Volume Two - The National Socialist Movement
Chapter VIII: The Strong Man is Mightiest Alone
In the preceding chapter I mentioned the existence of a co-operative union
between the German patriotic associations. Here I shall deal briefly with
this question.
In speaking of a co-operative union we generally mean a group of associations
which, for the purpose of facilitating their work, establish mutual relations
for collaborating with one another along certain lines, appointing a common
directorate with varying powers and thenceforth carrying out a common line
of action. The average citizen is pleased and reassured when he hears that
these associations, by establishing a co-operative union among one another,
have at long last discovered a common platform on which they can stand united
and have eliminated all grounds of mutual difference. Therewith a general
conviction arises, to the effect that such a union is an immense gain in
strength and that small groups which were weak as long as they stood alone
have now suddenly become strong. Yet this conviction is for the most part
a mistaken one.
It will be interesting and, in my opinion, important for the better understanding
of this question if we try to get a clear notion of how it comes about that
these associations, unions, etc., are established, when all of them declare
that they have the same ends in view. In itself it would be logical to expect
that one aim should be fought for by a single association and it would be
more reasonable if there were not a number of associations fighting for the
same aim. In the beginning there was undoubtedly only one association which
had this one fixed aim in view. One man proclaimed a truth somewhere and,
calling for the solution of a definite question, fixed his aim and founded
a movement for the purpose of carrying his views into effect.
That is how an association or a party is founded, the scope of whose programme
is either the abolition of existing evils or the positive establishment of
a certain order of things in the future.
Once such a movement has come into existence it may lay practical claim to
certain priority rights. The natural course of things would now be that all
those who wish to fight for the same objective as this movement is striving
for should identify themselves with it and thus increase its strength, so
that the common purpose in view may be all the better served. Especially
men of superior intelligence must feel, one and all, that by joining the
movement they are establishing precisely those conditions which are necessary
for practical success in the common struggle. Accordingly it is reasonable
and, in a certain sense, honest – which honesty, as I shall show later,
is an element of very great importance – that only one movement should
be founded for the purpose of attaining the one aim.
The fact that this does not happen must be attributed to two causes. The
first may almost be described as tragic. The second is a matter for pity,
because it has its foundation in the weaknesses of human nature. But, on
going to the bottom of things, I see in both causes only facts which give
still another ground for strengthening our will, our energy and intensity
of purpose; so that finally, through the higher development of the human
faculties, the solution of the problem in question may be rendered possible.
The tragic reason why it so often happens that the pursuit of one definite
task is not left to one association alone is as follows: Generally speaking,
every action carried out on the grand style in this world is the expression
of a desire that has already existed for a long time in millions of human
hearts, a longing which may have been nourished in silence. Yes, it may happen
that throughout centuries men may have been yearning for the solution of
a definite problem, because they have been suffering under an unendurable
order of affairs, without seeing on the far horizon the coming fulfilment
of the universal longing. Nations which are no longer capable of finding
an heroic deliverance from such a sorrowful fate may be looked upon as effete.
But, on the other hand, nothing gives better proof of the vital forces of
a people and the consequent guarantee of its right to exist than that one
day, through a happy decree of Destiny, a man arises who is capable of liberating
his people from some great oppression, or of wiping out some bitter distress,
or of calming the national soul which had been tormented through its sense
of insecurity, and thus fulfilling what had long been the universal yearning
of the people.
An essential characteristic of what are called the great questions of the
time is that thousands undertake the task of solving them and that many feel
themselves called to this task: yea, even that Destiny itself has proposed
many for the choice, so that through the free play of forces the stronger
and bolder shall finally be victorious and to him shall be entrusted the
task of solving the problem.
Thus it may happen that for centuries many are discontented with the form
in which their religious life expresses itself and yearn for a renovation
of it; and so it may happen that through this impulse of the soul some dozens
of men may arise who believe that, by virtue of their understanding and their
knowledge, they are called to solve the religious difficulties of the time
and accordingly present themselves as the prophets of a new teaching or at
least as declared adversaries of the standing beliefs.
