THE RESTORATION OF GERMAN LIBERTY

Miguel Serrano collected works https://archive.org/details/miguel-serrano_202312

“The Reich is no longer a defenceless plaything. It is no longer at the mercy of foreign predominance. Its defence is assured. We can feel this tranquil sense of security all the more deeply because the German people and their Government have no other object in view than to live in peace and friendship with their neighbours. We look upon our Army as the protective barrier behind which the Nation can work in peace

Adolf Hitler.

Digitized by Propagandaleiter

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY M. MÜLLER & SOHN K. G., BERLIN SW 19

THE RESTORATION OF GERMAN LIBERTY

Opening Address

at the Seventh National Socialist Congress, Nuremberg, September 11, 1935

FELLOW MEMBERS

OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARITY:

T

HE Congress in which we are now assembled is the Seventh Congress of the National Socialist Movement. It is sixteen years since the Party was founded, and

twelve years since our first revolutionary rising. Eleven years ago the Party was founded a second time. And we are now in the third year of our final victory. What tremendous experiences we have been through within the span of about a decade-and-a-half!

When we began our struggle Germany was in the throes of a chaotic disruption. Those who were then guiding the destinies of the German people were about to make shipwreck of the national honour, together with our national strength and liberty. A nation which had given such high proof of military valour was politically bartered away and betrayed by its own rulers. And today, after sixteen years?

In 1933 we called our Congress the Victory Congress and we had good right to do so; for we considered the final establishment of National Socialist power as the characteristic mark of that period. For a similar reason, we can proudly designate the present celebrations as the Liberty Congress of the Reich.

We are all so impetuously carried along in the swift rhythm of events that it is difficult for the individual to realise sufficiently the immediate and ultimate significance of what has happened. It must be left to History to record how within the span of less than three years since our accession to power a revival took place in Germany which our adversaries certainly had not foreseen and which certain indifferent bourgeois elements have not been able to comprehend but which we, National Socialists, have always believed in with an ardent and indomitable faith. This revival will be judged in history as an honourable liquidation of the bankruptcy which took place in 1918. It was just where Germany suffered from the severest collapse that the greatest revival took place.

And thus it is that we have always felt this inner recovery of our people to be the most essential element, together with the restoration of the political honour of the nation and therewith the restoration of our human dignity also. The importance of all that we have

achieved in the various other branches of national life during the last three years is insignificant in comparison with this inner re-awakening.

The urge for self-preservation on the part of the community as a whole unfortunately embraces the egoisms of millions of individuals. And in our case the individuals were hard hit by the crisis which they had to face in their daily lives. The peasant naturally thinks of the returns he derives from his toil. The worker thinks of his daily wage and the artisan busies himself with the problem of how his wares are selling. The landlord worries about the rents that his property brings in and the industrialist thinks of the returns that come from the output of his factory, just as the unemployed broods over the chances of getting work or on the amount of his dole. Each person feels his own troubles and thinks them the most essential. He feels the weight of his own miseries as the hardest burden of all. But they are bad times indeed when the individual becomes blind to the general condition of things around him and fails to consider or understand the great laws which govern the collective march of events and thereby determine the life of the individual himself.

On the occasion of this Third Congress since our accession to power we, National Socialists, can look back with pride over all that has been accomplished during the past three years, even the merely material results that have been achieved in the various spheres of public life. If we consider the people as one great organism and if we realise that each piece of work, no matter where it be done or what form it may take, is to the ultimate gain of the whole organism, then we shall be able to form at least a general idea of how much our people have benefited by virtue of one fact alone, namely, that the unemployed-who numbered over six millions-have been reduced to one million and three-fourths. In this we have rendered the nation a service which the individual cannot easily estimate at its true value.

Since our advent to power we have replaced about five million people in the circuit of national production. This means that for every working day we have given to the German people an average of between thirty and forty million hours of work more than they had previously. This has been their salvation. It does not matter for what kind of production this working power has been employed in the individual cases. Taken all in all, in one year we have given to the nation the fruits of about nine milliard hours of labour.

This gigantic achievement, which is distributed in its activities and effects throughout the whole sphere of our national production, is not for the benefit of some individual millionaires. Directly or indirectly, it is bringing about an improvement in the general conditions of living and accordingly enhances our national existence. We know from experience that the damages accruing from fifteen years of progressive dissolution could not be repaired completely within the short span of three years. But what we have done will be supplemented by further restoration in the various spheres of national existence. With the passing of time it must necessarily result in raising not only the general standard of living and the cultural level of the German nation as a whole, but each individual German will be able to perceive and feel the benefit of it in his own life. As regards those results which have been produced by the national effort in the multifarious branches of our economic life as a whole, within three years of National Socialist leadership, you will have a detailed account laid before you in the series of special lectures which are to be given during the course of this Congress.

It has been a magnificent performance. Yet it is only secondary when compared with the work which we have done, by adhering loyally to our programme, in restoring the honour

and liberty of the nation. For if this restoration had not taken place, all other measures would have been in vain. That is especially true in a world and at a time where unrest prevails to a degree that has never before been experienced and where we are farther removed than ever before from the so-called rule of a higher justice.

You will all understand what is in my mind if I ask you at this festive moment to lift your eyes above this hall and take a broad glance at the great world beyond the frontiers of the German nation. Unrest and insecurity are the striking features of the spectacle that meets your gaze. Right is weak and Semblance rules the world. But woe to him who is weak himself! The stronger will take his possessions from him and use them as the grounds of a moral argument to justify his subjugation. Slaves are made where slaves are emancipated. Classes are born where classes are annihilated. The Marxist theorists who preached the doctrine of “Never Again” during the War are now constructing colossal machinery for the purpose of war. The apostles of international conciliation are filling the world with intolerant hatred and are infamously inciting the nations against one another. Those who have signed alliances of peace are studying the possibilities which may be offered by the coming war and the methods to be used in the waging of it. In short, the man who is forced to walk defenceless in this garden of dragons has every good reason to feel ill at ease. For a long fifteen years our nation has had this experience of being delivered over to mercy or destruction at the hands of every comer, whether of good will or of evil will. We have been given the opportunity of proving by practical experience the value of sympathies extended to a person who, when once down, would still hope for justice or at least understanding. Where are Wilson’s Fourteen Points and where is the world today?

We, Germans, can now contemplate the situation in a spirit of profound tranquility; for the Reich is no longer a defenceless plaything. It is no longer at the mercy of foreign predominance. Its defence is assured. And its defence is assured not through alliances and pacts, treaties of mutual interest and general agreements, but it is assured through the determined will of its leaders and the effective forces of the nation. It is not necessary for Germany to give any demonstration whatsoever of this security before the other nations of the world. It is enough that we ourselves know it.

Not only that, but we can feel this tranquil sense of security all the more deeply because the German people and their Government have no other object in view than to live in peace and friendship with their neighbours. The international hate- mongers, whose sole yearning is to see Europe turned into a field of slaughter, are so well known to us that we can make no mistake as to the ground and object of their hopes. The more International Jewish Communism believes that, once universal chaos is spread throughout Europe, it can raise the standard of revolution and establish the despotic rule of the Bolsheviks over the nations of Europe, at the sacrifice of their liberties and their standards of life-the more determined are we, National Socialists, to see that they will first have to reckon with the true significance of the restoration of our defence force and will have to appreciate it at its full value. For we have the honour of being civilisation, is to go to pieces and disappear. Inasmuch as we have put this conviction into practice as far as the German people are concerned, we believe that we have given a useful example to the other European States.

After a struggle lasting fifteen years the National Socialist Party succeeded in finally overthrowing Communism throughout Germany. Beyond the machinations of some Jewish wire-pullers, it is no longer active except in the brains of a few incorrigible fools and visionaries. In saying this, I do not mean to include those international criminals who are to be

found under all governments and among all nations. These veteran clients of jails and penitentiaries saw in the Bolshevik revolution the rising sun of liberty and therewith scented opportunities that promised success for renewed activities.

We have no illusions however as to the fact that a latent danger still exists and will continue to exist for some time to come. Therefore we are always armed and ready for any kind of action that may have to be taken at any moment. Our Party is a militant Party and has hitherto succeeded in bringing everyone of its enemies to the ground. Should any such phenomenon raise its head again our Party will certainly not fail to meet it and give further proof of the mettle which was shown when fighting those same enemies in the past.

Some well-intentioned but rather naive advisers ask why we take such a combative attitude towards these movements if the instigators of them are numerically so few as we ourselves admit. Why are we not a little more lenient and leave them to themselves? Here I shall give the answer to you, my Party colleagues and to all our German fellow citizens. You will kindly take the following declaration as conclusive once and for all:

“Our enemies had fifteen years, and before that even fifty years, in which to give proof of their abilities. Morally, politically and economically they allowed Germany to go to ruin. We have nothing more to do with these people. We have power in our hands and we shall hold it. And we shall not permit anybody to have his way who tries to organise something against this power; but we shall throttle every movement at the very instant that it shows itself. Now that we have restored and reconstructed Germany, through an effort that cannot be described in words, our enemies would be only too ready to do as they did before and barter away the honour and freedom and substance of the nation.”

No. Let nobody permit himself illusions in our regard. It is just because we know how ridiculously small is the number of our enemies that we, as the sole mandatories of the German people, shall suppress those enemies the moment they dare even to give any sign of their activities. The strong protection which is afforded them by their friends abroad does not disconcert us. It only confirms us in our determination.

What the German people may expect from these elements is made strikingly clear by the fervent hopes which their activities raise among all the international forces arrayed against Germany. When such activities are observed they are acclaimed and encouraged. Our bitterest enemies send them their warmest greetings. It indicates how grossly the mentality of the German nation is misunderstood when people believe, both on the one side and on the other, that such an alliance could disturb the foundations of a State whose leaders have placed the national honour in the foreground as the guiding ideal of all their conduct. Indeed the greatest recommendation which the National Socialist Movement enjoys is that it does not depend for support on this international protection.

In considering those domestic elements today I should like to analyse their motives and their methods of action for you and through you for the whole nation. In the struggle which we waged for fifteen years to acquire political power in Germany we came to know three leading classes of opponents who were artificers of German disintegration. Each group is conditioned by the other and all alike must be held responsible for the German debacle. They are:-

Jewish Marxism and the parliamentary democracy associated with it.

The politically and morally obnoxious Centre Party.

Certain incorrigible elements in the stupid and reactionary bourgeoisie.

For a long fifteen years we had these three sorts of people to fight against. That gave us the opportunity of coming to know them thoroughly. Despite the fact that they held power in their hands and applied that power without any scruple, despite an unrestrained terror in which hundreds were murdered and tens of thousands wounded, despite the barbaric attack on the women and children belonging to the families of our comrades, whereby the father was deprived of his means of livelihood and his wife and children thus condemned to starvation- despite it all, National Socialism finally triumphed over these three classes of political enemies.

In Moscow today they are making advances to the clique of political clerics who formerly belonged to the Centre Party and also to the reactionary bourgeoisie. But that does not come as a surprise to us, National Socialists. During the period of our struggle we had reason to know that each of these two parties worked in the closest alliance with the other. Hand in hand they used every available means to prevent the national resurgence of Germany. Today they cannot wipe out the remembrance of this by merely trying to forget it themselves or by repudiating the truth of the fact in a fury of pretended indignation.

When these three classes were wiped out by the National Socialist Revolution in March 1933 the most practical course for them would appear to have been to acknowledge themselves as finished. They no longer held power. The results of their criminal mismanagement and their default in every branch of administration were still so fresh in the memory of the nation as to indicate to them that they ought to disappear at once from public life. Yet in face of overwhelming evidence to guide them they profoundly misjudged the situation and stayed on. In their arrogance it seemed to them entirely beside the mark to try seriously to understand the principles of National Socialism, even as an opposing doctrine. So they got into their heads the idea that the year 1933 signified nothing more than just a change of government. They thought that what had happened was that a new engineer and a new crew had stepped on to the locomotive of the train called “Das Reich”.

