Hitler’s Ideology

The following article was taken, with generous permission from Castle Hill Publishers, from the recently published second edition of Richard Tedor’s study Hitler’s Revolution: Ideology, Social Programs, Foreign Affairs (Castle Hill Publishers, Uckfield, December 2021; see the book announcement in this issue of Inconvenient History). In this book, it forms the first chapter. This is the first sequel of a serialized version of the entire book, which will be published step by step in future issues of Inconvenient History. The last installment will also include a bibliography, with more info on sources mentioned in the endnotes. Illustrated print and eBook versions of this book are available from Armreg at armreg.co.uk.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Introduction

Certain historical eras are timeless in their facility to inspire curiosity and imagination. Ancient Egypt and Rome recall grandeur and power while the Renaissance stands as a marvelous expression of human creativity. Napoleonic France demonstrates that one man’s purpose can define an age, and the American Wild West personifies the ruggedness and adventurous spirit of the pioneer generations that conquered a continent. There is much to be learned from milestones of civilization, though people interpret events differently, conforming to their particular beliefs and interests.

A comparative newcomer to the chronology of significant epochs is National-Socialist Germany. Richly intriguing and not without arousing a sense of awe, she exerted tremendous influence in her time; a circumstance that is quite remarkable given the comparatively short duration of the era. The antithesis of democratic values in a century witnessing the triumph of democracy, Germany went down fighting. The task of recording the history of the period is therefore largely in the hands of the country’s former enemies. One of the flaws in their annals is the superficial assumption that National Socialism was a rootless political program and the product of one man’s worldview. There was in fact a conscious endeavor by the National Socialists to align policies with German and European customs and practices. They believed their goals corresponded to the natural progression of their continent and found the diametrical Western-democratic concept to be foreign and immoral.

A political creed claiming to defend freedom of choice, democracy ascended not because of universal popularity, but through overwhelming economic and military force. This in no sense diminishes its claim to moral leadership in the realm of statecraft. Against somewhat novel democratic beliefs in multiculturalism, majority rule, feminism, universal equality and globalization once stood social and political conventions of Europe that had matured over centuries of conflict and compromise, of contemplation and discovery. The conviction that a nation possesses its own ethos, a collective personality based on related ethnic heritage and not just on language or environment, has no merit in democratic thinking; nor does the belief in a natural ranking within mankind determined by performance.

During the first half of the 20th Century, two world wars ultimately imposed democratic governments on European states that had been pursuing a separate way of life. One of the most successful weapons in the arsenal of democracy was atrocity propaganda. It demonized the enemy, motivating Allied armies and promoting their cause abroad. It justified the most ruthless means to destroy him. It defined the struggle as one of good versus evil, simplifying understanding for the populations of the United States and the British Commonwealth. The atrocities that Allied propagandists attribute to Germany, the backbone of resistance against Western democracy, remain lavishly publicized to this day. Conducted more zealously by the entertainment industry than by historians, this is largely an emotional presentation. The lurid appeal negates for the future a logical, impartial evaluation of political alternatives. This is unfortunate, since comparison is one of life’s best tools for learning.

It is a common trait of human nature to often judge the validity of an argument less by what is said than by who is saying it. Casting doubt on the personal integrity of an opponent can be more influential than rational discussion to refute his doctrines. In Adolf Hitler, Germany had a wartime leader whose concept of an authoritarian, socialist state represented a serious challenge to democratic opinion. Indignant that anyone could harbor such views in so enlightened an age, and especially that he could promote them so effectively, contemporary historians provide a myriad of theories for his dissent. Thus we read that Hitler’s obsession with black magic and astrology impelled him to start the war, he was mentally deranged due to inbreeding in the family, he was embarrassed by his Jewish ancestry, he was homosexual, he had a dysfunctional childhood, he became frustrated by failing as an artist, he was born with underdeveloped testicles and so forth.

It would be more useful for the authors of such legends to question for example why, after the victorious Allies established democratic governments throughout Europe in 1919, this state form became practically extinct there in 20 years. Russia, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Germany, Greece, Spain, Slovakia, and soon thereafter France adopted authoritarian regimes. Several of these countries closed ranks with Germany. Hitler gave viable, popular political form to a growing anti-liberal tendency on the continent. Volunteers from over 30 nations enlisted to fight in the German armed forces during World War II. Only by the sword did the Western democracies and their Soviet ally bring them to heel. Surely the motives of such men merit investigation. Simply dismissing the leader who harnessed and directed these dynamic human resources as a demented megalomaniac is no explanation.

During the 1990’s, Russian historians gained temporary access to previously classified Soviet war archives. In recent decades, the British government has gradually released long-sealed, relevant papers to the Public Record Office. Their perusal provides a more balanced insight into the causes of the war and the aims of world leaders involved. This study draws on the published research of primarily German historians, minimizing sources in print in English. This is to provide readers in America and in the United Kingdom with material otherwise unavailable to them.

Liberally quoting from German periodicals circulated during the Hitler era will acquaint the student of history with essential elements of National-Socialist ideology just as it was presented to the German public. No one can accurately judge the actions of a people during a particular epoch without grasping the spirit of the times in which they lived. The goal of this book is to contribute to this understanding.

