Adolf Hitler, MEIN KAMPF
Born the son of an Austrian customs of ficial and his German wife in 1889, Hitler drifted from one low-paying job to another until he enlisted in the German army in World War I. This gave Hitler comradeship and a sense of direction that had been lacking. After the German and Austrian defeat, a disillusioned Hitler went to Munich, where in 1919 he joined a small political party, which in 1920 changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' party, or Nazis.
After becoming leader of the National Socialists, Hitler staged a coup d'etat against the government of the German state of Bavaria in 1923. He was arrested and sentenced to a five-year prison term , though he only served nine months. While in jail, Hitler wrote the first volume of Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). This book focuses on his theories concerning the superiority of the Aryan race, but it also addresses the frustrations of many German citizens to the outcome of World War I and the peace agreement as embodied in the Treaty of Versailles. Mein Kampf inspired millions of followers and guided the National Socialists until their destruction at the end of World War II in 1945.
POINTS TO PONDER:
1. What broad purpose does Hitler see in human existence?
2. What characteristics does Hitler attribute to the Jews? Why does he attack Jews?
3. What role do parliaments play in a "folkish" state, according to Hitler?
4. What goals does Hitler set for Germany, and how are they to be achieved?
5. What relationship is there between Hitler's ideas and the theories of Charles Darwin? Does Hitler interpret Darwin correctly?
6. Is there anything in Mein Kampf that would justify Russian behavior during and after World War II?
NATION AND RACE
There are some truths that are so plain and obvious that for this very reason the everyday world does not see them or at least does not apprehend them. People pass by these truths as if they were blind and are highly astonished when they suddenly discover what everyone should know. . . .
So humans invariably wander about the garden of nature, convinced that they know and understand everything, yet with few exceptions are blind to one of the fundamental principles Nature uses in her work: the intrinsic segregation of the species of every living thing on the earth. . . . Each beast mates with only one of its own species: the titmouse with titmouse, finch with finch, stork with stork, field mouse with field mouse, house mouse with house mouse, wolf with wolf. . . . This is only natural.
Any cross-breeding between two not completely equal beings will result in a product that is in between the level of the two parents. That means that the offspring will be superior to the parent who is at a biologically lower level of being but inferior to the parent at a higher level. This means the offspring will be overcome in the struggle for existence against those at the higher level. Such matings go against the will of Nature for the higher breeding of life.
A precondition for this lies not in the blending of beings of a higher and lower order, but rather the absolute victory of the stronger. The stronger must dominate and must not blend with the weaker orders and sacrifice their powers. Only born weaklings can find this cruel, but after all, they are only weaker and more narrow-minded types of men; unless this law dominated, then any conceivable higher evolution of living organisms would be unthinkable. . . .
Nature looks on this calmly and approvingly. The struggle for daily bread allows all those who are weak, sick, and indecisive to be defeated, while the struggle of the males for females gives to the strongest alone the right or at least the possibility to reproduce. Always this struggle is a means of advancing the health and power of resistance of the species, and thus a means to its higher evolution.
As little as nature approves the mating of higher and lower individuals, she approves even less the blending of higher races with lower ones; for indeed otherwise her previous work toward higher development perhaps over hundreds of thousands of years might be rendered useless with one blow. If this were not the case, progressive development would stop and even deterioration might set in. . . .
All the great civilizations of the past died out because contamination of their blood caused them to become decadent. . . . In other words, in order to protect a certain culture, the type of human who created the culture must be preserved. But such preservation is tied to the inalterable law of the necessity and the right of victory of the best and the strongest.
Whoever would live must fight. Whoever will not fight in this world of endless competition does not deserve to live. Whoever ignores or despises these laws of race kills the good fortune that he believes he can attain. He interferes with the victory path of the best race and with it, the precondition for all human progress. As a result, his human sensitivity consigns him to the level of pitiful beasts. . . .
It is an idle undertaking to argue about which race or races were the original standardbearers of human culture and were therefore the true founders of everything we conceive by the word humanity. It is much simpler to deal with the question as it pertains to the present, and here the answer is simple and clear. What we see before us today as human culture, all the yields of art, science, and technology, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryans. Indeed this fact alone leads to the not unfounded conclusion that the Aryan alone is the founder of the higher type of humanity, and further that he represents the prototype of what we understand by the word: MAN. He is the Prometheus from whose brow the bright spark of genius has forever burst forth, time and again rekindling the fire, which as knowledge has illuminated the night full of silent mysteries, and has permitted humans to ascend the path of mastery over the other beings of the earth. Eliminate him-and deep darkness will again descend on the earth after a few thousand years; human civilization will die out and the earth will become a desert.
