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Mein Kampf aka My Struggle

weidev
1 May 04, 04:05

The clothing of our youth should also be adapted to this purpose. It is truly miserable to behold how our youth even now is subjected to a fashion madness which helps to reverse the sense of the old saying: 'Clothes make the man' into something truly catastrophic.

Especially in the youth, dress must be put into the service of education. The boy who in summer runs around in long stovepipe trousers, and covered up to the neck, loses through his clothing alone a stimulus for his physical training. For we must exploit ambition and, we may as well calmly admit it, vanity as well. Not vanity about fine clothes which everyone cannot buy, but vanity about a beautiful, well-formed body which everyone can help to build.

This is also expedient for later life. The girl should get to know her beau. If physical beauty were today not forced entirely into the background by our foppish fashions, the seduction of hundreds of thousands of girls by bow-legged, repulsive Jewish bastards would not be possible. This, too, is in the interest of the nation: that the most beautiful bodies should find one another, and so help to give the nation new beauty.

Today, of course, all this is more necessary than ever, because there is no military training, and so the sole institution is excluded which in peacetime compensated at least in part for what was neglected by the rest of our educational system. And there, too, success was to be sought, not only in the training of the individual as such, but in the influence it exerted on the relations between the two sexes. The young girl preferred the soldier to the non-soldier.

The folkish state must not only carry through and supervise physical training in the official school years; in the post-school period as well it must make sure that, as long as a boy is in process of physical development, this development turns out to his benefit. It is an absurdity to believe that with the end of the school period the state's right to supervise its young citizens suddenly ceases, but returns at the military age. This right is a duty and as such is equally present at all times. Only the present-day state having no interest in healthy people has neglected this duty in a criminal fashion. It lets present-day youth go to the dogs on the streets and in brothels, instead of taking them in hand and continuing their physical education until the day when they grow up into a healthy man and a healthy woman.

In what form the state carries on this training is beside the point today; the important thing is that it should do so and seek the ways and means that serve this purpose. The folkish state will have to look on post-school physical training as well as intellectual education as a state function, and foster them through state institutions. This education in its broad outlines can serve as a preparation for future military service. The army will not have to teach the young men the fundamentals of the most elementary drill-book as hitherto, and it will not get recruits of the present type; no, it will only have to transform a young man who has already received flawless physical preparation into a soldier.

In the folkish state, therefore, the army will no longer have to teach the individual how to walk and to stand; it will be the last and highest school of patriotic education. In the army the young recruit will receive the necessary training in arms, and at the same time he will receive a further moulding for any other future career. But in the forefront of military training will stand what has to be regarded as the highest merit of the old army: in this school the boy must be transformed into a man; in this school he must not only learn to obey, but must thereby acquire a basis for commanding later. He must learn to be silent not only when he is justly blamed but must also learn, when necessary, to bear injustice in silence.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:06

Furthermore, reinforced by faith in his own strength, filled with the force of a commonly experienced esprit de corps, he must become convinced of the invincibility of his nationality.

After the conclusion of his military service, two documents should be issued: His citizen's diploma, a legal document which admits him to public activity, and his health certificate, confirming his physical health for marriage.

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Analogous to the education of the boy, the folkish state can conduct the education of the girl from the same viewpoint. There, too, the chief emphasis must be laid on physical training, and only subsequently on the promotion of spiritual and finally intellectual values. The goal of female education must invariably be the future mother.

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Only secondarily must the folkish state promote the development of the character in every way.

Assuredly the most essential features of character are fundamentally preformed in the individual: the man of egotistic nature is and remains so forever, just as the idealist in the bottom of his heart will always be an idealist. But between the fully distinct characters there are millions that seem vague and unclear. The born criminal is and remains a criminal; but numerous people in whom is only a certain tendency toward the criminal can by sound education still become valuable members of a national community; while conversely, through bad education, wavering characters can turn into really bad elements.

How often, during the War, did we hear the complaint that our people were so little able to be silent! How hard this made it to withhold even important secrets from the knowledge of our enemies! But ask yourself this question: What, before the War, did German education do to teach the individual silence? Even in school, sad to say, wasn't the little informer sometimes preferred to his more silent schoolmates? Was not and is not informing regarded as praiseworthy 'frankness,' discretion as reprehensible obstinacy? Was any effort whatever made to represent discretion as a manly and precious virtue? No, for in the eyes of our present school system these are trifles. But these trifles cost the state countless millions in court costs, for ninety per cent of all slander and similar suits have arisen only through lack of discretion. Irresponsibly dropped remarks are gossiped along just as frivolously, our national economy is constantly harmed by the frivolous revelation of important manufacturing processes, etc.; in fact, all our secret preparations for national defense are rendered illusory since the people simply have not learned how to be silent but pass everything on. This talkativeness can lead to the loss of battles and thus contribute materially to the unfavorable issue of the conflict. Here, again, we must realize that mature age cannot do what has not been practiced in youth. And this is the place to say that a teacher, for instance, must on principle not try to obtain knowledge of silly children's tricks by cultivating loathsome tattle-tales. Youth has its own state, it has a certain closed solidarity toward the grown-up, and this is perfectly natural. The ten year-old's bond with his playmate of the same age is more natural and greater than his bond with grown-ups. A boy who snitches on his comrade practices treason and thus betrays a mentality which, harshly expressed and enlarged, is the exact equivalent of treason to one's country.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:06

Such a boy can by no means be regarded as a 'good, decent' child; no, he is a boy of undesirable character. The teacher may find it convenient to make use of such vices for enhancing his authority, but in this way he sows in the youthful heart the germ of a mentality the later effect of which may be catastrophic. More than once, a little informer has grown up to be a big scoundrel!

This is only one example among many. Today the conscious development of good, noble traits of character in school is practically nil. In the future far greater emphasis must be laid on this. Loyalty, spirit of sacrifice, discretion are virtues that a great nation absolutely needs, and their cultivation and development in school are more important than some of the things which today fill out our curriculums. The discouragement of whining complaints, of bawling, etc., also belongs in this province. If a system of education forgets to teach the child in early years that sufferings and adversity must be borne in silence, it has no right to be surprised if later at a critical hour, when a man stands at the front, for example, the entire postal service is used for nothing but transporting whining letters of mutual complaint. If at the public schools a little less knowledge had been funneled into our youth and more self-control, this would have been richly rewarded in the years from 1915 to 1918.

And so the folkish state, in its educational work, must side by side with physical culture set the highest value precisely on the training of character. Numerous moral weaknesses in our present national body, if they cannot be entirely eliminated by this kind of education, can at least be very much attenuated.

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Of the highest importance is the training of will-power and determination, plus the cultivation of joy in responsibility.

In the army the principle once held good that any command is better than none; related to youth this means primarily that any answer is better than none. The dread of giving no answer for fear of saying something wrong must be considered more humiliating than an incorrectly given answer. Starting from this most primitive basis, youth should be trained in such a way that it acquires courage for action.

