Chapter XV: The Right of Emergency
Defense
THE ARMISTICE of November, 1918, ushered in a policy which in all
human probability was bound to lead gradually to total submission. Historical
examples of a similar nature show that nations which lay down their arms
without compelling reasons prefer in the ensuing period to accept the greatest
humiliations and extortions rather than attempt to change their fate by a
renewed appeal to force.
This is humanly understandable. A shrewd victor will, if
possible, always present his demands to the vanquished in installments. And
then, with a nation that has lost its character-and this is the case of every
one which voluntarily submits-he can be sure that it will not regard one more
of these individual oppressions as an adequate reason for taking up arms again.
'The more extortions are willingly accepted in this way, the more unjustified
it strikes people finally to take up the defensive against a new, apparently
isolated, though constantly recurring, oppression, especially when, all in all,
so much more and greater misfortune has already been borne in patient
silence.
The fall of Carthage is the most horrible picture of such a slow
execution of a people through its own deserts.
That is why Clausewitz in his Drei Bekenntnisse
incomparably singles out this idea and nails it fast for all time, when he
says:
'That the stain of a cowardly submission can never be effaced; that
this drop of poison in the blood of a people is passed on to posterity and will
paralyze and undermine the strength of later generations'; that, on the other
hand, 'even the loss of this freedom after a bloody and honorable struggle
assures the rebirth of a people and is the seed of life from which some day a
new tree will strike fast roots.'
Of course, a people that has lost all honor and character
will not concern itself with such teachings. For no one who takes them to heart
can sink so low; only he who forgets them, or no longer wants to know them,
collapses. Therefore, we must not expect those who embody a spineless
submission suddenly to look into their hearts and, on the basis of reason and
all human experience, begin to act differently than before. On the contrary, it
is these men in particular who will dismiss all such teachings until either the
nation is definitely accustomed to its yoke of slavery or until better forces
push to the surface, to wrest the power from the hands of the infamous
spoilers. In the first case these people usually do not feel so badly, since
not seldom they are appointed by the shrewd victors to the office of slave
overseer, which these spineless natures usually wield more mercilessly over
their people than any foreign beast put in by the enemy himself.
The development since 1918 shows us that in Germany the
hope of winning the victor's favor by voluntary submission unfortunately
determines the political opinions and the actions of the broad masses in the
most catastrophic way. I attach special importance to emphasizing the broad
masses, because I cannot bring myself to profess the belief that the
commissions and omissions of our people's leaders are attributable to the same
ruinous lunacy. As the leadership of our destinies has, since the end of the
War, been quite openly furnished by Jews, we really cannot assume that faulty
knowledge alone is the cause of our misfortune; we must, on the contrary, hold
the conviction that conscious purpose is destroying our nation. And once we
examine the apparent madness of our nation's leadership in the field of foreign
affairs from this standpoint, it is revealed as the subtlest, ice-cold logic,
in the service of the Jewish idea and struggle for world conquest. And thus, it
becomes understandable that the same time-span, which from 1806 to 1813
sufficed to imbue a totally collapsed Prussia with new vital energy and
determination for struggle, today has not only elapsed unused, but, on the
contrary, has led to an ever-greater weakening of our state.
Seven years after November, 1918, the Treaty of Locarno
was signed.
The course of events was that indicated above: Once the
disgraceful armistice had been signed, neither the energy nor the courage could
be summoned suddenly to oppose resistance to our foes' repressive measures,
which subsequently were repeated over and over. Our enemies were too shrewd to
demand too much at once. They always limit their extortions to the amount
which, in their opinion-and that of the German leadership- would at the moment
be bearable enough so that an explosion of popular feeling need not be feared.
But the more of these individual dictates had been signed, the less justified
it seemed, because of a single additional extortion or exacted humiliation, to
do the thing that had not been done because of so many others: to offer
resistance. For this is the ' drop of poison ' of which Clausewitz speaks: the
spinelessness which once begun must increase more and more and which gradually
becomes the foulest heritage, burdening every future decision. It can become a
terrible lead weight, a weight which a nation is not likely to shake off, but
which finally drags it down into the existence of a slave race.
Thus, in Germany edicts of disarmament alternated with
edicts of enslavement, political emasculation with economic pillage, and
finally created that moral spirit which can regard the Dawes Plan as a stroke
of good fortune and the Treaty of Locarno as a success. Viewing all this from a
higher vantagepoint, we can speak of one single piece of good fortune in all
this misery, which is that, though men can be befuddled, the heavens cannot be
bribed. For their blessing remained absent: since then hardship and care have
been the constant companions-of our people, and our one faithful ally has been
misery. Destiny made no exception in this case, but gave us what we deserved.
Since we no longer know how to value honor, it teaches us at least to
appreciate freedom in the matter of bread. By now people have learned to cry
out for bread, but one of these days they will pray for freedom.
Bitter as was the collapse of our nation in the years
after 1918, and obvious at that very time, every man who dared prophesy even
then what later always materialized was violently and resolutely persecuted.
Wretched and bad as the leaders of our nation were, they were equally arrogant,
and especially when it came to ridding themselves of undesired, because
unpleasant, prophets. We were treated to- the spectacle (as we still are
today!) of the greatest parliamentary thick-heads, regular saddlers and
glovemakers-and not only by profession, which in itself means nothing-suddenly
setting themselves on the pedestal of statesmen, from which they could lecture
down at plain ordinary mortals. It had and has nothing to do with the case that
such a ' statesman ' by the sixth month of his activity is shown up as the most
incompetent windbag, the butt of everyone's ridicule and contempt, that he
doesn't know which way to turn and has provided unmistakable proof of his total
incapacity ! No, that makes no difference, on the contrary: the more lacking
the parliamentary statesmen of this Republic are in real accomplishment, the
more furiously they persecute those who expect accomplishments from them, who
have the audacity to point out the failure of their previous activity and
predict the failure of their future moves. But if once you finally pin down one
of these parliamentary honorables, and this political showman really cannot
deny the collapse of his whole activity and its results any longer, they find
thousands and thousands of grounds for excusing their lack of success, and
there is only one that they will not admit, namely, that they themselves are
the main cause of all evil.
By the winter of 1922-23, at the latest, it should have
been generally understood that even after the conclusion of peace France was
still endeavoring with iron logic to achieve the war aim she had originally had
in mind. For no one will be likely to believe that France poured out the blood
of her people- never too rich to begin with-for four and a half years in the
most decisive struggle of her history, only to have the damage previously done
made good by subsequent reparations. Even Alsace-Lorraine in itself would not
explain the energy with which the French carried on the War, if it had not been
a part of French foreign policy's really great political program for the
future. And this goal is: the dissolution of Germany into a hodge-podge of
little states. That is what chauvinistic France fought for, though at the same
time in reality it sold its people as mercenaries to the international world
Jew.
This French war aim would have been attainable by the War alone if, as
Paris had first hoped, the struggle had taken place on German soil. Suppose
that the bloody battles of the World War had been fought, not on the Somme, in
Flanders, in Artois, before Warsaw, Nijni-Novgorod, Kovno, Riga, and all the
other places, but in Germany, on the Ruhr and the Main, on the Elbe, at
Hanover, Leipzig, Nuremberg, etc., and you will have to agree that this would
have offered a possibility of breaking up Germany. It is very questionable
whether our young federative state could for four and a half years have
survived the same test of strain as rigidly centralized France, oriented solely
toward her uncontested center in Paris. The fact that this gigantic struggle of
nations occurred outside the borders of our fatherland was not only to the
immortal credit of the old army, it was also the greatest good fortune for the
German future. It is my firm and heartfelt conviction, and sometimes almost a
source of anguish to me, that otherwise there would long since have been no
German Reich, but only ' German states.' And this is the sole reason why the
blood of our fallen friends and brothers has at least not Bowed entirely in
vain.
