Seeing that the State capitulated unconditionally to Marxism on November
9th, 1918, it will not suddenly rise up tomorrow as the conqueror of
Marxism. On the contrary. Bourgeois simpletons sitting on office stools
in the various ministries babble about the necessity of not governing
against the wishes of the workers, and by the word ‘workers’ they mean
the Marxists. By identifying the German worker with Marxism not only are
they guilty of a vile falsification of the truth, but they thus try to
hide their own collapse before the Marxist idea and the Marxist
organization.

In view of the complete subordination of the present State to Marxism,
the National Socialist Movement feels all the more bound not only to
prepare the way for the triumph of its idea by appealing to the reason
and understanding of the public but also to take upon itself the
responsibility of organizing its own defence against the terror of the
International, which is intoxicated with its own victory.

I have already described how practical experience in our young movement
led us slowly to organize a system of defence for our meetings. This
gradually assumed the character of a military body specially trained for
the maintenance of order, and tended to develop into a service which
would have its properly organized cadres.

This new formation might resemble the defence associations externally,
but in reality there were no grounds of comparison between the one and
the other.

As I have already said, the German defence organizations did not have
any definite political ideas of their own. They really were only
associations for mutual protection, and they were trained and organized
accordingly, so that they were an illegal complement or auxiliary to the
legal forces of the State. Their character as free corps arose only from
the way in which they were constructed and the situation in which the
State found itself at that time. But they certainly could not claim to
be free corps on the grounds that they were associations formed freely
and privately for the purpose of fighting for their own freely formed
political convictions. Such they were not, despite the fact that some of
their leaders and some associations as such were definitely opposed to
the Republic. For before we can speak of political convictions in the
higher sense we must be something more than merely convinced that the
existing regime is defective. Political convictions in the higher sense
mean that one has the picture of a new regime clearly before one’s mind,
feels that the establishment of this regime is an absolute necessity and
sets himself to carry out that purpose as the highest task to which his
life can be devoted.

The troops for the preservation of order, which were then formed under
the National Socialist Movement, were fundamentally different from all
the other defence associations by reason of the fact that our formations
were not meant in any way to defend the state of things created by the
Revolution, but rather that they were meant exclusively to support our
struggle for the creation of a new Germany.

In the beginning this body was merely a guard to maintain order at our
meetings. Its first task was limited to making it possible for us to
hold our meetings, which otherwise would have been completely prevented
by our opponents. These men were at that time trained merely for
purposes of attack, but they were not taught to adore the big stick
exclusively, as was then pretended in stupid German patriotic circles.
They used the cudgel because they knew that it can be made impossible
for high ideals to be put forward if the man who endeavours to propagate
them can be struck down with the cudgel. As a matter of fact, it has
happened in history not infrequently that some of the greatest minds
have perished under the blows of the most insignificant helots. Our
bodyguards did not look upon violence as an end in itself, but they
protected the expositors of ideal aims and purposes against hostile
coercion by violence. They also understood that there was no obligation
to undertake the defence of a State which did not guarantee the defence
of the nation, but that, on the contrary, they had to defend the nation
against those who were threatening to destroy nation and State.

After the fight which took place at the meeting in the Munich
Hofbräuhaus, where the small number of our guards who were present won
everlasting fame for themselves by the heroic manner in which they
stormed the adversaries; these guards were called THE STORM DETACHMENT.
As the name itself indicates, they represent only a DETACHMENT of the
Movement. They are one constituent element of it, just as is the Press,
the propaganda, educational institutes, and other sections of the Party.

We learned how necessary was the formation of such a body, not only from
our experience on the occasion of that memorable meeting but also when
we sought gradually to carry the Movement beyond Munich and extend it to
the other parts of Germany. Once we had begun to appear as a danger to
Marxism the Marxists lost no opportunity of trying to crush beforehand
all preparations for the holding of National Socialist meetings. When
they did not succeed in this they tried to break up the meeting itself.
It goes without saying that all the Marxist organizations, no matter of
what grade or view, blindly supported the policy and activities of their
representations in every case. But what is to be said of the bourgeois
parties who, when they were reduced to silence by these same Marxists
and in many places did not dare to send their speakers to appear before
the public, yet showed themselves pleased, in a stupid and
incomprehensible manner, every time we received any kind of set-back in
our fight against Marxism. The bourgeois parties were happy to think
that those whom they themselves could not stand up against, but had to
knuckle down to, could not be broken by us. What must be said of those
State officials, chiefs of police, and even cabinet ministers, who
showed a scandalous lack of principle in presenting themselves
externally to the public as ‘national’ and yet shamelessly acted as the
henchmen of the Marxists in the disputes which we, National Socialists,
had with the latter. What can be said of persons who debased themselves
so far, for the sake of a little abject praise in the Jewish Press, that
they persecuted those men to whose heroic courage and intervention,
regardless of risk, they were partly indebted for not having been torn
to pieces by the Red mob a few years previously and strung up to the
lamp-posts?

One day these lamentable phenomena fired the late but unforgotten
Prefect Pöhner–a man whose unbending straightforwardness forced him to
hate all twisters and to hate them as only a man with an honest heart
can hate–to say: “In all my life I wished to be first a German and then
an official, and I never wanted to mix up with these creatures who, as
if they were kept officials, prostituted themselves before anybody who
could play lord and master for the time being.”

It was a specially sad thing that gradually tens of thousands of honest
and loyal servants of the State did not only come under the power of
such people but were also slowly contaminated by their unprincipled
morals. Moreover, these kind of men pursued honest officials with a
furious hatred, degrading them and driving them from their positions,
and yet passed themselves off as ‘national’ by the aid of their lying
hypocrisy.

From officials of that kind we could expect no support, and only in very
rare instances was it given. Only by building up its own defence could
our movement become secure and attract that amount of public attention
and general respect which is given to those who can defend themselves
when attacked.

As an underlying principle in the internal development of the Storm
Detachment, we came to the decision that not only should it be perfectly
trained in bodily efficiency but that the men should be so instructed as
to make them indomitably convinced champions of the National Socialist
ideas and, finally, that they should be schooled to observe the
strictest discipline. This body was to have nothing to do with the
defence organizations of the bourgeois type and especially not with any
secret organization.

My reasons at that time for guarding strictly against letting the Storm
Detachment of the German National Socialist Labour Party appear as a
defence association were as follows:

On purely practical grounds it is impossible to build up a national
defence organization by means of private associations, unless the State
makes an enormous contribution to it. Whoever thinks otherwise
overestimates his own powers. Now it is entirely out of the question to
form organizations of any military value for a definite purpose on the
principle of so-called ‘voluntary discipline’. Here the chief support
for enforcing orders, namely, the power of inflicting punishment, is
lacking. In the autumn, or rather in the spring, of 1919 it was still
possible to raise ‘volunteer corps’, not only because most of the men
who came forward at that time had been through the school of the old
Army, but also because the kind of duty imposed there constrained the
individual to absolute obedience at least for a definite period of time.

That spirit is entirely lacking in the volunteer defence organizations
of to-day. The more the defence association grows, the weaker its
discipline becomes and so much the less can one demand from the
individual members. Thus the whole organization will more and more
assume the character of the old non-political associations of war
comrades and veterans.

It is impossible to carry through a voluntary training in military
service for larger masses unless one is assured absolute power of
command. There will always be few men who will voluntarily and
spontaneously submit to that kind of obedience which is considered
natural and necessary in the Army.

Moreover, a proper system of military training cannot be developed where
there are such ridiculously scanty means as those at the disposal of the
defence associations. The principal task of such an institution must be
to impart the best and most reliable kind of instruction. Eight years
have passed since the end of the War, and during that time none of our
German youth, at an age when formerly they would have had to do military
service, have received any systematic training at all. The aim of a
defence association cannot be to enlist here and now all those who have
already received a military training; for in that case it could be
reckoned with mathematical accuracy when the last member would leave the
association. Even the younger soldier from 1918 will no longer be fit
for front-line service twenty years later, and we are approaching that
state of things with a rapidity that gives cause for anxiety. Thus the
defence associations must assume more and more the aspect of the old
ex-service men’s societies. But that cannot be the meaning and purpose
of an institution which calls itself, not an association of ex-service
men but a DEFENCE association, indicating by this title that it
considers its task to be, not only to preserve the tradition of the old
soldiers and hold them together but also to propagate the idea of
national defence and be able to carry this idea into practical effect,
which means the creation of a body of men who are fit and trained for
military defence.

But this implies that those elements will receive a military training
which up to now have received none. This is something that in practice
is impossible for the defence associations. Real soldiers cannot be made
by a training of one or two hours per week. In view of the enormously
increasing demands which modern warfare imposes on each individual
soldier to-day, a military service of two years is barely sufficient to
transform a raw recruit into a trained soldier. At the Front during the
War we all saw the fearful consequences which our young recruits had to
suffer from their lack of a thorough military training. Volunteer
formations which had been drilled for fifteen or twenty weeks under an
iron discipline and shown unlimited self-denial proved nevertheless to
be no better than cannon fodder at the Front. Only when distributed
among the ranks of the old and experienced soldiers could the young
recruits, who had been trained for four or six months, become useful
members of a regiment. Guided by the ‘old men’, they adapted themselves
gradually to their task.

In the light of all this, how hopeless must the attempt be to create a
body of fighting troops by a so-called training of one or two hours in
the week, without any definite power of command and without any
considerable means. In that way perhaps one could refresh military
training in old soldiers, but raw recruits cannot thus be transformed
into expert soldiers.

How such a proceeding produces utterly worthless results may also be
demonstrated by the fact that at the same time as these so-called
volunteer defence associations, with great effort and outcry and under
difficulties and lack of necessities, try to educate and train a few
thousand men of goodwill (the others need not be taken into account) for
purposes of national defence, the State teaches our young men democratic
and pacifist ideas and thus deprives millions and millions of their
national instincts, poisons their logical sense of patriotism and
gradually turns them into a herd of sheep who will patiently follow any
arbitrary command. Thus they render ridiculous all those attempts made
by the defence associations to inculcate their ideas in the minds of the
German youth.

Almost more important is the following consideration, which has always
made me take up a stand against all attempts at a so-called military
training on the basis of the volunteer associations.

Assuming that, in spite of all the difficulties just mentioned, a
defence association were successful in training a certain number of
Germans every year to be efficient soldiers, not only as regards their
mental outlook but also as regards bodily efficiency and the expert
handling of arms, the result must necessarily be null and void in a
State whose whole tendency makes it not only look upon such a defensive
formation as undesirable but even positively hate it, because such an
association would completely contradict the intimate aims of the
political leaders, who are the corrupters of this State.