And now they thought that they needed only to have a little patience and wait until the new crew tired of its job or that one day it would find that it could not carry on and would depart of its own accord. Moreover, they may well have thought that the new men, following the example of their predecessors, were just out for business and would retire, sooner or later, when their appetites were satisfied. And thus one can understand their decision to accept the fait accompli with an air of bitter-sweet nonchalance and, like honest spectators, await the result of the race with high hope in their hearts.

But what then escaped their comprehension was the fact that it was not merely that the crew of the locomotive had been changed, but rather that the train had begun to take a new direction. The points on the German railway had been switched from the old route.

And now, after three years, they who nourished those secret hopes find to their great discomfiture that the train is leaving them farther and farther behind every day. And so they often forget to maintain their attitude of assumed indifference. They cannot conceal either their folly or their disillusionment. The more unreasonable among them, who seem to be the youngest and therefore the least experienced, think that if they now run fast enough and shout

loud enough they may be able to stop the disappearing train and overtake it. But they will stumble and fall over in making the effort. To the Marxists and especially their Jewish instigators the following lesson must be read:-

“If the bureaucracy defaults in fulfilling its duties the German people will replace it with their own active organisation. With perhaps too great a measure of benevolence, we made it possible for them to maintain a discreet attitude and with the passing of time thus allow certain things to fade into oblivion. We now have the impression that this indulgence was wrongly interpreted. The results which were bound to follow have actually occurred. In pursuing its course the National Socialist State will definitely overcome this danger too. In this connection I may here state categorically that the fight against the domestic enemies of the nation will by no means halt before a formalist and inefficient bureaucracy, for wherever the State bureaucracy shows itself incompetent to solve a problem the German nation will substitute its more vigorous organisation to see that its vital necessities are assured.”

For it is a gross mistake to believe that the nation exists for the sake of some formal institution and that if such an institution should prove incapable of accomplishing the tasks laid before it the nation ought to capitulate in face of these tasks.

On the contrary: What can be accomplished by the State will be accomplished by the State. But whatever the State, by reason of its structure, is not in a position to accomplish that will be accomplished by the National Socialist Movement.

For the State is only one of the organic forms in which the life of the people is expressed. But it is animated and dominated by the immediate manifestation of the national will to live, and this immediate manifestation is the Party and the National Socialist Movement. In certain circles, where eyes are still fondly turned to the past and old experiences held in esteem, the idea may have struck root that, just as former governments with their normal machinery of State were not able to cope with Jewish Marxism and its allied phenomena, so the German State of today will have to capitulate because it cannot convince its contemporaries that there are not certain definite problems which are beyond its competence.

That is another big mistake. The Party, the State, national economy and administration, are all only means to an end. And the end is the maintenance of the nation. This is the fundamental principle of the National Socialist system. Whatever is manifestly prejudicial to the well-being of the nation must be suppressed. If an institution of State have shown itself incapable of discharging this duty, then it will have to give way to another which will see that the task is carried through. All of us, my Party colleagues and above all you who hold leading positions in the State and the Movement, will be judged one day not by the rectitude of the formalist attitude we adopted but on the grounds of how far we have or have not put our programme successfully into practice. This means that the question will be: how far we have or have not protected and secured the existence of our race and nation. The following principle must especially be insisted upon and carried through in practice with what I may call a devoted fanaticism: namely, that an enemy of the National Socialist State, no matter whether at home or abroad, must not know or discover any person or source in Germany that will agree with him or support him.

We live in the midst of a world that has grown turbulent. Only the most rigid principles and the relentless observance of them will enable us to save Germany from also falling into

the Bolshevik chaos, the existence and menace of which we have unmasked in many quarters and pointed out as a warning. It is quite easy to understand why our enemies do not like these principles. We need not be disturbed by the fact that at the present moment the justice and absolute necessity of them are not everywhere recognised outside of Germany. For it may be that within a short period of time the world will no longer have to face the question as to whether these principles of ours and our line of conduct be acceptable or not, but will rather have to face the immediate alternative of stumbling into the human catastrophe of Bolshevism or saving itself by the same or similar methods as we have adopted.

This determination to deal remorselessly with certain dangers the moment they appear and cut them up root and branch will be carried out irrespective of circumstances. If it ever should become necessary, we shall not hesitate to take those functions for the discharge of which the State is manifestly unfitted -inasmuch as they are foreign to its inner character-and bring forward legislation that will transfer them to other institutions which seem more efficiently equipped for the settlement of such matters. But in this regard the decision will rest exclusively with the leadership of the Party and shall not depend upon the will of individuals. Our discipline is the source and mainstay of our power. In this connection I shall consider in detail the dangers which arise from the political activities of religious denominations. My reason for doing so is that we have seen for a long time now how this phenomenon is closely associated with Marxism.

Here I wish to state certain principles expressly:-

The Party never had the intention, and it has not the intention now, of engaging in any kind of hostilities against Christianity in Germany. Our aim has been quite in the opposite direction. We have sought to unite the various regional Protestant churches, whose conditions of existence were impossible, and create one great Evangelical Church throughout the Reich, without interfering in the slightest with questions of religious belief or practice. By concluding a concordat with the Catholic Church, the Party has sought to establish a state of affairs which would be beneficial to both sides and which would be of a permanent character. The Party has abolished the organisations that belonged to the Atheist Movement and while doing this it has cleared our whole life of innumerable symptoms the suppression of which is or ought to be the task of the Christian denominations.

But on no conditions whatsoever will the National Socialist State permit religious denominations to engage in political activities, whether these activities be a continuance of the old tradition or whether they be something started afresh. And here I should like to issue definite warning against the entertainment of any illusions whatsoever in regard to the fixed determination of the Movement and the State. We have already fought the clerical politicians and we have forced them to leave Parliament. It was a long struggle and during the course of it we held no public power whatsoever, whereas the others held all the power in their hands.

But today we have this power and it is easier for us to maintain the struggle on behalf of the principles I have mentioned. Yet we shall never turn this fight into a fight against Christianity or against any of the two great denominations. Yet we shall carry on this fight for the purpose of preserving our public life free from those priests who have forgotten their vocation and practised politics rather than the care of the souls. We shall also carry on the fight to unmask those who pretend that their Church is threatened, while the truth unfortunately is that they themselves are only looking for the opportunity to be free of it. I need not assure you that we, National Socialists, have not sought this quarrel. For we know

what the Jewish-Bolshevik menace is, as it threatens the world today, and we are too keenly aware of it not to wish that all forces could be united in combatting it. Had Communism succeeded, the problem of the twenty-six antiquated regional churches and that of the Catholic political Centre would have been quickly solved. Wherever Bolshevism has come to hold political power the “militant churches” present a picture that is essentially more inglorious than that presented by the “militant” National Socialist Movement in Germany which, with the sacrifice of innumerable martyrs, has beaten and routed the Communist murderers and incendiaries.

The third group of our opponents must be looked upon as pathological specimens. They are men who have come at last to understand that the present State and the nation, in the task which has been undertaken and the speed with which this task is being discharged, as well as in the greatness of the general achievement, are entirely beyond the ambit of their obese intelligence and their sluggish will power. Instead of realizing that their existence is now entirely superfluous, they still pray to their old God and implore of Him to cast the future in the mould of the past. As long as they continue to brood over this yearning in quietude we shall have no occasion to disturb their reverie. But if any attempt should be made on the part of these groups, which are associated with one another by common traditions, gradually to express their secret desires in the open, such an attempt shall be suppressed forthwith. The German people do not wish to listen to that music any longer. At one time they venerated the composers of it; but they have no respect for the degenerate successors and petty conductors who strut about like ghosts from the bourgeois past. That world is dead. And the dead should be permitted to rest in peace.

If we pass in review all the elements who believe that they cannot be reconciled to the new Germany at any price, then we shall readily arrive at the following conclusions:-

They are united only on negative grounds: that is to say, they look upon the present State as their common enemy. Otherwise there is not a single idea that unites them.

What would Germany come to if this motley group should ever regain influence and importance? For many centuries our people were rent asunder, divided by conflicting beliefs and different outlooks on life in general; at first tribal, then dynastic, then religious, finally divergent political opinions and views of life. When we, National Socialists, were carrying on our campaign for the acquisition of power thirty-seven political parties in (Germany were wrangling with one another for popular support. There were two churches and innumerable societies for the promotion of various other beliefs. After a long struggle, which was principally a systematic endeavour to instruct the nation in the principles that govern public life, and after making untold sacrifices, we succeeded in bringing nine-tenths of the people to our way of thinking and in uniting them under one will. The remaining ten percent represent the leavings of the twenty-seven parties, the intractable elements of the religious denominations, the former societies for the promotion of one thing or another; in short, those elements that for centuries were responsible for Germany’s woes by reason of the fact that they kept her divided. When we calmly review the whole situation now and take account of the successful work that has been done for our German Reich during the past few years, then we shall once again have to conclude that the most valuable achievement of all was and is the fact that the movement welded the Germans together in one nation and developed a common will for united action.

Consider the sense of security and peace that reigns over Germany today. If we look elsewhere we see factors of dissolution and decomposition at work almost everywhere, strikes and lock-outs and street brawls, destruction of property, hatred and civil war. The wandering scholars of the deracinated international-Jewish clique are moving in and out among the peoples, fomenting trouble and disorder, preaching a hate that is contrary to all sound reason and inciting human beings and nations against one another. Under the pretext of representing class interests, they are trying to mobilise the public for civil war, for the sake of their own private interests and satisfaction. And we see the results.

In a world which ought to live in abundance misery is prevalent everywhere. Countries so sparsely populated that they have less than fifteen people to the square-kilometre (less than twenty-four to the square mile) are suffering from hunger. States which have unlimited resources of raw material cannot reduce the masses of their unemployed.

Our country has a population of 137 people to the square- kilometre (220 to the square mile). We have no colonies and lack most of the raw materials which are necessary for us. For fifteen years after the war we were bled white. We lost all our foreign property and the capital we had invested abroad. We had to pay fifty milliards (2,500,000,000 pounds sterling, at par) in reparations. Thus Germany was brought to the verge of complete ruin. Yet we have maintained our powers of existence, though we had to pass through periods of poignant anxiety in doing so. We have reduced the numbers of our unemployed, so that we are actually in a better situation today than some of the richest countries on the globe.

The special lectures which are to be delivered at this Congress will give you, my Party colleagues, an account of the efforts that had to be made in order to achieve these results. Then you will understand the magnitude of the task that had to be undertaken to solve the most pressing problems.

When we took over power Germany was in a condition of complete decadence. Our adversaries prophesied that we could not last more than a few weeks. And since then they have obstinately continued to predict our downfall, even though they have had to keep on postponing it from one date to another. But their prophecies have been contradicted. The opposite has happened. Of course we are a poor nation, not because National Socialism has ruled for twenty years but because criminal party governments allowed Germany to drift, not only towards revolution, but-what was far worse-into profound inner chaos, and because for fifteen years the German State was the defenceless object of every kind of international chantage.

Our great triumph has been that through an heroic struggle for the assertion of Germany’s national independence we succeeded in reconstructing the defensive forces of the nation, so that for all future time it may be spared the terrible experiences through which we have passed in recent years.

In taking this occasion, my colleagues, to give you a short account of what has been done within the past twelve months my idea is to show you how we have fulfilled the task which we set before ourselves last year and to outline the tasks that we have to face for the future.

The National Socialist Party:

The last Party Congress was held just as we had overcome an inner crisis of the Movement. In that crisis some foolish elements in our ranks, entirely forgetful of their obligations of honour, endeavoured to transform the Party into an instrument to serve their own private ends. Since our last Congress we have eliminated even the final remnants of that attempt. In the meantime the Party has been extraordinarily consolidated. Its inner organisation has been further perfected. Numerous positions in the State have been taken over by members of the Party. Fate has unfortunately taken from us, before his due time, one of our stoutest combatants. The death of Schemm meant the loss of an apostle of the National Socialist Revival.