Thus everything turned out differently! True, Germany collapsed like
a flash in November, 1918. But when the catastrophe occurred in the homeland,
our field armies were still deep in enemy territory. The first concern of
France at that time was not the dissolution of Germany, but: How shall we get
the German armies out of France and Belgium as quickly as possible? And so the
first task of the heads of state in Paris for concluding the World War was to
disarm the German armies and if possible drive them back to Germany at once;
and only after that could they devote themselves to the fulfillment of their
real and original war aim. In this respect, to be sure, France was already
paralyzed. For England the War had really been victoriously concluded with the
annihilation of Germany as a colonial and commercial power and her reduction to
the rank of a second-class state. Not only did the English possess no interest
in the total extermination of the German state; they even had every reason to
desire a rival against France in Europe for the future. Hence the French
political leaders had to continue with determined peacetime labor what the War
had begun, and Clemenceau's utterance, that for him the peace was only the
continuation of the War, took on an increased significance.
Persistently, on every conceivable occasion, they had to
shatter the structure of the Reich. By the imposition of one disarmament note
after another, on the one hand, and by the economic extortion thus made
possible, on the other hand, Paris hoped slowly to disjoint the Reich
structure. The more rapidly national honor withered away in Germany, the sooner
could economic pressure and unending poverty lead to destructive political
effects. Such a policy of political repression and economic plunder, carried on
for ten or twenty years, must gradually ruin even the best state structure and
under certain circumstances dissolve it. And thereby the French war aim would
finally be achieved.
By the winter of 1922-23 this must long since have been
recognized as the French intent. Only two possibilities remained: We might hope
gradually to blunt the French will against the tenacity of the German nation,
or at long last to do what would have to be done in the end anyway, to pull the
helm of the Reich ship about on some particularly crass occasion, and ram the
enemy. This, to be sure, meant a life-and-death struggle, and there existed a
prospect of life only if previously we succeeded in isolating France to such a
degree that this second war would not again constitute a struggle of Germany
against the world, but a defense of Germany against a France which was
constantly disturbing the world and its peace.
I emphasize the fact, and I am firmly convinced of it,
that this second eventuality must and will some day occur, whatever happens. I
never believe that France's intentions toward us could ever change, for in the
last analysis they are merely in line with the self-preservation of the French
nation. If I were a Frenchman, and if the greatness of France were as dear to
me as that of Germany is sacred, I could not and would not act any differently
from Clemenceau. The French nation, slowly dying out, not only with regard to
population, but particularly with regard to its best racial elements, can in
the long run retain its position in the world only if Germany is shattered.
French policy may pursue a thousand detours; somewhere in the end there will be
this goal, the fulfillment of ultimate desires and deepest longing. And it is
false to believe that a purely passive will, desiring only to preserve itself,
can for any length of time resist a will that is no less powerful, but proceeds
actively. As long as the eternal conflict between Germany and France is carried
on only in the form of a German defense against French aggression, it will
never be decided, but from year to year, from century to century, Germany will
lose one position after another. Follow the movements of the German language
frontier beginning with the twelfth century until today, and you will hardly be
able to count on the success of an attitude and a development which has done us
so much damage up till now.
Only when this is fully understood in Germany, so that
the vital will of the German nation is no longer allowed to languish in purely
passive defense, but is pulled together for a final active reckoning with
France and thrown into a last decisive struggle with the greatest ultimate aims
on the German side- only then will we be able to end the eternal and
essentially so fruitless struggle between ourselves and France; presupposing,
of course, that Germany actually regards the destruction of France as only a
means which will afterward enable her finally to give our people the expansion
made possible elsewhere. Today we count eighty million Germans in Europe! This
foreign policy will be acknowledged as correct only if, after scarcely a
hundred years, there are two hundred and fifty million Germans on this
continent, and not living penned in as factory coolies for the rest of the
world, but: as peasants and workers, who guarantee each other's livelihood by
their labor.
In December, 1922, the situation between Germany and
France again seemed menacingly exacerbated. France was contemplating immense
new extortions, and needed pledges for them. The economic pillage had to be
preceded by a political pressure and it seemed to the French that only a
violent blow at the nerve center of our entire German life would enable them to
subject our 'recalcitrant' people to a sharper yoke. With the occupation of the
Roar, the French hoped not only to break the moral backbone of Germany once and
for all, but to put us into an embarrassing economic situation in which,
whether we liked it or not, we would have to assume every obligation, even the
heaviest.
It was a question of bending and breaking. Germany bent at the very
outset, and ended up by breaking completely later.
With the occupation of the Ruhr, Fate once again held out
a hand to help the German people rise again. For what at the first moment could
not but seem a great misfortune embraced on closer inspection an infinitely
promising opportunity to terminate all German misery.
From the standpoint of foreign relations, the occupation
of the Ruhr for the first time really alienated England basically from France,
and not only in the circles of British diplomacy which had concluded, examined,
and maintained the French alliance as such only with the sober eye of cold
calculators, but also in the broadest circles of the English people. The
English economy in particular viewed with ill-concealed displeasure this new
and incredible strengthening of French continental power. For not only that
France, from the purely politico-military point of view, now assumed a position
in Europe such as previously not even Germany had possessed, but, economically
as well, she now obtained economic foundations which almost combined a position
of economic monopoly with her capacity for political competition. The largest
iron mines and coal fields in Europe were thus united in the hands of a nation
which, in sharp contrast to Germany, had always defended its vital interests
with equal determination and activism, and which in the Great War had freshly
reminded the whole world of its military reliability. With the occupation of
the Ruhr coal fields by France, England's entire gain through the War was
wrested from her hands, and the victor was no longer British diplomacy so
industrious and alert, but Marshal Foch and the France he represented.
In
Italy, too, the mood against France, which, since the end of the War, had been
by no means rosy to begin with, shifted to a veritable hatred. It was the
great, historical moment in which the allies of former days could become the
enemies of tomorrow. If things turned out differently and the allies did not,
as in the second Balkan War, suddenly break into a sudden feud among
themselves, this was attributable only to the circumstance that Germany simply
had no Enver Pasha, but a Reich Chancellor Cuno.
Yet not only from the standpoint of foreign policy, but of
domestic policy as well, the French assault on the Ruhr held great future
potentialities for Germany. A considerable part of our people which, thanks to
the incessant influence of our lying press, still regarded France as the
champion of progress and liberalism, was abruptly cured of this lunatic
delusion. Just as the year 1914 had dispelled the dreams of international
solidarity between peoples from the heads of our German workers and led them
suddenly back into the world of eternal struggle, throughout which one being
feeds on another and the death of the weaker means the life of the stronger,
the spring of 1923 did likewise.
When the Frenchman carried out his threats and finally,
though at first cautiously and hesitantly, began to move into the lower German
coal district, a great decisive hour of destiny had struck for Germany. If in
this moment our people combined a change of heart with a shift in their
previous attitude, the Ruhr could become a Napoleonic Moscow for France. There
were only two possibilities: Either we stood for this new offense and did
nothing, or, directing the eyes of the German people to this land of glowing
smelters and smoky furnaces, we inspired them with a glowing will to end this
eternal disgrace and rather take upon themselves the terrors of the moment than
bear an endless terror one moment longer.
To have discovered a third way was the immortal
distinction of Reich Chancellor Cuno, to have admired it and gone along, the
still more glorious distinction of our German bourgeois parties.
Here I shall first examine the second course as briefly as
possible.
With the occupation of the Ruhr, France had accomplished
a conspicuous breach of the Versailles Treaty. In so doing, she had also put
herself in conflict with a number of signatory powers, and especially with
England and Italy. France could no longer hope for any support on the part of
these states for her own selfish campaign of plunder: She herself, therefore,
had to bring the adventure-and that is what it was at first-to some happy
conclusion. For a national German government there could be but a single
course, that which honor prescribed. It was certain that for the present France
could not be opposed by active force of arms; but we had to realize clearly
that any negotiations, unless backed by power, would be absurd and fruitless.
Without the possibility of active resistance, it was absurd to adopt the
standpoint: 'We shall enter into no negotiations'; but it was even more
senseless to end by entering into negotiations after all, without having
meanwhile equipped ourselves with power.
Not that we could have prevented the occupation of the
Ruhr by military measures. Only a madman could have advised such a decision.