People have often complained that in the days of November and December, 1918, every single authority failed, that from the monarchs down to the last divisional commander, no one was able to summon up the strength for an independent decision. This terrible fact is the handwriting on the wall for our educational system, for this cruel catastrophe expressed, hugely magnified, what was generally present on a small scale. It is this lack of will and not the lack of weapons which today makes us incapable of any serious resistance. It sits rooted in our whole people, prevents any decision with which a risk is connected, as though the greatness of a deed did not consist precisely in the risk. Without suspecting it, a German general succeeded in finding the classic formula for this miserable spinelessness: 'I act only if I can count on fifty-one per cent likelihood of success.' In these 'fifty-one per cent' lies the tragedy of the German collapse; anyone who demands of Fate a guaranty of success, automatically renounces all idea of a heroic deed. For this lies in undertaking a step which may lead to success, in the full awareness of the mortal danger inherent in a state of affairs. A cancer victim whose death is otherwise certain does not have to figure out fifty-one per cent in order to risk an operation. And if the operation promises only half a per cent likelihood of cure, a courageous man will risk it; otherwise he has no right to whimper for his life.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:06

The plague of our present-day cowardly lack of will and determination is, all in all, mainly the result of our basically faulty education of youth, whose devastating effect extends to later life and finds its ultimate crowning conclusion in the lack of civil courage in our leading statesmen.

In the same line falls the present-day flagrant cowardice in the face of responsibility. Here, too, the error begins in the education of youth, goes on to permeate all public life, and finds its immortal completion in the parliamentary institution of government.

Even at school, unfortunately, more value is attached to 'repentant' confession and 'contrite abjuration' on the part of the little sinner than to a frank admission. The latter seems to many popular educators of today the surest mark of an incorrigible depravity and, incredible as it may seem, the gallows is predicted for many a youth for qualities which would be of inestimable value if they constituted the common possession of a whole people.

Just as the folkish state must some day devote the highest attention to the training of the will and force of decision, it must from an early age implant joy in responsibility and courage for confession in the hearts of youth. Only if it recognizes this necessity in its full import will it finally, after an educational work enduring for centuries, obtain as a result a national body which will no longer succumb to those weaknesses which today have contributed so catastrophically to our decline.

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The scientific school training which today is really the beginning and end of all state educational work can with only slight changes be taken over by the folkish state. These changes lie in three fields.

In the first place the youthful brain should in general not be burdened with things ninety-five per cent of which it cannot use and hence forgets again. Particularly, the curriculum of the elementary and intermediate schools is today a mongrel; in many cases, the material to be learned in the various subjects is so swollen that only a fraction of it remains in the head of the individual pupil, and only a fraction of this abundance can find application, while on the other hand it is not adequate for the man working and earning his living in a definite field. Take, for example, the average government official, graduated from the Gymnasium or the superior Realschule, at the age of thirty-five or forty, and examine him in the school learning that was once so painfully drummed into him. How little of all the stuff that was once funneled into him is still present! To be sure, you will get the answer: 'Well, the mass of material learned then was not intended only for the future possession of varied knowledge, but also for training mental receptivity, the power of thought and especially the memory. This is partly correct. Yet there is a danger in having the youthful brain flooded with so many impressions which only in the rarest cases it is able to master, and whose various elements it neither can sift nor evaluate according to their greater or lesser importance; and besides, as a rule, not the non-essential but the essential is forgotten and sacrificed Thus the main purpose of learning so much is again lost; for it cannot consist after all in inducing learning power in the brain by an unmeasured heaping up of material, but must be to give the future man that store of knowledge which the individual needs and which through him in turn benefits the community. And this becomes illusory if the man, in consequence of the superabundance of the material forced on him in youth, later either possesses it not at all or has long since lost the very essentials. It is impossible to understand, for example, why millions of people in the course of the years must learn two or three foreign languages only a fraction of which they can make use of later and hence most of them forget entirely, for of a hundred thousand pupils who learn French for example, barely two thousand will have a serious use for this knowledge later, while ninety-eight thousand in the whole further course of their life will not find themselves in a position to make practical use of what they had once learned. They have in their youth, therefore, devoted thousands of hours to a subject which later is without value and meaning for them. And the objection that this material belongs to general education, is unsound, since it could only be upheld if people retained all through their life what they had learned. So in reality, because of the two thousand people for whom the knowledge of this language is profitable, ninety-eight thousand must be tormented for nothing and made to sacrifice valuable time.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:09

And in this case we are dealing with a language of which it cannot even be said that it implies a training in sharp, logical thinking as applies, for example, to Latin. Hence it would be considerably more expedient if such a language were transmitted to the young student only in its general outlines or, better expressed, in its inner structure, thus giving him knowledge of the most salient essence of this language, introducing him perhaps to the fundamentals of its grammar and pronunciation, discussing syntax, etc., by model examples. This would suffice for general use and, because it is easier to visualize and remember, would be more valuable than the present-day manner of drumming in the whole language, which is not really mastered anyway and is later forgotten. In this way, moreover, the danger would be avoided that of all the overpowering abundance of material only a few unconnected crumbs would stick in the memory, as the young man would have to learn the most noteworthy aspects, and consequently the process of sifting according to value or the lack of it would have taken place in advance.

The general foundation thus imparted would suffice most people, even for later life, while it creates for those others who really need the language later the possibility of building further on it, and devoting themselves of their own free choice to learning it with the greatest thoroughness.

Thus the necessary time in the curriculum is gained for physical training as well as the increased demands in the abovementioned fields.

Particularly in the present method of teaching history a change must be made. Probably no people studies more history than the German; but probably there is no people that applies it worse than ours. If politics is history in the making, our historical education is directed by the nature of our political activity. Here, again, it is not permissible to complain about the wretched results of our political achievements unless we are determined to provide a better political education. The result of our present history instruction is wretched in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. A few facts, dates, birthdays and names remain behind while a broad, clear line is totally lacking. The essentials which should really matter are not taught at all; it is left to the more or less gifted nature of the individual to find out the inner motives from the flood of dates and the sequence of events. We may argue as much as we like against this bitter statement; just read attentively the speeches on political problems, say questions of foreign policy, delivered during a single session by our parliamentary gentlemen; and bear in mind that these men - allegedly at least - are the cream of the German nation, and that at any rate a large part of them have even been at universities, and from this you will be able to see how totally inadequate the historical education of these people is. If they had not studied history at all, but only possessed a healthy instinct, it would be considerably better and more profitable for the nation.

