In this episode, we delve into the decline of the Habsburg state, examining how parliamentary procedures and the weakening of the German element contributed to its downfall. The episode explores the complex interplay of nationalities within the empire, highlighting the rise of separatist tendencies and the role of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in promoting Slavic interests. The discussion also touches on the Pan-German movement's response to these challenges, emphasizing the importance of national self-preservation and the struggle against oppressive governance.
We also explore the broader implications of these historical events, drawing parallels to contemporary issues of statecraft and national identity. The episode critiques the failures of the Pan-German movement and the Christian Socialist Party, analyzing their approaches to nationalism, social issues, and antisemitism. Through this historical lens, we reflect on the lessons learned and the enduring impact of these movements on modern political thought and strategy.
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File 21. The parliamentary regime became one of the causes why the strength of the Habsburg state steadily declined during the last years of its existence. The more the predominance of the German element was whittled away through parliamentary procedure, the more prominent became the system of playing off one of the various constituent nationalities against the other. In the imperial parliament, it was always the German element that suffered through the system, which meant that the results were detrimental to the empire as a whole. For at the close of the century, even the most simple minded people could recognize that the cohesive forces within the dual monarchy no longer suffice to counterbalance the separatist tendencies of the provincial nationalities.
On the contrary, the measures which the state adopted for its own maintenance became more and more mean spirited. And in a like degree, the general disrespect for the state increased. Not only Hungary, but also the various Slav provinces gradually ceased to identify themselves with the monarchy which embraced them all. And, accordingly, they did not feel its weakness as in any way detrimental to themselves. They rather welcome those manifestations of senile decay. They looked forward to the final dissolution of the state and not to its recovery.
The complete collapse was still forestalled in parliament by the humiliating concessions that were made to every kind of importunate demands at the cost of the German element. Throughout the country, the defense of the state rested on playing off the various nationalities against one another. But the general trend of this development was directed against the Germans, especially since the right of succession to the throne conferred certain influence on the arch duke Franz Ferdinand. The policy of increasing the power of the checks was carried out systematically from the upper grades of the administration down to the lower.
With all the means at his command, the heir to the dual monarchy personally furthered the policy that aimed at eliminating the influence of the German element, or at least he acted as protector of that policy. By the use of state officials as tools, purely German districts were gradually but decisively brought within the danger zone of the mixed languages. Even in Lower Austria, this process began to make headway with a constantly increasing tempo, and Vienna was looked upon by the Czechs as their biggest city. In the family circle of this new Hapsburger, the Czech language was favored.
The wife of the archduke had formerly been a Czech countess and was wedded to the prince by a morganatic marriage. She came from an environment where hostility to the Germans had been traditional. The leading idea in the mind of the archduke was to establish a Slav state in Central Europe, which was to be constructed on a purely Catholic basis so as to serve as a bulwark against Orthodox Russia. As it happened often in Habsburg history, religion was thus exploited to serve a purely political policy, and in this case, a fatal policy, at least as far as German interests were concerned.
The result was lamentable in many respects. Neither the house of Habsburg nor the Catholic church received the reward which they expected. Habsburg lost the throne, and the church lost a great state. By employing religious motives in the service of politics, a spirit was aroused which the instigators of that policy had never thought possible. From the attempt to exterminate Germanism in the old monarchy by every available means arose the Pan German movement in Austria as a response. In the eighties of the last century, Manchester liberalism, which was Jewish in its fundamental ideas, had reached the zenith of its influence in the dual monarchy or had already passed that point.
The reaction which set in did not arise from social, but from nationalistic tendencies, as was always the case in the old Austria. The instinct of self preservation drove the German element to defend itself energetically. Economic considerations only slowly began to gain an important influence, but they were of secondary concern. But of the general political chaos, two party organizations emerged. The one was more of a national and the other more of a social character, but both were highly interesting and instructive for the future.
After the war of eighteen sixty six, which had resulted in the humiliation of Austria, the house of Habsburg contemplated a on the battlefield. Only the tragic end of the emperor Maximilian of Mexico prevented a still closer collaboration with France. The chief blame for Maximilian's disastrous expedition was attributed to Napoleon the third, and the fact that the Frenchman left him in the lurch aroused a general feeling of indignation. Yet the Habsburgs were still lying in wait for their opportunity. If the war of eighteen seventy to seventy one had not been such a singular triumph, the Viennese court might have chanced the game of blood in order to get its revenge for Sadawa.
But when the first reports arrived from the Franco German battlefield, which though true seemed miraculous and almost incredible, the most wise of all monarchs recognized that the moment was inopportune and tried to accept the unfavorable situation with as good a grace as possible. The heroic conflict of those two years, eighteen seventy to seventy one, produced a still greater miracle. For with the Habsburgs, the change of attitude never came from an inner heartfelt urge, but only from the pressure of circumstances. The German people of the Eastmark, however, were entranced by the triumphant glory of the newly established German Empire, and were profoundly moved when they saw the dream of their father's resurgent in a magnificent reality.
For, let us make no mistake about it, the true German Austrian realized from this time onward that was the tragic though necessary precondition for the reestablishment of an empire which should no longer be burdened with the palsy of the old alliance and which indeed had no share in that morbid decay. Above all, the German Austrian had come to feel in the very depths of his own being that the historical mission of the house of Habsburg had come to an end, and that the new empire could choose only an emperor who was of heroic mold and was therefore worthy to wear the crown of the Rhine.
It was right and just that destiny should be praised for having chosen a scion of that house which Frederick the Great had in past times given the nation an elevated and resplendent symbol for all time to come. After the great war of eighteen seventy, seventy one, the house of Habsburg set to work with all its determination to exterminate the dangerous German element about whose inner feelings and attitude there could be no doubt, slowly but deliberately. I use the word exterminate because that alone expresses what must have been the final result of the Slavophile policy.
Then it was that the fire of rebellion blazed up among the people whose extermination had been decreed. That fire was such as had never been witnessed in modern German history. For the first time, nationalists and patriots were transformed into rebels. Not rebels against the nation or the state as such, but rebels against that form of government which they were convinced would inevitably bring about the ruin of their own people. For the first time in modern history, the traditional dynastic patriotism and national love of fatherland and people were in open conflict.
It was to the merit of the Pan German movement in Austria during the closing decade of the last century that it pointed out clearly and unequivocally that a state is entitled to demand respect and protection for its authority only when such authority is administered in accordance with the interests of the nation, or at least not in a manner detrimental to those interests. The authority of the state can never be an end in itself. For if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred. If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right, but also the duty of every individual citizen.
The question of whether and when such a situation exists cannot be answered by theoretical dissertations, but only by the exercise of force. And it is success that decides the issue. Every government, even though it may be the worst possible, and even though it may have betrayed the nation's trust in thousands of ways, will claim that its duty is to uphold the authority of the state. Its adversaries, who are fighting for national self preservation, must use the same weapons which the government uses if they are to prevail against such a rule and secure their own freedom and independence. Therefore, the conflict will not be fought out with legal means as long as the power which is to be overthrown uses them.
But the insurgents will not hesitate to apply illegal means if the oppressor himself employs them. File 22. Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a state of government, but rather the conservation of the race. If the race is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated, the question of legality is only of secondary importance. The established power may, in such a case, employ only those means which are recognized as legal, yet the instinct of self preservation on the part of the oppressed will always justify to the highest degree the employment of all possible resources.
Only on the recognition of this principle was it possible for those struggles to be carried through of which history furnishes magnificent examples in abundance against foreign bondage or oppression at home? Human rights are above the rights of the state. But if a people be defeated in the struggle for its human rights, this means that its weight has proved too light in the scale of destiny to have the luck of being able to endure in this terrestrial world. The world is not there to be possessed by the faint hearted races. Austria affords a very clear and striking example of how easy it is for tyranny to hide its head under the cloak of what is called legality.
The legal exercise of power in the Habsburg state was then based on the anti German attitude of the parliament with its non German majorities, and on the dynastic house, which was also hostile to the German element. The whole authority of the state was incorporated in these two factors. To attempt to alter the lot of the German element through these two factors would have been senseless. Those who advised the legal way as the only possible way and also obedience to the state authority could offer no resistance because a policy of resistance could not have been put into effect through legal measures.
To follow the advice of the legalist counselors would have meant the inevitable ruin of the German element within the monarchy, and this disaster would not have taken long to come. The German element has actually been saved only because the state as such collapsed. The spectacle theorist would have given his life for his doctrine rather than for his people. Because man has made laws, he subsequently comes to think that he exists for the sake of the laws. A great service rendered by the Pan German movement was that it abolished all such nonsense, though the doctrinaire theorists and other fetish worshipers were shocked.
When the Habsburgs attempted to come to close quarters with the German element by the employment of all the means of attack which they had at their command, the Pan German party hit out ruthlessly against the illustrious dynasty. This party was the first to probe into and expose the corrupt condition of the state. And in doing so, they opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands. To have liberated the high ideal of love for one's country from the embrace of this deplorable dynasty was one of the great services rendered by the Pan Germanic movement. When that party first made its appearance, it secured a large following.
Indeed, the movement threatened to become almost an avalanche. But the first successes were not maintained. At the time I came to Vienna, the Pan German party had been eclipsed by the Christian socialist party, which had come into power in the meantime. Indeed, the Pan German party had sunk to a level of almost complete insignificance. The rise and decline of the Pan German movement on the one hand and the marvelous progress of the Christian socialist party on the other became a classic object of study for me, and as such, they played an important part in the development of my own views.
When I came to Vienna, all my sympathies were exclusively with the Pan German movement. I was just as much impressed by the fact that they had the courage to shout Heil Hohenzollern as I rejoiced at their determination to consider themselves an integral part of the German Empire from which they were separated only provisionally. They never missed an opportunity to explain their attitude in public, which raised my enthusiasm and confidence. To avow one's principles publicly on every problem that concern Germanism, and never to make any compromises, seemed to me the only way of saving our people.
What I could not understand was how this movement broke down so soon after such a magnificent start. And it was no less incomprehensible that the Christian socialists should gain such tremendous power within such a short time. They had just reached the pinnacle of their popularity. When I began to compare those two movements, fate placed before me the best means of understanding the causes of this puzzling problem. The action of fate, in this case, was hastened by my own straightened circumstances. I shall begin my analysis with an account of the two men who must be regarded as the founders and leaders of the two movements.
These were Georgy van Schoenera and doctor Carl Lugar. As far as personality goes, both were far above the level and stature of the so called parliamentary figures. They lived lives of immaculate and irreproachable probity amidst the miasma of all round political corruption. Personally, I first liked the Pan German representative, Schoener, and it was only afterwards and gradually that I felt an equal liking for the Christian socialist leader. When I compare their respective abilities, Schoenera seemed to me a better and more profound thinker on fundamental problems.
He foresaw the inevitable downfall of the Austrian state more clearly and accurately than anyone else. If this warning in regard to the Habsburg Empire had been heeded in Germany, the disastrous World War, which involved Germany against the whole of Europe, would never have taken place. But though Schonerer succeeded in penetrating to the essentials of a problem, He was very often much mistaken in his judgment of men. And herein lay doctor Luger's special talent. He had a rare gift of insight into human nature, and he was very careful not to take men as something better than they were in reality. He based his plans on the practical possibilities which human life offered him, whereas Schoenerer had only little discrimination in that respect.
All ideas that this Pan German had were right in the abstract, but he did not have the forcefulness or understanding necessary to put his ideas across to the broad masses. He was not able to formulate them so that they could be easily grasped by the masses whose powers of comprehension are limited and will always remain so. Therefore, all Schoenerer's knowledge was only the wisdom of a prophet, and he never could succeed in having it put into practice. This lack of insight into human nature led him to form a wrong estimate of the forces behind certain movements and the inherent strength of old institutions.
Schonerer indeed realized that the problems he had to deal with were in the nature of a Welt Anschlauung but he did not understand that only the broad masses of a nation can make such convictions prevail, which are almost of a religious nature. Unfortunately, he understood only very imperfectly how feeble is the fighting spirit of the so called bourgeoisie. That weakness is due to their business interests, which individuals are too much afraid of risking, and which therefore deter them from taking action. And, generally speaking, a can have no prospect of success unless the broad masses declare themselves ready to act as its standard bearers, and to fight on its behalf wherever and to whatever extent that may be necessary.
This failure to understand the importance of the lower strata of the population resulted in a very inadequate concept of the social problem. In all this, doctor Luger was the opposite of Schoenerer. His profound knowledge of human nature enabled him to form a correct estimate of the various social forces, and it saved him from underrating the power of existing institutions. And it was perhaps this very quality which enabled him to utilize those institutions as a means to serve the purposes of his policy. He saw only too clearly that in our epoch, the political fighting power of the upper classes is quite insignificant and not at all capable of fighting for a great new movement until the triumph for that movement be secured.
Thus, he devoted the greatest part of his political activity to the task of winning over those sections of the population whose existence was in danger and fostering the militant spirit in them rather than attempting to paralyze it. He was also quick to adopt all available means for winning the support of long established institutions so as to be able to derive the greatest possible advantage for his movement from those old sources of power. Thus it was. First of all, he chose as the social basis of his new party, that middle class which was threatened with extinction.
In this way, he secured a solid following, which was willing to make great sacrifices and had good fighting stamina. His extremely wise attitude towards the Catholic church rapidly won over the younger clergy in such large numbers that the old clerical party was forced to retire from the field of action, or else, which was the wiser course, to join the new party in the hope of gradually winning back one position after another. But it would be a serious injustice to the man if we were to regard this as his essential characteristic, for he possessed the qualities of an able tactician and had the true genius of a great reformer.
But all these were limited by his exact perception of the possibilities at hand and also of his own capabilities. The aims which this really eminent man decided to pursue were intensely practical. He wished to conquer Vienna, the heart of the monarchy. It was from Vienna that the last pulses of life beat through the diseased and worn out body of the decrepit empire. If the heart could be made healthier, the other parts of the body were bound to revive. That idea was correct in principle, but the time within which it could be applied in practice was strictly limited, and that was the man's weak point.
His achievements as Bogomaster of the city of Vienna are immortal in the best sense of the word, but all that could not save the monarchy. It came too late. His rival, Schoenerer, saw this more clearly. What doctor Luger undertook to put into practice turned out marvelously successful, but the results which he expected to follow these achievements did not come. Schonerer did not attain the ends he had proposed to himself, but his fears were realized, alas, in a terrible fashion. Thus, both these men failed to attain their further objective. Lueger could not save Austria, and Schonerer could not prevent the downfall of the German people in Austria.
File 23. To study the causes of failure in the case of these two parties is to learn a lesson that is highly instructive for our own epoch. This is especially useful for my friends because in many points, the circumstances of our own day are similar to those of that time. Therefore, such a lesson may help us to guard against the mistakes which brought one of those movements to an end and rendered the other barren of results. In my opinion, the wreck of the Pan German movement in Austria must be attributed to three causes. The first of these consisted in the fact that the leaders did not have a clear concept of the importance of the social problem, particularly for a new movement which had an essentially revolutionary character.
Schoenigher and his followers directed their attention principally to the bourgeois classes. For that reason, their movement was bound to turn out mediocre and tame. The German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper circles, is pacifist even to the point of complete self abnegation, though the individual may not be aware of this, wherever the internal affairs of the nation or state are concerned. In good times, which in this case means times of good government, such a psychological attitude makes this social layer extraordinarily valuable to the state.
But when there is a bad government, such a quality has a destructive effect. In order to assure the possibility of carrying through a really strenuous struggle, the Pan German movement should have devoted its efforts to winning over the masses. The failure to do this left the movement from the very beginning without the elementary impulse which such a wave needs if it is not to ebb within a short while. In failing to see the truth of this principle clearly at the very outset of the movement and in neglecting to put it into practice, the new party made an initial mistake which could not possibly be rectified afterwards.
For the numerous moderate bourgeois elements admitted into the movements increasingly determined its internal orientation, and thus forestalled all further prospects of gaining any appreciable support among the masses of the people. Under such conditions, such a movement could not get beyond mere discussion and criticism. Quasi religious faith and the spirit of sacrifice were not to be found in the movement anymore. Their place was taken by the effort towards positive collaboration, which in this case meant the acknowledgment of the existing state of affairs, gradually whittling away the rough corners of the questions in dispute and ending up with the making of a dishonorable piece.
Such was the fate of the Pan German movement because at the start, the leaders did not realize that the most important condition of success was that they should recruit their following from the broad masses of the people. The movement thus became bourgeois and respectable and radical only in moderation. From this failure resulted the second cause of its rapid decline. The position of the Germans in Austria was already desperate when pan Germanism arose. Year after year, parliament was being used more and more as an instrument for the gradual extinction of the German Austrian population.
The only hope for any eleventh hour effort to save it lay in the overthrow of the parliamentary system, but there was very little prospect of this happening. Therewith, the Pan German movement was confronted with a question of primary importance. To overthrow the parliament, should the Pan Germanists have entered it to undermine it from within as the current phrase was, or should they have assailed the institution as such from the outside? They entered the parliament and came out defeated. But they had found themselves obliged to enter.
For in order to wage an effective war against such a power from the outside, Indomitable courage and a ready spirit of sacrifice were necessary weapons. In such cases, the bull must be seized by the horns. Furious drives may bring the assailant to the ground again and again. But if he has a stout heart, he will stand up, even though some bones may be broken, and only after a long and tough struggle will he achieve his triumph. New champions are attracted to a cause by the appeal of great sacrifices made for its sake until that indomitable spirit is finally crowned with success.
For such a result, however, the children of the people from the great masses are necessary. They alone have the requisite determination and tenacity to fight a sanguinary issue through to the end. But the Pan German movement did not have these broad masses as its champions, and so no other means of solution could be tried out except that of entering parliament. It would be a mistake to think that this decision resulted from a long series of internal hesitations of a moral kind or that it was the outcome of careful calculation. No.
They did not even think of another solution. Those who participated in this blunder were actuated by general considerations and vague notions as to what would be the significance and effect of taking part in such a special way in that institution which they had condemned on principle. In general, they hoped that they would thus have the means of expanding their cause to the great masses of the people because they would be able to speak before the forum of the whole nation. Also, it seemed reasonable to believe that by attacking the evil in the root, they would be more effective than if the attack came from outside.
They believed that if protected by the immunity of parliament, the position of the individual protagonists would be strengthened, and that, thus, the force of their attacks would be enhanced. In reality, everything turned out quite otherwise. The forum before which the Pan German representative spoke had not grown greater, but had actually become smaller, for each spoke only to the circle that was ready to listen to him, or could read the report of his speech in the newspapers. But the greater forum of immediate listeners is not the parliamentary auditorium.
It is the large public meeting. For here alone will there be thousands of men who have come simply to hear what a speaker has to say. Whereas in the parliamentary sittings, only a few 100 are present. And for the most part, these are there only to earn their daily allowance for attendance and not be enlightened by the wisdom of one or other of the representatives of the people. The most important consideration is that the same public is always present, and that this public does not wish to learn anything new. Because setting aside the question of its intelligence, it lacks even that modest quantum of will power which is necessary for the effort of learning.
Not one of the representatives of the people will pay homage to a superior truth and devote himself to its service. No. Not one of these gentry will act thus, except he has grounds for hoping that by such a conversion, he may be able to retain the representation of his constituency in the coming legislature. Therefore, only when it becomes quite clear that the old party is likely to have a bad time of it at the forthcoming elections, only then will those models of manly virtue set out in search of a new party or a new policy which may have better electoral prospects.
But, of course, this change of position will be accompanied by a veritable deluge of high moral motives to justify it. And thus, it always happens that when an existing party has incurred such general disfavor among the public that it is threatened with the probability of a crushing defeat, then a great migration commences. The parliamentary rats leave the party ship. All this happens not because the individuals in the case have become better informed on the questions the and enables him to hop into another warm party bed. To speak before such a forum signifies casting pearls before certain animals.
Verily, it does not repay the pains taken, for the result must always be negative. And that is actually what happened. The Pan German representatives might have talked themselves hoarse, but to no effect whatsoever. The press either ignored them totally, or so mutilated their speeches that the logical consistency was destroyed, or the meaning twisted round in such a way that the public got only a very wrong impression regarding the aims of the new movement. What the individual members said was not of importance. The important matter was what people read as coming from them.
This consisted of mere extracts, which had been torn out of the context of the speeches and gave an impression of incoherent nonsense, which indeed was purposely meant. Thus, the only public before which they really spoke consisted merely of 500 parliamentarians, and that says enough. The worst was the following. The Pan German movement could hope for success only if the leaders realized from the very first moment that here there was no question so much of a new party as of a new. This alone could arouse the inner moral forces that were necessary for such a gigantic struggle. And for this struggle, the leaders must be men of first class brains and indomitable courage.
If the struggle on behalf of a Welt Anschlung is not conducted by men of heroic spirit, who are ready to sacrifice everything, within a short while it will become impossible to find real fighting followers who are ready to lay down their lives for the cause. A man who fights only for his own existence has not much left over for the service of the community. In order to secure the conditions that are necessary for success, everybody concerned must be made to understand that the new movement looks to posterity for its honor and glory, but that it has no recompense to offer to the present day members.
If a movement should offer a large number of positions and offices that are easily accessible, The number of unworthy candidates admitted to membership will be constantly on the increase. And, eventually, a day will come when there will be such a preponderance of political profiteers among the membership of a successful party that the combatants who bore the brunt of the battle in the early stages of the movement can now scarcely recognize their own party and may be ejected by the later arrivals as unwanted ballast.
Therewith, the movement will no longer have a mission to fulfill. File 24. Once the Pan Germanists decided to collaborate with parliament, they were no longer leaders and combatants in a popular movement, but merely parliamentarians. Thus, the movement sank to the common political party level of the day, and no longer had the strength to face a hostile fate and defy the risk of martyrdom. Instead of fighting, the Pan German leaders fell into the habit of talking and negotiating. The new parliamentarians soon found that it was a more satisfactory, because less risky way of fulfilling their task if they would defend the new Weltanschwang with a spiritual weapon of parliamentary rhetoric rather than take up a fight in which they placed their lives in danger.
The outcome of which also was uncertain, and even at the best could offer no prospect of personal gain for themselves. When they had taken their seats in parliament, their adherents outside hoped and waited for miracles to happen. Naturally, no such miracles happened or could happen. Whereupon the adherence of the movement soon grew impatient because reports they read about their own deputies did not in the least come up to what had been expected when they voted for these deputies at the elections. The reason for this was not far to seek. It was due to the fact that an unfriendly press refrain from giving a true account of what the Pan German representatives of the people were actually doing.
According as the new deputies got to like this mild form of revolutionary struggle in parliament and in the provincial diets, they gradually became reluctant to resume the more hazardous work of expounding the principles of the movement before the broad masses of the people. Mass meetings in public became more and more rare, though these are the only means of exercising a really effective influence upon the people, because here the influence comes from direct personal contact. And in this way, the support of large sections of the people can be obtained. When the tables on which the speakers used to stand in the great beer halls, addressing an assembly of thousands were deserted for the parliamentary tribune, and the speeches were no longer addressed to the people directly, but to the so called chosen representatives.
The pan German movement lost its popular character, and in a little while degenerated to the level of a more or less serious club where problems of the day are discussed academically. The wrong impression created by the press was no longer corrected by personal contact with the people through public meetings, whereby the individual representatives might have given a true account of their activities. The final result of this neglect was that the word Pan German came to have an unpleasant sound in the ears of the masses. The knights of the pen and the literary snobs of today should be made to realize that the great transformations which have taken place in this world were never conducted by a goose quill.
No. The task of the pen must always be that of presenting the theoretical concepts which motivate such changes. The force which has ever and always set in motion great historical avalanches of religious and political movements is the magic power of the spoken word. The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions stirred into activity by the ruthless goddess of distress, or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.
In no case have great movements been set a foot by the syrupy effusions of aesthetic literatures and drawing room heroes. The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of glowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others. It is only through the capacity for passionate feeling that chosen leaders can wield the power of the word, which like hammer blows will open the door to the hearts of the people. He who is not capable of passionate feeling and speech was never chosen by Providence to be the herald of its will.
Therefore, a writer should stick to his ink bottle and busy himself with theoretical questions if he has the requisite ability and knowledge. He has not been born or chosen to be a leader. A movement which has great ends to achieve must carefully guard against the danger of losing contact with the masses of the people. Every problem encountered must be examined from this viewpoint first of all, and the decision to be made must always be in harmony with this principle. The movement must avoid everything which might lessen or weaken its power of influencing the masses. Not from demagogical motives, but because of the simple fact that no great idea, no matter how sublime and exalted it may appear, can be realized in practice without the effective power which resides in the popular masses.
Stern reality alone must mark the way to the goal. To be unwilling to walk the road of hardship means only too often in this world the total renunciation of our aims and purposes, whether that renunciation be consciously willed or not. The moment the Pan German leaders, in virtue of their acceptance of the parliamentary principle, moved the center of their activities away from the people and into parliament, in that moment, they sacrificed the future for the sake of cheap momentary success. They chose the easier way in the struggle, and in doing so, rendered themselves unworthy of the final victory.
While in Vienna, I used to ponder seriously over these two questions, and I saw that the main reason for the collapse of the Pan German movement lay in the fact that these very questions were not rightly appreciated. To my mind, at that time, the movement seemed chosen to take in its hands the leadership of the German element in Austria. These first two blunders, which led to the downfall of the Pan German movement, were very closely connected with one another. Faulty recognition of the inner driving forces that urge great movements forward led to an inadequate appreciation of the part which the broad masses play in bringing about such changes.
The result was that too little attention was given to the social problem, and that the attempts made by the movement to capture the minds of the lower classes were too few and too weak. Another result was the acceptance of the parliamentary policy, which had a similar effect in regard to the importance of the masses. If there had been a proper appreciation of the tremendous powers of endurance always shown by the masses in revolutionary movements, a different attitude towards the social problem would have been taken, and also a different policy in the matter of propaganda.
Then the center of gravity of the movement would not have been transferred to the parliament, but would have remained in the workshops and in the streets. There was a third mistake, which also had its roots in the failure to understand the worth of the masses. The masses are first set in motion along a definite direction by men of superior talents. But then these masses, once in motion, are like a flywheel in as much as they sustain the momentum and steady balance of the offensive. The policy of the Pan German leaders in deciding to carry through a difficult fight against the Catholic church can be explained only by attributing it to an inadequate understanding of the spiritual character of the people.
The reasons why the new party engaged in a violent campaign against Rome were as follows. As soon as the house of Habsburg had definitely decided to transform Austria into a Slav state, All sorts of means were adopted, which seemed in any way serviceable for that purpose. The Habsburg rulers had no scruples of conscience about exploiting even religious institutions in the service of this new state idea. One of the many methods thus employed was the use of Czech parishes and their clergy as instruments for spreading Slav hegemony throughout Austria.
This proceeding was carried out as follows. Parish priests of Czech nationality were appointed in purely German districts. Gradually, but steadily pushing forward the interests of the Czech people before those of the church, the parishes and their priests became generative cells in the process of de Germanization. Unfortunately, the German Austrian clergy completely failed to counter this procedure. Not only were they incapable of taking a similar initiative on the German side, but they showed themselves unable to meet the Czech offensive with adequate resistance.
The German element was accordingly pushed backwards slowly but steadily through the perversion of religious belief for political ends on the one side, and the jack of proper resistance on the other side. Such were the tactics used in dealing with the smaller problems, but those used in dealing with the larger problems were not very different. The anti German aims pursued by the Habsburgs, especially through the instrumentality of the higher clergy, did not meet with any vigorous resistance, while the clerical representatives of the German interests withdrew completely to the rear.
The general impression created could not be other than that the Catholic clergy as such were grossly neglecting the rights of the German population. Therefore, it looked as if the Catholic church was not in sympathy with the German people, but that it unjustly supported their adversaries. The root of the whole evil, especially according to opinion, lay in the fact that the leadership of the Catholic church was not in Germany, and that this fact alone was sufficient reason for the hostile attitude of the church towards the demands of our people. The so called cultural problem receded almost completely into the background as was generally the case everywhere throughout Austria at that time.
In assuming a hostile attitude towards the Catholic church, the Pan German leaders were influenced not so much by the church's position in questions of science, but principally by the fact that the church did not defend German rights as it should have done, but always supported those who encroached on these rights, especially the Slavs. Was not a man who did things by halves. He went into battle against the church because he was convinced that this was the only way in which the German people could be saved. The Los von Romm, away from Rome, movement seemed the most formidable, but at the same time most difficult method of attacking and destroying the adversary's Citadel.
Schonerer believed that if this movement could be carried through successfully, the unfortunate division between the two great religious denominations in Germany would be wiped out, and that the inner forces of the German Empire and nation would be enormously enhanced by such a victory. But the premises as well as the conclusions in this case were both erroneous. File 25. It was undoubtedly true that the national powers of resistance in everything concerning Germanism as such were much weaker among the German Catholic clergy than among their non German confreres, especially the Czechs.
And only an ignorant person could be unaware of the fact that it scarcely ever entered the mind of the German clergy to take the offensive on behalf of German interests. But at the same time, everybody who is not blind to facts must admit that all this should be attributed to a characteristic under which we Germans have been all doomed to suffer. This characteristic shows itself in our objective way of regarding our own nationality as if it were something that lay outside of us. While the Czech priest adopted a subjective attitude towards his own people and only an objective attitude towards the church, the German parish priest showed a subjective devotion to his church and remained objective in regard to his nation.
It is a phenomenon which, unfortunately, for us, can be observed occurring in exactly the same way in thousands of other cases. It is by no means a peculiar inheritance from Catholicism, but it is something in us which does not take long to gnaw the vitals of almost every institution, especially institutions of state and those which have ideal aims. Take, for example, the attitude of our state officials in regard to the efforts made for bringing about a national resurgence, and compare that attitude with the stand which the public officials of any other nation would have taken in such a case?
Or is it to be believed that the military officers of any other country in the world would refuse to come forward on behalf of the national aspirations, but would rather hide behind the phrase authority of the state as has been the case in our country during the last five years, and has even been deemed a meritorious attitude. Or let us take another example in regard to the Jewish problem. Do not the two Christian denominations take up a standpoint today which does not respond to the national exigencies or even the interests of religion? Consider the attitude of a Jewish rabbi towards any question, even one of quite insignificant importance, concerning the Jews as a race, and compare his attitude with that of the majority of our clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant.
We observe the same phenomenon whenever it is a matter of standing up for some abstract idea. Authority of the state, democracy, pacifism, international solidarity, etcetera. All such notions become rigid dogmatic concepts with us, and the more vital the general necessities of the nation, the more will they be judged exclusively in the light of those concepts. This unfortunate habit of looking at all national demands from the viewpoint of a preconceived notion makes it impossible for us to see the subjective side of a thing which objectively contradicts one's own doctrine.
It finally leads to a complete reversion in the relation of means to an end. Any attempt at a national revival will be opposed if the preliminary condition of such a revival be that a bad and pernicious regime must first of all be overthrown, because such an action will be considered as a violation of the authority of the state. In the eyes of those who take that standpoint, the authority of the state is not a means which is there to serve an end, but rather to the mind of the dogmatic believer in objectivity. It is an end in itself, and he looks upon that as sufficient apology for his own miserable existence.
Such people would raise an outcry if, for instance, anyone should attempt to set up a dictatorship, even though the man responsible for it were Frederick the Great. And even though the politicians for the time being who constituted the parliamentary majority were small and incompetent men, or maybe even on a lower grade of inferiority. Because to such sticklers for abstract principles, the law of democracy is more sacred than the welfare of the nation. In accordance with his principles, one of these gentry will defend the worst kind of tyranny, though it may be leading a people to ruin, because it is the fleeting embodiment of the authority of the State.
And another will reject even a highly beneficent government, if it should happen not to be in accord with his own notion of democracy. In the same way, our German pacifist will remain silent while the nation is groaning under an oppression which is being exercised by a sanguinary military power when this state of affairs gives rise to active resistance, because such resistance means the employment of physical force, which is against the spirit of the pacifist associations. The German international socialist may be rooked and plundered by his comrades in all the other countries of the world in the name of solidarity, but he responds with fraternal kindness and never thinks of trying to get his own back or even of defending himself.
And why? Because he is a German. It may be unpleasant to dwell on such truths, but if something is to be changed, we must start by diagnosing the disease. The phenomenon which I have just described also accounts for the feeble manner in which German interests are promoted and defended by a section of the clergy. Such conduct is not the manifestation of a malicious intent, nor is it the outcome of orders given from above, as we say. But such a lack of national grit and determination is due to defects in our educational system.
For instead of inculcating in the youth a lively sense of their German nationality, the aim of the educational system is to make the youth prostrate themselves in homage to the idea as if the idea were an idol. The education which makes them the devotees of such abstract notions as democracy, international socialism, pacifism, etcetera, is so hard and fast and exclusive and operating as it does from within bulwarks, is so purely subjective that informing their general picture of outside life as a whole, they are fundamentally influenced by these a priori notions.
But on the other hand, the attitude towards their own German nationality has been very objective from youth upwards. The pacifist, insofar as he is a German, who surrenders himself subjectively body and soul to the dictates of his dogmatic principles, will always first consider the objective right or wrong of a situation when danger threatens his own people, even though that danger be grave and unjustly wrought from outside. But he will never take his stand in the ranks of his own people and fight for and with them from the sheer instinct of self preservation.
Another example may further illustrate how far this applies to the different religious denominations. Insofar as its origin and tradition are based on German ideals, Protestantism of itself defends those ideals better. But it fails the moment it is called upon to defend national interests, which do not belong to the sphere of its ideals and traditional development, or which, for some reason or other, may be rejected by that sphere. Therefore, Protestantism will always take its part in promoting German ideals as far as concerns moral integrity or national education, when the German spiritual being or language or spiritual freedom are to be defended because these represent the principles on which Protestantism itself is grounded.
But this same Protestantism violently opposes every attempt to rescue the nation from the clutches of its mortal enemy, because the Protestant attitude towards the Jews is more or less rigidly and dogmatically fixed. And yet this is the first problem which has to be solved unless all attempts to bring about a German resurgence or to raise the level of the nation's standing are doomed to turn out nonsensical and impossible. During my sojourn in Vienna, I had ample leisure and opportunity to study this problem without allowing any prejudices to intervene.
And in my daily intercourse with people, I was able to establish the correctness of the opinion I formed by the test of thousands of instances. In this focus, where the greatest varieties of nationality had converged, it was quite clear and open to everybody to see that the German pacifist was always and exclusively the one who tried to consider the interests of his own nation objectively. But you could never find a Jew who took a similar attitude towards his own race. Furthermore, I found that only the German socialist is international in the sense that he feels himself obliged not to demand justice for his own people in any other manner than by whining and wailing to his international comrades.
Nobody could ever reproach Czechs or Poles or other nations with such conduct. In short, even at that time, already I recognized that this evil is only partly a result of the doctrines taught by socialism, pacifism, etcetera, but mainly the result of our totally inadequate system of education, the defects of which are responsible for the lack of devotion to our own national ideals. Therefore, the first theoretical argument advanced by the Pan German leaders as the basis of their offensive against Catholicism was quite untenable.
The only way to remedy the evil I have been speaking of is to train the Germans from youth upwards to an absolute recognition of the rights of their own people instead of poisoning their minds while they are still only children with the virus of this curved objectivity even in matters concerning the very maintenance of our own existence. The result of this would be that the Catholic in Germany, just as in Ireland, Poland, or France, will be a German first and foremost. But all this presupposes a radical change in the national government. The strongest proof in support of my contention is furnished by what took place at that historical juncture when our people were called for the last time before the tribunal of history to defend their own existence in a life or death struggle.
As long as there was no lack of leadership in the higher circles, the people fulfilled their duty and obligations to an overwhelming extent, whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest each did his very utmost in helping our powers of resistance to hold out, not only in the trenches, but also, and even more so, at home. During those years, and especially during the first outburst of enthusiasm, in both religious camps, there was one undivided and sacred German empire for whose preservation and future existence they all prayed to heaven. The Pan German movement in Austria ought to have asked itself this one question.