But utilizing the impression made by this French action and while it was being
carried out, what we absolutely should have done was, without regard for the
Treaty of Versailles which France herself had torn up, to secure the military
resources with which we could later have equipped our negotiators. For it was
clear from the start that one day the question of this territory occupied by
France would be settled at some conference table. But we had to be equally
clear on the fact that even the best negotiators can achieve little success, as
long as the ground on which they stand and the chair on which they sit is not
the shield arm of their nation. A feeble little tailor cannot argue with
athletes, and a defenseless negotiator has always suffered the sword of Brennus
on the opposing side of the scale, unless he had his own to throw in as a
counterweight. Or has it not been miserable to watch the comic-opera
negotiations which since 1918 have always preceded the repeated dictates? This
degrading spectacle presented to the whole world, first inviting us to the
conference table, as though in mockery, then presenting us with decisions and
programs prepared long before, which, to be sure, could be discussed, but which
from the start could only be regarded as unalterable. It is true that our
negotiators, in hardly a single case, rose above the most humble average, and
for the most part justified only too well the insolent utterance of Lloyd
George, who contemptuously remarked, a propos of former Reich Minister Simon, '
that the Germans didn't know how to choose men of intelligence as their leaders
and representatives.' But even geniuses, in view of the enemy's determined will
to power and the miserable defenselessness of our own people in every respect,
would have achieved but little.
But anyone who in the spring of 1923 wanted to make
France's occupation of the Ruhr an occasion for reviving our military
implements of power had first to give the nation its spiritual weapons,
strengthen its will power, and destroy the corrupters of this most precious
national strength.
Just as in 1918 we paid with our blood for the fact that
in 1914 and 1915 we did not proceed to trample the head of the Marxist serpent
once and for all, we would have to pay most catastrophically if in the spring
of 1923 we did not avail ourselves of the opportunity to halt the activity of
the Marxist traitors and murderers of the nation for good.
Any idea of real resistance to France was utter nonsense
if we did not declare war against those forces which five years before had
broken German resistance on the battlefields from within. Only bourgeois minds
can arrive at the incredible opinion that Marxism might now have changed, and
that the scoundrelly leaders of 1918, who then coldly trampled two million dead
underfoot, the better to climb into the various seats of government, now in
1923 were suddenly ready to render their tribute to the national conscience. An
incredible and really insane idea, the hope that the traitors of former days
would suddenly turn into fighters for a German freedom. It never entered their
heads. No more than a hyena abandons carrion does a Marxist abandon treason.
And don't annoy me, if you please, with the stupidest of all arguments, that,
after all, so many workers bled for Germany. German workers, yes, but then they
were no longer international Marxists. If in 1914 the German working class in
their innermost convictions had still consisted of Marxists, the War would have
been over in three weeks. Germany would have collapsed even before the first
soldier set foot across the border. No, the fact that the German people was
then still fighting proved that the Marxist delusion had not yet been able to
gnaw its way into the bottommost depths. But in exact proportion as, in the
course of the War, the German worker and the German soldier fell back into the
hands of the Marxist leaders, in exactly that proportion he was lost to the
fatherland. If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen
thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison
gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in
the field, th sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.
On the contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in time might have saved
the lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the future. But it just
happened to be in the line of bourgeois 'statesmanship' to subject millions to
a bloody end on the battlefield without batting an eyelash, but to regard ten
or twelve thousand traitors, profiteers, usurers, and swindlers as a sacred
national treasure and openly proclaim their inviolability. We never know which
is greater in this bourgeois world, the imbecility, weakness, and cowardice, or
their deep-dyed corruption. It is truly a class doomed by Fate, but
unfortunately, however, it is dragging a whole nation with it into the
abyss.
And in 1923 we faced exactly the same situation as in 1918.
Regardless what type of resistance was decided on, the first requirement was
always the elimination of the Marxist poison from our national body. And in my
opinion, it was then the very first task of a truly national government to seek
and find the forces which were resolved to declare a war of annihilation on
Marxism, and then to give these forces a free road; it was their duty not to
worship the idiocy of 'law and order' at a moment when the enemy without was
administering the most annihilating blow to the fatherland and at home treason
lurked on every street corner. No, at that time a really national government
should have desired disorder and unrest, provided only that amid the confusion
a basic reckoning with Marxism at last became possible and actually took place.
If this were not done, any thought of resistance, regardless of what type, was
pure madness.
Such a reckoning of real world-historical import, it must
be admitted, does not follow the schedules of a privy councilor or some
dried-up old minister, but the eternal laws of life on this earth, which are
the struggle for this life and which remain struggle. It should have been borne
in mind that the bloodiest civil wars have often given rise to a steeled and
healthy people, while artificially cultivated states of peace have more than
once produced a rottenness that stank to high Heaven. You do not alter the
destinies of nations in kid gloves. And so, in the year 1923, the most brutal
thrust was required to seize the vipers that were devouring our people. Only if
this were successful did the preparation of active resistance have
meaning.
At that time I often talked my throat hoarse, attempting to make it
clear, at least to the so-called national circles, what was now at stake, and
that, if we made the same blunders as in 1914 and the years that followed, the
end would inevitably be the same as in 1918. Again and again, I begged them to
give free rein to :Pate, and to give our movement an opportunity for a
reckoning with Marxism; but I preached to deaf ears. They all knew better,
including the chief of the armed forces, until at length they faced the most
wretched capitulation of all time.
Then I realized in my innermost.soul that the German
bourgeoisie was at the end of its mission and is destined for no further
mission. Then I saw how all these parties continued to bicker with the Marxists
only out of competitors' envy, without any serious desire to annihilate them;
at heart they had all of them long since reconciled themselves to the
destruction of the fatherland, and what moved them was only grave concern that
they themselves should be able to partake in the funeral feast. That is all
they were still 'fighting' for.
In this period-I openly admit-I conceived the profoundest
admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for
his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their
annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great
men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists,
but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it.
How miserable and dwarfish our German would-be statesmen
seem by comparison, and how one gags with disgust when these nonentities, with
boorish arrogance, dare to criticize this man who is a thousand times greater
than they; and how painful it is to think that this is happening in a land
which barely half a century ago could call a Bismarck its leader.
In view of this attitude on the part of the bourgeoisie
and the policy of leaving the Marxists untouched, the fate of any active
resistance in 1923 was decided in advance. To fight France with the deadly
enemy in our own ranks would have been sheer idiocy. What was done after that
could at most be shadow-boxing, staged to satisfy the nationalistic element in
Germany in some measure, or in reality to dupe the 'seething soul of the
people.' If they had seriously believed in what they were doing, they would
have had to recognize that the strength of a nation lies primarily, not in its
weapons, but in its will, and that, before foreign enemies are conquered, the
enemy within must be annihilated; otherwise God help us if victory does not
reward our arms on the very first day. Once so much as the shadow of a defeat
grazes a people that is not free of internal enemies, its force of resistance
will break and the foe will be the final victor.
This could be predicted as early as February, 1923. Let
no one mention the questionableness of a military success against France ! For
if the result of the German action in the face of the invasion of the Ruhr had
only been the destruction of Marxism at home, by that fact alone success would
have been on our side. A Germany saved from these mortal enemies of her
existence and her future would possess forces which the whole world could no
longer have stifled. On the day when Marxism is smashed in Germany, her fetters
wig in truth be broken forever. For never in our history have we been defeated
by the strength of our foes, but always by our own vices and by the enemies in
our own camp.
Since the leaders of the German state could not summon up
the courage for such a heroic deed, logically they could only have chosen the
first course, that of doing nothing at all and letting things slide.
But in the great hour Heaven sent the German people a great man, Herr
von Cuno. He was not really a statesman or a politician by profession, and of
course still less by birth; he was a kind of political hack, who was needed
only for the performance of certain definite jobs; otherwise he was really more
adept at business. A curse for Germany, because this businessman in politics
regarded politics as an economic enterprise and acted accordingly.
'France has occupied the Ruhr; what is in the Ruhr? Coal.
Therefore, France has occupied the Ruhr on account of the coal.' What was more
natural for Herr Cuno than the idea of striking in order that the French should
get no coal, whereupon, in the opinion of Herr Cuno, they would one day
evacuate the Ruhr when the enterprise proved unprofitable. Such, more or less,
was this 'eminent"national"statesman,' who in Stuttgart and elsewhere was
allowed to address his people, and whom the people gaped at in blissful
admiration.
