etc. Their apex is in Europe, their base all over the world—quite different from the United States of America whose base is still on its own continent but whose apex touches the rest of the earth. This, and this alone, accounts for the tremendous strength of that nation and the weakness of most of the European colonial powers.
Lessons in Propaganda
“Propaganda appeals forever only to the masses! The business of propaganda is not scientific training of the individual, but instead is the directing of the attention of the masses to certain facts, events, needs, etc.—the purpose is to make things seem important.
The whole art consists in attacking a point so skillfully that a universal belief in its reality is induced, and a righteous faith constructed.
Propaganda must be popularly toned, dropped to the intellectual level of the dullest of those at whom it is directed. Thus the greater the mass which must be influenced, the lower must be the form of the propaganda used.
The less scientific ballast used, the more brilliant will be the success of the propaganda.
The absorbant-capacity of the masses is most limited. Their understanding is small while their forgetfulness is great. Therefore, propaganda must be strictly limited to a very few essential points, and these must be used again and again until the dullest man of all cannot help knowing what is meant. As soon as this principle is abandoned the force of propaganda fades.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter VI
Germany, therefore, had only the possibility of acquiring new soil within the confines of Europe.
In the 19th century such a thing could not be achieved in a peaceful manner—it could only come as the result of a bitter struggle. It could not be launched half-heartedly, but would require the utmost zeal. Only a war could bring victory.
All possible alliances would have been considered only as seen in this light.
And if European soil was to be had, by and large it could be had only at the expense of Russia—and thus, as of old, the Reich would again have to send knights marching out armed with the German sword, to give soil to the German plow and bread to the German people.
There was but a single ally in all Europe for such a policy: England.
Only so could the back be covered so that this new German invasion could be launched. Our right would be no less than the right of our forefathers.
No sacrifice would be too great in order to win England’s favor, for this would mean renunciation of all thought of colonies and sea power, and the avoidance of all competition with British industries.
Attention,
Mr. Chamberlain
The result would have been a momentary restriction that meant creation of a mighty state.
There was a time when England could have been persuaded to do this. England knew that Germany, because of ever-increasing population, needed a way out—a way out that would be fought for with England’s cooperation on the European continent, or else regardless of England, in the wide world. It was probably because of such reasoning that England tried a rapprochement with Germany. Yet some people in Germany thought that now we were only supposed to pull some British chestnuts out of the fire!
Just imagine a wise German foreign policy assuming Japan’s role in 1914—the consequences which would have come to Germany are limitless. There never would have been a World War. The bloodshed of 1904 would have saved ten-fold the bloodshed of 1914-18.
This shows the absurdity of the Alliance with Austria. That mummy of a state allied itself with Germany not to fight a war, but in the service of eternal peace—which meant the certain extermination of the German race in the Austrian Monarchy.
But the leaders of the Reich could not vision the possibility of an alliance with England, of course, so long as they lacked the determination to help the Germans dying away so near at hand in the Austrian Empire. A Reich which would not ruthlessly alter this situation could never see such a daring plan.
Not only this: despite the fact that Austria’s value as an ally required the preservation of the German elements, the Reich leaders looked idly on while the Germans in Austria were slowly oppressed.
Nothing seemed worse than a fight—so as the least opportune hour a fight was forced upon the Reich.
The Reich leaders attempted to out-face fate, and were overwhelmed. They dreamed of world peace and landed in the world war.
And Now
Stalin!
But the Reich leaders never for a moment considered acquisition of new soil, for this was only to be had in the East and it meant a fight. They wanted peace at any price, for the watch-word of their Foreign Policy was no longer preservation of the German nation, by every means, but instead, preservation of world peace by any and all means.
The Reich leaders chose the least suitable answer to their problem: development of industry and world trade, and the coveting of sea power and colonies.
Yet this, too, could only end in fighting. Only children could expect to survive gathering their bananas in “peaceful competition of nations” without ever being compelled lo take up arms.
No: If we chose this way England would then some day be our enemy.
If European territorial policy could be carried out only with England and against Russia, on the other hand colonial and world trade policy was possible only with Russia against England.
Those “Brutal”
British
However, one no more thought of forming an Alliance with Russia against England, than with England against Russia, for in either case the result would have been war. So to prevent this war, the commercial policy was chosen, This talk about “peaceful economic competition of the world” was the greatest madness ever made the guiding point of a state policy.
In England itself the denial of all this was glaringly apparent: no people has ever more brutally prepared with the sword for its economic conquest, or thereafter more ruthlessly defended its prizes, than have the British.
“We Nazis must ever retain our foreign policy aims—to secure for the German people the soil which is due them on this earth.
I bitterly oppose those “racial” writers who claim that such an acquisition of soil “breaks sacred human rights.” These people only create confusion which serves the enemies of our people.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter XXVI
The British make economic gain out of political power and transform every economic advance into political power. How mistaken to believe that England was too cowardly to shed her blood in defense of her economic policy!