The Rise of Liberalism

National Socialism was not a spontaneous phenomenon that derailed Germany’s evolution and led the country astray. It was a movement anchored deeply in the traditions and heritage of the German people and their fundamental requirements for life. Adolf Hitler gave tangible political expression to ideas nurtured by many of his countrymen that they considered complimentary to their national character. Though his “opposition” party’s popular support was mainly a reaction to universal economic distress, Hitler’s coming to power was nonetheless a logical consequence of German development.

True to the nationalist trend of his age, Hitler promoted Germany’s self-sufficiency and independence. His party advocated the sovereignty of nations. This helped place the German realm, or Reich, on a collision course with a diametrical philosophy of life, a world ideology established in Europe and North America for well over a century: liberalism. During Hitler’s time, it already exercised considerable influence on Western civilization. It was an ambitious ideal, inspiring followers with an international sense of mission to spread “liberty, equality, and brotherhood” to mankind. National Socialism rejected liberal democracy as repugnant to German morality and to natural order.

Liberalism had been crucial for humanity’s transition into the modern age. During medieval times, feudalism had prevailed in Europe. Local lords parceled land to farmers and artisans in exchange for foodstuffs, labor and military service. This fragmented political system, void of central government, gradually succumbed to the authority of kings. Supported by narrow strata of noblesse and clergy, the royals became “absolute monarchs”, supposedly ruling by divine right. Common people found little opportunity for advancement. Only those choosing a career with the church received an education. Kingdoms provided the basis for modern central governments but contributed little else to progress.

The Revival of Learning, with its interest in surviving literature from the Ancient World, led men to contemplate alternatives to the socially and politically stagnant royal regimen. The Renaissance was Europe’s intellectual and cultural rebellion against “absolute monarchy” and its spiritual ally, the clergy. Defying religious superstition and intolerance, the great minds of the age exalted reason above all. Awareness of the common man’s latent mental aptitude animated respect for the individual. Liberalism emerged as his liberator from the bondage of absolutism. It defined the state’s primary role as guarantor of one’s freedom and right to realize full potential in life.

This concept acquired political form during the 18th Century. Discoveries by British and European inventors provided a suitable complement to the new emphasis on intellect. The American Revolution of 1776 – 1783, waged against the English Crown, founded the first modern state based on liberal principles. It represented a near reversal in the roles of government and governed: The United States Constitution included a Bill of Rights that placed significant limitations on the authority of the elected representatives rather than on the population. In theory the people themselves ruled. The French Revolution introduced democracy to Europe and opened a promising field of opportunity for the common man. The Declaration of Human Rights guaranteed the French citizen freedom of thought and expression, private ownership and security. The new Republic released the French peasant from bondage and dismantled royal restrictions on commerce.

Republican France fought a series of wars against European monarchies. The French army, comprising all strata of society, mirrored the revolutionary spirit that dethroned absolutism. The Republic’s minister of war, Nicolas Carnot, held military commanders to standards of conduct toward their subordinates. When the elder General Philippe de Custine once threatened deserters with the firing squad, Carnot rebuked him, explaining that “free citizens of France obey orders not out of fear, but because of confidence in their brothers” in command.[1]

In a 1940 essay, the German historian Bernhard Schwertfeger analyzed the French army:

“In the absolutist state structure of the 18th Century, the population customarily regarded grand politics with indifference. The revolution in France drew the people into its vortex… One of the chief principles of the French Revolution was that in case of war everyone had to defend the fatherland. The entire resources of the nation were therefore available in an instant. While wars were previously just private affairs of the princes, now they evolved into a question of survival for the entire nation.”[2]

Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor of France in 1804, but retained liberal principles adopted by the army. He arranged for soldiers demonstrating leadership qualities to be promoted regardless of birth or status. Since two thirds of France’s imperial officers had left service from the time of the revolution, positions of command became open to men displaying ability. Napoleon granted field officers greater latitude in judgment calls during combat.

In October 1806, the French citizens’ army routed Germany’s elite, the Prussian and Saxon armies, at Jena and Auerstadt. The Prussian infantry was disciplined and obedient with a defined command structure, while Napoleon made tactical decisions as the fighting developed and relied on the initiative of subordinates to outmaneuver the enemy as opportunities arose. At Auerstadt, the German frontline troops resisted bravely for hours, while 18,000 reserves stood idly by because there were no orders from the commander-in-chief, the Duke of Brunswick, to advance. None of their officers displayed independent judgment and led the men forward.

Witnessing the German defeat was the infantry Captain Neidhard von Gneisenau. His recommendations for reforming the Prussian army, summarized the following July, maintained that not superior strategy, but a new philosophy of life was the genesis of the enemy’s success:

“The revolution has awakened all the power of the nation and given each an appropriate field of endeavor. In this way heroes came to lead the army, statesmen the loftiest administrative posts, and finally at the head of a great people the greatest man among them. What limitless power lies undeveloped and unused within the womb of a nation!… Why do the nobles not choose this source to increase their power a thousand-fold, and open the portal of triumph for the ordinary citizen, the portal through which now only the nobility may pass? The new age needs more than ancient names, titles, and parchment. It needs fresh deeds and vitality!”[3]

Gneisenau defined how to overcome France’s control of Europe:

“Should the other states want to restore the balance, they must open the same resources and utilize them. They must embrace the consequences of the revolution as their own.”[4]