Is the maintenance of the German element in Austria possible or not, as long as that element remains within the fold of the Catholic faith? If that question should have been answered in the affirmative, then the political party should not have meddled in religious and denominational questions. But if the question had to be answered in the negative, then a religious reformation should have been started and not a political party movement. File 26. Anyone who believes that a religious reformation can be achieved through the agency of a political organization shows that he has no idea of the development of religious conceptions and doctrines of faith and how these are given practical effect by the church.
No man can serve two masters, and I hold that the foundation or overthrow of a religion has far greater consequences than the foundation or overthrow of a state, to say nothing of a party. It is no argument to the contrary to say that the attacks were only defensive measures against attacks from the other side. Undoubtedly, there have always been unscrupulous rogues who did not hesitate to degrade religion to the base uses of politics. Nearly always, such a people had nothing else in their minds except to make a business of religions and politics.
But on the other hand, it would be wrong to hold religion itself or a religious denomination responsible for a number of rascals who exploit the church for their own base interests just as they would exploit anything else in which they had a part. Nothing could be more to the taste of one of these parliamentary loungers and tricksters than to be able to find a scapegoat for his political sharp practice after the event, of course. The moment religion or a religious denomination is attacked and made responsible for his personal misdeeds, This shrewd fellow will raise a row at once and call the world to witness how justified he was in acting as he did, proclaiming that he and his eloquence alone have saved religion and the church.
The public, which is mostly stupid and has a very short memory, is not capable of recognizing the real instigator of the quarrel in the midst of the turmoil that has been raised. Frequently, he does not remember the beginning of the fight, and so the rogue gets by with his stunt. A cunning fellow of that sort is quite well aware that his misdeeds have nothing to do with religion. And so he will laugh up his sleeve all the more heartily when his honest but artless adversary loses the game, and one day losing all faith in humanity retires from the activities of public life.
But from another viewpoint also, it would be wrong to make religion or the church as such responsible for the misdeeds of individuals. If one compares the magnitude of the organization as it stands visible to every eye with the average weakness of human nature, we shall have to admit that the proportion of good to bad is more favorable here than anywhere else. Among the priests, there may, of course, be some who use their sacred calling to further their political ambitions. There are clergy who unfortunately forget that in the political melee, they ought to be the paladins of the more sublime truths and not the abettors of falsehood and slander.
But for each one of these unworthy specimens, we can find a thousand or more who fulfill their mission nobly as the trustworthy guardians of souls and who tower above the level of our corrupt epoch as little islands above the sea swamp. I cannot condemn the church as such, and I should feel quite as little justified in doing so if some depraved person in the robe of a priest commits some offense against the moral law. Nor should I, for a moment, think of blaming the church if one of its innumerable members betrays and besmirches his compatriots, especially not in epochs when such conduct is quite common.
We must not forget we must not forget, particularly our day, that for one such, there are a thousand whose hearts bleed in sympathy with their people during these years of misfortune, and who, together with the best of our nation, yearn for the hour when fortune will smile on us again. If it be objected that here we are concerned not with the petty problems of everyday life, but principally with fundamental truths and questions of dogma, the only way of answering that objection is to ask a question. Do you feel that providence has called you to proclaim the truth to the world?
If so, then go and do it. But you ought to have the courage to do it directly and not use some political party as your mouthpiece. For in this way, you shirk your vocation. In the place of something that now exists and is bad, put something else that is better and will last into the future. If you lack the requisite courage, or if you yourself do not know clearly what your better substitute ought to be, Leave the whole thing alone. But whatever happens, do not try to reach the goal by the roundabout way of a political party if you are not brave enough to fight with your visor lifted.
Political parties have no right to meddle in religious questions except when these relate to something that is alien to the national well-being and thus calculated to undermine racial customs and morals. If some ecclesiastical dignitaries should misuse religious ceremonies or religious teaching to injure their own nation, their opponents sought never to take the same road and fight them with the same weapons. To a political leader, the religious teachings and practices of his people should be sacred and inviolable. Otherwise, he should not be a statesman, but a reformer if he has the necessary qualities for such a mission.
Any other line of conduct will lead to disaster, especially in Germany. In studying the Pan German movement and its conflict with Rome, I was then firmly persuaded, and especially in the course of later years, that by their failure to understand the importance of the social problem, the Pan Germanists lost the support of the broad masses, who are the indispensable combatants in such a movement. By entering parliament, the Pan German leaders deprived themselves of the great driving force which resides in the masses. And at the same time, they laid on their own shoulders all the defects of a parliamentary institution.
Their struggle against the church made their position impossible in numerous circles of the lower and middle classes, while at the same time it robbed them of innumerable high class elements, some of the best indeed that the nation possessed. The practical outcome of the Austrian Kultyokampf was negative. Although they succeeded in winning 100,000 members away from the church, that did not do much harm to the latter. The church did not really need to shed any tears over these lost sheep, for it lost only those who had, for a long time, ceased to belong to it in their inner hearts. The difference between this new reformation and the great reformation was that in the historic epoch of the great reformation, some of the best members left the church because of religious convictions.
Whereas in this new reformation, only those left who had been indifferent before, and who were now influenced by political considerations. From the political point of view alone, the result was as ridiculous as it was deplorable. Once again, a political movement which had promised so much for the German nation collapsed, because it was not conducted in a spirit of unflinching adherence to naked reality, but lost itself in fields where it was bound to get broken up. The Pan German movement would never have made this mistake if it had properly understood the psyche of the broad masses.
If the leaders had known that, for psychological reasons alone, it is not expedient to place two or more sets of adversaries before the masses, since that leads to a complete splitting up of their fighting strength. They would have concentrated the full and undivided force of their attack against a single adversary. Nothing in the policy of a political party is so fraught with danger as to allow its decisions to be directed by people who want to have their fingers in every pie, though they do not know how to cook the simplest dish. But even though there is much that can really be said against the various religious denominations, Political leaders must not forget that the experience of history teaches us that no purely political party in similar circumstances ever succeeded in bringing about a religious reformation.
One does not study history for the purpose of forgetting or mistrusting its lessons afterwards when the time comes to apply these lessons in practice. It would be a mistake to believe that in this particular case, things were different so that the eternal truths of history were no longer applicable. One learns history in order to be able to apply its lessons to the present time, and whoever fails to do this cannot pretend to be a political leader. In reality, he is quite a superficial person, or as is mostly the case, a conceited simpleton whose good intentions cannot make up for his incompetence in practical affairs.
The art of leadership as displayed by really great popular leaders in all ages consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention into sections. The more the militant energies of the people are directed towards one objective, the more will new recruits join the movement attracted by the magnetism of its unified action, and thus the striking power will be all the more enhanced. The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to the one category.
For weak and wavering natures among a leaders following may easily begin to be dubious about the justice of their own cause if they have to face different enemies. As soon as the vacillating masses find themselves facing an opposition that is made up of different groups of enemies, their sense of objectivity will be aroused, and they will ask how is it that all the others can be in the wrong, and they themselves and their movement alone in the right? Such a feeling would be the first step towards a paralysis of their fighting vigor, Where there are various enemies who are split up into divergent groups, it will be necessary to block them altogether as forming one solid front, so that the mass of followers in a popular movement may see only one common enemy against whom they have to fight.
Such uniformity intensifies their belief in the justice of their own cause and strengthens their feeling of hostility towards the opponent. The Pan German movement was unsuccessful because the leaders did not grasp the significance of that truth. They saw the goal clearly, and their intentions were right, but they took the wrong road. Their action may be compared to that of an alpine climber who never loses sight of the peak he wants to reach, who has set out with the greatest determination and energy, but pays no attention to the road beneath his feet. With his eye always fixed firmly on the goal, he does not think over or notice the nature of the ascent.
And finally, he fails. File 27. The manner in which the great rival of the Pan German party set out to attain its goal was quite different. The way it took was well and shrewdly chosen, but it did not have a clear vision of the goal. In almost all the questions where the pan German movement failed, the policy of the Christian socialist party was correct and systematic. They assessed the importance of the masses correctly, and thus, they gained the support of large numbers of the popular masses by emphasizing the social character of the movement from the very start.
By directing their appeal especially to the lower middle class and the artisans, they gained adherents who were faithful, persevering, and self sacrificing. The Christian socialist leaders took care to avoid all controversy with the institutions of religion, and thus they secured the support of that mighty organization, the Catholic church. Those leaders recognized the value of propaganda on a large scale, and they were veritable virtuosos in working up the spiritual instincts of the broad masses of their adherence. The failure of this party to carry into effect the dream of saving Austria from dissolution must be attributed to two main defects in the means they employed, and also the lack of a clear perception of the ends they wished to reach.
The antisemitism of the Christian socialists was based on religious instead of racial principles. The reason for this mistake gave rise to the second error also. The founders of the Christian Socialist Party were of the opinion that they could not base their position on the racial principle if they wish to save Austria because they felt that a general disintegration of the state might quickly result from the adoption of such a policy. In the opinion of the party chiefs, the situation in Vienna demanded that all factors which tended to estrange the nationalists from one another should be carefully avoided, and that all factors making for unity should be encouraged.
At that time, Vienna was so honeycombed with foreign elements, especially the Czechs, that the greatest amount of tolerance was necessary if these elements were to be enlisted in the ranks of any party that was not anti German on principle. If Austria was to be saved, those elements were indispensable, and so attempts were made to win the support of the small traders, a great number of whom were Czechs, by combating the liberalism of the Manchester school, And they believed that by adopting this attitude, they had found a slogan against jury, which, because of its religious implications, would unite all the different nationalities which made up the population of the old Austria.
It was obvious, however, that this kind of antisemitism did not upset the Jews very much, simply because it had a purely religious foundation. If the worst came to the worst, a few drops of baptismal water would settle the matter. Hereupon, the Jew could still carry on his business safely, and at the same time, retain his Jewish nationality. On such superficial grounds, it was impossible to deal with the whole problem in an earnest and rational way. The consequence was that many people could not understand this kind of antisemitism, and therefore refused to take part in it.
The attractive force of the idea was thus restricted exclusively to narrow minded circles because the leaders failed to go beyond the mere emotional appeal and did not ground their position on a truly rational basis. The intellectuals were opposed to such a policy on principle. It looked more and more as if the whole movement was a new attempt to proselytize the Jews, or on the other hand, as if it were merely organized from the wish to compete with other contemporary movements. Thus, the struggle lost all traces of having been organized for a spiritual and sublime mission.
Indeed, it seemed to some people, and these were by no means worthless elements, to be immoral and reprehensible. The movement failed to awaken a belief that there was a problem of vital importance for the whole of humanity, and on the solution of which the destiny of the whole gentile world depended. Through this shilly, shally way of dealing with the problem, the antisemitism of the Christian socialists turned out to be quite ineffective. It was antisemitic only in outward appearance, and this was worse than if it had made no pretence at all to antisemitism. For the pretence gave rise to a false sense of security among people who believed that the enemy had been taken by the ears.
But as a matter of fact, the people themselves were being led by the nose. The Jew readily adjusted himself to this form of antisemitism, and found its continuance more profitable to him than its abolition would be. This whole movement led to great sacrifices being made for the sake of that state, which was composed of many heterogeneous nationalities, but much greater sacrifices had to be made by the trust of the German element. One did not dare to be nationalist even in Vienna, lest the ground should fall away from under one's feet. It was hoped that the Habsburg state might be saved by a silent evasion of the nationalist question, but this policy led that state to ruin.
The same policy also led to the collapse of Christian socialism. For thus, the movement was deprived of the only source of energy from which a political party can draw the necessary driving force. During those years, I carefully followed the two movements and observed how they developed. One, because my heart was with it, and the other, because of my admiration for that remarkable man, who then appeared to me as a bitter symbol of the whole German population in Austria. When the imposing funeral cortege of the dead burgomaster wound its way from the city hall towards the Ring Strasse.
I stood among the hundreds of thousands who watched the solemn procession pass by. As I stood there, I felt deeply moved, and my instinct clearly told me that the work of this man was all in vain, because a sinister fate was inexorably leading this state to its downfall. If doctor Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great leaders of our people. It was a misfortune for his work and for himself that he had to live in this impossible state. When he died, the fire had already been enkindled in the Balkans, and was spreading month by month.
Fate had been merciful in sparing him the sight of what, even to the last, he had hoped to prevent. I endeavored to analyze the cause which rendered one of those movements futile and wrecked the process of the other. The result of this investigation was the profound conviction that apart from the inherent impossibility of consolidating the position of the state in the old Austria, the two parties made the following fatal mistake. The Pan German party was perfectly right in its fundamental ideas regarding the aim of the movement, which was to bring about a German restoration, but it was unfortunate in the choice of means.
It was nationalist, but, unfortunately, it paid too little heed to the social problem, and thus it failed to gain the support of the masses. Its anti Jewish policy, however, was grounded on a correct perception of the significance of the racial problem and not on religious principles. But it was mistaken in its assessment of facts and adopted the wrong tactics when it made war against one of the religious denominations. The Christian socialist movement had only a vague concept of a German revival as part of its object, but it was intelligent and fortunate in the choice of means to carry out its policy as a party.
The Christian socialists grasped the significance of the social question, but they adopted the wrong principles in their struggle against jury. And they utterly failed to appreciate the value of the national idea as a source of political energy. If the Christian socialist party, together with its shrewd judgment in regard to the worth of the popular masses, had only judged rightly also on the importance of the racial problem, which was properly grasped by the Pan German movement. And if this party had been really nationalist, or if the pan German leaders, on the other hand, in addition to their correct judgment of the Jewish problem and of the national idea, had adopted the practical wisdom of the Christian socialist party and particularly their attitude towards socialism, then a movement would have developed which, in my opinion, might at that time have successfully altered the course of German destiny.
If things did not turn out thus, the fault lay for the most part in the inherent nature of the Austrian state. I did not find my own convictions upheld by any party then in existence, and so I could not bring myself to enlist as a member in any of the existing organizations or even lend a hand in their struggle. Even at that time, all those organizations seemed to me to be already jaded in their energies and were therefore incapable of bringing about a national revival of the German people in a really profound way, not merely outwardly.
My inner aversion to the Habsburg state was increasing daily. The more I paid special attention to questions of foreign policy, the more the conviction grew upon me that this phantom state would surely bring misfortune on the Germans. I realized more and more that the destiny of the German nation could not be decisively influenced from here, but only in the German Empire itself. And this was true not only in regard to general political questions, but also, and in no lesser degree, in regard to the whole sphere of cultural life. Here also, in matters affecting the national culture and art, the Austrian state showed all the signs of senile decrepitude, or at least it was ceasing to be of any consequence to the German nation as far as these matters were concerned.
This was especially true of its architecture. Modern architecture could not produce any great results in Austria, because since the building of the Ringstrasse, at least in Vienna, architectural activities had become insignificant when compared with the progressive plans which were being thought out in Germany. And so I came more and more to lead what may be called a twofold existence. Reason and reality forced me to continue my harsh apprenticeship in Austria, though I must now say that this apprenticeship turned out fortunate in the end, but my heart was elsewhere.
A feeling of discontent grew upon me and made me depressed the more I came to realize the inside hollowness of this state and the impossibility of saving it from collapse. At the same time, I felt perfectly certain that it would bring all kinds of misfortune to the German people. I was convinced that the Habsburg state would bulk and hinder every German who might show signs of real greatness, while at the same time, it would aid and abet every non German activity. This conglomerate spectacle of heterogeneous races, which the capital of the dual monarchy presented, this motley of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Serbs and Croats, etcetera, and always that basilus which is the solvent of human society, the Jew, here and there and everywhere.
The whole spectacle was repugnant to me. The gigantic city seemed to be the incarnation of mongrel depravity. The German language, which I had spoken from the time of my boyhood, was the vernacular idiom of Lower Bavaria. I never forgot that particular style of speech, and I could never learn the Viennese dialect. The longer I lived in that city, the stronger became my hatred for the promiscuous swarm of foreign peoples which had begun to baton on that old nursery ground of German culture. The idea that this state could maintain its further existence for any considerable time was quite absurd.
Austria was then like a piece of ancient mosaic, in which the cohesive cement had dried up and become old and friable. As long as such a work of art remains untouched, it may hold together and continue to exist. But the moment some blow is struck on it, then it breaks up into thousands of fragments. Therefore, it was now only a question of when the blow would come. Because my heart was always with the German Empire and not with the Austrian monarchy, The hour of Austria's dissolution as a state appeared to me as only the first step towards the emancipation of the German nation.
All these considerations intensified my yearning to depart for that country for which my heart had been secretly longing since the days of my youth. I hoped that one day I might be able to make my mark as an architect, and that I could devote my talents to the service of my country on a large or small scale according to the will of fate. A final reason was that I longed to be among those who lived and worked in that land from which the movement should be launched. The object of which would be the fulfillment of what my heart had always longed for, namely, the union of the country in which I was born with our common fatherland, the German Empire.
There are many who may not understand how such a yearning can be so strong, but I appeal especially to two groups of people. The first includes all those who are still denied the happiness I have spoken of, and the second embraces those who once enjoyed that happiness, but had it torn from them by a harsh fate. I turn to all those who have been torn from their motherland and who have to struggle for the preservation of their most sacred patrimony, their native language, persecuted and harried because of their loyalty and love for the homeland, yearning sadly for the hour when they will be allowed to return to the bosom of their father's household.
To these, I address my words, and I know that they will understand. Only he who has experienced in his own inner life what it means to be German, and yet to be denied the right of belonging to his fatherland, can appreciate the profound nostalgia which that enforced exile causes. It is a perpetual heartache, and there is no place for joy and contentment until the doors of paternal home are thrown open, and all those through whose veins kindred blood is flowing will find peace and rest in their common Reich. Vienna was a hard school for me, but it taught me the most profound lessons of my life.
I was scarcely more than a boy when I came to live there, and when I left, I had grown to be a man of a grave and pensive nature. In Vienna, I acquired the foundations of a Welt Anschlauung in general and developed a faculty for analyzing political questions in particular. That Welt Anschlung and the political ideas that formed have never been abandoned, though they were expanded later on in some directions. It is only now that I can fully appreciate how valuable those years of apprenticeship were for me. That is why I have given a detailed account of this period. There, in Vienna, stark reality taught me the truths that now form the fundamental principles of the party, which within the course of five years has grown from modest beginnings to a great mass movement.
I do not know what my attitude towards Jewry, social democracy, or rather Marxism in general, to the social problem, etcetera, would be today, if I had not acquired a stock of personal beliefs at such an early age, by dint of hard study, and under the duress of fate. Four, although the misfortunes of the fatherland may have stimulated thousands and thousands to ponder over the inner causes of the collapse, that could not lead to such a thorough knowledge and deep insight as a man may develop, who has fought a hard struggle for many years, so that he might be master of his own fate.
File 28. Chapter four. Munich. At last, I came to Munich in the spring of nineteen twelve. The city itself was as familiar to me as if I had lived there for years within its walls. This was because my studies in architecture had been constantly turning my attention to the metropolis of German art. One must know Munich if one would know Germany, and it is impossible to acquire a knowledge of German art without seeing Munich. All things considered, this prewar sojourn was by far the happiest and most contented of my life. My earnings were very slender, but after all, I did not live for the sake of painting.
I painted in order to get the bare necessities of existence while I continued my studies. I was firmly convinced that I should finally succeed in reaching the goal I had marked out for myself, and this conviction alone was strong enough to enable me to bear the petty hardships of everyday life without worrying very much about them. Moreover, almost from the very first moment of my sojourn, there I came to love that city more than any other place known to me. A German city, I said to myself. How different to Vienna. It was with a feeling of disgust that my imagination reverted to that Babylon of races.
Another pleasant feature here was the way the people spoke German, which was much nearer my own way of speaking than the Viennese idiom. The Munich idiom recalled the days of my youth, especially when I spoke with those who had come to Munich from Lower Bavaria. There were a thousand or more things which I inwardly loved or which I came to love during the course of my stay. But what attracted me most was the marvelous wedlock of native folk energy with a fine artistic spirit of the city, that unique harmony from the Hofbrauhaus to the Odeon, from the October festival to the Pinakothek, etcetera.
The reason why my heart strings are entwined around this city as around no other spot in this world is probably because Munich is and will remain inseparably connected with the development of my own career. And the fact that from the beginning of my visit, I felt inwardly happy and contented is to be attributed to the charm of the marvelous Wittelsbach capital, which has attracted probably everybody who is blessed with a feeling for beauty instead of commercial instincts. Apart from my professional work, I was most interested in the study of current political events, particularly those which were concerned with foreign relations.
I approached these by way of the German policy of alliances, whichever since my Austrian days I had considered to be an utterly mistaken one. But in Vienna, I had not yet seen quite clearly how far the German Empire had gone in the process of self delusion. In Vienna, I was inclined to assume, or probably I persuaded myself to do so in order to excuse the German mistake, that possibly the authorities in Berlin knew how weak and unreliable their ally would prove to be when brought face to face with realities. But that for more or less mysterious reasons, they refrain from allowing their opinions on this point to be known in public.
Their idea was that they should support the policy of alliances which Bismarck had initiated, and the sudden discontinuance of which might be undesirable if for no other reason than that it might arouse those foreign countries which were lying in wait for their chance, or might alarm the Philistines at home. But my contact with the people soon taught me, to my horror, that my assumptions were wrong. I was amazed to find everywhere, even in circles otherwise well informed, that nobody had the slightest intimation of the real character of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Among the common people in particular, there was a prevalent illusion that the Austrian ally was a power which would have to be seriously reckoned with and would rally its manpower in the hour of need. The mass of the people continued to look upon the dual monarchy as a German state, and believed that it could be relied on. They assumed that its strength could be measured by the millions of its subjects, as was the case in Germany. First of all, they did not realize that Austria had ceased to be a German state, and secondly, that the conditions prevailing within the Austrian empire were steadily pushing it headlong to the brink of disaster.
At that time, I knew the conditions of affairs in the Austrian state better than the professional diplomats. Blindfolded, as nearly always, these diplomats stumbled along on their way to disaster. The opinions prevailing among the bulk of the people reflected only what had been drummed into them from official quarters above. And these higher authorities groveled before the ally as the people of old bowed down before the golden calf. They probably thought that by being polite and amiable, they might balance the lack of honesty on the other side. Thus, they took every declaration at its full face value.
Even while in Vienna, I used to be annoyed again and again by the discrepancy between the speeches of the official statesman and the contents of the Viennese press. And yet Vienna was still a German city, at least as far as appearances went. But one encountered an utterly different state of things on leaving Vienna, or rather German Austria, and coming to the Slav provinces. It needed only a glance at the Prague newspapers in order to see how the whole exalted hocus pocus of the Triple Alliance was judged from there. In Prague, there was nothing but jibes and sneers for that masterpiece of statesmanship.
Even in the piping times of peace, when the two emperors kissed each other on the brow in token of friendship. Those papers did not cloak their belief that the alliance would be liquidated the moment a first attempt was made to bring it down from the shimmering glory of a Nibelungen ideal to the plane of practical affairs. Great indignation was aroused a few years later when the alliances were put to the first practical test. Italy not only withdrew from the Triple Alliance, leaving the other two members to march by themselves, but she even joined their enemies.
That anybody should believe even for a moment in the possibility of such a miracle as that of Italy fighting on the same side of Austria would be simply incredible to anyone who did not suffer from the blindness of official diplomacy. And that was just how people felt in Austria also. In Austria, only the Habsburgs and the German Austrians supported the alliance. The Habsburgs did so from shrewd calculation of their own interests and from necessity. The Germans did it out of good faith and political ignorance. They acted in good faith in as much as they believed that by establishing the Triple Alliance, they were doing a great service to the German Empire, and were thus helping to strengthen it and consolidate its defense.
They showed their political ignorance, however, in holding such ideas, because instead of helping the German Empire, they really chained it to a moribund state, which might bring its associate into the grave with itself. And above all, by championing this alliance, they fell more and more a prey to the Habsburg policy of de Germanization. For the alliance gave the Habsburgs good grounds for believing that the German Empire would not interfere in their domestic affairs, and thus, they were in a position to carry into effect with more ease and less risk their domestic policy of gradually eliminating the German element.
Not only could the objectiveness of the German government be counted upon, and thus there need be no fear of protest from that quarter, but one could always remind the German Austrians of the alliance, and thus silence them in case they should ever object to the reprehensible means that were being employed to establish a Slav hegemony in the dual monarchy. What could the German Austrians do when the people of the German Empire itself had openly proclaimed their trust and confidence in the Habsburg regime? Should they resist, and thus be branded openly before their kinsfolk in the Reich as traitors to their own national interests?
They, who for so many decades had sacrificed so much for the sake of their German tradition. Once the influence of the Germans in Austria had been wiped out, what then would be the value of the alliance? If the Triple Alliance were to be advantageous to Germany, was it not a necessary condition that the predominance of the German element in Austria should be maintained? Or did anyone really believe that Germany could continue to be the ally of a Habsburg empire under the hegemony of the Slavs? The official attitude of German diplomacy as well as that of the general public towards internal problems affecting the Austrian nationalities, was not merely stupid.
It was insane. On the alliance, as on a solid foundation, they grounded the security and future existence of a nation of 70 millions. While at the same time, they allowed their partner to continue his policy of undermining the sole foundation of that alliance methodically and resolutely from year to year. A day must come when nothing but a formal contract with Viennese diplomats would be left. The alliance itself, as an effective support, would be lost to Germany. As far as concerned Italy, such had been the case from the outset. If people in Germany had studied history and the psychology of nations a little more carefully, Not one of them could have believed for a single hour that the Quirinal and the Viennese Hofburg could ever stand shoulder to shoulder on a common battlefront.
Italy would have exploded like a volcano if any Italian government had dared to send a single Italian soldier to fight for the Habsburg state. So fanatically hated was this state that the Italians could stand in no other relation to it on a battlefront except as enemies. More than once in Vienna, I have witnessed explosions of the contempt and profound hatred which allied the Italian to the Austrian state. The crimes which the house of Habsburg committed against Italian freedom and independence during several centuries were too grave to be forgiven even with the best of goodwill.
But this goodwill did not exist either among the rank and file of the population or in the government. Therefore, for Italy, there were only two ways of coexisting with Austria, alliance or war. By choosing the first, it was possible to prepare leisurely for the second. Especially since relations between Russia and Austria tended more and more towards the arbitrament of war, the German policy of alliances was as senseless as it was dangerous. Here was a classical instance which demonstrated the lack of any broad or logical lines of thought. But what was the reason for forming the alliance at all?
It could not have been other than the wish to secure the future of the Reich better than if it were to depend exclusively on its own resources. But the future of the Reich could not have meant anything else than the problem of securing the means of existence for the German people. The only questions, therefore, were the following. What form shall the life of the nation assume in the near future? That is to say within such a period as we can forecast. And by what means can the necessary foundation and security be guaranteed for this development within the framework of the general distribution of power amongst the European nations.
A clear analysis of the principles on which the foreign policy of German statecraft were to be based should have led to the following conclusions. The annual increase of population in Germany amounts to almost 900,000 souls. The difficulties of providing for this army of new citizens must grow from year to year and must finally lead to catastrophe, unless ways and means are found which will forestall the danger of misery and hunger. There were four ways of providing against this terrible calamity. File 29. One.
It was possible to accept the French example and artificially restrict the number of births, thus avoiding an excess of population. Under certain circumstances, in periods of distress or under bad climatic condition, or if the soil yields too poor a return, nature herself tends to check the increase of population in some countries and among some races, but by a method which is quite as ruthless as it is wise. It does not impede the procreative faculty as such, but it does impede the further existence of the offspring by submitting it to such tests and privations that everything which is less strong or less healthy is forced to retreat into the bosom of the unknown.
Whatever survives these hardships of existence has been tested and tried a thousandfold, hardened, and rendered fit to continue the process of procreation. So that the same thorough selection will begin all over again. By thus dealing brutally with the individual and recalling him the very moment he shows that he is not fitted for the trials of life, nature preserves the strength of the race and the species and raises it to the highest degree of efficiency. The decrease in numbers, therefore, implies an increase of strength as far as the individual is concerned, and this finally means the invigoration of the species.
But the case is different when man himself starts the process of numerical restriction. Man is not carved from nature's wood. He is made of human material. He knows more than the ruthless queen of wisdom. He does not impede the preservation of the individual, but prevents procreation itself. To the individual who always sees only himself and not the race, this line of action seems more humane and just than the opposite way. But unfortunately, the consequences are also the opposite. By leaving the process of procreation unchecked and by submitting the individual to the hardest preparatory tests in life, nature selects the best from an abundance of single elements and stamps them as fit to live and carry on the conservation of the species.
But man restricts the procreative faculty and strives obstinately to keep alive at any cost whatever once has been born. This correction of the divine will seems to him to be wise and humane, and he rejoices at having trumped nature's card in one game at least, and thus proved that she is not entirely reliable. The dear little ape of an almighty father is delighted to see and hear that he has succeeded in effecting a numerical restriction, but he would be very displeased if told that this, his system, brings about a degeneration in personal quality.
For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of births diminished, The natural struggle for existence, which allows only healthy and strong individuals to survive, is replaced by a sheer craze to save feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus, the seeds are sown for a human progeny, which will become more and more miserable from one generation to another as long as nature's will is scorned. But if that policy be carried out, the final results must be that such a nation will eventually terminate its own existence on this earth.
For though man may defy the eternal laws of procreation during a certain period, vengeance will follow sooner or later. A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak. For the vital urge in its ultimate form will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong. Any policy which aims at securing the existence of a nation by restricting the birth rate, robs that nation of its future.
Two. A second solution is that of internal colonization. This is a proposal which is frequently made in our own time, and one hears it lauded a good deal. It is a suggestion that is well meant, but is misunderstood by most people, so that it is the source of more mischief than can be imagined. It is certainly true that the productivity of the soil can be increased within certain limits, but only within defined limits and not indefinitely. By increasing the productive powers of the soil, it will be possible to balance the effect of a surplus birth rate in Germany for a certain period of time without running any danger of hunger.
But we have to face the fact that the general standard of living is rising more quickly than even the birth rate. The requirements of food and clothing are becoming greater from year to year and are out of proportion to those of our ancestors of, let us say, a hundred years ago. It would therefore be a mistaken view that every increase in the productive powers of the soil will supply the requisite conditions for an increase in the population. No. That is true up to a certain point only. For at least a portion of the increased produce of the soil will be consumed by the margin of increased demands caused by the steady rise in the standard of living.
But even if these demands were to be curtailed to the narrowest limits possible, and if at the same time we were to use all our available energies in the intense cultivation, We should here reach a definite limit, which is conditioned by the inherent nature of the soil itself. No matter how industriously we may labor, we cannot increase agricultural production beyond this limit. Therefore, though we may postpone the evil hour of distress for a certain time, it will arrive at last. The first phenomenon will be the recurrence of famine periods from time to time after bad harvest, etcetera.
The intervals between these famines will become shorter and shorter the more the population increases. And finally, the famine times will disappear only in those rare years of plenty when the granaries are full. And a time will ultimately come when even in those years of plenty, there will be not enough to go round so that hunger will dog the footsteps of the nation. Nature must now step in once more and select those who are to survive, or else man will help himself by artificially preventing his own increase with all the fatal consequences for the race and the species which have already been mentioned.
It may be objected here that in one form or another, this future is in store for all mankind and that the individual nation or race cannot escape the general fate. At first glance, that objection seems logical enough, but we have to take the following into account. The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of the human species because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the perpetual increase in the population. Nature must then be allowed to use her own methods, or man may possibly take the task of regulation into his own hands and establish the necessary equilibrium by the application of better means than we have at our disposal today.
But then it will be a problem for mankind as a whole. Whereas now, only those races have to suffer from want, which no longer have the strength and daring to acquire sufficient soil to fulfill their needs. For as things stand today, vast spaces still lie uncultivated all over the surface of the globe. Those spaces are only waiting for the plowshare. And it is quite certain that nature did not set those territories apart as the exclusive pastures of any one nation or race to be held unutilized in reserve for the future. Such land awaits the people who have the strength to acquire it and the diligence to cultivate it.
Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart, and they will be granted the sovereign right of existence. If a nation confines itself to internal colonization while other races are perpetually increasing their territorial annexations all over the globe, that nation will be forced to restrict the numerical growth of its population at a time when the other nations are increasing theirs.
This situation must eventually arrive. It will arrive soon if the territory which the nation has at its disposal be small. Now it is unfortunately true that only too often, the best nations, or to speak more exactly, the only really cultured nations, who at the same time are the chief bearers of human progress, have decided in their blind pacifism to refrain from the acquisition of new territory and to be content with internal colonization. But at the same time, nations of inferior quality succeed in getting hold of large spaces for colonization all over the globe.
The state of affairs which must result from this contrast is the following. Braces which are culturally superior, but less ruthless, would be forced to restrict their increase because of insufficient territory to support the population. While less civilized races could increase indefinitely owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words, should that state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior, but more active and energetic. A time will come even though in the distant future when there can only be two alternatives.
Either the world will be ruled according to our modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favor of the numerically stronger races, or the world will be governed by the law of natural distribution of power. And then those nations will be victorious who are of more brutal will and are not the nations who have practiced self denial. Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful struggles for existence on the part of mankind. In the end, the instinct of self preservation alone will triumph.
Before its consuming fire, this so called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous timidity and self conceit, will melt away as under the March sunshine. Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace, his greatness must decline. File 30. For us Germans, the slogan of internal colonization is fatal because it encourages the belief that we have discovered a means which is in accordance with our innate pacifism and which will enable us to work for our livelihood in a half slumbering existence. Such a teaching, once it were taken seriously by our people, would mean the end of all effort to acquire for ourselves that place in the world which we deserve.
If the average German were once convinced that by this means, he has the chance of ensuring his livelihood and guaranteeing his future, any attempt to take an active and profitable part in sustaining the vital demands of his country would be out of the question. Should the nation agree to such an attitude, then any really use for foreign policy might be looked upon as dead and buried together with all hope for the future of the German people. Once we know what the consequences of this internal colonization theory would be, we can no longer consider as a mere accident the fact that among those who inculcate this quite pernicious mentality among our people, The Jew is always in the first line.
He knows his softies only too well not to know that they are ready to be the grateful victims of every swindle which promises them a gold block in the shape of a discovery that will enable them to outwit nature, and thus render superfluous the hard and inexorable struggle for existence. So that finally, they may become lords of the planet partly by sheer Dolce Fagiente, and partly by working when a pleasing opportunity arises. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that any German internal colonization must first of all be considered as suitable only for the relief of social grievances.
To carry out a system of internal colonization, the most important preliminary measure would be to free the soil from the grip of the speculator and assure that freedom. But such a system could never suffice to assure the future of the nation without the acquisition of new territory. If we adopt a different plan, we shall soon reach a point beyond which the resources of our soil can no longer be exploited. And at the same time, we shall reach a point beyond which our manpower cannot develop. In conclusion, the following must be said.
The fact that only up to a limited extent can internal colonization be practiced in a national territory, which is of definitely small area, and the restriction of the procreative faculty, which follows as a result of such conditions, these two factors have a very unfavorable effect on the military and political standing of a nation. The extent of the national territory is a determining factor in the external security of the nation. The larger the territory which a people has at its disposal, the stronger are the national defenses of that people. Military decisions are more quickly, more easily, more completely, and more effectively gained against a people occupying a national territory which is restricted in area than against states which have extensive territories.
Moreover, the magnitude of a national territory is in itself a certain assurance that an outside power will not hastily risk the adventure of an invasion, For in that case, the struggle would have to be long and exhausting before victory could be hoped for. The risk being so great, there would have to be extraordinary reasons for such an aggressive adventure. Hence, it is that the territorial magnitude of a state furnishes a base where our national liberty and independence can be maintained with relative ease, while, on the contrary, a state whose territory is small offers a natural temptation to the invader.
As a matter of fact, so called national circles in the German Reich rejected those first two possibilities of establishing a balance between the constant numerical increase in the population and a national territory which could not expand proportionately. But the reasons given for that rejection were different from those which I have just expounded. It was mainly on the basis of certain moral sentiments that restriction of the birth rate was objected to. Proposals for internal colonization were rejected indignantly because it was suspected that such a policy might mean an attack on the big landowners, and that this attack might be the forerunner of a general assault against the principle of private property as a whole.