But for a strike, of course, the Marxists were needed,
for it was primarily the workers who would have to strike. Therefore, it was
necessary to bring the worker (and in the brain of one of these bourgeois
statesman he is always synonymous with the Marxist) into a united front with
all the other Germans. The way these moldy political party cheeses glowed at
the sound of such a brilliant slogan was something to behold! Not only a
product of genius, it was national at the same time-there at last they had what
at heart they had been seeking the whole while. The bridge to Marxism had been
found, and the national swindler was enabled to put on a Teutonic face and
mouth German phrases while holding out a friendly hand to the international
traitor. And the traitor seized it with the utmost alacrity. For just as Cuno
needed the Marxist leaders for his 'united front,' the Marxist leaders were
just as urgently in need of Cuno's money. So it was a help to both parties.
Cuno obtained his united front, formed of national windbags and anti-national
scoundrels, and the international swindlers received state funds to carry out
the supreme mission of their struggle-that is, to destroy the national economy,
and this time actually at the expense of the state. An immortal idea, to save
the nation by buying a general strike; in any case a slogan in which even the
most indifferent good-fornothing could join with full enthusiasm.
It is generally known that a nation cannot be made free by
prayers. But maybe one could be made free by sitting with folded arms, and that
had to be historically tested. If at that time Berr Cuno, instead of
proclaiming his subsidized general strike and setting it up as the foundation
of the 'united front,' had only demanded two more hours of work from every
German, the 'united front' swindle would have shown itself up on the third day.
Peoples are not freed by doing nothing, but by sacrifices..
To be sure, this so-called passive resistance as such
could not be maintained for long. For only a man totally ignorant of warfare
could imagine that occupying armies can be frightened away by such ridiculous
means. And that alone could have been the sense of an action the costs of which
ran into billions and which materially helped to shatter the national currency
to its very foundations.
Of course, the French could make themselves at home in
the Ruhr with a certain sense of inner relief as soon as they saw the resisters
employing such methods. They had in fact obtained from us the best directions
for bringing a recalcitrant civilian population to reason when its conduct
represents a serious menace to the occupation authorities. With what lightning
speed, after all, we had routed the Belgian franc-tireur bands nine years
previous and made the seriousness of the situation clear to the civilian
population when the German armies ran the risk of incurring serious damage from
their activity. As soon as the passive resistance in the Ruhr had grown really
dangerous to the French, it would have been child's play for the troops of
occupation to put a cruel end to the whole childish mischief in less than a
week. For the ultimate question is always this: What do we do if the passive
resistance ends by really getting on an adversary's nerves and he takes up the
struggle against it with brutal strong-arm methods? Are we then resolved to
offer further resistance? If so, we must for better or worse invite the
gravest, bloodiest persecutions. But then we stand exactly where active
resistance would put us - face to Mace with struggle. Hence any so-called
passive resistance has an inner meaning only if it is backed by determination
to continue it if necessary in open struggle or in undercover guerrilla
warfare. In general, any such struggle will depend on a conviction that success
is possible. As soon as a besieged fortress under heavy attack by the enemy is
forced to abandon the last hope of relief, for all practical purposes it gives
up the fight, especially when in such a case the defender is lured by the
certainty of life rather than probable death. Rob the garrison of a surrounded
fortress of faith in a possible liberation, and all the forces of defense will
abruptly collapse.
Therefore, a passive resistance in the Ruhr, in view of
the ultimate consequences it could and inevitably would produce in case it were
actually successful, only had meaning if an active front were built up behind
it. Then, it is true, there is no limit to what could have been drawn from our
people. If every one of these Westphalians had known that the homeland was
setting up an army of eighty or a hundred divisions, the Frenchmen would have
found it thorny going. There are always more courageous men willing to
sacrifice themselves for success than for something that is obviously
futile.
It was a classical case which forced us National Socialists to take
the sharpest position against a so-called national slogan. And so we did. In
these months I was attacked no little by men whose whole national attitude was
nothing but a mixture of stupidity and outward sham, all of whom joined in the
shouting only because they were unable to resist the agreeable thrill of
suddenly being able to put on national airs without any danger. I regarded this
most lamentable of all united fronts as a most ridiculous phenomenon, and
history has proved me right.
As soon as the unions had filled their treasuries with
Cuno's funds, and the passive resistance was faced with the decision of passing
from defense with folded arms to active attack, the Red hyenas immediately
bolted from the national sheep herd and became again what they had always been.
Quietly and ingloriously Herr Cuno retreated to his ships, and Germany was
richer by one experience and poorer by one great hope.
Down to late midsummer many officers, and they were
assuredly not the worst, had at heart not believed in such a disgraceful
development. They had all hoped that, if not openly, in secret at least,
preparations had been undertaken to make this insolent French assault a turning
point in German history. Even in our ranks there were many who put their
confidence at least in the Reichswehr. And this conviction was so alive that it
decisively determined the actions and particularly the training of innumerable
young people.
But when the disgraceful collapse occurred and the
crushing, disgraceful capitulation followed, the sacrifice of billions of marks
and thousands of young Germans-who had been stupid enough to take the promises
of the Reich's leaders seriously- indignation flared into a blaze against such
a betrayal of our unfortunate people. In millions of minds the conviction
suddenly arose bright and clear that only a radical elimination of the whole
ruling system could save Germany.
Never was the time riper, never did it cry out more
imperiously for such a solution than in the moment when, on the one hand, naked
treason shamelessly revealed itself, while, on the other hand, a people was
economically delivered to slow starvation. Since the state itself trampled all
laws of loyalty and faith underfoot, mocked the rights of its citizens, cheated
millions of its truest sons of their sacrifices and robbed millions of others
of their last penny, it had no further right to expect anything but hatred of
its subjects. And in any event, this hatred against the spoilers of people and
fatherland was pressing toward an explosion. In this place I can only point to
the final sentence of my last speech in the great trial of spring,
1924:
'The judges of this state may go right ahead and convict us for our
actions at that time, but History, acting as the goddess of a higher truth and
a higher justice, will one day smilingly tear up this verdict, acquitting us of
all guilt and blame.'
And then she will call all those before her judgment
seat, who today, in possession of power, trample justice and law underfoot, who
have led our people into misery and ruin and amid the misfortune of the
fatherland have valued their own ego above the life of the community.
In
this place I shall not continue with an account of those events which led to
and brought about the 8th of November, 1923. I shall not do so because in so
doing I see no promise for the future, and because above all it is useless to
reopen wounds that seem scarcely healed; moreover, because it is useless to
speak of guilt regarding men who in the bottom of their hearts, perhaps, were
all devoted to their nation with equal love, and who only missed or failed to
understand the common road.
In view of the great common misfortune of our fatherland,
I today no longer wish to wound and thus perhaps alienate those who one day in
the future will have to form the great united front of those who are really
true Germans at heart against the common front of the enemies of our people.
For I know that some day the time will come when even those who then faced us
with hostility, will think with veneration of those who traveled the bitter
road of death for their German people.
I wish at the end of the second volume to remind the
supporters and champions of our doctrine of those eighteen I heroes, to whom I
have dedicated the first volume of my work, those heroes who sacrificed
themselves for us all with the clearest consciousness. They must forever recall
the wavering and the weak to the fulfillment of his duty, a duty which they
themselves in the best faith carried to its final consequence. And among them I
want also to count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life to the
awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts and finally in
his deeds:
Conclusion
ON NOVEMBER 9, 1923, in the fourth year of its existence,
the National Socialist German Workers' Party was dissolved and prohibited in
the whole Reich territory. Today in November, 1926, it stands again free before
us, stronger and inwardly firmer than ever before.
All the persecutions of the movement and its individual
leaders, all vilifications and slanders, were powerless to harm it. The
correctness of its ideas, the purity of its will, its supporters' spirit of
self-sacrifice, have caused it to issue from all repressions stronger than
ever.
If, in the world of our present parliamentary corruption, it becomes
more and more aware of the profoundest essence of its struggle, feels itself to
be the purest embodiment of the value of race and personality and conducts
itself accordingly, it will with almost mathematical certainty some day emerge
victorious from its struggle. Just as Germany must inevitably win her rightful
position on this earth if she is led and organized according to the same
principles.
A state which in this age of racial poisoning dedicates
itself to the care of its best racial elements must some day become lord of the
earth.
May the adherents of our movement never forget this if ever the
magnitude of the sacrifices should beguile them to an anxious comparison with
the possible results.