The essential aim of the internal reorganisation of the Party was to fix a new delimitation of the various duties, which the respective branches of the Party have to fulfil. That became necessary once the revolution had completely reached its goal. First of all, it was necessary to make our members realise fully that with the restoration of the Army the National Socialist State acquired a new supporting pillar in its structure. This Army has a duty to fulfil which is entirely exclusive to it. Hence it follows that there must be not only a strict delimitation of the activities of the Movement, but also that certain organisations of the Movement have to be liquidated because they were constituted specially for the purpose of suppressing disorder.

The administrations of the SA and the SS have been very much simplified during the past twelve months and the membership of those bodies has been subjected to severer tests. The result of this is that a numerical reduction has taken place and therewith an improvement in quality.

The feeling of close solidarity among the older National Socialists has by no means relaxed. In fact it has become more profound. Just as in the past, this year’s Party Congress has afforded a welcome opportunity for our veteran comrades to meet once again and enjoy one another’s company. The young recruits who have joined the Movement will not change the character of this militant political elite of the German nation. They will rather reinforce it.

The State:

The cause which has been inscribed on the banners of the National Socialist Movement ever since its reconstruction (in 1924) has been advanced in a manner which is without a parallel in history. The Reich has gradually and steadily passed over to National Socialism. The effective influence of the movement has never before been so clearly demonstrated as within the past twelve months. Germany has become free. On the 16th of last March the National Socialist Government gave the nation equality of rights by virtue of its own inner power. The reestablishment of the Army has given Germany the necessary protection on land. The building up of our air force has assured the German home against fire and gas. The new navy, whose tonnage was fixed by the London Agreement, protects German commerce and the German coasts.

Those twelve months, from this time last year to now, have witnessed important internal reforms in almost all branches of our legislative and administrative activities. Compulsory labour service has been introduced.

The German Economic Situation:

We have good reason to speak of this today. The year 1934 unfortunately brought us a very bad harvest. We are still suffering from the effects of it. However, we have succeeded in maintaining the supply of all primary foodstuffs necessary for the support of the German people. But this was at the cost of an effort which is not estimated at its full value by the great masses of the nation. The bad harvest resulted in a temporary shortage of certain food commodities. But we were resolved not to capitulate, no matter what the cost might be, although certain sections of the international press looked forward to that capitulation with yearning hopes. And now we have successfully surmounted the crisis.

In doing so we felt it incumbent on us at times to take measures against those who raised their prices on the excuse of the bad harvest. This rise in prices was quite comprehensible in some cases, but in others it was quite unfounded.

In carrying through these efforts the National Socialist economic administration followed the principle that under no circumstances could we permit a rise of wages or salaries and under no circumstances a rise of prices; because wherever one of these happenings is permitted the other is sure to follow as a necessary result.

During the past twelve months we steadfastly held to our determination-and we shall do the same in the future-that we would not allow the German nation to be stampeded into a new inflation. But even today an increase in wages or prices would necessarily lead to such an inflation. There are some unscrupulous egoists today, or short-sighted people incapable of reasoning, who think that they have the right to take advantage of certain difficulties that have occurred in the supply of food commodities and that they can increase their prices for that reason alone. If the Government were to permit such conduct to go on, prices would rise with an increasing velocity, such as we experienced from 1921 to 1928. The result would be that the German people would soon find themselves in the midst of a new inflation. All such attempts will be suppressed by us and we shall show no mercy in doing so. If peaceful warning should not succeed then we shall not hesitate to send recalcitrant individuals to the concentration camps, so as to teach them that the good of the community as a whole must prevail over personal desires.

Of course the Government might have spared itself much preoccupation, at least temporarily, if it had followed the example of many other States that have inflated their currencies, thus permitting the devaluation of the German Mark. But we have not allowed ourselves to be attracted towards that alternative: first, because, although it might eliminate some of our worries, sooner or later it must necessarily have brought much more serious affliction on millions and millions of our fellow citizens. By this affliction I mean the grave disappointment to which those people would be subjected who, having confidence in the State, had saved up part of their earnings and would now have to see the value of those savings dwindle, owing to the devaluation of the currency. The second reason why we did not take this alternative course is because we firmly believe that the international world crisis will never be overcome while such methods are practised. We are absolutely convinced that an indispensable prerequisite for remedying the international commercial crisis is the introduction of a stable monetary system. Such a course would permit the transformation of a prehistoric system of exchange into a free and modern commercial system Moreover, the National Socialist Government is resolved that under no circumstances will it be drawn into the old commercial system of creating debts, but that it will rigidly abide by the principle of

importing from abroad only up to the value of the goods that it sells abroad. If certain individuals should feel distressed because they cannot purchase this or that article of luxury, or even some useful object or other, because we have not imported it for them, our answer to such worthy compatriots is: We are troubled enough as things are with the problem of feeding the German people. As long as we cannot be perfectly assured that the necessities of life are at hand for every single member of the community, we are not interested in the question whether this or that article of luxury might be imported. If there are people who think that they cannot get along without certain articles of luxury for life’s embellishment the only course left for such people is to turns their backs on this poor Germany of ours and migrate to more propitious countries where their desires will be more abundantly satisfied. Perhaps they might go to Soviet Russia.

Anyhow, our principle is not to create any new debts. As a matter of fact, we have succeeded in paying off a considerable portion of our international indebtedness. Furthermore, we have succeeded in lowering the interest on part of our foreign debts and also on our domestic loans.

In order to be able to purchase those foodstuffs and raw materials abroad which we lack in Germany, the Government has encouraged German export for the purpose of maintaining it at the normal level. As a matter of fact, Germany’s share in international trade has not diminished except proportionately to the falling off of the export trade in other countries, despite the Jewish world boycott against us.

But in so far as our export trade is not sufficient to procure us the means of purchasing the needful foodstuffs and raw materials abroad we have decided to manufacture those raw materials ourselves and thus make Germany independent of foreign supplies. Here there is no question of producing “substitutes” but of material that is quite equal to the imported material and other material that is entirely new.

For instance: The production of petrol by a process of coal extraction has been organised on a large scale. In the near future this will keep new factories occupied incessantly and thus we shall be able to supply an increasing percentage of the explosive fuel needed in our trade and industry. This supply will be entirely a home product. We are resolved to develop the manufacture of German fibre for the purposes of clothmaking. The problem of manufacturing artificial rubber is now solved. We have already begun to lay down the plant necessary for this industry.

In numerous other directions similar progress is taking place, such as the exploitation of our own oil resources and the mineral deposits in various parts of the country. Parallel with this work, we are putting into effect a very broadly-conceived plan for the territorial reorganisation of our industries. The German people must also take into account the fact that we have to provide not merely for the demands of private industry and commerce but that we also have to provide the material necessities for the reconstruction of the German Defence Force.

At the same time the German Government is occupied with the problem of developing the transport services. All the projects which have been put in hand are being energetically carried through and additional projects have been accepted and sanctioned. The motorisation of German traffic shows a rapid progress, which is the counterpart of the progress that is being made in building great motor roads throughout the Reich. The most significant evidence

of the energy and activity of our economic administration is the fact that during the past twelve months the number of men to whom we have given bread and work has been raised to five millions.

But as yet our efforts have not succeeded in providing work for all. In the case of those individuals who are still without work, and in the case of those whose earnings are not sufficient for the support of themselves and their families, our social relief organisations have come to the rescue. Of course even these cannot satisfy all hopes. But where, in the whole course of history, do we find a parallel example of such a gigantic achievement? If we consider that in Soviet Russia, where there is a population of less than fifteen persons to the square- kilometre, millions of people live under the menace of famine and the number of people who die of hunger is always steadily increasing, is it not a marvellous thing that, out of our own restricted resources, we have succeeded in feeding and maintaining a densely populated nation of 137 people to the square- kilometre? And yet we ourselves will not rest content with what we have done. Our intention is constantly to put new measures into effect in order to secure the prosperity of the German nation. Where we succeed we congratulate ourselves. Where our efforts are not successful we do not allow ourselves to be discouraged. In these cases we always try other ways and means of reaching our goal.

And here I should like to say a word by way of answer to those critics who are always greedily on the look-out for instances in which we fail or partly fail: The man who shoots a great deal will sometimes miss the mark; but those who never shoot will never hit or miss the mark. The problems which we found waiting to be solved were huge problems, thanks to the unique bungling of our predecessors. And these problems were of such a nature that unfortunately we had no examples to guide us in adopting means for their solution. The state of the case today is that many of the measures adopted by us are being taken as examples to be followed in other countries. Almost every step forward that we made was a step into hitherto unexplored territory. We had no other choice. Supposing we had waited until the other States had solved their unemployment problem, so that we might learn from them how to do it, what would have happened? Or ought we to have followed the example of how Russia has fed and maintained fifteen persons per square-kilometre? No, my friends, we took the risk and, I am proud to say, we have won.

During the course of the Congress you will get a more detailed picture of what has been accomplished within the past twelve months. One thing is certain : it is that a more successful effort has never before been made to rescue a nation from the abyss of such an economic, political and moral disaster. And this indicates the nature of the task that we shall have to discharge during the coming twelve months. We shall make a strong effort to bring about a further reduction in the number of our unemployed. We shall strive to maintain the relation of work to wages at the present level and no consideration will make us hesitate in our determination to uphold the interests of the nation against all factors of disorder, no matter where they may show themselves or who they may be.

We shall continue the magnificent social work of our Labour Front. We shall strengthen the Reich in its Army, so as to make it a still safer refuge for European peace and European civilisation. We shall continue all the work that we have begun and we shall enlarge its scope by the addition of new undertakings, with a view to maintaining the economic vitality of Germany and raising the standard of living. But above all we shall consolidate the Movement internally as the source of our power and, in the spirit of the Movement, we shall continue to inculcate in the minds of the German people the ideal of a true community.

We are convinced that this last task is our hardest. For here we have to fight prejudices which have arisen from past experiences. We must struggle against the burden of a bad tradition coming down from former times and we have to contend with the sceptical influence of selfish and small-minded people.

But the favourable results we have already achieved in this direction justify the firm confidence that one day we shall arrive at our definite goal. This however is not an end in itself and we cannot rest idle once we have attained it. We do not want anybody to fall into the mistake of thinking that once a person has become a National Socialist he can rest on his oars. The true National Socialist feels obliged to work unceasingly in the service of the cause. We must teach the coming generation what our inner experiences have been during our struggle in common, so that those people may not easily forget the lesson which the nation has learned from the experience of the past.

And so, my friends, we ought to take this seventh Congress as an opportunity of trying to realise still more profoundly that the mission of our Party is something which must continue to be fulfilled and that in reality there is no such thing as a final accomplishment of it; for that mission commands us to educate our people and therewith to assure the permanent existence and activity of our Party. No matter what may be achieved, the human element stands above every other consideration. Whatever may be our projects or our activities, it is the human element alone that will assure their success and give them their final consecration. As proof of loyal adherence to the National Socialist faith, it is not sufficient to be able to produce the Party passport in attestation of membership. That passport is only the visible and outward sign of an internal faith. This faith imposes on each individual believer the duty of constant self- discipline and unfaltering activity in the service of the cause.

We have assembled together for this Party Congress of 1935 in a time of general unrest. But just as at earlier period of our domestic struggle for power, when heavy storm clouds darkened the political horizon, our ardent faith in the greatness of our mission as National Socialists continued to burn brightly, so once again our faith in that mission gains renewed vigour in face of the international unrest that prevails today.

In those days we always held firm to our faith and hope in the Movement. Today that will not desert us, even though we should be burdened with anxieties and distressed with the insecurity of the times. Rather will our faith continue to be refreshed from those sources which gave us the strength that was necessary for our gigantic struggle. Now that the Bolshevik Jew in Moscow has announced the beginning of a world campaign of destruction we, National Socialists, gather closer together beneath our glorious banner. We unfurl it before us with a sacred vow to fight the old enemy, regardless of life, so that Germany’s future, her honour and her freedom may be saved, protected and secured.