Here also it is certain that the natural law will take its course, inasmuch
as the strongest will be destined to fulfil the great mission. But usually
the others are slow to acknowledge that only one man is called. On the contrary,
they all believe that they have an equal right to engage in the solution
of the diffculties in question and that they are equally called to that task.
Their contemporary world is generally quite unable to decide which of all
these possesses the highest gifts and accordingly merits the support of all.
So in the course of centuries, or indeed often within the same epoch, different
men establish different movements to struggle towards the same end. At least
the end is declared by the founders of the movements to be the same, or may
be looked upon as such by the masses of the people. The populace nourishes
vague desires and has only general opinions, without having any precise notion
of their own ideals and desires or of the question whether and how it is
impossible for these ideals and desires to be fulfilled.
The tragedy lies in the fact that many men struggle to reach the same objective
by different roads, each one genuinely believing in his own mission and holding
himself in duty bound to follow his own road without any regard for the others.
These movements, parties, religious groups, etc., originate entirely
independently of one another out of the general urge of the time, and all
with a view to working towards the same goal. It may seem a tragic thing,
at least at first sight, that this should be so, because people are too often
inclined to think that forces which are dispersed in different directions
would attain their ends far more quickly and more surely if they were united
in one common effort. But that is not so. For Nature herself decides according
to the rules of her inexorable logic. She leaves these diverse groups to
compete with one another and dispute the palm of victory and thus she chooses
the clearest, shortest and surest way along which she leads the movement
to its final goal.
How could one decide from outside which is the best way, if the forces at
hand were not allowed free play, if the final decision were to rest with
the doctrinaire judgment of men who are so infatuated with their own superior
knowledge that their minds are not open to accept the indisputable proof
presented by manifest success, which in the last analysis always gives the
final confirmation of the justice of a course of action.
Hence, though diverse groups march along different routes towards the same
objective, as soon as they come to know that analogous efforts are being
made around them, they will have to study all the more carefully whether
they have chosen the best way and whether a shorter way may not be found
and how their efforts can best be employed to reach the objective more quickly.
Through this rivalry each individual protagonist develops his faculties to
a still higher pitch of perfection and the human race has frequently owed
its progress to the lessons learned from the misfortunes of former attempts
which have come to grief. Therefore we may conclude that we come to know
the better ways of reaching final results through a state of things which
at first sight appeared tragic; namely, the initial dispersion of individual
efforts, wherein each group was unconsciously responsible for such dispersion.
In studying the lessons of history with a view to finding a way for the solution
of the German problem, the prevailing opinion at one time was that there
were two possible paths along which that problem might be solved and that
these two paths should have united from the very beginning. The chief
representatives and champions of these two paths were Austria and Prussia
respectively, Habsburg and Hohenzollern. All the rest, according to this
prevalent opinion, ought to have entrusted their united forces to the one
or the other party. But at that time the path of the most prominent
representative, the Habsburg, would have been taken, though the Austrian
policy would never have led to the foundation of a united German Reich.
Finally, a strong and united German Reich arose out of that which many millions
of Germans deplored in their hearts as the last and most terrible manifestation
of our fratricidal strife. The truth is that the German Imperial Crown was
retrieved on the battle field of Königgrätz and not in the fights
that were waged before Paris, as was commonly asserted afterwards.
Thus the foundation of the German Reich was not the consequence of any common
will working along common lines, but it was much more the outcome of a deliberate
struggle for hegemony, though the protagonists were often hardly conscious
of this. And from this struggle Prussia finally came out victorious. Anybody
who is not so blinded by partisan politics as to deny this truth will have
to agree that the so-called wisdom of men would never have come to the same
wise decision as the wisdom of Life itself, that is to say, the free play
of forces, finally brought to realization. For in the German lands of two
hundred years before who would seriously have believed that Hohenzollern
Prussia, and not Habsburg, would become the germ cell, the founder and the
tutor of the new Reich? And, on the other hand, who would deny today that
Destiny thus acted wiser than human wisdom. Who could now imagine a German
Reich based on the foundations of an effete and degenerate dynasty?