If we were to divide mankind into three categories-the founders of culture, the bearers of culture, and the destroyers of culture, only the Aryans can be considered to be in the first category. From them are built the foundations and walls of all human creations, and only the outward form and colors of these are to be attributed to varying characteristics of the other individual peoples. He provides the mightiest building stones and designs for all human progress; only how these designs have been carried out can be attributed to the shifting characteristics of other peoples. . . .
The Jew provides the greatest contrast to the Aryan. With no other people of the world has the instinct for self-preservation been so developed as by the so-called chosen race. The best proof of this statement rests in the fact that this race still exists. Where can another people be found in the past 2,000 years that has undergone so few changes in its inner qualities, character, etc. as the Jews? What people has undergone upheavals as great as this one - and nonetheless have emerged unchanged from the greatest catastrophes of humanity? What an infinitely tenacious will to live and to preserve one's kind is revealed in this fact. . . .
Since the Jew - for reasons I will deal with shortly - never had a civilization of his own, others have always provided the foundations of his intellectual labors. His intellect has always developed by the use of those cultural achievements he has found ready at hand around him. Never has it happened the other way around.
For though their drive for self-preservation is not smaller, but larger than that of other people, and though their mental capabilities may easily give the impression that their intellectual powers are equal to those of other races, the Jews lKk the most basic characteristic of a truly cultured people, namely an idealistic spirit.
It is a remarkable fact that the herd instinct brings people together for mutual protection only so long as there is a common danger that makes mutual assistance necessary or unavoidable. The same pack of wolves that an instant ago combined to overcome their prey will soon after satisfying their hunger again become individual beasts.... It goes the same way with the Jews. His sense of self sacrifice is only apparent. It lasts only so long as it is strictly necessary. As soon as the common enemy departs, however, as soon as the danger is gone and the booty secured, the superficial harmony among the Jews ends, and original conditions return. Jews act together only when a common danger threatens them or a common prey attracts them. When these two things are lacking, then their characteristic of the crassest egoism returns as a force, and out of this once unified people emerges in a flash a swarm of rats fightlng bloodily against one another.
If the Jews existed in the world by themselves, they would wallow in their filth and disasters; they would try to get the best of the other in a hate-filled struggle, and even exterminate one another, that is, if their absolute lack of a sense of self sacrifice, which is expressed in their venality, did not turn this drama into comedy also. . . .
That is why theJewish state-which should be the living organism for the maintenance and improvement of the race-has absolutely no borders. For the territorial definition of a state always demands a certain idealism of spirit on the part of the race which forms the state and especially an acceptance of the idea of work. . . . If this attitude is lacking then the pterequisite for civilization is lacking.
[European Jews in concert with the communists have come close to subverting and controlling other people and nations in Europe.] Here he stops at nothing, and his vileness becomes so monstrous that no one should be surprised if among our people the hateful figure of the Jew is taken as the personification of the devil and the symbol of evil. . . .
How close they see their approaching victory can be seen in the frightful way that their dealings with members of other races develop.
The black-haired Jewish youth, with satanic joy on his face, lurks in wait for hours for the innocent girls he plans to defile with his blood, and steal the young girl from her people. With every means at hand he seeks to undermine the racial foundations of the people they would subjugate. . . . For a people which is racially pure and is conscious of its blood, will never be able to be subjugated by the Jews. The Jew in this world will forever only be the masters of bastardized people. . . .
Around those nations which have offered sturdy resistance to their internal attacks, they surround them with a web of enemies; thanks to their international influence, they incite them to war, and when necessary, will plant the flag of revolution, even on the battlefield.
In economics he shakes the foundations of the state long enough so that unprofitable business enterprises are shut down and come under his financial control. In politics he denies the state its means of self-preservation, destroys its means of self-maintenance and defense, annihilates faith in state leadership, insults its history and traditions, and drags everything that is truly great into the gutter.
Culturally, he pollutes art, literature and theater, makes a mockery of natural sensibilities, destroys every concept of beauty and nobility, the worthy and the good, and instead drags other men down to the sphere of its own lowly type of existence.
