Mein Kampf (Stackpole Sons)/Volume 2/Chapter 3
3. State Member vs. State Citizen
In general the structure today falsely termed a State knows but two sorts of men: citizens and foreigners. Those persons are citizens who possess the right of citizenship either by birth or by later naturalization; those persons are foreigners who enjoy the same right in another state. Here and there there are also comet-like beings—the so-called stateless; these are persons who have the honor not to belong to any of the present-day states—that is, to possess no right of citizenship anywhere.
Today the right of citizenship is acquired, as above mentioned, primarily by birth within the boundaries of a state. Race or membership in the nation plays no part whatever. A negro who used to live in the German protectorates, and now has a residence in Germany, thus brings a “German citizen” into the world if he has a child. In the same way any Jewish or Polish, African or Asiatic child can be declared a German citizen without more ado.
Aside from naturalization by birth there is the possibility of later naturalization. There are various qualifications connected with this, for instance that the prospective candidate shall if possible not be a burglar or a pimp, that he shall be politically safe, i.e. an innocuous political nincompoop, and finally that he shall not become a burden upon his new national home. In the present realistic age this means, of course, only a financial burden. In fact it is considered a recommendation to introduce a probable good taxpayer in order to hasten his acquisition of the modern kind of state citizenship.
Racial obstacles play no part whatever.
The whole process of acquiring citizenship is quite like that of joining an automobile club, for instance. The man sends in his credentials, they are passed upon and seconded, and one fine day he is informed on a slip of paper that he has become a citizen—and the information is even put in a humorous and jocose form. The particular Zulu in question is told: “You have hereby become a German.”
This conjuring trick is accomplished by a State President. What Heaven could not attempt, one of these Theophrastus Paracelsuses does in the turn of a hand. One scratch of the pen, and a Mongolian ragamuffin is suddenly turned into a real “German.”
But not only is no attention paid to the race of one of these new citizens; even his physical health is not considered. He may be as much eaten away by syphilis as he pleases; to the modern state he is nevertheless welcome as a citizen so long as he is not, as aforesaid, a financial burden or a political menace.
Year by year these edifices under the name of states absorb poisons which they can hardly overcome.
The citizen is further distinguished from the foreigner by the fact that the path to all public offices is open to him, that he may be obliged to do military service, and that he is allowed to take an active and a passive part in elections. By and large this is all. Protection of personal rights and personal liberty the foreigner enjoys in equal measure, and not infrequently even more; such at any rate is the case in our present German Republic.
I know that people will not enjoy hearing all this; but anything more empty-headed, nay brainsick than our present naturalization law scarcely exists. There is at present one state in which at least feeble efforts toward a sounder approach are to be discovered. Of course it is not our model German Republic, but the American Union where they are trying once more to make at least some use of reason. By excluding on principle all immigrants unsound in health, and simply barring certain races from naturalization, the American Union is showing at least faint signs of an attitude inherent in the race-Nationalist state idea.
The race-Nationalist state divides its inhabitants into three classes: State citizens, state members, and foreigners.
Only state membership is acquired by mere birth. State membership as such does not entitle its possessor to hold public office, nor to political activity in the sense of participation in elections, either active or passive. It is a matter of principle that race and nationality of every state member must be determined. The state member is free at any time to surrender his state membership, and to become a citizen of the country whose nationality corresponds with his own. The foreigner is distinguished from the state member only by the fact that he possesses state membership in a foreign state.
The young state member of German nationality is obliged to go through the school education prescribed for every German. He thus undergoes the training to make him into a racially and nationally conscious member of the people. Subsequently he has to go through the further physical training prescribed by the state, and finally enters the army. The army training is universal; it must include every single German, training him for the sphere of military usefulness suited to his physical and intellectual abilities. On completion of his military duty, state citizenship is solemnly bestowed on the healthy young man of irreproachable character. This is the most valuable document of his entire earthly life. He thus enters upon all the rights of the state citizen, and enjoys all his privileges. For the state must make a sharp distinction between members of the people, who are the cause and the mainstay of its existence and its greatness, and persons who simply take up their residence as “gainfully employed” elements within a state.
The bestowal of the certificates of state citizenship should be made the occasion for the taking of a solemn oath to national community and state. This document must be a common bond bridging all other gulfs. It must become a greater honor to be a street-cleaner and a citizen of the Reich than to be a King in a foreign state. As against the foreigner the state citizen is a privileged character. He is the master of the Reich. But higher dignity has its obligations. The man without honor or character, the common criminal, the traitor to the Fatherland, etc., may be deprived of this honor at any time. He then becomes once more a State member.
The German girl is a state member, and becomes a citizen only upon marriage. Citizenship may, however, be bestowed on female German state members engaged in earning a livelihood.