Defense
THE ARMISTICE of November, 1918, ushered in a policy which in all
human probability was bound to lead gradually to total submission. Historical
examples of a similar nature show that nations which lay down their arms
without compelling reasons prefer in the ensuing period to accept the greatest
humiliations and extortions rather than attempt to change their fate by a
renewed appeal to force.
This is humanly understandable. A shrewd victor will, if
possible, always present his demands to the vanquished in installments. And
then, with a nation that has lost its character-and this is the case of every
one which voluntarily submits-he can be sure that it will not regard one more
of these individual oppressions as an adequate reason for taking up arms again.
'The more extortions are willingly accepted in this way, the more unjustified
it strikes people finally to take up the defensive against a new, apparently
isolated, though constantly recurring, oppression, especially when, all in all,
so much more and greater misfortune has already been borne in patient
silence.
The fall of Carthage is the most horrible picture of such a slow
execution of a people through its own deserts.
That is why Clausewitz in his Drei Bekenntnisse
incomparably singles out this idea and nails it fast for all time, when he
says:
'That the stain of a cowardly submission can never be effaced; that
this drop of poison in the blood of a people is passed on to posterity and will
paralyze and undermine the strength of later generations'; that, on the other
hand, 'even the loss of this freedom after a bloody and honorable struggle
assures the rebirth of a people and is the seed of life from which some day a
new tree will strike fast roots.'
Of course, a people that has lost all honor and character
will not concern itself with such teachings. For no one who takes them to heart
can sink so low; only he who forgets them, or no longer wants to know them,
collapses. Therefore, we must not expect those who embody a spineless
submission suddenly to look into their hearts and, on the basis of reason and
all human experience, begin to act differently than before. On the contrary, it
is these men in particular who will dismiss all such teachings until either the
nation is definitely accustomed to its yoke of slavery or until better forces
push to the surface, to wrest the power from the hands of the infamous
spoilers. In the first case these people usually do not feel so badly, since
not seldom they are appointed by the shrewd victors to the office of slave
overseer, which these spineless natures usually wield more mercilessly over
their people than any foreign beast put in by the enemy himself.
The development since 1918 shows us that in Germany the
hope of winning the victor's favor by voluntary submission unfortunately
determines the political opinions and the actions of the broad masses in the
most catastrophic way. I attach special importance to emphasizing the broad
masses, because I cannot bring myself to profess the belief that the
commissions and omissions of our people's leaders are attributable to the same
ruinous lunacy. As the leadership of our destinies has, since the end of the
War, been quite openly furnished by Jews, we really cannot assume that faulty
knowledge alone is the cause of our misfortune; we must, on the contrary, hold
the conviction that conscious purpose is destroying our nation. And once we
examine the apparent madness of our nation's leadership in the field of foreign
affairs from this standpoint, it is revealed as the subtlest, ice-cold logic,
in the service of the Jewish idea and struggle for world conquest. And thus, it
becomes understandable that the same time-span, which from 1806 to 1813
sufficed to imbue a totally collapsed Prussia with new vital energy and
determination for struggle, today has not only elapsed unused, but, on the
contrary, has led to an ever-greater weakening of our state.
Seven years after November, 1918, the Treaty of Locarno
was signed.
The course of events was that indicated above: Once the
disgraceful armistice had been signed, neither the energy nor the courage could
be summoned suddenly to oppose resistance to our foes' repressive measures,
which subsequently were repeated over and over. Our enemies were too shrewd to
demand too much at once. They always limit their extortions to the amount
which, in their opinion-and that of the German leadership- would at the moment
be bearable enough so that an explosion of popular feeling need not be feared.
But the more of these individual dictates had been signed, the less justified
it seemed, because of a single additional extortion or exacted humiliation, to
do the thing that had not been done because of so many others: to offer
resistance. For this is the ' drop of poison ' of which Clausewitz speaks: the
spinelessness which once begun must increase more and more and which gradually
becomes the foulest heritage, burdening every future decision. It can become a
terrible lead weight, a weight which a nation is not likely to shake off, but
which finally drags it down into the existence of a slave race.
Thus, in Germany edicts of disarmament alternated with
edicts of enslavement, political emasculation with economic pillage, and
finally created that moral spirit which can regard the Dawes Plan as a stroke
of good fortune and the Treaty of Locarno as a success. Viewing all this from a
higher vantagepoint, we can speak of one single piece of good fortune in all
this misery, which is that, though men can be befuddled, the heavens cannot be
bribed. For their blessing remained absent: since then hardship and care have
been the constant companions-of our people, and our one faithful ally has been
misery. Destiny made no exception in this case, but gave us what we deserved.
Since we no longer know how to value honor, it teaches us at least to
appreciate freedom in the matter of bread. By now people have learned to cry
out for bread, but one of these days they will pray for freedom.
Bitter as was the collapse of our nation in the years
after 1918, and obvious at that very time, every man who dared prophesy even
then what later always materialized was violently and resolutely persecuted.
Wretched and bad as the leaders of our nation were, they were equally arrogant,
and especially when it came to ridding themselves of undesired, because
unpleasant, prophets. We were treated to- the spectacle (as we still are
today!) of the greatest parliamentary thick-heads, regular saddlers and
glovemakers-and not only by profession, which in itself means nothing-suddenly
setting themselves on the pedestal of statesmen, from which they could lecture
down at plain ordinary mortals. It had and has nothing to do with the case that
such a ' statesman ' by the sixth month of his activity is shown up as the most
incompetent windbag, the butt of everyone's ridicule and contempt, that he
doesn't know which way to turn and has provided unmistakable proof of his total
incapacity ! No, that makes no difference, on the contrary: the more lacking
the parliamentary statesmen of this Republic are in real accomplishment, the
more furiously they persecute those who expect accomplishments from them, who
have the audacity to point out the failure of their previous activity and
predict the failure of their future moves. But if once you finally pin down one
of these parliamentary honorables, and this political showman really cannot
deny the collapse of his whole activity and its results any longer, they find
thousands and thousands of grounds for excusing their lack of success, and
there is only one that they will not admit, namely, that they themselves are
the main cause of all evil.
By the winter of 1922-23, at the latest, it should have
been generally understood that even after the conclusion of peace France was
still endeavoring with iron logic to achieve the war aim she had originally had
in mind. For no one will be likely to believe that France poured out the blood
of her people- never too rich to begin with-for four and a half years in the
most decisive struggle of her history, only to have the damage previously done
made good by subsequent reparations. Even Alsace-Lorraine in itself would not
explain the energy with which the French carried on the War, if it had not been
a part of French foreign policy's really great political program for the
future. And this goal is: the dissolution of Germany into a hodge-podge of
little states. That is what chauvinistic France fought for, though at the same
time in reality it sold its people as mercenaries to the international world
Jew.
This French war aim would have been attainable by the War alone if, as
Paris had first hoped, the struggle had taken place on German soil. Suppose
that the bloody battles of the World War had been fought, not on the Somme, in
Flanders, in Artois, before Warsaw, Nijni-Novgorod, Kovno, Riga, and all the
other places, but in Germany, on the Ruhr and the Main, on the Elbe, at
Hanover, Leipzig, Nuremberg, etc., and you will have to agree that this would
have offered a possibility of breaking up Germany. It is very questionable
whether our young federative state could for four and a half years have
survived the same test of strain as rigidly centralized France, oriented solely
toward her uncontested center in Paris. The fact that this gigantic struggle of
nations occurred outside the borders of our fatherland was not only to the
immortal credit of the old army, it was also the greatest good fortune for the
German future. It is my firm and heartfelt conviction, and sometimes almost a
source of anguish to me, that otherwise there would long since have been no
German Reich, but only ' German states.' And this is the sole reason why the
blood of our fallen friends and brothers has at least not Bowed entirely in
vain.
