The size of the possible military commitment as well as the relation of this means of power to those of the surrounding States is of decisive importance for the question of the future shaping of German foreign policy, apart from the inner power of our Voelk, of its strength and assessment of character.

I need not express myself further on the moral inner weakness of our present day Voelk in this work. Our general weaknesses which are in part grounded in a matter of blood, and in part lie in the nature of our present governmental organization, or must be attributed to the effects of our poor leadership, are perhaps less familiar to the German public than, unfortunately, they are to the rest of the world, which knows them well. Most of the measures of our oppressors are occasioned by knowledge of this weakness. But with all acknowledgment of the factual conditions, it should still never be forgotten that the same people of today hardly ten years ago accomplished deeds unrivalled in history. The German Voelk which at the moment leaves such a depressing impression has, nevertheless, more than once proved its powerful merit in world history. The World War itself is the most glorious evidence of our Voelk's heroism and spirit of sacrifice, of its death defying discipline and its brilliant capability in thousands upon thousands of areas in the organization of its life. Its purely military leadership has also achieved immortal successes. Only the political leadership has failed. It was already the precursor of that of today, even so much worse.

Today the inner qualities of our Voelk may be a thousand-fold unsatisfactory, but in one blow they will yield another image, as soon as another fist takes the reins of events in order to lead our Voelk out of its present decline.

In our own history, we see how wonderful is precisely our Voelk's capacity for transformation. Prussia in 1806 and Prussia in 1813. What a difference! In 1806, the State characterized by the most abject capitulation everywhere, an unheard of wretchedness in the civic attitude, and in 1813 the State characterized by the most glowing hatred against foreign domination and a sense of patriotic sacrifice for one's own Voelk, the most heroic will to fight for freedom! What, in truth, has changed since then? The Voelk? No, in its inner essence it has remained as before, only its leadership had come into other hands. A new spirit followed the weakness of the Prussian governmental administration and the ossified and aged leadership of the post Frederick period. Baron vom Stein and Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Clausewitz and Blücher were the representatives of the new Prussia. And the world in a few months had again forgotten that seven years before this Prussia had undergone the experience of Jena. And was it, for instance, otherwise before the founding of the Reich? Hardly a decade was required for a new Reich, which in the eyes of many seemed to be the most powerful embodiment of German power and mastery, to arise out of the German decline, the German disunity, and the general political dishonorableness. A single head, towering above all, had restored freedom of development to the German genius in a battle against the mediocrity of the majority. Let us dispense with Bismarck in our history, and only wretched mediocrity would fill the most glorious period for our Voelk in centuries.

Just as the German Voelk could in a few years be hurled down from its unprecedented greatness, by the mediocrity of its leadership, into its present chaos, so can it be pulled up again by an iron fist. Its inner value will then make its appearance so visibly before the entire world that merely the actuality of its existence must compel a regard for and an appraisal of this fact.

If at the start, however, this value is a slumbering one, it is more than ever necessary to provide clarity on Germany's real power value existing at the moment.

I have already tried to draw a brief picture of the momentary German instrument of military power, the Reich Defence. Here I wish to sketch Germany's general military situation in relation to the surrounding world.

Germany at the present time is encircled by three power factors or power groups.

England, Russia and France are at present, militarily, the most threatening of Germany's neighbors. At the same time, French power appears strengthened by a system of European alliances which reach from Paris to Belgrade via Warsaw and Prague.

Germany lies wedged between these States, with completely open borders. What is especially threatening thereby is that the western border of the Reich runs through Germany's greatest industrial region. This western border, however, in consequence of its length and of the lack of all real natural barriers, offers only a few possibilities for defense by a State whose military means seem most extremely limited. Even the Rhine cannot be viewed as a fully effective line of military resistance. Not only because the possibility of finding the necessary technical preparations for this has been taken away from Germany by the peace treaties, but because the river itself offers even fewer obstacles to the passage of armies with modern equipment than the slight means of German defense which must be dispersed over too long a front. Moreover, this river runs through Germany's greatest industrial area, and consequently a struggle over it from the outset would mean the destruction of the industrial areas and factories technically most important for national defense. But if in consequence of a French German conflict Czechoslovakia should come under consideration as a further opponent of Germany, a second great industrial region, Saxony, which could be useful industrially for the conduct of the war, would be exposed to the greatest danger of war. Here too the border, without natural defense, runs down to Bavaria, so broadly and openly that the prospect of a resistance promising success can hardly be considered. If Poland also were to take part in such a war, the entire eastern border in addition, apart from a few inadequate fortifications, would be defenseless against attack.