At the Treaty of Tilsit, Bonaparte had allowed the Prussian king to maintain just 42,000 men under arms. This drastically reduced the number of active officers; of 143 generals only eight remained in service. Gneisenau and General Gerhard Johann von Scharnhorst restructured the armed service free from the interference of a professional military hierarchy. Local militias became the nucleus of a national army. The broad participation of the public unavoidably began shifting political power from the monarchy to the people. As the king reviewed the first militia battalions, he remarked, “There below marches the revolution.”[5]

At this time, German patriots such as Freiherr von Stein, Ernst Moritz Arndt and Gottfried Fichte promoted civil reform, partially adopting liberal values. A populist revolutionary movement led to the Prussian-German uprising against Napoleon and drove the French out. Unlike France in 1789, the Germans, not consolidated under a central government, did not revolt against the royal house. The German patriots advocated unity among their countrymen. The goal was to reform and not overthrow the existing order. Thus, after a limited revolution in 1848, Germany evolved into a constitutional monarchy.

German reforms were, of course, a necessity. A foreign invader had conquered and partially occupied the country. Napoleon had ruthlessly drained Prussia of resources; three out of four children born in Berlin under French rule died of malnourishment. The failure of the aristocracy to defend the land revealed the need for a revised state form, and German thinkers recognized the role that the population must now play as a decisive military and political factor. They acknowledged the potential of the individual. Maintaining faith in state authority, however, the Germans did not envision government purely as the people’s servant. Liberalism nonetheless became popular in Germany during the 19th Century. It eclipsed the influence of the German intellectual movement, which groped for a balance between freedom and authority. This latent force became a cornerstone of Hitler’s ideology in the time to come.

Democracy

As Europe lost confidence in the feudal-monarchial system that had ruled for centuries, liberalism offered a political alternative. Its great legacy was making people conscious of their individual human rights, regardless of birth, and their right to representation in government. To many, the democratic concept became synonymous with liberty itself. Hitler gained power in Germany in 1933 through constitutional means, yet campaigned to eradicate democracy. The National Socialists interpreted individual freedom differently, in a way which they argued was more realistic for Germany’s circumstances.

National-Socialist propagandists publicly acknowledged the contribution of liberalism. Writing in Die SA (The S.A.), the weekly magazine of the party’s storm troops, Dr. Theo Rehm cited liberalism’s decisive role in leading Germany into the modern age:

“It should not be disputed that liberalism has rendered great services. Thanks to the acceptance of liberal thinking, the middle class especially, but other social strata as well, experienced a major spiritual and economic impetus. Many valuable elements that would otherwise have lain fallow and undiscovered were unleashed to the benefit of all and put into action. It should also not be forgotten that after the wars of liberation (against Napoleon), the best representatives of German liberalism stood at the vanguard of the struggle for Germany’s unity against the interests of the egocentric princely dynasties.”[6]

Rehm nevertheless condemned the basic premise of liberalism:

“The absolute freedom of liberalism will ultimately jeopardize the benefits of community life for people in a state. Attempting to place the individual ahead of the nation is wrong… For the individual to live, the nation first must itself live; this requires that one cannot do what he wants, but must align himself with the common interests of the people and accordingly accept limitations and sacrifices.”[7]

Hitler advocated an organic state form. Like a biological organism, the government organizes society so that every component performs an individual function for the common good. No single stratum elevates itself to the detriment of the others. The organism prospers as an entity. In this way, so does each individual person or class. Society works in harmony, healthy and strongly unified against external influences or intrusion. As defined in the periodical Germanisches Leitheft (Germanic Guidelines):

“Every individual element within the Reich preserves its independent character, yet nonetheless subordinates itself to its role in the community.”[8]

In Hitler’s words from a November 1930 speech:

“Proper is what serves the entire community and not the individual… The whole is paramount, is essential. Only through it does the individual receive his share in life, and when his share defies the laws of the entity, then human reason dictates that the interest of the whole must precede his interests.”[9]

To organize persons into a cooperative, functional society requires that its members renounce certain personal ambitions for the welfare of others. Mutual concessions signify a willingness to work together. The common goals of society, such as defense, trade, prosperity, companionship, and securing nourishment, people achieve through compromise for the good of all. Hitler believed that a nation disregarding this will not survive. He declared in an address in April 1937:

“This state came into being, and all states come into being, through overcoming interests of pure personal will and individual selfishness. Democracy steers recklessly toward placing the individual in the center of everything. In the long run, it is impossible to escape the crisis such a conflict will produce.”[10]

In Die SA, Rehm warned that without controls, the free reign of personal ambition leads to abuse:

“In as much as liberalism was once of service in promoting the value of individual initiative and qualities of leadership, its ideals of freedom and personality have degenerated into the concept of downright arbitrary conduct in personal life, but even more so in economic and commercial life.”[11]

An article in the May 1937 Der Schulungsbrief (Instructional Essays), a monthly ideological journal, discussed liberalism’s naïve faith in “the natural goodness of the free personality.” The author, Eberhard Kautter, explained the logic of how this applies to business life in a democracy:

“With respect to forming the economy, liberalism assumes that one must simply leave it up to the individual active in commerce as he pursues his interests undisturbed, as the surest way to realize full potential and achieve a healthy national economy… The liberal social principle is based on the expectation that the liberation of the individual, in harmony with the free play of forces, will lead to independently formed and fair economic conditions and social order.”[12]

The German Institute for the Science of Labor concluded in its 1940/41 yearbook that liberal economic policies bring about “the destruction of any orderly society,” since persons in commerce “are released from every political and social responsibility.”[13] Germanisches Leitheft saw in the free play of forces an unbridled pursuit of personal wealth that contradicts the spirit of an organized society:

“There is ultimately no longer a sacred moral bonding of the individual to a community, and no bond of person to person through the concepts of honor or personal trust. There is no mutual connection or relationship among them beyond purely material, self-seeking interests; that is, acquiring money.”[14]

The journalist Giselher Wirsing cited the United States, the paragon of capitalist free enterprise, as an example of how liberal economic policies gradually create social imbalance with crass discrepancies between want and abundance:

“Even in America herself, Americanism no longer spreads prosperity and improves the standard of living of the broad masses, but only maintains the lifestyle of the privileged upper class.”[15]

A German study on the depression-era United States, Was will Roosevelt? (What Does Roosevelt Want?), added this:

“So in the USA, one finds along with dazzling displays of wealth in extravagant, parvenu luxury, unimaginable poverty and social depravity… In the richest country in the world, the vaunted paradise of democracy, tens of thousands of American families endure the most meager existence. Malnutrition among millions of children and other citizens is so widespread that a third of the entire North American population is malnourished.”[16]

Hitler’s own voice on the subject from a July 1930 speech reaffirmed his contention that a community stands or falls as one:

“I believe that our nation cannot continue to exist as a nation unless every part is healthy. I cannot imagine a future for our people, when on one side I see well-fed citizens walking around, while on the other wander emaciated laborers.”[17]

His interpretation of an organically regulated state, and liberal democracy’s emphasis on individual liberty, naturally require different perceptions as to the role of government. The June 1937 edition of Der Schulungsbrief offered this analysis:

“Since liberalism believes in the sanctity and limitless reasoning power of the individual, it denies the state’s right to rule and its duty to direct society. To liberalism, the state is nothing more than the personification of every unjust use of force. It therefore seeks to reduce the authority of the state in every way.”[18]

Die SA summarized that

“according to liberal perception, the state has no other task than that of a night watchman, namely to protect the life and property of the individual.”[19]

As for the parliamentary system of representative government, the same publication condemned it as follows:

“The demand of the people to participate in government was justifiable and understandable in the new age, when politics was no longer purely an affair of the ruling dynasties but a matter involving the entire nation. The damaging influence and weakness of the parliamentary form of government soon became apparent… The participation of the people exists only on paper. In reality, career politicians get regularly elected to parliament though various parties they founded. They have made a novel occupation out of this activity. As has long become apparent, they focus not on the welfare of the people and of the state, but on their personal interests or certain financial circles standing behind them.”[20]

Hitler argued that the absence of sufficient state controls in a democracy enables the wealthy class to manipulate the economy, the press and elected representatives for its own gain. A widening gulf between poverty and affluence develops, gradually dragging the working class to ruin. Addressing Berlin armaments workers in December 1940, he claimed that the public’s voice in democratic systems is an illusion:

“In these countries, money in fact rules. That ultimately means a group of a few hundred persons who possess enormous fortunes. As a result of the singular construction of the state, this group is more or less totally independent and free… Free enterprise this group understands as the freedom not only to amass capital, but especially to use it freely; that is, free from state or national supervision.

So one might imagine that in these countries of freedom and wealth, unheard-of public prosperity exists… On the contrary, in those countries class distinctions are the most crass one could think of: unimaginable poverty on one hand and equally unimaginable riches on the other. These are the lands that control the treasures of the earth, and their workers live in miserable dumps… In these lands of so-called democracy, the people are never the primary consideration. Paramount is the existence of those few who pull the strings in a democracy, the several hundred major capitalists who control the wealth and the stock market. The broad masses don’t interest them in the least, except during elections.”[21]

Die SA discussed another fault of parliamentary systems particularly irksome to Hitler:

“There is practically no responsibility in a democracy. The anonymity of the majority of the moment decides. Government ministers are subject to it, but there is no opportunity to hold this majority responsible. As a result, the door is open to political carelessness and negligence, to corruption and fiscal mismanagement. The history of democracies mostly represents a history of scandals.”[22]

According to Was will Roosevelt?:

“Corruption has spread so much that…no American citizen gets upset anymore over incidents of shameless corruption in civil service, because mismanagement is regarded as a natural phenomenon of government that can’t be changed.”[23]

Hitler once recalled how a visit in his youth to the Austrian parliament revealed “the obvious lack of responsibility in a single person.”[24] Germanisches Leitheft stated:

“Absence of responsibility is the most striking indication of a lack of morality.”[25]

Democracy failed because it was a product of liberalism. Focus on the individual led to “self-idolatry and renunciation of the community, the unraveling of healthy, orderly natural life,” according to the German army brochure Wofür kämpfen wir? (What do we fight for?):