Especially in historical instruction an abridgment of the material must be undertaken. The main value lies in recognizing the great lines of development. The more the instruction is limited to this, the more it is to be hoped that an advantage will later accrue to the individual from his knowledge, which summed up will also benefit the community. For we do not learn history just in order to know the past, we learn history in order to find an instructor for the future and for the continued existence of our own nationality. That is the end, and historical instruction is only a means to it. But today the means has become the end, and the end disappears completely. Let it not be said that thorough study of history requires attention to all these individual details' on the ground that only from them can a great line be developed. To lay down this line is the function of the special science. The normal, average man is no history professor. For him history exists primarily to give him that measure of historical insight which is necessary for him to take a position of his own on the political issues of his nation. Anyone who wants to become a history professor may later devote himself intensively to this study. It goes without saying that he will have to concern himself with all and even the smallest details. For this, however, even our present history instruction cannot suffice; for it is too extensive for the normal, average man, but much too limited for the specialized scholar.

Aside from this, it is the task of the folkish state to see to it that a world history is finally written in which the racial question is raised to a dominant position.

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weidev
1 May 04, 04:10

To sum up: the folkish state will have to put general, scientific instruction into an abbreviated form, embracing the essentials. In addition to this, the possibility of a thorough, specialized training must be offered. It suffices for the individual man to obtain a general knowledge in broad outlines as a foundation, and only in the field which will be that of his later life, to enjoy the most thorough specialized and detailed training. General education should be obligatory in all departments; the special training should remain free to the choice of the individual.

The shortening of the curriculum and the number of hours thus achieved will benefit the training of the body, of the character, of the will power and determination.

How irrelevant our present-day school training, especially in the high schools, is for a future profession is best demonstrated by the fact that today people from three schools of an entirely different nature can arrive at one and the same position. In reality only the general education is of decisive importance and not the specialized knowledge that is funneled into them. And where - as I have said before - a specialized knowledge is really necessary it can naturally not be obtained within the curriculums of our present high schools.

With such halfway methods, therefore, the folkish state must some day do away.

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The second change of scientific curriculum in the folkish state must be the following:

It is the characteristic of our present materialized epoch that our scientific education is turning more and more toward practical subjects - in other words, mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. Necessary as this is for a period in which technology and chemistry rule - embodying at least those of its characteristics which are most visible in daily life - it is equally dangerous when the general education of a nation is more and more exclusively directed toward them. This education on the contrary must always be ideal. It must be more in keeping with the humanistic subjects and offer only the foundations for a subsequent additional education in a special field. Otherwise we renounce the forces which are still more important for the preservation of the nation than all technical or other ability. Especially in historical instruction we must not be deterred from the study of antiquity. Roman history correctly conceived in extremely broad outlines is and remains the best mentor, not only for today, but probably for all time. The Hellenic ideal of culture should also remain preserved for us in its exemplary beauty. We must not allow the greater racial community to be torn asunder by the differences of the individual peoples. The struggle that rages today is for very great aims. A culture combining millenniums and embracing Hellenism and Germanism is fighting for its existence.

A sharp difference should exist between general education and specialized knowledge. As particularly today the latter threatens more and more to sink into the service of pure Mammon, general education, at least in its more ideal attitude, must be retained as a counterweight. Here, too, we must incessantly inculcate the principle that industry, technology, and commerce can thrive only as long as an idealistic national community offers the necessary preconditions. And these do not lie in material egoism, but in a spirit of sacrifice and joyful renunciation.

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weidev
1 May 04, 04:10

By and large the present education of youth has set itself the primary goal of pumping into the young person that knowledge which in his later career he needs for his own advancement. This is expressed in the words: 'The young man must some day become a useful member of society.' By this is meant his ability some day to earn his daily bread in a decent way. The superficial civic training carried on alongside rests on a weak base to begin with. Since the state in itself represents only a form, it is very hard to educate, let alone obligate people with regard to it. A form can too easily be shattered. But the concept 'state' - as we have seen - does not possess a clear content today. And so there remains nothing but the current 'patriotic' education. In old Germany its chief emphasis lay in a deification, often unintelligent and usually very insipid, of the small and smallest potentates, whose very quantity from the outset made it necessary to renounce any comprehensive appreciation of our nation's really great men. The result among our broad masses, consequently, was a very inadequate knowledge of German history. Here, too, the great line was lacking.

That a real national enthusiasm could not be achieved in this fashion is obvious. Our educational system lacked the art of picking a few names out of the historical development of our people and making them the common property of the whole German people, thus through like knowledge and like enthusiasm tying a uniform, uniting bond around the entire nation. They did not understand how to make the really significant men of our people appear as outstanding heroes in the eyes of the present, to concentrate the general attention upon them and thus create a unified mood. They were not able to raise what was glorious for the nation in the various subjects of instruction above the level of objective presentation, and fire the national pride by such gleaming examples. This would have seemed reprehensible chauvinism to that period, and in this form would not have met with much approval. Comfortable dynastic patriotism seemed more agreeable and easier to bear than the clamoring passion of higher national pride. The former was always ready to serve, the latter might some day become a master. Monarchistic patriotism ended in veterans' dubs, the national passion would have been hard to direct in its course. It is like a thoroughbred horse which does not carry everyone in the saddle. Is it any wonder that the powers of the time preferred to keep aloof from such a danger? No one seemed to consider it possible that some day there might come a war that would thoroughly test the inner steadfastness of our patriotic convictions in drumfire and clouds of gas. But when it came, the absence of the highest national passion brought the most frightful consequences. People had but little desire to die for their imperial and royal lords, and the 'nation' was unknown known to most of them.

Since the revolution made its entry into Germany and monarchistic patriotism died out of its own accord, the purpose of instruction in history is really nothing more than the mere acquisition of knowledge. This state cannot use national enthusiasm; but what it would like to have it will never get. For no more than there could be a dynastic patriotism endowed with the ultimate power of resistance in an age governed by the principle of nationalities, much less can there be a republican enthusiasm. For there can be no doubt that under the motto, 'For the Republic,' the German people would not remain in the battlefield for any four and one-half years; least of all did those remain who have created this amazing structure.

Actually this Republic owes its unshorn existence only to its willingness, of which it gives assurance on all sides, voluntarily to assume all tribute payments and sign every renunciation of territory. It is liked by the rest of the world; just as every weakling is considered more agreeable by those who need him than a rough man. True, this sympathy on the part of enemies is the most annihilating criticism for precisely this state form. Our enemies love the German Republic and let it live because they could not find a better ally for their enslavement of our people. To this fact alone does this magnificent structure owe its present existence. That is why it can renounce any truly national education and content itself with cries of 'Hoch' from Reichsbanner heroes who, incidentally, if they had to protect this banner with their blood, they would run away like rabbits.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:11

The folkish state will have to fight for its existence. It will neither obtain it by Dawes signatures, nor be able to defend its existence by them. For its existence and for its protection, it will need the very things that people today think they can do without. The more incomparable and precious its form and content will be, the greater will be the envy and resistance of its enemies. Its best defense will lie not in its weapons, but in its citizens; no fortress walls will protect it, but a living wall of men and women filled with supreme love of their fatherland and fanatical national enthusiasm.