Whereas on the one hand the German borders are militarily indefensible and are surrounded openly in long lines by enemies, our North Sea coast is especially small and confined. The naval power for its defense is laughable, and completely worthless as such. The Fleet which we claim today, beginning with our so called battleships, is at best the finest target material for enemy firing practice. The two newly built ships, light cruisers, modern in themselves, have no decisive value, indeed not even an apparent one. The Fleet we are allowed is inadequate even for the Baltic Sea. All in all, the only value of our Fleet is at most that of a floating gunnery school. Thus, in case of a conflict with any naval power, not only would German trade be ended in a moment, but there would also be the danger of landings.

The entire problem of our military situation stems from this other consideration:

Berlin, the Reich's capital, is barely 175 kilometers from the Polish border. It lies scarcely 190 kilometers from the nearest Czech border, just as far as the distance between Wismar and the Stettin Lagoon as the crow flies. Thus this means that Berlin can be reached by modern aircraft in less than one hour from these borders. If we draw a line stretching 60 kilometers east of the Rhine River, within it will lie almost the entire western German industrial region. From Frankfurt to Dortmund there is hardly one major German industrial locality which does not lie within this zone. As long as France occupies a part of the left bank of the Rhine, she is in a position to push forward by aircraft into the heart of our western German industrial region in hardly 30 minutes. Munich is just as far from the Czech borders as Berlin is from the Polish and Czech borders. Czech military aircraft would need approximately 60 minutes to reach Munich, 40 minutes to Nuremberg, 30 minutes to reach Regensburg; even Augsburg lies only 200 kilometers from the Czech border, and consequently could also be easily reached in scarcely an hour by present-day airplanes. As the crow flies, however, Augsburg is almost as distant from the Czech border as it is from the French border. From Augsburg to Straßburg the line of flight is 230 kilometers, but it is only 210 kilometers to the nearest French border. Hence Augsburg also lies within a zone which can be reached by hostile aircraft in an hour. Indeed, if we examine the German border from this point of view, it turns out that within an hour's flight time the following can be reached: the entire industrial region in western Germany, including Osnabrück, Bielefeld, Kassel, Würzburg, Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg. In the east: Munich, Augsburg, Würzburg, Magdeburg, Berlin, Stettin. In other words, with the present situation of the German borders, there is only a very small area embracing a few square kilometers which could not be visited by hostile aircraft within the first hour.

Hence France must be considered as the most dangerous enemy because she alone, thanks to her alliances, is in a position to be able to threaten almost the whole of Germany with aircraft, even an hour after the outbreak of a conflict.

At the present time, the military counteractions Germany could take against the application of this weapon, all in all, are quite nil. This single observation already shows the hopeless situation into which a German resistance against France, based only on itself, must land at once. Whoever has himself been often subjected in the field to the effects of an enemy air attack best knows how to appraise especially the moral effects resulting therefrom.

But Hamburg and Bremen, too, in general all our coastal cities, would today no longer escape this fate since the large navies have the possibility of bringing floating landing places very close to the coast by means of aircraft carriers.

But Germany today not only has no technically effective weapons in a sufficient amount to oppose to air attacks. Even otherwise the purely technical equipment of our small Reich Defence is hopelessly inferior to that of our enemy. The lack of heavy artillery might be put up with more easily than the lack of a really promising possibility of defense against armored tanks. If Germany today were thrust into a war against France and her allies without beforehand being in a position to be able to find at least the most necessary preparations for defense, the issue would be decided in a few days on the basis of the purely technical superiority of our adversaries. Measures required for defense against such a hostile attack could no longer be taken during the struggle itself.

Likewise false is the opinion that we will be able to put up a resistance, at least for a certain time, by improvised means, since these very improvisations already require a certain amount of time which is no longer available in case of a conflict. For events would roll more quickly and thereby produce more facts than there would be time left for us to organize countermeasures against these events. Hence, from whatever side we consider the possibilities of foreign policy, for Germany one case must in principle be excluded: we will never be able to proceed against the forces now mobilized in Europe by relying only on our military means. Thus any combination that brings Germany into conflict with France, England, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and so on, without beforehand giving her the possibility of a thorough preparation, is therefore void.

