What is Germany’s present situation? And what are the prospects for her future? And what kind of a future will this be?
The collapse which the German Folk suffered in 1918 lies, as I want once more to establish here, not in the overthrow of its military organisation, or in the loss of its weapons, but rather in its inner decay which was revealed at that time, and which today increasingly appears. This inner decay lies just as much in respect to the worsening of its racial value as in the loss of all those virtues which condition the greatness of a Folk, guarantee its existence, and promote its future.
Blood value, the idea of personality, and the instinct for self preservation, slowly threatened to be lost to the German Folk. Internationalism triumphs in its stead and destroys our Folk value, democracy spreads by stifling the idea of personality, and in the end an evil pacifistic liquid manure poisons the mentality favouring bold self preservation. We see the effects of this vice of mankind appear in the whole life of our Folk. Not only does it make itself noticeable in the field of political concerns, no, but also in that of economy, and not least in that of our cultural life, so that, if it is not brought to a halt once and for all, our Folk will be excluded from the number of nations with a future.
The great domestic task of the future lies in the elimination of these general symptoms of the decay of our Folk.
This is the mission of the National Socialist Movement. A new nation must arise from this work which overcomes even the worst evils of the present, the cleavage between the classes, for which the bourgeoisie and Marxism are equally guilty.
The aim of this reform work of a domestic political kind must finally be the regaining of our Folk’s strength for the prosecution of its struggle for existence and thereby the strength to represent its vital interests abroad.
Our foreign policy is also presented by this with a task that it must fulfil. For the more domestic policy must furnish the Folkish instrument of strength to foreign policy, the more must also foreign policy, through the actions and measures it adopts, promote and support the formation of this instrument.
If the foreign policy task of the old bourgeois national State had primarily been that of the further unification in Europe of those belonging to the German Nation in order then to work up to a higher territorial policy viewed in Folkish terms, then the foreign policy task of the post War period must at the outset be one that promotes the forging of the internal instrument of power. For the foreign policy aspirations of the pre War period had at their disposal a State that perhaps was not very highly exigent in a Folkish sense, but which had a wonderful Army establishment. Even if Germany of that time had long since ceased to place such an emphasis on the military, as for example Old Prussia, and therefore was outmatched by other States, especially in the extent of the Army organisation, nevertheless the inner quality of the Old Army was incomparably superior to all other similar institutions. At that time this best instrument of the art of war stood at the disposal of a State leadership with a bold foreign policy. In consequence of this instrument as well as of the general high esteem which it enjoyed, the freedom of our Folk was not only a result of our factually proved strength, but rather of the general credit that we possessed in consequence of this remarkable Army instrument, as well as partly in consequence of the rest of the exemplarily clean State apparatus.
The German Folk no longer possesses this most important instrument for the defence of a nation’s interests, or at least it possesses it to a completely insufficient extent, and very far removed from the foundation which conditioned its former strength.
The German Folk has acquired a mercenary Army. In Germany, these mercenary troops run the danger of sinking to the level of policemen armed with special technical weapons. The comparison of the German mercenary Army with the English turns out unfavourably to the Germans. The English mercenary army was always the bearer of England’s military defence and aggressive ideas as well as of her military tradition. In her mercenary troops and the militia system peculiar to her, England possessed the Army organisation which, in view of her insular position sufficed, indeed seemed suitable for fighting to the finish for England’s vital interests. The idea of manifesting English power of resistance in such a form in no way sprang from cowardice, in order thereby to be able to spare shedding the blood of the English Folk. On the contrary. England fought with mercenaries as long as they sufficed for the defence of England’s interests. She called for volunteers immediately the struggle required a greater commitment. She introduced general military conscription immediately the needs of the country demanded it. For regardless of how the momentary organisation of the English power of resistance looked, it was always committed in a dauntless struggle for England. And the formal army organisation in England was always only an instrument for the defence of English interests, committed with a will, which did not even shrink, if necessary, from demanding the blood of the whole nation.
Wherever England’s interests were decisively at stake, she at any rate knew how to preserve a hegemony which, considered purely technically, goes as far as the demand for a two power standard. If we compare the infinitely responsible [solicitous] care shown here with the frivolousness with which Germany, and national bourgeois Germany at that, neglected her armaments in the pre War period, we must still today be gripped by a deep sadness. Just as England knew that her future, indeed her existence, depended on the strength of her fleet, so should this bourgeois national Germany have known that the existence and future of the German Reich depended on the strength of our land power. In Europe, Germany should have had to counter the two power standard on land to the two power standard on the seas. And just as England with an iron determination saw a reason for going to war at every violation of this standard, so did Germany have to prevent every attempt in Europe to outflank her army through France and Russia by a military decision, even one which had to be precipitated, and for which more than one favourable opportunity had presented itself. Even here this bourgeoisie misused one of Bismarck’s utterances in a most senseless way. Bismarck’s assertion that he did not intend to wage preventive war was joyfully seized upon by all weak, energyless and also irresponsible armchair politicians as a cover for the disastrous consequences of their anything goes policy. Only thereby they completely forgot that all three wars which Bismarck had conducted were wars which, at least according to the conceptions of these anti preventive war peace philosophers, could have been avoided. Consider, for example, what insults by Napoleon III in 1870 would have to be heaped on the German Republic of today for it to decide to request M. Benedetti to moderate his tone somewhat. Neither Napoleon nor the whole French Folk would ever have been able to incite the German Republic of today to a Sedan: or does one believe that if Bismarck had not wanted a decision, the war of 1866 could not have been prevented? Now here it can be objected that this was a question of wars with clearly set aims, and not of a kind whose only ground lies in the fear of an attack by the enemy. But in reality this is only word splitting. Because Bismarck was convinced that the struggle with Austria was inevitable, he prepared himself for it and carried it through when the occasion suited Prussia. The reform of the French army by Marshal Niel made clearly perceptible the intention to give French policy and French chauvinism a forceful weapon for an attack against Germany. As a matter of fact, it would doubtless have been possible for Bismarck to bring the conflict to some kind of a peaceful solution in 1870. But it was more expedient for him to fight it out to the finish at a time when the French army organisation had not yet arrived at its full efficiency. Moreover, all these interpretations of Bismarckian utterances suffer from one thing, namely, they confuse Bismarck the diplomat with a republican parliamentarian. How Bismarck himself judged such utterances is best shown in his reply to a questioner before the outbreak of the Prussian Austrian War, who would have very much liked to know whether Bismarck really intended to attack Austria, whereupon the latter, with an impervious expression, replied: No, I have no intention of attacking Austria, but neither would I have the intention of telling them, in case I wanted to attack her.