The form in which the latter solution, internal colonization, was recommended justified the misgivings of the big landowners. But the form in which the colonization proposal was rejected was not very clever as regards the impression which such rejection might be calculated to make on the mass of the people. And anyhow, it did not go to the root of the problem at all. Only two further ways were left open, in which work and bread could be secured for the increasing population. Three. It was possible to think of acquiring new territory on which a certain portion of the increasing population could be settled each year.
Or else, four, our industry and commerce had to be organized in such a manner as to secure an increase in the exports and thus be able to support our people by the increased purchasing power accruing from the profits made on foreign markets. Therefore, the problem was a policy of territorial expansion or a colonial and commercial policy. Both policies were taken into consideration, examined, recommended, and rejected from various standpoints with the result that the second alternative was finally adopted. The sounder alternative, however, was undoubtedly the first.
The principle of acquiring new territory on which the surplus population could be settled has many advantages to recommend it, especially if we take the future as well as the present into account. In the first place, too much importance cannot be placed on the necessity for adopting a policy which will make it possible to maintain a healthy peasant class as the basis of the national community. Many of our present evils have their origin exclusively in the disproportion between the urban and rural portions of the population. A solid stock of small and medium farmers has at all times been the best protection which a nation could have against the social diseases that are prevalent today.
Moreover, that is the only solution which guarantees the daily bread of a nation within the framework of its domestic national economy. With this condition once guaranteed, industry and commerce would retire from the unhealthy position of foremost importance, which they hold today, and would take their due place within the general scheme of national economy, adjusting the balance between demand and supply. Thus, industry and commerce would no longer constitute the basis of the national subsistence, but would be auxiliary institutions. By fulfilling their proper function, which is to adjust the balance between national production and national consumption, they render the national subsistence more or less independent of foreign countries, and thus assure the freedom and independence of the nation, especially at critical junctures in its history.
Such a territorial policy, however, cannot find its fulfillment in the Cameroons, but almost exclusively here in Europe. 1 must calmly and squarely face the truth that it certainly cannot be part of the dispensation of divine providence to give a 50 times larger share of the soil in this world to one nation than to another. In considering this state of affairs today, one must not allow existing political frontiers to distract attention from what ought to exist on principles of strict justice. If this earth has sufficient room for all, then we ought to have that share of the soil which is absolutely necessary for our existence.
Of course, people will not voluntarily make that accommodation. At this point, the right of self preservation comes into effect. And when attempts to settle the difficulty in an amicable way are rejected, the clenched hand must take by force that which was refused to the open hand of friendship. If in the past, our ancestors had based their political decisions on similar pacifist nonsense as our present generation does, We should not possess more than one third of the national territory that we possess today, and probably there would be no German nation to worry about its future in Europe.
No. We owe the two eastern marks of the empire to the natural determination of our forefathers in their struggle for existence, and thus, it is to the same determined policy that we owe the inner strength, which is based on the extent of our political and racial territories, and which alone has made it possible for us to exist up to now. And there is still another reason why that solution would have been the correct one. Many contemporary European states are like pyramids standing on their apexes. The European territory which these States possess is ridiculously small when compared with the enormous overhead weight of their colonies, foreign trade, etcetera.
It may be said that they have the apex in Europe, and the base of the pyramid all over the world, quite different from The United States Of America, which has its base on the American continent, and is in contact with the rest of the world only through its apex. Out of that situation arises the incomparable inner strength of The USA, and the contrary situation is responsible for the weakness of most of the colonial European powers. England cannot be suggested as an argument against this assertion, though in glancing casually over the map of the British Empire, one is inclined easily to overlook the existence of a whole Anglo Saxon world.
England's position cannot be compared with that of any other state in Europe since it forms a vast community of language and culture together with The USA. Therefore, the only possibility which Germany had of carrying a sound territorial policy into effect was that of acquiring new territory in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose as long as they are not suited for settlement by Europeans on a large scale. In the nineteenth century, it was no longer possible to acquire such colonies by peaceful means. Therefore, any attempt at such a colonial expansion would have meant an enormous military struggle.
Consequently, it would have been more practical to undertake that military struggle for new territory in Europe rather than to wage war for the acquisition of possessions abroad. Such a decision naturally demanded that the nation's undivided energies should be devoted to it. A policy of that kind which requires for its fulfillment every ounce of available energy on the part of everybody concerned cannot be carried into effect by half measures or in a hesitating manner. The political leadership of the German Empire should then have been directed exclusively to this goal.
No political step should have been taken in response to other considerations than this task and the means of accomplishing it. Germany should have been alive to the fact that such a goal could have been reached only by war, and the prospect of war should have been faced with calm and collected determination. The whole system of alliances should have been envisaged and valued from that standpoint. If new territory were to be acquired in Europe, it must have been mainly at Russia's cost. And once again, the new German Empire should have set out on its march along the same road as was formally trodden by the Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil for the German plow by means of the German sword, and thus provide the nation with its daily bread.
For such a policy, however, there was only one possible ally in Europe, and that was England. File 31. Only by alliance with England was it possible to safeguard the rear of the new German crusade. The justification for undertaking such an expedition was stronger than the justification which our forefathers had for setting out on theirs. Not one of our pacifists refuses to eat the bread made from the grain grown in the East, and yet the first plow here was that called the sword. No sacrifice should have been considered as too great if it was a necessary means of gaining England's friendship. Colonial and naval ambitions should have been abandoned, and attempts should not have been made to compete against British industries.
Only a clear and definite policy could lead to such an achievement. Such a policy would have demanded a renunciation of the endeavor to conquer the world's markets, also a renunciation of colonial intentions on naval power. All the means of power at the disposal of the state should have been concentrated in the military forces on land. This policy would have involved a period of temporary self denial for the sake of a great and powerful future. There was a time when England might have entered into negotiations with us on the grounds of that proposal.
For England would have well understood that the problems arising from the steady increase in population were forcing Germany to look for a solution either in Europe with the help of England or, without England, in some other part of the world. This outlook was probably the chief reason why London tried to draw nearer to Germany about the turn of the century. For the first time in Germany, an attitude was then manifested which afterwards displayed itself in a most tragic way. People then gave expression to an unpleasant feeling that we might thus find ourselves obliged to pull England's chestnuts out of the fire, as if an alliance could be based on anything else than mutual give and take, and England would have become party to such a mutual bargain.
British diplomats were still wise enough to know that an equivalent must be forthcoming as a consideration for any services rendered. Let us suppose that in 2300, our German foreign policy was managed astutely enough to enable us to take the part which Japan played. It is not easy to measure the greatness of the results that might have accrued to Germany from such a policy. There would have been no World War. The blood which would have been shed in 1904 would not have been a tenth of that shed from 1914 to 1918.
And what a position Germany would hold in the world today. In any case, the alliance with Austria was then an absurdity. For this mummy of a state did not attach itself to Germany for the purpose of carrying through a war, but rather to maintain a perpetual state of peace, which was meant to be exploited for the purpose of slowly but persistently exterminating the German element in the dual monarchy. Another reason for the impossible character of this alliance was that nobody could expect such a state to take an active part in defending German national interests, seeing that it did not have sufficient strength and determination to put an end to the policy of de Germanization within its own frontiers.
If Germany herself was not moved by a sufficiently powerful national sentiment and was not sufficiently ruthless to take away from that absurd Habsburg state the right to decide the destinies of 10,000,000 inhabitants who were of the same nationality as the Germans themselves. Surely, it was out of the question to expect the Habsburg state to be a collaborating party in any great and courageous German undertaking. The attitude of the old Reich towards the Austrian question might have been taken as a test of its stamina for the struggle where the destinies of the whole nation were at stake. In any case, the policy of oppression against the German population in Austria should not have been allowed to be carried on and to grow stronger from year to year. For the value of Austria Austria as an ally could be assured only by upholding the German element there.
But that, of course, was not followed. Nothing was dreaded so much as the possibility of an armed conflict. But finally, and at a most unfavorable moment, the conflict had to be faced and accepted. They thought to cut loose from the cords of destiny, but destiny held them fast. They dreamt of maintaining a world peace and woke up to find themselves in a world war. And that dream of peace was a most significant reason why the above mentioned third alternative for the future development of Germany was not even taken into consideration. The fact was recognized that new territory could be gained only in the East, but this meant that there would be fighting ahead, whereas they wanted peace at any cost.
The slogan of German foreign policy at one time used to be the use of all possible means for the maintenance of the German nation. Now it has changed to maintenance of world peace by all possible means. We know what the result was. I shall resume the discussion of this point in detail later on. There remained still another alternative, which we may call the fourth. This was Industry and World Trade, Naval Power, and Colonies. Such a development might certainly have been attained more easily and more rapidly. To colonize a territory is a slow process, often extending over centuries.
Yet this fact is the source of its inner strength, for it is not through a sudden burst of enthusiasm that it can be put into effect, but rather through a gradual and enduring process of growth quite different from industrial progress, which can be urged on by advertisement within a few years. The result thus achieved, however, is not of lasting quality, but something frail like a soap bubble. It is much easier to build quickly than to carry through the tough task of settling a territory with farmers and establishing farmsteads, but the former is more quickly destroyed than the latter.
In adopting such a course, Germany must have known that to follow it would necessarily mean war sooner or later. Only children could believe that sweet and anxious expressions of goodness and persistent avowals of peaceful intentions could get them their bananas through this friendly competition between the nations with the prospect of never having to fight for them? No. Once we had taken this road, England was bound to be our enemy at some time or other to come. Of course, it fitted in nicely with our innocent assumptions, but still it was absurd to grow indignant at the fact that a day came when the English took the liberty of opposing our peaceful penetration with the brutality of violent egoists.
Naturally, we on our side would never have done such a thing. If a European territorial policy against Russia could have been put into practice, only in case we had England as our ally. On the other hand, the colonial and world trade policy could have been carried into effect only against English interests and with the support of Russia. But then this policy should have been adopted in full consciousness of all the consequences it involved. And above all things, Austria should have been discarded as quickly as possible. At the turn of the century, the alliance with Austria had become a veritable absurdity from all points of view.
But nobody thought of forming an alliance with Russia against England, just as nobody thought of making England an ally against Russia. For in either case, the final result would inevitably have meant war. And to avoid war was the very reason why a commercial and industrial policy was decided upon. It was believed force. Occasionally, however, there were doubts about the efficiency of this principle, especially when some quite incomprehensible warnings came from England now and again. That was the reason why the fleet was built. It was not for the purpose of attacking or annihilating England, but merely to defend the concept of world peace mentioned above, and also to protect the principle of conquering the world by peaceful means.
Therefore, this fleet was kept within modest limits, not only as regards the number and tonnage of the vessels, but also in regard to their armament, the idea being to furnish new proofs of peaceful intentions. The chatter about the peaceful conquest of the world by commercial means was probably the most completely nonsensical stuff ever raised to the dignity of a guiding principle in the policy of a state. This nonsense became even more foolish when England was pointed out as a typical example to prove how the thing could be put into practice. Our doctrinal way of regarding history and our professional ideas in that domain have done irreparable harm and offer a striking proof of how people learn history without understanding anything of it.
As a matter of fact, England ought to have been looked upon as a convincing argument against the theory of Pacific conquest of the world by commercial means. No nation prepared the way for its commercial conquests more brutally than England did by means of the sword, and no other nation has defended such conquests more ruthlessly. Is it not a characteristic quality of British statecraft that it knows how to use political power in order to gain economic advantages, and, inversely, to turn economic conquests into political power. What an astounding error it was to believe that England would not have the courage to give its own blood for the purposes of its own economic expansion.
The fact that England did not possess a national army proved nothing, for it is not the actual military structure of the moment that matters, but rather the will and determination to use whatever military strength is available. England has always had the armament which she needed. She always fought with those weapons which were necessary for success. She sent mercenary troops to fight as long as mercenaries sufficed, but she never hesitated to draw heavily and deeply from the best blood of the whole nation when victory could be obtained only by such a sacrifice.
And in every case, the fighting spirit, dogged determination, and use of brutal means in conducting military operations have always remained the same. File 32. But in Germany, through the medium of the schools, the press, and the comic papers, An idea of the Englishman was gradually formed, which was bound eventually to lead to the worst kind of self deception. This absurdity slowly but persistently spread into every quarter of German life. The result was an undervaluation for which we have had to pay a heavy penalty. The delusion was so profound that the Englishman was looked upon as a shrewd businessman, but personally a coward even to an incredible degree.
Unfortunately, our lofty teachers of professional history did not bring home to the minds of their pupils the truth that it is not possible to build up such a mighty organization as the British Empire by mere swindle and fraud. The few who called attention to that truth were either ignored or silenced. I can vividly recall to mind the astonished looks of my comrades when they found themselves personally face to face for the first time with the Tommies in Flanders. After a few days of fighting, the consciousness slowly dawned upon our soldiers that those Scotsmen were not like the ones we had seen described and caricatured in the comic papers and mentioned in the communiques.
It was then that I formed my first ideas of the efficiency of various forms of propaganda. Such a falsification, however, served the purpose of those who had fabricated it. The caricature of Englishmen, though false, could be used to prove the possibility of conquering the world peacefully by commercial means. Where the Englishman succeeded, we should also succeed. Our far greater honesty and our freedom from that specifically English perfidy would be assets on our side. Thereby, it was hoped that the sympathy of the smaller nations and the confidence of the greater nations could be gained more easily.
We did not realize that our honesty was an object of profound aversion for other people because we ourselves believed in it. The rest of the world looked on our behavior as the manifestation of a shrewd deceitfulness. But when the revolution came, then they were amazed at the deeper insight it gave them into our mentality, sincere even beyond the limits of stupidity. Once we understand the part played by that absurd notion of conquering the world by peaceful commercial means, we can clearly understand how that other absurdity, the Triple Alliance, came to exist.
With what state then could an alliance have been made? In alliance with Austria, we could not acquire new territory by military means even in Europe, and this very fact was the real reason for the inner weakness of the Triple Alliance. Bismarck could not permit himself such a makeshift for the necessities of the moment, but certainly not any of his bungling successors. And least of all, when the foundations no longer existed on which Bismarck had formed the Triple Alliance. In Bismarck's time, Austria could still be looked upon as a German state, but the gradual introduction of universal suffrage turned the country into a parliamentary Babel in which the German voice was scarcely audible.
From the viewpoint of racial policy, this alliance with Austria was simply disastrous. A new Slavic great power was allowed to grow up close to the frontiers of the German Empire. Later on, this power was bound to adopt towards Germany an attitude different from that of Russia, for example. The alliance was thus bound to become more empty and more feeble because the only supporters of it were losing their influence and were being systematically pushed out of the more important public offices. About the year 1900, the alliance with Austria had already entered the same phase as the alliance between Austria and Italy.
Here also only one alternative was possible, either to take the side of the Habsburg Monarchy or to raise a protest against the oppression of the German element in Austria. But generally speaking, when one takes such a course, it is bound eventually to lead to open conflict. From the psychological point of view also, the triple decreases according as such alliance limits its object to the defense of the status quo. But on the other hand, an alliance will increase its cohesive strength the more the parties concerned in it may hope to use it as a means of reaching some practical goal of expansion. Here, as everywhere else, strength does not lie in defense, but in attack.
This truth was recognized in various quarters, but, unfortunately, not by the so called elected representatives of the people. As early as 1912, Ludendorff, who was then colonel and the commander of the general staff, pointed out these weak features of the alliance in a memorandum which he then drew up. But, of course, the statesman did not attach any importance or value to that document. In general, it would seem as if reason were a faculty that is active only in the case of ordinary mortals, but that it is entirely absent when we come to deal with that branch of the species known as diplomats. It was lucky for Germany that the war of nineteen fourteen broke out with Austria as its direct cause.
For thus, the Habsburgs were compelled to participate. Had the origin of the war been otherwise, Germany would have been left to her own resources. The Habsburg State would never have been ready or willing to take part in a war for the origin of which Germany was responsible. What was the object of so much obloqui later in the case of Italy's decision would have taken place only earlier in the case of Austria. In other words, if Germany had been forced to go to war for some reason of its own, Austria would have remained neutral in order to safeguard the state against a revolution which might begin immediately after the war had started.
The Slav element would have preferred to smash up the dual monarchy in 1914 rather than permitted to come to the assistance of Germany. But at that time, there were only a few who understood all the dangers and aggravations which resulted from the alliance with the Danubian monarchy. In the first place, Austria had too many enemies who were eagerly looking forward to obtain the heritage of that decrepit state so that these people gradually developed a certain animosity against Germany, because Germany was an obstacle to their desires inasmuch as it kept the dual monarchy from falling to pieces, a consummation that was hoped for and yearned for on all sides.
The conviction developed that Vienna could be reached only by passing through Berlin. In the second place, by adopting this policy, Germany lost its best and most promising chances of other alliances. In place of these possibilities, one now observed a growing tension in the relations with Russia and even with Italy. And this, in spite of the fact that the general attitude in Rome was just as favorable to Germany as it was hostile to Austria, a hostility which lay dormant in the individual Italian and broke out violently on occasion. Since a commercial and industrial policy had been adopted, no motive was left for waging war against Russia.
Only the enemies of the two countries, Germany and Russia, could have an active interest in such a war under these circumstances. As a matter of fact, it was only the Jews and the Marxists who tried to stir up bad blood between the two states. In the third place, the alliance constituted a permanent danger to German security. For any great power that was hostile to Bismarck's empire could mobilize a whole lot of other states in a war against Germany by promising them tempting spoils at the expense of the Austrian ally. It was possible to arouse the whole of Eastern Europe against Austria, especially Russia, and Italy also.
The world coalition which had developed under the leadership of king Edward could never have become a reality if Germany's ally Austria had not offered such an alluring prospect of booty. It was this fact alone which made it possible to combine so many heterogeneous states with divergent interests into one common phalanx of attack? Every member could hope to enrich himself at the expense of Austria if he joined in the general attack against Germany. The fact that Turkey was also a tacit party to the unfortunate alliance with Austria augmented Germany's peril to an extraordinary degree.
Jewish international finance needed this bait of the Austrian heritage in order to carry out its plans of ruining Germany. For Germany had not yet surrendered to the general control which the international captains of finance and trade exercised over the other states. Thus, it was possible to consolidate that coalition and make it strong enough and brave enough through the sheer weight of numbers to join in bodily conflict with the horned Siegfried. The alliance with the Habsburg Monarchy, which I loathed while still in Austria, was the subject of grave concern on my part, and caused me to meditate on it so persistently that finally I came to the conclusions which I have mentioned above.
In the small circles which I frequented at that time, I did not conceal my conviction that this sinister agreement with the state doomed to collapse would also bring catastrophe to Germany if she did not free herself from it in time. I have never for a moment wavered in that firm conviction, even when the tempest of the World War seemed to have made shipwreck of the reasoning faculty itself, and had put blind enthusiasm in its place, even among those circles where the coolest and hardest objective thinking ought to have held sway. In the trenches, I voiced and upheld my own opinion whenever these problems came under discussion.
I held that to abandon the Habsburg Monarchy would involve no sacrifice, if Germany could thereby reduce the number of her own enemies. For the millions of Germans who had donned the steel helmet had done so not to fight for the maintenance of a corrupt dynasty, but rather for the salvation of the German people. Before the war, there were occasions on which it seemed that at least one section of the German public had some slight misgivings about the political wisdom of the alliance with Austria. From time to time, German conservative circles issued warnings against being overconfident about the worth of that alliance.
But like every other reasonable suggestion made at that time, it was thrown to the winds. The general conviction was that the right measures had been adopted to conquer the world, that the success of these measures would be enormous, and the sacrifices negligible. Once again, the uninitiated layman could do nothing but observe how the elect were marching straight ahead towards disaster, and enticing their beloved people to follow them as the rats followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin. If we would look for the deeper grounds which made it possible to foist on the people this absurd notion of peacefully conquering the world through commercial penetration, and how it was possible to put forward the maintenance of world peace as a national aim, We shall find that these grounds lay in a general morbid condition that had pervaded the whole body of German political thought.
The triumphant progress of technical science in Germany, and the marvelous development of German industries and commerce, led us to forget that a powerful state had been the necessary prerequisite of that success. On the contrary, certain circles went even so far as to give vent to the theory that the state owed its very existence to these phenomena, that it was, above all, an economic institution and should be constituted in accordance with economic interests. Therefore, it was held the state was dependent on the economic structure. This condition of things was looked upon and glorified as the soundest and most normal arrangement.
Now the truth is that the state in itself has nothing whatsoever to do with any definite economic concept or definite economic development. It does not arise from a compact made between contracting parties with a certain delimited territory for the purpose of serving economic ends. The state is a community of living beings who have kindred physical and spiritual natures, organized for the purpose of assuring the conservation of their own kind and to help towards fulfilling those ends which Providence has assigned to that particular race or racial branch. Therein, and therein alone, lie the purpose and meaning of a state.
Economic activity is one of the many auxiliary reasons which are necessary for the attainment of those aims. But economic activity is never the origin or purpose of a state, except where a state has been originally founded on a false and unnatural basis. And this alone explains why a state as such does not necessarily need a certain delimited territory as a condition of its establishment. This condition becomes a necessary prerequisite only among those people who would provide and assure subsistence for their kinsfolk through their own industry, which means that they are ready to carry on the struggle for existence by means of their own work.
People who can sneak their way like parasites into the human body politic and make others work for them under various pretenses can form a state without possessing any definite delimited territory. This is chiefly applicable to that parasitic nation which, particularly at the present time, preys upon the honest portion of mankind. I mean, the Jews. The Jewish state has never been delimited in space. It has been spread all over the world without any frontiers whatsoever, and has always been constituted from the membership of one race exclusively. That is why the Jews have always formed the state within the state.
One of the most ingenious tricks ever devised has been that of sailing the Jewish ship of state under the flag of religion, and thus securing that tolerance which Aryans are always ready to grant to different religious faiths. But the Mosaic Law is really nothing else than the doctrine of the preservation of the Jewish race. Therefore, this law takes in all spheres of sociological, political, and economic science, which have a bearing on the main end in view. The instinct for the preservation of one's own species is the primary cause that leads to the formation of human communities.
Hence, the state is a racial organism and not an economic organization. The difference between the two is so great as to be incomprehensible to our contemporary so called statesmen. That is why they like to believe that the state may be constituted as an economic structure, whereas the truth is that it has always resulted from the exercise of those qualities which are part of the will to preserve the species and the race. But these qualities always exist and operate through the heroic virtues and have nothing to do with commercial egoism. For the conservation of the species always presupposes that the individual is ready to sacrifice himself.
Such is the meaning of the poet's lines. And if you do not stake your life, you will never win life for yourself. File 33. The sacrifice of the individual existence is necessary in order to assure the conservation of the race. Hence, it is that the most essential condition for the establishment and maintenance of a state is a certain feeling of solidarity bounded in an identity of character and race, and in a resolute readiness to defend these at all costs. With people who live on their own territory, this will result in a development of the heroic virtues. With the parasitic people, it will develop the arts of subterfuge and gross perfidy, unless we admit that these characteristics are innate and that the varying political forms through which the parasitic race expresses itself are only the outward manifestations of innate characteristics.
At least in the beginning, the formation of a state can result only from a manifestation of the heroic qualities I have spoken of. And the people who fail in the struggle for existence, that is to say those who become vassals and are thereby condemned to disappear entirely sooner or later, are those who do not display the heroic virtues in the struggle, or those who fall victim to the perfidy of the parasites. And even in this latter case, the failure is not so much due to lack of intellectual powers, but rather to a lack of courage and determination. An attempt is made to conceal the real nature of this failing by saying that it is the humane feeling.
The qualities which are employed for the foundation and preservation of a state have accordingly little or nothing to do with the economic situation, and this is conspicuously demonstrated by the fact that the inner strength of a state only really coincides with what is called its economic expansion. On the contrary, there are numerous examples to show that a period of economic prosperity indicates the approaching decline of a state. If it were correct to attribute the foundation of human communities to economic forces, then the power of the state as such would be at its highest pitch during periods of economic prosperity and not vice versa.
It is especially difficult to understand how the belief that the state is brought into being and preserved by economic forces could gain currency in a country which has given proof of the opposite in every phase of its history. The history of Prussia shows in a manner particularly clear and distinct that it is out of the moral virtues of the people and not from their economic circumstances that a state is formed. It is only under the protection of those virtues that economic activities can be developed, and the latter will continue to flourish until a time comes when the creative political capacity declines.
Therewith, the economic structure will also break down, a phenomenon which is now happening in an alarming manner before our eyes. The material interest of mankind can prosper only in the shade of the heroic virtues. The moment they become the primary considerations of life, they wreck the basis of their own existence. Whenever the political power of Germany was specially strong, the economic situation also improved. But whenever economic interests alone occupied the foremost place in the life of the people and thrust transcendent ideals into the background, the state collapsed, and economic ruin followed readily.
If we consider the question of what those forces actually are, which are necessary to the creation and preservation of a state, we shall find that they are the capacity and readiness to sacrifice the individual to the common welfare. That these qualities have nothing at all to do with economics can be proved by referring to the simple fact that man does not sacrifice himself for material interests. In other words, he will die for an ideal, but not for a business. The marvelous gift for public psychology, which the English have, was never shown better than the way in which they presented their case in the World War. We were fighting for our bread, but the English declared that they were fighting for freedom, and not at all for their own freedom.
Oh, no. But for the freedom of the small nations. German people laughed at that effrontery and were angered by it. But in doing so, they showed how political thought had declined among our so called diplomats in Germany even before the war. These diplomats did not have the slightest notion of what that force was which brought men to face death of their own free will and determination. As long as the German people in the war of nineteen fourteen continued to believe that they were fighting for ideals, they stood firm. As soon as they were told they were fighting only for their daily bread, they began to give up the struggle.
Our clever statesmen were greatly amazed at this change of feeling. They never understood that as soon as man is called upon to struggle for purely material causes, he will avoid death as best he can. For death and the enjoyment of the material fruits of a victory are quite incompatible concepts. The frailest woman will become a heroine when the life of her own child is at stake, and only the will to save the race and native land or the state which offers production to the race, has in all ages been the urge which has forced men to face the weapons of their enemies. The following may be proclaimed as a truth that always holds good.
A state has never arisen from commercial causes for the purposes of peacefully serving commercial ends, But states have always arisen from the instinct to maintain the racial group, whether this instinct manifest itself in the heroic sphere or in the sphere of cunning and chicanery. In the first case, we have the Aryan states based on the principles of work and cultural development. In the second case, we have the Jewish parasitic colonies. But as soon as economic interests begin to predominate over the racial and cultural instincts in a people or a state, these economic interests unloose the causes that lead to subjugation and oppression.
The belief which prevailed in Germany before the war that the world could be opened up and even conquered for Germany through a system of peaceful commercial penetration and a colonial policy was a typical symptom which indicated the decline of those real qualities whereby states are created and preserved, and indicated also the decline of that insight, will power, and practical determination which belong to those qualities. The World War, with its consequences, was the natural liquidation of that decline. To anyone who had not fought over the matter deeply, this attitude of the German people, which was quite general, must have seemed an insoluble enigma.
After all, Germany herself was a magnificent example of an empire that had been built up purely by a policy of power. Prussia, which was the generative cell of the German Empire, had been created by brilliant heroic deeds, and not by a financial or commercial compact. And the empire itself was but the magnificent recompense for a leadership that had been conducted on a policy of power and military valor. How then did it happen that the political instincts of this very same German people became so degenerate? For it was not merely one isolated phenomenon which pointed to this decadence, but morbid symptoms which appeared in alarming numbers, now all over the body politic, or eating into the body of the nation like a gangrenous ulcer.
It seemed as if some all pervading poisonous fluid had been injected, by some mysterious hand, into the bloodstream of this once heroic body, bringing about a creeping paralysis that affected the reason and the elementary instinct of self preservation. During the years 1912 to 1914, I used to ponder perpetually on those problems which related to the policy of the Triple Alliance and the economic policy then being pursued by the German Empire. Once again, I came to the conclusion that the only explanation of this enigma lay in the operation of that force which I had already become acquainted with in Vienna, though from a different angle of vision.
The force to which I refer was the Marxist teaching and the and its organized action throughout the nation. For the second time in my life, I plunged deep into the study of that destructive teaching. This time, however, I was not urged by the study of the question, by the impressions and influences of my daily environment, but directed rather by the observation of general phenomena in the political life of Germany. In delving again into the theoretical literature of this new world and endeavoring to get a clear view of the possible consequences of its teaching.
I compare the theoretical principles of Marxism with the phenomena and happenings brought about by its activities in the political, cultural, and economic spheres. For the first time in my life, I now turned my attention to the efforts that were being made to subdue this universal pest. I studied Bismarck's exceptional legislation in its original concept, its operation, and its results. Gradually, I formed a basis for my own opinions, which has proved as solid as a rock so that never since have I had to change my attitude towards the general problem. I also made a further and more thorough analysis of the relations between Marxism and Jewry.
During my sojourn in Vienna, I used to look upon Germany as an imperturbable colossus, But even then, serious doubts and misgivings would often disturb me. In my own mind and in my conversation with my small circle of acquaintances, I used to criticize Germany's foreign policy, and the incredibly superficial way, according to my thinking, in which Marxism was dealt with, though it was then the most important problem in Germany. I could not understand how they could stumble blindfolded into the midst of this peril, the effects of which would be momentous if the openly declared aims of Marxism could be put into practice.
Even as early as that time, I warned people around me, just as I am warning a wider audience now, against that soothing slogan of all indolent and feckless nature, nothing can happen to us. A similar mental contagion had already destroyed a mighty empire. Can Germany escape the operation of those laws to which all other human communities are subject? In the years 1913 and 1914, I expressed my opinion for the first time in various circles, some of which are now members of the National Socialist Movement, But the problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated.
I considered the disastrous policy of the Triple Alliance as one of the consequences resulting from the disintegrating effects of the Marxist teaching. For the alarming feature was that this teaching was invisibly corrupting the foundations of a healthy political and economic outlook. Those who had been themselves contaminated frequently did not realize that their aims and actions sprang from this Weltanschwang, which they otherwise openly repudiated. Long before then, the spiritual and moral decline of the German people had set in though those who were affected by the morbid decadence were frequently unaware, as often happens, of the forces which were breaking up their very existence.
Sometimes they tried to cure the disease by doctoring the symptoms which were taken as the cause But since nobody recognized or wanted to recognize the real course of the disease, this way of combating Marxism was no more effective than the application of some quacks ointment. File 34. Chapter five. The World War. During the boisterous years of my youth, nothing used to damp my wild spirits so much as to think that I was born at a time when the world had manifestly decided not to erect any more temples of fame except in honor of business people and state officials.
The tempest of historical achievements seem to have permanently subsided, so much so that the future appeared to be irrevocably delivered over to what was called peaceful competition between the nations. This simply meant a system of mutual exploitation by fraudulent means. The principle of resorting to the use of force in self defense being formally excluded. Individual countries increasingly assumed the appearance of commercial undertakings, grabbing territory and clients and concessions from each other under any and every kind of pretext. And it was all staged to an accompaniment of loud but innocuous shouting.
This trend of affairs seemed destined to develop steadily and permanently. Having the support of public approbation, it seemed bound eventually to transform the world into a mammoth department store. In the vestibule of this emporium, there would be rows of monumental busts, which would confer immortality on those profiteers who had proved themselves the shrewdest at their trade, and those administrative officials who had shown themselves the most innocuous. The salesman could be represented by the English and the administrative functionaries by the Germans, whereas the Jews would be sacrificed to the unprofitable calling of proprietorship, for they are constantly avowing that they make no profits and are always being called upon to pay out.
Moreover, they have the advantage of being versed in the foreign languages. Why could I not have been born a hundred years ago? I used to ask myself. Somewhere about the time of the wars of liberation, when a man was still of some value even though he had no business. Thus, I used to think it an ill deserved stroke of bad luck that I had arrived too late on this terrestrial globe, and I felt chagrined at the idea that my life would have to run its course along peaceful and orderly lines. As a boy, I was anything but a pacifist, and all attempts to make me so turned out futile.
Then the Boer War came like a glow of lightning on the far horizon. Day after day, I used to gaze intently at the newspapers, and I almost devoured the telegrams and communicates, overjoyed to think that I could witness that heroic struggle even though from so great a distance. When the Russo Japanese war came, I was older and better able to judge for myself. For national reasons, I then took the side of the Japanese in our discussions. I looked upon the defeat of the Russians as a blow to Austrian Slavism. Many years had passed between that time and my arrival in Munich.
I now realized that what I formally believed to be a morbid decadence was only the lull before the storm. During my Vienna days, the Balkans were already in the grip of that sultry pause which presages the violent storm. Here and there, a flash of lightning could be occasionally seen, but it rapidly disappeared in sinister gloom. Then the Balkan War broke out, and therewith the first gusts of the forthcoming tornado swept across a highly strung Europe. In the supervening calm, men felt the atmosphere oppressive and foreboding, so much so that the sense of an impending catastrophe became transformed into a feeling of impatient expectance.
They wished that heaven would give them free rein to the fate which could now no longer be curbed. Then the first great bolt of lightning struck the earth. The storm broke, and the thunder of the heavens intermingled with the roar of the cannons in the World War. When the news came to Munich that the archduke Franz Ferdinand had been murdered, I had been at home all day and did not get the particulars of how it happened. At first, I feared that the shots may have been fired by some German Austrian students who had been aroused to a state of furious indignation by the persistent pro Slav activities of the heir to the Habsburg throne, and therefore wish to liberate the German population from this internal enemy.
It was quite easy to imagine what the result of such a mistake would have been. It would have brought on a new wave of persecution, the motives of which would have been justified before the whole world. But soon afterwards, I heard the names of the presumed assassins, and also that they were known to be Serbs. I felt somewhat dumbfounded in face of the inexorable vengeance which destiny had wrought. The greatest friend of the Slavs had fallen a victim to the bullets of Slav patriots. It is unjust to the Vienna government of that time to blame it now for the form and tenor of the ultimatum which was then presented.
In a similar position and under similar circumstances, no other power in the world would have acted otherwise. On her southern frontiers, Austria had a relentless mortal foe who indulged in acts of provocation against the dual monarchy at intervals which were becoming more and more frequent. This persistent line of conduct would not have been relaxed until the arrival of the opportune moment for the destruction of the empire. In Austria, there was good reason to fear that at the latest, this moment would come with the death of the old emperor. Once that had taken place, it was quite possible that the monarchy would not be able to offer any serious resistance.
For some years past, the state had been so completely identified with the personality of Francis Joseph that in the eyes of the great mass of the people, the death of this venerable personification of the empire would be tantamount to the death of the empire itself. Indeed, it was one of the clever artifices of Slav policy to foster the impression that the Austrian state owed its very existence exclusively to the prodigies and rare talents of that monarch. This kind of flattery was particularly welcomed at the Hofburg, all the more because it had no relation whatsoever to the services actually rendered by the emperor.
No effort whatsoever was made to locate the carefully prepared sting which lay hidden in this glorifying praise. One fact which was entirely overlooked, perhaps intentionally, was that the more the empire remained dependent on the so called administrative talents of the wisest monarch of all times, the more catastrophic would be the situation when fate came to knock at the door and demand its tribute. Was it possible even to imagine the Austrian Empire without its venerable ruler? Would not the tragedy which befell Maria Theresa be repeated at once? It is really unjust to the Vienna Government circles to reproach them with having instigated a misfortune of German as well as Austrian diplomats that they endeavored to put off the inevitable day of reckoning with the result that they were finally compelled to deliver their blow at a most inopportune moment.
No. Those who did not wish this war ought to have had the courage to take the consequences of the refusal upon themselves. Those consequences must necessarily have meant the sacrifice of Austria. And even then, war would have come, not as a war in which all the nations would have been banded against us, but in the form of a dismemberment of the Habsburg Monarchy. In that case, we should have had to decide whether we should come to the assistance of the Habsburg or stand aside as spectators with our arms folded and thus allow fate to run its course.