Religion is made an object of mockery, morality and ethics are described as old-fashioned, until finally the last props of a people for maintaining their existence in this world are destroyed.
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PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE FOLKISH STATE
These are the sustaining factors in its view of the world.
The folkish state must care for the well-being of its citizens by recognizing in everything the worth of the person, and by doing so direct it to the highest level of its productive capability, thus guaranteeing for each the highest level of participation.
Accordingly, the folkish state must free the entire leadership, especially those in political leadership, from the parliamentary principle of majority rule by the multitude, so that thee right of personality is guaranteed without any limitation. From this is derived the following realization. The best state constitgtion and form is that which with gnqgestioned certainty raises the best minds from the national commzgnity to positions of leading authority and influence. . . .
Beginning with its smallest component and including the highest direction of the Reich, the state must be anchored to the principle of personality.
There are no majority decisions, rather only responsible individuals, and the word "advice" will once again have its original meaning. Each man will have advisers at his side, but the decision will be made by one man.
The principle that made the Prussian army in its time the most splendid instrument of the German people will have to become someday the foundation for the construction of our completed state: aathority of every leader downward and responsibility upward. . . .
This principle of binding absolute responsibility with absolute authority will gradually bring forth an elite group of leaders which today in an era of irresponsible parliamentarianism is hardly thinkable.
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THE DIRECTION AND POLITICS OF EASTERN EUROPE
The foreign policy of the folkish state has as its purpose to guarantee the existence on this planet of the race that it gathers within its borders. With this in mind it must create a natural and healthy ratio between the number and growth of the population and the extent and quality of the land and soil. The balance must be such that it accords with the vital needs of the people. What I call a healthy ratio is one in which the support of the people is assured by its own land and soil. Any other condition, even if lt lasts centurtes or a thousand years, is nevertheless an unhealthy one and will lead sooner or later to damage, if not the total destruction of the affected people. Only a svffciently large space on the earth can assure the independent existence of a people. . . .
If the National Socialist Movement really is to be consecrated in history as fulfilling a great mission for the people, it must, spurred by knowledge and filled with pain over its true situation on this earth, boldly and with a clear sense of direction, take up the battle against the aimlessness and incompetence of our foreign policy. It must, without consideration of "traditions" or preconceived notions, find the courage to gather our people and their forces and advance them on the path from their present restricted living space to new land and soil. This will free the people from the dangers of disappearing from the earth altogether or becoming a slave people in the service of another.
The National Socialist movement must seek to eliminate the disproportion between our people's population and our territory-viewing this as a source of food as well as a basis for national power-and between our historical past and our present hopeless impotence. While doing so it must remain conscious of the fact that we as protectors of the highest humanity on earth are bound also by the highest duty that will be fulfilled only if we inspire the German people with the racial ideal, so that they will occupy themselves not just with the breeding of good dogs, horsesj and cats but also show concern about the purity of their own blood.
Against everything else we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our goal of foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land on this earth to which they are entitled. . . .
State boundaries are made by man and can be changed by man.
The fact that a nation has acquired a large amount of land is no mandate that this should be recognized forever. This only goes to prove the strength of the conqueror and the weakness of the conquered. And only in force lies the right of possession. If today the German people are imprisoned within an impossible territorial area and for that reason are face to face with a miserable future, this is not the commandment of fate, any more than a revolt against such a situation would be a violation of the laws of fate; . . . the soil on which we now live was not bestowed upon our ancestors by Heaven; rather, they had to conquer it by risking their lives. So with us, in the future we will win soil and with it the means of existence of the people not through some sort of folkish grace but only through the power of the triumphant sword.
But we National Socialists must go further: The right to land and soil will become an obligation if without further territorial expansion a great people is threatened with its destruction. And that is particularly true when the people in question is not some little nigger people, but the German mother of life, which has given cultural shape to the modern world. Germany will either become a world power or will no longer exist. To achieve world power an expansion in size is needed, which will give the state meaning in today's world and will give life to its citizens. . . .
And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line below the direction of our foreign policy before the war. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We put a stop to the eternal pull of the Germans toward the south and western Europe and turn our gaze to the lands of the east. We put an end to the colonial and commercial policy of the prewar period and shift to the land-oriented policy of the future.
When today we speak of new territory and soil in Europe, we think primarily of Russia and her subservient border states.