The third point to be considered in scientific education is the following:

Science, too, must be regarded by the folkish state as an instrument for the advancement of national pride. Not only world history but all cultural history must be taught from this standpoint. An inventor must not only seem great as an inventor, but must seem even greater as a national comrade. Our admiration of every great deed must be bathed in pride that its fortunate performer is a member of our own people. From all the innumerable great names of German history, the greatest must be picked out and introduced to the youth so persistently that they become pillars of an unshakable national sentiment.

The curriculum must be systematically built up along these lines so that when the young man leaves his school he is not a half pacifist, democrat, or something else, but a whole German.

In order that this national sentiment should be genuine from the outset and not consist in mere hollow pretense, beginning in youth one iron principle must be hammered into those heads which are still capable of education: any man who loves his people proves it solely by the sacrifices which he is prepared to make for it. There is no such thing as national sentiment which is only out for gain. No more is there any nationalism which only embraces classes. Shouting hurrah proves nothing and gives no right to call oneself national if behind it there does not stand a great, loving concern for the preservation of a universal healthy nation. There is ground for pride in our people only if we no longer need be ashamed of any class. But a people, half of which is wretched and careworn, or even depraved, offers so sorry a picture that no one should feel any pride in it. Only when a nation is healthy in all its members, in body and soul, can every man's joy in belonging to it rightfully be magnified to that high sentiment which we designate as national pride. And this highest pride will only be felt by the man who knows the greatness of his nation.

An intimate coupling of nationalism and a sense of social justice must be implanted in the young heart. Then a people of citizens will some day arise, bound to one another and forged together by a common love and a common pride, unshakable and invincible forever.

Our era's fear of chauvinism is the sign of its impotence. Not only lacking any exuberant force, but even finding it distasteful, it is no longer destined by Fate for a great deed. For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:11

And assuredly this world is moving toward a great revolution. The question can only be whether it will redound to the benefit of Aryan humanity or to the profit of the eternal Jew.

The folkish state will have to make certain that by a suitable education of youth it will some day obtain a race ripe for the last and greatest decisions on this earth.

And the people which first sets out on this path will be victorious.

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The crown of the folkish state's entire work of education and training must be to burn the racial sense and racial feeling into the instinct and the intellect, the heart and brain of the youth entrusted to it. No boy and no girl must leave school without having been led to an ultimate realization of the necessity and essence of blood purity. Thus the groundwork is created by preserving the racial foundations of our nation and through them in turn securing the basis for its future cultural development.

For all physical and all intellectual training would in the last analysis remain worthless if it did not benefit a being which is ready and determined on principle to preserve himself and his special nature.

Otherwise that would occur which we Germans even now must greatly deplore, though perhaps the full extent of this tragic misfortune has hitherto not been realized: that in the future we remain nothing out cultural fertilizer, not only in the limited conception of our present bourgeois view, which regards an individual national comrade lost as nothing more than a lost citizen, out with the painful realization that in this event, despite all our knowledge and ability, our blood is nevertheless doomed to decline. By mating again and again with other races, we may raise these races from their previous cultural level to a higher stage, out we will descend forever from our own high level.

For the rest this education, too, from the racial viewpoint, must find its ultimate completion in military service. And in general, the period of military service must be regarded as the conclusion of the average German's normal education.

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weidev
1 May 04, 04:11

Important as the type of physical and mental education will be in the folkish state, equally important will be the human selection as such. Today this matter is taken lightly. In general it is the children of high-placed, at the time well-situated parents who are considered worthy of a higher education. Questions of talent play a subordinate role. Taken in itself, talent can only be evaluated relatively. A peasant boy can possess far more talents than the child of parents enjoying an elevated position in life for many generations, even if he is inferior to the bourgeois child in general knowledge. The latter's greater knowledge has in itself nothing to do with greater or lesser talent, but is rooted in the materially greater abundance of impressions which the child continuously receives as a result of his more varied education and rich environment. If the talented peasant boy from his early years had likewise grown up in such an environment, his intellectual ability would be quite different. Today, perhaps, there is a single field in which origin is really less decisive than the individual's native talent: the field of art. Here where a man cannot merely 'learn,' but everything has to be originally innate and is only later subject to a more or less favorable development in the sense of wise encouragement of existing gifts, the money and wealth of the parents are almost irrelevant. Hence it is here best shown that talent is not bound up with the higher walks of life, let alone with wealth. The greatest artists arise not seldom from the poorest houses. And many a poor village boy has later become a celebrated master.

It does not exactly argue great depth of thought in our time that this realization is not applied to our whole spiritual life. People imagine that what cannot be denied in art does not apply to the so-called exact sciences. Without doubt certain mechanical abilities can be taught a man, just as clever training can teach a docile poodle the most amazing tricks. But in animal training, the intelligence of the animal does not of itself lead to such exercises, and the same is the case with man. Without regard for any other talent, man too can be taught certain scientific tricks' but the process is just as lifeless and inwardly uninspired as with the animal. On the basis of a certain intellectual drill, knowledge above the average can be crammed into an average man; but it remains dead, and in the last analysis sterile knowledge. The result is a man who may be a living dictionary but nevertheless falls down miserably in all special situations and decisive moments in life; he will always have to be coached again for every situation, even the simplest, and by his own resources will not be able to make the slightest contribution to the development of humanity. Such a mechanically drilled knowledge suffices at most for assuming state positions in our present period.

It goes without saying that in the totality of a nation's population talents will be found for every possible domain of daily life. It is furthermore obvious that the value of knowledge will be the greater, the more the dead knowledge is animated by the relevant talent in the individual. Creative achievements can only arise when ability and knowledge are wedded.

The boundless sins of present-day humanity in this direction may be shown by one more example. From time to time illustrated papers bring it to the attention of the German petty-bourgeois that some place or other a Negro has for the first time become a lawyer, teacher, even a pastor, in fact a heroic tenor, or something of the sort. While the idiotic bourgeoisie looks with amazement at such miracles of education, full of respect for this marvelous result of modern educational skill, the Jew shrewdly draws from it a new proof for the soundness of his theory about the equality of men that he is trying to funnel into the minds of the nations. It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions. For this is training exactly like that of the poodle, and not scientific 'education.' The same pains and care employed on intelligent races would a thousand times sooner make every single individual capable of the same achievements.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:11

But intolerable as this state of affairs would be if it ever consisted of anything but exceptions, equally intolerable is it today in places where it is not talent and inborn gifts that decide who is chosen for higher education. Yes, indeed, it is an intolerable thought that every year hundreds of thousands of completely ungifted people are held worthy of a higher education, while other hundreds of thousands with great talent remain deprived of higher education. The loss which the nation thereby suffers is inestimable. If in the last decades the wealth of important inventions has increased amazingly, especially in North America, it is not least because there materially more talents from the lowest classes find opportunity for higher education than is the case in Europe.

For invention, drilled knowledge does not suffice, but only knowledge animated by talent. But in our country today no store is set on this; it is only good marks that matter.