Long live the Reich and the National Socialist Movement!

ART AND POLITICS

Address Delivered

at the Seventh National Socialist Congress, Nuremberg, September 11, 1935

O

N February 27th 1933, when the blaze from the dome of the Reichstag was reflected in a red glow from the sky, it seemed as if Fate had chosen the torch of

the Communist incendiaries to illuminate the grandeur of that historical turning point before the eyes of the nation. The final menace of the Bolshevik revolution hovered like a dark shadow over the Reich. A terrible social and economic catastrophe had brought Germany to the verge of annihilation. The foundations of social life had crumbled. There had been times in which high courage was demanded of us-in the Great War, for instance, and afterwards during our long struggle on behalf of the movement and against the enemies of the nation. But the courage then demanded was not so great: is that which now became necessary when we were faced with the question of taking over the direction of the affairs of the Reich and therewith the responsibility for the existence of the people. During the months that followed it was very difficult to discover and employ such measures as might still avert the final disaster, and doubly difficult to withstand and overthrow the last assault launched by those who wanted to wreck the Nation and the Reich. It was veritably a savage struggle against all those causes and symptoms of German internal disintegration and against our enemies abroad who were hopefully expecting the final debâcle.

At some future date, when it will be possible to view those events in clearer perspective, people will be astonished to find that just at the time the National Socialists and their leaders were fighting a life-or-death battle for the preservation of the nation the first impulse was given for the re-awakening and restoration of artistic vitality in Germany. It was at this same juncture that the congeries of political parties was wiped out, the opposition of the federal states overcome and the sovereignty of the Reich established as sole and exclusive. While the defeated Centre Party and the Marxists were being driven from their final entrenchments, the trades unions abolished, and while the National Socialist thought and ideas were being brought from the world of dream and vision into the world of fact, and our plans were being put into effect one after the other-in the midst of all this we found time to lay the foundations of a new Temple of Art. And so it was that the same revolution that had swept over the State prepared the soil for the growth of a new culture. And certainly not in a negative way. For though there were many grounds on which we might have proceeded against the elements of destruction in our cultural life, as a matter of fact we did not wish to waste time in calling them to account. For we had decided from the start not to be drawn into endless controversy with persons who can be judged by their works and who were either imbeciles or shrewd impostors. Indeed we considered most of the activities of the leaders among these cultural protagonists as criminal. If we had opened a public discussion with such people we should have ended by sending them to some mental asylum or to prison, according as they believed in these fictions of a morbid fancy as real inner experiences or merely offered their deplorable lucubrations as a means of pandering to an equally deplorable tendency of the time.

I need not speak of those Bolshevising Jewish litterateurs who found in such “cultural activity” a practical and effective means of fostering r\ spirit of insecurity and instability among the population of civilised nations. But their existence strengthened our determination to make assured provision for the healthy development of cultural activities in the new State.

To carry out this decision effectively, we resolved that on no account would we allow the dadist or cubist or futurist or intimist or objectivist babblers to take part in this new cultural movement. This was the most practical consequence which resulted from the fact that we had unmasked the so-called culture of the post-war period as really a process of decomposition in the German national being. We had to be intransigent, especially because we felt that our task is not merely to neutralise the effects of that unfortunate period which is now past, but also to fix the main outlines of those cultural features which will be developed during the centuries to come by this first National State that is really German.

It is not a matter for surprise to find that criticisms are advanced against such an undertaking at this particular time. But they are only a repetition of the criticisms that have accompanied every such cultural movement in the past. These objections fall under two general headings. We must ignore, of course, those which are insincerely meant and which come from people who know how effectively we mean to put our cultural policy into practice. Such persons cannot overcome their dislike for the German people and they will do their best to oppose any real progress in Germany. Therefore they try, by way of hostile criticism and sceptical insinuation and open accusation, to place every possible hindrance in the path of our effort. Considering the fundamental and inspiring motives of it, such opposition is in itself an excellent recommendation for our work. Therefore I shall deal here only with the objections which are often put forward by well-meaning people. The first of these objections may be stated thus:-

In view of the arduous nature of the political and economic programme that we have decided to carry out, is it wise at this juncture to bother about problems of art, which may have been of some importance in other centuries and in other circumstances but which are

Just now, isn’t practical work more important than art, the drama, music etc. Excellent though they be in themselves and much to be commended on general grounds, such activities do not minister to lifes’s necessities. Is it right to undertake monumental works of engineering and building, instead of restricting ourselves exclusively to what is practical and absolutely necessary at the moment?

The second line of objection runs thus:-

Can we permit sacrifices to be made in the interests of art at such a time as this when we find ourselves surrounded with poverty, distress, misery and complaining? In the last analysis, isn’t art the luxury of a small minority? What has it to do with the task of supplying bread to the masses?

I think it worth while to examine the grounds of such criticism and answer it. Is it in harmony with the times in which we live, and why should we feel called upon just now, to awaken public interest in questions of art? Would it not be more reasonable to ignore such matters at the present juncture and take them up at some later date when the present economic and political difficulties are over?

In answer to such an attitude the following must be said:-

Art is not one of those human activities that may be laid aside to order and resumed to order. Nor can it be retired on pension, as it were. For either a people is endowed with cultural gifts that are inherent in its very nature or it is not so endowed at all. Therefore such gifts are part of the general racial qualities of a people. But the creative function through which these spiritual gifts or faculties are expressed follows the same law of development and decay that governs all human activity. It would not be possible, for instance, to suspend the study of mathematics and physics in nation without thereby causing a retrogression in the special faculties and aptitudes that are exercised in the pursuit of such studies. And thus in this respect such a nation must necessarily fall behind other nations similarly endowed. For just the same reason, if the cultural activities of a people were suspended for a certain time the necessary result would be a general retrogression throughout the whole cultural sphere; and this would end in a process of internal decay.

Let us take an instance. Opera may be looked upon as one of the most characteristic creations of the neo-classical theatre. Now, if the activities involved in operatic production were to be suspended for a longer or shorter period of time, even though only temporarily, with the intention of restoring opera once again in its old brilliancy-what would be the consequence? There would be a suspension of the training and preparation of the personnel necessary for such productions. But the consequences would not end there. They would extend to the general public: for the receptive faculties of the public, in regard to this particular form of art, have to be developed and trained by the constant production of opera, just as in the case of the performers themselves.

The same holds good for art in general. No era can shelve the duty of cultivating the arts. If it should try to do so it would lose not only the capacity for creative artistic expression but also its powers of comprehending and appreciating such expression; because the creative and receptive faculties are here interdependent. Through the appeal of his work, the creative artist vitalises and ennobles the aesthetic faculties of the nation. And the general feeling for artistic values, thus awakened and developed, becomes a rich spiritual nursing ground for the growth and increase of new creative talent.

But if, by reason of its very nature, such cultural activity cannot be suppressed for a longer or shorter period without causing irremediable damage, such a suppression or neglect would be particularly wicked when the economic and political situation expressly calls for a reinforcement of the moral strength of the nation. It is important that this should be clearly understood. The cultural achievements which mark outstanding periods in human history were always coexistent with a high degree of social development. Whether they belong to the material or spiritual order, it can be said that such works always incorporated the most profound elements of the national being. And never is it more necessary to direct the mind of a people towards the vital and inexhaustible powers of its inner being than when political and social and economic troubles tend to weaken faith in the nobler qualities which the nation incarnates and thereby hinder the fulfilment of its mission. When the poor human soul, oppressed with cares and troubles and inwardly distracted, has no longer a clear and definite belief in the greatness and the future of the nation to which it belongs, that is the time to stimulate its regard for the indisputable evidences of those eternal racial values which cannot be affected in their essence by a temporary phase of political or economic distress. The more the natural and legitimate demands of a nation are ignored or suppressed, or even simply denied, the more important it is that these vital demands should take on the appeal of a higher

and nobler right by giving tangible proof of the great cultural values incorporated in the nation. Such visible demonstration of the higher qualities of a people, as the experience of history proves, will remain for thousands of years as an unquestionable testimony not only to the greatness of a people but also to their moral right to existence.

Even though the last representatives of such a people should submit to the final disgrace of having their mouths closed forever, then the stones themselves will cry out. History pays scarcely any positive regard to a people that has not left its own monument to bear witness to its cultural achievement. On the other hand, those who have destroyed the artistic monuments of a foreign race remain only a subject of regret for the historian.

What would the Egyptians be without their pyramids and their temples and the artistic decorations that surrounded their daily lives? What would the Greeks be without Athens and the Acropolis? What would the Romans be without their mighty buildings and engineering works? What would the German emperors of the middles ages be without their cathedrals and their imperial palaces? And what would the Middle Age itself be without its town halls, and guild halls etc.? What would religion be without its churches? That there was once such a people as the Mayas we should not know at all, or else be unconcerned about them, had they not left for the admiration of our time those mighty ruins of cities that bear witness to the extraordinary epic qualities of that people, such ruins as have arrested the attention of the modern world and are still a fascinating object of study for our scholars.

A people cannot live longer than the works, which are the testimony of its culture.

Therefore if artistic works have more powerful and more durable repercussions than any other human activity, then the cultivation of the arts becomes all the more necessary in an age that is oppressed and distracted by an unfavourable political and economic situation. For Art is more effective than any other means that might be employed for the purpose of bringing home to the consciousness of a people the truth of the fact that their individual and political sufferings are only transitory, whereas the creative powers and therewith the greatness of the nation are everlasting. Art is the great mainstay of a people, because it raises them above the petty cares of the moment and shows them that, after all, their individual woes are not of such great importance. Even if such a nation should go down in defeat, and yet have produced cultural works that are immortal, in the eye of History that nation will have triumphed over its adversary.

The objection that only a small minority of the people understands and takes pleasure in artistic work is based on a false supposition. Any other function in the life of a nation might be chosen and on the same grounds it might be maintained that such a function is unimportant, because the masses of the people have no direct share in it.

Nobody could say that the masses of the people appreciate or partake in the highest results that have been obtained by the sciences of chemistry and physics or indeed in the latest progress made in any other scientific or intellectual pursuit. But I am convinced that the contrary is true of artistic activities. And this is so precisely because Art is the clearest and most immediate reflection of the spiritual life of a people. It exercises the greatest direct and unconscious influence on the masses of the people, always of course on the supposition that it is true and real art, rendering a true picture of the spiritual life and inner powers of the race and not a distortion of these.

This is the true touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of an art. The most decisive condemnation of the whole dadist movement during recent decades is the fact that the great masses of the people have not only turned away from it but that they finally have come to show not the slightest interest in this Judeo-Bolshevik derision of all culture.

The last remnants who more or less believed in these imbecilities were only their own authors. In such circumstances it is true that the proportion of people who interest themselves in art is very small; because it is made up exclusively of mental deficient - that is to say, degenerates-who, thank God, form a very small minority and represent only those elements that are interested in the moral corruption of the nation. We must set aside these efforts to deride all culture and consider them as having no relation to Art. What we can say of Art, in the real sense of the term, is that in its thousand fold manifestations and influences it benefits the nation as a whole by reason of the fact that it gives the people a broad outlook in which they can contemplate and appreciate the nobler virtues of their race and are thus raised above the level of individual interests. And it is the same here as in the case of all the higher human activities. There are many degrees of perfection in the exercise and understanding of such activities.

That is a fortunate nation indeed in which Art has reached such a position that for each individual it stands as the ultimate source of his happiness, almost as a presentiment.

Out of the number of creative artists there are only a few examples where the highest pitch of human achievement has been reached. In like manner the faculty of perfectly comprehending artistic values is not given to all in equal measure. But each person who strives to reach those heights will find an inner and profound satisfaction in each step that he attains.