Just those who are loudest in their implications today and make a great parade of wisdom in judging the causes of the war are the very same people whose collaboration was the most fatal factor in steering towards the war. For several decades previously, the German social democrats had been agitating in an underhand and knavish way for war against Russia. Whereas the German center party, with religious ends in view, had worked to make the Austrian state the chief center and turning point of German policy. The consequence of this folly had now to be born.
What came was bound to come, and under no circumstances could it have been avoided. The fault of the German government lay in the fact that merely for the sake of preserving peace at all costs, it continued to miss the occasions that were favorable for action, got entangled in an alliance for the purpose of preserving the peace of the world, and thus, finally became the victim of a world coalition which opposed the German effort for the maintenance of peace and was determined to bring about the World War. Had the Vienna government of that time formulated its ultimatum in less drastic terms, that would have not altered the situation at all.
But such a course might have aroused public indignation. For in the eyes of the great masses, the ultimatum was too moderate and certainly not excessive or brutal. Those who would deny this today are either simpletons with feeble memories or else deliberate falsehood mongers. The war of nineteen fourteen was certainly not forced on the masses. It was even desired by the whole people. There was a desire to bring the general feeling of uncertainty to an end once and for all, and it is only in the light of this fact that we can understand how more than 2,000,000 German men and youths voluntarily joined the colors, ready to shed the last drop of their blood for the cause.
For me, these hours came as a deliverance from the distress that had weighed upon me during the days of my youth. I'm not ashamed to acknowledge today that I was carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, and I sank down upon my knees and thanked heaven out of the fullness of my heart for the favor of having been permitted to live in such a time. The fight for freedom had broken out on an unparalleled scale in the history of the world. From the moment that fate took the helm in hand, the conviction grew amongst the mass of the people that now it was not a question of deciding the destinies of Austria Austria or Serbia, but that the very existence of the German nation itself was at stake.
File 35. At last, after many years of blindness, the people saw clearly into the future. Therefore, almost immediately after the gigantic struggle had begun, an excessive enthusiasm was replaced by a more earnest and more fitting undertone because the exaltation of the popular spirit was not a mere passing frenzy. It was only too necessary that the gravity of the situation should be recognized. At that time, there was, generally speaking, not the slightest presentiment or conception of how long the war might last. People dreamed of the soldiers being home by Christmas, and that then they would resume their daily work in peace.
Whatever mankind desires, that it will hope for and believe in. The overwhelming majority of the people had long since grown weary of the perpetual insecurity and the general condition of public affairs. Hence, it was only natural that no one believed that the Austro Serbian conflict could be shelved. Therefore, they looked forward to a radical settlement of accounts. I also belong to the millions that desired this. The moment the news of the Sarajevo outrage reached Munich, two ideas came into my mind. First, that war was absolutely inevitable, and second, that the Habsburg state would now be forced to honor its signature to the alliance.
For what I had feared most was that one day, Germany herself, perhaps as a result of the alliance, would become involved in a conflict the first direct cause of which did not affect Austria. In such a contingency, I feared that the Austrian state, for domestic political reasons, would find itself unable to decide in favor of its ally. But now this danger was removed. The old state was compelled to fight whether it wished to do so or not. My own attitude towards the conflict was equally simple and clear. I believe that it was not a case of Austria fighting to get satisfaction from Serbia, but rather a case of Germany fighting for her own existence.
The German nation for its own to be or not to be, for its freedom, and for its future. The work of Bismarck must now be carried on. Young Germany must show itself worthy of the blood shed by our fathers on so many heroic fields of battle from Weissenburg to Sedan and Paris. And if this struggle should bring us victory, our people will again rank foremost among the great nations. Only then could the German Empire assert itself as the mighty champion of peace without the necessity of restricting the daily bread of its children for the sake of maintaining the peace.
As a boy and as a young man, I often longed for the occasion to prove that my national enthusiasm was not mere vaporing. Harrying sometimes seemed to me to be a kind of sinful indulgence, though I could not give any justification for that feeling. For after all, who has the right to shout that triumphant word if he has not won the right to it there where there is no play acting, and where the hand of the goddess of destiny puts the truth and sincerity of nations and men through her inexorable test. Just as millions of others, I felt a proud joy in being permitted to go through this test.
I had so often sung Deutschland Uber Alice and so often roared that now I thought it was a kind of retroactive grace that I was granted the right of appearing before the court of eternal justice to testify to the truth of those sentiments. One thing was clear to me from the very beginning, namely, that in the event of war, which now seemed inevitable, my books would have to be thrown aside forthwith. I also realized that my place would have to be there where the inner voice of conscience called me. I had left Austria principally for political reasons. What therefore could be more rational than that I should put into practice the logical consequences of my political opinions now that the war had begun?
I had no desire to fight for the Habsburg cause, but I was prepared to die at any time for my own kinsfolk and the empire to which they really belonged. On 08/03/1914, I presented an urgent petition to his majesty king Ludwig the third requesting to be allowed to serve in a Bavarian regiment. In those days, the chancellery had its hands quite full, and therefore, I was all the more pleased when I received the answer a day later that my request had been granted. I opened the document with trembling hands, and no words of mine could now describe the satisfaction I felt on reading that I was instructed to report to a Bavarian regiment.
Within a few days, I was wearing that uniform which I was not to put off again for nearly six years. For me, as for every German, the most memorable period my life now began. Face to face with that mighty struggle, all the past fell away into oblivion. With a wistful pride, I look back on those days, especially because we are now approaching the tenth anniversary of that memorable happening. I recall those early weeks of war when kind fortune permitted me to take my place in that heroic struggle among the nations. As the scene unfolds itself before my mind, it seems only like yesterday.
I see myself among my young comrades on our first parade drill, and so on until at last the day came on which we were to leave for the front. In common with the others, I had one worry during those days. This was a fear that we might arrive too late for the fighting at the front. Time and again, that thought disturbed me, and every announcement of a victorious engagement left a bitter taste which increased as the news of further victories arrived. At long last, the day came when we left Munich on war service. For the first time in my life, I saw the Rhine as we journeyed westwards to stand guard before that historic German river against its traditional and grasping enemy.
As the first soft rays of the morning sun broke through the light mist and disclosed to us the Nederwald statue, With one accord, the whole troop train broke into the strains of. I then felt as if my heart could not contain its spirit, And then followed a damp cold night in Flanders. We marched in silence throughout the night. And as the morning sun came through the mist, an iron greeting suddenly burst above our heads. Shrapnel exploded in our midst and spluttered in the damp ground. But before the smoke of the explosion disappeared, a wild hurrah was shouted from 200 throats in response to this first greeting of death.
Then began the whistling of the bullets and the booming of cannons, the shouting and singing of the competence. With eyes straining feverishly, we pressed forward quicker and quicker until we finally came to close quarter fighting there beyond the beet fields and the meadows. Soon, the strains of a song reached us from afar. Nearer and nearer, from company to company, it came. And while death began to make havoc in our ranks, we passed the song onto those beside us. After four days in the trenches, we came back. Even our step was no longer what it had been.
Boys of 17 looked now like grown men. The rank and file of the least regiment had not been properly trained in the art of warfare, but they knew how to die like old soldiers. That was the beginning, and thus we carried on from year to year. A feeling of horror replaced the romantic fighting spirit. Enthusiasm cooled down gradually, and exuberant spirits were quelled by the fear of the ever present death. A time came when there arose within each one of us a conflict between the urge to self preservation and the call of duty, and I had to go through that conflict too.
As death sought its prey everywhere and unrelentingly, a nameless something rebelled within the weak body and tried to introduce itself under the name of common sense. But in reality, it was fear which had taken on this cloak in order to impose itself on the individual. But the more the voice which advised prudence increased its efforts, and the more clear and persuasive became its appeal, resistance became all the stronger, until finally the internal strife was over, and the call of duty was triumphant. Already in the winter of nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixteen, I had come through that inner struggle.
The will had asserted its incontestable mastery. Whereas in the early days, I went into the fight with a cheer and a laugh, I was now habitually calm and resolute, and that frame of mind endured. Fate might now put me through the final test without my nerves or reason giving way. The young volunteer had become an old soldier. This same transformation took place throughout the whole army. Constant fighting had aged and toughened it and hardened it so that it stood firm and dauntless against every assault. Only now was it possible to judge that army. After two and three years of continuous fighting, having been thrown into one battle after another, standing up stoutly against superior numbers and superior armament, suffering hunger and privation, the time had come when one could assess the value of that singular fighting force.
For a thousand years to come, nobody will dare to speak of heroism without recalling the German army of the World War. And then from the dim past will emerge the immortal vision of those solid ranks of steel helmets that never flinched and never faltered. And as long as Germans live, they will be proud to remember that these men were the sons of their forefathers. I was then a soldier and did not wish to meddle in politics, all the more so because the time was inopportune. I still believe that the most modest stable boy of those days served his country better than the best of, let us say, the parliamentary deputies.
My hatred for those footlers was never greater than in those days when all decent men who had anything to say said it point blank in the enemy's face, or failing this, kept their mouths shut and did their duty elsewhere. I despise those political fellows. And if I had had my way, I would have formed them into a labor battalion and given them the opportunity of babbling amongst themselves to their heart's content without offense or harm to decent people. File 36. In those days, I cared nothing for politics, but I could not help forming an opinion on certain manifestations which affected not only the whole nation, but also us soldiers in particular.
There were two things which caused me the greatest anxiety at that time and which I had come to regard as detrimental to our interests. Shortly after our first series of victories, a certain section of the press already began to throw cold water drip by drip on the enthusiasm of the public. At first, this was not obvious to many people. It was done under the mask of good intentions and a spirit of anxious care. The public was told that big celebrations of victories were somewhat out of place and were not worthy expressions of the spirit of a great nation. The fortitude and valor of German soldiers were accepted facts, which did not necessarily call for outbursts of celebration.
Furthermore, it was asked, what would foreign opinion have to say about these manifestations? Would not foreign opinion react more favorably to a quiet and sober form of celebration rather than to all this wild jubilation? Surely, the time had come, so the press declared, for us Germans to remember that this war was not our work, and that hence there need be no feeling of shame in declaring our willingness to do our share towards effecting and understanding among the nations. For this reason, it would not be wise to sully the radiant deeds of our army with unbecoming jubilation, for the rest of the world would never understand this.
Furthermore, nothing is more appreciated than the modesty with which a true hero quietly and unassumingly carries on and forgets. Such was the gist of their warning. Instead of catching these fellows by their long ears and dragging them to some ditch and looping a cord around their necks so that the victorious enthusiasm of the nation should no longer offend the aesthetic sensibilities of these knights of the pen, A general press campaign was now allowed to go on against what was called unbecoming and undignified forms of victorious celebration.
No one seemed to have the faintest idea that when public enthusiasm is once damped, nothing can enkindle it again when the necessity arises. This enthusiasm is an intoxication and must be kept up in that form. Without the support of this enthusiastic spirit, how would it be possible to endure in a struggle which, according to human standards, made such immense demands on the spiritual stamina of the nation? I was only too well acquainted with the psychology of the broad masses not to know that in such cases, a magnanimous aestheticism cannot fan the fire which is needed to keep the iron hot.
In my eyes, it was even a mistake not to have tried to raise the pitch of public enthusiasm still higher. Therefore, I could not at all understand why the contrary policy was adopted. That is to say the policy of damping the public spirit. Another thing which irritated me was the manner in which Marxism was regarded and accepted. I thought that all this proved how little they knew about the Marxist plague. It was believed in all seriousness that the abolition of party distinctions during the war had made Marxism a mild and moderate thing.
But here, there was no question of party. There was a question of a doctrine which was being expounded for the express purpose of leading humanity to its destruction. The purpose of this doctrine was not understood because nothing was said about that side of the question in our Jew ridden universities and because our supercilious bureaucratic officials did not think it worthwhile to read up a subject which had not been prescribed in the university course. This mighty revolutionary trend was going on beside them, but those intellectuals would not deign to give it their attention.
That is why state enterprise nearly always lags behind private enterprise. Of these gentry, one can truly say that their maxim is what we don't know won't bother us. In the August, the German worker was looked upon as an adherent of Marxist socialism. That was a gross error. When those fateful hours dawned, the German worker shook off the poisonous clutches of that plague. Otherwise, he would not have been so willing and ready to fight, and people were stupid enough to imagine that Marxism had now become national. Another apt illustration of the fact that those in authority had never taken the trouble to study the real tenor of Marxist teaching.
If they had done so, such foolish errors would not have been committed. Marxism, whose final objective was and is and will continue to be the destruction of all non Jewish national states had to witness in those days of July 1914 how the German working classes, which it had been in Vageling, were aroused by the national spirit and rapidly ranged themselves on the side of the fatherland. Within a few days, the deceptive smokescreen of that infamous national betrayal had vanished into thin air, and the Jewish bosses suddenly found themselves alone and deserted. It was as if not a vestige had been left of that folly and madness, which the masses of the German people had been inoculated for sixty years.
That was indeed an evil day for the betrayers of German labor. The moment, however, that the leaders realized the danger which threatened them, they pulled the magic cap of deceit over their ears, and without being identified, played the part of mimes in the national reawakening. The time seemed to have arrived for proceeding against the whole Jewish gang of public pests. Then it was that action should have been taken regardless of any consequent whining or protestation. At one stroke in the August, all the empty nonsense about international solidarity was knocked out of the heads of the German working classes.
A few weeks later, instead of this stupid talk sounding in their ears, they heard the noise of American manufactured shrapnel bursting above the heads of the marching columns as a symbol of international comradeship. Now that the German worker had rediscovered the road to nationhood, it ought to have been the duty of any government which had the care of the people in its keeping to take this opportunity of mercilessly rooting out everything that was opposed to the national spirit. While the flower of the nation's manhood was dying at the front, There was time enough at home at least to exterminate this vermin.
But instead of doing so, his majesty the Kaiser held out his hand to these hoary criminals, thus assuring them his protection and allowing them to regain their mental composure. And so the viper could begin his work again. This time, however, more carefully than before, but still more destructively. While honest people dreamt of reconciliation, these purged criminals were making preparations for a revolution. Naturally, I was distressed at the half measures which were adopted at that time, but I never thought it possible that the final consequences could have been so disastrous.
But what should have been done then? Throw the ringleaders into jail, prosecute them, and rid the nation of them. Uncompromising military measures should have been adopted to root out the evil. Parties should have been abolished, and the Reichstag brought to its senses at the point of the bayonet if necessary. It would have been still better if the Reichstag had been dissolved immediately. Just as the republic today dissolves the parties when it wants to, so in those days, there was even more justification for applying that measure, seeing that the very existence of the nation was at stake.
Of course, this suggestion would give rise to the question, is it possible to eradicate ideas by force of arms? Could a be attacked by means of physical force? At that time, I turned these questions over and over again in my mind by studying analogous cases exemplified in history, particularly those which had arisen from religious circumstances, I came to the following fundamental conclusion. Ideas and philosophical systems, as well as movements grounded on a definite spiritual foundation, whether true or not, can never be broken by the use of force after a certain stage except on one condition.
Namely that this use of force is in the service of a new idea or which burns with a new flame. The application of force alone without moral support based on a spiritual concept can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it unless one is ready and able ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind. Now in the majority of cases, the result of such a course has been to exclude such a state either temporarily or forever from the comity of states that are of political significance.
But experience has also shown that such a sanguinary method of extirpation arouses the better section of the population under the persecuting power. As a matter of fact, every persecution which has no spiritual motives to support it is morally unjust and raises opposition amongst the best elements of the population. So much so that these are driven more and more to champion the ideas that are unjustly persecuted. With many individuals, this arises from the sheer spirit of opposition to every attempt at suppressing spiritual things by brute force.
In this way, the number of convinced adherence of the persecuted doctrine increases as the persecution progresses. Hence, the total destruction of a new doctrine can be accomplished only by a vast plan of extermination. But this, in the final analysis, means the loss of some of the best blood in a nation or state, and that blood is then avenged because such an internal and total cleanup brings about the collapse of the nation's strength. And such a procedure is always condemned to futility from the very start if the attack doctrine should happen to have spread beyond a small circle. That is why in this case, as with all other growths, the doctrine can be exterminated in its earliest stages.
As time goes on, its powers of resistance increase until at the approach of age, it gives way to younger elements, but under another form and from other motives. File 37. The fact remains that nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine without having some spiritual basis of attack against it and also to wipe out all the organizations it has created have led in many cases to the very opposite being achieved, and that for the following reasons. When sheer force is used to combat the spread of a doctrine, then that force must be employed systematically and persistently.
This means that the chances of success in the suppression of a doctrine lie only in the persistent and uniform application of the methods chosen. The moment hesitation is shown and periods of tolerance alternate with the application of force, the doctrine against which these measures are directed will not only recover strength, but every successive persecution will bring to its support new adherents who have been shocked by the oppressive methods employed. The old adherence will become more embittered, and their allegiance will thereby be strengthened. Therefore, when force is employed, success is dependent on the consistent manner in which it is persistence, however, is nothing less than the product of definite spiritual convictions.
Every form of force that is not supported by a spiritual backing will be always indecisive and uncertain. Such a force lacks the stability that can be found only in a felt which has devoted champions. Such a force is the expression of the individual energies. Therefore, it is from time to time dependent on the change of persons in whose hands it is employed and also on their characters and capacities. But there is something else to be said. Every whether religious or political, and it is sometimes difficult to say whether one ends and the other begins, fights not so much for the negative destruction of the opposing world of ideas as for the positive realization of its own ideas.
Thus, its struggle lies in attack rather than in defense. It has the advantage of knowing where its objective lies as this objective represents the realization of its own ideas. Inversely, it is difficult to say when the negative aim for the destruction of a hostile doctrine is reached and secured. For this reason alone, a which is of an aggressive character is more definite in plan and more powerful and decisive in action than a which takes up a merely defensive attitude. If force be used to combat a spiritual power, that force remains a defensive measure only so long as the wielders of it are not the standard bearers and apostles of a new spiritual doctrine.
To sum up, the following must be born in mind. That every attempt to combat a by means of force will turn out futile in the end if the struggle fails to take the form of an offensive for the establishment of an entirely new spiritual order of things. It is only in the struggle between two that physical force consistently and ruthlessly applied will eventually turn the scales in its own favor. It was here that the fight against Marxism had hitherto failed. This was also the reason why Bismarck's anti socialist legislation failed and was bound to fail in the long run despite everything.
It lacked the basis of a new Weltanschlung for whose development and extension the struggle might have been taken up. To say that the serving up of drivel about a so called state authority or law and order was an adequate foundation for the spiritual driving force in a life or death struggle is only what one would expect to hear from the wise acres in high official positions. It was because there were no adequate spiritual motives back of this offensive that Bismarck was compelled to hand over the administration of his socialist legislative measures to the judgment and approval of those circles which were themselves the product of the Marxist teaching.
Thus, a very ludicrous state of affairs prevailed when the iron chancellor surrendered the fate of his struggle against Marxism to the goodwill of the bourgeois democracy. He left the goat to take care of the garden. But this was only the necessary result of the failure to find a fundamentally new which would attract devoted champions to its cause and could be established on the ground from which had been driven out. And thus, the result of the Bismarckian campaign was deplorable. During the World War or at the beginning of it, were the conditions any different?
Unfortunately, they were not. The more I then pondered over the necessity for a change in the attitude of the executive government towards social democracy as the incorporation of contemporary Marxism, the more I realized the want of a practical substitute for this doctrine. Supposing social democracy were overthrown, what had one to offer the masses in its stead? Not a single movement existed, which promised any success in attracting vast numbers of workers who would now be more or less without leaders and holding these workers in its train. It is nonsensical to imagine that the international fanatic who has just severed his connection with a class party would forthwith join a bourgeois party, or in other words, another class organization.
For however unsatisfactory these various organizations may appear to be, it cannot be denied that bourgeois politicians look on the distinction between classes as a very important factor in social life provided it does not turn out politically disadvantageous to them. If they deny this fact, they show themselves not only impudent, but also mendacious. Generally speaking, one should guard against considering the broad masses more stupid than they really are. In political matters, it frequently happens that feeling judges more correctly than intellect. But the opinion that this feeling on the part of the masses is sufficient proof of their stupid international attitude can be immediately and definitely refuted by the simple fact that pacifist democracy is no less fatuous, though it draws its supporters almost exclusively from bourgeois circles.
As long as millions of citizens daily gulp down what the social democratic press tells them, it ill becomes the masters to joke at the expense of the comrades. For in the long run, they all swallow the same hash even though it'd be dished up with different spices. In both cases, the cook is one and the same, The Jew. One should be careful about contradicting established facts. It is an undeniable fact that the class question has nothing to do with questions concerning ideals, though that dope is administered at election time. Class arrogance among a large section of our people, as well as a prevailing tendency to look down on the manual laborer, are obvious facts and not the fancies of some daydreamer.
Nevertheless, it only illustrates the mentality of our so called intellectual circles that they have not yet grasped the fact that circumstances which are capable of preventing the growth of such a plague as Marxism are certainly not capable of restoring what has been lost. The bourgeois parties, a name coined by themselves, will never again be able to win over and hold the proletarian masses in their train. That is because two worlds stand opposed to one another here, in part naturally and in part artificially divided.
These two camps have one leading thought, and that is that they must fight one another. But in such a fight, the younger will come off victorious, and that is Marxism. In 1914, a fight against social democracy was indeed quite conceivable, but the lack of any practical substitute made it doubtful how long the fight could be kept up. In this respect, there was a gaping void. Long before the war, I was of the same opinion, and that was the reason why I could not decide to join any of the parties then existing. During the course of the World War, my conviction was still further confirmed by the manifest impossibility of fighting social democracy in anything like a thorough way.
Because for that purpose, there should have been a movement that was something more than a mere parliamentary party, and there was none such. I frequently discussed that want with my intimate comrades, and it was then that I first conceived the idea of taking up political work later on. As I have often assured my friends, it was just this that induced me to become active on the public hustings after the war in addition to my professional work. And I am sure that this decision was arrived at after much earnest thought. File 38.
Chapter six, war propaganda. In watching the course of political events, I was always struck by the active part which propaganda played in them. I saw that it was an instrument which the Marxist socialists knew how to handle in a masterly way and how to put it to practical uses. Thus, I soon came to realize that the right use of propaganda was an art in itself and that this art was practically unknown to our bourgeois parties. The Christian Socialist Party alone, especially in Luger's time, showed a certain efficiency in the employment of this instrument and owed much of their success to it.
It was during the war, however, that we had the best chance of estimating the tremendous results which could be obtained by a propagandist system properly carried out. Here again, unfortunately, everything was left to the other side, the work done on our side being worse than insignificant. It was the total failure of the whole German system of information, a failure which was perfectly obvious to every soldier that urged me to consider the problem of propaganda in a comprehensive way. I had ample opportunity to learn a practical lesson in this matter, for, unfortunately, it was only too well taught us by the enemy.
The lack on our side was exploited by the enemy in such an efficient manner that one could say it showed itself as a real work of genius. In that propaganda carried on by the enemy, I found admirable sources of instruction. The lesson to be learned from this had unfortunately no attraction for the geniuses on our own side. They were simply above all such things, too clever to accept any teaching. Anyhow, they did not honestly wish to learn anything. Had we any propaganda at all? Alas, I can reply only in the negative. All that was undertaken in this direction was so utterly inadequate and misconceived from the very beginning that not only did it prove useless, but at times harmful.
In substance, it was insufficient. Psychologically, it was all wrong. Anybody who had carefully investigated the German propaganda must have formed that judgment of it. Our people did not seem to be clear even about the primary question itself, whether propaganda is a means or an end. Propaganda is a means and must, therefore, be judged in relation to the end it is intended to serve. It must be organized in such a way as to be capable of attaining its objective. And as it is quite clear that the importance of the objective may vary from the standpoint of general necessity, the essential internal character of the propaganda must vary accordingly.
The cause for which we fought during the war was the noblest and highest that man could strive for. We were fighting for the freedom and independence of our country, for the security of our future welfare, and the honor of the nation. Despite all views to the contrary, this honor does actually exist, or rather, it will have to exist for a nation without honor will sooner or later lose its freedom and independence. This is in accordance with the ruling of a higher justice for a generation of poltroons is not entitled to freedom. He who would be a slave cannot have honor, for such honor would soon become an object of general scorn.
Germany was waging war for its very existence. The purpose of its war propaganda should have been to strengthen the fighting spirit in that struggle and help it to victory. But when nations are fighting for their existence on this earth, when the question of to be or not to be has to be answered, Then all humane and aesthetic considerations must be set aside. For these ideals do not exist of themselves somewhere in the air, but are the product of man's creative imagination and disappear when he disappears. Nature knows nothing of them. Moreover, they are characteristic of only a small number of nations or rather of races, and their value depends on the measure in which they spring from the racial feeling of the latter.
Humane and aesthetic ideals will disappear from the inhabited earth when those races disappear, which are the creators and standard bearers of them. All such ideals are only of secondary importance when a nation is struggling for its existence. They must be prevented from entering into the struggle the moment they threaten to weaken the stamina of the nation that is waging war. That is always the only visible effect whereby their place in the struggle is to be judged. In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke stated that in time of war, the essential thing is to get a decision as quickly as possible, and that the most ruthless methods of fighting are at the same time the most humane.
When people attempt to answer this reasoning by highfalutin talk about aesthetics, etcetera, only one answer can be given. It is that the vital questions involved in the struggle of a nation for its existence must not be subordinated to any aesthetic considerations. The yoke of slavery is and always will remain the most unpleasant experience that mankind can endure. Do the shrubbing descendants look upon Germany's lot today as aesthetic? Of course, one doesn't discuss such a question with the Jews because they are the modern inventors of this cultural perfume.
Their very existence is an incarnate denial of the beauty of god's image in his creation. Since these ideas of what is beautiful and humane have no place in warfare, they are not to be used as standards of war propaganda. During the war, propaganda was a means to an end, and this end was the struggle for existence of the German nation. Propaganda, therefore, should have been regarded from the standpoint of its utility for that purpose. The most cruel weapons were then the most humane, provided they helped towards a speedier decision, and only those methods were good and beautiful, which helped towards securing the dignity and freedom of the nation.
Such was the only possible attitude to adopt towards war propaganda in the life or death struggle. If those in what are called positions of authority had realized this, there would have been no uncertainty about the form and employment of war propaganda as a weapon, for it is nothing but a weapon, and indeed a most terrifying weapon in the hands of those who know how to use it. The second question of decisive importance is this. To whom should propaganda be made to appeal? To the educated intellectual classes or to the less intellectual?
Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. For the intellectual classes or what are called the intellectual classes today, propaganda is not suited, but only scientific exposition. Propaganda has as little to do with science as an advertisement poster has to do with art as far as concerns the form in which it presents its message. The art of the advertisement poster consists in the ability of the designer to attract the attention of the crowd through the form and colors he chooses. The advertisement poster announcing an exhibition of art has no other aim than to convince the public of the importance of the exhibition.
The better it does that, the better is the art of the poster as such. Being meant accordingly to impress upon the public the meaning of the exposition, the poster can never take the place of the artistic objects displayed in the exposition hall. They are something entirely different. Therefore, those who wish to study the artistic display must study something that is quite different from the poster. Indeed, for that purpose, a mere wandering through the exhibition galleries is of no use. The student of art must carefully and thoroughly study each exhibit in order slowly to form a judicious opinion about it.
The situation is the same in regard to what we understand by the word propaganda. The purpose of propaganda is not the personal instruction of the individual, but rather to attract public attention to certain things, the importance of which can be brought home to the masses only by these means. Here, the art of propaganda consists in putting a matter so clearly and forcibly before the minds of the people as to create a general conviction regarding the reality of a certain fact, the necessity of certain things, and the just character of something that is essential.
But as this art is not an end in itself, and because its purpose must be exactly that of the advertisement poster, to attract the attention of the masses and not by any means to dispense individual instructions to those who already have an educated opinion on things or wish to form such an opinion on grounds of objective study. Because that is not the purpose of propaganda, it must appeal to the feelings of the public rather than to their reasoning powers. All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed.
Thus, its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach. When there is question of bringing a whole nation within the circle of its influence, as happens in the case of war propaganda, then too much attention cannot be paid to the necessity of avoiding a high level, which presupposes a relatively high degree of intelligence among the public. The more modest the scientific tenor of this propaganda, and the more it is addressed exclusively to public sentiment, the more decisive will be its success.
This is the best test of the value of the propaganda and not the approbation of a small group of intellectuals or artistic people. The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. That this is not understood by those among us whose wits are supposed to have been sharpened to the highest pitch is only another proof of their vanity or mental inertia. Once we have understood how necessary it is to concentrate the persuasive forces of propaganda on the broad masses of the people, the following lessons result there from.
That it is a mistake to organize the direct propaganda as if it were a manifold system of scientific instruction. The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials, and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. If this principle be forgotten, and if an attempt be made to be abstract and general, the propaganda will turn out ineffective, for the public will not be able to digest or retain what is offered to them in this way.
Therefore, the greater the scope of the message that has to be presented, the more necessary it is for the propaganda to discover that plan of action which is psychologically the most efficient. File 39. It was, for example, a fundamental mistake to ridicule the worth of the enemy as the Austrian and German comic papers made a chief point of doing in their propaganda. The very principle here is a mistaken one. For when they came face to face with the enemy, our soldiers had quite a different impression. Therefore, the mistake had disastrous results.
Once the German soldier realized what a tough enemy he had to fight, he felt that he had been deceived by the manufacturers of the information which had been given him. Therefore, instead of strengthening and stimulating his fighting spirit, this information had quite the contrary effect. Finally, he lost heart. On the other hand, British and American war propaganda was psychologically efficient. By picturing the Germans to their own people as barbarians and Huns, they were preparing their soldiers for the horrors of war and safeguarding them against delusions.
The most terrific weapons which those soldiers encountered in the field merely confirmed the information that they had already received, and their belief in the truth of the assertions made by their respective governments was accordingly reinforced. Thus, their rage and hatred against the infamous foe was increased. The terrible havoc caused by the German weapons of war was only another illustration of the Hunnish brutality of those barbarians. Whereas on the side of the entente, no time was left the soldiers to meditate on the similar havoc which their own weapons were capable of. Thus, the British soldier was never allowed to feel that the information which he received at home was untrue.
Unfortunately, the opposite was the case with the Germans who finally wound up by rejecting everything from home as pure swindle and humbug. This result was made possible because at home, they thought that the work of propaganda could be entrusted to the first ass that came along, braying of his own special talents, and they had no conception of the fact that propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found. Thus, the German war propaganda afforded us an incomparable example of how the work of enlightenment should not be done, and how such an example was the result of an entire failure to take any psychological considerations whatsoever into account.
From the enemy, however, a fund of valuable knowledge could be gained by those who kept their eyes open, whose powers of perception had not yet become sclerotic, and who during four and a half years had to experience the perpetual flood of enemy propaganda. The worst of all was that our people did not understand the very first condition which has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda, namely a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with. In this regard, so many errors were committed even from the very beginning of the war that it was justifiable to doubt whether so much folly could be attributed solely to the stupidity of people in higher quarters.
What, for example, should we say of a poster which purported to advertise some new brand of soap by insisting on the excellent qualities of the competitive brands? We should naturally shake our heads, and it ought to be just the same in a similar kind of political advertisement. The aim of propaganda is not to try to pass judgment on conflicting rights, giving each its due, but exclusively to emphasize the right which we are asserting. Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively, and in so far as it is favorable to the other side, presented according to the theoretical rules of justice, yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side.
It was a fundamental mistake to discuss the question of who was responsible for the outbreak of war and declare that the sole responsibility could not be attributed to Germany. The sole responsibility should have been laid on the shoulders of the enemy without any discussion whatsoever. And what was the consequence of these half measures? The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence, nor simply of persons who are able to form reason judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another.
As soon as our own propaganda made the slightest suggestion that the enemy had a certain amount of justice on his side, then we laid down the basis on which the justice of our own cause could be questioned. The masses are not in a position to discern where the enemy's fault ends and where our own begins. In such a case, they become hesitant and distrustful, especially when the enemy does not make the same mistake, but heaps all the blame on his adversary. Could there be any clearer proof of this than the fact that finally our own people believed what was said by the enemy's propaganda, which was uniform and consistent in its assertions, rather than what our own propaganda said.
And that, of course, was increased by the mania for objectivity, which addicts our people. Everybody began to be careful about doing an injustice to the enemy, even at the cost of seriously injuring and even ruining his own people and state. Naturally, the masses were not conscious of the fact that those in authority had failed to study the subject from this angle. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent.
It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that. English propaganda especially understood this in a marvelous way and put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half measures which might have given rise to some doubt. Proof of how brilliantly they understood that the feeling of the masses is something primitive was shown in their policy of publishing tales of horror and outrages which fitted in with the real horrors of the time, thereby cleverly and ruthlessly preparing the ground for moral solidarity at the front even in times of great defeats.
Further, the way in which they pilloried the German enemy as solely responsible for the war, which was a brutal and absolute falsehood, and the way in which they proclaimed his guilt was excellently calculated to reach the masses, realizing that these are always extremist in their feelings. And thus, it was that this atrocious lie was positively believed. The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda is well illustrated by the fact that after four and a half years, not only was the enemy still carrying on his propagandist work, but it was already undermining the stamina of our people at home.
That our propaganda did not achieve similar results is not to be wondered at because it had the germs of inefficiency lodged in its very being by reason of its ambiguity. And because of the very nature of its content, one could not expect it to make the necessary impression on the masses. Only our feckless statesman could have imagined that on pacifist slops of such a kind, the enthusiasm could be nourished, which is necessary to enkindle that spirit, which leads men to die for their country. And so this product of ours was not only worthless, but detrimental.
No matter what an amount of talent employed in the organization of propaganda, it will have no result if due account is not taken of these fundamental principles. Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes, and these must be represented again and again. Here, as in innumerable other cases, perseverance is the first and most important condition of success. Particularly in the field of propaganda, placid aesthetes and blaze intellectuals should never be allowed to take the lead. The former would readily transform the impressive character of real propaganda into something suitable only for literary tea parties.
As to the second class of people, one must always beware of this pest. For in consequence of their insensibility to normal impressions, they are constantly seeking new excitements. Such people grow sick and tired of everything. They always long for change and will always be incapable of putting themselves in the position of picturing the wants of their less callous fellow creatures in their immediate neighborhood, let alone trying to understand them. The Blase intellectuals are always the first to criticize propaganda or rather its message because this appears to them to be outmoded and trivial.
They are always looking for something new, always yearning for change, and thus, they become the mortal enemies of every effort that may be made to influence the masses in an effective way. The moment the organization and message of a propagandist movement begins to be orientated according to their tastes, it becomes incoherent and scattered. It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations and sentiment with a view to pleasing these gentry. Its chief function is to convince the masses whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information.
And only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd. Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles. But in the end, one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. In this way alone can propaganda be consistent and dynamic in its effects. Only by following these general lines and sticking to them steadfastly with uniform and concise emphasis can final success be reached.
Then one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a persistent policy secures. The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or political nature, depends on the consistency and perseverance with which it is employed. In this respect also, the propaganda organized by our enemies set us an excellent example. It confined itself to a few themes, which were meant exclusively for mass consumption, and it repeated these themes with untiring perseverance. Once these fundamental themes and the manner of placing them before the world were recognized as effective, they adhered to them without the slightest alteration for the whole duration of the war.
At first, all of it appeared to be idiotic in its impudent assertiveness. Later on, it was looked upon as disturbing, but finally, it was believed. But in England, they came to understand something further, namely that the possibility of success in the use of this spiritual weapon consists in the mass employment of it, and that when employed in this way, it brings full returns for the large expenses incurred. In England, propaganda was regarded as a weapon of the first order, whereas with us, it represented the last hope of a livelihood for our unemployed politicians and a snug job for shirkers of the modest hero type.
Taken all in all, its results were negative.