Thus everything turned out differently! True, Germany collapsed like
a flash in November, 1918. But when the catastrophe occurred in the homeland,
our field armies were still deep in enemy territory. The first concern of
France at that time was not the dissolution of Germany, but: How shall we get
the German armies out of France and Belgium as quickly as possible? And so the
first task of the heads of state in Paris for concluding the World War was to
disarm the German armies and if possible drive them back to Germany at once;
and only after that could they devote themselves to the fulfillment of their
real and original war aim. In this respect, to be sure, France was already
paralyzed. For England the War had really been victoriously concluded with the
annihilation of Germany as a colonial and commercial power and her reduction to
the rank of a second-class state. Not only did the English possess no interest
in the total extermination of the German state; they even had every reason to
desire a rival against France in Europe for the future. Hence the French
political leaders had to continue with determined peacetime labor what the War
had begun, and Clemenceau's utterance, that for him the peace was only the
continuation of the War, took on an increased significance.
Persistently, on every conceivable occasion, they had to
shatter the structure of the Reich. By the imposition of one disarmament note
after another, on the one hand, and by the economic extortion thus made
possible, on the other hand, Paris hoped slowly to disjoint the Reich
structure. The more rapidly national honor withered away in Germany, the sooner
could economic pressure and unending poverty lead to destructive political
effects. Such a policy of political repression and economic plunder, carried on
for ten or twenty years, must gradually ruin even the best state structure and
under certain circumstances dissolve it. And thereby the French war aim would
finally be achieved.
By the winter of 1922-23 this must long since have been
recognized as the French intent. Only two possibilities remained: We might hope
gradually to blunt the French will against the tenacity of the German nation,
or at long last to do what would have to be done in the end anyway, to pull the
helm of the Reich ship about on some particularly crass occasion, and ram the
enemy. This, to be sure, meant a life-and-death struggle, and there existed a
prospect of life only if previously we succeeded in isolating France to such a
degree that this second war would not again constitute a struggle of Germany
against the world, but a defense of Germany against a France which was
constantly disturbing the world and its peace.
I emphasize the fact, and I am firmly convinced of it,
that this second eventuality must and will some day occur, whatever happens. I
never believe that France's intentions toward us could ever change, for in the
last analysis they are merely in line with the self-preservation of the French
nation. If I were a Frenchman, and if the greatness of France were as dear to
me as that of Germany is sacred, I could not and would not act any differently
from Clemenceau. The French nation, slowly dying out, not only with regard to
population, but particularly with regard to its best racial elements, can in
the long run retain its position in the world only if Germany is shattered.
French policy may pursue a thousand detours; somewhere in the end there will be
this goal, the fulfillment of ultimate desires and deepest longing. And it is
false to believe that a purely passive will, desiring only to preserve itself,
can for any length of time resist a will that is no less powerful, but proceeds
actively. As long as the eternal conflict between Germany and France is carried
on only in the form of a German defense against French aggression, it will
never be decided, but from year to year, from century to century, Germany will
lose one position after another. Follow the movements of the German language
frontier beginning with the twelfth century until today, and you will hardly be
able to count on the success of an attitude and a development which has done us
so much damage up till now.
Only when this is fully understood in Germany, so that
the vital will of the German nation is no longer allowed to languish in purely
passive defense, but is pulled together for a final active reckoning with
France and thrown into a last decisive struggle with the greatest ultimate aims
on the German side- only then will we be able to end the eternal and
essentially so fruitless struggle between ourselves and France; presupposing,
of course, that Germany actually regards the destruction of France as only a
means which will afterward enable her finally to give our people the expansion
made possible elsewhere. Today we count eighty million Germans in Europe! This
foreign policy will be acknowledged as correct only if, after scarcely a
hundred years, there are two hundred and fifty million Germans on this
continent, and not living penned in as factory coolies for the rest of the
world, but: as peasants and workers, who guarantee each other's livelihood by
their labor.
In December, 1922, the situation between Germany and
France again seemed menacingly exacerbated. France was contemplating immense
new extortions, and needed pledges for them. The economic pillage had to be
preceded by a political pressure and it seemed to the French that only a
violent blow at the nerve center of our entire German life would enable them to
subject our 'recalcitrant' people to a sharper yoke. With the occupation of the
Roar, the French hoped not only to break the moral backbone of Germany once and
for all, but to put us into an embarrassing economic situation in which,
whether we liked it or not, we would have to assume every obligation, even the
heaviest.
It was a question of bending and breaking. Germany bent at the very
outset, and ended up by breaking completely later.
With the occupation of the Ruhr, Fate once again held out
a hand to help the German people rise again. For what at the first moment could
not but seem a great misfortune embraced on closer inspection an infinitely
promising opportunity to terminate all German misery.
From the standpoint of foreign relations, the occupation
of the Ruhr for the first time really alienated England basically from France,
and not only in the circles of British diplomacy which had concluded, examined,
and maintained the French alliance as such only with the sober eye of cold
calculators, but also in the broadest circles of the English people. The
English economy in particular viewed with ill-concealed displeasure this new
and incredible strengthening of French continental power. For not only that
France, from the purely politico-military point of view, now assumed a position
in Europe such as previously not even Germany had possessed, but, economically
as well, she now obtained economic foundations which almost combined a position
of economic monopoly with her capacity for political competition. The largest
iron mines and coal fields in Europe were thus united in the hands of a nation
which, in sharp contrast to Germany, had always defended its vital interests
with equal determination and activism, and which in the Great War had freshly
reminded the whole world of its military reliability. With the occupation of
the Ruhr coal fields by France, England's entire gain through the War was
wrested from her hands, and the victor was no longer British diplomacy so
industrious and alert, but Marshal Foch and the France he represented.
In
Italy, too, the mood against France, which, since the end of the War, had been
by no means rosy to begin with, shifted to a veritable hatred. It was the
great, historical moment in which the allies of former days could become the
enemies of tomorrow. If things turned out differently and the allies did not,
as in the second Balkan War, suddenly break into a sudden feud among
themselves, this was attributable only to the circumstance that Germany simply
had no Enver Pasha, but a Reich Chancellor Cuno.
Yet not only from the standpoint of foreign policy, but of
domestic policy as well, the French assault on the Ruhr held great future
potentialities for Germany. A considerable part of our people which, thanks to
the incessant influence of our lying press, still regarded France as the
champion of progress and liberalism, was abruptly cured of this lunatic
delusion. Just as the year 1914 had dispelled the dreams of international
solidarity between peoples from the heads of our German workers and led them
suddenly back into the world of eternal struggle, throughout which one being
feeds on another and the death of the weaker means the life of the stronger,
the spring of 1923 did likewise.
When the Frenchman carried out his threats and finally,
though at first cautiously and hesitantly, began to move into the lower German
coal district, a great decisive hour of destiny had struck for Germany. If in
this moment our people combined a change of heart with a shift in their
previous attitude, the Ruhr could become a Napoleonic Moscow for France. There
were only two possibilities: Either we stood for this new offense and did
nothing, or, directing the eyes of the German people to this land of glowing
smelters and smoky furnaces, we inspired them with a glowing will to end this
eternal disgrace and rather take upon themselves the terrors of the moment than
bear an endless terror one moment longer.
To have discovered a third way was the immortal
distinction of Reich Chancellor Cuno, to have admired it and gone along, the
still more glorious distinction of our German bourgeois parties.
Here I shall first examine the second course as briefly as
possible.
With the occupation of the Ruhr, France had accomplished
a conspicuous breach of the Versailles Treaty. In so doing, she had also put
herself in conflict with a number of signatory powers, and especially with
England and Italy. France could no longer hope for any support on the part of
these states for her own selfish campaign of plunder: She herself, therefore,
had to bring the adventure-and that is what it was at first-to some happy
conclusion. For a national German government there could be but a single
course, that which honor prescribed. It was certain that for the present France
could not be opposed by active force of arms; but we had to realize clearly
that any negotiations, unless backed by power, would be absurd and fruitless.
Without the possibility of active resistance, it was absurd to adopt the
standpoint: 'We shall enter into no negotiations'; but it was even more
senseless to end by entering into negotiations after all, without having
meanwhile equipped ourselves with power.
Not that we could have prevented the occupation of the
Ruhr by military measures. Only a madman could have advised such a decision.