Therefore if the National Socialist Movement is to have a real revolutionary significance it must strive to give tangible proof of this significance by authentic creative work in the cultural sphere. It must make the people conscious of their collective mission, and of the particular mission of National Socialism, by encouraging and aiding such artistic production as will demonstrate to the people their own cultural resources. The work of the National Socialist Movement and the struggle it has to carry on will become all the more easy in so far as it can effectively impress on the public mind an understanding of the greatness of the aims it has in view. This understanding has always been the result of great cultural achievements, especially in the domain of architecture.

If the nation is to be trained to take pride in itself, the just motives of that pride must be placed before its eyes. The labour and sacrifices which the construction of the Pantheon demanded were the work of one time; but it has been an everlasting source of pride to the Greeks and an object of universal admiration for their contemporaries and for posterity.We also ought to nourish the hope that Providence will grant us great geniuses who may express the soul of our people in everlasting concord of sounds or in stone., We know of course that here as elsewhere the hard saying applies: “Many are called but few are chosen”.

But we are convinced that in the political sphere we have discovered a fitting mode of expression for the nature and will of our people. Therefore we feel that we are capable also of recognising and discovering in the cultural sphere the complementary expression which will be adequate to that nature and that will. We shall discover and encourage artists who will

imprint on the new German State the cultural stamp of the German race, which will be valid for all time.

The second objection I have mentioned is that at a time of material distress we ought to renounce all activity in the sphere of art, because in the last analysis this is only a luxury, suitable indeed to prosperous times but out of place as long as the pressing material wants of the individual are not satisfied. That objection has always been, like poverty itself, the everlasting shadow that has accompanied all artistic creation. For who can sincerely believe that there has ever been a great artistic epoch in which poverty and want did not also exist? Does anybody imagine that when the Egyptians built their pyramids and temples there were not poor people among them? Or in Babylon when its splendid buildings were erected? Has not this objection been advanced against all the greatest cultural creations in history and has it not been heard in all cultural eras? A simple way of answering it is to ask another question: Does anybody think that if the Greeks had not built the Acropolis at all there would have been no poverty or misery in Athens at that time? Or would there have been no human distress in the Middle Ages if they had renounced the idea of building their cathedrals? But let us take an example nearer home. When Ludwig I made Munich a centre of art exactly the same arguments were brought forward against him. Were there no poor and needy people in Bavaria before Ludwig began to carry out his great building plans? Or let us come down to the present time, as it is easier to understand what is before our eyes. National Socialism has made the life of the German people more pleasant in all directions because of the encouragement it has given to cultural activities of the highest kind. Ought we to renounce all that because poverty still exists among us and will exist tomorrow also? Before us and our plans was there no poverty in the country?

On the contrary.

If human existence had not been ennobled by the presence of great works of art it could not have found the road of ascension which led up from the pressing material necessities of primitive existence to a higher level of living. Now, this ascension finally led to a social order which, inasmuch as it brings before the individuals constituting it the importance of the people as a whole, thereby creates a sense of duty towards the community and in that way enhances the life of the individual.

It generally happens that when a nation more or less neglects the cultural side of its existence we have a correspondingly low standard of living and more widespread poverty. Human progress first began and continues to develop through a labour-saving procedure whereby the amount of work hitherto thought indispensable to produce the necessities of life is lessened and a portion of it transferred to domains which are being newly opened and which are accessible only to a small number of people who are materially and intellectually equipped for such new energies.

As the embellishment of life, Art follows the same route. But on that account it cannot by any means be termed a “capitalist” tendency. On the contrary, all the great cultural achievements in the history of mankind have been the product of those forces which spring from the feeling of communion in the social group, so that such works may be said to originate in the community itself. Hence they reflect in their genesis and final form the spiritual life and ideals of the community.

It is therefore no accident that all the great communities in history which were inspired and formed by a definite concept of the world and life, religious or philosophical, have striven to perpetuate themselves through the medium of great cultural works. And in those epochs of religious intensity, where material cares were set aside as far as possible, the human mind achieved the greatest cultural triumphs.

The contrary was the case with Judaism. Infected by the spirit of capitalism through and through, and directing their actions accordingly, the Jews never produced an art that was characteristically their own, and will never create such a thing. Although this people for long periods in its history has had immense individual fortunes at its disposal, it never created an architectural style of its own, nor have the Jews been able to produce a music that reflects their racial characteristics. Even in the building of the Temple at Jerusalem foreign architects had to be employed to help in giving it final shape, just as most of the Jewish synagogues nowadays are the work of German, French and Italian artists. Therefore I am convinced that, after a few years under the National Socialist leadership of State and people, the Germans will produce much more and greater work in the cultural domain than has been accomplished during the recent decades of the Jewish regime. And it must be a source of pride to us that, by some special dispensation of Providence, the greatest architect which Germany has had since the time of Schinkel was able to construct in the new Germany and in the service of the Movement his first and unfortunately his sole monumental masterpiece in stone, as a classic exemplar of a really German sculptural style. But it is easy to find even a more direct refutation of the second objection I have mentioned. In all the great artistic creations of mankind human labour has been employed and salaries paid for it; so that the general amount of work and payment is increased. By putting more work into circulation more money is put into circulation, which creates other employment in other spheres. So that if we consider those cultural works from the purely material viewpoint we find that they always signify a remunerative undertaking which benefits the commonweal. Moreover, they refine and expand human sentiment and in this way they help to elevate the general standard of life. The contemplation of such works makes a people conscious of itself and of its faculties; so that the creative powrers of the individual are thereby awakened and stimulated. But an indispensable condition is required. It is this: If art is to have the effect just mentioned it must be a herald of the sublime and beautiful and the expositor of natural and healthy living.

When it fulfils this condition, then no sacrifice on its behalf can be too great. If it fail to meet this test, then even the smallest expenditure on it is a contribution to evil; for this latter kind of art is not a healthy and constructive factor for the betterment of our existence but rather a mark of degeneration and corruption. What is presented to us under the caption, “Cult of the Primitive”, is not the expression of a naive and untainted primitive consciousness but rather a morbid decadence.

There are people who defend the pictures and sculptures-to mention only an obvious example-of our dadists and cubists and futurists or our self-worshipping impressionists, on the grounds that such effusions are examples of primitive forms of expression. But such people are entirely oblivious of the fact that it is not the purpose of art to be a remembrancer of degenerate symptoms but rather to strive to overcome symptoms of degeneration by directing the imagination to what is eternally good and beautiful. If these botchers who pretend to be artists think that they can stimulate the “primitive” instincts of our people and bring them to expression, they obviously do not realise that our people passed out of the stage represented by these primitive art-barbarians some thousands of years ago. Not only do the people turn away from those noisome productions but they consider the fabricators of them as charlatans

or fools. In the Third Reich we have no idea of allowing such people to batten on the public. An attempt has been made to exculpate them post factum, on the alleged grounds that during a certain period of time it was necessary to pay court to that fashion, because it was so emphatic and dominant. In our eyes such an argument has no validity whatsoever. It only makes the case worse; because it shows an absolute lack of principle in the conduct of such people. Moreover, that kind of explanation is entirely out of place at the present time and it is addressed precisely to the wrong people when it is addressed to us. For if some composer or other today, when reminded of his past aberrations, should put forward the naive excuse that in those days nobody would have paid attention to him if he had not emitted that kind of caterwauling music, we should take the excuse as a condemnation of himself. Our answer is that we were confronted with an exactly similar situation in the political field. It was the same kind of music and the same kind of folly.

Our fellow-feeling and appreciation are reserved exclusively for those who, in this as well as in other spheres, did not pander to the canaille or make obeisance to the Bolshevik madness but opposed them openly and honourably with courage and confidence in their own cause.

Here we encounter another objection. It is that the artist is bound to observe what is real and take cognisance of it in his artistic representations. That is his sole consideration. Therefore, it is alleged, he must produce not only what may be pleasing but also what may be displeasing, not only the beautiful but also the ugly. My answer is that undoubtedly art has always dealt with the tragic problems of human existence, the eternal struggle between good and evil, between what is helpful and what is harmful. Yet never for the purpose of assuring the triumph of what is harmful but rather to demonstrate how mankind is always in vital need of what is helpful. It is not the duty of art to wallow in filth and rubbish for the sake of filth and rubbish and to portray mankind only in a state of moral and physical decomposition, to present the cretin as a symbol of the child-bearing woman and deformed idiots as the representatives of masculine strength. But if one of these so-called “artists” should feel called upon to depict human existence under all its forms and varieties and should feel specially inspired by what is inferior and morbid and should wish to present that variety, he might do so at a time when the general public taste agrees with that sort of thing. For us, however, those times are past and gone, and with them is gone the occupation of these “also- artists”. If in this point we are becoming even more severe and uncompromising in our renunciations it is because we are perfectly convinced that we are on the right road. For any artist who has been destined and fitted by Providence to give visible form and embodiment to the hidden and eternal being of a people can never feel attracted towards such aberrations as I have mentioned.

There is no question here of “a menace to artistic liberty”. Just as nobody would claim that, in order to uphold the sacred right of personal liberty, the assassin should be left free to inflict physical death on his neighbour, for the same reason nobody has the right to be allowed to inflict spiritual death on a people, simply because he claims full liberty for the exercise of his obscene and distorted fancy.

We have definitely decided, as far as in us lies, that all cultural activity at the present time should be directed, especially in the domain of architecture, towards the production of work that will not only be enduring in the appeal of its artistic proportions but also up-to-date in satisfying the material demands of our time.

In this connection the word “objective” has often been used very nonsensically. All the really great architects have built objectively; that is to say, their buildings fulfilled the purposes for which they were meant and conformed to the practical exigencies of the time. The importance of these practical and sometimes all too human purposes was not equally emphasised in all ages and therefore they have not always played the same part in structural planning and execution. But it would be a great mistake to think that Schinkel could not have constructed buildings with modern sanitary installations of a practical character. In the first place the hygienic conditions of that time were different from what they are today and, in the second place, such matters were not then given the importance which we attribute to them now. But it is a still greater mistake to suppose that the practical accessories demanded by our modern inventions and modern progress cannot be excellently provided for in a modern building planned and erected according to the strict canons of architecture.

It is not a question of some special talent in the artist, but simply a prerequisite condition of his professional efficiency, that he should be able to provide for the general elementary necessities of human life in any building which he constructs. The decisive test is that the whole structure must suit the general purpose for which it is built and that it should have a clear and definite form in accord with that purpose.

The reason why I am giving such prominence to architecture in dealing with cultural matters is because this problem is of immediate practical importance just now. For the present at least, Fate does not seem to have decided to give us a great musical composer or painter or sculptor. Therefore we must use the possibilities that are at hand. We cannot produce an equivalent for the want I have mentioned but we can at least compensate for it by creative activity in other directions. This nation has produced works of such enduring value in those spheres of art where we lack great master spirits today that for the time being we can be content with what we already possess in such spheres. But the carrying out of great constructional programmes is a matter of pressing necessity. The ends which are to be served in this respect cannot be put off. Anyhow if we do not employ the handicraft which is still with us and has the requisite aptitude for this kind of work it will continue to decline and die out.

But it is difficult to awaken in the people a clear vision and a proper estimation of the architectural needs of the present; because, for several decades past, this nation has been the dumping ground for astute charlatans and morbid imbeciles to unload their so-called artistic products. We shall find it difficult to guard against the stupid imitation of the past and the unspeakable confusion that would result from it.

What seems to me to be of the first importance would be to draw a clear line of distinction at the very outset between monumental public architecture and private architecture. A public edifice ought to be a worthy representation of the character of the patron for whom the work is done-that is to say, the community-and it ought to be suited in every detail to the special purpose for which it is built. To carry out this task in a becoming way bombastic display must be avoided, on the one hand; and, on the other, there must be a strict renunciation of that pretended and entirely false “modesty” which is too often only a convenient excuse for the inability of the architect to construct something that will be at one and the same time practical and aesthetically impressive. It very often happens that the architects who put forward this kind of excuse have very little corresponding “modesty” in thier own tastes.