But in Germany the schools, the newspapers, and the comics gradually persuaded the people that although the British were smart tradesters, they were actually incredible cowards.
I remember vividly the astonishment on the faces of my comrades when we clashed with the Tommies in Flanders. At this time I formed my first views about propaganda.
Getting back to the Triple Alliance it must be emphasized that an Alliance is weak as soon as it restricts itself to guardianship of the status quo. In an alliance, as everywhere else, strength is in attack, not in defense. It was lucky for Germany that the World War burst by way of Austria, so that the Hapsburg’s were compelled to fight; if the war had begun in any other way, Germany would have stood alone. The Hapsburg state would have been not only unwilling, but unable, to fight in a war caused by Germany.
What later made one so angry with Italy would have occurred even sooner with Austria; Austria would have remained neutral to save herself from immediate revolution.
The great unpopularity of the Austrian Empire in the world brought the Reich enemies through alliance with this hated state; Austria’s enemies became Germany’s enemies.
With a general attack upon Germany, each one of these could expect to win riches at the expense of Austria.
This was just the bait International Jewish World Financiers needed in order to carry cut its long-cherished plot to destroy Germany, which had thus far refused to yield to the general Jewish Super-State control of world finance and economics.
All this time I felt that our unfortunate treaty with a state doomed for disaster could only lead to a ruinous collapse of Germany itself; unless the Alliance was broken in time.
Even when I was at the front fighting in the war, I still maintained my belief that the Alliance would have to be broken to save Germany, and I felt that this would be no sacrifice but would only lessen the number of our enemies.
The State:
What Is It?
A deeper cause making it possible for Germany to hold the absurd belief in “economic conquest” as practical, and the preservation of world peace as a political goal, was the victorious march of German industry and invention and the rising success of German trade. Some came to think of the state only as an economic institution, to be ruled according to economic laws and interests.
Really the state has nothing whatever to do with a particular conception of economics or economic development.
The state is not an assembly of commercial groups and business men. It is the organization of a community of physically and spiritually equal human beings, united for the furtherance of our species. That, and that by itself, is the true purpose and meaning of a State. Economics is only an auxiliary.
The state-forming forces can be summed up thusly—they amount to the individual’s ability and readiness to sacrifice himself for the community. When the World War came the clever British fought for “liberty,” and not only for their own—no, but for that of the small nations.
Meanwhile, we Germans fought for “bread.” Our “statesmen” could not understand that when a man fights for an economic interest he scrupulously avoids death, for death would prevent him forever from enjoying the reward of his struggle.
The following statement may be followed after as an eternal truth:
A state was never founded by peaceful economy, but only and always by the instinct of race preservation, and by heroics, or by cunning.
Chapter V
World War
In my youth the most depressing thing to me was that I had been born at a period of history in which temples of glory were erected only to tradesmen or state servants.
Why hadn’t I been born a hundred years sooner? At the time of the Wars of Liberation, say, when a man had a value quite apart from “business.” I looked upon it as a mean trick of Fate that I lived in the period of “peace and quiet”.
Even as I boy, I was no pacifist, and all attempts to train me in this direction were utter failures.
When the Boer War came, it was like a flash of lightning illuminating my horizon. Eagerly I devoured the newspapers each day, happy to follow this heroic campaign, even from such a great distance.
The Russian-Japanese War found me much more mature and observant. As a nationalist, I supported the Japanese, and gloried in the defeat of the Russians as a catastrophe for the Austrian Slavs.
The pre-war German belief in “Commercial Conquest” was a sign that real virtues of statecraft had been forgotten, and along with them all insight, will, and determination—by the law of God the result was the World War.
I asked myself:
“How could the great German state, part of the heroic Prussia of old, have become so ill? Was it poisoned?
More, and ever more, I thought of that power which I had met in Vienna—Marxism.
Once again I thoroughly investigated this doctrine of destruction, led this time not by personal experiences, but by observation of political processes.
Soon I was warning my acquaintances, as I do today on a greater scale, against the maxim of all cowards: “Nothing can happen to us!”
In these years, 1913 and 1914, I proclaimed my conviction that the question of Germany’s future was a question of the destruction of Marxism. This infection, almost invisibly, wherever it was present destroyed the cornerstone of a sound state.
Then the Balkan War came, and passed, but left hints of something more to come. The days that followed lay upon men like a horrible dream, similar to the throbbing heat of the tropics, and then finally the everlasting worry—the feeling of approaching disaster—turned into tonging: Let Heaven hasten her destiny, which could in no wise be turned aside!
World
War!
Then the first bolt of lightning thrashed down to earth—the storm broke, and in the skies roared the batteries of the World War.
I was sitting far away, and heard only vague details,