But utilizing the impression made by this French action and while it was being
carried out, what we absolutely should have done was, without regard for the
Treaty of Versailles which France herself had torn up, to secure the military
resources with which we could later have equipped our negotiators. For it was
clear from the start that one day the question of this territory occupied by
France would be settled at some conference table. But we had to be equally
clear on the fact that even the best negotiators can achieve little success, as
long as the ground on which they stand and the chair on which they sit is not
the shield arm of their nation. A feeble little tailor cannot argue with
athletes, and a defenseless negotiator has always suffered the sword of Brennus
on the opposing side of the scale, unless he had his own to throw in as a
counterweight. Or has it not been miserable to watch the comic-opera
negotiations which since 1918 have always preceded the repeated dictates? This
degrading spectacle presented to the whole world, first inviting us to the
conference table, as though in mockery, then presenting us with decisions and
programs prepared long before, which, to be sure, could be discussed, but which
from the start could only be regarded as unalterable. It is true that our
negotiators, in hardly a single case, rose above the most humble average, and
for the most part justified only too well the insolent utterance of Lloyd
George, who contemptuously remarked, a propos of former Reich Minister Simon, '
that the Germans didn't know how to choose men of intelligence as their leaders
and representatives.' But even geniuses, in view of the enemy's determined will
to power and the miserable defenselessness of our own people in every respect,
would have achieved but little.
But anyone who in the spring of 1923 wanted to make
France's occupation of the Ruhr an occasion for reviving our military
implements of power had first to give the nation its spiritual weapons,
strengthen its will power, and destroy the corrupters of this most precious
national strength.
Just as in 1918 we paid with our blood for the fact that
in 1914 and 1915 we did not proceed to trample the head of the Marxist serpent
once and for all, we would have to pay most catastrophically if in the spring
of 1923 we did not avail ourselves of the opportunity to halt the activity of
the Marxist traitors and murderers of the nation for good.
Any idea of real resistance to France was utter nonsense
if we did not declare war against those forces which five years before had
broken German resistance on the battlefields from within. Only bourgeois minds
can arrive at the incredible opinion that Marxism might now have changed, and
that the scoundrelly leaders of 1918, who then coldly trampled two million dead
underfoot, the better to climb into the various seats of government, now in
1923 were suddenly ready to render their tribute to the national conscience. An
incredible and really insane idea, the hope that the traitors of former days
would suddenly turn into fighters for a German freedom. It never entered their
heads. No more than a hyena abandons carrion does a Marxist abandon treason.
And don't annoy me, if you please, with the stupidest of all arguments, that,
after all, so many workers bled for Germany. German workers, yes, but then they
were no longer international Marxists. If in 1914 the German working class in
their innermost convictions had still consisted of Marxists, the War would have
been over in three weeks. Germany would have collapsed even before the first
soldier set foot across the border. No, the fact that the German people was
then still fighting proved that the Marxist delusion had not yet been able to
gnaw its way into the bottommost depths. But in exact proportion as, in the
course of the War, the German worker and the German soldier fell back into the
hands of the Marxist leaders, in exactly that proportion he was lost to the
fatherland. If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen
thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison
gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in
the field, th sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.
On the contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in time might have saved
the lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the future. But it just
happened to be in the line of bourgeois 'statesmanship' to subject millions to
a bloody end on the battlefield without batting an eyelash, but to regard ten
or twelve thousand traitors, profiteers, usurers, and swindlers as a sacred
national treasure and openly proclaim their inviolability. We never know which
is greater in this bourgeois world, the imbecility, weakness, and cowardice, or
their deep-dyed corruption. It is truly a class doomed by Fate, but
unfortunately, however, it is dragging a whole nation with it into the
abyss.
And in 1923 we faced exactly the same situation as in 1918.
Regardless what type of resistance was decided on, the first requirement was
always the elimination of the Marxist poison from our national body. And in my
opinion, it was then the very first task of a truly national government to seek
and find the forces which were resolved to declare a war of annihilation on
Marxism, and then to give these forces a free road; it was their duty not to
worship the idiocy of 'law and order' at a moment when the enemy without was
administering the most annihilating blow to the fatherland and at home treason
lurked on every street corner. No, at that time a really national government
should have desired disorder and unrest, provided only that amid the confusion
a basic reckoning with Marxism at last became possible and actually took place.
If this were not done, any thought of resistance, regardless of what type, was
pure madness.
Such a reckoning of real world-historical import, it must
be admitted, does not follow the schedules of a privy councilor or some
dried-up old minister, but the eternal laws of life on this earth, which are
the struggle for this life and which remain struggle. It should have been borne
in mind that the bloodiest civil wars have often given rise to a steeled and
healthy people, while artificially cultivated states of peace have more than
once produced a rottenness that stank to high Heaven. You do not alter the
destinies of nations in kid gloves. And so, in the year 1923, the most brutal
thrust was required to seize the vipers that were devouring our people. Only if
this were successful did the preparation of active resistance have
meaning.
At that time I often talked my throat hoarse, attempting to make it
clear, at least to the so-called national circles, what was now at stake, and
that, if we made the same blunders as in 1914 and the years that followed, the
end would inevitably be the same as in 1918. Again and again, I begged them to
give free rein to :Pate, and to give our movement an opportunity for a
reckoning with Marxism; but I preached to deaf ears. They all knew better,
including the chief of the armed forces, until at length they faced the most
wretched capitulation of all time.
Then I realized in my innermost.soul that the German
bourgeoisie was at the end of its mission and is destined for no further
mission. Then I saw how all these parties continued to bicker with the Marxists
only out of competitors' envy, without any serious desire to annihilate them;
at heart they had all of them long since reconciled themselves to the
destruction of the fatherland, and what moved them was only grave concern that
they themselves should be able to partake in the funeral feast. That is all
they were still 'fighting' for.
In this period-I openly admit-I conceived the profoundest
admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for
his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their
annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great
men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists,
but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it.
How miserable and dwarfish our German would-be statesmen
seem by comparison, and how one gags with disgust when these nonentities, with
boorish arrogance, dare to criticize this man who is a thousand times greater
than they; and how painful it is to think that this is happening in a land
which barely half a century ago could call a Bismarck its leader.
In view of this attitude on the part of the bourgeoisie
and the policy of leaving the Marxists untouched, the fate of any active
resistance in 1923 was decided in advance. To fight France with the deadly
enemy in our own ranks would have been sheer idiocy. What was done after that
could at most be shadow-boxing, staged to satisfy the nationalistic element in
Germany in some measure, or in reality to dupe the 'seething soul of the
people.' If they had seriously believed in what they were doing, they would
have had to recognize that the strength of a nation lies primarily, not in its
weapons, but in its will, and that, before foreign enemies are conquered, the
enemy within must be annihilated; otherwise God help us if victory does not
reward our arms on the very first day. Once so much as the shadow of a defeat
grazes a people that is not free of internal enemies, its force of resistance
will break and the foe will be the final victor.
This could be predicted as early as February, 1923. Let
no one mention the questionableness of a military success against France ! For
if the result of the German action in the face of the invasion of the Ruhr had
only been the destruction of Marxism at home, by that fact alone success would
have been on our side. A Germany saved from these mortal enemies of her
existence and her future would possess forces which the whole world could no
longer have stifled. On the day when Marxism is smashed in Germany, her fetters
wig in truth be broken forever. For never in our history have we been defeated
by the strength of our foes, but always by our own vices and by the enemies in
our own camp.
Since the leaders of the German state could not summon up
the courage for such a heroic deed, logically they could only have chosen the
first course, that of doing nothing at all and letting things slide.
But in the great hour Heaven sent the German people a great man, Herr
von Cuno. He was not really a statesman or a politician by profession, and of
course still less by birth; he was a kind of political hack, who was needed
only for the performance of certain definite jobs; otherwise he was really more
adept at business. A curse for Germany, because this businessman in politics
regarded politics as an economic enterprise and acted accordingly.
'France has occupied the Ruhr; what is in the Ruhr? Coal.
Therefore, France has occupied the Ruhr on account of the coal.' What was more
natural for Herr Cuno than the idea of striking in order that the French should
get no coal, whereupon, in the opinion of Herr Cuno, they would one day
evacuate the Ruhr when the enterprise proved unprofitable. Such, more or less,
was this 'eminent"national"statesman,' who in Stuttgart and elsewhere was
allowed to address his people, and whom the people gaped at in blissful
admiration.