Here, too, the folkish state will some day have to intervene by education. Its task is not to preserve the decisive influence of an existing social class, but to pick the most capable kinds from the sum of all the national comrades and bring them to office and dignity. It has not only the obligation of giving the average child a certain education in public school, but also the duty of putting talent on the track where it belongs. Above all, it must see its highest task in opening the gates of the higher state educational institutions to all talent, absolutely regardless from what circles it may originate. It must fulfill this task, since only in this way can representatives of a dead knowledge be transformed into brilliant leaders of a nation.

And for another reason the state must take measures in this direction: our intellectual classes, especially in Germany, are so segregated and so ossified that they lack a living connection with the people below them. We suffer from this in two ways: in the first place, they lack as a consequence any understanding and feeling for the broad masses. They have been torn out of this relation too long to possess the necessary psychological understanding for the people. They have become alien to the people. And in the second place, these intellectual strata lack the necessary will-power, which is always weaker in this secluded intellectual caste than in the mass of the primitive people. We Germans, by God, have never lacked scientific education; but we have been all the more lacking in any will power and determination. The more 'intellectual' our statesmen were, for example, the feebler, as a rule, was their actual accomplishment. The political preparations, as well as the technical armament for the World War, was not inadequate because insufficiently educated minds ruled our people, but because the rulers were overeducated men, crammed full of knowledge and intellect, but bereft of any healthy instinct and devoid of all energy and boldness. It was a calamity that our people had to conduct its struggle for existence under the Chancellorship of a philosophizing weakling. If, instead of a Bethmann-Hollweg, we had had a robuster man of the people as a leader, the heroic blood of the common grenadier would not have flowed in vain. Likewise, the excessively rarefied pure intellect of our leader material was the best ally of the revolutionist November scoundrels. By disgracefully withholding the national treasure that had been entrusted to them, instead of staking it fully and wholly, these intellectuals themselves created the premise for the enemy's success.

In this the Catholic Church can be regarded as a model example. The celibacy of its priests is a force compelling it to draw the future generation again and again from the masses of the broad people instead of from their own ranks. But it is this very significance of celibacy that is not at all recognized by most people. It is the cause of the incredibly vigorous strength which resides in this age-old institution. For through the fact that this gigantic army of spiritual dignitaries is continuously complemented from the lowest strata of the nations, the Church not only obtains its instinctive bond with the emotional world of the people, but also assures itself a sum of energy and active force which in such a form will forever exist only in the broad masses of the people. From this arises the amazing youthfulness of this gigantic organism, its spiritual suppleness and iron willpower
weidev
1 May 04, 04:12

It will be the task of a folkish state to make certain through its educational system that a continuous renewal of the existing intellectual classes through an influx of fresh blood from below takes place. The state has the obligation to exercise extreme care and precision in picking from the total number of national comrades the human material visibly most gifted by Nature and to use it in the service of the community. For state and statesmen do not exist in order to provide individual classes with a living but to fulfill the tasks allotted to them. This will only be possible if as a matter of principle only capable and strong-willed personalities are trained to deal with these tasks. This applies not only to all official positions but to the intellectual leadership of the nation in all fields. Another factor for the greatness of the people is that it succeed in training the most capable minds for the field suited to them and placing them in the service of the national community. If two peoples, equally well endowed, compete with one another, that one will achieve victory which has represented in its total intellectual leadership its best talents and that one will succumb whose leadership represents only a big common feeding crib for certain groups or classes, without regard to the innate abilities of the various members.

To be sure, this looks impossible at first sight in our present world. The objection will at once be raised that the little son of a higher government official, for example, cannot be expected, let us say, to become an artisan because someone else whose parents were artisans seems more capable. This may be true in view of the present estimation of manual labor. For this reason the folkish state will have to arrive at a basically different attitude toward the concept of labor. It will, if necessary, even by education extending over centuries, have to break with the mischief of despising physical activity. On principle it will have to evaluate the individual man not according to the type of work he does but according to the form and quality of his achievement. This may appear positively monstrous to an era in which the most brainless columnist, just because he works with the pen, seems superior to the most intelligent precision mechanic. This false estimation, as has been said, does not lie in the nature of things, but is artificially cultivated and formerly did not exist. The present unnatural condition is based on the generally diseased condition of our present materialized epoch.

Fundamentally, the value of all work is twofold: a purely material value and an ideal value. The material value resides in the importance, that is to say, the material importance of a piece of work for the life of the totality. The more national comrades draw profit from a certain achievement performed, including direct and indirect profit, the greater the material value is to be estimated. This estimation, in turn, finds its plastic expression in the material reward which the individual obtains from his work. Contrasting with this purely material value, we now have the ideal value. It does not rest in the importance of the work performed measured materially, but in its necessity in itself. As surely as the material profit of an invention can be greater than that of an everyday handy-man's service, just as surely does the totality need the small service just as much as the great one.

It may make a material distinction in evaluating the benefit of the individual piece of work for the totality, and can express this by a corresponding reward; in an ideal sense, however, it must recognize the equality of all as long as every individual endeavors to do his best in his field - whatever it may be. It is on this that the estimation of a man must be based, and not on his reward.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:12

Since the concern of a sensible state must be to allot to the individual the activity which is in keeping with his ability or, otherwise expressed, to train the capable minds for the work that is suited to them, but since ability and principle are not taught but must be inborn, hence are a gift of Nature and not an achievement of man, general civic estimation cannot depend on the work that has, so to speak, been allotted to the individual. For this work falls to the account of his birth and to the training which he has consequently received through the community. The evaluation of the man must be based on the manner in which he fulfills the task entrusted him by the community. For the activity which the individual performs is not the end of his existence, but only the means to it. It is more important for him to develop and ennoble himself as a man, but he can do this only within the framework of his cultural community which must always rest on the fundament of a state. He must make his contribution to the preservation of this fundament. The form of this contribution is determined by Nature; his duty is only to return to the national community with honest industry what it has given him. Anyone who does this deserves the highest estimation and the highest respect. Material reward may be granted to him whose achievement brings corresponding benefit to the community; his ideal reward, however, must lie in the esteem which everyone can claim who dedicates to the service of his nationality the forces which Nature gave him and which the national community has trained. Then it is no longer a disgrace to be an honest manual worker, but it is a disgrace to be an incompetent official, stealing the daylight from his maker and daily bread from honest people. Then it will be taken for granted that a man will not be allotted tasks to which he is not equal to begin with.

Moreover, such activity provides the sole standard for right in universal, equal, juridical civic activity.

The present era is liquidating itself: it introduces universal suffrage, shoots off its mouth about equal rights, but finds no basis for them. It sees in material reward the expression of a man's worth and thereby shatters the foundation for the noblest equality that there can be. For equality does not rest and never can rest on the achievements of individuals in themselves, but it is possible in the form in which everyone fulfills his special obligations. Thereby alone is the accident of Nature excluded in the judgment of the man's worth, and the individual himself becomes the smith of his own importance.

