments before the war. The whole historical period of the nineteenth century does not contain one element, particularily characteristic for this same period, that would in any way carry with it any obligation as far as we are concerned. In contrast to the behavior of representatives of that time, we must again accept the sole aim of all foreign policy, namely: The soil must be brought into conformity with the numbers of the population. Indeed the past teaches us but one lesson: we must put up a double aim for our political actions: Land and soil must be the aim of our foreign policy, while the aim for our domestic policy must be a new, unified foundation and a stabilized world-concept.
I would like to explain briefly here my position in regard to the question why the request for land and soil appears to be ethically and morally justified. This is necessary, since, deplorable as it is, even in the so-called race-conscious circles all kinds of unctuous chatterers, appear who endeavor to prescribe to the German people as the aim of their foreign policy the reparation of the injustice of 1918, while at the same time they feel obliged to assure the whole world of racial brotherhood and sympathy.
Let me first state the following: The demand for restoration of the frontiers of 1914 is a political folly of such extent and consequences that make it appear a crime. This is not taking into account the fact that the borderlines of the Reich were anything but logically drawn. In reality they were neither complete in regard to the inclusion of all people of German nationality, nor were they reasonable in regard to their military-geographic fitness. They were not the result of a studied, political course of action, but they were drawn at the spur of the moment during a political struggle that was still by no means terminated, in fact they were partly accidental. One would be just as much entitled, and in many cases even more justified, in selecting at random any other year in German history, in order to give, by the reconstruction of the conditions at that time practical proof of the aim of a foreign policy. But such a procedure would be quite in harmony with our bourgeois world, which even in this case does not possess a single constructive political idea for the future, but lives only in the past, and in the most recent one too; because even if they look backwards, their vision does not reach beyond their own time. The law of inertia ties them to a certain given condition and makes them offer resistance against any change in it, without ever intensifying these activities of resistance beyond a mere inertness. Therefore it is self-evident that the political horizon of these people does not reach beyond the borderline of 1914. By proclaiming the restoration of those borders as the aim of their activities, they unify anew the disintegrated alliance of our opponents. Only thus can it be explained that eight years after a world struggle, in which states with partly heterogenous desires and aims took part, the coalition of the then victorious powers is still carrying on in one form or another.
All these states profited at the time by Germany’s collapse. Fear of our strength at that time thrust the greed and the envy of the individual great powers into the background. They saw in a thorough division of the heritage of our Reich the best protection against any future uprising. A bad conscience and the fear of the strength of our people is the most durable cement for keeping together the various members of this coalition.
We did not disappoint them because our bourgeois world has set up as a political program for Germany the restoration of the boundaries of the year 1914, it frightens every partner of this alliance of our enemies who is ready to withdraw, since he is afraid of being attacked and lose the protection of the individual allies. Every single state feels itself threatened and menaced by this slogan.
At the same time it is doubly foolish:
- Because the power is lacking to transfer it out of the haze of the night clubs into reality, and
- Because if it could actually be realized, the result would again be so pitiful that, by God, it would not be worth shedding the blood of our people for it again.
For it will hardly be questioned that even the restoration of the borders of 1914 could only be attained by bloodshed. Only childishly naive people will cherish the idea that a change of Versailles could be accomplished by choosing secret paths or by begging for alms. Such an attempt would presuppose that we have the character of a Talleyrand, which we do not have. One half of our politicians consist of shrewd, but characterless elements, hostile to our people while the other half consists of kind, harmless and obliging weaklings. Furthermore times have changed since the Congress of Vienna: Princes and princely mistresses no longer chaffer and haggle about borderlines of states, but the pitiless world Jew fights for his dominion over the nations. No people will be able to remove this fist from its throat otherwise than by the sword. Only the united and concentrated strength of a powerfully resisting national passion is able to defy the international enslavement by the nations. However such a process is and remains a bloody one.
If however one has the conviction that the future of Germany requires the highest stake whatever the outcome may be, then, aside from all reasoning of political insight, one must, for the sake of the stake alone, put up a worthy goal and then fight for it.
The frontiers of 1914 mean nothing in regard to Germany’s future. They offered no protection in the past, nor would they mean strength in the future. They will neither give to the German people their solidarity, nor provide for their sustenance, nor from a military viewpoint do these frontiers seem to be practical or satisfactory, nor will they be able to improve our present relationship with the other world powers, or more precisely stated, with the real world powers. The distance from England is not shortened, the greatness of the American Union is not reached thereby; not even France would experience a substantial decrease in her world political importance.