File 21. The parliamentary regime became one of the causes why the strength of the Habsburg state steadily declined during the last years of its existence. The more the predominance of the German element was whittled away through parliamentary procedure, the more prominent became the system of playing off one of the various constituent nationalities against the other. In the imperial parliament, it was always the German element that suffered through the system, which meant that the results were detrimental to the empire as a whole. For at the close of the century, even the most simple minded people could recognize that the cohesive forces within the dual monarchy no longer suffice to counterbalance the separatist tendencies of the provincial nationalities.
On the contrary, the measures which the state adopted for its own maintenance became more and more mean spirited. And in a like degree, the general disrespect for the state increased. Not only Hungary, but also the various Slav provinces gradually ceased to identify themselves with the monarchy which embraced them all. And, accordingly, they did not feel its weakness as in any way detrimental to themselves. They rather welcome those manifestations of senile decay. They looked forward to the final dissolution of the state and not to its recovery.
The complete collapse was still forestalled in parliament by the humiliating concessions that were made to every kind of importunate demands at the cost of the German element. Throughout the country, the defense of the state rested on playing off the various nationalities against one another. But the general trend of this development was directed against the Germans, especially since the right of succession to the throne conferred certain influence on the arch duke Franz Ferdinand. The policy of increasing the power of the checks was carried out systematically from the upper grades of the administration down to the lower.
With all the means at his command, the heir to the dual monarchy personally furthered the policy that aimed at eliminating the influence of the German element, or at least he acted as protector of that policy. By the use of state officials as tools, purely German districts were gradually but decisively brought within the danger zone of the mixed languages. Even in Lower Austria, this process began to make headway with a constantly increasing tempo, and Vienna was looked upon by the Czechs as their biggest city. In the family circle of this new Hapsburger, the Czech language was favored.
The wife of the archduke had formerly been a Czech countess and was wedded to the prince by a morganatic marriage. She came from an environment where hostility to the Germans had been traditional. The leading idea in the mind of the archduke was to establish a Slav state in Central Europe, which was to be constructed on a purely Catholic basis so as to serve as a bulwark against Orthodox Russia. As it happened often in Habsburg history, religion was thus exploited to serve a purely political policy, and in this case, a fatal policy, at least as far as German interests were concerned.
The result was lamentable in many respects. Neither the house of Habsburg nor the Catholic church received the reward which they expected. Habsburg lost the throne, and the church lost a great state. By employing religious motives in the service of politics, a spirit was aroused which the instigators of that policy had never thought possible. From the attempt to exterminate Germanism in the old monarchy by every available means arose the Pan German movement in Austria as a response. In the eighties of the last century, Manchester liberalism, which was Jewish in its fundamental ideas, had reached the zenith of its influence in the dual monarchy or had already passed that point.
The reaction which set in did not arise from social, but from nationalistic tendencies, as was always the case in the old Austria. The instinct of self preservation drove the German element to defend itself energetically. Economic considerations only slowly began to gain an important influence, but they were of secondary concern. But of the general political chaos, two party organizations emerged. The one was more of a national and the other more of a social character, but both were highly interesting and instructive for the future.
After the war of eighteen sixty six, which had resulted in the humiliation of Austria, the house of Habsburg contemplated a on the battlefield. Only the tragic end of the emperor Maximilian of Mexico prevented a still closer collaboration with France. The chief blame for Maximilian's disastrous expedition was attributed to Napoleon the third, and the fact that the Frenchman left him in the lurch aroused a general feeling of indignation. Yet the Habsburgs were still lying in wait for their opportunity. If the war of eighteen seventy to seventy one had not been such a singular triumph, the Viennese court might have chanced the game of blood in order to get its revenge for Sadawa.
But when the first reports arrived from the Franco German battlefield, which though true seemed miraculous and almost incredible, the most wise of all monarchs recognized that the moment was inopportune and tried to accept the unfavorable situation with as good a grace as possible. The heroic conflict of those two years, eighteen seventy to seventy one, produced a still greater miracle. For with the Habsburgs, the change of attitude never came from an inner heartfelt urge, but only from the pressure of circumstances. The German people of the Eastmark, however, were entranced by the triumphant glory of the newly established German Empire, and were profoundly moved when they saw the dream of their father's resurgent in a magnificent reality.
For, let us make no mistake about it, the true German Austrian realized from this time onward that was the tragic though necessary precondition for the reestablishment of an empire which should no longer be burdened with the palsy of the old alliance and which indeed had no share in that morbid decay. Above all, the German Austrian had come to feel in the very depths of his own being that the historical mission of the house of Habsburg had come to an end, and that the new empire could choose only an emperor who was of heroic mold and was therefore worthy to wear the crown of the Rhine.
It was right and just that destiny should be praised for having chosen a scion of that house which Frederick the Great had in past times given the nation an elevated and resplendent symbol for all time to come. After the great war of eighteen seventy, seventy one, the house of Habsburg set to work with all its determination to exterminate the dangerous German element about whose inner feelings and attitude there could be no doubt, slowly but deliberately. I use the word exterminate because that alone expresses what must have been the final result of the Slavophile policy.
Then it was that the fire of rebellion blazed up among the people whose extermination had been decreed. That fire was such as had never been witnessed in modern German history. For the first time, nationalists and patriots were transformed into rebels. Not rebels against the nation or the state as such, but rebels against that form of government which they were convinced would inevitably bring about the ruin of their own people. For the first time in modern history, the traditional dynastic patriotism and national love of fatherland and people were in open conflict.
It was to the merit of the Pan German movement in Austria during the closing decade of the last century that it pointed out clearly and unequivocally that a state is entitled to demand respect and protection for its authority only when such authority is administered in accordance with the interests of the nation, or at least not in a manner detrimental to those interests. The authority of the state can never be an end in itself. For if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred. If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right, but also the duty of every individual citizen.
The question of whether and when such a situation exists cannot be answered by theoretical dissertations, but only by the exercise of force. And it is success that decides the issue. Every government, even though it may be the worst possible, and even though it may have betrayed the nation's trust in thousands of ways, will claim that its duty is to uphold the authority of the state. Its adversaries, who are fighting for national self preservation, must use the same weapons which the government uses if they are to prevail against such a rule and secure their own freedom and independence. Therefore, the conflict will not be fought out with legal means as long as the power which is to be overthrown uses them.
But the insurgents will not hesitate to apply illegal means if the oppressor himself employs them. File 22. Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a state of government, but rather the conservation of the race. If the race is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated, the question of legality is only of secondary importance. The established power may, in such a case, employ only those means which are recognized as legal, yet the instinct of self preservation on the part of the oppressed will always justify to the highest degree the employment of all possible resources.
Only on the recognition of this principle was it possible for those struggles to be carried through of which history furnishes magnificent examples in abundance against foreign bondage or oppression at home? Human rights are above the rights of the state. But if a people be defeated in the struggle for its human rights, this means that its weight has proved too light in the scale of destiny to have the luck of being able to endure in this terrestrial world. The world is not there to be possessed by the faint hearted races. Austria affords a very clear and striking example of how easy it is for tyranny to hide its head under the cloak of what is called legality.
The legal exercise of power in the Habsburg state was then based on the anti German attitude of the parliament with its non German majorities, and on the dynastic house, which was also hostile to the German element. The whole authority of the state was incorporated in these two factors. To attempt to alter the lot of the German element through these two factors would have been senseless. Those who advised the legal way as the only possible way and also obedience to the state authority could offer no resistance because a policy of resistance could not have been put into effect through legal measures.
To follow the advice of the legalist counselors would have meant the inevitable ruin of the German element within the monarchy, and this disaster would not have taken long to come. The German element has actually been saved only because the state as such collapsed. The spectacle theorist would have given his life for his doctrine rather than for his people. Because man has made laws, he subsequently comes to think that he exists for the sake of the laws. A great service rendered by the Pan German movement was that it abolished all such nonsense, though the doctrinaire theorists and other fetish worshipers were shocked.
When the Habsburgs attempted to come to close quarters with the German element by the employment of all the means of attack which they had at their command, the Pan German party hit out ruthlessly against the illustrious dynasty. This party was the first to probe into and expose the corrupt condition of the state. And in doing so, they opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands. To have liberated the high ideal of love for one's country from the embrace of this deplorable dynasty was one of the great services rendered by the Pan Germanic movement. When that party first made its appearance, it secured a large following.
Indeed, the movement threatened to become almost an avalanche. But the first successes were not maintained. At the time I came to Vienna, the Pan German party had been eclipsed by the Christian socialist party, which had come into power in the meantime. Indeed, the Pan German party had sunk to a level of almost complete insignificance. The rise and decline of the Pan German movement on the one hand and the marvelous progress of the Christian socialist party on the other became a classic object of study for me, and as such, they played an important part in the development of my own views.
When I came to Vienna, all my sympathies were exclusively with the Pan German movement. I was just as much impressed by the fact that they had the courage to shout Heil Hohenzollern as I rejoiced at their determination to consider themselves an integral part of the German Empire from which they were separated only provisionally. They never missed an opportunity to explain their attitude in public, which raised my enthusiasm and confidence. To avow one's principles publicly on every problem that concern Germanism, and never to make any compromises, seemed to me the only way of saving our people.
What I could not understand was how this movement broke down so soon after such a magnificent start. And it was no less incomprehensible that the Christian socialists should gain such tremendous power within such a short time. They had just reached the pinnacle of their popularity. When I began to compare those two movements, fate placed before me the best means of understanding the causes of this puzzling problem. The action of fate, in this case, was hastened by my own straightened circumstances. I shall begin my analysis with an account of the two men who must be regarded as the founders and leaders of the two movements.
These were Georgy van Schoenera and doctor Carl Lugar. As far as personality goes, both were far above the level and stature of the so called parliamentary figures. They lived lives of immaculate and irreproachable probity amidst the miasma of all round political corruption. Personally, I first liked the Pan German representative, Schoener, and it was only afterwards and gradually that I felt an equal liking for the Christian socialist leader. When I compare their respective abilities, Schoenera seemed to me a better and more profound thinker on fundamental problems.
He foresaw the inevitable downfall of the Austrian state more clearly and accurately than anyone else. If this warning in regard to the Habsburg Empire had been heeded in Germany, the disastrous World War, which involved Germany against the whole of Europe, would never have taken place. But though Schonerer succeeded in penetrating to the essentials of a problem, He was very often much mistaken in his judgment of men. And herein lay doctor Luger's special talent. He had a rare gift of insight into human nature, and he was very careful not to take men as something better than they were in reality. He based his plans on the practical possibilities which human life offered him, whereas Schoenerer had only little discrimination in that respect.
All ideas that this Pan German had were right in the abstract, but he did not have the forcefulness or understanding necessary to put his ideas across to the broad masses. He was not able to formulate them so that they could be easily grasped by the masses whose powers of comprehension are limited and will always remain so. Therefore, all Schoenerer's knowledge was only the wisdom of a prophet, and he never could succeed in having it put into practice. This lack of insight into human nature led him to form a wrong estimate of the forces behind certain movements and the inherent strength of old institutions.
Schonerer indeed realized that the problems he had to deal with were in the nature of a Welt Anschlauung but he did not understand that only the broad masses of a nation can make such convictions prevail, which are almost of a religious nature. Unfortunately, he understood only very imperfectly how feeble is the fighting spirit of the so called bourgeoisie. That weakness is due to their business interests, which individuals are too much afraid of risking, and which therefore deter them from taking action. And, generally speaking, a can have no prospect of success unless the broad masses declare themselves ready to act as its standard bearers, and to fight on its behalf wherever and to whatever extent that may be necessary.
This failure to understand the importance of the lower strata of the population resulted in a very inadequate concept of the social problem. In all this, doctor Luger was the opposite of Schoenerer. His profound knowledge of human nature enabled him to form a correct estimate of the various social forces, and it saved him from underrating the power of existing institutions. And it was perhaps this very quality which enabled him to utilize those institutions as a means to serve the purposes of his policy. He saw only too clearly that in our epoch, the political fighting power of the upper classes is quite insignificant and not at all capable of fighting for a great new movement until the triumph for that movement be secured.
Thus, he devoted the greatest part of his political activity to the task of winning over those sections of the population whose existence was in danger and fostering the militant spirit in them rather than attempting to paralyze it. He was also quick to adopt all available means for winning the support of long established institutions so as to be able to derive the greatest possible advantage for his movement from those old sources of power. Thus it was. First of all, he chose as the social basis of his new party, that middle class which was threatened with extinction.
In this way, he secured a solid following, which was willing to make great sacrifices and had good fighting stamina. His extremely wise attitude towards the Catholic church rapidly won over the younger clergy in such large numbers that the old clerical party was forced to retire from the field of action, or else, which was the wiser course, to join the new party in the hope of gradually winning back one position after another. But it would be a serious injustice to the man if we were to regard this as his essential characteristic, for he possessed the qualities of an able tactician and had the true genius of a great reformer.
But all these were limited by his exact perception of the possibilities at hand and also of his own capabilities. The aims which this really eminent man decided to pursue were intensely practical. He wished to conquer Vienna, the heart of the monarchy. It was from Vienna that the last pulses of life beat through the diseased and worn out body of the decrepit empire. If the heart could be made healthier, the other parts of the body were bound to revive. That idea was correct in principle, but the time within which it could be applied in practice was strictly limited, and that was the man's weak point.
His achievements as Bogomaster of the city of Vienna are immortal in the best sense of the word, but all that could not save the monarchy. It came too late. His rival, Schoenerer, saw this more clearly. What doctor Luger undertook to put into practice turned out marvelously successful, but the results which he expected to follow these achievements did not come. Schonerer did not attain the ends he had proposed to himself, but his fears were realized, alas, in a terrible fashion. Thus, both these men failed to attain their further objective. Lueger could not save Austria, and Schonerer could not prevent the downfall of the German people in Austria.
File 23. To study the causes of failure in the case of these two parties is to learn a lesson that is highly instructive for our own epoch. This is especially useful for my friends because in many points, the circumstances of our own day are similar to those of that time. Therefore, such a lesson may help us to guard against the mistakes which brought one of those movements to an end and rendered the other barren of results. In my opinion, the wreck of the Pan German movement in Austria must be attributed to three causes. The first of these consisted in the fact that the leaders did not have a clear concept of the importance of the social problem, particularly for a new movement which had an essentially revolutionary character.
Schoenigher and his followers directed their attention principally to the bourgeois classes. For that reason, their movement was bound to turn out mediocre and tame. The German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper circles, is pacifist even to the point of complete self abnegation, though the individual may not be aware of this, wherever the internal affairs of the nation or state are concerned. In good times, which in this case means times of good government, such a psychological attitude makes this social layer extraordinarily valuable to the state.
But when there is a bad government, such a quality has a destructive effect. In order to assure the possibility of carrying through a really strenuous struggle, the Pan German movement should have devoted its efforts to winning over the masses. The failure to do this left the movement from the very beginning without the elementary impulse which such a wave needs if it is not to ebb within a short while. In failing to see the truth of this principle clearly at the very outset of the movement and in neglecting to put it into practice, the new party made an initial mistake which could not possibly be rectified afterwards.
For the numerous moderate bourgeois elements admitted into the movements increasingly determined its internal orientation, and thus forestalled all further prospects of gaining any appreciable support among the masses of the people. Under such conditions, such a movement could not get beyond mere discussion and criticism. Quasi religious faith and the spirit of sacrifice were not to be found in the movement anymore. Their place was taken by the effort towards positive collaboration, which in this case meant the acknowledgment of the existing state of affairs, gradually whittling away the rough corners of the questions in dispute and ending up with the making of a dishonorable piece.
Such was the fate of the Pan German movement because at the start, the leaders did not realize that the most important condition of success was that they should recruit their following from the broad masses of the people. The movement thus became bourgeois and respectable and radical only in moderation. From this failure resulted the second cause of its rapid decline. The position of the Germans in Austria was already desperate when pan Germanism arose. Year after year, parliament was being used more and more as an instrument for the gradual extinction of the German Austrian population.
The only hope for any eleventh hour effort to save it lay in the overthrow of the parliamentary system, but there was very little prospect of this happening. Therewith, the Pan German movement was confronted with a question of primary importance. To overthrow the parliament, should the Pan Germanists have entered it to undermine it from within as the current phrase was, or should they have assailed the institution as such from the outside? They entered the parliament and came out defeated. But they had found themselves obliged to enter.
For in order to wage an effective war against such a power from the outside, Indomitable courage and a ready spirit of sacrifice were necessary weapons. In such cases, the bull must be seized by the horns. Furious drives may bring the assailant to the ground again and again. But if he has a stout heart, he will stand up, even though some bones may be broken, and only after a long and tough struggle will he achieve his triumph. New champions are attracted to a cause by the appeal of great sacrifices made for its sake until that indomitable spirit is finally crowned with success.
For such a result, however, the children of the people from the great masses are necessary. They alone have the requisite determination and tenacity to fight a sanguinary issue through to the end. But the Pan German movement did not have these broad masses as its champions, and so no other means of solution could be tried out except that of entering parliament. It would be a mistake to think that this decision resulted from a long series of internal hesitations of a moral kind or that it was the outcome of careful calculation. No.
They did not even think of another solution. Those who participated in this blunder were actuated by general considerations and vague notions as to what would be the significance and effect of taking part in such a special way in that institution which they had condemned on principle. In general, they hoped that they would thus have the means of expanding their cause to the great masses of the people because they would be able to speak before the forum of the whole nation. Also, it seemed reasonable to believe that by attacking the evil in the root, they would be more effective than if the attack came from outside.
They believed that if protected by the immunity of parliament, the position of the individual protagonists would be strengthened, and that, thus, the force of their attacks would be enhanced. In reality, everything turned out quite otherwise. The forum before which the Pan German representative spoke had not grown greater, but had actually become smaller, for each spoke only to the circle that was ready to listen to him, or could read the report of his speech in the newspapers. But the greater forum of immediate listeners is not the parliamentary auditorium.
It is the large public meeting. For here alone will there be thousands of men who have come simply to hear what a speaker has to say. Whereas in the parliamentary sittings, only a few 100 are present. And for the most part, these are there only to earn their daily allowance for attendance and not be enlightened by the wisdom of one or other of the representatives of the people. The most important consideration is that the same public is always present, and that this public does not wish to learn anything new. Because setting aside the question of its intelligence, it lacks even that modest quantum of will power which is necessary for the effort of learning.
Not one of the representatives of the people will pay homage to a superior truth and devote himself to its service. No. Not one of these gentry will act thus, except he has grounds for hoping that by such a conversion, he may be able to retain the representation of his constituency in the coming legislature. Therefore, only when it becomes quite clear that the old party is likely to have a bad time of it at the forthcoming elections, only then will those models of manly virtue set out in search of a new party or a new policy which may have better electoral prospects.
But, of course, this change of position will be accompanied by a veritable deluge of high moral motives to justify it. And thus, it always happens that when an existing party has incurred such general disfavor among the public that it is threatened with the probability of a crushing defeat, then a great migration commences. The parliamentary rats leave the party ship. All this happens not because the individuals in the case have become better informed on the questions the and enables him to hop into another warm party bed. To speak before such a forum signifies casting pearls before certain animals.
Verily, it does not repay the pains taken, for the result must always be negative. And that is actually what happened. The Pan German representatives might have talked themselves hoarse, but to no effect whatsoever. The press either ignored them totally, or so mutilated their speeches that the logical consistency was destroyed, or the meaning twisted round in such a way that the public got only a very wrong impression regarding the aims of the new movement. What the individual members said was not of importance. The important matter was what people read as coming from them.
This consisted of mere extracts, which had been torn out of the context of the speeches and gave an impression of incoherent nonsense, which indeed was purposely meant. Thus, the only public before which they really spoke consisted merely of 500 parliamentarians, and that says enough. The worst was the following. The Pan German movement could hope for success only if the leaders realized from the very first moment that here there was no question so much of a new party as of a new. This alone could arouse the inner moral forces that were necessary for such a gigantic struggle. And for this struggle, the leaders must be men of first class brains and indomitable courage.
If the struggle on behalf of a Welt Anschlung is not conducted by men of heroic spirit, who are ready to sacrifice everything, within a short while it will become impossible to find real fighting followers who are ready to lay down their lives for the cause. A man who fights only for his own existence has not much left over for the service of the community. In order to secure the conditions that are necessary for success, everybody concerned must be made to understand that the new movement looks to posterity for its honor and glory, but that it has no recompense to offer to the present day members.
If a movement should offer a large number of positions and offices that are easily accessible, The number of unworthy candidates admitted to membership will be constantly on the increase. And, eventually, a day will come when there will be such a preponderance of political profiteers among the membership of a successful party that the combatants who bore the brunt of the battle in the early stages of the movement can now scarcely recognize their own party and may be ejected by the later arrivals as unwanted ballast.
Therewith, the movement will no longer have a mission to fulfill. File 24. Once the Pan Germanists decided to collaborate with parliament, they were no longer leaders and combatants in a popular movement, but merely parliamentarians. Thus, the movement sank to the common political party level of the day, and no longer had the strength to face a hostile fate and defy the risk of martyrdom. Instead of fighting, the Pan German leaders fell into the habit of talking and negotiating. The new parliamentarians soon found that it was a more satisfactory, because less risky way of fulfilling their task if they would defend the new Weltanschwang with a spiritual weapon of parliamentary rhetoric rather than take up a fight in which they placed their lives in danger.
The outcome of which also was uncertain, and even at the best could offer no prospect of personal gain for themselves. When they had taken their seats in parliament, their adherents outside hoped and waited for miracles to happen. Naturally, no such miracles happened or could happen. Whereupon the adherence of the movement soon grew impatient because reports they read about their own deputies did not in the least come up to what had been expected when they voted for these deputies at the elections. The reason for this was not far to seek. It was due to the fact that an unfriendly press refrain from giving a true account of what the Pan German representatives of the people were actually doing.
According as the new deputies got to like this mild form of revolutionary struggle in parliament and in the provincial diets, they gradually became reluctant to resume the more hazardous work of expounding the principles of the movement before the broad masses of the people. Mass meetings in public became more and more rare, though these are the only means of exercising a really effective influence upon the people, because here the influence comes from direct personal contact. And in this way, the support of large sections of the people can be obtained. When the tables on which the speakers used to stand in the great beer halls, addressing an assembly of thousands were deserted for the parliamentary tribune, and the speeches were no longer addressed to the people directly, but to the so called chosen representatives.
The pan German movement lost its popular character, and in a little while degenerated to the level of a more or less serious club where problems of the day are discussed academically. The wrong impression created by the press was no longer corrected by personal contact with the people through public meetings, whereby the individual representatives might have given a true account of their activities. The final result of this neglect was that the word Pan German came to have an unpleasant sound in the ears of the masses. The knights of the pen and the literary snobs of today should be made to realize that the great transformations which have taken place in this world were never conducted by a goose quill.
No. The task of the pen must always be that of presenting the theoretical concepts which motivate such changes. The force which has ever and always set in motion great historical avalanches of religious and political movements is the magic power of the spoken word. The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions stirred into activity by the ruthless goddess of distress, or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.
In no case have great movements been set a foot by the syrupy effusions of aesthetic literatures and drawing room heroes. The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of glowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others. It is only through the capacity for passionate feeling that chosen leaders can wield the power of the word, which like hammer blows will open the door to the hearts of the people. He who is not capable of passionate feeling and speech was never chosen by Providence to be the herald of its will.
Therefore, a writer should stick to his ink bottle and busy himself with theoretical questions if he has the requisite ability and knowledge. He has not been born or chosen to be a leader. A movement which has great ends to achieve must carefully guard against the danger of losing contact with the masses of the people. Every problem encountered must be examined from this viewpoint first of all, and the decision to be made must always be in harmony with this principle. The movement must avoid everything which might lessen or weaken its power of influencing the masses. Not from demagogical motives, but because of the simple fact that no great idea, no matter how sublime and exalted it may appear, can be realized in practice without the effective power which resides in the popular masses.
Stern reality alone must mark the way to the goal. To be unwilling to walk the road of hardship means only too often in this world the total renunciation of our aims and purposes, whether that renunciation be consciously willed or not. The moment the Pan German leaders, in virtue of their acceptance of the parliamentary principle, moved the center of their activities away from the people and into parliament, in that moment, they sacrificed the future for the sake of cheap momentary success. They chose the easier way in the struggle, and in doing so, rendered themselves unworthy of the final victory.
While in Vienna, I used to ponder seriously over these two questions, and I saw that the main reason for the collapse of the Pan German movement lay in the fact that these very questions were not rightly appreciated. To my mind, at that time, the movement seemed chosen to take in its hands the leadership of the German element in Austria. These first two blunders, which led to the downfall of the Pan German movement, were very closely connected with one another. Faulty recognition of the inner driving forces that urge great movements forward led to an inadequate appreciation of the part which the broad masses play in bringing about such changes.
The result was that too little attention was given to the social problem, and that the attempts made by the movement to capture the minds of the lower classes were too few and too weak. Another result was the acceptance of the parliamentary policy, which had a similar effect in regard to the importance of the masses. If there had been a proper appreciation of the tremendous powers of endurance always shown by the masses in revolutionary movements, a different attitude towards the social problem would have been taken, and also a different policy in the matter of propaganda.
Then the center of gravity of the movement would not have been transferred to the parliament, but would have remained in the workshops and in the streets. There was a third mistake, which also had its roots in the failure to understand the worth of the masses. The masses are first set in motion along a definite direction by men of superior talents. But then these masses, once in motion, are like a flywheel in as much as they sustain the momentum and steady balance of the offensive. The policy of the Pan German leaders in deciding to carry through a difficult fight against the Catholic church can be explained only by attributing it to an inadequate understanding of the spiritual character of the people.
The reasons why the new party engaged in a violent campaign against Rome were as follows. As soon as the house of Habsburg had definitely decided to transform Austria into a Slav state, All sorts of means were adopted, which seemed in any way serviceable for that purpose. The Habsburg rulers had no scruples of conscience about exploiting even religious institutions in the service of this new state idea. One of the many methods thus employed was the use of Czech parishes and their clergy as instruments for spreading Slav hegemony throughout Austria.
This proceeding was carried out as follows. Parish priests of Czech nationality were appointed in purely German districts. Gradually, but steadily pushing forward the interests of the Czech people before those of the church, the parishes and their priests became generative cells in the process of de Germanization. Unfortunately, the German Austrian clergy completely failed to counter this procedure. Not only were they incapable of taking a similar initiative on the German side, but they showed themselves unable to meet the Czech offensive with adequate resistance.
The German element was accordingly pushed backwards slowly but steadily through the perversion of religious belief for political ends on the one side, and the jack of proper resistance on the other side. Such were the tactics used in dealing with the smaller problems, but those used in dealing with the larger problems were not very different. The anti German aims pursued by the Habsburgs, especially through the instrumentality of the higher clergy, did not meet with any vigorous resistance, while the clerical representatives of the German interests withdrew completely to the rear.
The general impression created could not be other than that the Catholic clergy as such were grossly neglecting the rights of the German population. Therefore, it looked as if the Catholic church was not in sympathy with the German people, but that it unjustly supported their adversaries. The root of the whole evil, especially according to opinion, lay in the fact that the leadership of the Catholic church was not in Germany, and that this fact alone was sufficient reason for the hostile attitude of the church towards the demands of our people. The so called cultural problem receded almost completely into the background as was generally the case everywhere throughout Austria at that time.
In assuming a hostile attitude towards the Catholic church, the Pan German leaders were influenced not so much by the church's position in questions of science, but principally by the fact that the church did not defend German rights as it should have done, but always supported those who encroached on these rights, especially the Slavs. Was not a man who did things by halves. He went into battle against the church because he was convinced that this was the only way in which the German people could be saved. The Los von Romm, away from Rome, movement seemed the most formidable, but at the same time most difficult method of attacking and destroying the adversary's Citadel.
Schonerer believed that if this movement could be carried through successfully, the unfortunate division between the two great religious denominations in Germany would be wiped out, and that the inner forces of the German Empire and nation would be enormously enhanced by such a victory. But the premises as well as the conclusions in this case were both erroneous. File 25. It was undoubtedly true that the national powers of resistance in everything concerning Germanism as such were much weaker among the German Catholic clergy than among their non German confreres, especially the Czechs.
And only an ignorant person could be unaware of the fact that it scarcely ever entered the mind of the German clergy to take the offensive on behalf of German interests. But at the same time, everybody who is not blind to facts must admit that all this should be attributed to a characteristic under which we Germans have been all doomed to suffer. This characteristic shows itself in our objective way of regarding our own nationality as if it were something that lay outside of us. While the Czech priest adopted a subjective attitude towards his own people and only an objective attitude towards the church, the German parish priest showed a subjective devotion to his church and remained objective in regard to his nation.
It is a phenomenon which, unfortunately, for us, can be observed occurring in exactly the same way in thousands of other cases. It is by no means a peculiar inheritance from Catholicism, but it is something in us which does not take long to gnaw the vitals of almost every institution, especially institutions of state and those which have ideal aims. Take, for example, the attitude of our state officials in regard to the efforts made for bringing about a national resurgence, and compare that attitude with the stand which the public officials of any other nation would have taken in such a case?
Or is it to be believed that the military officers of any other country in the world would refuse to come forward on behalf of the national aspirations, but would rather hide behind the phrase authority of the state as has been the case in our country during the last five years, and has even been deemed a meritorious attitude. Or let us take another example in regard to the Jewish problem. Do not the two Christian denominations take up a standpoint today which does not respond to the national exigencies or even the interests of religion? Consider the attitude of a Jewish rabbi towards any question, even one of quite insignificant importance, concerning the Jews as a race, and compare his attitude with that of the majority of our clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant.
We observe the same phenomenon whenever it is a matter of standing up for some abstract idea. Authority of the state, democracy, pacifism, international solidarity, etcetera. All such notions become rigid dogmatic concepts with us, and the more vital the general necessities of the nation, the more will they be judged exclusively in the light of those concepts. This unfortunate habit of looking at all national demands from the viewpoint of a preconceived notion makes it impossible for us to see the subjective side of a thing which objectively contradicts one's own doctrine.
It finally leads to a complete reversion in the relation of means to an end. Any attempt at a national revival will be opposed if the preliminary condition of such a revival be that a bad and pernicious regime must first of all be overthrown, because such an action will be considered as a violation of the authority of the state. In the eyes of those who take that standpoint, the authority of the state is not a means which is there to serve an end, but rather to the mind of the dogmatic believer in objectivity. It is an end in itself, and he looks upon that as sufficient apology for his own miserable existence.
Such people would raise an outcry if, for instance, anyone should attempt to set up a dictatorship, even though the man responsible for it were Frederick the Great. And even though the politicians for the time being who constituted the parliamentary majority were small and incompetent men, or maybe even on a lower grade of inferiority. Because to such sticklers for abstract principles, the law of democracy is more sacred than the welfare of the nation. In accordance with his principles, one of these gentry will defend the worst kind of tyranny, though it may be leading a people to ruin, because it is the fleeting embodiment of the authority of the State.
And another will reject even a highly beneficent government, if it should happen not to be in accord with his own notion of democracy. In the same way, our German pacifist will remain silent while the nation is groaning under an oppression which is being exercised by a sanguinary military power when this state of affairs gives rise to active resistance, because such resistance means the employment of physical force, which is against the spirit of the pacifist associations. The German international socialist may be rooked and plundered by his comrades in all the other countries of the world in the name of solidarity, but he responds with fraternal kindness and never thinks of trying to get his own back or even of defending himself.
And why? Because he is a German. It may be unpleasant to dwell on such truths, but if something is to be changed, we must start by diagnosing the disease. The phenomenon which I have just described also accounts for the feeble manner in which German interests are promoted and defended by a section of the clergy. Such conduct is not the manifestation of a malicious intent, nor is it the outcome of orders given from above, as we say. But such a lack of national grit and determination is due to defects in our educational system.
For instead of inculcating in the youth a lively sense of their German nationality, the aim of the educational system is to make the youth prostrate themselves in homage to the idea as if the idea were an idol. The education which makes them the devotees of such abstract notions as democracy, international socialism, pacifism, etcetera, is so hard and fast and exclusive and operating as it does from within bulwarks, is so purely subjective that informing their general picture of outside life as a whole, they are fundamentally influenced by these a priori notions.
But on the other hand, the attitude towards their own German nationality has been very objective from youth upwards. The pacifist, insofar as he is a German, who surrenders himself subjectively body and soul to the dictates of his dogmatic principles, will always first consider the objective right or wrong of a situation when danger threatens his own people, even though that danger be grave and unjustly wrought from outside. But he will never take his stand in the ranks of his own people and fight for and with them from the sheer instinct of self preservation.
Another example may further illustrate how far this applies to the different religious denominations. Insofar as its origin and tradition are based on German ideals, Protestantism of itself defends those ideals better. But it fails the moment it is called upon to defend national interests, which do not belong to the sphere of its ideals and traditional development, or which, for some reason or other, may be rejected by that sphere. Therefore, Protestantism will always take its part in promoting German ideals as far as concerns moral integrity or national education, when the German spiritual being or language or spiritual freedom are to be defended because these represent the principles on which Protestantism itself is grounded.
But this same Protestantism violently opposes every attempt to rescue the nation from the clutches of its mortal enemy, because the Protestant attitude towards the Jews is more or less rigidly and dogmatically fixed. And yet this is the first problem which has to be solved unless all attempts to bring about a German resurgence or to raise the level of the nation's standing are doomed to turn out nonsensical and impossible. During my sojourn in Vienna, I had ample leisure and opportunity to study this problem without allowing any prejudices to intervene.
And in my daily intercourse with people, I was able to establish the correctness of the opinion I formed by the test of thousands of instances. In this focus, where the greatest varieties of nationality had converged, it was quite clear and open to everybody to see that the German pacifist was always and exclusively the one who tried to consider the interests of his own nation objectively. But you could never find a Jew who took a similar attitude towards his own race. Furthermore, I found that only the German socialist is international in the sense that he feels himself obliged not to demand justice for his own people in any other manner than by whining and wailing to his international comrades.
Nobody could ever reproach Czechs or Poles or other nations with such conduct. In short, even at that time, already I recognized that this evil is only partly a result of the doctrines taught by socialism, pacifism, etcetera, but mainly the result of our totally inadequate system of education, the defects of which are responsible for the lack of devotion to our own national ideals. Therefore, the first theoretical argument advanced by the Pan German leaders as the basis of their offensive against Catholicism was quite untenable.
The only way to remedy the evil I have been speaking of is to train the Germans from youth upwards to an absolute recognition of the rights of their own people instead of poisoning their minds while they are still only children with the virus of this curved objectivity even in matters concerning the very maintenance of our own existence. The result of this would be that the Catholic in Germany, just as in Ireland, Poland, or France, will be a German first and foremost. But all this presupposes a radical change in the national government. The strongest proof in support of my contention is furnished by what took place at that historical juncture when our people were called for the last time before the tribunal of history to defend their own existence in a life or death struggle.
As long as there was no lack of leadership in the higher circles, the people fulfilled their duty and obligations to an overwhelming extent, whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest each did his very utmost in helping our powers of resistance to hold out, not only in the trenches, but also, and even more so, at home. During those years, and especially during the first outburst of enthusiasm, in both religious camps, there was one undivided and sacred German empire for whose preservation and future existence they all prayed to heaven. The Pan German movement in Austria ought to have asked itself this one question.
Is the maintenance of the German element in Austria possible or not, as long as that element remains within the fold of the Catholic faith? If that question should have been answered in the affirmative, then the political party should not have meddled in religious and denominational questions. But if the question had to be answered in the negative, then a religious reformation should have been started and not a political party movement. File 26. Anyone who believes that a religious reformation can be achieved through the agency of a political organization shows that he has no idea of the development of religious conceptions and doctrines of faith and how these are given practical effect by the church.
No man can serve two masters, and I hold that the foundation or overthrow of a religion has far greater consequences than the foundation or overthrow of a state, to say nothing of a party. It is no argument to the contrary to say that the attacks were only defensive measures against attacks from the other side. Undoubtedly, there have always been unscrupulous rogues who did not hesitate to degrade religion to the base uses of politics. Nearly always, such a people had nothing else in their minds except to make a business of religions and politics.