This fundamental perception is important because there are still among us in Germany, even today, well meaning, national minded men who in all earnestness believe that we must enter into an association with Russia.

Even if considered only from a purely military point of view, such an idea is not viable or catastrophic for Germany.

Just as before the year 1914, today also we can assume as unconditionally established for always that in any conflict involving Germany, regardless on what grounds, regardless for what reasons, France will always be our adversary. Whatever European combinations may emerge in the future, France will always take part in them in a manner hostile to Germany. This lies in the traditionally anchored intention of French foreign policy. It is false to believe that the outcome of the War has changed anything on this score. On the contrary, the World War did not bring about for France the complete fulfillment of the war aim she had in mind. For this aim was by no means only the regaining of Alsace-Lorraine, but, on the contrary, Alsace-Lorraine itself represents only a small step in the direction of the goal of French foreign policy. That the possession of Alsace-Lorraine in no way abolished the tendencies of French policy, aggressively directed against Germany, is most strikingly proved by the fact that at the very time France possessed Alsace-Lorraine, the tendency of French foreign policy directed against Germany was, nevertheless, already in existence. The year 1870 showed more clearly than the year 1914 what France ultimately intended. At that time no need was felt to veil the aggressive character of French foreign policy. In the year 1914, perhaps made wise by experiences, perhaps also influenced by England, the French considered it more correct to profess general ideals of humanity on the one hand, and to limit their aim to Alsace-Lorraine on the other. These tactical considerations, however, did not in the least signify an inner deflection from the former goals of French policy, but only a concealment of the same. Afterward, as before, the leading idea of French foreign policy was the conquest of the Rhine River borders, whereby the mutilation of Germany into individual States, linked as loosely as possible to each other, was viewed as the best defense of this border. That this safeguarding of France in Europe, achieved thereby, was to serve the fulfillment of greater world political aims, does not alter the fact that for Germany these French continental political intentions are a question of life and death.

As a matter of fact, indeed, France also had never taken part in a coalition in which German interests in any way would have been promoted. In the last three hundred years, Germany had been attacked by France twenty nine times all told up to 1870. A fact which, on the eve of the Battle Of Sedan, moved Bismarck to oppose the French General Wimpffen most sharply when the latter tried to achieve a mitigation of the terms of surrender. It was Bismarck at that time who, in response to the declaration that France would not forget a German concession but would remember it gratefully forever in the future, immediately stood up and confronted the French negotiator with the hard, naked facts of history. Bismarck stressed, in this sense, that France had attacked Germany so often in the last three hundred years, regardless of the prevailing form of government, that for all the future he was convinced that regardless how the capitulation was formulated, France would immediately attack Germany anew as soon as she felt strong enough for it, either through her own strength or through the strength of allies.

Thereby Bismarck had more correctly appraised French mentality than our present political leaders of Germany. He could do this because he, who himself had a policy aim in view, could also have an inner understanding of the policy goals others set themselves. For Bismarck the intention of French foreign policy was clearly established. It is incomprehensible to our present day leaders, however, because they are lacking in every clear political idea.

If, moreover, France, on the occasion of her entry into the World War, had only the intention of regaining Alsace-Lorraine as a definite aim, the energy of the French war leadership would not have been nearly what it was. The political leadership, especially, would not have come around to a determination which seemed worthy of the greatest admiration during many situations during the World War. It lay, however, in the nature of this greatest coalition war of all times that a complete fulfillment of all wishes was all the less possible since the internal interests of the participant nations themselves had exhibited very great divergences. The French intention [desire] of a complete effacement of Germany in Europe still stood opposed to the English desire to prevent an unconditional French position of hegemony, as much as such a one for Germany.

Thus, for the curtailment of French war aims, it was important that the German collapse take place in forms that did not yet make public opinion fully aware of the whole dimension of the catastrophe. In France they had come to know the German Grenadier in such a way that only with hesitation could they look forward to a possibility that France might be forced to step forth alone for the fulfillment of her ultimate political goal. Later, however, under the impact of Germany's inner defeat, now become generally visible, when they might have been more determined on such an action, the war psychosis in the other parts of the world had already so widely abated that a unilateral action by France for a final aim of such magnitude could no longer have been carried out without opposition on the part of her former allies.