But anyhow, such a result would be worthless under governments which
have demonstrated by their own acts that they do not lay the slightest
importance on the military power of the nation and are not disposed to
permit an appeal to that power only in case that it were necessary for
the protection of their own malignant existence.

And that is the state of affairs to-day. It is not ridiculous to think
of training some ten thousand men in the use of arms, and carry on that
training surreptitiously, when a few years previously the State, having
shamefully sacrificed eight-and-a-half million highly trained soldiers,
not merely did not require their services any more, but, as a mark of
gratitude for their sacrifices, held them up to public contumely. Shall
we train soldiers for a regime which besmirched and spat upon our most
glorious soldiers, tore the medals and badges from their breasts,
trampled on their flags and derided their achievements? Has the present
regime taken one step towards restoring the honour of the old army and
bringing those who destroyed and outraged it to answer for their deeds?
Not in the least. On the contrary, the people I have just referred to
may be seen enthroned in the highest positions under the State to-day.
And yet it was said at Leipzig: “Right goes with might.” Since, however,
in our Republic to-day might is in the hands of the very men who
arranged for the Revolution, and since that Revolution represents a most
despicable act of high treason against the nation–yea, the vilest act
in German history–there can surely be no grounds for saying that might
of this character should be enhanced by the formation of a new young
army. It is against all sound reason.

The importance which this State attached, after the Revolution of 1918,
to the reinforcement of its position from the military point of view is
clearly and unmistakably demonstrated by its attitude towards the large
self-defence organizations which existed in that period. They were not
unwelcome as long as they were of use for the personal protection of the
miserable creatures cast up by the Revolution.

But the danger to these creatures seemed to disappear as the debasement
of our people gradually increased. As the existence of the defence
associations no longer implied a reinforcement of the national policy
they became superfluous. Hence every effort was made to disarm them and
suppress them wherever that was possible.

History records only a few examples of gratitude on the part of princes.
But there is not one patriot among the new bourgeoisie who can count on
the gratitude of revolutionary incendiaries and assassins, persons who
have enriched themselves from the public spoil and betrayed the nation.
In examining the problem as to the wisdom of forming these defence
associations I have never ceased to ask: ‘For whom shall I train these
young men? For what purpose will they be employed when they will have to
be called out?’ The answer to these questions lays down at the same time
the best rule for us to follow.

If the present State should one day have to call upon trained troops of
this kind it would never be for the purpose of defending the interests
of the nation VIS-À-VIS those of the stranger but rather to protect the
oppressors of the nation inside the country against the danger of a
general outbreak of wrath on the part of a nation which has been
deceived and betrayed and whose interests have been bartered away.

For this reason it was decided that the Storm Detachment of the German
National Socialist Labour Party ought not to be in the nature of a
military organization. It had to be an instrument of protection and
education for the National Socialist Movement and its duties should be
in quite a different sphere from that of the military defence
association.

And, of course, the Storm Detachment should not be in the nature of a
secret organization. Secret organizations are established only for
purposes that are against the law. Therewith the purpose of such an
organization is limited by its very nature. Considering the loquacious
propensities of the German people, it is not possible to build up any
vast organization, keeping it secret at the same time and cloaking its
purpose. Every attempt of that kind is destined to turn out absolutely
futile. It is not merely that our police officials to-day have at their
disposal a staff of eaves-droppers and other such rabble who are ready
to play traitor, like Judas, for thirty pieces of silver and will betray
whatever secrets they can discover and will invent what they would like
to reveal. In order to forestall such eventualities, it is never
possible to bind one’s own followers to the silence that is necessary.
Only small groups can become really secret societies, and that only
after long years of filtration. But the very smallness of such groups
would deprive them of all value for the National Socialist Movement.
What we needed then and need now is not one or two hundred dare-devil
conspirators but a hundred thousand devoted champions of our
WELTANSCHAUUNG. The work must not be done through secret conventicles
but through formidable mass demonstrations in public. Dagger and pistol
and poison-vial cannot clear the way for the progress of the movement.
That can be done only by winning over the man in the street. We must
overthrow Marxism, so that for the future National Socialism will be
master of the street, just as it will one day become master of the
State.

There is another danger connected with secret societies. It lies in the
fact that their members often completely misunderstand the greatness of
the task in hand and are apt to believe that a favourable destiny can be
assured for the nation all at once by means of a single murder. Such a
belief may find historical justification by appealing to cases where a
nation had been suffering under the tyranny of some oppressor who at the
same time was a man of genius and whose extraordinary personality
guaranteed the internal solidity of his position and enabled him to
maintain his fearful oppression. In such cases a man may suddenly arise
from the ranks of the people who is ready to sacrifice himself and
plunge the deadly steel into the heart of the hated individual. In order
to look upon such a deed as abhorrent one must have the republican
mentality of that petty CANAILLE who are conscious of their own crime.
But the greatest champion (Note 20) of liberty that the German people have
ever had has glorified such a deed in WILLIAM TELL.

[Note 20. Schiller, who wrote the famous drama of WILLIAM TELL.]

During 1919 and 1920 there was danger that the members of secret
organizations, under the influence of great historical examples and
overcome by the immensity of the nation’s misfortunes, might attempt to
wreak vengeance on the destroyers of their country, under the belief
that this would end the miseries of the people. All such attempts were
sheer folly, for the reason that the Marxist triumph was not due to the
superior genius of one remarkable person but rather to immeasurable
incompetence and cowardly shirking on the part of the bourgeoisie. The
hardest criticism that can be uttered against our bourgeoisie is simply
to state the fact that it submitted to the Revolution, even though the
Revolution did not produce one single man of eminent worth. One can
always understand how it was possible to capitulate before a
Robespierre, a Danton, or a Marat; but it was utterly scandalous to go
down on all fours before the withered Scheidemann, the obese Herr
Erzberger, Frederick Ebert, and the innumerable other political pigmies
of the Revolution. There was not a single man of parts in whom one could
see the revolutionary man of genius. Therein lay the country’s
misfortune; for they were only revolutionary bugs, Spartacists wholesale
and retail. To suppress one of them would be an act of no consequence.
The only result would be that another pair of bloodsuckers, equally fat
and thirsty, would be ready to take his place.

During those years we had to take up a determined stand against an idea
which owed its origin and foundation to historical episodes that were
really great, but to which our own despicable epoch did not bear the
slightest similarity.

The same reply may be given when there is question of putting somebody
‘on the spot’ who has acted as a traitor to his country. It would be
ridiculous and illogical to shoot a poor wretch (Note 21) who had betrayed
the position of a howitzer to the enemy while the highest positions of the
government are occupied by a rabble who bartered away a whole empire,
who have on their consciences the deaths of two million men who were
sacrificed in vain, fellows who were responsible for the millions maimed
in the war and who make a thriving business out of the republican regime
without allowing their souls to be disturbed in any way. It would be
absurd to do away with small traitors in a State whose government has
absolved the great traitors from all punishment. For it might easily
happen that one day an honest idealist, who, out of love for his
country, had removed from circulation some miserable informer that had
given information about secret stores of arms might now be called to
answer for his act before the chief traitors of the country. And there
is still an important question: Shall some small traitorous creature be
suppressed by another small traitor, or by an idealist? In the former
case the result would be doubtful and the deed would almost surely be
revealed later on. In the second case a petty rascal is put out of the
way and the life of an idealist who may be irreplaceable is in jeopardy.

[Note 21. The reference here is to those who gave information to the
Allied Commissions about hidden stores of arms in Germany.]

For myself, I believe that small thieves should not be hanged while big
thieves are allowed to go free. One day a national tribunal will have to
judge and sentence some tens of thousands of organizers who were
responsible for the criminal November betrayal and all the consequences
that followed on it. Such an example will teach the necessary lesson,
once and for ever, to those paltry traitors who revealed to the enemy
the places where arms were hidden.

On the grounds of these considerations I steadfastly forbade all
participation in secret societies, and I took care that the Storm
Detachment should not assume such a character. During those years I kept
the National Socialist Movement away from those experiments which were
being undertaken by young Germans who for the most part were inspired
with a sublime idealism but who became the victims of their own deeds,
because they could not ameliorate the lot of their fatherland to the
slightest degree.

If then the Storm Detachment must not be either a military defence
organization or a secret society, the following conclusions must result:

1. Its training must not be organized from the military standpoint but
from the standpoint of what is most practical for party purposes. Seeing
that its members must undergo a good physical training, the place of
chief importance must not be given to military drill but rather to the
practice of sports. I have always considered boxing and ju-jitsu more
important than some kind of bad, because mediocre, training in
rifle-shooting. If the German nation were presented with a body of young
men who had been perfectly trained in athletic sports, who were imbued
with an ardent love for their country and a readiness to take the
initiative in a fight, then the national State could make an army out of
that body within less than two years if it were necessary, provided the
cadres already existed. In the actual state of affairs only the
REICHSWEHR could furnish the cadres and not a defence organization that
was neither one thing nor the other. Bodily efficiency would develop in
the individual a conviction of his superiority and would give him that
confidence which is always based only on the consciousness of one’s own
powers. They must also develop that athletic agility which can be
employed as a defensive weapon in the service of the Movement.

2. In order to safeguard the Storm Detachment against any tendency
towards secrecy, not only must the uniform be such that it can
immediately be recognized by everybody, but the large number of its
effectives show the direction in which the Movement is going and which
must be known to the whole public. The members of the Storm Detachment
must not hold secret gatherings but must march in the open and thus, by
their actions, put an end to all legends about a secret organization. In
order to keep them away from all temptations towards finding an outlet
for their activities in small conspiracies, from the very beginning we
had to inculcate in their minds the great idea of the Movement and
educate them so thoroughly to the task of defending this idea that their
horizon became enlarged and that the individual no longer considered it
his mission to remove from circulation some rascal or other, whether big
or small, but to devote himself entirely to the task of bringing about
the establishment of a new National Socialist People’s State. In this
way the struggle against the present State was placed on a higher plane
than that of petty revenge and small conspiracies. It was elevated to
the level of a spiritual struggle on behalf of a WELTANSCHAUUNG, for
the destruction of Marxism in all its shapes and forms.

3. The form of organization adopted for the Storm Detachment, as well as
its uniform and equipment, had to follow different models from those of
the old Army. They had to be specially suited to the requirements of the
task that was assigned to the Storm Detachment.