But on the other hand, it would be wrong to hold religion itself or a religious denomination responsible for a number of rascals who exploit the church for their own base interests just as they would exploit anything else in which they had a part. Nothing could be more to the taste of one of these parliamentary loungers and tricksters than to be able to find a scapegoat for his political sharp practice after the event, of course. The moment religion or a religious denomination is attacked and made responsible for his personal misdeeds, This shrewd fellow will raise a row at once and call the world to witness how justified he was in acting as he did, proclaiming that he and his eloquence alone have saved religion and the church.
The public, which is mostly stupid and has a very short memory, is not capable of recognizing the real instigator of the quarrel in the midst of the turmoil that has been raised. Frequently, he does not remember the beginning of the fight, and so the rogue gets by with his stunt. A cunning fellow of that sort is quite well aware that his misdeeds have nothing to do with religion. And so he will laugh up his sleeve all the more heartily when his honest but artless adversary loses the game, and one day losing all faith in humanity retires from the activities of public life.
But from another viewpoint also, it would be wrong to make religion or the church as such responsible for the misdeeds of individuals. If one compares the magnitude of the organization as it stands visible to every eye with the average weakness of human nature, we shall have to admit that the proportion of good to bad is more favorable here than anywhere else. Among the priests, there may, of course, be some who use their sacred calling to further their political ambitions. There are clergy who unfortunately forget that in the political melee, they ought to be the paladins of the more sublime truths and not the abettors of falsehood and slander.
But for each one of these unworthy specimens, we can find a thousand or more who fulfill their mission nobly as the trustworthy guardians of souls and who tower above the level of our corrupt epoch as little islands above the sea swamp. I cannot condemn the church as such, and I should feel quite as little justified in doing so if some depraved person in the robe of a priest commits some offense against the moral law. Nor should I, for a moment, think of blaming the church if one of its innumerable members betrays and besmirches his compatriots, especially not in epochs when such conduct is quite common.
We must not forget we must not forget, particularly our day, that for one such, there are a thousand whose hearts bleed in sympathy with their people during these years of misfortune, and who, together with the best of our nation, yearn for the hour when fortune will smile on us again. If it be objected that here we are concerned not with the petty problems of everyday life, but principally with fundamental truths and questions of dogma, the only way of answering that objection is to ask a question. Do you feel that providence has called you to proclaim the truth to the world?
If so, then go and do it. But you ought to have the courage to do it directly and not use some political party as your mouthpiece. For in this way, you shirk your vocation. In the place of something that now exists and is bad, put something else that is better and will last into the future. If you lack the requisite courage, or if you yourself do not know clearly what your better substitute ought to be, Leave the whole thing alone. But whatever happens, do not try to reach the goal by the roundabout way of a political party if you are not brave enough to fight with your visor lifted.
Political parties have no right to meddle in religious questions except when these relate to something that is alien to the national well-being and thus calculated to undermine racial customs and morals. If some ecclesiastical dignitaries should misuse religious ceremonies or religious teaching to injure their own nation, their opponents sought never to take the same road and fight them with the same weapons. To a political leader, the religious teachings and practices of his people should be sacred and inviolable. Otherwise, he should not be a statesman, but a reformer if he has the necessary qualities for such a mission.
Any other line of conduct will lead to disaster, especially in Germany. In studying the Pan German movement and its conflict with Rome, I was then firmly persuaded, and especially in the course of later years, that by their failure to understand the importance of the social problem, the Pan Germanists lost the support of the broad masses, who are the indispensable combatants in such a movement. By entering parliament, the Pan German leaders deprived themselves of the great driving force which resides in the masses. And at the same time, they laid on their own shoulders all the defects of a parliamentary institution.
Their struggle against the church made their position impossible in numerous circles of the lower and middle classes, while at the same time it robbed them of innumerable high class elements, some of the best indeed that the nation possessed. The practical outcome of the Austrian Kultyokampf was negative. Although they succeeded in winning 100,000 members away from the church, that did not do much harm to the latter. The church did not really need to shed any tears over these lost sheep, for it lost only those who had, for a long time, ceased to belong to it in their inner hearts. The difference between this new reformation and the great reformation was that in the historic epoch of the great reformation, some of the best members left the church because of religious convictions.
Whereas in this new reformation, only those left who had been indifferent before, and who were now influenced by political considerations. From the political point of view alone, the result was as ridiculous as it was deplorable. Once again, a political movement which had promised so much for the German nation collapsed, because it was not conducted in a spirit of unflinching adherence to naked reality, but lost itself in fields where it was bound to get broken up. The Pan German movement would never have made this mistake if it had properly understood the psyche of the broad masses.
If the leaders had known that, for psychological reasons alone, it is not expedient to place two or more sets of adversaries before the masses, since that leads to a complete splitting up of their fighting strength. They would have concentrated the full and undivided force of their attack against a single adversary. Nothing in the policy of a political party is so fraught with danger as to allow its decisions to be directed by people who want to have their fingers in every pie, though they do not know how to cook the simplest dish. But even though there is much that can really be said against the various religious denominations, Political leaders must not forget that the experience of history teaches us that no purely political party in similar circumstances ever succeeded in bringing about a religious reformation.
One does not study history for the purpose of forgetting or mistrusting its lessons afterwards when the time comes to apply these lessons in practice. It would be a mistake to believe that in this particular case, things were different so that the eternal truths of history were no longer applicable. One learns history in order to be able to apply its lessons to the present time, and whoever fails to do this cannot pretend to be a political leader. In reality, he is quite a superficial person, or as is mostly the case, a conceited simpleton whose good intentions cannot make up for his incompetence in practical affairs.
The art of leadership as displayed by really great popular leaders in all ages consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention into sections. The more the militant energies of the people are directed towards one objective, the more will new recruits join the movement attracted by the magnetism of its unified action, and thus the striking power will be all the more enhanced. The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to the one category.
For weak and wavering natures among a leaders following may easily begin to be dubious about the justice of their own cause if they have to face different enemies. As soon as the vacillating masses find themselves facing an opposition that is made up of different groups of enemies, their sense of objectivity will be aroused, and they will ask how is it that all the others can be in the wrong, and they themselves and their movement alone in the right? Such a feeling would be the first step towards a paralysis of their fighting vigor, Where there are various enemies who are split up into divergent groups, it will be necessary to block them altogether as forming one solid front, so that the mass of followers in a popular movement may see only one common enemy against whom they have to fight.
Such uniformity intensifies their belief in the justice of their own cause and strengthens their feeling of hostility towards the opponent. The Pan German movement was unsuccessful because the leaders did not grasp the significance of that truth. They saw the goal clearly, and their intentions were right, but they took the wrong road. Their action may be compared to that of an alpine climber who never loses sight of the peak he wants to reach, who has set out with the greatest determination and energy, but pays no attention to the road beneath his feet. With his eye always fixed firmly on the goal, he does not think over or notice the nature of the ascent.
And finally, he fails. File 27. The manner in which the great rival of the Pan German party set out to attain its goal was quite different. The way it took was well and shrewdly chosen, but it did not have a clear vision of the goal. In almost all the questions where the pan German movement failed, the policy of the Christian socialist party was correct and systematic. They assessed the importance of the masses correctly, and thus, they gained the support of large numbers of the popular masses by emphasizing the social character of the movement from the very start.
By directing their appeal especially to the lower middle class and the artisans, they gained adherents who were faithful, persevering, and self sacrificing. The Christian socialist leaders took care to avoid all controversy with the institutions of religion, and thus they secured the support of that mighty organization, the Catholic church. Those leaders recognized the value of propaganda on a large scale, and they were veritable virtuosos in working up the spiritual instincts of the broad masses of their adherence. The failure of this party to carry into effect the dream of saving Austria from dissolution must be attributed to two main defects in the means they employed, and also the lack of a clear perception of the ends they wished to reach.
The antisemitism of the Christian socialists was based on religious instead of racial principles. The reason for this mistake gave rise to the second error also. The founders of the Christian Socialist Party were of the opinion that they could not base their position on the racial principle if they wish to save Austria because they felt that a general disintegration of the state might quickly result from the adoption of such a policy. In the opinion of the party chiefs, the situation in Vienna demanded that all factors which tended to estrange the nationalists from one another should be carefully avoided, and that all factors making for unity should be encouraged.
At that time, Vienna was so honeycombed with foreign elements, especially the Czechs, that the greatest amount of tolerance was necessary if these elements were to be enlisted in the ranks of any party that was not anti German on principle. If Austria was to be saved, those elements were indispensable, and so attempts were made to win the support of the small traders, a great number of whom were Czechs, by combating the liberalism of the Manchester school, And they believed that by adopting this attitude, they had found a slogan against jury, which, because of its religious implications, would unite all the different nationalities which made up the population of the old Austria.
It was obvious, however, that this kind of antisemitism did not upset the Jews very much, simply because it had a purely religious foundation. If the worst came to the worst, a few drops of baptismal water would settle the matter. Hereupon, the Jew could still carry on his business safely, and at the same time, retain his Jewish nationality. On such superficial grounds, it was impossible to deal with the whole problem in an earnest and rational way. The consequence was that many people could not understand this kind of antisemitism, and therefore refused to take part in it.
The attractive force of the idea was thus restricted exclusively to narrow minded circles because the leaders failed to go beyond the mere emotional appeal and did not ground their position on a truly rational basis. The intellectuals were opposed to such a policy on principle. It looked more and more as if the whole movement was a new attempt to proselytize the Jews, or on the other hand, as if it were merely organized from the wish to compete with other contemporary movements. Thus, the struggle lost all traces of having been organized for a spiritual and sublime mission.
Indeed, it seemed to some people, and these were by no means worthless elements, to be immoral and reprehensible. The movement failed to awaken a belief that there was a problem of vital importance for the whole of humanity, and on the solution of which the destiny of the whole gentile world depended. Through this shilly, shally way of dealing with the problem, the antisemitism of the Christian socialists turned out to be quite ineffective. It was antisemitic only in outward appearance, and this was worse than if it had made no pretence at all to antisemitism. For the pretence gave rise to a false sense of security among people who believed that the enemy had been taken by the ears.
But as a matter of fact, the people themselves were being led by the nose. The Jew readily adjusted himself to this form of antisemitism, and found its continuance more profitable to him than its abolition would be. This whole movement led to great sacrifices being made for the sake of that state, which was composed of many heterogeneous nationalities, but much greater sacrifices had to be made by the trust of the German element. One did not dare to be nationalist even in Vienna, lest the ground should fall away from under one's feet. It was hoped that the Habsburg state might be saved by a silent evasion of the nationalist question, but this policy led that state to ruin.
The same policy also led to the collapse of Christian socialism. For thus, the movement was deprived of the only source of energy from which a political party can draw the necessary driving force. During those years, I carefully followed the two movements and observed how they developed. One, because my heart was with it, and the other, because of my admiration for that remarkable man, who then appeared to me as a bitter symbol of the whole German population in Austria. When the imposing funeral cortege of the dead burgomaster wound its way from the city hall towards the Ring Strasse.
I stood among the hundreds of thousands who watched the solemn procession pass by. As I stood there, I felt deeply moved, and my instinct clearly told me that the work of this man was all in vain, because a sinister fate was inexorably leading this state to its downfall. If doctor Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great leaders of our people. It was a misfortune for his work and for himself that he had to live in this impossible state. When he died, the fire had already been enkindled in the Balkans, and was spreading month by month.
Fate had been merciful in sparing him the sight of what, even to the last, he had hoped to prevent. I endeavored to analyze the cause which rendered one of those movements futile and wrecked the process of the other. The result of this investigation was the profound conviction that apart from the inherent impossibility of consolidating the position of the state in the old Austria, the two parties made the following fatal mistake. The Pan German party was perfectly right in its fundamental ideas regarding the aim of the movement, which was to bring about a German restoration, but it was unfortunate in the choice of means.
It was nationalist, but, unfortunately, it paid too little heed to the social problem, and thus it failed to gain the support of the masses. Its anti Jewish policy, however, was grounded on a correct perception of the significance of the racial problem and not on religious principles. But it was mistaken in its assessment of facts and adopted the wrong tactics when it made war against one of the religious denominations. The Christian socialist movement had only a vague concept of a German revival as part of its object, but it was intelligent and fortunate in the choice of means to carry out its policy as a party.
The Christian socialists grasped the significance of the social question, but they adopted the wrong principles in their struggle against jury. And they utterly failed to appreciate the value of the national idea as a source of political energy. If the Christian socialist party, together with its shrewd judgment in regard to the worth of the popular masses, had only judged rightly also on the importance of the racial problem, which was properly grasped by the Pan German movement. And if this party had been really nationalist, or if the pan German leaders, on the other hand, in addition to their correct judgment of the Jewish problem and of the national idea, had adopted the practical wisdom of the Christian socialist party and particularly their attitude towards socialism, then a movement would have developed which, in my opinion, might at that time have successfully altered the course of German destiny.
If things did not turn out thus, the fault lay for the most part in the inherent nature of the Austrian state. I did not find my own convictions upheld by any party then in existence, and so I could not bring myself to enlist as a member in any of the existing organizations or even lend a hand in their struggle. Even at that time, all those organizations seemed to me to be already jaded in their energies and were therefore incapable of bringing about a national revival of the German people in a really profound way, not merely outwardly.
My inner aversion to the Habsburg state was increasing daily. The more I paid special attention to questions of foreign policy, the more the conviction grew upon me that this phantom state would surely bring misfortune on the Germans. I realized more and more that the destiny of the German nation could not be decisively influenced from here, but only in the German Empire itself. And this was true not only in regard to general political questions, but also, and in no lesser degree, in regard to the whole sphere of cultural life. Here also, in matters affecting the national culture and art, the Austrian state showed all the signs of senile decrepitude, or at least it was ceasing to be of any consequence to the German nation as far as these matters were concerned.
This was especially true of its architecture. Modern architecture could not produce any great results in Austria, because since the building of the Ringstrasse, at least in Vienna, architectural activities had become insignificant when compared with the progressive plans which were being thought out in Germany. And so I came more and more to lead what may be called a twofold existence. Reason and reality forced me to continue my harsh apprenticeship in Austria, though I must now say that this apprenticeship turned out fortunate in the end, but my heart was elsewhere.
A feeling of discontent grew upon me and made me depressed the more I came to realize the inside hollowness of this state and the impossibility of saving it from collapse. At the same time, I felt perfectly certain that it would bring all kinds of misfortune to the German people. I was convinced that the Habsburg state would bulk and hinder every German who might show signs of real greatness, while at the same time, it would aid and abet every non German activity. This conglomerate spectacle of heterogeneous races, which the capital of the dual monarchy presented, this motley of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Serbs and Croats, etcetera, and always that basilus which is the solvent of human society, the Jew, here and there and everywhere.
The whole spectacle was repugnant to me. The gigantic city seemed to be the incarnation of mongrel depravity. The German language, which I had spoken from the time of my boyhood, was the vernacular idiom of Lower Bavaria. I never forgot that particular style of speech, and I could never learn the Viennese dialect. The longer I lived in that city, the stronger became my hatred for the promiscuous swarm of foreign peoples which had begun to baton on that old nursery ground of German culture. The idea that this state could maintain its further existence for any considerable time was quite absurd.
Austria was then like a piece of ancient mosaic, in which the cohesive cement had dried up and become old and friable. As long as such a work of art remains untouched, it may hold together and continue to exist. But the moment some blow is struck on it, then it breaks up into thousands of fragments. Therefore, it was now only a question of when the blow would come. Because my heart was always with the German Empire and not with the Austrian monarchy, The hour of Austria's dissolution as a state appeared to me as only the first step towards the emancipation of the German nation.
All these considerations intensified my yearning to depart for that country for which my heart had been secretly longing since the days of my youth. I hoped that one day I might be able to make my mark as an architect, and that I could devote my talents to the service of my country on a large or small scale according to the will of fate. A final reason was that I longed to be among those who lived and worked in that land from which the movement should be launched. The object of which would be the fulfillment of what my heart had always longed for, namely, the union of the country in which I was born with our common fatherland, the German Empire.
There are many who may not understand how such a yearning can be so strong, but I appeal especially to two groups of people. The first includes all those who are still denied the happiness I have spoken of, and the second embraces those who once enjoyed that happiness, but had it torn from them by a harsh fate. I turn to all those who have been torn from their motherland and who have to struggle for the preservation of their most sacred patrimony, their native language, persecuted and harried because of their loyalty and love for the homeland, yearning sadly for the hour when they will be allowed to return to the bosom of their father's household.
To these, I address my words, and I know that they will understand. Only he who has experienced in his own inner life what it means to be German, and yet to be denied the right of belonging to his fatherland, can appreciate the profound nostalgia which that enforced exile causes. It is a perpetual heartache, and there is no place for joy and contentment until the doors of paternal home are thrown open, and all those through whose veins kindred blood is flowing will find peace and rest in their common Reich. Vienna was a hard school for me, but it taught me the most profound lessons of my life.
I was scarcely more than a boy when I came to live there, and when I left, I had grown to be a man of a grave and pensive nature. In Vienna, I acquired the foundations of a Welt Anschlauung in general and developed a faculty for analyzing political questions in particular. That Welt Anschlung and the political ideas that formed have never been abandoned, though they were expanded later on in some directions. It is only now that I can fully appreciate how valuable those years of apprenticeship were for me. That is why I have given a detailed account of this period. There, in Vienna, stark reality taught me the truths that now form the fundamental principles of the party, which within the course of five years has grown from modest beginnings to a great mass movement.
I do not know what my attitude towards Jewry, social democracy, or rather Marxism in general, to the social problem, etcetera, would be today, if I had not acquired a stock of personal beliefs at such an early age, by dint of hard study, and under the duress of fate. Four, although the misfortunes of the fatherland may have stimulated thousands and thousands to ponder over the inner causes of the collapse, that could not lead to such a thorough knowledge and deep insight as a man may develop, who has fought a hard struggle for many years, so that he might be master of his own fate.
File 28. Chapter four. Munich. At last, I came to Munich in the spring of nineteen twelve. The city itself was as familiar to me as if I had lived there for years within its walls. This was because my studies in architecture had been constantly turning my attention to the metropolis of German art. One must know Munich if one would know Germany, and it is impossible to acquire a knowledge of German art without seeing Munich. All things considered, this prewar sojourn was by far the happiest and most contented of my life. My earnings were very slender, but after all, I did not live for the sake of painting.
I painted in order to get the bare necessities of existence while I continued my studies. I was firmly convinced that I should finally succeed in reaching the goal I had marked out for myself, and this conviction alone was strong enough to enable me to bear the petty hardships of everyday life without worrying very much about them. Moreover, almost from the very first moment of my sojourn, there I came to love that city more than any other place known to me. A German city, I said to myself. How different to Vienna. It was with a feeling of disgust that my imagination reverted to that Babylon of races.
Another pleasant feature here was the way the people spoke German, which was much nearer my own way of speaking than the Viennese idiom. The Munich idiom recalled the days of my youth, especially when I spoke with those who had come to Munich from Lower Bavaria. There were a thousand or more things which I inwardly loved or which I came to love during the course of my stay. But what attracted me most was the marvelous wedlock of native folk energy with a fine artistic spirit of the city, that unique harmony from the Hofbrauhaus to the Odeon, from the October festival to the Pinakothek, etcetera.
The reason why my heart strings are entwined around this city as around no other spot in this world is probably because Munich is and will remain inseparably connected with the development of my own career. And the fact that from the beginning of my visit, I felt inwardly happy and contented is to be attributed to the charm of the marvelous Wittelsbach capital, which has attracted probably everybody who is blessed with a feeling for beauty instead of commercial instincts. Apart from my professional work, I was most interested in the study of current political events, particularly those which were concerned with foreign relations.
I approached these by way of the German policy of alliances, whichever since my Austrian days I had considered to be an utterly mistaken one. But in Vienna, I had not yet seen quite clearly how far the German Empire had gone in the process of self delusion. In Vienna, I was inclined to assume, or probably I persuaded myself to do so in order to excuse the German mistake, that possibly the authorities in Berlin knew how weak and unreliable their ally would prove to be when brought face to face with realities. But that for more or less mysterious reasons, they refrain from allowing their opinions on this point to be known in public.
Their idea was that they should support the policy of alliances which Bismarck had initiated, and the sudden discontinuance of which might be undesirable if for no other reason than that it might arouse those foreign countries which were lying in wait for their chance, or might alarm the Philistines at home. But my contact with the people soon taught me, to my horror, that my assumptions were wrong. I was amazed to find everywhere, even in circles otherwise well informed, that nobody had the slightest intimation of the real character of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Among the common people in particular, there was a prevalent illusion that the Austrian ally was a power which would have to be seriously reckoned with and would rally its manpower in the hour of need. The mass of the people continued to look upon the dual monarchy as a German state, and believed that it could be relied on. They assumed that its strength could be measured by the millions of its subjects, as was the case in Germany. First of all, they did not realize that Austria had ceased to be a German state, and secondly, that the conditions prevailing within the Austrian empire were steadily pushing it headlong to the brink of disaster.
At that time, I knew the conditions of affairs in the Austrian state better than the professional diplomats. Blindfolded, as nearly always, these diplomats stumbled along on their way to disaster. The opinions prevailing among the bulk of the people reflected only what had been drummed into them from official quarters above. And these higher authorities groveled before the ally as the people of old bowed down before the golden calf. They probably thought that by being polite and amiable, they might balance the lack of honesty on the other side. Thus, they took every declaration at its full face value.
Even while in Vienna, I used to be annoyed again and again by the discrepancy between the speeches of the official statesman and the contents of the Viennese press. And yet Vienna was still a German city, at least as far as appearances went. But one encountered an utterly different state of things on leaving Vienna, or rather German Austria, and coming to the Slav provinces. It needed only a glance at the Prague newspapers in order to see how the whole exalted hocus pocus of the Triple Alliance was judged from there. In Prague, there was nothing but jibes and sneers for that masterpiece of statesmanship.
Even in the piping times of peace, when the two emperors kissed each other on the brow in token of friendship. Those papers did not cloak their belief that the alliance would be liquidated the moment a first attempt was made to bring it down from the shimmering glory of a Nibelungen ideal to the plane of practical affairs. Great indignation was aroused a few years later when the alliances were put to the first practical test. Italy not only withdrew from the Triple Alliance, leaving the other two members to march by themselves, but she even joined their enemies.
That anybody should believe even for a moment in the possibility of such a miracle as that of Italy fighting on the same side of Austria would be simply incredible to anyone who did not suffer from the blindness of official diplomacy. And that was just how people felt in Austria also. In Austria, only the Habsburgs and the German Austrians supported the alliance. The Habsburgs did so from shrewd calculation of their own interests and from necessity. The Germans did it out of good faith and political ignorance. They acted in good faith in as much as they believed that by establishing the Triple Alliance, they were doing a great service to the German Empire, and were thus helping to strengthen it and consolidate its defense.
They showed their political ignorance, however, in holding such ideas, because instead of helping the German Empire, they really chained it to a moribund state, which might bring its associate into the grave with itself. And above all, by championing this alliance, they fell more and more a prey to the Habsburg policy of de Germanization. For the alliance gave the Habsburgs good grounds for believing that the German Empire would not interfere in their domestic affairs, and thus, they were in a position to carry into effect with more ease and less risk their domestic policy of gradually eliminating the German element.
Not only could the objectiveness of the German government be counted upon, and thus there need be no fear of protest from that quarter, but one could always remind the German Austrians of the alliance, and thus silence them in case they should ever object to the reprehensible means that were being employed to establish a Slav hegemony in the dual monarchy. What could the German Austrians do when the people of the German Empire itself had openly proclaimed their trust and confidence in the Habsburg regime? Should they resist, and thus be branded openly before their kinsfolk in the Reich as traitors to their own national interests?
They, who for so many decades had sacrificed so much for the sake of their German tradition. Once the influence of the Germans in Austria had been wiped out, what then would be the value of the alliance? If the Triple Alliance were to be advantageous to Germany, was it not a necessary condition that the predominance of the German element in Austria should be maintained? Or did anyone really believe that Germany could continue to be the ally of a Habsburg empire under the hegemony of the Slavs? The official attitude of German diplomacy as well as that of the general public towards internal problems affecting the Austrian nationalities, was not merely stupid.
It was insane. On the alliance, as on a solid foundation, they grounded the security and future existence of a nation of 70 millions. While at the same time, they allowed their partner to continue his policy of undermining the sole foundation of that alliance methodically and resolutely from year to year. A day must come when nothing but a formal contract with Viennese diplomats would be left. The alliance itself, as an effective support, would be lost to Germany. As far as concerned Italy, such had been the case from the outset. If people in Germany had studied history and the psychology of nations a little more carefully, Not one of them could have believed for a single hour that the Quirinal and the Viennese Hofburg could ever stand shoulder to shoulder on a common battlefront.
Italy would have exploded like a volcano if any Italian government had dared to send a single Italian soldier to fight for the Habsburg state. So fanatically hated was this state that the Italians could stand in no other relation to it on a battlefront except as enemies. More than once in Vienna, I have witnessed explosions of the contempt and profound hatred which allied the Italian to the Austrian state. The crimes which the house of Habsburg committed against Italian freedom and independence during several centuries were too grave to be forgiven even with the best of goodwill.
But this goodwill did not exist either among the rank and file of the population or in the government. Therefore, for Italy, there were only two ways of coexisting with Austria, alliance or war. By choosing the first, it was possible to prepare leisurely for the second. Especially since relations between Russia and Austria tended more and more towards the arbitrament of war, the German policy of alliances was as senseless as it was dangerous. Here was a classical instance which demonstrated the lack of any broad or logical lines of thought. But what was the reason for forming the alliance at all?
It could not have been other than the wish to secure the future of the Reich better than if it were to depend exclusively on its own resources. But the future of the Reich could not have meant anything else than the problem of securing the means of existence for the German people. The only questions, therefore, were the following. What form shall the life of the nation assume in the near future? That is to say within such a period as we can forecast. And by what means can the necessary foundation and security be guaranteed for this development within the framework of the general distribution of power amongst the European nations.
A clear analysis of the principles on which the foreign policy of German statecraft were to be based should have led to the following conclusions. The annual increase of population in Germany amounts to almost 900,000 souls. The difficulties of providing for this army of new citizens must grow from year to year and must finally lead to catastrophe, unless ways and means are found which will forestall the danger of misery and hunger. There were four ways of providing against this terrible calamity. File 29. One.
It was possible to accept the French example and artificially restrict the number of births, thus avoiding an excess of population. Under certain circumstances, in periods of distress or under bad climatic condition, or if the soil yields too poor a return, nature herself tends to check the increase of population in some countries and among some races, but by a method which is quite as ruthless as it is wise. It does not impede the procreative faculty as such, but it does impede the further existence of the offspring by submitting it to such tests and privations that everything which is less strong or less healthy is forced to retreat into the bosom of the unknown.
Whatever survives these hardships of existence has been tested and tried a thousandfold, hardened, and rendered fit to continue the process of procreation. So that the same thorough selection will begin all over again. By thus dealing brutally with the individual and recalling him the very moment he shows that he is not fitted for the trials of life, nature preserves the strength of the race and the species and raises it to the highest degree of efficiency. The decrease in numbers, therefore, implies an increase of strength as far as the individual is concerned, and this finally means the invigoration of the species.
But the case is different when man himself starts the process of numerical restriction. Man is not carved from nature's wood. He is made of human material. He knows more than the ruthless queen of wisdom. He does not impede the preservation of the individual, but prevents procreation itself. To the individual who always sees only himself and not the race, this line of action seems more humane and just than the opposite way. But unfortunately, the consequences are also the opposite. By leaving the process of procreation unchecked and by submitting the individual to the hardest preparatory tests in life, nature selects the best from an abundance of single elements and stamps them as fit to live and carry on the conservation of the species.
But man restricts the procreative faculty and strives obstinately to keep alive at any cost whatever once has been born. This correction of the divine will seems to him to be wise and humane, and he rejoices at having trumped nature's card in one game at least, and thus proved that she is not entirely reliable. The dear little ape of an almighty father is delighted to see and hear that he has succeeded in effecting a numerical restriction, but he would be very displeased if told that this, his system, brings about a degeneration in personal quality.
For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of births diminished, The natural struggle for existence, which allows only healthy and strong individuals to survive, is replaced by a sheer craze to save feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus, the seeds are sown for a human progeny, which will become more and more miserable from one generation to another as long as nature's will is scorned. But if that policy be carried out, the final results must be that such a nation will eventually terminate its own existence on this earth.
For though man may defy the eternal laws of procreation during a certain period, vengeance will follow sooner or later. A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak. For the vital urge in its ultimate form will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong. Any policy which aims at securing the existence of a nation by restricting the birth rate, robs that nation of its future.
Two. A second solution is that of internal colonization. This is a proposal which is frequently made in our own time, and one hears it lauded a good deal. It is a suggestion that is well meant, but is misunderstood by most people, so that it is the source of more mischief than can be imagined. It is certainly true that the productivity of the soil can be increased within certain limits, but only within defined limits and not indefinitely. By increasing the productive powers of the soil, it will be possible to balance the effect of a surplus birth rate in Germany for a certain period of time without running any danger of hunger.
But we have to face the fact that the general standard of living is rising more quickly than even the birth rate. The requirements of food and clothing are becoming greater from year to year and are out of proportion to those of our ancestors of, let us say, a hundred years ago. It would therefore be a mistaken view that every increase in the productive powers of the soil will supply the requisite conditions for an increase in the population. No. That is true up to a certain point only. For at least a portion of the increased produce of the soil will be consumed by the margin of increased demands caused by the steady rise in the standard of living.
But even if these demands were to be curtailed to the narrowest limits possible, and if at the same time we were to use all our available energies in the intense cultivation, We should here reach a definite limit, which is conditioned by the inherent nature of the soil itself. No matter how industriously we may labor, we cannot increase agricultural production beyond this limit. Therefore, though we may postpone the evil hour of distress for a certain time, it will arrive at last. The first phenomenon will be the recurrence of famine periods from time to time after bad harvest, etcetera.
The intervals between these famines will become shorter and shorter the more the population increases. And finally, the famine times will disappear only in those rare years of plenty when the granaries are full. And a time will ultimately come when even in those years of plenty, there will be not enough to go round so that hunger will dog the footsteps of the nation. Nature must now step in once more and select those who are to survive, or else man will help himself by artificially preventing his own increase with all the fatal consequences for the race and the species which have already been mentioned.
It may be objected here that in one form or another, this future is in store for all mankind and that the individual nation or race cannot escape the general fate. At first glance, that objection seems logical enough, but we have to take the following into account. The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of the human species because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the perpetual increase in the population. Nature must then be allowed to use her own methods, or man may possibly take the task of regulation into his own hands and establish the necessary equilibrium by the application of better means than we have at our disposal today.
But then it will be a problem for mankind as a whole. Whereas now, only those races have to suffer from want, which no longer have the strength and daring to acquire sufficient soil to fulfill their needs. For as things stand today, vast spaces still lie uncultivated all over the surface of the globe. Those spaces are only waiting for the plowshare. And it is quite certain that nature did not set those territories apart as the exclusive pastures of any one nation or race to be held unutilized in reserve for the future. Such land awaits the people who have the strength to acquire it and the diligence to cultivate it.
Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart, and they will be granted the sovereign right of existence. If a nation confines itself to internal colonization while other races are perpetually increasing their territorial annexations all over the globe, that nation will be forced to restrict the numerical growth of its population at a time when the other nations are increasing theirs.
This situation must eventually arrive. It will arrive soon if the territory which the nation has at its disposal be small. Now it is unfortunately true that only too often, the best nations, or to speak more exactly, the only really cultured nations, who at the same time are the chief bearers of human progress, have decided in their blind pacifism to refrain from the acquisition of new territory and to be content with internal colonization. But at the same time, nations of inferior quality succeed in getting hold of large spaces for colonization all over the globe.
The state of affairs which must result from this contrast is the following. Braces which are culturally superior, but less ruthless, would be forced to restrict their increase because of insufficient territory to support the population. While less civilized races could increase indefinitely owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words, should that state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior, but more active and energetic. A time will come even though in the distant future when there can only be two alternatives.
Either the world will be ruled according to our modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favor of the numerically stronger races, or the world will be governed by the law of natural distribution of power. And then those nations will be victorious who are of more brutal will and are not the nations who have practiced self denial. Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful struggles for existence on the part of mankind. In the end, the instinct of self preservation alone will triumph.
Before its consuming fire, this so called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous timidity and self conceit, will melt away as under the March sunshine. Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace, his greatness must decline. File 30. For us Germans, the slogan of internal colonization is fatal because it encourages the belief that we have discovered a means which is in accordance with our innate pacifism and which will enable us to work for our livelihood in a half slumbering existence. Such a teaching, once it were taken seriously by our people, would mean the end of all effort to acquire for ourselves that place in the world which we deserve.
If the average German were once convinced that by this means, he has the chance of ensuring his livelihood and guaranteeing his future, any attempt to take an active and profitable part in sustaining the vital demands of his country would be out of the question. Should the nation agree to such an attitude, then any really use for foreign policy might be looked upon as dead and buried together with all hope for the future of the German people. Once we know what the consequences of this internal colonization theory would be, we can no longer consider as a mere accident the fact that among those who inculcate this quite pernicious mentality among our people, The Jew is always in the first line.
He knows his softies only too well not to know that they are ready to be the grateful victims of every swindle which promises them a gold block in the shape of a discovery that will enable them to outwit nature, and thus render superfluous the hard and inexorable struggle for existence. So that finally, they may become lords of the planet partly by sheer Dolce Fagiente, and partly by working when a pleasing opportunity arises. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that any German internal colonization must first of all be considered as suitable only for the relief of social grievances.
To carry out a system of internal colonization, the most important preliminary measure would be to free the soil from the grip of the speculator and assure that freedom. But such a system could never suffice to assure the future of the nation without the acquisition of new territory. If we adopt a different plan, we shall soon reach a point beyond which the resources of our soil can no longer be exploited. And at the same time, we shall reach a point beyond which our manpower cannot develop. In conclusion, the following must be said.
The fact that only up to a limited extent can internal colonization be practiced in a national territory, which is of definitely small area, and the restriction of the procreative faculty, which follows as a result of such conditions, these two factors have a very unfavorable effect on the military and political standing of a nation. The extent of the national territory is a determining factor in the external security of the nation. The larger the territory which a people has at its disposal, the stronger are the national defenses of that people. Military decisions are more quickly, more easily, more completely, and more effectively gained against a people occupying a national territory which is restricted in area than against states which have extensive territories.
Moreover, the magnitude of a national territory is in itself a certain assurance that an outside power will not hastily risk the adventure of an invasion, For in that case, the struggle would have to be long and exhausting before victory could be hoped for. The risk being so great, there would have to be extraordinary reasons for such an aggressive adventure. Hence, it is that the territorial magnitude of a state furnishes a base where our national liberty and independence can be maintained with relative ease, while, on the contrary, a state whose territory is small offers a natural temptation to the invader.
As a matter of fact, so called national circles in the German Reich rejected those first two possibilities of establishing a balance between the constant numerical increase in the population and a national territory which could not expand proportionately. But the reasons given for that rejection were different from those which I have just expounded. It was mainly on the basis of certain moral sentiments that restriction of the birth rate was objected to. Proposals for internal colonization were rejected indignantly because it was suspected that such a policy might mean an attack on the big landowners, and that this attack might be the forerunner of a general assault against the principle of private property as a whole.
The form in which the latter solution, internal colonization, was recommended justified the misgivings of the big landowners. But the form in which the colonization proposal was rejected was not very clever as regards the impression which such rejection might be calculated to make on the mass of the people. And anyhow, it did not go to the root of the problem at all. Only two further ways were left open, in which work and bread could be secured for the increasing population. Three. It was possible to think of acquiring new territory on which a certain portion of the increasing population could be settled each year.
Or else, four, our industry and commerce had to be organized in such a manner as to secure an increase in the exports and thus be able to support our people by the increased purchasing power accruing from the profits made on foreign markets. Therefore, the problem was a policy of territorial expansion or a colonial and commercial policy. Both policies were taken into consideration, examined, recommended, and rejected from various standpoints with the result that the second alternative was finally adopted. The sounder alternative, however, was undoubtedly the first.