But for a strike, of course, the Marxists were needed,
for it was primarily the workers who would have to strike. Therefore, it was
necessary to bring the worker (and in the brain of one of these bourgeois
statesman he is always synonymous with the Marxist) into a united front with
all the other Germans. The way these moldy political party cheeses glowed at
the sound of such a brilliant slogan was something to behold! Not only a
product of genius, it was national at the same time-there at last they had what
at heart they had been seeking the whole while. The bridge to Marxism had been
found, and the national swindler was enabled to put on a Teutonic face and
mouth German phrases while holding out a friendly hand to the international
traitor. And the traitor seized it with the utmost alacrity. For just as Cuno
needed the Marxist leaders for his 'united front,' the Marxist leaders were
just as urgently in need of Cuno's money. So it was a help to both parties.
Cuno obtained his united front, formed of national windbags and anti-national
scoundrels, and the international swindlers received state funds to carry out
the supreme mission of their struggle-that is, to destroy the national economy,
and this time actually at the expense of the state. An immortal idea, to save
the nation by buying a general strike; in any case a slogan in which even the
most indifferent good-fornothing could join with full enthusiasm.
It is generally known that a nation cannot be made free by
prayers. But maybe one could be made free by sitting with folded arms, and that
had to be historically tested. If at that time Berr Cuno, instead of
proclaiming his subsidized general strike and setting it up as the foundation
of the 'united front,' had only demanded two more hours of work from every
German, the 'united front' swindle would have shown itself up on the third day.
Peoples are not freed by doing nothing, but by sacrifices..
To be sure, this so-called passive resistance as such
could not be maintained for long. For only a man totally ignorant of warfare
could imagine that occupying armies can be frightened away by such ridiculous
means. And that alone could have been the sense of an action the costs of which
ran into billions and which materially helped to shatter the national currency
to its very foundations.
Of course, the French could make themselves at home in
the Ruhr with a certain sense of inner relief as soon as they saw the resisters
employing such methods. They had in fact obtained from us the best directions
for bringing a recalcitrant civilian population to reason when its conduct
represents a serious menace to the occupation authorities. With what lightning
speed, after all, we had routed the Belgian franc-tireur bands nine years
previous and made the seriousness of the situation clear to the civilian
population when the German armies ran the risk of incurring serious damage from
their activity. As soon as the passive resistance in the Ruhr had grown really
dangerous to the French, it would have been child's play for the troops of
occupation to put a cruel end to the whole childish mischief in less than a
week. For the ultimate question is always this: What do we do if the passive
resistance ends by really getting on an adversary's nerves and he takes up the
struggle against it with brutal strong-arm methods? Are we then resolved to
offer further resistance? If so, we must for better or worse invite the
gravest, bloodiest persecutions. But then we stand exactly where active
resistance would put us - face to Mace with struggle. Hence any so-called
passive resistance has an inner meaning only if it is backed by determination
to continue it if necessary in open struggle or in undercover guerrilla
warfare. In general, any such struggle will depend on a conviction that success
is possible. As soon as a besieged fortress under heavy attack by the enemy is
forced to abandon the last hope of relief, for all practical purposes it gives
up the fight, especially when in such a case the defender is lured by the
certainty of life rather than probable death. Rob the garrison of a surrounded
fortress of faith in a possible liberation, and all the forces of defense will
abruptly collapse.
Therefore, a passive resistance in the Ruhr, in view of
the ultimate consequences it could and inevitably would produce in case it were
actually successful, only had meaning if an active front were built up behind
it. Then, it is true, there is no limit to what could have been drawn from our
people. If every one of these Westphalians had known that the homeland was
setting up an army of eighty or a hundred divisions, the Frenchmen would have
found it thorny going. There are always more courageous men willing to
sacrifice themselves for success than for something that is obviously
futile.
It was a classical case which forced us National Socialists to take
the sharpest position against a so-called national slogan. And so we did. In
these months I was attacked no little by men whose whole national attitude was
nothing but a mixture of stupidity and outward sham, all of whom joined in the
shouting only because they were unable to resist the agreeable thrill of
suddenly being able to put on national airs without any danger. I regarded this
most lamentable of all united fronts as a most ridiculous phenomenon, and
history has proved me right.
As soon as the unions had filled their treasuries with
Cuno's funds, and the passive resistance was faced with the decision of passing
from defense with folded arms to active attack, the Red hyenas immediately
bolted from the national sheep herd and became again what they had always been.
Quietly and ingloriously Herr Cuno retreated to his ships, and Germany was
richer by one experience and poorer by one great hope.
Down to late midsummer many officers, and they were
assuredly not the worst, had at heart not believed in such a disgraceful
development. They had all hoped that, if not openly, in secret at least,
preparations had been undertaken to make this insolent French assault a turning
point in German history. Even in our ranks there were many who put their
confidence at least in the Reichswehr. And this conviction was so alive that it
decisively determined the actions and particularly the training of innumerable
young people.
But when the disgraceful collapse occurred and the
crushing, disgraceful capitulation followed, the sacrifice of billions of marks
and thousands of young Germans-who had been stupid enough to take the promises
of the Reich's leaders seriously- indignation flared into a blaze against such
a betrayal of our unfortunate people. In millions of minds the conviction
suddenly arose bright and clear that only a radical elimination of the whole
ruling system could save Germany.
Never was the time riper, never did it cry out more
imperiously for such a solution than in the moment when, on the one hand, naked
treason shamelessly revealed itself, while, on the other hand, a people was
economically delivered to slow starvation. Since the state itself trampled all
laws of loyalty and faith underfoot, mocked the rights of its citizens, cheated
millions of its truest sons of their sacrifices and robbed millions of others
of their last penny, it had no further right to expect anything but hatred of
its subjects. And in any event, this hatred against the spoilers of people and
fatherland was pressing toward an explosion. In this place I can only point to
the final sentence of my last speech in the great trial of spring,
1924:
'The judges of this state may go right ahead and convict us for our
actions at that time, but History, acting as the goddess of a higher truth and
a higher justice, will one day smilingly tear up this verdict, acquitting us of
all guilt and blame.'
And then she will call all those before her judgment
seat, who today, in possession of power, trample justice and law underfoot, who
have led our people into misery and ruin and amid the misfortune of the
fatherland have valued their own ego above the life of the community.
In
this place I shall not continue with an account of those events which led to
and brought about the 8th of November, 1923. I shall not do so because in so
doing I see no promise for the future, and because above all it is useless to
reopen wounds that seem scarcely healed; moreover, because it is useless to
speak of guilt regarding men who in the bottom of their hearts, perhaps, were
all devoted to their nation with equal love, and who only missed or failed to
understand the common road.
In view of the great common misfortune of our fatherland,
I today no longer wish to wound and thus perhaps alienate those who one day in
the future will have to form the great united front of those who are really
true Germans at heart against the common front of the enemies of our people.
For I know that some day the time will come when even those who then faced us
with hostility, will think with veneration of those who traveled the bitter
road of death for their German people.
I wish at the end of the second volume to remind the
supporters and champions of our doctrine of those eighteen I heroes, to whom I
have dedicated the first volume of my work, those heroes who sacrificed
themselves for us all with the clearest consciousness. They must forever recall
the wavering and the weak to the fulfillment of his duty, a duty which they
themselves in the best faith carried to its final consequence. And among them I
want also to count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life to the
awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts and finally in
his deeds:
Conclusion
ON NOVEMBER 9, 1923, in the fourth year of its existence,
the National Socialist German Workers' Party was dissolved and prohibited in
the whole Reich territory. Today in November, 1926, it stands again free before
us, stronger and inwardly firmer than ever before.
All the persecutions of the movement and its individual
leaders, all vilifications and slanders, were powerless to harm it. The
correctness of its ideas, the purity of its will, its supporters' spirit of
self-sacrifice, have caused it to issue from all repressions stronger than
ever.
If, in the world of our present parliamentary corruption, it becomes
more and more aware of the profoundest essence of its struggle, feels itself to
be the purest embodiment of the value of race and personality and conducts
itself accordingly, it will with almost mathematical certainty some day emerge
victorious from its struggle. Just as Germany must inevitably win her rightful
position on this earth if she is led and organized according to the same
principles.
A state which in this age of racial poisoning dedicates
itself to the care of its best racial elements must some day become lord of the
earth.
May the adherents of our movement never forget this if ever the
magnitude of the sacrifices should beguile them to an anxious comparison with
the possible results.