No. The general evolution of things, even though it took a century of struggle,
placed the best in the position that it had merited.
And that will always be so. Therefore it is not to be regretted if different
men set out to attain the same objective. In this way the strongest and swiftest
becomes recognized and turns out to be the victor.
Now there is a second cause for the fact that often in the lives of nations
several movements which show the same characteristics strive along different
ways to reach what appears to be the same goal. This second cause is not
at all tragic, but just something that rightly calls forth pity. It arises
from a sad mixture of envy, jealousy, ambition, and the itch for taking what
belongs to others. Unfortunately these failings are often found united in
single specimens of the human species.
The moment a man arises who profoundly understands the distress of his people
and, having diagnosed the evil with perfect accuracy, takes measures to cure
it; the moment he fixes his aim and chooses the means to reach it –
then paltry and pettifogging people become all attention and eagerly follow
the doings of this man who has thus come before the public gaze. Just like
sparrows who are apparently indifferent, but in reality are firmly intent
on the movements of the fortunate companion with the morsel of bread so that
they may snatch it from him if he should momentarily relax his hold on it,
so it is also with the human species. All that is needed is that one man
should strike out on a new road and then a crowd of poltroons will prick
up their ears and begin to sniff for whatever little booty may possibly lie
at the end of that road. The moment they think they have discovered where
the booty is to be gathered they hurry to find another way which may prove
to be quicker in reaching that goal.
As soon as a new movement is founded and has formulated a definite programme,
people of that kind come forward and proclaim that they are fighting for
the same cause. This does not imply that they are ready honestly to join
the ranks of such a movement and thus recognize its right of priority. It
implies rather that they intend to steal the programme and found a new party
on it. In doing this they are shameless enough to assure the unthinking public
that for a long time they had intended to take the same line of action as
the other has now taken, and frequently they succeed in thus placing themselves
in a favourable light, instead of arousing the general disapprobation which
they justly deserve. For it is a piece of gross impudence to take what has
already been inscribed on another's flag and display it on one's own, to
steal the programme of another, and then to form a separate group as if all
had been created by the new founder of this group. The impudence of such
conduct is particularly demonstrated when the individuals who first caused
dispersion and disruption by their new foundation are those who – as
experience has shown – are most emphatic in proclaiming the necessity
of union and unity the moment they find they cannot catch up with their
adversary's advance.
It is to that kind of conduct that the so-called 'patriotic disintegration'
is to be attributed.
Certainly in the years 1918 – 1919 the founding of a multitude of new
groups, parties, etc., calling themselves 'Patriotic,' was a natural phenomenon
of the time, for which the founders were not at all responsible. By 1920
the National Socialist German Labour Party had slowly crystallized from all
these parties and had become supreme. There could be no better proof of the
sterling honesty of certain individual founders than the fact that many of
them decided, in a really admirable manner, to sacrifice their manifestly
less successful movements to the stronger movement, by joining it unconditionally
and dissolving their own.
This is specially true in regard to Julius Streicher, who was at that time
the protagonist of the German Socialist party in Nürnberg. The National
Socialist German Labour Party had been founded with similar aims in view,
but quite independently of the other. I have already said that Streicher,
then a teacher in Nürnberg, was the chief protagonist of the German
Socialist Party. He had a sacred conviction of the mission and future of
his own movement. As soon, however, as the superior strength and stronger
growth of the National Socialist Party became clear and unquestionable to
his mind, he gave up his work in the German Socialist Party and called upon
his followers to fall into line with the National Socialist German Labour
Party, which had come out victorious from the mutual contest, and carry on
the fight within its ranks for the common cause. The decision was personally
a difficult one for him, but it showed a profound sense of honesty.
When that first period of the movement was over there remained no further
dispersion of forces: for their honest intentions had led the men of that
time to the same honourable, straightforward and just conclusion. What we
now call the 'patriotic disintegration' owes its existence exclusively to
the second of the two causes which I have mentioned. Ambitious men who at
first had no ideas of their own, and still less any concept of aims to be
pursued, felt themselves 'called' exactly at that moment in which the success
of the National Socialist German Labour Party became unquestionable.