This “modesty” - which in most cases is only another name for the limited artistic abilities of the architect-must not be taken as synonymous with practicality - Sachlichkeit. To say of a building that it is practical means that it is well suited to serve the purpose for which it was built. But modesty here consists in obtaining a maximum effect with the minimum of means. This minimum of means is often confused with a minimum of ability, which is then compensated for by a maximum of more or less explanatory lucubrations. Buildings ought to be left to speak for themselves. They are not constructed in order to furnish a pretext for literary dissertations, much less if these be an attempt to transform bad architectural work into good.

When the true architect receives his commission to plan a structure he ponders inwardly over the purpose which this structure is meant to serve and then, by virtue of his artistic insight, he intuitively discovers that solution of the problem which will result in an outward design that conforms to the internal use. This means that, without any superimposed philosophical symbolism regarding the use for which the structure is intended, he will build a theatre, for example, which is obviously and unambiguously a theatre to the eye of the beholder. In carrying out his plans, therefore, he will always have this purpose in view and he will also build in accordance with the cultural traditions of his environment.

In doing this he will adopt, as given data to guide him in his work, all that he has learned from the history of his art. And he will adapt this to the present purpose in hand. Accordingly he will not build his theatre so that it may give the impression of a Grecian temple or recall some romantic city or so that it will look like a grain silo. Nor will he refuse to employ modern building materials, but he will shape them artistically to his purpose. At the same time he will not hesitate to revive certain elements of form which were once invented by the traditional talent of his own race. These he will even try to develop further; and he will try to refine them as indispensable syllables in the language of architecture.

It is the hallmark of the truly gifted artist to be able to express new thoughts in the words of current speech. There remains a large number of modern demands which have to be fulfilled and for which the past can furnish no example or prototype. And it is just here that the really gifted genius is given the opportunity to enrich the form-language of art with new means of expression. While keeping in mind the ends that have to be attained and the task that has to be fulfilled with the means that are at present available, he will try to find a synthesis which, because it is the distant forerunner of mathematical reasoning, is veritably an intuitive product and has every right to be considered as genuine art.

But the criterion for judging the beautiful must always lie in the answer to the question: whether or not it can make its usefulness clearly and definitely felt. It is the artist’s task to furnish the objective answer to that question. To feel this usefulness, to understand it and to appreciate it is the business of the building authorities who are responsible for the commissioning of public works.

On principle, however, in the carrying out of every important public commission both those who are responsible for placing the order and those who execute it must always bear in mind that, though the contract be given in virtue of contingent exigencies, it must be executed in a manner and style that entirely transcends such temporary exigencies. To fulfil this aim it is necessary that the really great undertakings of the time should be planned on a grand scale. That is to say, public edifices, if they are to have a lasting significance and value, must conform definitely to the largeness of scale prevalent in the other spheres of national life.

It is impossible to develop in a people a strong and high-class sense of nationhood if the public edifices, and other public works which they see all around them, are not considerably above the level of those works which owe their origin and maintenance more or less to private capitalist enterprise.

It is out of the question now to think of erecting monumental buildings, for the State or the Movement, on a sufficiently grand scale to compare with the public edifices of two or three centuries ago. The reverse has been the case in regard to private mansions or business premises of purely capitalist origin; for these have enormously increased in number and size during recent times. It was not the magnificence of the private houses or business premises of the citizens that gave to the ancient and mediaeval cities those striking features which have made them the objects of admiration and wonder for posterity, but rather those great public structures which incorporated the life and spirit of the community. These were the outstanding and imposing features of the cities, while private edifices were erected in retired places. As long as the dominant architectural characteristics that strike the eye of the beholder in modern cities are the big commercial stores, bazaars, hotel and office buildings of the sky-scraper kind, there can be no question here either of art or true culture. In erecting such buildings the command should have been to follow the canons of modesty and simplicity. But unfortunately the construction of public works on an architectural scale that should be a worthy manifestation of public life was neglected in favour of commercial pomp in the interests of private capital. Now, the renunciation of this policy is an essential part of the cultural mission of National Socialism.

Not merely artistic considerations however, but also political considerations, must determine us to turn our eyes to the great examples of the past and draw from them inspiration and guidance in our efforts to construct an artistic counterpart which will worthily incorporate the spirit of the new Reich. The poltroon is most effectively forced to stop his grumbling when he is confronted with the eternal diction of great art. The centuries bow to it in silent veneration. May God give us that greatness of spirit which will enable us to formulate our plans in a manner worthy of our national greatness. That, of course, is an arduous undertaking.

The heroic achievements of our people during the last two thousand years belong to the epic deeds of human history. In Germany, as well as in the rest of Europe, there were centuries during which the triumphs of art were a worthy antiphon to the greatness of the human spirit in those ages. The sublime grandeur of our cathedrals constitutes an incomparable precedent for the architectural creations of our own time. It is not merely our aesthetic feeling of veneration that is stirred by the sight of those great cathedrals; they also force us to bow in admiration before the generations of men who conceived such vast ideas and brought them to realisation.

In doing homage to the eternal genius of the nation we call upon the great spirits that presided over that creative power in the past to come to our assistance now. Men grow great to match the greatness of the tasks they undertake. And we have no reason to doubt that, if the Almighty grants us the courage to undertake something that will be immortal, he will also give our people the strength to carry it out. Our cathedrals bear witness to the grandeur of the past. The greatness of the present will be measured by the immortal quality of the works it leaves to posterity. Thus, and thus alone, will it be possible for Germany to experience a renaissance of art and thus will it be possible to awaken in the people the consciousness of the high destinies to which they are called.

THE BASIS

OF NATIONHOOD

Closing Address

at the Seventh National Socialist Congress, Nuremberg, September 16, 1935

FELLOW MEMBERS

OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY:

W

HAT time could be more appropriate than this week of our National Socialist Congress to pause for a moment and, lifting our eyes above the events and

phenomena that take place within the narrow limits of the present, cast a glance back at the past and forward into the future? For no matter how profound may be the impressions we shall bring away from the sights we have been witnessing during these days, the most enduring and inspiring of all will still be the phenomenon of the nation manifesting itself before our eyes. Under no other circumstances and at no other epoch in our lives can this phenomenon appear to us in a more impressive way or in a manner more suitable for our contemplation. Each one of us must have felt, as these hundreds of thousands marched past, that they could not be thought of as so many individuals living in the present but rather as a timeless symbol of the vitality of our people, coming down to us from the past and stretching away into the future. They are the vessels of Germany’s historical existence.

In their radiant youth you see the visible sign of the enduring vitality of our race. In these hundreds of thousands who marched before us we felt the exuberant throb of the indomitable will to live. Thus it was that our people trod its way down through the centuries. We need only to close our eyes for a moment to hear the march past of those who have come from the grey dawn of history and are of our blood. And we believe too that we hear the echo of their footfalls far away in the distant future.

This sublime demonstration of the everlasting endurance of our people suggests that we ought to consider a question which is entirely above the passing interest of the day or the time and carries with it a lasting significance. It is this:-

How is it possible that this people, which seems to march past with so sure and firm a step, has so often lost the right road in the course of its history? Are the bitter experiences through which the German nation has lived only the result of inability to master the problems of life? Or is the cause to be attributed to a lack of courage, a habit of faltering when sacrifices were demanded or in an absence of that faculty which is necessary when great decisions have to be made ?

No.

Perhaps there is not another people in the world that has had to show more courage for the maintenance of its national existence than the German people. Destiny has not demanded from any other nation sacrifices heavier and more bitter than our sacrifices have been. Our people have taken upon themselves the burden of decisions that rank with the most daring ever made by human beings. We ourselves happen to be among those whom Destiny selected to witness tragic sacrifices of blood, indomitable courage on the part of the living, a stoic spirit of immolation on the part of those destined to death, the immense courage and strength of will displayed in the decisions of our great military leaders. No. On the altar whereon God has tested His peoples no other people have laid heavier sacrifices than ours. And yet we ourselves have had occasion to realise how small the historical valuation of this has been. Compared to the successes obtained by other peoples, the results which have been achieved in the bitter fight for Germany’s destiny are profoundly deplorable. Acknowledging that fact, objectively and without any illusion, we are bound to investigate the causes of it, for the sake of the future of our people.

For such a phenomenon cannot be explained away simply by referring its cause to the lack of great men, no more than the achievements of other nations can be attributed to an unbroken succession of geniuses in their midst. No. The most profound cause of the historical failure of our people must be referred to a lack of inner cohesion which, unfortunately, has only too often been manifested, and therewith a weakness in the attitude and stand of the nation towards other peoples. At the same time the cause must also be partly attributed to a haphazard and necessarily defective construction of our statal constitution. The investigation of the historical genesis of our people leads to unpleasant discoveries.

At the time when the Germans made their first historical appearance in such a manner as to be discernible to us, their descendants, they certainly were a large family related to one another by common ties of blood, but they did not yet look upon themselves or feel themselves as a people. In their traditions, their habits of living and in their speech, the German tribes of that early age were so different from one another that only a few specially gifted heroes perceived the possibility, and then only as a faraway dream, of bringing the various racial tribes together into a -national unit, even though only on a political basis.

For us who, even in 1933, have had to struggle against tribal and regional ideas, against inherited traditions and ways of thinking, is it any cause for wonder that the effort which was made by a Cheruscan Prince to unite the German tribes was successful only while all the tribes found themselves faced by an extreme danger which threatened them all alike?

The community of blood existing among those German tribes might have dominated the outlook of many individuals among them in times when they found themselves threatened from outside; but these failed almost entirely to realise that the community of blood was a natural and positive basis of union and that a general union of all the tribes was necessary for their mutual preservation. Among them there was neither a spiritual bond of union nor a political one of an organic kind which might outweigh the instinct of tribal solidarity. We know that the first attempt at German unity, of which history has left us any traces, failed even during the lifetime of the heroic leaders who had made it. But the fact is very seldom realised that in the melee of the great migrations, barely 300 years later, history no longer presents any definite traces of the single factors which constituted that first German union.

From these facts we can deduce the following truth : namely, that the welding together of the German tribes of that time into a nation could not be carried out by an attempt to create

a consciousness of folk solidarity and could not even be carried out merely by awakening a general wish for that end. The only way in which national unity could be achieved was by means of an effort to constitute a statal organisation with quite other purposes in view. This meant that the first unification of German individuals in a German State could be effected only through the suppression of particularist tribal ideas and traditions and modes of living. But that in turn must necessarily have given rise to a spirit of antagonism between the State and the several racial branches; for until the Germans had ceased to live under the dominating influence of their tribal consciousness they could not become the conscious members of a homogeneous national organism. This was a painful process and lasted over several centuries. Innumerable individual talents and valuable tribal traditions were sacrificed in the effort. One may regret the loss in individual cases; but the march of history is inexorable. In order to unite dozens of German tribes in a homogeneous German nation, a more or less ruthless suppression of particularist elements was necessary. Thousands of victims had to be sacrificed. Valuable traditions disappeared, because they were bound to disappear in that ruthless unifying process.

But it would be an error to bewail the particularist religious and political sacrifices involved in that progressive movement towards the formation of a German nation. What disappeared during those centuries had to disappear. And it would mean starting from a false viewpoint if one desired to analyse the motives of those first leaders who brought the German tribes under one statal organisation and presented them to us for the first time in their history as a homogeneous German people. Providence, which willed that from the German tribes a German people should be evolved, made use of these men as the efficient instruments of such a process. Who would dare to analyse the inner spirit, the ideas and spiritual driving forces, of those great German Emperors who were ruthless in their fight against tribal claims ?, because their chief aim was to bring the divided German race into a great and homogeneous organic unit. It must also be looked upon as providential that there were then two factors at hand which helped towards German unity and without which a German State could not have been established or a German nation created, at least not within so short a period of time. But it must be remembered that when the German people as such first appeared on the historical field of vision they were already, as vital organisms, on the point of reaching the maximum of their strength, their vitality and their powers of expansion. The long duration of this preliminary stage in the evolution of our people is too often left out of account. We certainly cannot conceive of the foundation of the German State without realising that the States which had existed in the pre-Christian classical era were present as prototypes in the mind of Europe at this particular stage of history. Without these models and without the common ground of union which was found in the spiritual teachings of Christianity, the formation of a German State at that era cannot be imagined. Were it not for those factors the destiny of Europe and indeed the rest of the world, as far as concerns the white races, was then unthinkable and even today we could not picture it to ourselves.