These were the ideas I followed in 1920 and 1921. I endeavoured to
instil them gradually into the members of the young organization. And
the result was that by the midsummer of 1922 we had a goodly number of
formations which consisted of a hundred men each. By the late autumn of
that year these formations received their distinctive uniforms. There
were three events which turned out to be of supreme importance for the
subsequent development of the Storm Detachment.

1. The great mass demonstration against the Law for the Protection of
the Republic. This demonstration was held in the late summer of 1922 on
the KÖNIGS-PLATZ in Munich, by all the patriotic societies. The National
Socialist Movement also participated in it. The march-past of our party,
in serried ranks, was led by six Munich companies of a hundred men each,
followed by the political sections of the Party. Two bands marched with
us and about fifteen flags were carried. When the National Socialists
arrived at the great square it was already half full, but no flag was
flying. Our entry aroused unbounded enthusiasm. I myself had the honour
of being one of the speakers who addressed that mass of about sixty
thousand people.

The demonstration was an overwhelming success; especially because it was
proved for the first time that nationalist Munich could march on the
streets, in spite of all threats from the Reds. Members of the
organization for the defence of the Red Republic endeavoured to hinder
the marching columns by their terrorist activities, but they were
scattered by the companies of the Storm Detachment within a few minutes
and sent off with bleeding skulls. The National Socialist Movement had
then shown for the first time that in future it was determined to
exercise the right to march on the streets and thus take this monopoly
away from the international traitors and enemies of the country.

The result of that day was an incontestable proof that our ideas for the
creation of the Storm Detachment were right, both from the psychological
viewpoint and as to the manner in which this body was organized.

On the basis of this success the enlistment progressed so rapidly that
within a few weeks the number of Munich companies of a hundred men each
became doubled.

2. The expedition to Coburg in October 1922.

Certain People’s Societies had decided to hold a German Day at Coburg. I
was invited to take part, with the intimation that they wished me to
bring a following along. This invitation, which I received at eleven
o’clock in the morning, arrived just in time. Within an hour the
arrangements for our participation in the German Congress were ready. I
picked eight hundred men of the Storm Detachment to accompany me. These
were divided into about fourteen companies and had to be brought by
special train from Munich to Coburg, which had just voted by plebiscite
to be annexed to Bavaria. Corresponding orders were given to other
groups of the National Socialist Storm Detachment which had meanwhile
been formed in various other localities.

This was the first time that such a special train ran in Germany. At all
the places where the new members of the Storm Detachment joined us our
train caused a sensation. Many of the people had never seen our flag.
And it made a very great impression.

As we arrived at the station in Coburg we were received by a deputation
of the organizing committee of the German Day. They announced that it
had been ‘arranged’ at the orders of local trades unions–that is to
say, the Independent and Communist Parties–that we should not enter the
town with our flags unfurled and our band playing (we had a band
consisting of forty-two musicians with us) and that we should not march
with closed ranks.

I immediately rejected these unmilitary conditions and did not fail to
declare before the gentlemen who had arranged this ‘day’ how astonished
I was at the idea of their negotiating with such people and coming to an
agreement with them. Then I announced that the Storm Troops would
immediately march into the town in company formation, with our flags
flying and the band playing.

And that is what happened.

As we came out into the station yard we were met by a growling and
yelling mob of several thousand, that shouted at us: ‘Assassins’,
‘Bandits’, ‘Robbers’, ‘Criminals’. These were the choice names which
these exemplary founders of the German Republic showered on us. The
young Storm Detachment gave a model example of order. The companies fell
into formation on the square in front of the station and at first took
no notice of the insults hurled at them by the mob. The police were
anxious. They did not pilot us to the quarters assigned to us on the
outskirts of Coburg, a city quite unknown to us, but to the Hofbräuhaus
Keller in the centre of the town. Right and left of our march the tumult
raised by the accompanying mob steadily increased. Scarcely had the last
company entered the courtyard of the Hofbräuhaus when the huge mass made
a rush to get in after them, shouting madly. In order to prevent this,
the police closed the gates. Seeing the position was untenable I called
the Storm Detachment to attention and then asked the police to open the
gates immediately. After a good deal of hesitation, they consented.

We now marched back along the same route as we had come, in the
direction of our quarters, and there we had to make a stand against the
crowd. As their cries and yells all along the route had failed to
disturb the equanimity of our companies, the champions of true
Socialism, Equality, and Fraternity now took to throwing stones. That
brought our patience to an end. For ten minutes long, blows fell right
and left, like a devastating shower of hail. Fifteen minutes later there
were no more Reds to be seen in the street.

The collisions which took place when the night came on were more
serious. Patrols of the Storm Detachment had discovered National
Socialists who had been attacked singly and were in an atrocious state.
Thereupon we made short work of the opponents. By the following morning
the Red terror, under which Coburg had been suffering for years, was
definitely smashed.

Adopting the typically Marxist and Jewish method of spreading
falsehoods, leaflets were distributed by hand on the streets, bearing
the caption: “Comrades and Comradesses of the International
Proletariat.” These leaflets were meant to arouse the wrath of the
populace. Twisting the facts completely around, they declared that our
‘bands of assasins’ had commenced ‘a war of extermination against the
peaceful workers of Coburg’. At half-past one that day there was to be a
‘great popular demonstration’, at which it was hoped that the workers of
the whole district would turn up. I was determined finally to crush this
Red terror and so I summoned the Storm Detachment to meet at midday.
Their number had now increased to 1,500. I decided to march with these
men to the Coburg Festival and to cross the big square where the Red
demonstration was to take place. I wanted to see if they would attempt
to assault us again. When we entered the square we found that instead of
the ten thousand that had been advertised, there were only a few hundred
people present. As we approached they remained silent for the most part,
and some ran away. Only at certain points along the route some bodies of
Reds, who had arrived from outside the city and had not yet come to know
us, attempted to start a row. But a few fisticuffs put them to flight.
And now one could see how the population, which had for such a long time
been so wretchedly intimidated, slowly woke up and recovered their
courage. They welcomed us openly, and in the evening, on our return
march, spontaneous shouts of jubilation broke out at several points
along the route.

At the station the railway employees informed us all of a sudden that
our train would not move. Thereupon I had some of the ringleaders told
that if this were the case I would have all the Red Party heroes
arrested that fell into our hands, that we would drive the train
ourselves, but that we would take away with us, in the locomotive and
tender and in some of the carriages, a few dozen members of this
brotherhood of international solidarity. I did not omit to let those
gentry know that if we had to conduct the train the journey would
undoubtedly be a very risky adventure and that we might all break our
necks. It would be a consolation, however, to know that we should not go
to Eternity alone, but in equality and fraternity with the Red gentry.

Thereupon the train departed punctually and we arrived next morning in
Munich safe and sound.

Thus at Coburg, for the first time since 1914, the equality of all
citizens before the law was re-established. For even if some coxcomb of
a higher official should assert to-day that the State protects the lives
of its citizens, at least in those days it was not so. For at that time
the citizens had to defend themselves against the representatives of the
present State.

At first it was not possible fully to estimate the importance of the
consequences which resulted from that day. The victorious Storm Troops
had their confidence in themselves considerably reinforced and also
their faith in the sagacity of their leaders. Our contemporaries began
to pay us special attention and for the first time many recognized the
National Socialist Movement as an organization that in all probability
was destined to bring the Marxist folly to a deserving end.

Only the democrats lamented the fact that we had not the complaisance to
allow our skulls to be cracked and that we had dared, in a democratic
Republic, to hit back with fists and sticks at a brutal assault, rather
than with pacifist chants.

Generally speaking, the bourgeois Press was partly distressed and partly
vulgar, as always. Only a few decent newspapers expressed their
satisfaction that at least in one locality the Marxist street bullies
had been effectively dealt with.

And in Coburg itself at least a part of the Marxist workers who must be
looked upon as misled, learned from the blows of National Socialist
fists that these workers were also fighting for ideals, because
experience teaches that the human being fights only for something in
which he believes and which he loves.

The Storm Detachment itself benefited most from the Coburg events. It
grew so quickly in numbers that at the Party Congress in January 1923
six thousand men participated in the ceremony of consecrating the flags
and the first companies were fully clad in their new uniform.

Our experience in Coburg proved how essential it is to introduce one
distinctive uniform for the Storm Detachment, not only for the purpose
of strengthening the ESPRIT DE CORPS but also to avoid confusion and the
danger of not recognizing the opponent in a squabble. Up to that time
they had merely worn the armlet, but now the tunic and the well-known
cap were added.

But the Coburg experience had also another important result. We now
determined to break the Red Terror in all those localities where for
many years it had prevented men of other views from holding their
meetings. We were determined to restore the right of free assembly. From
that time onwards we brought our battalions together in such places and
little by little the red citadels of Bavaria, one after another, fell
before the National Socialist propaganda. The Storm Troops became more
and more adept at their job. They increasingly lost all semblance of an
aimless and lifeless defence movement and came out into the light as an
active militant organization, fighting for the establishment of a new
German State.

This logical development continued until March 1923. Then an event
occurred which made me divert the Movement from the course hitherto
followed and introduce some changes in its outer formation.

In the first months of 1923 the French occupied the Ruhr district. The
consequence of this was of great importance in the development of the
Storm Detachment.

It is not yet possible, nor would it be in the interest of the nation,
to write or speak openly and freely on the subject. I shall speak of it
only as far as the matter has been dealt with in public discussions and
thus brought to the knowledge of everybody.

The occupation of the Ruhr district, which did not come as a surprise to
us, gave grounds for hoping that Germany would at last abandon its
cowardly policy of submission and therewith give the defensive
associations a definite task to fulfil. The Storm Detachment also, which
now numbered several thousand of robust and vigorous young men, should
not be excluded from this national service. During the spring and summer
of 1923 it was transformed into a fighting military organization. It is
to this reorganization that we must in great part attribute the later
developments that took place during 1923, in so far as it affected our
Movement.

Elsewhere I shall deal in broad outline with the development of events
in 1923. Here I wish only to state that the transformation of the Storm
Detachment at that time must have been detrimental to the interests of
the Movement if the conditions that had motivated the change were not to
be carried into effect, namely, the adoption of a policy of active
resistance against France.

The events which took place at the close of 1923, terrible as they may
appear at first sight, were almost a necessity if looked at from a
higher standpoint; because, in view of the attitude taken by the
Government of the German REICH, conversion of the Storm Troops into a
military force would be meaningless and thus a transformation which
would also be harmful to the Movement was ended at one stroke. At the
same time it was made possible for us to reconstruct at the point where
we had been diverted from the proper course.

In the year 1925 the German National Socialist Labour Party was
re-founded and had to organize and train its Storm Detachment once again
according to the principles I have laid down. It must return to the
original idea and once more it must consider its most essential task to
function as the instrument of defence and reinforcement in the spiritual
struggle to establish the ideals of the Movement.