In the present period, when entire human groups can estimate one another only according to salary classes, there is - as said before - no understanding for this. But for us this cannot be a reason to renounce the fight for our ideas. On the contrary: anyone who wants to cure this era, which is inwardly sick and rotten, must first of all summon up the courage to make clear the causes of this disease. And this should be the concern of the National Socialist movement: pushing aside all philistinism, to gather and to organize from the ranks of our nation those forces capable of becoming the vanguard fighters for a new philosophy of life.

*...............*...............*
weidev
1 May 04, 04:13

Of course, the objection will be made that in general the ideal estimation is hard to separate from the material, indeed, that the diminishing estimation of physical labor is brought about precisely by its diminished reward. And that this diminished reward is in turn the cause for the limitation of the individual man's participation in the cultural treasures of his nation. And that precisely the ideal culture of man, which does not necessarily have anything to do with his activity as such, is impaired thereby. That the dread of physical labor is really based on the fact that, as a result of the inferior reward, the cultural level of the manual worker is necessarily lowered and that this provides the justification for a general diminished estimation.

In this there lies much truth. For this very reason we must in future guard ourselves against an excessive differentiation of wage rates. Let it not be said that this would destroy achievement. It would be the saddest sign of the decay of a period if the impetus to a higher spiritual achievement lay only in the increased wage. If this criterion had been the sole determinant in the world up to now, humanity would never have received its greatest scientific and cultural treasures. For the greatest inventions, the greatest discoveries, the most revolutionary scientific work, the most magnificent monuments of human culture, have not been given to the world through the urge for money. On the contrary, their birth not seldom meant positive renunciation of the earthly happiness of riches.

It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god. Many things today may owe their existence solely to the longing for money and wealth, but there is very little among them whose non-existence would leave humanity any the poorer.

This, too, is a task of our movement; even now it must herald a day which will give to the individual what he needs for living, but uphold the principle that man does not live exclusively for the sake of material pleasures. This must some day find its expression in a wisely limited gradation of earnings which in any event will give every decent working man an honest, regular existence as a national comrade and a man.

Let it not be said that this is an ideal condition which this world will not tolerate in practice and will actually never achieve.

We are not simple enough, either, to believe that it could ever be possible to bring about a perfect era. But this relieves no one of the obligation to combat recognized errors, to overcome weaknesses, and strive for the ideal. Harsh reality of its own accord will create only too many limitations. For that very reason, however, man must try to serve the ultimate goal, and failures must not deter him, any more than he can abandon a system of justice merely because mistakes creep into it, or any more than a medicament is discarded because there will always be sickness in spite of it.

Care must be taken not to underestimate the force of an idea. I should like to remind those who become faint-hearted in this connection - in case they were ever soldiers - of a time whose heroism represented the most overpowering proof of the force of idealistic motives. For what made men die then was not concern for their daily bread, but love of the fatherland, faith in its greatness, a general feeling for the honor of the nation. It was when the German people moved away from these ideals to follow the material premises of the revolution, and exchanged their arms for knapsacks, that they arrived, not at the earthly paradise, but at the purgatory of general contempt and, no less, of general misery.

Therefore it is really necessary to confront the master bookkeepers of the present material republic by faith in an ideal Reich.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:13

End of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 1: THE STATE
weidev
1 May 04, 04:14

Begin of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 3: SUBJECTS AND CITIZENS
weidev
1 May 04, 04:15

In general the formation which today is erroneously designated as a state knows only two varieties of people: citizens and foreigners. Citizens are all those who either by their birth or subsequent naturalization possess the right of citizenship. Foreigners are all those who enjoy this same right in another state. In between, there are comet-like phenomena: the so-called stateless. These are people who have the honor of belonging to no present-day state; in other words, who nowhere possess the right of citizenship.

Today the right of citizenship, as mentioned above, is primarily achieved by birth within the borders of a state. In this, race or nationality play no role whatever. A Negro, who formerly lived in the German protectorates and now has his residence in Germany, gives birth to a German citizen in the person of his child. Likewise every Jewish or Polish, African or Asiatic child can be declared a German citizen without further ado.

Aside from becoming a citizen through birth, there is the possibility of naturalization later. It is connected with certain requirements; for example, that the candidate in question is if possible no burglar or pimp; that he furthermore be politically unobjectionable, in other words, a harmless political idiot; that finally he should not fall a burden to the country which grants him citizenship. In this materialistic age this means, of course, a financial burden. Yes, it is even considered a desirable recommendation if you are presumably a good future taxpayer to hasten the acquisition of present-day citizenship.

Racial objections play no role whatsoever in this.

The whole process of acquiring citizenship takes place not far differently than admission into an automobile club. The man makes his application, it is examined and passed upon, and one day he receives a note informing him that he has become a citizen, and even the form of this is cute and kittenish. The former Zulu Kaffir in question is informed: 'You have hereby become a German!'

This magic trick is performed by a state president. What the heavens could not accomplish, such an official Theophrastus Paracelsus has accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. A simple dab of the pen and a Mongolian Wenceslaus has suddenly become a regular 'German.'

But not only do they not concern themselves about the race of such a new citizen; they do not even pay any attention to his physical health. Such a fellow may be as eaten by syphilis as he likes, for the present state he is nevertheless highly welcome as a citizen, provided that he does not, as above stated, represent a financial burden and a political danger.

And so every year these formations, called states, take into themselves poison elements which they can scarcely ever overcome.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:15

The citizen himself then is only distinguished from the foreigner by the fact that the road to all public offices is open to him, that he may have to do military service, and that to make up for this he can actively and passively participate in elections. By and large this is all. For the protection of personal rights and of personal freedom is equally enjoyed by foreigners, not seldom more so; in any case, this applies in our present German Republic.

I know that people do not like to hear all this; but anything more thoughtless, more hare-brained than our present-day citizenship laws scarcely exists. There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the American Union, in which an effort is made to consult reason at least partially. By refusing immigration on principle to elements in poor health, by simply excluding certain races from naturalization, it professes in slow beginnings a view which is peculiar to the folkish state concept.

The folkish state divides its inhabitants into three classes: citizens, subjects, and foreigners.

On principle only the status of subject is acquired by birth. The status of subject as such does not confer the right to hold public office, nor to carry on political activity in the sense of active or passive participation in elections. As a matter of principle, the race and nationality of every subject must be determined. The subject is free at any time to renounce his status of subject and become a citizen in the country whose nationality corresponds to his own. The foreigner is distinguished from the subject only by the fact that he is a subject of a foreign state.