Thereby we are not saying that France renounced her aim. On the contrary, she will try as persistently as before to achieve in the future what the present prevented. France will also in the future, as soon as she feels capable of this through her own power or the power of her allies, attempt to dissolve Germany, and try to occupy the bank of the Rhine River in order in this way to be able to commit French strength elsewhere with no threat to her rear. That thereby France is not in the least irritated in her intention by changes in the forms of German Government is all the more comprehensible since the French Voelk itself, indeed, without any regard to its constitutions of the moment, clings equally to its foreign policy ideas. A Voelk which itself always pursues a definite foreign policy goal, paying no regard as to whether as rulers it has a republic or a monarchy, bourgeois democracy or a Jacobin terror, will have no understanding that another Voelk, perhaps by a change of its form of government, could also undertake a change of its foreign policy aims. Hence nothing will change France's attitude to Germany as such, regardless whether in Germany an Reich or a Republic represents the nation, or even socialist terror rules the State.

Obviously, France is not indifferent vis-à-vis German events, but at the same time her attitude is determined only by the probability of a greater success, that is, of a facilitation of its foreign policy action by a definite German form of government. France will wish Germany the constitution which will leave France to expect the least resistance to Germany's destruction. If, therefore, the German Republic as a special sign of its value tries to induce French friendship, in reality this is the most devastating certificate of its incapacity. For it is welcomed in Paris only because France regards it as poor in values for Germany. In no way is it thereby said that France will confront this German Republic otherwise than as it has in analogous conditions of our governmental weakness in past times. On the Seine River they were always fonder of German weakness than German strength because it seemed to guarantee France's foreign policy activity an easier success.

This French tendency will in no way be changed by the fact that the French Voelk suffer from no lack of territory. For in France policy for centuries has least been determined by sheer economic distress, but much more by impulses of feeling. France is a classic example of the fact that the sense of a healthy territorial gain policy can easily change over into its opposite, once Voelkish principles are no longer determining, and so called governmental national principles take their place. French national chauvinism has departed from Voelkish points of view to such an extent that, for the gratification of a mere power titillation, they Negrify their own blood just to maintain the character of a grand nation numerically. Hence France will also be an eternal disturber of world peace for as long as a decisive and fundamental lesson is not administered to this Voelk some day. Moreover, nobody has better characterized the nature of French vanity than Schopenhauer with his utterance: Africa has its monkeys, Europe has its French.

French foreign policy has always received its inner impulse from this mixture of vanity and megalomania. Who in Germany wants to wait and hope that, the more France is estranged from rational clear thinking, in consequence of her general Negrification, she will yet one day undertake a change in her disposition and intentions toward Germany? No, regardless of how the next development in Europe proceeds, France, by utilizing momentary German weaknesses and all the diplomatic and military possibilities at her disposal, will always seek to inflict harm on us and to split our Voelk so that she can ultimately bring it to a complete disintegration.

Hence for Germany any coalition which does not signify a binding of France is by itself impermissible.

The belief in a German Russian understanding is in itself fantastic as long as a regime rules in Russia that is permeated by only one aim: to carry over the Bolshevist poisoning to Germany. It is natural, therefore, for communist elements to agitate for a German Russian alliance. They thereby hope, rightfully, to be able to lead Germany herself to Bolshevism. It is incomprehensible, however, if national Germans believe that it is possible to achieve an understanding with a State whose greatest interest is the destruction of this very national Germany. Obviously, should such an alliance finally come into being today, its result would be the complete rule of Jewry in Germany exactly as in Russia. Likewise incomprehensible is the opinion that one can wage a war against the capitalist Western European world with this Russia. For, in the first place, present-day Russia is anything but an anti-capitalist State. It is, to be sure, a country that has destroyed its own national economy, but, nevertheless, only in order to give international finance capital the possibility of an absolute control. If this were not so, how could it be, secondly, that the very capitalist world in Germany takes a position in favor of such an alliance? It is after all the Jewish press organs of the most outspoken stock exchange interests who espouse the cause of a German Russian alliance in Germany. Does one really believe that the Berlin Daily Paper or the Frankfurt Times and all their illustrated papers speak more or less overtly for Bolshevik Russia because the latter is an anti-capitalist State? In political matters, it is always a curse when the wish becomes father to the thought.