“The inordinate value placed on material possessions from the economic standpoint formed social classes and fractured the community. Not those of good character enjoyed greater respect, but the rich… Labor no longer served as a means to elevate the worth of the community, but purely one’s own interests. Commerce developed independently of the people and the state, into an entity whose only purpose was to pile up fortunes.”[26]

The periodical NS Briefe (NS Essays) summarized:

“Freedom cannot be made identical to arbitrariness, lack of restraint and egoistic inconsideration.”[27]

Hitler regarded liberalism’s de-emphasis on communal responsibility as an obstacle to national unity. According to NS Briefe:

“By National-Socialist definition, free is he who recognizes the personal bond to his people, the personal limitations as dictated by their necessitites of life that this demands of him, and embraces them.”[28]

Hitler took the rein of government in hand in a liberal political climate. To overcome the liberal ideal, which for many was freedom personified, he introduced an alternative state form. It created opportunities for self-development, but also instructed Germans in obedience. In so doing, Hitler eventually achieved the parity between individual liberty and state authority long contemplated by the German intellectual movement of the previous century.

The Authoritarian State

The National Socialists described their government as an authoritarian state. This was roughly a compromise between the liberal concept that administrations exist to serve the public, and absolutism’s doctrine granting the head of state supreme authority to make political decisions. It disallowed the majority’s voice in government, but promoted the welfare of diverse social and economic groups evenly. Die SA offered this definition of the authoritarian state:

“It rests in the hands of the leader alone. He forms and directs his cabinet which makes policy decisions. But he also bears sole accountability to the nation for his actions. The diverse interests of individual strata of society he brings into harmony and balances in conformity with the general interests of the people. This is accomplished through the endeavors of representatives who work within their group’s respective occupations, but possess no political authority. In this way, conflicts of interest and class struggle are eliminated, as is unilateral control by any commercial or political special interest group.”[29]

In 1936, Hitler stressed that

“a regime must be independent of such special interests. It must keep focused on the interests of everyone before the interests of one.”[30]

With respect to commerce, he announced that he intended

“to crush the illusion that the economy in a state can conduct an unbridled, uncontrollable, and unsupervised life of its own.”[31]

As Führer, or leader of the nation, he reserved the right to take whatever action he considered appropriate. During a wartime speech he told military personnel:

“When I recognize a concept as correct, I not only have the duty to convey this to my fellow citizens, but moreover the duty to eliminate contrary interpretations.”[32]

Under National Socialism, the head of state wielded supreme power. This was with the understanding that there would be no favoritism directing public affairs, and that “along with the loftiest unlimited authority, the leader bears the final, heaviest responsibility,” as stated in NS Briefe.[33] Rehm offered this explanation in Die SA:

“This system differs from dictatorship in that the appointed leader accepts responsibility before the people and is sustained by the confidence of the nation. The people govern themselves through the leader they have chosen. His actions ensure that the leadership of the state is in harmony with the overall interests of the nation and its views. The essence of this system is overcoming party differences, formation of a genuine national community, and the unsurpassed greatness of the leadership as prerequisites. The leader of the authoritarian state personifies the principle of Friedrich the Great: I am the first servant of the state.”[34]

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, in charge of propaganda in Hitler’s cabinet, contrasted democracy with the authoritarian state in a speech to foreign journalists in Geneva in September 1933:

“The people and the government in Germany are one. The will of the people is the will of the government and vice versa. The modern state form in Germany is a refined type of democracy, governed by authoritarian principles through the power of the people’s mandate. There is no possibility that through parliamentary fluctuations, the will of the people can somehow be swept aside or rendered unproductive… The principle of democracy is completely misunderstood if one concludes from it that nations want to govern themselves. They can’t do it nor do they want to. Their only wish is that the regime governs well. They consider themselves fortunate when in the awareness that their government is working to the best of its knowledge and in good conscience for the welfare and prosperity of the people in its charge.”[35]

The authoritarian state form required that only persons exhibiting natural leadership ability assume positions of responsibility. Hitler spoke of the importance of finding such individuals during a speech in Berlin in February 1933:

“We want to ensure the opportunity for the German spirit to evolve, to re-establish the value of personality as an eternal priority; that is, promote the creative genius of the individual. In this way, we want to sever ties with any appearance of a listless democracy. We want to replace it with the timeless awareness that everything great can only spring from the force of the individual personality, and that everything destined to last must again be entrusted to the abilities of the individual personality.”[36]

National Socialism adopted liberalism’s practice of creating opportunities for advancement for persons in the community. It disputed however, the population’s right and ability to select leaders. Democracy allows the voters to choose their representatives. As a safeguard against tyrants, the parliamentary system favors moderation. It supposedly frowns on assertive persons accustomed to independent initiative. Hitler argued that this practice “thwarts the freedom of action and creative possibilities of the personality and shackles any talent for leadership.”[37] He later wrote that democracy

“floods all political life with the least worthy elements of our times. In the same measure that the true leader will distance himself from political activity that does not consist for the most part of creative achievement and industriousness, but instead in haggling and in currying favor with the majority, such activities will suit little minds and draw them to politics.”