In contrast to the strongly divergent tendencies of the various German tribes, Christianity supplied a unifying principle which organised them in the first community in which they were in anyway conscious of a common destiny and which also had an outward and visible form for them. Thus it furnished a religious and philosophical basis on which it was possible to organise those tribes into a political State. But this State was not and could not have been of a thoroughly homogeneous character; because in the very substance of it there remained those tribal divergencies. But the historical course which was actually taken was necessary if those innumerable German clans were finally to be formed into a unit which could be called the German people. It was only by first bringing them together on this

common basis, which was both religious and political, that the particularist tribal traditions could be gradually softened and rendered amenable as constructive elements in the new racial community, wherein the blood relationship existing between the tribes was the most profound factor of cohesion and solidarity. The birth of nations is a painful process, just as every other birth. Why should we accuse history of having followed the way which Providence had chosen, simply because it did not reach its ends so readily as we should have wished? During the long stages of German national evolution the conflicts between the statal idea and the statal aims, on the one side, and the rivalries of tribal kinship on the other was an inevitable phase of development. In itself it was regrettable. But such a conflict could not possibly have been avoided as long as the people could not divest themselves of their tribal allegiances for the sake of a broader national unity. This latter ideal impressed itself only by slow stages on the popular sentiment; but it eventually came to be looked upon as something natural and necessary. The men who were the active leaders in this historical process were the instruments of that Providence which had ordained that we Germans should become one people.

Two main factors stand out clear above the confused circumstances of those times. The first factor is Christianity, which supplied the religious and moral plane on which the German tribes could be brought together in a higher unity. What had to disappear did disappear; because our people had to develop into a distinctly defined and powerful and much larger political organisation than those various tribal entities which constituted only a confused and incoherent mass. Only thus could racial unity be attained. The second factor was the monarchical principle. This was brought to light by the example of the ancient States. It led to the abolition of the former dukedoms and developed a social organism more adequate and more stable.

For many centuries it was on this dual foundation - religion and the monarchy - that the German tribes were organised as a State; that is to say, in an external political way. But before reaching this stage innumerable victims were sacrificed in the process; and the dispossessed and conquered had to suffer a hard fate. But out of all the errors and tribulations, through the flux and reflux of the centuries, the German nation was born. Then, when the religious crisis overwhelmed the German people and Christianity began to break up into denominations, the religious element that had been one of the foundations on which the German State rested began to weaken and give way more and more in favour of the other foundation. The moral and religious foundations became confused and the political form of the purely statal organisation came more and more definitely into prominence. The final result of this change found its expression in the absolute monarchy. But this did not last long before a process of decadence set in here also. For, after Christianity broke up into conflicting denominations which disintegrated the religious foundation of the State, the spirit of the French Revolution undermined the monarchical foundation.

The Ferment of Decomposition - to use the expression which Mommsen applied to Judaism - began to appropriate the idea of a social conscience based on the racial bond and transformed it into an illogical and noxious contradiction, which finally took the form of Marxist socialism. The break-up of the monarchical system, and therewith of the State as a purely organising force, was effected by way of the formalist parliamentary democracy. The participation of the Christian denominations also in this democratic parliamentary system, and even their descent into the political arena where the forces of anarchy were at work, did not hinder the process of dissolution. But Christianity suffered irreparable damage thereby. For whoever took part in political life under these circumstances became, willingly or unwillingly, the ally of international Marxism and helped thereby to dismember the structure of the State,

which had been founded and developed on quite different principles. Collaboration of any kind whatsoever on this plane signified adherence to the line of action which brought about the dissolution. It amounted to an approval of deeds and methods and procedures which were false in their very essence and profoundly illogical from the German standpoint, and were therefore such as could bring only ruin to the State and the Nation. The parliamentary monarchy, democratic and constitutional, or the parliamentary and the democratic republic, were in practice impossible for Germany and therefore had to collapse sooner or later.

Anyhow it is impossible to organise a community on a basis consisting of two or three principles that are mutually and irreconcilably opposed. It is impossible to make universal equality a principle of political life and at the same time establish the principle of differentiation between individual values as the basis of economic life. It is impossible to base the administration of the army on the principle of personal responsibility and at the same time conduct the affairs of state on the principles of parliamentary democracy, which means the abnegation of individual responsibility. It was impossible to wipe out diversity in the variety of talents with which the individual is endowed and impossible to obliterate the influences which such talents have created in the political field, while at the same time acknowledging this diversity in the economic field and its consequent repercussion on the system of private property. This discordance between the ground principles which formed the basis of the parliamentary and democratic Reich explains its precarious and vacillating attitude and its indecision in face of the dangers which threatened it.

Here the tactics of Marxist Socialism had a decisive effect. These tactics aimed at eliminating the most important and fundamental principles of national and political morality and supplanting them with more concrete ideas. In this way the asocial criminal became absolved of all blame or disgrace and elevated as a member of the new community. High treason became a virtue and the traitor was not looked down upon. If cowardice in the face of the enemy be glorified, then the coward is transformed into a hero. If theft be looked upon as the taking back of something that was unjustly expropriated at a former date, then the thief is promoted as one of the creators of the new social order. Where the murderer is declared to be such only because of the peculiar non-social bent of his nature, society must logically look upon him only as the unfortunate victim of circumstances. In this way every virtue becomes a vice and vice itself is transformed into a new ideal.

In face of this attack, directed by Bolshevik Jews, the democratic State wavered and finally succumbed almost automatically, being powerless to defend itself. The monarchy also failed to defend itself; and so did the Christian denominations as well.

All these institutions proved themselves incapable of withstanding the new methods of aggression. The fact that several other States have not yet succumbed to this attack is no argument against what I have stated; because such historical processes often need a long period to reach their ultimate results. From this downfall the only rescue that has taken place is that which sprang from the depths of the conscience of the people and has developed new principles and new forms of defence.

This defence could not have been successful if it had been confined to purely passive measures. It could not hope finally to master the Bolshevik forces of destruction until it positively reorganised the national life and the form of the State on principles that were entirely unassailable. If we are to take a proper and correct view of national problems it is necessary first of all that we should have firm ground under our feet as a "standpoint for

forming a general estimation of the questions before us. No matter how one looks upon the world, it is the standpoint of the onlooker that is essential. Now, the starting point of the National Socialist teaching is not the State but the People. This means that, in order to control and judge and correct the exterior forms in which national life is organically incorporated, we must understand the end, to which these forms are only so many means. Therefore National Socialists believe that the nucleus of all these problems must be sought in that living substance which, in virtue of its historical evolution, we can call the German People.

Two thousand years ago this people did not exist as one racial entity. For that reason it was on other foundations that the first German statal formations were grounded. But today this people has become an historical and actual reality, so that for the first time we can make a clear distinction between end and means. The people constitute the real and enduring element. Therefore the people are the end we must have in view throughout all our work. The resolve to safeguard and maintain the existence of this people is our sole guiding motive in forming and executing our plans. If we forget this, then our plans and ideas will be valueless and ineffective, no matter how grandly conceived they may be.

It is just in the same way that religious beliefs have no practical significance unless they help to preserve and maintain human existence in a worthy form. For once the people have failed and died out their religious beliefs and their political institutions cannot remain as everlasting realities.

Every time a people disappears it brings down with it into the grave its political and religious institutions and the ideas which inspired them. But in life, as in history, it often happens that what are only means to an end gradually come to be considered as ends in themselves. It is probable that the priests of the Aztecs and Incas, for example, believed and declared that those ancient Mexican people had been created for the priests themselves and their teachings. But when those people disappeared from the world nothing remained of their priests or their religious beliefs. If Bolshevism should succeed today in exterminating certain nations nothing would remain of their religious conceptions, their institutions of state, their moral principles or any of their organisations. When Providence created man He made him and his maintenance the end of every human activity. The original and natural aim of every ideal and every public institution can only be to maintain healthy and intact that physical and moral substance which the nation has received from God. This initial truth must be realised as a preliminary to judging the significance of all other matters connected with the people, and it must be taken as the abstract criterion of whether certain measures be the correct ones. This means that they must be judged according as they are helpful for the conservation of the people or if there is danger of their effect being harmful and perhaps destructive. Once we have clearly understood and recognised the fact that life itself is a constant struggle and striving, the duty which devolves on each one of us is to secure the conditions on which we can carry on that struggle successfully.

If the National Socialist Party is to be an efficient means to attain the ends which it has proposed to itself, then it must first of all be able to supply the political leadership of the nation with that elite which in all other spheres of life arises spontaneously from a process of natural selection and plays its part as a factor of leadership. Consciously or unconsciously, the professions choose their membership according to talent. What we call a choice of career is only the selection which the career itself makes by attracting towards itself precisely those individuals that have the aptitude for the discharge of its functions. The best consolidated German institution of the past was that which practised the most rigorous selection-I mean the

Army. Just as the Army is consciously recruited by a method of selecting those men who have an inner aptitude for the military profession, in the same way the Party ought to recruit and train those elements of the nation which have an aptitude for political leadership. But this aptitude is not conditioned by wealth or education or birth etc., just as little as military talents are dependent on the various kinds of bourgeois qualifications.

The sole determining factor is the inner mental equipment and the corresponding natural inclination. These constitute what is called a vocation. Just as the Army is the centre of attraction for military vocations and the school in which such talents are trained and developed, so the Party must attract political ability, giving to the various political talents their suitable station and function and in this way affording them the possibility of being developed and perfected. Thus the Party and the Army must necessarily be socialist institutions, in the truest sense, inasmuch as they are not organised or directed according to any capitalist considerations but based exclusively on the aptitude of the individual to serve the nation. Therefore they must always be aware that the supreme law of their being is that they must attract the highest talent and place it in the position that is best suited to it. Therefore the Army and the Party are manifestations of a democracy which really merits that name. They represent a democracy which does not place power in the hands of incapable people through the parliamentary game of voting lists and secret ballots, thus throwing a dead weight on the shoulders of the community. Our Army and Party serve the interests of the commonweal, inasmuch as they discharge the great responsibility of selecting through their own institutions the most capable persons for the respective spheres of life and leadership.

Though the Army be in itself a closed corporation, it has a wider duty to discharge than the mere military leadership of the nation; for it also has to educate the people in their military duties, training them and perfecting their capacities for this purpose. So too the political Party must not be content with the mere conduct of its organisation as such. It has a further responsibility. This responsibility is the political leadership of the nation, so that the nation may understand our conception of national defence and so that we may thus attract into the inner circles of the party organisation those citizens who give proof of political talent and whom Providence has obviously called to take their part in the task of leadership. The idea of self-defence, and therewith of compulsory military service, finds its organisation and realisation in the Army. The National Socialist idea has its centre of attraction in the Party. The Party represents the political conscience and the political will. The function of the Party primarily consists in establishing and maintaining a leadership of the people in every department of public life. The aim of this leadership is to mould the people in accordance with the political beliefs and principles of National Socialism. In doing this it must endeavour to create a political tradition among the people and an organised political system that will function naturally and permanently. Therefore, in fulfilling its historical mission, it must examine the inner racial substance of our people, studying it in all its good qualities as well as in its defects, and finally draw practical rules of action from the knowledge thus obtained. Among these practical rules and principles are:-

In the light of the knowledge gained from the analysis I have mentioned, the Party must lay down and define the chief ends which have to be kept in view and followed in the whole ensemble of national effort, throughout every branch of public life.