The Storm Detachment must not be allowed to sink to the level of
something in the nature of a defence organization or a secret society.
Steps must be taken rather to make it a vanguard of 100,000 men in the
struggle for the National Socialist ideal which is based on the profound
principle of a People’s State.

CHAPTER X

THE MASK OF FEDERALISM

In the winter of 1919, and still more in the spring and summer of 1920,
the young Party felt bound to take up a definite stand on a question
which already had become quite serious during the War. In the first
volume of this book I have briefly recorded certain facts which I had
personally witnessed and which foreboded the break-up of Germany. In
describing these facts I made reference to the special nature of the
propaganda which was directed by the English as well as the French
towards reopening the breach that had existed between North and South in
Germany. In the spring of 1915 there appeared the first of a series of
leaflets which was systematically followed up and the aim of which was
to arouse feeling against Prussia as being solely responsible for the
war. Up to 1916 this system had been developed and perfected in a
cunning and shameless manner. Appealing to the basest of human
instincts, this propaganda endeavoured to arouse the wrath of the South
Germans against the North Germans and after a short time it bore fruit.
Persons who were then in high positions under the Government and in the
Army, especially those attached to headquarters in the Bavarian Army,
merited the just reproof of having blindly neglected their duty and
failed to take the necessary steps to counter such propaganda. But
nothing was done. On the contrary, in some quarters it did not appear to
be quite unwelcome and probably they were short-sighted enough to think
that such propaganda might help along the development of unification in
Germany but even that it might automatically bring about consolidation
of the federative forces. Scarcely ever in history was such a wicked
neglect more wickedly avenged. The weakening of Prussia, which they
believed would result from this propaganda, affected the whole of
Germany. It resulted in hastening the collapse which not only wrecked
Germany as a whole but even more particularly the federal states.

In that town where the artificially created hatred against Prussia raged
most violently the revolt against the reigning House was the beginning
of the Revolution.

It would be a mistake to think that the enemy propaganda was exclusively
responsible for creating an anti-Prussian feeling and that there were no
reasons which might excuse the people for having listened to this
propaganda. The incredible fashion in which the national economic
interests were organized during the War, the absolutely crazy system of
centralization which made the whole REICH its ward and exploited the
REICH, furnished the principal grounds for the growth of that
anti-Prussian feeling. The average citizen looked upon the companies for
the placing of war contracts, all of which had their headquarters in
Berlin, as identical with Berlin and Berlin itself as identical with
Prussia. The average citizen did not know that the organization of these
robber companies, which were called War Companies, was not in the hands
of Berlin or Prussia and not even in German hands at all. People
recognized only the gross irregularities and the continual encroachments
of that hated institution in the Metropolis of the REICH and directed
their anger towards Berlin and Prussia, all the more because in certain
quarters (the Bavarian Government) nothing was done to correct this
attitude, but it was even welcomed with silent rubbing of hands.

The Jew was far too shrewd not to understand that the infamous campaign
which he had organized, under the cloak of War Companies, for plundering
the German nation would and must eventually arouse opposition. As long
as that opposition did not spring directly at his own throat he had no
reason to be afraid. Hence he decided that the best way of forestalling
an outbreak on the part of the enraged and desperate masses would be to
inflame their wrath and at the same time give it another outlet.

Let Bavaria quarrel as much as it liked with Prussia and Prussia with
Bavaria. The more, the merrier. This bitter strife between the two
states assured peace to the Jew. Thus public attention was completely
diverted from the international maggot in the body of the nation;
indeed, he seemed to have been forgotten. Then when there came a danger
that level-headed people, of whom there are many to be found also in
Bavaria, would advise a little more reserve and a more judicious
evaluation of things, thus calming the rage against Prussia, all the Jew
had to do in Berlin was to stage a new provocation and await results.
Every time that was done all those who had profiteered out of the
conflict between North and South filled their lungs and again fanned the
flame of indignation until it became a blaze.

It was a shrewd and expert manoeuvre on the part of the Jew, to set the
different branches of the German people quarrelling with one another, so
that their attention would be turned away from himself and he could
plunder them all the more completely.

Then came the Revolution.

Until the year 1918, or rather until the November of that year, the
average German citizen, particularly the less educated lower
middle-class and the workers, did not rightly understand what was
happening and did not realize what must be the inevitable consequences,
especially for Bavaria, of this internecine strife between the branches
of the German people; but at least those sections which called
themselves ‘National’ ought to have clearly perceived these consequences
on the day that the Revolution broke out. For the moment the COUP D’ÉTAT
had succeeded, the leader and organizer of the Revolution in Bavaria put
himself forward as the defender of ‘Bavarian’ interests. The
international Jew, Kurt Eisner, began to play off Bavaria against
Prussia. This Oriental was just about the last person in the world that
could be pointed to as the logical defender of Bavarian interests. In
his trade as newspaper reporter he had wandered from place to place all
over Germany and to him it was a matter of sheer indifference whether
Bavaria or any other particular part of God’s whole world continued to
exist.

In deliberately giving the revolutionary rising in Bavaria the character
of an offensive against Prussia, Kurt Eisner was not acting in the
slightest degree from the standpoint of Bavarian interests, but merely
as the commissioned representative of Jewry. He exploited existing
instincts and antipathies in Bavaria as a means which would help to make
the dismemberment of Germany all the more easy. When once dismembered,
the REICH would fall an easy prey to Bolshevism.

The tactics employed by him were continued for a time after his death.
The Marxists, who had always derided and exploited the individual German
states and their princes, now suddenly appealed, as an ‘Independent
Party’ to those sentiments and instincts which had their strongest roots
in the families of the reigning princes and the individual states.

The fight waged by the Bavarian Soviet Republic against the military
contingents that were sent to free Bavaria from its grasp was
represented by the Marxist propagandists as first of all the ‘Struggle
of the Bavarian Worker’ against ‘Prussian Militarism.’ This explains why
it was that the suppression of the Soviet Republic in Munich did not
have the same effect there as in the other German districts. Instead of
recalling the masses to a sense of reason, it led to increased
bitterness and anger against Prussia.

The art of the Bolshevik agitators, in representing the suppression of
the Bavarian Soviet Republic as a victory of ‘Prussian Militarism’ over
the ‘Anti-militarists’ and ‘Anti-Prussian’ people of Bavaria, bore rich
fruit. Whereas on the occasion of the elections to the Bavarian
Legislative Diet, Kurt Eisner did not have ten thousand followers in
Munich and the Communist party less than three thousand, after the fall
of the Bavarian Republic the votes given to the two parties together
amounted to nearly one hundred thousand.

It was then that I personally began to combat that crazy incitement of
some branches of the German people against other branches.

I believe that never in my life did I undertake a more unpopular task
than I did when I took my stand against the anti-Prussian incitement.
During the Soviet regime in Munich great public meetings were held at
which hatred against the rest of Germany, but particularly against
Prussia, was roused up to such a pitch that a North German would have
risked his life in attending one of those meetings. These meetings often
ended in wild shouts: “Away from Prussia”, “Down with the Prussians”,
“War against Prussia”, and so on. This feeling was openly expressed in
the Reichstag by a particularly brilliant defender of Bavarian sovereign
rights when he said: “Rather die as a Bavarian than rot as a Prussian”.

One should have attended some of the meetings held at that time in order
to understand what it meant for one when, for the first time and
surrounded by only a handful of friends, I raised my voice against this
folly at a meeting held in the Munich Löwenbräu Keller. Some of my War
comrades stood by me then. And it is easy to imagine how we felt when
that raging crowd, which had lost all control of its reason, roared at
us and threatened to kill us. During the time that we were fighting for
the country the same crowd were for the most part safely ensconced in
the rear positions or were peacefully circulating at home as deserters
and shirkers. It is true that that scene turned out to be of advantage
to me. My small band of comrades felt for the first time absolutely
united with me and readily swore to stick by me through life and death.

These conflicts, which were constantly repeated in 1919, seemed to
become more violent soon after the beginning of 1920. There were
meetings–I remember especially one in the Wagner Hall in the
Sonnenstrasse in Munich–during the course of which my group, now grown
much larger, had to defend themselves against assaults of the most
violent character. It happened more than once that dozens of my
followers were mishandled, thrown to the floor and stamped upon by the
attackers and were finally thrown out of the hall more dead than alive.

The struggle which I had undertaken, first by myself alone and
afterwards with the support of my war comrades, was now continued by the
young movement, I might say almost as a sacred mission.

I am proud of being able to say to-day that we–depending almost
exclusively on our followers in Bavaria–were responsible for putting an
end, slowly but surely, to the coalition of folly and treason. I say
folly and treason because, although convinced that the masses who joined
in it meant well but were stupid, I cannot attribute such simplicity as
an extenuating circumstance in the case of the organizers and their
abetters. I then looked upon them, and still look upon them to-day, as
traitors in the payment of France. In one case, that of Dorten, history
has already pronounced its judgment.

The situation became specially dangerous at that time by reason of the
fact that they were very astute in their ability to cloak their real
tendencies, by insisting primarily on their federative intentions and
claiming that those were the sole motives of the agitation. Of course it
is quite obvious that the agitation against Prussia had nothing to do
with federalism. Surely ‘Federal Activities’ is not the phrase with
which to describe an effort to dissolve and dismember another federal
state. For an honest federalist, for whom the formula used by Bismarck
to define his idea of the REICH is not a counterfeit phrase, could not
in the same breath express the desire to cut off portions of the
Prussian State, which was created or at least completed by Bismarck. Nor
could he publicly support such a separatist attempt.

What an outcry would be raised in Munich if some prussian conservative
party declared itself in favour of detaching Franconia from Bavaria or
took public action in demanding and promoting such a separatist policy.
Nevertheless, one can only have sympathy for all those real and honest
federalists who did not see through this infamous swindle, for they were
its principal victims. By distorting the federalist idea in such a way
its own champions prepared its grave. One cannot make propaganda for a
federalist configuration of the REICH by debasing and abusing and
besmirching the essential element of such a political structure, namely
Prussia, and thus making such a Confederation impossible, if it ever had
been possible. It is all the more incredible by reason of the fact that
the fight carried on by those so-called federalists was directed against
that section of the Prussian people which was the last that could be
looked upon as connected with the November democracy. For the abuse and
attacks of these so-called federalists were not levelled against the
fathers of the Weimar Constitution–the majority of whom were South
Germans or Jews–but against those who represented the old conservative
Prussia, which was the antipodes of the Weimar Constitution. The fact
that the directors of this campaign were careful not to touch the Jews
is not to be wondered at and perhaps gives the key to the whole riddle.