But one thing would be certain: Even if successful, such an attempt to restore the borderlines of 1914 would lead to a further pouring out of the blood of our people to such an extent that none would be left for decisions and actions which would really guarantee the life and the future of the nation. On the contrary, intoxicated by such easy success one would be only too glad to renounce any further objective, since the “national honor” would then have been repaired, and a few doors would have been opened for commercial developments, anyhow for the time being.
In contrast to all this we, as National-Socialists, must cling to our aims in foreign policy, namely to secure for the German people the land and soil that is due to them on this earth. And this action is the only one which could justify bloodshed in the eyes of God and of future German generations: In the eyes of God, since we are placed in this world, our destiny being the eternal fight for our daily bread, as beings who are not given anything for nothing, who owe their position as lords of the world only to the inspiration and to the courage with which they fight for it and preserve it; in the eyes of future German generations, since we did not shed the blood of one single citizen that did not generate thousands of others for the future. The land and soil, upon which in the time to come, German peasantry can beget strong sons, will sanction the risk of the present sons, and it will acquit the responsible statesmen, although they are at present persecuted, of all bloodshed and of the reproach of having sacrificed the people.
In this connection I must sharply oppose those populist quill drivers, who pretend to regard such acquisition of land as an “injury to the holy rights of men”, and who, in accordance with their conception, oppose it by their penmanship. Of course one never knows who stands behind such fellows. One thing is sure, however, that the confusion they create, is welcomed and favored by the enemies of our people. By such attitude they render criminal help in weakening and removing from within our people the desire for the one and only representation of their life necessities. For no people possesses on the earth even one square meter of land and soil by any heavenly wish or higher right. Just as the frontiers of Germany are frontiers made by chance, and are but temporary during the respective political struggle of the time, just the same are the frontiers of the territory of other nations. And just as a thoughtless fool could believe that the formation of the surface of our earth is unchangeable like granite, while actually each time it represents, instead only a seeming pause in a slow development produced in constant changes through the tremendous forces of nature, perhaps only to be destroyed or changed again by stronger forces, so in the life of nations the same thing happens to the frontiers of the territories in which they live.
Frontiers of states are made by men and changed by men.
That fact that a people has succeeded in acquiring an immense territory does not constitute a higher obligation to acknowledge such acquisition eternally. It but proves the power of the conquerers and the weakness of the sufferers. And this power alone then constitutes the right. When the German people are crowded today upon an impossible territory, thus facing a pitiful future, this is just as little a command of Fate, as a revolt against it constitutes an affront. Nor is it a fact that a higher power has accorded more land and soil to another people than to the German or is offended by the fact of such an unjust distribution just as our antecedents did not receive the land upon which we live as a present from Heaven, but had to fight for its possession at the risk of their lives, so also in the future we shall not obtain the land, and with it life for our nation, by any act of grace on the part of the nations, but only by the force of a victorious sword.
As much as we all recognize the necessity of a settlement with France, it would remain without effect broadly speaking, if such a settlement would remain the sole and only object of our foreign policy. There can and will be only sense in it if it offers the backing for an extension of the space in which our people must live in Europe. For we must not consider the acquisition of colonies to be the solution of this question, but only the gain of such territory for settlement which shall enlarge the area of the mother country itself, and thus not only keeping the new settlers in close communion with the land of their origin, but at the same time guaranteeing to the entire territory those advantages that lie in the size of its united whole.
The race-Nationalist movement must not be the advocate of other states, but the champion of its own people. Otherwise it is superflous and above all, not entitled to sulk in regard to the past. Because then it acts like it. Just as much as the former German policy was mistakenly determined by dynastic viewpoint, just as little must the future one be guided by racial international sentimentalism. Specifically we are not policemen for the well known “poor, small nations” but we are soldiers of our own people.
However we National-Socialists have to go still further: The right to possess land and soil can become a duty, if it becomes apparent that without an extension of territory a great nation seems dedicated to ruin. Especially so when it is not a case of any little negro tribe, but where the Germanic mother of all life is concerned, who has given to the modern world all of its cultural achievements. Germany will either be a world power, or cease to exist. But in order to become a world power she needs that largeness, which will give her in these days the necessary importance, and life to her citizens.