To be sure, it is conceivable that in Russia itself an internal change within the Bolshevik world may ensue to the extent that the Jewish element, perhaps, could be crowded out by a more or less Russian national element. Then the possibility might not be excluded that present-day Bolshevik Russia, in reality Jewish capitalistic, would be driven toward [to a] national anti-capitalist tendencies. In this case, to which many things seem to point, it would be conceivable, to be sure, that Western European capitalism would seriously take a position against Russia. But then an alliance of Germany with this Russia would also be complete insanity. For the idea that such an alliance could somehow be held secret is as unjustified as the hope to arm ourselves for the conflict through military preparations that are made quietly.

Then there would only be two real possibilities: either this alliance would be viewed by the Western European world, poising itself against Russia, as a danger, or not. If yes, then I don't know who can seriously believe that there will be time for us to arm ourselves in a manner suitable at least to prevent a collapse in the first twenty four hours. Or do people really believe in earnest that France will wait until we have built our air defense and our tank defense? Or do they believe that this can happen secretly in a country in which treason is no longer considered shameless, but a courageous deed worthy of emulation? No, if Germany really wants to enter into an alliance with Russia against Western Europe, then Germany will again become a historic battlefield tomorrow. On top of this, it requires an entirely uncommon fantasy to fancy that Russia could somehow come to Germany's help, in what way I know not. The only success of such an action would be that Russia could thereby still escape a catastrophe for a certain time, as it would first break over Germany. But a popular inducement for such a struggle against Germany could hardly exist, especially in the western States. Just imagine Germany allied with a real anti-capitalist Russia, and then picture how this democratic world Jewish press would mobilize all the instincts of the other nations against Germany. How, especially in France, complete harmony would immediately be established between French national chauvinism and the Jewish stock exchange press. For let one not confuse such a process with the struggle of White Russian Generals against the Bolshevism of an earlier time. In the years 1919 and 1920, national White Russia fought against the Jewish stock exchange revolution, in truth international capitalist red revolution in the highest sense. Today, however, anti-capitalist Bolshevism, become national, would stand in a struggle against world Jewry. Whoever understands the importance of press propaganda, and its infinite possibilities for inciting nations and besetting people, can imagine to what orgies of hate and passion against Germany the European western nations would be whipped. For then Germany would no longer be allied with the Russia of a great, noteworthy, ethical, bold idea, but with the despoilers of the culture of mankind.

Above all, there could be no better chance for the French government to master its own inner difficulties than to undertake a fully danger-free struggle against Germany in such a case. French national chauvinism could be all the more satisfied since then, under the protection of a new world coalition, it could come much closer to the fulfillment of the ultimate war aim. For regardless of the nature of the alliance between Germany and Russia, militarily, Germany alone would have to sustain the most terrible blows. Wholly apart from the fact that Russia does not border directly on Germany and, consequently, must itself first overrun the Polish State -- even in the case of a subjugation of Poland by Russia which as such is quite improbable -- in the best of circumstances such Russian help could essentially arrive on German territory only when Germany no longer existed. But the idea of a landing of Russian Divisions anywhere in Germany is completely excluded as long as England and France have complete control of the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the landing of Russian troops in Germany would fail because of countless technical deficiencies.

Thus, should a German Russian alliance some day have to undergo the test of reality, and there is no such thing as an alliance without the idea of war, Germany would be exposed to the concentrated attacks of all Western Europe without being able to provide for her own defense in a serious way.

But now there remains the question of just what meaning a German Russian alliance should have in general. Only the one of preserving Russia from destruction and sacrificing Germany for that? Regardless of how this alliance would turn out in the end, Germany could not arrive at setting a decisive foreign policy goal. For thereby nothing would be changed regarding the fundamental vital question, indeed regarding the vital needs, of our Voelk. On the contrary, Germany, thereby, would be more than ever cut off from the only rational territorial policy in order to pad out her future with the scuffle over unimportant border adjustments. For the question of space for our Voelk cannot be solved either in the west or in the south of Europe.

The hope in a German Russian alliance, which haunts the minds of even many German national politicians, however, is more than questionable for still another reason.