Before the Revolution the Jew was successful in distracting attention
from himself and his War Companies by inciting the masses, and
especially the Bavarians, against Prussia. Similarly he felt obliged,
after the Revolution, to find some way of camouflaging his new plunder
campaign which was nine or ten times greater. And again he succeeded, in
this case by provoking the so-called ‘national’ elements against one
another: the conservative Bavarians against the Prussians, who were just
as conservative. He acted again with extreme cunning, inasmuch as he who
held the reins of Prussia’s destiny in his hands provoked such crude and
tactless aggressions that again and again they set the blood boiling in
those who were being continually duped. Never against the Jew, however,
but always the German against his own brother. The Bavarian did not see
the Berlin of four million industrious and efficient working people, but
only the lazy and decadent Berlin which is to be found in the worst
quarters of the West End. And his antipathy was not directed against
this West End of Berlin but against the ‘Prussian’ city.

In many cases it tempted one to despair.

The ability which the Jew has displayed in turning public attention away
from himself and giving it another direction may be studied also in what
is happening to-day.

In 1918 there was nothing like an organized anti-Semitic feeling. I
still remember the difficulties we encountered the moment we mentioned
the Jew. We were either confronted with dumb-struck faces or else a
lively and hefty antagonism. The efforts we made at the time to point
out the real enemy to the public seemed to be doomed to failure. But
then things began to change for the better, though only very slowly. The
‘League for Defence and Offence’ was defectively organized but at least
it had the great merit of opening up the Jewish question once again. In
the winter of 1918-1919 a kind of anti-semitism began slowly to take
root. Later on the National Socialist Movement presented the Jewish
problem in a new light. Taking the question beyond the restricted
circles of the upper classes and small bourgeoisie we succeeded in
transforming it into the driving motive of a great popular movement. But
the moment we were successful in placing this problem before the German
people in the light of an idea that would unite them in one struggle the
Jew reacted. He resorted to his old tactics. With amazing alacrity he
hurled the torch of discord into the patriotic movement and opened a
rift there. In bringing forward the ultramontane question and in the
mutual quarrels that it gave rise to between Catholicism and
Protestantism lay the sole possibility, as conditions then were, of
occupying public attention with other problems and thus ward off the
attack which had been concentrated against Jewry. The men who dragged
our people into this controversy can never make amends for the crime
they then committed against the nation. Anyhow, the Jew has attained the
ends he desired. Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another
to their hearts’ content, while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all
Christendom is laughing up his sleeve.

Once it was possible to occupy the attention of the public for several
years with the struggle between federalism and unification, wearing out
their energies in this mutual friction while the Jew trafficked in the
freedom of the nation and sold our country to the masters of
international high finance. So in our day he has succeeded again, this
time by raising ructions between the two German religious denominations
while the foundations on which both rest are being eaten away and
destroyed through the poison injected by the international and
cosmopolitan Jew.

Look at the ravages from which our people are suffering daily as a
result of being contaminated with Jewish blood. Bear in mind the fact
that this poisonous contamination can be eliminated from the national
body only after centuries, or perhaps never. Think further of how the
process of racial decomposition is debasing and in some cases even
destroying the fundamental Aryan qualities of our German people, so that
our cultural creativeness as a nation is gradually becoming impotent and
we are running the danger, at least in our great cities, of falling to
the level where Southern Italy is to-day. This pestilential adulteration
of the blood, of which hundreds of thousands of our people take no
account, is being systematically practised by the Jew to-day.
Systematically these negroid parasites in our national body corrupt our
innocent fair-haired girls and thus destroy something which can no
longer be replaced in this world.

The two Christian denominations look on with indifference at the
profanation and destruction of a noble and unique creature who was given
to the world as a gift of God’s grace. For the future of the world,
however, it does not matter which of the two triumphs over the other,
the Catholic or the Protestant. But it does matter whether Aryan
humanity survives or perishes. And yet the two Christian denominations
are not contending against the destroyer of Aryan humanity but are
trying to destroy one another. Everybody who has the right kind of
feeling for his country is solemnly bound, each within his own
denomination, to see to it that he is not constantly talking about the
Will of God merely from the lips but that in actual fact he fulfils the
Will of God and does not allow God’s handiwork to be debased. For it was
by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were
given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages
war against God’s Creation and God’s Will. Therefore everyone should
endeavour, each in his own denomination of course, and should consider
it as his first and most solemn duty to hinder any and everyone whose
conduct tends, either by word or deed, to go outside his own religious
body and pick a quarrel with those of another denomination. For, in view
of the religious schism that exists in Germany, to attack the essential
characteristics of one denomination must necessarily lead to a war of
extermination between the two Christian denominations. Here there can be
no comparison between our position and that of France, or Spain or
Italy. In those three countries one may, for instance, make propaganda
for the side that is fighting against ultramontanism without thereby
incurring the danger of a national rift among the French, or Spanish or
Italian people. In Germany, however, that cannot be so, for here the
Protestants would also take part in such propaganda. And thus the
defence which elsewhere only Catholics organize against clerical
aggression in political matters would assume with us the character of a
Protestant attack against Catholicism. What may be tolerated by the
faithful in one denomination even when it seems unjust to them, will at
once be indignantly rejected and opposed on A PRIORI grounds if it
should come from the militant leaders of another denomination. This is
so true that even men who would be ready and willing to fight for the
removal of manifest grievances within their own religious denomination
will drop their own fight and turn their activities against the outsider
the moment the abolition of such grievances is counselled or demanded by
one who is not of the same faith. They consider it unjustified and
inadmissible and incorrect for outsiders to meddle in matters which do
not affect them at all. Such attempts are not excused even when they are
inspired by a feeling for the supreme interests of the national
community; because even in our day religious feelings still have deeper
roots than all feeling for political and national expediency. That
cannot be changed by setting one denomination against another in bitter
conflict. It can be changed only if, through a spirit of mutual
tolerance, the nation can be assured of a future the greatness of which
will gradually operate as a conciliating factor in the sphere of
religion also. I have no hesitation in saying that in those men who seek
to-day to embroil the patriotic movement in religious quarrels I see
worse enemies of my country than the international communists are. For
the National Socialist Movement has set itself to the task of converting
those communists. But anyone who goes outside the ranks of his own
Movement and tends to turn it away from the fulfilment of its mission is
acting in a manner that deserves the severest condemnation. He is acting
as a champion of Jewish interests, whether consciously or unconsciously
does not matter. For it is in the interests of the Jews to-day that the
energies of the patriotic movement should be squandered in a religious
conflict, because it is beginning to be dangerous for the Jews. I have
purposely used the phrase about SQUANDERING the energies of the
Movement, because nobody but some person who is entirely ignorant of
history could imagine that this movement can solve a question which the
greatest statesmen have tried for centuries to solve, and tried in vain.

Anyhow the facts speak for themselves. The men who suddenly discovered,
in 1924, that the highest mission of the patriotic movement was to fight
ultramontanism, have not succeeded in smashing ultramontanism, but they
succeeded in splitting the patriotic movement. I have to guard against
the possibility of some immature brain arising in the patriotic movement
which thinks that it can do what even a Bismarck failed to do. It will
be always one of the first duties of those who are directing the
National Socialist Movement to oppose unconditionally any attempt to
place the National Socialist Movement at the service of such a conflict.
And anybody who conducts a propaganda with that end in view must be
expelled forthwith from its ranks.

As a matter of fact we succeeded until the autumn of 1923 in keeping our
movement away from such controversies. The most devoted Protestant could
stand side by side with the most devoted Catholic in our ranks without
having his conscience disturbed in the slightest as far as concerned his
religious convictions. The bitter struggle which both waged in common
against the wrecker of Aryan humanity taught them natural respect and
esteem. And it was just in those years that our movement had to engage
in a bitter strife with the Centre Party not for religious ends but for
national, racial, political and economic ends. The success we then
achieved showed that we were right, but it does not speak to-day in
favour of those who thought they knew better.

In recent years things have gone so far that patriotic circles, in
god-forsaken blindness of their religious strife, could not recognize
the folly of their conduct even from the fact that atheist Marxist
newspapers advocated the cause of one religious denomination or the
other, according as it suited Marxist interests, so as to create
confusion through slogans and declarations which were often immeasurably
stupid, now molesting the one party and again the other, and thus poking
the fire to keep the blaze at its highest.

But in the case of a people like the Germans, whose history has so often
shown them capable of fighting for phantoms to the point of complete
exhaustion, every war-cry is a mortal danger. By these slogans our
people have often been drawn away from the real problems of their
existence. While we were exhausting our energies in religious wars the
others were acquiring their share of the world. And while the patriotic
movement is debating with itself whether the ultramontane danger be
greater than the Jewish, or vice versa, the Jew is destroying the racial
basis of our existence and thereby annihilating our people. As far as
regards that kind of ‘patriotic’ warrior, on behalf of the National
Socialist Movement and therefore of the German people I pray with all my
heart: “Lord, preserve us from such friends, and then we can easily deal
with our enemies.”

The controversy over federation and unification, so cunningly
propagandized by the Jews in 1919-1920 and onwards, forced National
Socialism, which repudiated the quarrel, to take up a definite stand in
relation to the essential problem concerned in it. Ought Germany to be a
confederacy or a military State? What is the practical significance of
these terms? To me it seems that the second question is more important
than the first, because it is fundamental to the understanding of the
whole problem and also because the answer to it may help to clear up
confusion and therewith have a conciliating effect.

What is a Confederacy? (Note 22)

[Note 22. Before 1918 Germany was a federal Empire, composed of
twenty-five federal states.]

By a Confederacy we mean a union of sovereign states which of their own
free will and in virtue of their sovereignty come together and create a
collective unit, ceding to that unit as much of their own sovereign
rights as will render the existence of the union possible and will
guarantee it.

But the theoretical formula is not wholly put into practice by any
confederacy that exists to-day. And least of all by the American Union,
where it is impossible to speak of original sovereignty in regard to the
majority of the states. Many of them were not included in the federal
complex until long after it had been established. The states that make
up the American Union are mostly in the nature of territories, more or
less, formed for technical administrative purposes, their boundaries
having in many cases been fixed in the mapping office. Originally these
states did not and could not possess sovereign rights of their own.
Because it was the Union that created most of the so-called states.
Therefore the sovereign rights, often very comprehensive, which were
left, or rather granted, to the various territories correspond not only
to the whole character of the Confederation but also to its vast space,
which is equivalent to the size of a Continent. Consequently, in
speaking of the United States of America one must not consider them as
sovereign states but as enjoying rights or, better perhaps, autarchic
powers, granted to them and guaranteed by the Constitution.