Thus we National-Socialists put an end to the pre-war tendencies of our foreign policy. We begin the work where it was left six hundred years ago. We stem the eternal Germanic migration to the South and West of Europe, and direct our eyes towards the land in the East. We finally terminate the pre-war colonial and trade policy and move over to the land policy of the future.
However if we speak today in Europe of new land and soil, we can primarily think only of Russia and the border-states that are subject to her.
Here Fate itself seems to be willing to give us a hint. By surrendering Russia to Bolshevism, it deprived the Russian people of that intelligence which up to then had created and guaranteed their existence as a state. For the organization of a Russian State was not the result of political abilities of the Slavic race in Russia, but rather a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacy of the Germanic element in an inferior race. Numerous powerful empires on the earth have thus been created. Inferior peoples with Germanic organizers and masters as their leaders have more than once grown into huge states, which remained in existence as long as the racial nucleus of the forming state-race stayed alive. For centuries Russia has fed on this Germanic nucleus of her leading upper classes. Today it can be regarded as almost entirely exterminated and wiped out. The Jew has taken its place. Just as impossible it is for the Russian to shake off the Jewish yoke by his own strength, it is impossible for the Jew to maintain the huge Empire permanently. He himself does not constitute an element of organization but a ferment of decomposition. The gigantic Empire in the East is ripe for collapse. And the end of Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. We have been selected by Fate to become the witnesses of a catastrophe that will be the strongest confirmation of the correctness of the national race theory.
Our task, however, the mission of the National-Socialist movement, is to bring our people to such a political insight that they do not see their future aim fulfilled by the intoxicating impression of a new Alexander’s campaign but rather by the industrious work of the German plough, for which only the sword must provide the soil.
It goes without saying that Jewry proclaims its most violent opposition against such a policy. It feels more than anyone else the significance of such an action for its own future. This fact more than any other should impress all really nationally-minded men with the accuracy of such a new orientation. Unfortunately, just the opposite is the case. Not only in German national, but even in race-conscious circles, the most bitter war is declared upon the idea of such an Eastern policy, at which occasion, as is most always the case, one refers to one who is greater. Bismarck’s spirit is cited, in order to justify a policy which is just as absurd as it is impossible, and most harmful for the German nation. They claim that Bismarck himself during his time had always laid great stress upon the maintenance of good relationships with Russia. That is correct with certain reservations. Yet they completely forget to mention that he laid just as great stress upon good relationship with Italy, for example, yes, that the same Herr von Bismarck even made an alliance with Italy in order to be the better able to settle with Austria. Why do they not continue that policy, too? They will say “Because Italy of today is no longer the Italy of those days.” All right, Then, honorable sirs, permit me to raise the objection, that the Russia of today, also, is no longer the Russia of those days. It never once occurred to Bismarck to want to prescribe a permanent political course as a tactical principle. Here he was far too much master of the moment to want to tie himself down to such an extent. The question, therefore, should not be: What has Bismarck done in his days? but: “What would he do today? This question is indeed more easy to answer. His political insight would never have permitted him to unite with any state that is doomed to destruction.
Moreover, Bismarck in his time regarded with mixed feelings the German colonial and trade policy since his primary concern was the consolidation and inner establishment by the surest methods of the State he had created. That was the sole reason that he welcomed the Russian support, which gave him a free hand in the West. Yet what was useful to Germany then would be harmful to her today.
As early as the years 1920–21 when the young National-Socialist movement was slowly brought into the foreground on the political horizon, and was here and there regarded as a German movement for independence, the Party was approached from various sides in the attempt to establish a certain connection between it and the independence movements of other countries. This was along the lines of the widely advocated “League of Oppressed Nations.” In the main it was a question of representatives of certain Balkan states, also of those of Egypt and India, each of whom impressed me always as being a chattering busy-body without any actual backing. There were not few Germans, especially in the national camp, who allowed themselves to be dazzled by such puffed -up orientals and who immediately thought any no-account student a “representative” of India or Egypt. The people did not realize that most of these persons had no backing, nor had they been authorized by anyone to conclude any kind of a treaty with anyone, so that the practical result of all relations to such elements was nil, unless one specially wants to put down the time wasted as a loss. I have always resisted such attempts. I not only had better things to do than to waste weeks with such fruitless “discussions,” but deemed the whole thing to be useless, yes harmful, even if these representatives had been authorized by their respective nations.