In general, it seems self evident in national circles that we cannot very well ally ourselves with a Jewish Bolshevist Russia, since the result, according to all probability, would be a Bolshevization of Germany. Obviously, we do not want this. But we base ourselves on the hope that one day the Jewish character--and thereby the most fundamentally international capitalistic character of Bolshevism in Russia--might disappear in order to make place for a national communism, anti-capitalist on a world scale. Then this Russia, permeated once more by national tendencies, might very well come up for consideration in terms of an alliance with Germany.

This is a very great error. It rests on an extraordinary ignorance of the psyche of the Slavic Voelk Soul. This should not amaze anybody if we reflect on how little knowledge even politically minded Germany had of the spiritual conditions of her erstwhile allies. Otherwise we would never have fallen so low. If, therefore, today the national politicians in favor of friendship with Russia try to motivate their policy by reference to Bismarck's analogous attitudes, they disregard a whole multitude of important factors which at that time, but not today, spoke in favor of Russian friendship.

The Russia which Bismarck knew was not a typical Slavic State, at least insofar as it was a question of the political leadership of the same. In general, Slavdom is lacking in State-forming forces. In Russia especially, government formations were always attended to by foreign elements. Since the time of Peter The Great there were, above all, very many Baltic Germans who formed the skeleton and the brains of the Russian State. In the course of centuries, countless thousands of these Germans have been Russified, but only in the sense in which our own bourgeoisie, our national bourgeoisie, would like to Germanize or Teutonize Poles or Czechs. Just as in this case the new fledged German is in truth only a German speaking Pole or Czech, likewise did these artificial Russians remain German, or better, Teutons, according to their blood and hence their capabilities. Russia is indebted to this Teutonic upper stratum for her political State as well as for what little exists of her cultural value. A great Russia would neither have arisen nor would she have been able to preserve herself without this really German upper and intellectual stratum. As long as Russia had been a State with an autocratic form of government, this upper stratum, which in truth was not at all Russian, also decisively influenced the political life of the gigantic empire. Even Bismarck knew this Russia at least in part. It was with this Russia that the master of German political statesmanship had political dealings. But, even in his lifetime, the reliability and stability of Russian policy, both domestic and foreign, fluctuated precariously and became in part incalculable. This lay in the gradual suppression of the German upper stratum. This process of the transformation of the Russian intelligentsia was caused in part by a bleeding of the Russian nation in consequence of many wars, which, as has been already mentioned in this book, primarily decimate the racially more valuable forces. Actually the officer corps especially was for the most part non Slav by descent, but in every case not of Russian blood. On top of this came the slight increase in the upper stratum of the intelligentsia as such, and finally the artificial training by the schools of a real Russiandom with regard to blood. The slight State-preserving value of the new Russian intelligentsia as such was grounded on blood, and revealed itself most sharply perhaps in the nihilism of the Russian universities. Most fundamentally, however, this nihilism was nothing but the opposition, determined by blood, of real Russiandom to the racially alien upper stratum.

The Pan Slavic idea was counter-posed to the Russian idea of the State in proportion as Russia's Teutonic, State-forming upper stratum was replaced by a racially pure Russian bourgeois class. From the first hour of its birth it was Voelkish, Slavish [Russian], and anti German. The anti German disposition of the newly emerging Russiandom, especially in the strata of the so called intelligentsia, however, was not only a pure reflex action against the former autocratic alien upper class in Russia, for instance, on the grounds of politically liberal modes of thought. Rather, in the most intrinsic sense, it was the protest of the Slavic nature against the German. They are two Voelk-Souls which have only very little in common, whereby indeed it must first be established whether this smallness they have in common has its cause in the confusedly broken racial individual elements of which the Russian as well as the German Voelk seems to be constituted. Thus what is common to us and to the Russians is as little consonant with the German as with the Russian character but, instead, is to be ascribed only to our mixture of bloods which has brought just as many eastern Slavic elements to Germany as Nordic German ones to Russia. But if as a test of the two spiritual endowments we were to take a purely Nordic German, from Westphalia let us say, and place a purely Slavic Russian opposite to him, an infinite chasm would yawn between these two representatives of the two Voelks. Actually the Slavic Russian Voelk has always felt this, and has therefore always had an instinctive antipathy toward the German. Solid thoroughness as well as the cold logic of sober thought, are something which the real Russian inwardly finds unsympathetic and in part even incomprehensible. Our sense of order will not only find no reciprocal love, but will always elicit aversion. What with us is felt as something self evident is for the Russian, however, an affliction, since it represents a restriction of his natural, differently structured spiritual and instinctual life. Hence Slavic Russia will feel itself drawn more and more to France. And indeed to an increasing degree, since the Frankish Nordic element is also being suppressed in France. The facile, superficial, more or less effeminate French life was more able to fascinate the Slav because inwardly it is closer to him than the severity’s of our German struggle for existence. Hence it is no accident if Pan Slavic Russia waxes politically enthusiastic over France, exactly as the Russian intelligentsia of Slavic blood found in Paris the Mecca of its own needs for civilization.