Therefore, “timid do-nothings and blabbermouths,” especially those fearing decision-making and accountability, will seek office:[38]

“Democracy in its truest sense is the mortal enemy of all talent.”[39]

When Goebbels announced at the 1933 Berlin radio exhibition that Hitler’s revolution has “dethroned unbridled individualism,” this did not imply curtailing freedom for personal development.[40] Hitler clarified his party’s position in a January 1941 address:

“First we fell victim to one extreme, the liberal, individualistic one that not only elevates the individual to the focal point of consideration, but allows this viewpoint to determine all of our actions. On the opposite side stood before our people the allure of the theory of humanity as a universal concept that the individual is morally obligated to serve. And between these two extremes is our ideal; the nation, in which we behold a spiritual and physical community that providence created and therefore wanted, which we are a part of. Through it alone we can control our existence… It represents a triumph over individualism, but not in the sense that individual aptitude is stifled or the initiative of the individual is paralyzed; only in the sense that common interests stand above individual freedom and all individual initiative.”[41]

The National-Socialist government assigned German schools to train the country’s cadre of future leaders. Der Schulungsbrief defined it in this way:

“Education receives the twofold task of molding strong personalities and committing them to community thinking. The primary objective of ideological instruction is formation of a solid, community-oriented viewpoint. Building assertive personalities demands steady competitive performance, selecting the most accomplished, and setting standards of achievement according to questions of character, will and ability. Only achievement justifies advancement.”[42]

Opportunities for self-development in the authoritarian state conformed to the National-Socialist concept of individual freedom:

“Being free is not doing what you want, but becoming what you are supposed to be.”[43]

The Struggle for Labor

The Industrial Revolution paralleled Western civilization’s political transition during the 18th Century. James Watt’s development of the condensing steam engine in 1769 and Edmund Cartwright’s inventions of the power loom and wool combing machine a few years later introduced the age of weaving mills, coal mines and factories. The need for manpower to fill manufacturing jobs attracted rural folk (many of whom had lost their livelihood to mass production) to city-based industry. In the 1840s, expanding railroads facilitated their migration to the major population centers. This created a new class of people: labor.

Concentrated in squalid, overcrowded lodgings, members of Europe’s industrial workforce had a comparatively low standard of living. Men, women and children toiled for excessively long work days in unhealthy and often unsafe conditions for meager wages. These circumstances, together with social isolation from the rest of the population, gradually led to the political radicalization of labor. In Germany, the president of the Prussian cabinet, Otto von Bismarck, promoted social reform to relieve the distress. He advocated legislation in 1863 to provide pensions for retired workers and to establish a protective association for Silesian weavers. The latter program Bismarck financed personally. The Prussian cabinet and parliament – liberal, clerical and conservative delegates alike – opposed reform. They considered the programs socialistic and contrary to the free play of forces.

Undaunted, Bismarck discussed labor issues in May 1863 with Ferdinand Lassalle, the founder of the Universal German Workers Union. They covered voting rights for labor, state-sponsored workers’ associations and disability insurance. Lassalle eventually became frustrated with parliamentary opposition and remarked a year later, “revolution is the only remedy.”[44] His death in a duel was nevertheless a setback for constructive efforts to incorporate labor into the populace as a cohesive element. Social ostracism led to resentment among workers. In 1875, the periodical of the Social Democratic Workers Party, Volksstaat (The People’s State) declared:

“Class hatred forms the basis for today’s society.”[45]

Certain reforms Bismarck managed to legislate fell short of his goals and of laborers’ expectations. The inexorable radicalization of labor ultimately found expression in the doctrines of Karl Marx. Banned from Germany in 1848, Marx formulated his political-economic program in England. He based his conclusions, published in Das Kapital, mainly on the findings of government commissions surveying labor conditions in English factories. His ideas found a receptive audience among working Germans. Whereas early socialist reformers like Wilhelm Weitling had fought for labor’s acceptance into the German national community, Marx propounded class warfare. The exploited labor stratum, Marx preached, owed no allegiance to its nationality, but should seek solidarity with oppressed workers, the so-called proletariat, of other countries.

A fresh wave of nationalism swept Germany when World War I broke out in August 1914. Members of the middle class, common laborers and tradesmen fought side by side in the German army during the prolonged struggle. The comradeship at the front partially overcame class barriers and diminished individualist attitudes. Within Germany, the endless nature of the conflict, food shortages, and the government’s neglect of domestic morale led to war fatigue. When the Bolsheviks, a Marxist revolutionary movement, overthrew the Russian government and concluded a peace treaty with Germany and her allies in March 1918, this encouraged German Marxists. They organized public demonstrations by labor as well as strikes and finally a naval mutiny. This helped topple the emperor. A democratic government assumed power, and Germany concluded an armistice with her Western adversary, the Entente, in November 1918.

Supported by the Bolsheviks in Russia, German Marxists established Soviet republics within the Reich. The military commander of the Communist Party of Germany, Hans Kippenberger, stated:

“Armed insurrection is the most decisive, severe, and loftiest form of class struggle which the proletariat must resort to, at the right moment in every country to overthrow the rule of the bourgeois and place power in our own hands.”[46]

The month-old Spartacus League staged a Communist uprising in Berlin in January 1919. German military formations suppressed it, causing considerable loss of life. The army quickly crushed Soviet republics proclaimed in Brunswick and Baden. The Communist seizure of Munich in April led to another armed clash, resulting in 927 deaths. The German army and patriotic militia known as the Freikorps (Volunteer Corps) put down additional Soviet revolts throughout Germany over the next three years.