The principle of acquiring new territory on which the surplus population could be settled has many advantages to recommend it, especially if we take the future as well as the present into account. In the first place, too much importance cannot be placed on the necessity for adopting a policy which will make it possible to maintain a healthy peasant class as the basis of the national community. Many of our present evils have their origin exclusively in the disproportion between the urban and rural portions of the population. A solid stock of small and medium farmers has at all times been the best protection which a nation could have against the social diseases that are prevalent today.
Moreover, that is the only solution which guarantees the daily bread of a nation within the framework of its domestic national economy. With this condition once guaranteed, industry and commerce would retire from the unhealthy position of foremost importance, which they hold today, and would take their due place within the general scheme of national economy, adjusting the balance between demand and supply. Thus, industry and commerce would no longer constitute the basis of the national subsistence, but would be auxiliary institutions. By fulfilling their proper function, which is to adjust the balance between national production and national consumption, they render the national subsistence more or less independent of foreign countries, and thus assure the freedom and independence of the nation, especially at critical junctures in its history.
Such a territorial policy, however, cannot find its fulfillment in the Cameroons, but almost exclusively here in Europe. 1 must calmly and squarely face the truth that it certainly cannot be part of the dispensation of divine providence to give a 50 times larger share of the soil in this world to one nation than to another. In considering this state of affairs today, one must not allow existing political frontiers to distract attention from what ought to exist on principles of strict justice. If this earth has sufficient room for all, then we ought to have that share of the soil which is absolutely necessary for our existence.
Of course, people will not voluntarily make that accommodation. At this point, the right of self preservation comes into effect. And when attempts to settle the difficulty in an amicable way are rejected, the clenched hand must take by force that which was refused to the open hand of friendship. If in the past, our ancestors had based their political decisions on similar pacifist nonsense as our present generation does, We should not possess more than one third of the national territory that we possess today, and probably there would be no German nation to worry about its future in Europe.
No. We owe the two eastern marks of the empire to the natural determination of our forefathers in their struggle for existence, and thus, it is to the same determined policy that we owe the inner strength, which is based on the extent of our political and racial territories, and which alone has made it possible for us to exist up to now. And there is still another reason why that solution would have been the correct one. Many contemporary European states are like pyramids standing on their apexes. The European territory which these States possess is ridiculously small when compared with the enormous overhead weight of their colonies, foreign trade, etcetera.
It may be said that they have the apex in Europe, and the base of the pyramid all over the world, quite different from The United States Of America, which has its base on the American continent, and is in contact with the rest of the world only through its apex. Out of that situation arises the incomparable inner strength of The USA, and the contrary situation is responsible for the weakness of most of the colonial European powers. England cannot be suggested as an argument against this assertion, though in glancing casually over the map of the British Empire, one is inclined easily to overlook the existence of a whole Anglo Saxon world.
England's position cannot be compared with that of any other state in Europe since it forms a vast community of language and culture together with The USA. Therefore, the only possibility which Germany had of carrying a sound territorial policy into effect was that of acquiring new territory in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose as long as they are not suited for settlement by Europeans on a large scale. In the nineteenth century, it was no longer possible to acquire such colonies by peaceful means. Therefore, any attempt at such a colonial expansion would have meant an enormous military struggle.
Consequently, it would have been more practical to undertake that military struggle for new territory in Europe rather than to wage war for the acquisition of possessions abroad. Such a decision naturally demanded that the nation's undivided energies should be devoted to it. A policy of that kind which requires for its fulfillment every ounce of available energy on the part of everybody concerned cannot be carried into effect by half measures or in a hesitating manner. The political leadership of the German Empire should then have been directed exclusively to this goal.
No political step should have been taken in response to other considerations than this task and the means of accomplishing it. Germany should have been alive to the fact that such a goal could have been reached only by war, and the prospect of war should have been faced with calm and collected determination. The whole system of alliances should have been envisaged and valued from that standpoint. If new territory were to be acquired in Europe, it must have been mainly at Russia's cost. And once again, the new German Empire should have set out on its march along the same road as was formally trodden by the Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil for the German plow by means of the German sword, and thus provide the nation with its daily bread.
For such a policy, however, there was only one possible ally in Europe, and that was England. File 31. Only by alliance with England was it possible to safeguard the rear of the new German crusade. The justification for undertaking such an expedition was stronger than the justification which our forefathers had for setting out on theirs. Not one of our pacifists refuses to eat the bread made from the grain grown in the East, and yet the first plow here was that called the sword. No sacrifice should have been considered as too great if it was a necessary means of gaining England's friendship. Colonial and naval ambitions should have been abandoned, and attempts should not have been made to compete against British industries.
Only a clear and definite policy could lead to such an achievement. Such a policy would have demanded a renunciation of the endeavor to conquer the world's markets, also a renunciation of colonial intentions on naval power. All the means of power at the disposal of the state should have been concentrated in the military forces on land. This policy would have involved a period of temporary self denial for the sake of a great and powerful future. There was a time when England might have entered into negotiations with us on the grounds of that proposal.
For England would have well understood that the problems arising from the steady increase in population were forcing Germany to look for a solution either in Europe with the help of England or, without England, in some other part of the world. This outlook was probably the chief reason why London tried to draw nearer to Germany about the turn of the century. For the first time in Germany, an attitude was then manifested which afterwards displayed itself in a most tragic way. People then gave expression to an unpleasant feeling that we might thus find ourselves obliged to pull England's chestnuts out of the fire, as if an alliance could be based on anything else than mutual give and take, and England would have become party to such a mutual bargain.
British diplomats were still wise enough to know that an equivalent must be forthcoming as a consideration for any services rendered. Let us suppose that in 2300, our German foreign policy was managed astutely enough to enable us to take the part which Japan played. It is not easy to measure the greatness of the results that might have accrued to Germany from such a policy. There would have been no World War. The blood which would have been shed in 1904 would not have been a tenth of that shed from 1914 to 1918.
And what a position Germany would hold in the world today. In any case, the alliance with Austria was then an absurdity. For this mummy of a state did not attach itself to Germany for the purpose of carrying through a war, but rather to maintain a perpetual state of peace, which was meant to be exploited for the purpose of slowly but persistently exterminating the German element in the dual monarchy. Another reason for the impossible character of this alliance was that nobody could expect such a state to take an active part in defending German national interests, seeing that it did not have sufficient strength and determination to put an end to the policy of de Germanization within its own frontiers.
If Germany herself was not moved by a sufficiently powerful national sentiment and was not sufficiently ruthless to take away from that absurd Habsburg state the right to decide the destinies of 10,000,000 inhabitants who were of the same nationality as the Germans themselves. Surely, it was out of the question to expect the Habsburg state to be a collaborating party in any great and courageous German undertaking. The attitude of the old Reich towards the Austrian question might have been taken as a test of its stamina for the struggle where the destinies of the whole nation were at stake. In any case, the policy of oppression against the German population in Austria should not have been allowed to be carried on and to grow stronger from year to year. For the value of Austria Austria as an ally could be assured only by upholding the German element there.
But that, of course, was not followed. Nothing was dreaded so much as the possibility of an armed conflict. But finally, and at a most unfavorable moment, the conflict had to be faced and accepted. They thought to cut loose from the cords of destiny, but destiny held them fast. They dreamt of maintaining a world peace and woke up to find themselves in a world war. And that dream of peace was a most significant reason why the above mentioned third alternative for the future development of Germany was not even taken into consideration. The fact was recognized that new territory could be gained only in the East, but this meant that there would be fighting ahead, whereas they wanted peace at any cost.
The slogan of German foreign policy at one time used to be the use of all possible means for the maintenance of the German nation. Now it has changed to maintenance of world peace by all possible means. We know what the result was. I shall resume the discussion of this point in detail later on. There remained still another alternative, which we may call the fourth. This was Industry and World Trade, Naval Power, and Colonies. Such a development might certainly have been attained more easily and more rapidly. To colonize a territory is a slow process, often extending over centuries.
Yet this fact is the source of its inner strength, for it is not through a sudden burst of enthusiasm that it can be put into effect, but rather through a gradual and enduring process of growth quite different from industrial progress, which can be urged on by advertisement within a few years. The result thus achieved, however, is not of lasting quality, but something frail like a soap bubble. It is much easier to build quickly than to carry through the tough task of settling a territory with farmers and establishing farmsteads, but the former is more quickly destroyed than the latter.
In adopting such a course, Germany must have known that to follow it would necessarily mean war sooner or later. Only children could believe that sweet and anxious expressions of goodness and persistent avowals of peaceful intentions could get them their bananas through this friendly competition between the nations with the prospect of never having to fight for them? No. Once we had taken this road, England was bound to be our enemy at some time or other to come. Of course, it fitted in nicely with our innocent assumptions, but still it was absurd to grow indignant at the fact that a day came when the English took the liberty of opposing our peaceful penetration with the brutality of violent egoists.
Naturally, we on our side would never have done such a thing. If a European territorial policy against Russia could have been put into practice, only in case we had England as our ally. On the other hand, the colonial and world trade policy could have been carried into effect only against English interests and with the support of Russia. But then this policy should have been adopted in full consciousness of all the consequences it involved. And above all things, Austria should have been discarded as quickly as possible. At the turn of the century, the alliance with Austria had become a veritable absurdity from all points of view.
But nobody thought of forming an alliance with Russia against England, just as nobody thought of making England an ally against Russia. For in either case, the final result would inevitably have meant war. And to avoid war was the very reason why a commercial and industrial policy was decided upon. It was believed force. Occasionally, however, there were doubts about the efficiency of this principle, especially when some quite incomprehensible warnings came from England now and again. That was the reason why the fleet was built. It was not for the purpose of attacking or annihilating England, but merely to defend the concept of world peace mentioned above, and also to protect the principle of conquering the world by peaceful means.
Therefore, this fleet was kept within modest limits, not only as regards the number and tonnage of the vessels, but also in regard to their armament, the idea being to furnish new proofs of peaceful intentions. The chatter about the peaceful conquest of the world by commercial means was probably the most completely nonsensical stuff ever raised to the dignity of a guiding principle in the policy of a state. This nonsense became even more foolish when England was pointed out as a typical example to prove how the thing could be put into practice. Our doctrinal way of regarding history and our professional ideas in that domain have done irreparable harm and offer a striking proof of how people learn history without understanding anything of it.
As a matter of fact, England ought to have been looked upon as a convincing argument against the theory of Pacific conquest of the world by commercial means. No nation prepared the way for its commercial conquests more brutally than England did by means of the sword, and no other nation has defended such conquests more ruthlessly. Is it not a characteristic quality of British statecraft that it knows how to use political power in order to gain economic advantages, and, inversely, to turn economic conquests into political power. What an astounding error it was to believe that England would not have the courage to give its own blood for the purposes of its own economic expansion.
The fact that England did not possess a national army proved nothing, for it is not the actual military structure of the moment that matters, but rather the will and determination to use whatever military strength is available. England has always had the armament which she needed. She always fought with those weapons which were necessary for success. She sent mercenary troops to fight as long as mercenaries sufficed, but she never hesitated to draw heavily and deeply from the best blood of the whole nation when victory could be obtained only by such a sacrifice.
And in every case, the fighting spirit, dogged determination, and use of brutal means in conducting military operations have always remained the same. File 32. But in Germany, through the medium of the schools, the press, and the comic papers, An idea of the Englishman was gradually formed, which was bound eventually to lead to the worst kind of self deception. This absurdity slowly but persistently spread into every quarter of German life. The result was an undervaluation for which we have had to pay a heavy penalty. The delusion was so profound that the Englishman was looked upon as a shrewd businessman, but personally a coward even to an incredible degree.
Unfortunately, our lofty teachers of professional history did not bring home to the minds of their pupils the truth that it is not possible to build up such a mighty organization as the British Empire by mere swindle and fraud. The few who called attention to that truth were either ignored or silenced. I can vividly recall to mind the astonished looks of my comrades when they found themselves personally face to face for the first time with the Tommies in Flanders. After a few days of fighting, the consciousness slowly dawned upon our soldiers that those Scotsmen were not like the ones we had seen described and caricatured in the comic papers and mentioned in the communiques.
It was then that I formed my first ideas of the efficiency of various forms of propaganda. Such a falsification, however, served the purpose of those who had fabricated it. The caricature of Englishmen, though false, could be used to prove the possibility of conquering the world peacefully by commercial means. Where the Englishman succeeded, we should also succeed. Our far greater honesty and our freedom from that specifically English perfidy would be assets on our side. Thereby, it was hoped that the sympathy of the smaller nations and the confidence of the greater nations could be gained more easily.
We did not realize that our honesty was an object of profound aversion for other people because we ourselves believed in it. The rest of the world looked on our behavior as the manifestation of a shrewd deceitfulness. But when the revolution came, then they were amazed at the deeper insight it gave them into our mentality, sincere even beyond the limits of stupidity. Once we understand the part played by that absurd notion of conquering the world by peaceful commercial means, we can clearly understand how that other absurdity, the Triple Alliance, came to exist.
With what state then could an alliance have been made? In alliance with Austria, we could not acquire new territory by military means even in Europe, and this very fact was the real reason for the inner weakness of the Triple Alliance. Bismarck could not permit himself such a makeshift for the necessities of the moment, but certainly not any of his bungling successors. And least of all, when the foundations no longer existed on which Bismarck had formed the Triple Alliance. In Bismarck's time, Austria could still be looked upon as a German state, but the gradual introduction of universal suffrage turned the country into a parliamentary Babel in which the German voice was scarcely audible.
From the viewpoint of racial policy, this alliance with Austria was simply disastrous. A new Slavic great power was allowed to grow up close to the frontiers of the German Empire. Later on, this power was bound to adopt towards Germany an attitude different from that of Russia, for example. The alliance was thus bound to become more empty and more feeble because the only supporters of it were losing their influence and were being systematically pushed out of the more important public offices. About the year 1900, the alliance with Austria had already entered the same phase as the alliance between Austria and Italy.
Here also only one alternative was possible, either to take the side of the Habsburg Monarchy or to raise a protest against the oppression of the German element in Austria. But generally speaking, when one takes such a course, it is bound eventually to lead to open conflict. From the psychological point of view also, the triple decreases according as such alliance limits its object to the defense of the status quo. But on the other hand, an alliance will increase its cohesive strength the more the parties concerned in it may hope to use it as a means of reaching some practical goal of expansion. Here, as everywhere else, strength does not lie in defense, but in attack.
This truth was recognized in various quarters, but, unfortunately, not by the so called elected representatives of the people. As early as 1912, Ludendorff, who was then colonel and the commander of the general staff, pointed out these weak features of the alliance in a memorandum which he then drew up. But, of course, the statesman did not attach any importance or value to that document. In general, it would seem as if reason were a faculty that is active only in the case of ordinary mortals, but that it is entirely absent when we come to deal with that branch of the species known as diplomats. It was lucky for Germany that the war of nineteen fourteen broke out with Austria as its direct cause.
For thus, the Habsburgs were compelled to participate. Had the origin of the war been otherwise, Germany would have been left to her own resources. The Habsburg State would never have been ready or willing to take part in a war for the origin of which Germany was responsible. What was the object of so much obloqui later in the case of Italy's decision would have taken place only earlier in the case of Austria. In other words, if Germany had been forced to go to war for some reason of its own, Austria would have remained neutral in order to safeguard the state against a revolution which might begin immediately after the war had started.
The Slav element would have preferred to smash up the dual monarchy in 1914 rather than permitted to come to the assistance of Germany. But at that time, there were only a few who understood all the dangers and aggravations which resulted from the alliance with the Danubian monarchy. In the first place, Austria had too many enemies who were eagerly looking forward to obtain the heritage of that decrepit state so that these people gradually developed a certain animosity against Germany, because Germany was an obstacle to their desires inasmuch as it kept the dual monarchy from falling to pieces, a consummation that was hoped for and yearned for on all sides.
The conviction developed that Vienna could be reached only by passing through Berlin. In the second place, by adopting this policy, Germany lost its best and most promising chances of other alliances. In place of these possibilities, one now observed a growing tension in the relations with Russia and even with Italy. And this, in spite of the fact that the general attitude in Rome was just as favorable to Germany as it was hostile to Austria, a hostility which lay dormant in the individual Italian and broke out violently on occasion. Since a commercial and industrial policy had been adopted, no motive was left for waging war against Russia.
Only the enemies of the two countries, Germany and Russia, could have an active interest in such a war under these circumstances. As a matter of fact, it was only the Jews and the Marxists who tried to stir up bad blood between the two states. In the third place, the alliance constituted a permanent danger to German security. For any great power that was hostile to Bismarck's empire could mobilize a whole lot of other states in a war against Germany by promising them tempting spoils at the expense of the Austrian ally. It was possible to arouse the whole of Eastern Europe against Austria, especially Russia, and Italy also.
The world coalition which had developed under the leadership of king Edward could never have become a reality if Germany's ally Austria had not offered such an alluring prospect of booty. It was this fact alone which made it possible to combine so many heterogeneous states with divergent interests into one common phalanx of attack? Every member could hope to enrich himself at the expense of Austria if he joined in the general attack against Germany. The fact that Turkey was also a tacit party to the unfortunate alliance with Austria augmented Germany's peril to an extraordinary degree.
Jewish international finance needed this bait of the Austrian heritage in order to carry out its plans of ruining Germany. For Germany had not yet surrendered to the general control which the international captains of finance and trade exercised over the other states. Thus, it was possible to consolidate that coalition and make it strong enough and brave enough through the sheer weight of numbers to join in bodily conflict with the horned Siegfried. The alliance with the Habsburg Monarchy, which I loathed while still in Austria, was the subject of grave concern on my part, and caused me to meditate on it so persistently that finally I came to the conclusions which I have mentioned above.
In the small circles which I frequented at that time, I did not conceal my conviction that this sinister agreement with the state doomed to collapse would also bring catastrophe to Germany if she did not free herself from it in time. I have never for a moment wavered in that firm conviction, even when the tempest of the World War seemed to have made shipwreck of the reasoning faculty itself, and had put blind enthusiasm in its place, even among those circles where the coolest and hardest objective thinking ought to have held sway. In the trenches, I voiced and upheld my own opinion whenever these problems came under discussion.
I held that to abandon the Habsburg Monarchy would involve no sacrifice, if Germany could thereby reduce the number of her own enemies. For the millions of Germans who had donned the steel helmet had done so not to fight for the maintenance of a corrupt dynasty, but rather for the salvation of the German people. Before the war, there were occasions on which it seemed that at least one section of the German public had some slight misgivings about the political wisdom of the alliance with Austria. From time to time, German conservative circles issued warnings against being overconfident about the worth of that alliance.
But like every other reasonable suggestion made at that time, it was thrown to the winds. The general conviction was that the right measures had been adopted to conquer the world, that the success of these measures would be enormous, and the sacrifices negligible. Once again, the uninitiated layman could do nothing but observe how the elect were marching straight ahead towards disaster, and enticing their beloved people to follow them as the rats followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin. If we would look for the deeper grounds which made it possible to foist on the people this absurd notion of peacefully conquering the world through commercial penetration, and how it was possible to put forward the maintenance of world peace as a national aim, We shall find that these grounds lay in a general morbid condition that had pervaded the whole body of German political thought.
The triumphant progress of technical science in Germany, and the marvelous development of German industries and commerce, led us to forget that a powerful state had been the necessary prerequisite of that success. On the contrary, certain circles went even so far as to give vent to the theory that the state owed its very existence to these phenomena, that it was, above all, an economic institution and should be constituted in accordance with economic interests. Therefore, it was held the state was dependent on the economic structure. This condition of things was looked upon and glorified as the soundest and most normal arrangement.
Now the truth is that the state in itself has nothing whatsoever to do with any definite economic concept or definite economic development. It does not arise from a compact made between contracting parties with a certain delimited territory for the purpose of serving economic ends. The state is a community of living beings who have kindred physical and spiritual natures, organized for the purpose of assuring the conservation of their own kind and to help towards fulfilling those ends which Providence has assigned to that particular race or racial branch. Therein, and therein alone, lie the purpose and meaning of a state.
Economic activity is one of the many auxiliary reasons which are necessary for the attainment of those aims. But economic activity is never the origin or purpose of a state, except where a state has been originally founded on a false and unnatural basis. And this alone explains why a state as such does not necessarily need a certain delimited territory as a condition of its establishment. This condition becomes a necessary prerequisite only among those people who would provide and assure subsistence for their kinsfolk through their own industry, which means that they are ready to carry on the struggle for existence by means of their own work.
People who can sneak their way like parasites into the human body politic and make others work for them under various pretenses can form a state without possessing any definite delimited territory. This is chiefly applicable to that parasitic nation which, particularly at the present time, preys upon the honest portion of mankind. I mean, the Jews. The Jewish state has never been delimited in space. It has been spread all over the world without any frontiers whatsoever, and has always been constituted from the membership of one race exclusively. That is why the Jews have always formed the state within the state.
One of the most ingenious tricks ever devised has been that of sailing the Jewish ship of state under the flag of religion, and thus securing that tolerance which Aryans are always ready to grant to different religious faiths. But the Mosaic Law is really nothing else than the doctrine of the preservation of the Jewish race. Therefore, this law takes in all spheres of sociological, political, and economic science, which have a bearing on the main end in view. The instinct for the preservation of one's own species is the primary cause that leads to the formation of human communities.
Hence, the state is a racial organism and not an economic organization. The difference between the two is so great as to be incomprehensible to our contemporary so called statesmen. That is why they like to believe that the state may be constituted as an economic structure, whereas the truth is that it has always resulted from the exercise of those qualities which are part of the will to preserve the species and the race. But these qualities always exist and operate through the heroic virtues and have nothing to do with commercial egoism. For the conservation of the species always presupposes that the individual is ready to sacrifice himself.
Such is the meaning of the poet's lines. And if you do not stake your life, you will never win life for yourself. File 33. The sacrifice of the individual existence is necessary in order to assure the conservation of the race. Hence, it is that the most essential condition for the establishment and maintenance of a state is a certain feeling of solidarity bounded in an identity of character and race, and in a resolute readiness to defend these at all costs. With people who live on their own territory, this will result in a development of the heroic virtues. With the parasitic people, it will develop the arts of subterfuge and gross perfidy, unless we admit that these characteristics are innate and that the varying political forms through which the parasitic race expresses itself are only the outward manifestations of innate characteristics.
At least in the beginning, the formation of a state can result only from a manifestation of the heroic qualities I have spoken of. And the people who fail in the struggle for existence, that is to say those who become vassals and are thereby condemned to disappear entirely sooner or later, are those who do not display the heroic virtues in the struggle, or those who fall victim to the perfidy of the parasites. And even in this latter case, the failure is not so much due to lack of intellectual powers, but rather to a lack of courage and determination. An attempt is made to conceal the real nature of this failing by saying that it is the humane feeling.
The qualities which are employed for the foundation and preservation of a state have accordingly little or nothing to do with the economic situation, and this is conspicuously demonstrated by the fact that the inner strength of a state only really coincides with what is called its economic expansion. On the contrary, there are numerous examples to show that a period of economic prosperity indicates the approaching decline of a state. If it were correct to attribute the foundation of human communities to economic forces, then the power of the state as such would be at its highest pitch during periods of economic prosperity and not vice versa.
It is especially difficult to understand how the belief that the state is brought into being and preserved by economic forces could gain currency in a country which has given proof of the opposite in every phase of its history. The history of Prussia shows in a manner particularly clear and distinct that it is out of the moral virtues of the people and not from their economic circumstances that a state is formed. It is only under the protection of those virtues that economic activities can be developed, and the latter will continue to flourish until a time comes when the creative political capacity declines.
Therewith, the economic structure will also break down, a phenomenon which is now happening in an alarming manner before our eyes. The material interest of mankind can prosper only in the shade of the heroic virtues. The moment they become the primary considerations of life, they wreck the basis of their own existence. Whenever the political power of Germany was specially strong, the economic situation also improved. But whenever economic interests alone occupied the foremost place in the life of the people and thrust transcendent ideals into the background, the state collapsed, and economic ruin followed readily.
If we consider the question of what those forces actually are, which are necessary to the creation and preservation of a state, we shall find that they are the capacity and readiness to sacrifice the individual to the common welfare. That these qualities have nothing at all to do with economics can be proved by referring to the simple fact that man does not sacrifice himself for material interests. In other words, he will die for an ideal, but not for a business. The marvelous gift for public psychology, which the English have, was never shown better than the way in which they presented their case in the World War. We were fighting for our bread, but the English declared that they were fighting for freedom, and not at all for their own freedom.
Oh, no. But for the freedom of the small nations. German people laughed at that effrontery and were angered by it. But in doing so, they showed how political thought had declined among our so called diplomats in Germany even before the war. These diplomats did not have the slightest notion of what that force was which brought men to face death of their own free will and determination. As long as the German people in the war of nineteen fourteen continued to believe that they were fighting for ideals, they stood firm. As soon as they were told they were fighting only for their daily bread, they began to give up the struggle.
Our clever statesmen were greatly amazed at this change of feeling. They never understood that as soon as man is called upon to struggle for purely material causes, he will avoid death as best he can. For death and the enjoyment of the material fruits of a victory are quite incompatible concepts. The frailest woman will become a heroine when the life of her own child is at stake, and only the will to save the race and native land or the state which offers production to the race, has in all ages been the urge which has forced men to face the weapons of their enemies. The following may be proclaimed as a truth that always holds good.
A state has never arisen from commercial causes for the purposes of peacefully serving commercial ends, But states have always arisen from the instinct to maintain the racial group, whether this instinct manifest itself in the heroic sphere or in the sphere of cunning and chicanery. In the first case, we have the Aryan states based on the principles of work and cultural development. In the second case, we have the Jewish parasitic colonies. But as soon as economic interests begin to predominate over the racial and cultural instincts in a people or a state, these economic interests unloose the causes that lead to subjugation and oppression.
The belief which prevailed in Germany before the war that the world could be opened up and even conquered for Germany through a system of peaceful commercial penetration and a colonial policy was a typical symptom which indicated the decline of those real qualities whereby states are created and preserved, and indicated also the decline of that insight, will power, and practical determination which belong to those qualities. The World War, with its consequences, was the natural liquidation of that decline. To anyone who had not fought over the matter deeply, this attitude of the German people, which was quite general, must have seemed an insoluble enigma.
After all, Germany herself was a magnificent example of an empire that had been built up purely by a policy of power. Prussia, which was the generative cell of the German Empire, had been created by brilliant heroic deeds, and not by a financial or commercial compact. And the empire itself was but the magnificent recompense for a leadership that had been conducted on a policy of power and military valor. How then did it happen that the political instincts of this very same German people became so degenerate? For it was not merely one isolated phenomenon which pointed to this decadence, but morbid symptoms which appeared in alarming numbers, now all over the body politic, or eating into the body of the nation like a gangrenous ulcer.
It seemed as if some all pervading poisonous fluid had been injected, by some mysterious hand, into the bloodstream of this once heroic body, bringing about a creeping paralysis that affected the reason and the elementary instinct of self preservation. During the years 1912 to 1914, I used to ponder perpetually on those problems which related to the policy of the Triple Alliance and the economic policy then being pursued by the German Empire. Once again, I came to the conclusion that the only explanation of this enigma lay in the operation of that force which I had already become acquainted with in Vienna, though from a different angle of vision.
The force to which I refer was the Marxist teaching and the and its organized action throughout the nation. For the second time in my life, I plunged deep into the study of that destructive teaching. This time, however, I was not urged by the study of the question, by the impressions and influences of my daily environment, but directed rather by the observation of general phenomena in the political life of Germany. In delving again into the theoretical literature of this new world and endeavoring to get a clear view of the possible consequences of its teaching.
I compare the theoretical principles of Marxism with the phenomena and happenings brought about by its activities in the political, cultural, and economic spheres. For the first time in my life, I now turned my attention to the efforts that were being made to subdue this universal pest. I studied Bismarck's exceptional legislation in its original concept, its operation, and its results. Gradually, I formed a basis for my own opinions, which has proved as solid as a rock so that never since have I had to change my attitude towards the general problem. I also made a further and more thorough analysis of the relations between Marxism and Jewry.
During my sojourn in Vienna, I used to look upon Germany as an imperturbable colossus, But even then, serious doubts and misgivings would often disturb me. In my own mind and in my conversation with my small circle of acquaintances, I used to criticize Germany's foreign policy, and the incredibly superficial way, according to my thinking, in which Marxism was dealt with, though it was then the most important problem in Germany. I could not understand how they could stumble blindfolded into the midst of this peril, the effects of which would be momentous if the openly declared aims of Marxism could be put into practice.
Even as early as that time, I warned people around me, just as I am warning a wider audience now, against that soothing slogan of all indolent and feckless nature, nothing can happen to us. A similar mental contagion had already destroyed a mighty empire. Can Germany escape the operation of those laws to which all other human communities are subject? In the years 1913 and 1914, I expressed my opinion for the first time in various circles, some of which are now members of the National Socialist Movement, But the problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated.
I considered the disastrous policy of the Triple Alliance as one of the consequences resulting from the disintegrating effects of the Marxist teaching. For the alarming feature was that this teaching was invisibly corrupting the foundations of a healthy political and economic outlook. Those who had been themselves contaminated frequently did not realize that their aims and actions sprang from this Weltanschwang, which they otherwise openly repudiated. Long before then, the spiritual and moral decline of the German people had set in though those who were affected by the morbid decadence were frequently unaware, as often happens, of the forces which were breaking up their very existence.
Sometimes they tried to cure the disease by doctoring the symptoms which were taken as the cause But since nobody recognized or wanted to recognize the real course of the disease, this way of combating Marxism was no more effective than the application of some quacks ointment. File 34. Chapter five. The World War. During the boisterous years of my youth, nothing used to damp my wild spirits so much as to think that I was born at a time when the world had manifestly decided not to erect any more temples of fame except in honor of business people and state officials.
The tempest of historical achievements seem to have permanently subsided, so much so that the future appeared to be irrevocably delivered over to what was called peaceful competition between the nations. This simply meant a system of mutual exploitation by fraudulent means. The principle of resorting to the use of force in self defense being formally excluded. Individual countries increasingly assumed the appearance of commercial undertakings, grabbing territory and clients and concessions from each other under any and every kind of pretext. And it was all staged to an accompaniment of loud but innocuous shouting.
This trend of affairs seemed destined to develop steadily and permanently. Having the support of public approbation, it seemed bound eventually to transform the world into a mammoth department store. In the vestibule of this emporium, there would be rows of monumental busts, which would confer immortality on those profiteers who had proved themselves the shrewdest at their trade, and those administrative officials who had shown themselves the most innocuous. The salesman could be represented by the English and the administrative functionaries by the Germans, whereas the Jews would be sacrificed to the unprofitable calling of proprietorship, for they are constantly avowing that they make no profits and are always being called upon to pay out.
Moreover, they have the advantage of being versed in the foreign languages. Why could I not have been born a hundred years ago? I used to ask myself. Somewhere about the time of the wars of liberation, when a man was still of some value even though he had no business. Thus, I used to think it an ill deserved stroke of bad luck that I had arrived too late on this terrestrial globe, and I felt chagrined at the idea that my life would have to run its course along peaceful and orderly lines. As a boy, I was anything but a pacifist, and all attempts to make me so turned out futile.
Then the Boer War came like a glow of lightning on the far horizon. Day after day, I used to gaze intently at the newspapers, and I almost devoured the telegrams and communicates, overjoyed to think that I could witness that heroic struggle even though from so great a distance. When the Russo Japanese war came, I was older and better able to judge for myself. For national reasons, I then took the side of the Japanese in our discussions. I looked upon the defeat of the Russians as a blow to Austrian Slavism. Many years had passed between that time and my arrival in Munich.
I now realized that what I formally believed to be a morbid decadence was only the lull before the storm. During my Vienna days, the Balkans were already in the grip of that sultry pause which presages the violent storm. Here and there, a flash of lightning could be occasionally seen, but it rapidly disappeared in sinister gloom. Then the Balkan War broke out, and therewith the first gusts of the forthcoming tornado swept across a highly strung Europe. In the supervening calm, men felt the atmosphere oppressive and foreboding, so much so that the sense of an impending catastrophe became transformed into a feeling of impatient expectance.
They wished that heaven would give them free rein to the fate which could now no longer be curbed. Then the first great bolt of lightning struck the earth. The storm broke, and the thunder of the heavens intermingled with the roar of the cannons in the World War. When the news came to Munich that the archduke Franz Ferdinand had been murdered, I had been at home all day and did not get the particulars of how it happened. At first, I feared that the shots may have been fired by some German Austrian students who had been aroused to a state of furious indignation by the persistent pro Slav activities of the heir to the Habsburg throne, and therefore wish to liberate the German population from this internal enemy.
It was quite easy to imagine what the result of such a mistake would have been. It would have brought on a new wave of persecution, the motives of which would have been justified before the whole world. But soon afterwards, I heard the names of the presumed assassins, and also that they were known to be Serbs. I felt somewhat dumbfounded in face of the inexorable vengeance which destiny had wrought. The greatest friend of the Slavs had fallen a victim to the bullets of Slav patriots. It is unjust to the Vienna government of that time to blame it now for the form and tenor of the ultimatum which was then presented.
In a similar position and under similar circumstances, no other power in the world would have acted otherwise. On her southern frontiers, Austria had a relentless mortal foe who indulged in acts of provocation against the dual monarchy at intervals which were becoming more and more frequent. This persistent line of conduct would not have been relaxed until the arrival of the opportune moment for the destruction of the empire. In Austria, there was good reason to fear that at the latest, this moment would come with the death of the old emperor. Once that had taken place, it was quite possible that the monarchy would not be able to offer any serious resistance.
For some years past, the state had been so completely identified with the personality of Francis Joseph that in the eyes of the great mass of the people, the death of this venerable personification of the empire would be tantamount to the death of the empire itself. Indeed, it was one of the clever artifices of Slav policy to foster the impression that the Austrian state owed its very existence exclusively to the prodigies and rare talents of that monarch. This kind of flattery was particularly welcomed at the Hofburg, all the more because it had no relation whatsoever to the services actually rendered by the emperor.
No effort whatsoever was made to locate the carefully prepared sting which lay hidden in this glorifying praise. One fact which was entirely overlooked, perhaps intentionally, was that the more the empire remained dependent on the so called administrative talents of the wisest monarch of all times, the more catastrophic would be the situation when fate came to knock at the door and demand its tribute. Was it possible even to imagine the Austrian Empire without its venerable ruler? Would not the tragedy which befell Maria Theresa be repeated at once? It is really unjust to the Vienna Government circles to reproach them with having instigated a misfortune of German as well as Austrian diplomats that they endeavored to put off the inevitable day of reckoning with the result that they were finally compelled to deliver their blow at a most inopportune moment.
No. Those who did not wish this war ought to have had the courage to take the consequences of the refusal upon themselves. Those consequences must necessarily have meant the sacrifice of Austria. And even then, war would have come, not as a war in which all the nations would have been banded against us, but in the form of a dismemberment of the Habsburg Monarchy. In that case, we should have had to decide whether we should come to the assistance of the Habsburg or stand aside as spectators with our arms folded and thus allow fate to run its course.
Just those who are loudest in their implications today and make a great parade of wisdom in judging the causes of the war are the very same people whose collaboration was the most fatal factor in steering towards the war. For several decades previously, the German social democrats had been agitating in an underhand and knavish way for war against Russia. Whereas the German center party, with religious ends in view, had worked to make the Austrian state the chief center and turning point of German policy. The consequence of this folly had now to be born.
What came was bound to come, and under no circumstances could it have been avoided. The fault of the German government lay in the fact that merely for the sake of preserving peace at all costs, it continued to miss the occasions that were favorable for action, got entangled in an alliance for the purpose of preserving the peace of the world, and thus, finally became the victim of a world coalition which opposed the German effort for the maintenance of peace and was determined to bring about the World War. Had the Vienna government of that time formulated its ultimatum in less drastic terms, that would have not altered the situation at all.