It was already bad enough during times of peace that the German alliance policy, because of its lack of any aggressive intentions, had ended up in a defensive society of old, world-historically, pensioned off states. The alliance with Austria as well as that with Turkey was not very gratifying. While the greatest military and industrial states of the world united in an active aggressive League, they gathered a few old, impotent states and tried to confront an active world coalition with this rubbish doomed to destruction. Germany was bitterly repaid for this foreign political error. Yet this repayment seems not to have been bitter enough to prevent our eternal visionaries from falling posthaste into the same mistake, because it is not only absurd, but also disastrous to try to disarm the almighty victors by means of a “League of Oppressed Nations.” It is disastrous because it diverts our nation again and again from the actual possibilities, so that, instead, it gives itself up to fantastic, though fruitless hopes and illusions. The German of today really resembles the drowning person who grasps at every straw. At the same time they may be otherwise very intelligent people. Just as soon as a ray of hope, be it ever so illusive, can be seen, these people immediately put themselves into a trot and pursue that phantom. No matter whether it be a League of Oppressed Nations, a League of Nations, or any other kind of a fantastic invention, it will, nevertheless, find many thousand believing souls.
I still remember the childish as well as incomprehensible hopes which suddenly arose in the years of 1920–21 in Nationalist circles that England was supposed to be on the verge of a collapse in India. Some Asiatic charlatans, perhaps, for all I care, real “fighters for the independence of India,” who were loitering about in Europe at the time, had succeeded in filling even the minds of otherwise quite sensible people with the erroneous idea that the British world-Empire was just about to collapse in that very India where she has her cardinal point. Of course, it never occurred to them that in this case too their own desire was the father of all thoughts. Nor did they see the absurdity of their own hopes. For when they expect that the collapse of English rule in India will lead to the end of the British world Empire and British power, then they admit themselves that even India is indeed of most eminent importance for England.
This most vital question very likely is not known only to a German populist prophet, but presumably also to the leaders of English history. It is really childish to assume that in England they do not know how to estimate the value of the Indian Empire for the British world Union. It is only a bad sign of the absolute refusal to learn a lesson from the World War, and of the complete misunderstanding of and blindness toward Anglo-Saxon resolution, when one imagines that England, without doing her utmost, would let India go. Furthermore it is proof of the German unsuspiciousness of the methods of British penetration and administration used in that Empire. England will lose India only in the event that she herself falls prey in her own administrative machine to racial decomposition, (a case that is not at all probable in India at the time), or in case it is subdued by the sword of a powerful enemy. Indian agitators will never succeed in doing this. How hard it is to subdue England, we Germans have amply experienced. Apart from this, I as a member of the Germanic race, in spite of everything else, would prefer to see India under English rule than under any other.
The hopes for the mythical uprising in Egypt are just as miserable. The “Holy War” can give the uncanny, yet pleasant sensation to our German Schafkopf players [a game of cards], that now others are willing to shed their blood for us—for this cowardly speculation has, to be true, always been the silent father of such hopes, in reality it would come to a hellish end under the concentrated fire of English machinegun companies and under the hail of Brisanz bombs.
It is simply impossible to attack with a coalition of cripples a powerful state that is firmly determined to risk its last drop of blood for the sake of its existence. As a nationalist who knows how to evaluate humanity according to its racial foundations, I cannot link the fate of my own nation with that of the so-called “suppressed nations” which I recognize to be racially inferior.