The process of the rise of a Russian national bourgeoisie at the same time caused [signified] an inner alienation of this new Russia vis-à-vis Germany, which now could no longer build on a racially related Russian upper stratum.

As a matter of fact, already at the turn of the century, the anti German orientation of the representatives of the Voelkish Pan Slav idea was so strong and its influence on Russian policy had grown to such an extent that even Germany's more than decent attitude vis-à-vis Russia, on the occasion of the Russian Japanese war, could no longer check the further estrangement of the two States. Then came the World War which to no little extent had also been kindled by the Pan Slavist agitation. The real governmental Russia, insofar as it had been represented by the erstwhile upper stratum, therefore could hardly put in a word anymore.

The World War itself then brought about a further [the last] bleeding of Russia's Nordic German elements, and the last remains were finally extirpated by the Revolution and Bolshevism. It was not as if the Slav race instinct had deliberately carried out the struggle for the extermination of the former non Russian upper stratum by itself. No, it had acquired new leaders meantime in Jewry. Jewry, pressing toward the upper strata and therefore toward supreme leadership, has exterminated the former alien upper class with the help of the Slav race instinct. Thus it is a quite understandable process if Jewry has taken over the leadership of all areas of Russian life with the Bolshevik revolution, since by itself and out of itself Slavdom is altogether lacking in any organizing ability and thereby also in any State-forming and State-preserving power. Take away all the elements which are not purely Slavic from Slavdom, and it will immediately succumb to disintegration as a State. To be sure, fundamentally, any formation of States may at first have its innermost inducement in the encounter between Voelks of a higher and lower order, whereby the bearers of the higher blood value--for reasons of self preservation--develop a definite community spirit which first allows them the possibility of an organization and a rule over inferior Voelks. Only the overcoming of common tasks compels the adoption of organizational forms. But the difference between the State-forming and the non State-forming elements lies precisely in the fact that the formation of an organization for the preservation of their stock vis-à-vis other types becomes possible for the former, whereas the non State-forming incompetents are not capable by themselves of finding those organizational forms which would guarantee their existence vis-à-vis others.

Thus present-day Russia or, better said, present-day Slavdom of Russian nationality, has received as master the Jew, who first eliminated the former upper stratum, and now must prove his own State-forming power. In view of the endowment of Jewry, which after all is only destructive, it will operate even here only as the historical ferment of decomposition. It has summoned to its help spirits of which it can no longer rid itself, and the struggle of the inwardly anti State Pan Slav idea against the Bolshevist Jewish State idea will end with the destruction of Jewry. What will then remain will be a Russia as insignificant in governmental power as she will be deeply rooted in an anti German attitude. Since this State will no longer possess a State-preserving upper stratum anchored anywhere, it will become a source of eternal unrest and eternal insecurity. A gigantic land area will thus be surrendered to the most variegated fate, and instead of stabilization of relations between States on Earth, a period of the most restless changes will begin.

Thus the first phase of these developments will be that the most different nations of the world will try to enter into relations with this enormous complex of States in order thereby to bring about a strengthening of their own position and intentions. But such an attempt will always be linked to the effort also to exert their own intellectual and organizational influence on Russia at the same time. Germany may not hope to come up for consideration in any way during this development. The whole mentality of present-day and future Russia is opposed to this. For the future, an alliance of Germany with Russia has no sense for Germany, neither from the standpoint of sober expediency, nor from that of human community. On the contrary, it is good fortune for the future that this development has taken place in just this way because, thereby, a spell has been broken which would have prevented us from seeking the goal of German foreign policy there where it solely and exclusively can lie: territory in the east.