Suddenly programmes appeared which were mere transcripts of ours. Ideas were
proclaimed which had been taken from us. Aims were set up on behalf of which
we had been fighting for several years, and ways were mapped out which the
National Socialists had for a long time trodden. All kinds of means were
resorted to for the purpose of trying to convince the public that, although
the National Socialist German Labour Party had now been for a long time in
existence, it was found necessary to establish these new parties. But all
these phrases were just as insincere as the motives behind them were ignoble.
In reality all this was grounded only on one dominant motive. That motive
was the personal ambition of the founders, who wished to play a part in which
their own pigmy talents could contribute nothing original except the gross
effrontery which they displayed in appropriating the ideas of others, a mode
of conduct which in ordinary life is looked upon as thieving.
At that time there was not an idea or concept launched by other people which
these political kleptomaniacs did not seize upon at once for the purpose
of applying to their own base uses. Those who did all this were the same
people who subsequently, with tears in their eyes, profoundly deplored the
'patriotic disintegration' and spoke unceasingly about the 'necessity of
unity'. In doing this they nurtured the secret hope that they might be able
to cry down the others, who would tire of hearing these loud-mouthed accusations
and would end up by abandoning all claim to the ideas that had been stolen
from them and would abandon to the thieves not only the task of carrying
these ideas into effect but also the task of carrying on the movements of
which they themselves were the original founders.
When that did not succeed, and the new enterprises, thanks to the paltry
mentality of their promoters, did not show the favourable results which had
been promised beforehand, then they became more modest in their pretences
and were happy if they could land themselves in one of the so-called
'co-operative unions'.
At that period everything which could not stand on its own feet joined one
of those co-operative unions, believing that eight lame people hanging on
to one another could force a gladiator to surrender to them.
But if among all these cripples there was one who was sound of limb he had
to use all his strength to sustain the others and thus he himself was practically
paralysed.
We ought to look upon the question of joining these working coalitions as
a tactical problem, but, in coming to a decision, we must never forget the
following fundamental principle:
Through the formation of a working coalition associations which are weak
in themselves can never be made strong, whereas it can and does happen not
infrequently that a strong association loses its strength by joining in a
coalition with weaker ones. It is a mistake to believe that a factor of strength
will result from the coalition of weak groups; because experience shows that
under all forms and all conditions the majority represents the duffers and
poltroons. Hence a multiplicity of associations, under a directorate of many
heads, elected by these same associations, is abandoned to the control of
poltroons and weaklings. Through such a coalition the free play of forces
is paralysed, the struggle for the selection of the best is abolished and
therewith the necessary and final victory of the healthier and stronger is
impeded. Coalitions of that kind are inimical to the process of natural
development, because for the most part they hinder rather than advance the
solution of the problem which is being fought for.
It may happen that, from considerations of a purely tactical kind, the supreme
command of a movement whose goal is set in the future will enter into a coalition
with such associations for the treatment of special questions and may also
stand on a common platform with them, but this can be only for a short and
limited period. Such a coalition must not be permanent, if the movement does
not wish to renounce its liberating mission. Because if it should become
indissolubly tied up in such a combination it would lose the capacity and
the right to allow its own forces to work freely in following out a natural
development, so as to overcome rivals and attain its own objective triumphantly.
It must never be forgotten that nothing really great in this world has ever
been achieved through coalitions, but that such achievements have always
been due to the triumph of the individual. Successes achieved through coalitions,
owing to the very nature of their source, carry the germs of future
disintegration in them from the very start; so much so that they have already
forfeited what has been achieved. The great revolutions which have taken
place in human thought and have veritably transformed the aspect of the world
would have been inconceivable and impossible to carry out except through
titanic struggles waged between individual natures, but never as the enterprises
of coalitions.
And, above all things, the People's State will never be created by the desire
for compromise inherent in a patriotic coalition, but only by the iron will
of a single movement which has successfully come through in the struggle
with all the others.