We must take the very same position today in regard to Russia. Russia, which at present has been stripped of its Germanic upper stratum, is no ally in the struggle for the independence of the German nation, aside from all real intentions of her new masters. From a purely military standpoint the situation would be disastrous in the case of a war of Germany and Russia against Western Europe, and probably against the rest of the whole world. The fighting would not take place on Russian but on German territory, while Germany could receive no efficacious support from Russia. The armed power of the present German Reich is so pitiable and so inadequate for a foreign war, that no border protection against the West of Europe, including England, could be carried out, and even the German industrial territory would be exposed to the concentrated aggressive weapons of our enemies, without our possessing any means of self-defense. Another fact is that between Germany and Russia lies the Polish State which is entirely in French hands. In the event of a war of Germany and Russia against Western Europe, Russia would first have to subject Poland in order to bring the first soldier to a German front. In reality, however, it is not so much a question of soldiers as of technical armaments. In this respect the conditions of the World War would be repeated, only to a much more terrible extent. Just as German industry was tapped at that time for our notorious allies, and Germany had to bear the burden of the technical warfare all by herself, likewise in this combat Russia would play no part as a technical factor. We would have hardly any means of opposing the general motorization of the world which will be an overwhelmingly decisive factor in the next war. For Germany not only has remained disgracefully far behind, even in this most important field, but from what little she has herself, she would in addition have to support Russia, which even today does not own a single factory in which an actually running automobile can be manufactured. Such a combat would then have the character of nothing but a massacre. The youth of Germany would bleed to death even more than formerly, for the burden of the combat would lie only on us, as it always does, and the result would be unavoidable defeat.
Even in case a miracle would happen, and such a combat would not end with the utter destruction of Germany, the final result would just the same be—bled to death, Germany would afterwards, just as before, remain surrounded by large military states without, therefore, having changed her actual condition in the least.
It is useless to object that when talking of an alliance with Russia one need not immediately think of war, or that if so, one could thoroughly prepare oneself for it. No. An alliance whose goal does not embrace the purpose of a war is foolish and valueless. Alliances are made solely for the purpose of battle. Even though the controversy be ever so far removed from the time of the formation of an alliance, the expectation of a war complication is nevertheless its fundamental motivation. One need not think that perhaps some other power would understand such an alliance differently. Either a German-Russian alliance would merely take place on paper, in which case it would be neither of purpose nor value for us, or it would be transferred from the letter of the treaty into visible actuality—and the rest of the world would be warned. How naive, to think that England and France, in such a case, would wait a decade until the German-Russian alliance would have completed its technical preparations for war. No, the storm would break out over Germany with lightning rapidity.
Thus, indeed, in the formation of an alliance with Russia lies the direction for the next war. Its result would be the end of Germany.
In addition we must consider that:
1. The present rulers of Russia have not the least intention of entering into an alliance in an honorable fashion, or even of keeping it.
We must not forget that the rulers of the present Russia are low, blood-stained criminals, that here we are concerned with the scum of humanity, which, when favored by circumstance in a tragic hour overran a large state, killed and rooted out millions of its leading intelligentsia in a wild thirst for blood, and which now for almost ten years has exercised the most cruel rule of tyranny of all times. We must not forget, either, that these rulers belong to a people that possesses the rare combination of bestial cruelty and an incomprehensible adroitness in lying, a people that today more than ever before feels itself called upon to impose its bloody suppression upon the whole world. We must not forget that the international Jew who completely dominates Russia todays does not see an ally in Germany, but rather a state destined to a similar fate. But one does not form an alliance with a partner whose only interest is the destruction of the other. Above all one does not form it with creatures to whom no contract would seem holy, since they do not live on this world as representatives of honor and truth but as representatives of untruth, deceit, stealing, plundering and robbing. If man believes himself capable of entering an agreement by contract with parasites, then it is similar to the attempt of a tree to make an agreement in its own favor with a mistletoe.
2. The danger to which Russia once succumbed is constantly hanging before Germany. Only a bourgeois simpleton is capable of imagining that Bolshevism has been banned. In his superficial thinking he does not at all realize that this is an act of instinct, i. e. the striving after world dominion of the Jewish nation, a phenomenon that is just as natural as the urge of the Anglo-Saxon to put himself into the possession of dominion of this earth. And just as the Anglo-Saxon pursues this course in his own way and fights the battle with his own weapons, just so, also, does the Jew. He goes his own way, the way of sneaking into nations and of undermining their inner structure; he fights with his weapons, with falsehood and slander, poisoning and decomposition, intensifying the battle to the bloody extermination of his hated opponent. Russian Bolshevism represents the twentieth century attempt of the Jews to gain world-dominion, just as at other times, they tried by different, though closely related means to attain the same goal.
His aspiration is too deeply rooted in his nature. Just as little as another nation would voluntarily desist from following the impulse to expand its own kind and power, but is rather forced to do so by outside exigencies, or through signs of old age becomes a prey to impotence, just as little will the Jew voluntarily renounce his way to world dictatorship by simply suppressing his eternal urge. He too will be thrown back in his course either by powers lying outside of himself or all his strivings for world dominion expire with his own death. The impotence of the nations, their own death of old age, is indeed caused by the surrender of their racial blood purity. And that the Jew deserves better than any other nation of the world. Accordingly he continues in his disastrous way until another power confronts him and in a huge struggle throws the assailant of heaven back again to Lucifer.