But such a course might have aroused public indignation. For in the eyes of the great masses, the ultimatum was too moderate and certainly not excessive or brutal. Those who would deny this today are either simpletons with feeble memories or else deliberate falsehood mongers. The war of nineteen fourteen was certainly not forced on the masses. It was even desired by the whole people. There was a desire to bring the general feeling of uncertainty to an end once and for all, and it is only in the light of this fact that we can understand how more than 2,000,000 German men and youths voluntarily joined the colors, ready to shed the last drop of their blood for the cause.
For me, these hours came as a deliverance from the distress that had weighed upon me during the days of my youth. I'm not ashamed to acknowledge today that I was carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, and I sank down upon my knees and thanked heaven out of the fullness of my heart for the favor of having been permitted to live in such a time. The fight for freedom had broken out on an unparalleled scale in the history of the world. From the moment that fate took the helm in hand, the conviction grew amongst the mass of the people that now it was not a question of deciding the destinies of Austria Austria or Serbia, but that the very existence of the German nation itself was at stake.
File 35. At last, after many years of blindness, the people saw clearly into the future. Therefore, almost immediately after the gigantic struggle had begun, an excessive enthusiasm was replaced by a more earnest and more fitting undertone because the exaltation of the popular spirit was not a mere passing frenzy. It was only too necessary that the gravity of the situation should be recognized. At that time, there was, generally speaking, not the slightest presentiment or conception of how long the war might last. People dreamed of the soldiers being home by Christmas, and that then they would resume their daily work in peace.
Whatever mankind desires, that it will hope for and believe in. The overwhelming majority of the people had long since grown weary of the perpetual insecurity and the general condition of public affairs. Hence, it was only natural that no one believed that the Austro Serbian conflict could be shelved. Therefore, they looked forward to a radical settlement of accounts. I also belong to the millions that desired this. The moment the news of the Sarajevo outrage reached Munich, two ideas came into my mind. First, that war was absolutely inevitable, and second, that the Habsburg state would now be forced to honor its signature to the alliance.
For what I had feared most was that one day, Germany herself, perhaps as a result of the alliance, would become involved in a conflict the first direct cause of which did not affect Austria. In such a contingency, I feared that the Austrian state, for domestic political reasons, would find itself unable to decide in favor of its ally. But now this danger was removed. The old state was compelled to fight whether it wished to do so or not. My own attitude towards the conflict was equally simple and clear. I believe that it was not a case of Austria fighting to get satisfaction from Serbia, but rather a case of Germany fighting for her own existence.
The German nation for its own to be or not to be, for its freedom, and for its future. The work of Bismarck must now be carried on. Young Germany must show itself worthy of the blood shed by our fathers on so many heroic fields of battle from Weissenburg to Sedan and Paris. And if this struggle should bring us victory, our people will again rank foremost among the great nations. Only then could the German Empire assert itself as the mighty champion of peace without the necessity of restricting the daily bread of its children for the sake of maintaining the peace.
As a boy and as a young man, I often longed for the occasion to prove that my national enthusiasm was not mere vaporing. Harrying sometimes seemed to me to be a kind of sinful indulgence, though I could not give any justification for that feeling. For after all, who has the right to shout that triumphant word if he has not won the right to it there where there is no play acting, and where the hand of the goddess of destiny puts the truth and sincerity of nations and men through her inexorable test. Just as millions of others, I felt a proud joy in being permitted to go through this test.
I had so often sung Deutschland Uber Alice and so often roared that now I thought it was a kind of retroactive grace that I was granted the right of appearing before the court of eternal justice to testify to the truth of those sentiments. One thing was clear to me from the very beginning, namely, that in the event of war, which now seemed inevitable, my books would have to be thrown aside forthwith. I also realized that my place would have to be there where the inner voice of conscience called me. I had left Austria principally for political reasons. What therefore could be more rational than that I should put into practice the logical consequences of my political opinions now that the war had begun?
I had no desire to fight for the Habsburg cause, but I was prepared to die at any time for my own kinsfolk and the empire to which they really belonged. On 08/03/1914, I presented an urgent petition to his majesty king Ludwig the third requesting to be allowed to serve in a Bavarian regiment. In those days, the chancellery had its hands quite full, and therefore, I was all the more pleased when I received the answer a day later that my request had been granted. I opened the document with trembling hands, and no words of mine could now describe the satisfaction I felt on reading that I was instructed to report to a Bavarian regiment.
Within a few days, I was wearing that uniform which I was not to put off again for nearly six years. For me, as for every German, the most memorable period my life now began. Face to face with that mighty struggle, all the past fell away into oblivion. With a wistful pride, I look back on those days, especially because we are now approaching the tenth anniversary of that memorable happening. I recall those early weeks of war when kind fortune permitted me to take my place in that heroic struggle among the nations. As the scene unfolds itself before my mind, it seems only like yesterday.
I see myself among my young comrades on our first parade drill, and so on until at last the day came on which we were to leave for the front. In common with the others, I had one worry during those days. This was a fear that we might arrive too late for the fighting at the front. Time and again, that thought disturbed me, and every announcement of a victorious engagement left a bitter taste which increased as the news of further victories arrived. At long last, the day came when we left Munich on war service. For the first time in my life, I saw the Rhine as we journeyed westwards to stand guard before that historic German river against its traditional and grasping enemy.
As the first soft rays of the morning sun broke through the light mist and disclosed to us the Nederwald statue, With one accord, the whole troop train broke into the strains of. I then felt as if my heart could not contain its spirit, And then followed a damp cold night in Flanders. We marched in silence throughout the night. And as the morning sun came through the mist, an iron greeting suddenly burst above our heads. Shrapnel exploded in our midst and spluttered in the damp ground. But before the smoke of the explosion disappeared, a wild hurrah was shouted from 200 throats in response to this first greeting of death.
Then began the whistling of the bullets and the booming of cannons, the shouting and singing of the competence. With eyes straining feverishly, we pressed forward quicker and quicker until we finally came to close quarter fighting there beyond the beet fields and the meadows. Soon, the strains of a song reached us from afar. Nearer and nearer, from company to company, it came. And while death began to make havoc in our ranks, we passed the song onto those beside us. After four days in the trenches, we came back. Even our step was no longer what it had been.
Boys of 17 looked now like grown men. The rank and file of the least regiment had not been properly trained in the art of warfare, but they knew how to die like old soldiers. That was the beginning, and thus we carried on from year to year. A feeling of horror replaced the romantic fighting spirit. Enthusiasm cooled down gradually, and exuberant spirits were quelled by the fear of the ever present death. A time came when there arose within each one of us a conflict between the urge to self preservation and the call of duty, and I had to go through that conflict too.
As death sought its prey everywhere and unrelentingly, a nameless something rebelled within the weak body and tried to introduce itself under the name of common sense. But in reality, it was fear which had taken on this cloak in order to impose itself on the individual. But the more the voice which advised prudence increased its efforts, and the more clear and persuasive became its appeal, resistance became all the stronger, until finally the internal strife was over, and the call of duty was triumphant. Already in the winter of nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixteen, I had come through that inner struggle.
The will had asserted its incontestable mastery. Whereas in the early days, I went into the fight with a cheer and a laugh, I was now habitually calm and resolute, and that frame of mind endured. Fate might now put me through the final test without my nerves or reason giving way. The young volunteer had become an old soldier. This same transformation took place throughout the whole army. Constant fighting had aged and toughened it and hardened it so that it stood firm and dauntless against every assault. Only now was it possible to judge that army. After two and three years of continuous fighting, having been thrown into one battle after another, standing up stoutly against superior numbers and superior armament, suffering hunger and privation, the time had come when one could assess the value of that singular fighting force.
For a thousand years to come, nobody will dare to speak of heroism without recalling the German army of the World War. And then from the dim past will emerge the immortal vision of those solid ranks of steel helmets that never flinched and never faltered. And as long as Germans live, they will be proud to remember that these men were the sons of their forefathers. I was then a soldier and did not wish to meddle in politics, all the more so because the time was inopportune. I still believe that the most modest stable boy of those days served his country better than the best of, let us say, the parliamentary deputies.
My hatred for those footlers was never greater than in those days when all decent men who had anything to say said it point blank in the enemy's face, or failing this, kept their mouths shut and did their duty elsewhere. I despise those political fellows. And if I had had my way, I would have formed them into a labor battalion and given them the opportunity of babbling amongst themselves to their heart's content without offense or harm to decent people. File 36. In those days, I cared nothing for politics, but I could not help forming an opinion on certain manifestations which affected not only the whole nation, but also us soldiers in particular.
There were two things which caused me the greatest anxiety at that time and which I had come to regard as detrimental to our interests. Shortly after our first series of victories, a certain section of the press already began to throw cold water drip by drip on the enthusiasm of the public. At first, this was not obvious to many people. It was done under the mask of good intentions and a spirit of anxious care. The public was told that big celebrations of victories were somewhat out of place and were not worthy expressions of the spirit of a great nation. The fortitude and valor of German soldiers were accepted facts, which did not necessarily call for outbursts of celebration.
Furthermore, it was asked, what would foreign opinion have to say about these manifestations? Would not foreign opinion react more favorably to a quiet and sober form of celebration rather than to all this wild jubilation? Surely, the time had come, so the press declared, for us Germans to remember that this war was not our work, and that hence there need be no feeling of shame in declaring our willingness to do our share towards effecting and understanding among the nations. For this reason, it would not be wise to sully the radiant deeds of our army with unbecoming jubilation, for the rest of the world would never understand this.
Furthermore, nothing is more appreciated than the modesty with which a true hero quietly and unassumingly carries on and forgets. Such was the gist of their warning. Instead of catching these fellows by their long ears and dragging them to some ditch and looping a cord around their necks so that the victorious enthusiasm of the nation should no longer offend the aesthetic sensibilities of these knights of the pen, A general press campaign was now allowed to go on against what was called unbecoming and undignified forms of victorious celebration.
No one seemed to have the faintest idea that when public enthusiasm is once damped, nothing can enkindle it again when the necessity arises. This enthusiasm is an intoxication and must be kept up in that form. Without the support of this enthusiastic spirit, how would it be possible to endure in a struggle which, according to human standards, made such immense demands on the spiritual stamina of the nation? I was only too well acquainted with the psychology of the broad masses not to know that in such cases, a magnanimous aestheticism cannot fan the fire which is needed to keep the iron hot.
In my eyes, it was even a mistake not to have tried to raise the pitch of public enthusiasm still higher. Therefore, I could not at all understand why the contrary policy was adopted. That is to say the policy of damping the public spirit. Another thing which irritated me was the manner in which Marxism was regarded and accepted. I thought that all this proved how little they knew about the Marxist plague. It was believed in all seriousness that the abolition of party distinctions during the war had made Marxism a mild and moderate thing.
But here, there was no question of party. There was a question of a doctrine which was being expounded for the express purpose of leading humanity to its destruction. The purpose of this doctrine was not understood because nothing was said about that side of the question in our Jew ridden universities and because our supercilious bureaucratic officials did not think it worthwhile to read up a subject which had not been prescribed in the university course. This mighty revolutionary trend was going on beside them, but those intellectuals would not deign to give it their attention.
That is why state enterprise nearly always lags behind private enterprise. Of these gentry, one can truly say that their maxim is what we don't know won't bother us. In the August, the German worker was looked upon as an adherent of Marxist socialism. That was a gross error. When those fateful hours dawned, the German worker shook off the poisonous clutches of that plague. Otherwise, he would not have been so willing and ready to fight, and people were stupid enough to imagine that Marxism had now become national. Another apt illustration of the fact that those in authority had never taken the trouble to study the real tenor of Marxist teaching.
If they had done so, such foolish errors would not have been committed. Marxism, whose final objective was and is and will continue to be the destruction of all non Jewish national states had to witness in those days of July 1914 how the German working classes, which it had been in Vageling, were aroused by the national spirit and rapidly ranged themselves on the side of the fatherland. Within a few days, the deceptive smokescreen of that infamous national betrayal had vanished into thin air, and the Jewish bosses suddenly found themselves alone and deserted. It was as if not a vestige had been left of that folly and madness, which the masses of the German people had been inoculated for sixty years.
That was indeed an evil day for the betrayers of German labor. The moment, however, that the leaders realized the danger which threatened them, they pulled the magic cap of deceit over their ears, and without being identified, played the part of mimes in the national reawakening. The time seemed to have arrived for proceeding against the whole Jewish gang of public pests. Then it was that action should have been taken regardless of any consequent whining or protestation. At one stroke in the August, all the empty nonsense about international solidarity was knocked out of the heads of the German working classes.
A few weeks later, instead of this stupid talk sounding in their ears, they heard the noise of American manufactured shrapnel bursting above the heads of the marching columns as a symbol of international comradeship. Now that the German worker had rediscovered the road to nationhood, it ought to have been the duty of any government which had the care of the people in its keeping to take this opportunity of mercilessly rooting out everything that was opposed to the national spirit. While the flower of the nation's manhood was dying at the front, There was time enough at home at least to exterminate this vermin.
But instead of doing so, his majesty the Kaiser held out his hand to these hoary criminals, thus assuring them his protection and allowing them to regain their mental composure. And so the viper could begin his work again. This time, however, more carefully than before, but still more destructively. While honest people dreamt of reconciliation, these purged criminals were making preparations for a revolution. Naturally, I was distressed at the half measures which were adopted at that time, but I never thought it possible that the final consequences could have been so disastrous.
But what should have been done then? Throw the ringleaders into jail, prosecute them, and rid the nation of them. Uncompromising military measures should have been adopted to root out the evil. Parties should have been abolished, and the Reichstag brought to its senses at the point of the bayonet if necessary. It would have been still better if the Reichstag had been dissolved immediately. Just as the republic today dissolves the parties when it wants to, so in those days, there was even more justification for applying that measure, seeing that the very existence of the nation was at stake.
Of course, this suggestion would give rise to the question, is it possible to eradicate ideas by force of arms? Could a be attacked by means of physical force? At that time, I turned these questions over and over again in my mind by studying analogous cases exemplified in history, particularly those which had arisen from religious circumstances, I came to the following fundamental conclusion. Ideas and philosophical systems, as well as movements grounded on a definite spiritual foundation, whether true or not, can never be broken by the use of force after a certain stage except on one condition.
Namely that this use of force is in the service of a new idea or which burns with a new flame. The application of force alone without moral support based on a spiritual concept can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it unless one is ready and able ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind. Now in the majority of cases, the result of such a course has been to exclude such a state either temporarily or forever from the comity of states that are of political significance.
But experience has also shown that such a sanguinary method of extirpation arouses the better section of the population under the persecuting power. As a matter of fact, every persecution which has no spiritual motives to support it is morally unjust and raises opposition amongst the best elements of the population. So much so that these are driven more and more to champion the ideas that are unjustly persecuted. With many individuals, this arises from the sheer spirit of opposition to every attempt at suppressing spiritual things by brute force.
In this way, the number of convinced adherence of the persecuted doctrine increases as the persecution progresses. Hence, the total destruction of a new doctrine can be accomplished only by a vast plan of extermination. But this, in the final analysis, means the loss of some of the best blood in a nation or state, and that blood is then avenged because such an internal and total cleanup brings about the collapse of the nation's strength. And such a procedure is always condemned to futility from the very start if the attack doctrine should happen to have spread beyond a small circle. That is why in this case, as with all other growths, the doctrine can be exterminated in its earliest stages.
As time goes on, its powers of resistance increase until at the approach of age, it gives way to younger elements, but under another form and from other motives. File 37. The fact remains that nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine without having some spiritual basis of attack against it and also to wipe out all the organizations it has created have led in many cases to the very opposite being achieved, and that for the following reasons. When sheer force is used to combat the spread of a doctrine, then that force must be employed systematically and persistently.
This means that the chances of success in the suppression of a doctrine lie only in the persistent and uniform application of the methods chosen. The moment hesitation is shown and periods of tolerance alternate with the application of force, the doctrine against which these measures are directed will not only recover strength, but every successive persecution will bring to its support new adherents who have been shocked by the oppressive methods employed. The old adherence will become more embittered, and their allegiance will thereby be strengthened. Therefore, when force is employed, success is dependent on the consistent manner in which it is persistence, however, is nothing less than the product of definite spiritual convictions.
Every form of force that is not supported by a spiritual backing will be always indecisive and uncertain. Such a force lacks the stability that can be found only in a felt which has devoted champions. Such a force is the expression of the individual energies. Therefore, it is from time to time dependent on the change of persons in whose hands it is employed and also on their characters and capacities. But there is something else to be said. Every whether religious or political, and it is sometimes difficult to say whether one ends and the other begins, fights not so much for the negative destruction of the opposing world of ideas as for the positive realization of its own ideas.
Thus, its struggle lies in attack rather than in defense. It has the advantage of knowing where its objective lies as this objective represents the realization of its own ideas. Inversely, it is difficult to say when the negative aim for the destruction of a hostile doctrine is reached and secured. For this reason alone, a which is of an aggressive character is more definite in plan and more powerful and decisive in action than a which takes up a merely defensive attitude. If force be used to combat a spiritual power, that force remains a defensive measure only so long as the wielders of it are not the standard bearers and apostles of a new spiritual doctrine.
To sum up, the following must be born in mind. That every attempt to combat a by means of force will turn out futile in the end if the struggle fails to take the form of an offensive for the establishment of an entirely new spiritual order of things. It is only in the struggle between two that physical force consistently and ruthlessly applied will eventually turn the scales in its own favor. It was here that the fight against Marxism had hitherto failed. This was also the reason why Bismarck's anti socialist legislation failed and was bound to fail in the long run despite everything.
It lacked the basis of a new Weltanschlung for whose development and extension the struggle might have been taken up. To say that the serving up of drivel about a so called state authority or law and order was an adequate foundation for the spiritual driving force in a life or death struggle is only what one would expect to hear from the wise acres in high official positions. It was because there were no adequate spiritual motives back of this offensive that Bismarck was compelled to hand over the administration of his socialist legislative measures to the judgment and approval of those circles which were themselves the product of the Marxist teaching.
Thus, a very ludicrous state of affairs prevailed when the iron chancellor surrendered the fate of his struggle against Marxism to the goodwill of the bourgeois democracy. He left the goat to take care of the garden. But this was only the necessary result of the failure to find a fundamentally new which would attract devoted champions to its cause and could be established on the ground from which had been driven out. And thus, the result of the Bismarckian campaign was deplorable. During the World War or at the beginning of it, were the conditions any different?
Unfortunately, they were not. The more I then pondered over the necessity for a change in the attitude of the executive government towards social democracy as the incorporation of contemporary Marxism, the more I realized the want of a practical substitute for this doctrine. Supposing social democracy were overthrown, what had one to offer the masses in its stead? Not a single movement existed, which promised any success in attracting vast numbers of workers who would now be more or less without leaders and holding these workers in its train. It is nonsensical to imagine that the international fanatic who has just severed his connection with a class party would forthwith join a bourgeois party, or in other words, another class organization.
For however unsatisfactory these various organizations may appear to be, it cannot be denied that bourgeois politicians look on the distinction between classes as a very important factor in social life provided it does not turn out politically disadvantageous to them. If they deny this fact, they show themselves not only impudent, but also mendacious. Generally speaking, one should guard against considering the broad masses more stupid than they really are. In political matters, it frequently happens that feeling judges more correctly than intellect. But the opinion that this feeling on the part of the masses is sufficient proof of their stupid international attitude can be immediately and definitely refuted by the simple fact that pacifist democracy is no less fatuous, though it draws its supporters almost exclusively from bourgeois circles.
As long as millions of citizens daily gulp down what the social democratic press tells them, it ill becomes the masters to joke at the expense of the comrades. For in the long run, they all swallow the same hash even though it'd be dished up with different spices. In both cases, the cook is one and the same, The Jew. One should be careful about contradicting established facts. It is an undeniable fact that the class question has nothing to do with questions concerning ideals, though that dope is administered at election time. Class arrogance among a large section of our people, as well as a prevailing tendency to look down on the manual laborer, are obvious facts and not the fancies of some daydreamer.
Nevertheless, it only illustrates the mentality of our so called intellectual circles that they have not yet grasped the fact that circumstances which are capable of preventing the growth of such a plague as Marxism are certainly not capable of restoring what has been lost. The bourgeois parties, a name coined by themselves, will never again be able to win over and hold the proletarian masses in their train. That is because two worlds stand opposed to one another here, in part naturally and in part artificially divided.
These two camps have one leading thought, and that is that they must fight one another. But in such a fight, the younger will come off victorious, and that is Marxism. In 1914, a fight against social democracy was indeed quite conceivable, but the lack of any practical substitute made it doubtful how long the fight could be kept up. In this respect, there was a gaping void. Long before the war, I was of the same opinion, and that was the reason why I could not decide to join any of the parties then existing. During the course of the World War, my conviction was still further confirmed by the manifest impossibility of fighting social democracy in anything like a thorough way.
Because for that purpose, there should have been a movement that was something more than a mere parliamentary party, and there was none such. I frequently discussed that want with my intimate comrades, and it was then that I first conceived the idea of taking up political work later on. As I have often assured my friends, it was just this that induced me to become active on the public hustings after the war in addition to my professional work. And I am sure that this decision was arrived at after much earnest thought. File 38.
Chapter six, war propaganda. In watching the course of political events, I was always struck by the active part which propaganda played in them. I saw that it was an instrument which the Marxist socialists knew how to handle in a masterly way and how to put it to practical uses. Thus, I soon came to realize that the right use of propaganda was an art in itself and that this art was practically unknown to our bourgeois parties. The Christian Socialist Party alone, especially in Luger's time, showed a certain efficiency in the employment of this instrument and owed much of their success to it.
It was during the war, however, that we had the best chance of estimating the tremendous results which could be obtained by a propagandist system properly carried out. Here again, unfortunately, everything was left to the other side, the work done on our side being worse than insignificant. It was the total failure of the whole German system of information, a failure which was perfectly obvious to every soldier that urged me to consider the problem of propaganda in a comprehensive way. I had ample opportunity to learn a practical lesson in this matter, for, unfortunately, it was only too well taught us by the enemy.
The lack on our side was exploited by the enemy in such an efficient manner that one could say it showed itself as a real work of genius. In that propaganda carried on by the enemy, I found admirable sources of instruction. The lesson to be learned from this had unfortunately no attraction for the geniuses on our own side. They were simply above all such things, too clever to accept any teaching. Anyhow, they did not honestly wish to learn anything. Had we any propaganda at all? Alas, I can reply only in the negative. All that was undertaken in this direction was so utterly inadequate and misconceived from the very beginning that not only did it prove useless, but at times harmful.
In substance, it was insufficient. Psychologically, it was all wrong. Anybody who had carefully investigated the German propaganda must have formed that judgment of it. Our people did not seem to be clear even about the primary question itself, whether propaganda is a means or an end. Propaganda is a means and must, therefore, be judged in relation to the end it is intended to serve. It must be organized in such a way as to be capable of attaining its objective. And as it is quite clear that the importance of the objective may vary from the standpoint of general necessity, the essential internal character of the propaganda must vary accordingly.
The cause for which we fought during the war was the noblest and highest that man could strive for. We were fighting for the freedom and independence of our country, for the security of our future welfare, and the honor of the nation. Despite all views to the contrary, this honor does actually exist, or rather, it will have to exist for a nation without honor will sooner or later lose its freedom and independence. This is in accordance with the ruling of a higher justice for a generation of poltroons is not entitled to freedom. He who would be a slave cannot have honor, for such honor would soon become an object of general scorn.
Germany was waging war for its very existence. The purpose of its war propaganda should have been to strengthen the fighting spirit in that struggle and help it to victory. But when nations are fighting for their existence on this earth, when the question of to be or not to be has to be answered, Then all humane and aesthetic considerations must be set aside. For these ideals do not exist of themselves somewhere in the air, but are the product of man's creative imagination and disappear when he disappears. Nature knows nothing of them. Moreover, they are characteristic of only a small number of nations or rather of races, and their value depends on the measure in which they spring from the racial feeling of the latter.
Humane and aesthetic ideals will disappear from the inhabited earth when those races disappear, which are the creators and standard bearers of them. All such ideals are only of secondary importance when a nation is struggling for its existence. They must be prevented from entering into the struggle the moment they threaten to weaken the stamina of the nation that is waging war. That is always the only visible effect whereby their place in the struggle is to be judged. In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke stated that in time of war, the essential thing is to get a decision as quickly as possible, and that the most ruthless methods of fighting are at the same time the most humane.
When people attempt to answer this reasoning by highfalutin talk about aesthetics, etcetera, only one answer can be given. It is that the vital questions involved in the struggle of a nation for its existence must not be subordinated to any aesthetic considerations. The yoke of slavery is and always will remain the most unpleasant experience that mankind can endure. Do the shrubbing descendants look upon Germany's lot today as aesthetic? Of course, one doesn't discuss such a question with the Jews because they are the modern inventors of this cultural perfume.
Their very existence is an incarnate denial of the beauty of god's image in his creation. Since these ideas of what is beautiful and humane have no place in warfare, they are not to be used as standards of war propaganda. During the war, propaganda was a means to an end, and this end was the struggle for existence of the German nation. Propaganda, therefore, should have been regarded from the standpoint of its utility for that purpose. The most cruel weapons were then the most humane, provided they helped towards a speedier decision, and only those methods were good and beautiful, which helped towards securing the dignity and freedom of the nation.
Such was the only possible attitude to adopt towards war propaganda in the life or death struggle. If those in what are called positions of authority had realized this, there would have been no uncertainty about the form and employment of war propaganda as a weapon, for it is nothing but a weapon, and indeed a most terrifying weapon in the hands of those who know how to use it. The second question of decisive importance is this. To whom should propaganda be made to appeal? To the educated intellectual classes or to the less intellectual?
Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. For the intellectual classes or what are called the intellectual classes today, propaganda is not suited, but only scientific exposition. Propaganda has as little to do with science as an advertisement poster has to do with art as far as concerns the form in which it presents its message. The art of the advertisement poster consists in the ability of the designer to attract the attention of the crowd through the form and colors he chooses. The advertisement poster announcing an exhibition of art has no other aim than to convince the public of the importance of the exhibition.
The better it does that, the better is the art of the poster as such. Being meant accordingly to impress upon the public the meaning of the exposition, the poster can never take the place of the artistic objects displayed in the exposition hall. They are something entirely different. Therefore, those who wish to study the artistic display must study something that is quite different from the poster. Indeed, for that purpose, a mere wandering through the exhibition galleries is of no use. The student of art must carefully and thoroughly study each exhibit in order slowly to form a judicious opinion about it.
The situation is the same in regard to what we understand by the word propaganda. The purpose of propaganda is not the personal instruction of the individual, but rather to attract public attention to certain things, the importance of which can be brought home to the masses only by these means. Here, the art of propaganda consists in putting a matter so clearly and forcibly before the minds of the people as to create a general conviction regarding the reality of a certain fact, the necessity of certain things, and the just character of something that is essential.
But as this art is not an end in itself, and because its purpose must be exactly that of the advertisement poster, to attract the attention of the masses and not by any means to dispense individual instructions to those who already have an educated opinion on things or wish to form such an opinion on grounds of objective study. Because that is not the purpose of propaganda, it must appeal to the feelings of the public rather than to their reasoning powers. All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed.
Thus, its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach. When there is question of bringing a whole nation within the circle of its influence, as happens in the case of war propaganda, then too much attention cannot be paid to the necessity of avoiding a high level, which presupposes a relatively high degree of intelligence among the public. The more modest the scientific tenor of this propaganda, and the more it is addressed exclusively to public sentiment, the more decisive will be its success.
This is the best test of the value of the propaganda and not the approbation of a small group of intellectuals or artistic people. The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. That this is not understood by those among us whose wits are supposed to have been sharpened to the highest pitch is only another proof of their vanity or mental inertia. Once we have understood how necessary it is to concentrate the persuasive forces of propaganda on the broad masses of the people, the following lessons result there from.
That it is a mistake to organize the direct propaganda as if it were a manifold system of scientific instruction. The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials, and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. If this principle be forgotten, and if an attempt be made to be abstract and general, the propaganda will turn out ineffective, for the public will not be able to digest or retain what is offered to them in this way.
Therefore, the greater the scope of the message that has to be presented, the more necessary it is for the propaganda to discover that plan of action which is psychologically the most efficient. File 39. It was, for example, a fundamental mistake to ridicule the worth of the enemy as the Austrian and German comic papers made a chief point of doing in their propaganda. The very principle here is a mistaken one. For when they came face to face with the enemy, our soldiers had quite a different impression. Therefore, the mistake had disastrous results.
Once the German soldier realized what a tough enemy he had to fight, he felt that he had been deceived by the manufacturers of the information which had been given him. Therefore, instead of strengthening and stimulating his fighting spirit, this information had quite the contrary effect. Finally, he lost heart. On the other hand, British and American war propaganda was psychologically efficient. By picturing the Germans to their own people as barbarians and Huns, they were preparing their soldiers for the horrors of war and safeguarding them against delusions.
The most terrific weapons which those soldiers encountered in the field merely confirmed the information that they had already received, and their belief in the truth of the assertions made by their respective governments was accordingly reinforced. Thus, their rage and hatred against the infamous foe was increased. The terrible havoc caused by the German weapons of war was only another illustration of the Hunnish brutality of those barbarians. Whereas on the side of the entente, no time was left the soldiers to meditate on the similar havoc which their own weapons were capable of. Thus, the British soldier was never allowed to feel that the information which he received at home was untrue.
Unfortunately, the opposite was the case with the Germans who finally wound up by rejecting everything from home as pure swindle and humbug. This result was made possible because at home, they thought that the work of propaganda could be entrusted to the first ass that came along, braying of his own special talents, and they had no conception of the fact that propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found. Thus, the German war propaganda afforded us an incomparable example of how the work of enlightenment should not be done, and how such an example was the result of an entire failure to take any psychological considerations whatsoever into account.
From the enemy, however, a fund of valuable knowledge could be gained by those who kept their eyes open, whose powers of perception had not yet become sclerotic, and who during four and a half years had to experience the perpetual flood of enemy propaganda. The worst of all was that our people did not understand the very first condition which has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda, namely a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with. In this regard, so many errors were committed even from the very beginning of the war that it was justifiable to doubt whether so much folly could be attributed solely to the stupidity of people in higher quarters.
What, for example, should we say of a poster which purported to advertise some new brand of soap by insisting on the excellent qualities of the competitive brands? We should naturally shake our heads, and it ought to be just the same in a similar kind of political advertisement. The aim of propaganda is not to try to pass judgment on conflicting rights, giving each its due, but exclusively to emphasize the right which we are asserting. Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively, and in so far as it is favorable to the other side, presented according to the theoretical rules of justice, yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side.
It was a fundamental mistake to discuss the question of who was responsible for the outbreak of war and declare that the sole responsibility could not be attributed to Germany. The sole responsibility should have been laid on the shoulders of the enemy without any discussion whatsoever. And what was the consequence of these half measures? The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence, nor simply of persons who are able to form reason judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another.
As soon as our own propaganda made the slightest suggestion that the enemy had a certain amount of justice on his side, then we laid down the basis on which the justice of our own cause could be questioned. The masses are not in a position to discern where the enemy's fault ends and where our own begins. In such a case, they become hesitant and distrustful, especially when the enemy does not make the same mistake, but heaps all the blame on his adversary. Could there be any clearer proof of this than the fact that finally our own people believed what was said by the enemy's propaganda, which was uniform and consistent in its assertions, rather than what our own propaganda said.
And that, of course, was increased by the mania for objectivity, which addicts our people. Everybody began to be careful about doing an injustice to the enemy, even at the cost of seriously injuring and even ruining his own people and state. Naturally, the masses were not conscious of the fact that those in authority had failed to study the subject from this angle. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent.
It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that. English propaganda especially understood this in a marvelous way and put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half measures which might have given rise to some doubt. Proof of how brilliantly they understood that the feeling of the masses is something primitive was shown in their policy of publishing tales of horror and outrages which fitted in with the real horrors of the time, thereby cleverly and ruthlessly preparing the ground for moral solidarity at the front even in times of great defeats.
Further, the way in which they pilloried the German enemy as solely responsible for the war, which was a brutal and absolute falsehood, and the way in which they proclaimed his guilt was excellently calculated to reach the masses, realizing that these are always extremist in their feelings. And thus, it was that this atrocious lie was positively believed. The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda is well illustrated by the fact that after four and a half years, not only was the enemy still carrying on his propagandist work, but it was already undermining the stamina of our people at home.
That our propaganda did not achieve similar results is not to be wondered at because it had the germs of inefficiency lodged in its very being by reason of its ambiguity. And because of the very nature of its content, one could not expect it to make the necessary impression on the masses. Only our feckless statesman could have imagined that on pacifist slops of such a kind, the enthusiasm could be nourished, which is necessary to enkindle that spirit, which leads men to die for their country. And so this product of ours was not only worthless, but detrimental.
No matter what an amount of talent employed in the organization of propaganda, it will have no result if due account is not taken of these fundamental principles. Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes, and these must be represented again and again. Here, as in innumerable other cases, perseverance is the first and most important condition of success. Particularly in the field of propaganda, placid aesthetes and blaze intellectuals should never be allowed to take the lead. The former would readily transform the impressive character of real propaganda into something suitable only for literary tea parties.
As to the second class of people, one must always beware of this pest. For in consequence of their insensibility to normal impressions, they are constantly seeking new excitements. Such people grow sick and tired of everything. They always long for change and will always be incapable of putting themselves in the position of picturing the wants of their less callous fellow creatures in their immediate neighborhood, let alone trying to understand them. The Blase intellectuals are always the first to criticize propaganda or rather its message because this appears to them to be outmoded and trivial.
They are always looking for something new, always yearning for change, and thus, they become the mortal enemies of every effort that may be made to influence the masses in an effective way. The moment the organization and message of a propagandist movement begins to be orientated according to their tastes, it becomes incoherent and scattered. It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations and sentiment with a view to pleasing these gentry. Its chief function is to convince the masses whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information.
And only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd. Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles. But in the end, one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. In this way alone can propaganda be consistent and dynamic in its effects. Only by following these general lines and sticking to them steadfastly with uniform and concise emphasis can final success be reached.
Then one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a persistent policy secures. The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or political nature, depends on the consistency and perseverance with which it is employed. In this respect also, the propaganda organized by our enemies set us an excellent example. It confined itself to a few themes, which were meant exclusively for mass consumption, and it repeated these themes with untiring perseverance. Once these fundamental themes and the manner of placing them before the world were recognized as effective, they adhered to them without the slightest alteration for the whole duration of the war.
At first, all of it appeared to be idiotic in its impudent assertiveness. Later on, it was looked upon as disturbing, but finally, it was believed. But in England, they came to understand something further, namely that the possibility of success in the use of this spiritual weapon consists in the mass employment of it, and that when employed in this way, it brings full returns for the large expenses incurred. In England, propaganda was regarded as a weapon of the first order, whereas with us, it represented the last hope of a livelihood for our unemployed politicians and a snug job for shirkers of the modest hero type.
Taken all in all, its results were negative.
The Decline of the Habsburg State
The Rise of Pan Germanism
The Struggle for National Preservation
The Failure of the Pan German Movement
The Christian Socialist Party's Approach
The Role of Religion in National Politics
The Importance of Mass Movements
The Austrian State's Internal Struggles
The German Question in Austria
The Collapse of the Habsburg Empire
The Lessons from Austria's Political Movements
The Christian Socialist Party's Mistakes
The National and Social Questions
The Yearning for German Unity
The Move to Munich
The German Empire's Foreign Policy
The Population Problem and Territorial Expansion
The Fallacy of Internal Colonization
The Necessity of Territorial Expansion
The Alliance with England
The Misguided Naval Policy
The Triple Alliance's Weakness
The Decline of German Political Thought
The Role of Economic Interests in State Formation
The Influence of Marxism
The Failure of Anti-Socialist Legislation
The Inevitability of the World War
The Call to Arms
The Transformation of the German Army
The Role of Propaganda in War
The Failure of German War Propaganda
The Art of Effective Propaganda
The Psychological Impact of Propaganda
The Importance of Consistency in Propaganda
The Lessons from Enemy Propaganda