It must endeavour to bring the actual trends of public life into harmony with the lines of action which must necessarily be followed, inasmuch as these lines are indicated by the conditions that are inherent in the character of our people.

In order to carry out this task, the Party must have full belief and confidence in itself and must not allow itself to be deflected from its line of action by any criticism or doubts as to the correctness of the undertaking on which it is engaged. From the very fact that it has been brought into existence as an historical manifestation, it is its duty to act thus; and from the success of its action will come the a posteriori justification. Experience proves that history denies its sanction only to him who was too weak in character to go through with his work, or else was incapable and therefore unqualified to undertake it. God continues to bestow His grace only on him who continues to merit it. But whoever speaks and acts in the name of a people, which is a part of God’s handiwork, will continue to discharge his mandate only so long as he does not sin against the existence or future of this part of God’s creation that has been entrusted to his care. For that reason it is always well that the conquest of power should be the result of a hard struggle. What has proved difficult to gain will generally be all the more bravely defended. And the more stable a political regime is, the more beneficial it is to the welfare of a people.

If it be the task of the Party to build up an organisation from which the political elite of the nation will continue to be drawn in the future, as from a permanent source of supply, then it must see that the government of the country is carried along on fixed and definite lines, in agreement with a firmly established system of political principles. Therefore the historical mission of the Party is to see that within its own organisation the prerequisite conditions are present for the training of a future elite corps who will take over political and administrative leadership. The Party must also remember: l. that every German must be educated in the National Socialist philosophy, 2. that the best National Socialists will become members of the Party, and finally that only the best Party members will be promoted to the work of statal administration. From within its own organisation, therefore, the Party must supply the German State with the men who will in future fill the higher administrative offices. Accordingly the Party must always continue to educate National Socialists for the service of the National Socialist State. Thus the respective missions of the State and the Party are clearly defined. The function of the State is to carry on the traditional administration of public institutions within the juridical framework and with the help of the laws. The Party must do the following:-

It must construct and consolidate its own internal organisation and make it an impregnible and enduring shrine of National Socialist doctrine.

It must educate the entire nation along the lines of that doctrine.

It must place the individuals thus educated at the disposal of the State, so that they may eventually may become leaders and also faithful servants. Moreover, the principle of mutual respect and recognition of mutual rights must be upheld.

That is the goal we have in view.

Of course we are still engaged in liquidating a revolution-the National Socialist Revolution. This means that the assumption of political power will be gradually put into full force by taking over the leadership of the State. Such a process demands a long transitional period. Owing to the impossibility of immediately and completely overcoming the widespread corruption caused by the former party system, it has become necessary carefully to supervise certain institutions here and there, where National Socialist principles have not yet struck firm

root. In cases, therefore, where certain branches of statal administration do not function according to National Socialist principles, the Party may have to warn those concerned and it may be compelled to act even in a corrective manner. This form of correction can be exercised today only by those statal organs which already have members of the Party in office and by the purely National Socialist State institutions.

The ultimate aim should be to furnish the future national and state administrations exclusively with National Socialists. This may be done by instructing and educating the masses through the National Socialist Party channels. Thus National Socialism will come to be the philosophical basis of existence for the Reich and its statal organisations. We have to be uncompromising in regard to our philosophical beliefs and principles, if we are to preserve them sound and intact. In other words, the justness of the concepts and practical policy of National Socialism must be advocated and asserted under all possible circumstances.

He who undertakes an historical mission must be prepared to submit to rigorous principles. We must remember that in its internal composition our nation is not entirely homogeneous.

This is an additional reason why rigorous principles and an iron determination are necessary in order to weld it into a unified body that will have the quality of internal resistance under all circumstances and at the same time be politically efficient.

Just as the pathological pacifist cannot understand the severity and selectivity of Prussian education in the Army, so there are many people today who cannot see why it should be necessary for National Socialism to be so absolutely intransigent. But intransigence in this case really means profound conviction of being in the right and accordingly a very lively sense of responsibility.

Sometimes the objection is made that such a characteristic is foreign to the German nature. That charge is nonsensical. In this respect the question at issue is not what may or may not be alien to the German character but what is actually in the best interests of the German people. When he first enters the army, it is difficult for the raw recruit blindly to carry out orders whose purpose he does not understand. But the army system of training is beneficial to the whole and thereby to the individual recruit.

When an organisation feels assured that its personnel consists only of selected men of proved ability to carry out the duties confided to them, then that organisation has the right to lay down the guiding principles for the fulfilment of its mission.

It is certainly more in accord with the character of the German people, more advantageous to it and more becoming, to be consolidated uniformly and efficiently in a political movement which insists that all shall work together towards definite and fixed ends, rather than to be at the mercy of a system wherein each individual is allowed to follow his own whims and likings, thus ruining personal talents by having them dispersed in a thousand directions, with the result that finally the whole population is at the mercy of the stronger Power-which is stronger because it has an internal consistency-and finally will have to bow to the will of the stranger.

Every German ought to think over that truth. The National Socialist Party has performed an epic achievement. Not the leaders of industry, the professors and the academic classes, nor

the soldiers or artists or philosophers or poets-it was not these who rescued our people from the abyss. That rescue was carried out only by the political army of the National Socialist movement. Today we are witnessing merely the initial stages of the consequences which have followed from that work. Its full significance can be appreciated only by the generations that come after us.

Though everything else disappears, the Party will remain. It is indeed a marvellous thing that the German people have secured for themselves the great support of this powerful authoritative force which is embodied in the Movement. There is a large number of keen- sighted men abroad who would be happy if their respective nations had an authoritative political organisation so firmly grounded as that which Germany has today. Such an organisation exists only in a very few other States. The uncertainty and confusion of the times in which we live are increasing. For that reason this institution of ours is all the more valuable, inasmuch as it has restored to the people those clear and precise principles which have enabled them to cope with the gravest problems of the present time and solve new difficulties which former regimes had failed to solve.

In the millions of its citizens who are organised on the basis of one philosophical and political system of thought and who act in common and uniformly on the principles dictated by that system, the German nation has found an impregnable bulwark. A standpoint has been discovered and established which will be decisive for centuries to come. In the profound reasonableness of this fundamental idea will be found the source of all future interpretations which will have to be made as circumstances arise and thus too this world-concept may be enlarged and supplemented without running the danger of becoming disintegrated. Because this concept of ours is still fresh and is only in the first stages of its development, it is all the more necessary that the authority of the Party should be recognised as the supreme arbiter in all individual applications. Whoever does not fully appreciate this necessity is incapable of thinking in an historical, creative and constructive way.

Perhaps it will be easier to understand all this if we draw an analogy from the example of the army. The wish and desire for self-assertion, and therewith the determination to defend ones’s own life, exist in some form or other in the profound depths of every man’s being. But this instinct of preservation cannot be exercised practically and effectively except under the disciplined direction which is given by the living organisation of the army. Only such an organisation can prevent the instinct of self- preservation which exists in all men from degenerating into a confused struggle between opinions and views that are mutually antagonistic. The army subdues the savage will of the individual and makes it part of an indomitable collective will. Especially when there are changing and conflicting opinions on the necessity of a war, or the meaning of a plan of campaign, the nature of the war itself, or the manner in which it is being waged, then it is all the more necessary that there should be one inflexible leadership of the army and one line of conduct, to offset these dangerous and destructive forces.

Now, during the first period when the National Socialist system of political thought and principles is being put into practice there will naturally be individuals who will have their own opinions and their own suggestions and would like to have their own policies adopted. At such a juncture it is imperatively necessary to guard against this multifarious inrush of opinions and deductions. That can be done only if the Party imposes its leadership with a strong and, if necessary, a severe hand and insists upon blind obedience to its own authority.

This is in the highest interests of the nation and consequently it is the supreme duty of all those who have the nation’s interests at heart and are ready to defend them.

There is no question here of fallibility or infallibility. A divisional army general, or the leader of an army corps, and least of all the private soldier, is not allowed to have his own views and give his own interpretations of an order that has been issued from headquarters; so too when a certain direction is mapped out by political leaders the individual cannot excuse himself for taking isolated action on the pretence that his ideas are more correct than those of the Party or of the orders given. The Party as such must insist that its decisions concerning the political leadership of the people are alone valid. It is absolutely necessary that in its own ranks this principle should be followed with scrupulous devotion. In other words, just as the Party insists that the people should follow its will, in like manner internal submission to the decisions of the Party, on the part of its members, is the inexorable law of its being.

There can be no dispensation of the obedience due to this principle. Whoever violates it, no matter what position he may hold, violates a principle which protected himself and thus renders it invalid for him. Whoever is unfaithful to this principle, no matter in what position, cannot expect that it will be upheld and obeyed in his regard by other members of the Party. That is the profound meaning of the old German proverb which says that infidelity destroys its own master.

Therefore it is entirely out of the question to exact from the body of the people a greater degree of respect and obedience to the orders of the Party than the members of the Party give to their own superiors.

Apropos of this, I must categorically protest against that phrase which is so often heard in bourgeois circles, namely: “The Führer, yes; but the Party, that is another matter.” No, gentlemen. The Führer is the Party and the Party is the Führer. Just as I feel myself only as a part of the Party, the Party feels itself only as a part of me. I do not know when the time may come for me to close my eyes, but the Party will continue to exist. That I know. Above all individuals, the weak as well as the strong, the Party will continue successfully to shape the future of the German nation. That I believe and know.

The Party guarantees stability of political direction to the people and the Reich. Through its own stability it guarantees the necessary authority for the leadership of the Reich. It is on this firm ground that the constitution of the German Reich has been based. As the founder and protagonist of the politico- philosophical principles on which the Movement rests, and as the supreme master of German destinies, it is the mission of the Party to supply the Führer for the Nation and therefore for the Reich. The more firmly this principle is established and maintained, as natural and indispensable, the stronger will Germany be. The Army, which represents and organically . incorporates the defensive forces of our people, must maintain towards the Führer, whom the Party gives to the Nation, fidelity and obedience among the military forces and must always hold these forces at his disposal. For, according to the proclamation of every new Führer, he is the ruler of the Party, the supreme head of the Reich and the commander-in-chief of the Defence Force.

If these principles continue to be the indestructible foundation on which the Nation and the structure of the Reich rests, then Germany can hold her head against all future storms. These two leading factors in the structure of the new Reich must always bear in mind the truth that only when united and working together will they be equal to their tasks. The Party gives the Nation into the hands of the Army. The Nation gives its soldiers to the Army. Thus the

two together give to the German Reich the assurance of internal peace and the strength to maintain itself.

As Führer of the Reich and the Nation, I can still give my help and my advice. But principles must be above personal contingencies and be permanent. Führers will come and Führers will pass away; but Germany must live. Yet Germany can live only if it maintain itself on the grounds I have mentioned. One day we shall all be judged by the nature and historical stability of the work we are now doing.

We, my comrades and my co-leaders of the people and the Army, have been marked by Destiny to be makers of history in the highest sense of that term. Providence has given us what has been withheld from millions of men. In looking back on our work, future ages will still remember us. The most striking feature of our work and the most remarkable for posterity will be the fact that, in an epoch of general disloyalty and treason, it was possible at that time in Germany to form a union and weld together a band of followers whose loyalty is incomparable. And we know that a page of the world’s history will be consecrated to us, as the men who came from the ranks of the National Socialist Party and the Army and built up and consolidated the new German Reich. Then in the Pantheon of History we shall stand side by side, associated for ever in loyal comradeship, as in the time of our great struggle and its great triumph.

My Party Comrades:

Our Seventh Party Congress is coming to a close. Deeply impressed by these events, the hundreds of thousands of our combatants are about to return to their everyday life, which is also a combat. They will find themselves armed with new courage, new stamina and restrengthened powers of decision. They will reflect on these historical days and hours, and they will once again enjoy in perspective the social hours spent with their old fighting friends and the young guard that has mustered here. In this fortunate moment we greet our German people and our glorious National Socialist Movement.

Long live the National Socialist Party, our German people, the Reich and the Army!