Today Germany is the next great objective of Bolshevism. All the strength of a young missionary idea is needed in order to rescue our nation once more from the entanglement of the international snake and to stem the putrefaction of our blood at home, in order to be able to make use of the powers thus set free for the safeguarding of our nation, powers which are able to prevent repitition of the last catastrophes up into the most remote times. If we pursue this goal, it is folly to unite ourselves with a power that is ruled by the deadly enemy of our own future. How can we free our own nation from the enchainment of this venomous embrace if we walk into it ourselves? How can it be made clear to the German worker that Bolshevism is a damnable crime against humanity, when we ally ourselves with the organizations of this fiendish scheme, thus acknowledging it on a large scale? With what right can we then condemn the member of the broad masses because of his sympathy for a world philosophy, when the leaders of the State themselves choose the representatives of this world-concept as an ally?
The struggle against the Bolshevizing of the world by the Jew necessitates a clear attitude towards Russia. Satan cannot be driven out by Belzebub.
If even nationalist circles today are enthusiastic at the thought of an alliance with Russia, they only have to look around in Germany and realize whose support they have. Or do nationalists of late regard an action, recommended and fostered by the international press of the Marxist, as beneficial to the German nation? Since when do nationalist champions fight with a suit of armor which the Jew as armor-bearer holds out to us?
One main reproach could be made against the old German Reich in respect to its policy of alliances, i.e. that it ruined its relations toward all because it constantly swayed back and forth in the unsound weakness of wanting to preserve world peace at all cost. One thing, however, it could not be reproached with, that it no longer kept up its good relationship with Russia.
I admit frankly that even before the time of the World War I would have deemed it wiser if Germany had renounced her foolish colonial policy, had renounced her commercial and naval fleet, and had allied herself with England against Russia, and had thus gone over from a weak international policy to a definite European policy of continental territorial conquest.
I do not forget the continual insolent threats which the former Pan-Slavic Russia dared to make against Germany; I do not forget the continual practice mobilizations which were intended solely to provoke Germany; I cannot forget the attitude of public opinion in Russia which even before the war excelled in hateful attacks against our nation and Reich, nor can I forget the great Russian press which was always more enthusiastic about France than about us.
Neverthless there would still have been a second way before the war: we might have leaned upon Russia in order to direct our attack against England.
Today conditions are different. Even if, choking down all kinds of feelings, we might have been able to side with Russia before the war, we no longer can do that today. Since that time the hand of the world clock has moved on and with powerful strokes it announces to us that hour in which the fate of our nation must be decided in one way or another. The consolidation in which the large states of the world are participating at the present time is a last warning signal for us to put a stop to it all and to bring our people back out of the dream world into stern reality, and to point out the way into the future which alone will lead the old Reich to a new era of prosperity.
If, with regard to this grand and most important task, the National-Socialist movement will free itself of all illusions and accept reason as its sole guide, the catastrophe of the year 1918 may hereafter become an infinite blessing for the future of our people. Out of this wreckage our nation can arrive at a complete reorientation of its foreign policy, and further, definitely stabilize its foreign policy after having been strengthened by its new world-concept at home. At such a time it can finally obtain that which England possesses and which even Russia once possessed and that which enabled France again and again to make the same, and for her interests, always correct decisions, namely: A political Testament.
The political Testament of the German nation regarding its foreign policy shall and must always contain the following idea:
Never allow the formation of two continental powers in Europe. Regard as an attack against Germany every attempt to organize a second military power on the German borders, even if it be only in form of the formation of a state with potential military powers, and consider it not only a right, but also a duty to prevent it with all means, even to the extent of using arms, the formation of such a state or to destroy it, should it already have come into existence. Take care that the strength of our people maintains its basis not in colonies, but in the soil of the homeland, in Europe. Never regard the Reich as being secure as long as it is not able to guarantee every individual descendant of our people his own piece of land and soil for centuries to come. Never forget that the holiest right on this earth is the right to the soil which one wants to till oneself, and that the holiest sacrifice is the blood which one sheds for this soil.