Nor does our definition adequately express the condition of affairs in
Germany. It is true that in Germany the individual states existed as
states before the REICH and that the REICH was formed from them. The
REICH, however, was not formed by the voluntary and equal co-operation
of the individual states, but rather because the state of Prussia
gradually acquired a position of hegemony over the others. The
difference in the territorial area alone between the German states
prevents any comparison with the American Union. The great difference in
territorial area between the very small German states that then existed
and the larger, or even still more the largest, demonstrates the
inequality of their achievements and shows that they could not take an
equal part in founding and shaping the federal Empire. In the case of
most of these individual states it cannot be maintained that they ever
enjoyed real sovereignty; and the term ‘State Sovereignty’ was really
nothing more than an administrative formula which had no inner meaning.
As a matter of fact, not only developments in the past but also in our
own time wiped out several of these so-called ‘Sovereign States’ and
thus proved in the most definite way how frail these ‘sovereign’ state
formations were.

I cannot deal here with the historical question of how these individual
states came to be established, but I must call attention to the fact
that hardly in any case did their frontiers coincide with ethical
frontiers of the inhabitants. They were purely political phenomena which
for the most part emerged during the sad epoch when the German Empire
was in a state of exhaustion and was dismembered. They represented both
cause and effect in the process of exhaustion and partition of our
fatherland.

The Constitution of the old REICH took all this into account, at least
up to a certain degree, in so far as the individual states were not
accorded equal representation in the Reichstag, but a representation
proportionate to their respective areas, their actual importance and the
role which they played in the formation of the REICH.

The sovereign rights which the individual states renounced in order to
form the REICH were voluntarily ceded only to a very small degree. For
the most part they had no practical existence or they were simply taken
by Prussia under the pressure of her preponderant power. The principle
followed by Bismarck was not to give the REICH what he could take from
the individual states but to demand from the individual states only what
was absolutely necessary for the REICH. A moderate and wise policy. On
the one side Bismarck showed the greatest regard for customs and
traditions; on the other side his policy secured for the new REICH from
its foundation onwards a great measure of love and willing co-operation.
But it would be a fundamental error to attribute Bismarck’s decision to
any conviction on his part that the REICH was thus acquiring all the
rights of sovereignty which would suflice for all time. That was far
from Bismarck’s idea. On the contrary, he wished to leave over for the
future what it would be difficult to carry through at the moment and
might not have been readily agreed to by the individual states. He
trusted to the levelling effect of time and to the pressure exercised by
the process of evolution, the steady action of which appeared more
effective than an attempt to break the resistance which the individual
states offered at the moment. By this policy he showed his great ability
in the art of statesmanship. And, as a matter of fact, the sovereignty
of the REICH has continually increased at the cost of the sovereignty of
the individual states. The passing of time has achieved what Bismarck
hoped it would.

The German collapse and the abolition of the monarchical form of
government necessarily hastened this development. The German federal
states, which had not been grounded on ethnical foundations but arose
rather out of political conditions, were bound to lose their importance
the moment the monarchical form of government and the dynasties
connected with it were abolished, for it was to the spirit inherent in
these that the individual states owned their political origin and
development. Thus deprived of their internal RAISON D’ÊTRE, they
renounced all right to survival and were induced by purely practical
reasons to fuse with their neighbours or else they joined the more
powerful states out of their own free will. That proved in a striking
manner how extraordinarily frail was the actual sovereignty these small
phantom states enjoyed, and it proved too how lightly they were
estimated by their own citizens.

Though the abolition of the monarchical regime and its representatives
had dealt a hard blow to the federal character of the REICH, still more
destructive, from the federal point of view, was the acceptance of the
obligations that resulted from the ‘peace’ treaty.

It was only natural and logical that the federal states should lose all
sovereign control over the finances the moment the REICH, in consequence
of a lost war, was subjected to financial obligations which could never
be guaranteed through separate treaties with the individual states. The
subsequent steps which led the REICH to take over the posts and railways
were an enforced advance in the process of enslaving our people, a
process which the peace treaties gradually developed. The REICH was
forced to secure possession of resources which had to be constantly
increased in order to satisfy the demands made by further extortions.

The form in which the powers of the REICH were thus extended to embrace
the federal states was often ridiculously stupid, but in itself the
procedure was logical and natural. The blame for it must be laid at the
door of these men and those parties that failed in the hour of need to
concentrate all their energies in an effort to bring the war to a
victorious issue. The guilt lies on those parties which, especially in
Bavaria, catered for their own egotistic interests during the war and
refused to the REICH what the REICH had to requisition to a tenfold
greater measure when the war was lost. The retribution of History!
Rarely has the vengeance of Heaven followed so closely on the crime as
it did in this case. Those same parties which, a few years previously,
placed the interests of their own states–especially in Bavaria–before
those of the REICH had now to look on passively while the pressure of
events forced the REICH, in its own interests, to abolish the existence
of the individual states. They were the victims of their own defaults.

It was an unparalleled example of hypocrisy to raise the cry of
lamentation over the loss which the federal states suffered in being
deprived of their sovereign rights. This cry was raised before the
electorate, for it is only to the electorate that our contemporary
parties address themselves. But these parties, without exception, outbid
one another in accepting a policy of fulfilment which, by the sheer
force of circumstances and in its ultimate consequences, could not but
lead to a profound alteration in the internal structure of the REICH.
Bismarck’s REICH was free and unhampered by any obligations towards the
outside world.

Bismarck’s REICH never had to shoulder such heavy and entirely
unproductive obligations as those to which Germany was subjected under
the Dawes Plan. Also in domestic affairs Bismarck’s REICH was able to
limit its powers to a few matters that were absolutely necessary for its
existence. Therefore it could dispense with the necessity of a financial
control over these states and could live from their contributions. On
the other side the relatively small financial tribute which the federal
states had to pay to the REICH induced them to welcome its existence.
But it is untrue and unjust to state now, as certain propagandists do,
that the federal states are displeased with the REICH merely because of
their financial subjection to it. No, that is not how the matter really
stands. The lack of sympathy for the political idea embodied in the
REICH is not due to the loss of sovereign rights on the part of the
individual states. It is much more the result of the deplorable fashion
in which the present régime cares for the interests of the German
people. Despite all the celebrations in honour of the national flag and
the Constitution, every section of the German people feels that the
present REICH is not in accordance with its heart’s desire. And the Law
for the Protection of the Republic may prevent outrages against
republican institutions, but it will not gain the love of one single
German. In its constant anxiety to protect itself against its own
citizens by means of laws and sentences of imprisonment, the Republic
has aroused sharp and humiliating criticism of all republican
institutions as such.

For another reason also it is untrue to say, as certain parties affirm
to-day, that the REICH has ceased to be popular on account of its
overbearing conduct in regard to certain sovereign rights which the
individual states had heretofore enjoyed. Supposing the REICH had not
extended its authority over the individual states, there is no reason to
believe that it would find more favour among those states if the general
obligations remained so heavy as they now are. On the contrary, if the
individual states had to pay their respective shares of the highly
increased tribute which the REICH has to meet to-day in order to fulfil
the provisions of the Versailles Dictate, the hostility towards the
REICH would be infinitely greater. For then not only would it prove
difficult to collect the respective contributions due to the REICH from
the federal states, but coercive methods would have to be employed in
making the collections. The Republic stands on the footing of the peace
treaties and has neither the courage nor the intention to break them.
That being so, it must observe the obligations which the peace treaties
have imposed on it. The responsibility for this situation is to be
attributed solely to those parties who preach unceasingly to the patient
electoral masses on the necessity of maintaining the autonomy of the
federal states, while at the same time they champion and demand of the
REICH a policy which must necessarily lead to the suppression of even
the very last of those so-called ‘sovereign’ rights.

I say NECESSARILY because the present REICH has no other possible means
of bearing the burden of charges which an insane domestic and foreign
policy has laid on it. Here still another wedge is placed on the former,
to drive it in still deeper. Every new debt which the REICH contracts,
through the criminal way in which the interests of Germany are
represented VIS-À-VIS foreign countries, necessitates a new and stronger
blow which drives the under wedges still deeper, That blow demands
another step in the progressive abolition of the sovereign rights of the
individual states, so as not to allow the germs of opposition to rise up
into activity or even to exist.

The chief characteristic difference between the policy of the present
REICH and that of former times lies in this: The old REICH gave freedom
to its people at home and showed itself strong towards the outside
world, whereas the Republic shows itself weak towards the stranger and
oppresses its own citizens at home. In both cases one attitude
determines the other. A vigorous national State does not need to make
many laws for the interior, because of the affection and attachment of
its citizens. The international servile State can live only by coercing
its citizens to render it the services it demands. And it is a piece of
impudent falsehood for the present regime to speak of ‘Free citizens’.
Only the old Germany could speak in that manner. The present Republic is
a colony of slaves at the service of the stranger. At best it has
subjects, but not citizens. Hence it does not possess a national flag
but only a trade mark, introduced and protected by official decree and
legislative measures. This symbol, which is the Gessler’s cap of German
Democracy, will always remain alien to the spirit of our people. On its
side, the Republic having no sense of tradition or respect for past
greatness, dragged the symbol of the past in the mud, but it will be
surprised one day to discover how superficial is the devotion of its
citizens to its own symbol. The Republic has given to itself the
character of an intermezzo in German history. And so this State is bound
constantly to restrict more and more the sovereign rights of the
individual states, not only for general reasons of a financial character
but also on principle. For by enforcing a policy of financial blackmail,
to squeeze the last ounce of substance out of its people, it is forced
also to take their last rights away from them, lest the general
discontent may one day flame up into open rebellion.

We, National Socialists, would reverse this formula and would adopt the
following axiom: A strong national REICH which recognizes and protects
to the largest possible measure the rights of its citizens both within
and outside its frontiers can allow freedom to reign at home without
trembling for the safety of the State. On the other hand, a strong
national Government can intervene to a considerable degree in the
liberties of the individual subject as well as in the liberties of the
constituent states without thereby weakening the ideal of the REICH; and
it can do this while recognizing its responsibility for the ideal of the
REICH, because in these particular acts and measures the individual
citizen recognizes a means of promoting the prestige of the nation as a
whole.