The young subject of German nationality is obligated to undergo the schooling prescribed for every German. He thus submits to education to make him a racially conscious and patriotic national comrade. Later he must perform the supplementary physical exercises prescribed by the state, and finally he enters the army. The training in the army is general; it must embrace every individual German and train him in the field of military service made possible by his physical and intellectual ability. Thereupon, after completion of his military duty, the right of citizenship is most solemnly bestowed on the irreproachable, healthy young man. It is the most precious document for his whole life on earth. With it he enters upon all the rights of citizen and partakes of all his advantages. For the state must make a sharp distinction between those who, as national comrades, are the cause and bearer of its existence and its greatness' and those who only take up residence within a state, as 'earning' elements.

The bestowal of the certificate of citizenship must be associated with a solemn oath to the national community and the state. In this document there must lie a common bond which bridges all other gaps. It must be a greater honor to be a street-cleaner and citizen of this Reich than a king in a foreign state.

The citizen is privileged as against the foreigner. He is the lord of the Reich. But this higher dignity also obligates. The man with out honor or character, the common criminal, the traitor to the fatherland, etc., can at any time be divested of this honor. He thus again becomes a subject.

The German girl is a subject and only becomes a citizen when she marries. But the right of citizenship can also be granted to female German subjects active in economic life.
weidev
1 May 04, 04:16

End of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 3: SUBJECTS AND CITIZENS
weidev
7 May 04, 03:25

Begin of
Volume 2: The National Socialist Movement
CHAPTER 4: PERSONALITY AND THE CONCEPTION OF THE FOLKISH STATE
weidev
7 May 04, 03:25

The folkish National Socialist state sees its chief task in educating and preserving the bearer of the state. It is not sufficient to encourage the racial elements as such, to educate them and finally instruct them in the needs of practical life; the state must also adjust its own organization to this task.

It would be lunacy to try to estimate the value of man according to his race, thus declaring war on the Marxist idea that men are equal, unless we are determined to draw the ultimate consequences. And the ultimate consequence of recognizing the importance of blood - that is, of the racial foundation in general - is the transference of this estimation to the individual person. In general, I must evaluate peoples differently on the basis of the race they belong to, and the same applies to the individual men within a national community. The realization that peoples are not equal transfers itself to the individual man within a national community, in the sense that men's minds cannot be equal, since here, too, the blood components, though equal in their broad outlines, are, in particular cases, subject to thousands of the finest differentiations.

The first consequence of this realization might at the same time be called the cruder one: an attempt to promote in the most exemplary way those elements within the national community that have been recognized as especially valuable from the racial viewpoint and to provide for their special increase.

This task is cruder because it can be recognized and solved almost mechanically. It is more difficult to recognize among the whole people the minds that are most valuable in the intellectual and ideal sense, and to gain for them that influence which not only is the due of these superior minds, but which above all is beneficial to the nation. This sifting according to capacity and ability cannot be undertaken mechanically; it is a task which the struggle of daily life unceasingly performs.

A philosophy of life which endeavors to reject the democratic mass idea and give this earth to the best people - that is, the highest humanity - must logically obey the same aristocratic principle within this people and make sure that the leadership and the highest influence in this people fall to the best minds. Thus, it builds, not upon the idea of the majority but upon the idea of personality.

Anyone who believes today that a folkish National Socialist state must distinguish itself from other states only in a purely mechanical sense, by a superior construction of its economic life - that is, by a better balance between rich and poor, or giving broad sections of the population more right to influence the economic process, or by fairer wages by elimination of excessive wage differentials - has not gone beyond the most superficial aspect of the matter and has not the faintest idea of what we call a philosophy. All the things we have just mentioned offer not the slightest guaranty of continued existence, far less of any claim to greatness. A people which did not go beyond these really superficial reforms would not obtain the least guaranty of victory in the general struggle of nations. A movement which finds the content of its mission only in such a general leveling, assuredly just as it may be, will truly bring about no great and profound, hence real, reform of existing conditions, since its entire activity does not, in the last analysis, go beyond externals, and does not give the people that inner armament which enables it, with almost inevitable certainty I might say, to overcome in the end those weaknesses from which we suffer today.
weidev
7 May 04, 03:26

To understand this more easily, it may be expedient to cast one more glance at the real origins and causes of human cultural development.

The first step which outwardly and visibly removed man from the animal was that of invention. Invention itself is originally based on the finding of stratagems and ruses, the use of which facilitates the life struggle with other beings, and is sometimes the actual prerequisite for its favorable course. These most primitive inventions do not yet cause the personality to appear with sufficient distinctness, because, of course, they enter the consciousness of the future, or rather the present, human observer only as a mass phenomenon. Certain dodges and crafty measures which man, for example, can observe in the animal catch his eye only as a summary fact, and he is no longer in a position to establish or investigate their origin, but must simply content himself with designating such phenomena as 'instinctive.'

But in our case this last word means nothing at all. For anyone who believes in a higher development of living creatures must admit that every expression of their life urge and life struggle must have had a beginning; that one subject must have started it, and that subsequently such a phenomenon repeated itself more and more frequently and spread more and more, until at last it virtually entered the subconscious of all members of a given species, thus manifesting itself as an instinct.

This will be understood and believed more readily in the case of man. His first intelligent measures in the struggle with other beasts assuredly originate in the actions of individual, particularly able subjects. Here, too, the personality was once unquestionably the cause of decisions and acts which later were taken over by all humanity and regarded as perfectly self-evident. Just as any obvious military principle, which today has become, as it were, the basis of all strategy, originally owed its appearance to one absolutely distinct mind, and only in the course of many perhaps even thousands of years, achieved universal validity and was taken entirely for granted.

Man complements this first invention by a second: he learns to place other objects and also living creatures in the service of his own struggle for self-preservation; and thus begins man's real inventive activity which today is generally visible. These material inventions, starting with the use of stone as a weapon and leading to the domestication of beasts, giving man artificial fire, and so on up to the manifold and amazing inventions of our day, show the individual creator the more clearly, the closer the various inventions lie to the present day, or the more significant and incisive they are. At all events, we know that all the material inventions we see about us are the result of the creative power and ability of the individual personality. And all these inventions in the last analysis help to raise man more and more above the level of the animal world and finally to remove him from it. Thus, fundamentally, they serve the continuous process of higher human development. But the very same thing which once, in the form of the simplest ruse, facilitated the struggle for existence of the man hunting in the primeval forest, again contributes, in the shape of the most brilliant scientific knowledge of the present era, to alleviate mankind's struggle for existence and to forge its weapons for the struggles of the future. All human thought and invention, in their ultimate effects, primarily serve man's struggle for existence on this planet, even when the so-called practical use of an invention or a discovery or a profound scientific insight into the essence of things is not visible at the moment. All these things together, by contributing to raise man above the living creatures surrounding him, strengthen him and secure his position, so that in every respect he develops into the dominant being on this earth.
weidev
7 May 04, 03:26

Thus, all inventions are the result of an individual's work. All these individuals, whether intentionally or unintentionally, are more or less great benefactors of all men. Their work subsequently gives millions, nay, billions of human creatures, instruments with which to facilitate and carry out their life struggle.