I will not end these deliberations, without having again pointed out the only possibility for an alliance that exists for us in Europe today. In the previous chapter on the problem on German alliances I have already named England and Italy as the only two states in Europe with which a closer relationship would be worthwhile for us to strive after and which also promises success. I will here only briefly touch upon the military importance of such an alliance.
The military results of the settlement of this alliance, if perfected, would be altogether opposite to those of an alliance with Russia. Of greatest importance is, first, the fact that a closer relation with England and Italy does in itself in no way bring on the danger of a war. The only power that might take an attitude against the alliance, France, would not be in a position to do so. Thus the alliance would give Germany the possibility of making, in perfect quiet, all those preparations that would have to be made within the frame of such a coalition one way or the other, in order to settle the account with France. For the significance of such a coalition lies in the very fact that, with its settlement, Germany would not suddenly be exposed to a hostile invasion, but that with the enemy alliance itself broken (to which we owe so very much of our misfortune) the Entente itself is dissolved, thus isolating France, the deadly enemy of our people. Even though this success would at first only have a moral result, it would suffice to give to Germany today a hardly imaginable amount of freedom of action. For the rule of action would lie in the hands of the new European Anglo-German-Italian alliance and not any longer with France.
As a further result, Germany would all of a sudden be freed from her unfortunate strategic position. A powerful flank protection on the one hand, and the complete protection of our supply of provisions and raw materials on the other hand would be the beneficial effect of the new political order.
But even more important would be the fact that the new coalition would be comprised of states which, in many respects, would almost supplement each other in regard to their technical efficiency. For the first time Germany would have allies who would not like leeches suck on our own economic system, but who, instead, could and would contribute in a rich measure to the completion of our technical armament.
Another and last fact must not be overlooked, namely that in both cases we would deal with allies who cannot be compared with Turkey or present Russia. The greatest world power on earth and a young national state would offer a different basis for a battle in Europe from that offered by the decaying state corpses with whom Germany was allied in the last war.
I have already pointed out in the previous chapter the great difficulties standing in the way of such an alliance. However, was the making of the Entente any less difficult? What the ingenuity of King Edward VIII succeeded in doing, partly almost in opposition to natural interests, we too must and shall succeed in, if the knowledge of the necessity of some such development inspires us to such an extent as to determine accordingly our own action with wise self-control. This will be possible the very moment that we, conscious of the impending need, choose one single, methodical road and stay on it, instead of the aimlessness of our foreign policy in the last decades. Neither East nor West orientation must be the future aim of our foreign policy, but rather an Eastern policy in the sense of acquiring the necessary farmland for our German people. Since for this we need power, and since the deadly enemy of our people, France, is mercilessly choking us and robbing us of our power, we have to bring every sacrifice that in its result is capable of contributing to the destruction of French aspirations for a hegemony in Europe. Today every power is our natural ally which, like us, feels that France’s lust for dominion on the continent is unbearable. No road to such a power must seem too difficult to us, no renunciation must appear to us to be unutterable, if only the final result offers the possibility of the over throw of our most fierce enemy. Then we can quietly leave to the mitigating effects of time the healing of our smaller wounds after we have been able to cauterize and heal the biggest one.
Of course today we are up against the hateful baying of our enemies of our nation at home. But never let us National-Socialists be disconcerted because of this in proclaiming that which is absolutely necessary, according to our inherent conviction. It is true that today we must brave the current of public opinion, misled through the exploitation of German thoughtlessness by Jewish cunning; it is true that sometimes the waves around us roar fiercely and angrily; but anyone who swims with the current is more easily overlooked than the one who stems the flowing waters. Today we are but a rock, in only a few years Fate may elevate us to the position of a dam, whereby the general current is broken up in order to give the river a new bed.
Therefore it is necessary that the National-Socialist movement particularly is recognized and established in the eyes of the rest of the world as the representative of a definite, political idea. Whatever Heaven’s purpose with us may be, people must know us even by our visor.
As soon as we ourselves recognize the great need by which our actions in foreign policy must be determined, from this knowledge will flow the power of persistence which we often greatly need, when one or the other of us, under the continuous fire of the hostile pack of dogs of the press, becomes somewhat scared, and when he then feels a slight inclination to make concessions here and there, and to howl with the wolves so as not to have everything against him.