Despite the unifying influence of the World War, class distinctions resurfaced during the 1920s. The largely impoverished middle class maintained social aloofness from the industrial workforce. Labor was consequently still susceptible to Communist propaganda about exploitation by capitalism. The Red Front attracted millions of followers during the politically tumultuous years of Germany’s Weimar Republic. The Communists sought power through elections after 1923.

To win labor for his cause, Hitler endeavored to make the destructive nature of Marxism apparent to German working men and women. National Socialism described it as a perverse by-product of the Industrial Revolution. It owed its success to the neglect of the working class by the imperial government in the 19th Century, liberalism’s creation of social barriers within Germany’s national community, and labor’s abrupt loss of roots. The former farmer or artisan, accustomed to creative, useful work with his hands and bound to the soil, was suddenly displaced and operating unfamiliar factory machinery in drab urban environs. A handbook published for German armaments workers summarized labor’s alienation as follows:

“The person hatefully regards the machine he feels chained to. It is not his friend and helper. It only drives him in a pointless race for the avaricious interests of individual capitalist employers. It represents unemployment and starvation for many of his fellow workers. The person distances himself more and more from nature, more unnatural becomes his perception, and the result is an unparalleled devaluation in every aspect of human creativity.”[47]

According to the 1938 book Der Bolschewismus (Bolshevism),

“such social conditions facing the German worker were the product of liberalism. Like the Renaissance, it glorified the freedom of action and development of the individual, which means the same thing as unscrupulously advancing one’s personal interests.”[48]

In his 1935 work Odal, Dr. Johannes von Leers added:

“Liberalism’s preaching about the unconditional rights of the economically more powerful is so blinding, that de facto economic slavery is considered progress.”[49]

Leers described the impressions of a typical German farm hand entering the industrial workforce, in order to demonstrate the susceptibility to Marxist preaching:

“He arrived in the city as a laborer possessing nothing in the years from 1830 on, everywhere encountering a merciless system of capitalist enterprise. His only value is as the seller of himself as a ‘labor commodity.’… From poorly compensated work to unemployment and then back to work again for low wages, despised by the educated class, watched suspiciously by the police, it’s no wonder he became indignant.”[50]

Der Bolschewismus related a further source of resentment as laborers’ standard of living compared with that of people in affluent neighborhoods deteriorated:

“The man of the stock exchange and factory owners build villas in exceptional, well laid-out sections of the growing cities. The contrast to their own wretched quarters in overcrowded lodging houses, near the smoking chimneys of the factories, becomes ever more apparent to the masses of workers.”[51]

In Odal, Leers wrote that only because German society turned a blind eye to the distress of the working people were the Communists able to recruit them:

“It was our great misfortune that the country’s propertied and educated strata, in contrast to the English upper class which was far more responsible about this, blocked any genuine, concrete social reform with a singular heartlessness and callousness, guided by their selfish faith in the laws of free trade.”[52]

Society’s failure to nurture and accept the working class as equal divided Germany, contributing to Marxist-organized strikes and mutinies that sabotaged the war effort in 1918. This circumstance supported Hitler’s contention that various groups within a nation, while maintaining their individual character and function, must work together as a mutually supportive entity for common goals, impartially regulated by the state. To disregard one group was to jeopardize all. Entering politics in 1920, Hitler had to combat the substantial Marxist trend among the workers. At this time, many social and economic strata in Germany formed parties championing their individual interests. This was especially dangerous in labor’s case, since it allied itself with Communism, an international revolutionary movement employing subversion, terror and armed insurrection to advance its objectives.

Hitler’s ponderously named National-Socialist German Labor Party (NSDAP) departed from political convention of the period by standing for all Germans. Though he privately disparaged intellectuals, the aristocracy and even the middle class, Hitler recruited from every walk of life. Above the interests of group or individual, he set those of Germany. This was the common denominator that welded his diverse membership into a formidable and aggressive political bloc. He stated in 1928 that National Socialism

“is not a movement of a particular class or occupation, but in the truest sense a German people’s party. It will comprise every stratum of the nation, thereby incorporating all vocational groups. It wants to approach every German of good will who wishes only to serve his people, live among his people, and belongs to them by blood.”[53]

Germany’s Marxist parties, the Social Democrats and the Communists, did not campaign for labor’s acceptance into the German community but to overthrow the existing social order and supplant it with an international “dictatorship of the proletariat.” They did not solicit followers from among the educated classes. The NSDAP program described the Marxists as

“united by feelings of hatred and envy, not by any constructive purpose, against the other half of the nation.”[54]

Karl Ganzer wrote in Der Schulungsbrief:

“Karl Marx did not come from the labor movement but from the liberal sphere. If liberalism can be described as the socially established form of the French Revolutionary trend, then Marxism is a radicalized variety, strongly rooted in the brutality of that revolution. Its basic premise, class warfare, is an intellectual transformation of the French reign of terror into a sociological concept… Early German labor leaders, the unpretentious founders of the small German workers’ guilds, had wanted to solve the social problem through assimilation. With his class warfare ideas, Marx wanted to settle it by bringing chaos to the community.”[55]