If in the origin of our present material culture we always find individuals in the form of inventors, complementing one another and one building upon another, we find the same in the practice and execution of the things devised and discovered by the inventors. For all productive processes in turn must in their origin be considered equivalent to inventions, hence dependent on the individual. Even purely theoretical intellectual work, which in particular cases is not measurable, yet is the premise for all further material inventions, appears as the exclusive product of the individual person. It is not the mass that invents and not the majority that organizes or thinks, but in all things only and always the individual man, the person.

A human community appears well organized only if it facilitates the labors of these creative forces in the most helpful way and applies them in a manner beneficial to all. The most valuable thing about the invention itself, whether it lie in the material field or in the world of ideas, is primarily the inventor as a personality. Therefore, to employ him in a way benefiting the totality is the first and highest task in the organization of a national community. Indeed, the organization itself must be a realization of this principle. Thus, also, it is redeemed from the curse of mechanism and becomes a living thing. It must itself be an embodiment of the endeavor to place thinking individuals above the masses, thus subordinating the latter to the former.

Consequently, the organization must not only not prevent the emergence of thinking individuals from the mass; on the contrary, it must in the highest degree make this possible and easy by the nature of its own being. In this it must proceed from the principle that the salvation of mankind has never lain in the masses, but in its creative minds, which must therefore really be regarded as benefactors of the human race. To assure them of the most decisive influence and facilitate their work is in the interest of the totality. Assuredly this interest is not satisfied, and is not served by the domination of the unintelligent or incompetent, in any case uninspired masses, but solely by the leadership of those to whom Nature has given special gifts for this purpose.

The selection of these minds, as said before, is primarily accomplished by the hard struggle for existence. Many break and perish, thus showing that they are not destined for the ultimate, and in the end only a few appear to be chosen. In the fields of thought, artistic creation, even, in fact, of economic life, this selective process is still going on today, though, especially in the latter field, it faces a grave obstacle. The administration of the state and likewise the power embodied in the organized military might of the nation are also dominated by these ideas. Here, too, the idea of personality is everywhere dominant - its authority downward and its responsibility toward the higher personality above. Only political life has today completely turned away from this most natural principle. While all human culture is solely the result of the individual's creative activity, everywhere, and particularly in the highest leadership of the national community, the principle of the value of the majority appears decisive, and from that high place begins to gradually poison all life; that is, in reality to dissolve it. The destructive effect of the Jew's activity in other national bodies is basically attributable only to his eternal efforts to undermine the position of the personality in the host-peoples and to replace it by the mass. Thus, the organizing principle of Aryan humanity is replaced by the destructive principle of the Jew. He becomes 'a ferment of decomposition' among peoples and races, and in the broader sense a dissolver of human culture.
weidev
7 May 04, 03:27

Marxism presents itself as the perfection of the Jew's attempt to exclude the pre-eminence of personality in all fields of human life and replace it by the numbers of the mass. To this, in the political sphere, the system of a trade-union movement, which, from the smallest germ cells of the municipality up to the supreme leadership of the Reich, we see in such disastrous operation, and in the economic sphere, the system of a trade-union movement which does not serve the real interests of the workers, but exclusively the destructive purposes of the international world Jew. In precisely the measure in which the economy is withdrawn from the influence of the personality principle and instead exposed to the influences and effects of the masses, it must lose its efficacy in serving all and benefiting all, and gradually succumb to a sure retrogression. All the shop organization which, instead of taking into account the interests of their employees, strive to gain influence on production, serve the same purpose. They injure collective achievement, and thus in reality injure individual achievement. For the satisfaction of the members of a national body does not in the long run occur exclusively through mere theoretical phrases, but by the goods of daily life that fall to the individual and the ultimate resultant conviction that a national community in the sum of its achievement guards the interests of individuals.

It is of no importance whether Marxism, on the basis of its mass theory, seems capable of taking over and carrying on the economy existing at the moment. Criticism with regard to the soundness or unsoundness of this principle is not settled by the proof of its capacity to administer the existing order for the future, but exclusively by the proof that it can itself create a higher culture. Marxism might a thousand times take over the existing economy and make it continue to work under its leadership, but even success in this activity would prove nothing in the face of the fact that it would not be in a position, by applying its principle itself, to create the same thing which today it takes over in a finished state.

Of this Marxism has furnished practical proof. Not only that it has nowhere been able to found and create a culture by itself; actually it has not been able to continue the existing ones in accordance with its principles, but after a brief time has been forced to return to the ideas embodied in the personality principle, in the form of concessions; - even in its own organization it cannot dispense with these principles.

The folkish philosophy is basically distinguished from the Marxist philosophy by the fact that it not only recognizes the value of race, but with it the importance of the personality, which it therefore makes one of the pillars of its entire edifice. These are the factors which sustain its view of life.

If the National Socialist movement did not understand the fundamental importance of this basic realization, but instead were merely to perform superficial patchwork on the present-day state, or even adopt the mass standpoint as its own - then it would really constitute nothing but a party in competition with the Marxists; in that case, it would not possess the right to call itself a philosophy of life. If the social program of the movement consisted only in pushing aside the personality and replacing it by the masses, National Socialism itself would be corroded by the poison of Marxism, as is the case with our bourgeois parties.

The folkish state must care for the welfare of its citizens by recognizing in all and everything the importance of the value of personality, thus in all fields preparing the way for that highest measure of productive performance which grants to the individual the highest measure of participation.
weidev
7 May 04, 03:27

And accordingly, the folkish state must free all leadership and especially the highest - that is, the political leadership - entirely from the parliamentary principle of majority rule - in other words, mass rule - and instead absolutely guarantee the right of the personality.

From this the following realization results:

The best state constitution and state form is that which, with the most unquestioned certainty, raises the best minds in the national community to leading position and leading influence.

But as, in economic life, the able men cannot be appointed from above, but must struggle through for themselves, and just as here the endless schooling, ranging from the smallest business to the largest enterprise, occurs spontaneously, with life alone giving the examinations, obviously political minds cannot be 'discovered.' Extraordinary geniuses permit of no consideration for normal mankind.

From the smallest community cell to the highest leadership of the entire Reich, the state must have the personality principle anchored in its organization.

There must be no majority decisions, but only responsible persons, and the word ' council' must be restored to its original meaning. Surely every man will have advisers by his side, but the decision will be made by one man.

The principle which made the Prussian army in its time into the most wonderful instrument of the German people must some day, in a transferred sense, become the principle of the construction of our whole state conception: authority of every leader downward and responsibility upward.

Even then it will not be possible to dispense with those corporations which today we designate as parliaments. But their councillors will then actually give counsel; responsibility, however? can and may be borne only by one man, and therefore only he alone may possess the authority and right to command.

Parliaments as such are necessary, because in them, above all, personalities to which special responsible tasks can later be entrusted have an opportunity gradually to rise up.