Of course, every State in the world has to face the question of
unification in its internal organization. And Germany is no exception in
this matter. Nowadays it is absurd to speak of ‘statal sovereignty’ for
the constituent states of the REICH, because that has already become
impossible on account of the ridiculously small size of so many of these
states. In the sphere of commerce as well as that of administration the
importance of the individual states has been steadily decreasing. Modern
means of communication and mechanical progress have been increasingly
restricting distance and space. What was once a State is to-day only a
province and the territory covered by a modern State had once the
importance of a continent. The purely technical difficulty of
administering a State like Germany is not greater than that of governing
a province like Brandenburg a hundred years ago. And to-day it is easier
to cover the distance from Munich to Berlin than it was to cover the
distance from Munich to Starnberg a hundred years ago. In view of the
modern means of transport, the whole territory of the REICH to-day is
smaller than that of certain German federal states at the time of the
Napoleonic wars. To close one’s eyes to the consequences of these facts
means to live in the past. There always were, there are and always will
be, men who do this. They may retard but they cannot stop the
revolutions of history.

We, National Socialists, must not allow the consequences of that truth
to pass by us unnoticed. In these matters also we must not permit
ourselves to be misled by the phrases of our so-called national
bourgeois parties. I say ‘phrases’, because these same parodies do not
seriously believe that it is possible for them to carry out their
proposals, and because they themselves are the chief culprits and also
the accomplices responsible for the present state of affairs. Especially
in Bavaria, the demands for a halt in the process of centralization can
be no more than a party move behind which there is no serious idea. If
these parties ever had to pass from the realm of phrase-making into that
of practical deeds they would present a sorry spectacle. Every so-called
‘Robbery of Sovereign Rights’ from Bavaria by the REICH has met with no
practical resistance, except for some fatuous barking by way of protest.
Indeed, when anyone seriously opposed the madness that was shown in
carrying out this system of centralization he was told by those same
parties that he understood nothing of the nature and needs of the State
to-day. They slandered him and pronounced him anathema and persecuted
him until he was either shut up in prison or illegally deprived of the
right of public speech. In the light of these facts our followers should
become all the more convinced of the profound hypocrisy which
characterizes these so-called federalist circles. To a certain extent
they use the federalist doctrine just as they use the name of religion,
merely as a means of promoting their own base party interests.

A certain unification, especially in the field of transport, appears
logical. But we, National Socialists, feel it our duty to oppose with
all our might such a development in the modern State, especially when
the measures proposed are solely for the purpose of screening a
disastrous foreign policy and making it possible. And just because the
present REICH has threatened to take over the railways, the posts, the
finances, etc., not from the high standpoint of a national policy, but
in order to have in its hands the means and pledges for an unlimited
policy of fulfilment–for that reason we, National Socialists, must take
every step that seems suitable to obstruct and, if possible, definitely
to prevent such a policy. We must fight against the present system of
amalgamating institutions that are vitally important for the existence
of our people, because this system is being adopted solely to facilitate
the payment of milliards and the transference of pledges to the
stranger, under the post-War provisions which our politicians have
accepted.

For these reasons also the National Socialist Movement has to take up a
stand against such tendencies.

Moreover, we must oppose such centralization because in domestic affairs
it helps to reinforce a system of government which in all its
manifestations has brought the greatest misfortunes on the German
nation. The present Jewish-Democratic REICH, which has become a
veritable curse for the German people, is seeking to negative the force
of the criticism offered by all the federal states which have not yet
become imbued with the spirit of the age, and is trying to carry out
this policy by crushing them to the point of annihilation. In face of
this we National Socialists must try to ground the opposition of the
individual states on such a basis that it will be able to operate with a
good promise of success. We must do this by transforming the struggle
against centralization into something that will be an expression of the
higher interests of the German nation as such. Therefore, while the
Bavarian Populist Party, acting from its own narrow and particularist
standpoint, fights to maintain the ‘special rights’ of the Bavarian
State, we ought to stand on quite a different ground in fighting for the
same rights. Our grounds ought to be those of the higher national
interests in opposition to the November Democracy.

A still further reason for opposing a centralizing process of that kind
arises from the certain conviction that in great part this so-called
nationalization does not make for unification at all and still less for
simplification. In many cases it is adopted simply as a means of
removing from the sovereign control of the individual states certain
institutions which they wish to place in the hands of the revolutionary
parties. In German History favouritism has never been of so base a
character as in the democratic republic. A great portion of this
centralization to-day is the work of parties which once promised that
they would open the way for the promotion of talent, meaning thereby
that they would fill those posts and offices entirely with their own
partisans. Since the foundation of the Republic the Jews especially have
been obtaining positions in the economic institutions taken over by the
REICH and also positions in the national administration, so that the one
and the other have become preserves of Jewry.

For tactical reasons, this last consideration obliges us to watch with
the greatest attention every further attempt at centralization and fight
it at each step. But in doing this our standpoint must always be that of
a lofty national policy and never a pettifogging particularism.

This last observation is necessary, lest an opinion might arise among
our own followers that we do not accredit to the REICH the right of
incorporating in itself a sovereignty which is superior to that of the
constituent states. As regards this right we cannot and must not
entertain the slightest doubt. Because for us the State is nothing but a
form. Its substance, or content, is the essential thing. And that is the
nation, the people. It is clear therefore that every other interest must
be subordinated to the supreme interests of the nation. In particular we
cannot accredit to any other state a sovereign power and sovereign
rights within the confines of the nation and the REICH, which represents
the nation. The absurdity which some federal states commit by
maintaining ‘representations’ abroad and corresponding foreign
‘representations’ among themselves–that must cease and will cease.
Until this happens we cannot be surprised if certain foreign countries
are dubious about the political unity of the REICH and act accordingly.
The absurdity of these ‘representations’ is all the greater because they
do harm and do not bring the slightest advantage. If the interests of a
German abroad cannot be protected by the ambassador of the REICH, much
less can they be protected by the minister from some small federal state
which appears ridiculous in the framework of the present world order.
The real truth is that these small federal states are envisaged as
points of attack for attempts at secession, which prospect is always
pleasing to a certain foreign State. We, National Socialists, must not
allow some noble caste which has become effete with age to occupy an
ambassadorial post abroad, with the idea that by engrafting one of its
withered branches in new soil the green leaves may sprout again. Already
in the time of the old REICH our diplomatic representatives abroad were
such a sorry lot that a further trial of that experience would be out of
the question.

It is certain that in the future the importance of the individual states
will be transferred to the sphere of our cultural policy. The monarch
who did most to make Bavaria an important centre was not an obstinate
particularist with anti-German tendencies, but Ludwig I who was as much
devoted to the ideal of German greatness as he was to that of art. His
first consideration was to use the powers of the state to develop the
cultural position of Bavaria and not its political power. And in doing
this he produced better and more durable results than if he had followed
any other line of conduct. Up to this time Munich was a provincial
residence town of only small importance, but he transformed it into the
metropolis of German art and by doing so he made it an intellectual
centre which even to-day holds Franconia to Bavaria, though the
Franconians are of quite a different temperament. If Munich had remained
as it had been earlier, what has happened in Saxony would have been
repeated in Bavaria, with the difference that Leipzig and Bavarian
Nürnberg would have become, not Bavarian but Franconian cities. It was
not the cry of “Down with Prussia” that made Munich great. What made
this a city of importance was the King who wished to present it to the
German nation as an artistic jewel that would have to be seen and
appreciated, and so it has turned out in fact. Therein lies a lesson for
the future. The importance of the individual states in the future will
no longer lie in their political or statal power. I look to them rather
as important ethnical and cultural centres. But even in this respect
time will do its levelling work. Modern travelling facilities shuffle
people among one another in such a way that tribal boundaries will fade
out and even the cultural picture will gradually become more of a
uniform pattern.

The army must definitely be kept clear of the influence of the
individual states. The coming National Socialist State must not fall
back into the error of the past by imposing on the army a task which is
not within its sphere and never should have been assigned to it. The
German army does not exist for the purpose of being a school in which
tribal particularisms are to be cultivated and preserved, but rather as
a school for teaching all the Germans to understand and adapt their
habits to one another. Whatever tends to have a separating influence in
the life of the nation ought to be made a unifying influence in the
army. The army must raise the German boy above the narrow horizon of his
own little native province and set him within the broad picture of the
nation. The youth must learn to know, not the confines of his own region
but those of the fatherland, because it is the latter that he will have
to defend one day. It is therefore absurd to have the German youth do
his military training in his own native region. During that period he
ought to learn to know Germany. This is all the more important to-day,
since young Germans no longer travel on their own account as they once
used to do and thus enlarge their horizon. In view of this, is it not
absurd to leave the young Bavarian recruit at Munich, the recruit from
Baden at Baden itself and the Württemberger at Stuttgart and so on? And
would it not be more reasonable to show the Rhine and the North Sea to
the Bavarian, the Alps to the native of Hamburg and the mountains of
Central Germany to the boy from East Prussia? The character proper to
each region ought to be maintained in the troops but not in the training
garrisons. We may disapprove of every attempt at unification but not
that of unifying the army. On the contrary, even though we should wish
to welcome no other kind of unification, this must be greeted with joy.
In view of the size of the present army of the REICH, it would be absurd
to maintain the federal divisions among the troops. Moreover, in the
unification of the German army which has actually been effected we see a
fact which we must not renounce but restore in the future national army.

Finally a new and triumphant idea should burst every chain which tends
to paralyse its efforts to push forward. National Socialism must claim
the right to impose its principles on the whole German nation, without
regard to what were hitherto the confines of federal states. And we must
educate the German nation in our ideas and principles. As the Churches
do not feel themselves bound or limited by political confines, so the
National Socialist Idea cannot feel itself limited to the territories of
the individual federal states that belong to our Fatherland.

The National Socialist doctrine is not handmaid to the political
interests of the single federal states. One day it must become teacher
to the whole German nation. It must determine the life of the whole
people and shape that life anew. For this reason we must imperatively
demand the right to overstep boundaries that have been traced by a
political development which we repudiate.

The more completely our ideas triumph, the more liberty can we concede
in particular affairs to our citizens at home.

CHAPTER XI

PROPAGANDA AND ORGANIZATION

The year 1921 was specially important for me from many points of view.

When I entered the German Labour Party I at once took charge of the
propaganda, believing this branch to be far the most important for the
time being. Just then it was not a matter of pressing necessity to
cudgel one’s brains over problems of organization. The first necessity
was to spread our ideas among as many people as possible. Propaganda
should go well ahead of organization and gather together the human
material for the latter to work up. I have never been in favour of hasty
and pedantic methods of organization, because in most cases the result
is merely a piece of dead mechanism and only rarely a living
organization. Organization is a thing that derives its existence from
organic life, organic evolution. When the same set of ideas have found a
lodgement in the minds of a certain number of people they tend of
themselves to form a certain degree of order among those people and out
of this inner formation something that is very valuable arises. Of
course here, as everywhere else, one must take account of those human
weaknesses which make men hesitate, especially at the beginning, to
submit to the control of a superior mind. If an organization is imposed
from above downwards in a mechanical fashion, there is always the danger
that some individual may push himself forward who is not known for what
he is and who, out of jealousy, will try to hinder abler persons from
taking a leading place in the movement. The damage that results from
that kind of thing may have fatal consequences, especially in a new
movement.

For this reason it is advisable first to propagate and publicly expound
the ideas on which the movement is founded. This work of propaganda
should continue for a certain time and should be directed from one
centre. When the ideas have gradually won over a number of people this
human material should be carefully sifted for the purpose of selecting
those who have ability in leadership and putting that ability to the
test. It will often be found that apparently insignificant persons will
nevertheless turn out to be born leaders.

Of course, it is quite a mistake to suppose that those who show a very
intelligent grasp of the theory underlying a movement are for that
reason qualified to fill responsible positions on the directorate. The
contrary is very frequently the case.

Great masters of theory are only very rarely great organizers also. And
this is because the greatness of the theorist and founder of a system
consists in being able to discover and lay down those laws that are
right in the abstract, whereas the organizer must first of all be a man
of psychological insight. He must take men as they are, and for that
reason he must know them, not having too high or too low an estimate of
human nature. He must take account of their weaknesses, their baseness
and all the other various characteristics, so as to form something out
of them which will be a living organism, endowed with strong powers of
resistance, fitted to be the carrier of an idea and strong enough to
ensure the triumph of that idea.

But it is still more rare to find a great theorist who is at the same
time a great leader. For the latter must be more of an agitator, a truth
that will not be readily accepted by many of those who deal with
problems only from the scientific standpoint. And yet what I say is only
natural. For an agitator who shows himself capable of expounding ideas
to the great masses must always be a psychologist, even though he may be
only a demagogue. Therefore he will always be a much more capable leader
than the contemplative theorist who meditates on his ideas, far from the
human throng and the world. For to be a leader means to be able to move
the masses. The gift of formulating ideas has nothing whatsoever to do
with the capacity for leadership. It would be entirely futile to discuss
the question as to which is the more important: the faculty of
conceiving ideals and human aims or that of being able to have them put
into practice. Here, as so often happens in life, the one would be
entirely meaningless without the other. The noblest conceptions of the
human understanding remain without purpose or value if the leader cannot
move the masses towards them. And, conversely, what would it avail to
have all the genius and elan of a leader if the intellectual theorist
does not fix the aims for which mankind must struggle. But when the
abilities of theorist and organizer and leader are united in the one
person, then we have the rarest phenomenon on this earth. And it is that
union which produces the great man.

As I have already said, during my first period in the Party I devoted
myself to the work of propaganda. I had to succeed in gradually
gathering together a small nucleus of men who would accept the new
teaching and be inspired by it. And in this way we should provide the
human material which subsequently would form the constituent elements of
the organization. Thus the goal of the propagandist is nearly always
fixed far beyond that of the organizer.

If a movement proposes to overthrow a certain order of things and
construct a new one in its place, then the following principles must be
clearly understood and must dominate in the ranks of its leadership:
Every movement which has gained its human material must first divide
this material into two groups: namely, followers and members.

It is the task of the propagandist to recruit the followers and it is
the task of the organizer to select the members.

The follower of a movement is he who understands and accepts its aims;
the member is he who fights for them.

The follower is one whom the propaganda has converted to the doctrine of
the movement. The member is he who will be charged by the organization
to collaborate in winning over new followers from which in turn new
members can be formed.

To be a follower needs only the passive recognition of the idea. To be a
member means to represent that idea and fight for it. From ten followers
one can have scarcely more than two members. To be a follower simply
implies that a man has accepted the teaching of the movement; whereas to
be a member means that a man has the courage to participate actively in
diffusing that teaching in which he has come to believe.

Because of its passive character, the simple effort of believing in a
political doctrine is enough for the majority, for the majority of
mankind is mentally lazy and timid. To be a member one must be
intellectually active, and therefore this applies only to the minority.

Such being the case, the propagandist must seek untiringly to acquire
new followers for the movement, whereas the organizer must diligently
look out for the best elements among such followers, so that these
elements may be transformed into members. The propagandist need not
trouble too much about the personal worth of the individual proselytes
he has won for the movement. He need not inquire into their abilities,
their intelligence or character. From these proselytes, however, the
organizer will have to select those individuals who are most capable of
actively helping to bring the movement to victory.

The propagandist aims at inducing the whole people to accept his
teaching. The organizer includes in his body of membership only those
who, on psychological grounds, will not be an impediment to the further
diffusion of the doctrines of the movement.

The propagandist inculcates his doctrine among the masses, with the idea
of preparing them for the time when this doctrine will triumph, through
the body of combatant members which he has formed from those followers
who have given proof of the necessary ability and will-power to carry
the struggle to victory.

The final triumph of a doctrine will be made all the more easy if the
propagandist has effectively converted large bodies of men to the belief
in that doctrine and if the organization that actively conducts the
fight be exclusive, vigorous and solid.

When the propaganda work has converted a whole people to believe in a
doctrine, the organization can turn the results of this into practical
effect through the work of a mere handful of men. Propaganda and
organization, therefore follower and member, then stand towards one
another in a definite mutual relationship. The better the propaganda has
worked, the smaller will the organization be. The greater the number of
followers, so much the smaller can be the number of members. And
conversely. If the propaganda be bad, the organization must be large.
And if there be only a small number of followers, the membership must be
all the larger–if the movement really counts on being successful.

The first duty of the propagandist is to win over people who can
subsequently be taken into the organization. And the first duty of the
organization is to select and train men who will be capable of carrying
on the propaganda. The second duty of the organization is to disrupt the
existing order of things and thus make room for the penetration of the
new teaching which it represents, while the duty of the organizer must
be to fight for the purpose of securing power, so that the doctrine may
finally triumph.

A revolutionary conception of the world and human existence will always
achieve decisive success when the new WELTANSCHAUUNG has been taught to
a whole people, or subsequently forced upon them if necessary, and when,
on the other hand, the central organization, the movement itself, is in
the hands of only those few men who are absolutely indispensable to form
the nerve-centres of the coming State.

Put in another way, this means that in every great revolutionary
movement that is of world importance the idea of this movement must
always be spread abroad through the operation of propaganda. The
propagandist must never tire in his efforts to make the new ideas
clearly understood, inculcating them among others, or at least he must
place himself in the position of those others and endeavour to upset
their confidence in the convictions they have hitherto held. In order
that such propaganda should have backbone to it, it must be based on an
organization. The organization chooses its members from among those
followers whom the propaganda has won. That organization will become all
the more vigorous if the work of propaganda be pushed forward
intensively. And the propaganda will work all the better when the
organization back of it is vigorous and strong in itself.

Hence the supreme task of the organizer is to see to it that any discord
or differences which may arise among the members of the movement will
not lead to a split and thereby cramp the work within the movement.
Moreover, it is the duty of the organization to see that the fighting
spirit of the movement does not flag or die out but that it is
constantly reinvigorated and restrengthened. It is not necessary the
number of members should increase indefinitely. Quite the contrary would
be better. In view of the fact that only a fraction of humanity has
energy and courage, a movement which increases its own organization
indefinitely must of necessity one day become plethoric and inactive.
Organizations, that is to say, groups of members, which increase their
size beyond certain dimensions gradually lose their fighting force and
are no longer in form to back up the propagation of a doctrine with
aggressive elan and determination.

Now the greater and more revolutionary a doctrine is, so much the more
active will be the spirit inspiring its body of members, because the
subversive energy of such a doctrine will frighten way the
chicken-hearted and small-minded bourgeoisie. In their hearts they may
believe in the doctrine but they are afraid to acknowledge their belief
openly. By reason of this very fact, however, an organization inspired
by a veritable revolutionary idea will attract into the body of its
membership only the most active of those believers who have been won for
it by its propaganda. It is in this activity on the part of the
membership body, guaranteed by the process of natural selection, that we
are to seek the prerequisite conditions for the continuation of an
active and spirited propaganda and also the victorious struggle for the
success of the idea on which the movement is based.

The greatest danger that can threaten a movement is an abnormal increase
in the number of its members, owing to its too rapid success. So long as
a movement has to carry on a hard and bitter fight, people of weak and
fundamentally egotistic temperament will steer very clear of it; but
these will try to be accepted as members the moment the party achieves a
manifest success in the course of its development.

It is on these grounds that we are to explain why so many movements
which were at first successful slowed down before reaching the
fulfilment of their purpose and, from an inner weakness which could not
otherwise be explained, gave up the struggle and finally disappeared
from the field. As a result of the early successes achieved, so many
undesirable, unworthy and especially timid individuals became members of
the movement that they finally secured the majority and stifled the
fighting spirit of the others. These inferior elements then turned the
movement to the service of their personal interests and, debasing it to
the level of their own miserable heroism, no longer struggled for the
triumph of the original idea. The fire of the first fervour died out,
the fighting spirit flagged and, as the bourgeois world is accustomed to
say very justly in such cases, the party mixed water with its wine.

For this reason it is necessary that a movement should, from the sheer
instinct of self-preservation, close its lists to new membership the
moment it becomes successful. And any further increase in its
organization should be allowed to take place only with the most careful
foresight and after a painstaking sifting of those who apply for
membership. Only thus will it be possible to keep the kernel of the
movement intact and fresh and sound. Care must be taken that the conduct
of the movement is maintained exclusively in the hands of this original
nucleus. This means that the nucleus must direct the propaganda which
aims at securing general recognition for the movement. And the movement
itself, when it has secured power in its hands, must carry out all those
acts and measures which are necessary in order that its ideas should be
finally established in practice.

With those elements that originally made the movement, the organization
should occupy all the important positions that have been conquered and
from those elements the whole directorate should be formed. This should
continue until the maxims and doctrines of the party have become the
foundation and policy of the new State. Only then will it be permissible
gradually to give the reins into the hands of the Constitution of that
State which the spirit of the movement has created. But this usually
happens through a process of mutual rivalry, for here it is less a
question of human intelligence than of the play and effect of the forces
whose development may indeed be foreseen from the start but not
perpetually controlled.

All great movements, whether of a political or religious nature, owe
their imposing success to the recognition and adoption of those
principles. And no durable success is conceivable if these laws are not
observed.