Ganzer wrote that Marx hoped to drive the working people “into a current that carries them further from the society they once wanted to be a part of.”[56] He also pointed out an important distinction between National-Socialist and Marxist perceptions of labor. The NSDAP honored it. Hitler publicly stated:

“No German should be ashamed of this name, but should be proud to be called a worker.”[57]

Ganzer described the denigration of labor as

“perhaps the worst crime of Marxist teachings. This class awareness Marx did not base on a sense of value but on a psychosis of worthlessness. Marx gave the sons of free farmers and tradesmen the derogatory name ‘proletariat.’ Just 40 years earlier, this expression had meant asocial riffraff. In this way, he draped the soul of an entire stratum in gloom.”[58]

Hitler focused on recruiting working people, considering the nobility and the middle class profit-motivated, class conscious and lacking political usefulness. Members of the industrial workforce still possessed the dynamic qualities he needed to take the movement to the streets: vitality, toughness, and willingness to fight. Publicly concentrating just on labor, however, would have contradicted the NSDAP program to represent all Germans. The party promoted the slogan, “workers of the mind and fist,” the last word referring to handworkers, not brawlers. In this sense, all working people, regardless of occupation, contribute to society. Hitler viewed “the concept of worker a greater honor than the concept of citizen.”[59]

Speaking in Nuremburg in 1938, Hitler discussed the labor issue facing the NSDAP during its struggle for power prior to 1933:

“the National-Socialist Party was then an outspokenly people’s party, that is, most of our followers consisted of sons of the broad masses; workers and farmers, small artisans and office workers… Many of our middle-class citizens already harboring reservations about the name, ‘German labor party,’ were utterly dismayed when they first saw the rough-hewn types forming the movement’s guard… For the National-Socialist Party, ‘worker’ was from Day One an honorable title for all those who, through honest labor, whether in the mental or purely manual sense, are active in the community. Because the party was a people’s party, it unavoidably had more manual than white-collar workers in its ranks, just as there are in the population… From the beginning, the Marxists saw the new movement as a hated competitor. They figured the easiest way to finish it off would be to tell the general public that the National-Socialist concept of ‘labor’ as a conglomerate of all working people, contradicts the concept of the proletariat. This is of course true, since the proletarian parties excluded German white-collar workers from their ranks as much as possible.”[60]

The NSDAP’s stand as a people’s party during the early years did not alienate the middle class, which in fact formed the mainstay of its following. Labor usually provided 30 to 40 percent of the party’s members and voters.[61] By supporting Hitler’s movement, men and women of the industrial workforce found the acceptance in society – in this case the party’s microcosm of Germany’s national community – long denied them during the imperial era.

Socialism

There is considerable difference between the socialism of Hitler and that of Marxist doctrine. Die SA explained that the objective of a socialist state is “not the greatest possible good fortune of the individual or a particular party, but the welfare of the whole community.”[62] Marx’s purely economic socialism “stands against private property… and private ownership.”[63] Marx saw socialism as international, unifying the world’s working-class people who were social pariahs in their own country. He therefore considered nationalism, advocating the interests and independence of one’s own nation, incompatible with socialist ideals. Die SA argued that since socialism really stands for collective welfare:

“Marxist socialism divides the people and in this way buries any prerequisite for achieving genuine socialist goals.”[64]

Hitler saw nationalism as a patriotic motive to place the good of one’s country before personal ambition. Socialism was a political, social and economic system that demanded the same subordination of self-interest for the benefit of the community. As Hitler said in 1927:

“Socialism and nationalism are the great fighters for one’s own kind, are the hardest fighters in the struggle for survival on this earth. Therefore they are no longer battle cries against one another.”[65]

Die SA summarized:

“Marxism makes the distinction of haves and have-nots. It demands the destruction of the former in order to bring all property into possession of the public. National Socialism places the concept of the national community in the foreground… The collective welfare of a people is not achieved through superficially equal distribution of all possessions, but by accepting the principle that before the interests of the individual stand those of the nation.”[66]

It should be noted that in the Soviet Union, the flagship Marxist state, the regime dealt with the non-proletariat far more harshly than what downtrodden labor suffered during the Industrial Revolution in Western countries. The Soviet police official Martyn Latsis for example, defined the criteria for trials of dissidents:

“Don’t seek proof of whether or not he rose against the Soviet with weapon or word. You must first ask him what class he belongs to, what extraction he is, what education and what occupation he has. These questions should decide the fate of the accused.”[67]

The Russian historian Dimitri Volkogonov wrote that Soviet purges targeted “the most energetic, most capable, frugal and imaginative” elements in society.[68] Systematic mass starvation, imprisonment, deportation, and execution in the Marxist utopia so decimated the Russian population that the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, forbade the 1937 census from being published.[69] Der Schulungsbrief stated in a 1942 issue:

“The senseless extermination of all intelligence and talent, replacing every impulse of personality with passive herd mentality, has wiped out any natural creative aptitude” in Russia.[70]

Hitler regarded Marxist economic policy as no less repugnant to genuine socialism as the concept of class warfare was. Marx advocated de-privatizing all production and property. State control would supposedly ensure equitable distribution of manufactured goods and foodstuffs, and protect the population from capitalist exploitation. Hitler advocated private ownership and free enterprise. He believed that competition and opportunities for personal development encourage individual initiative. He said in 1934:

“On one hand, the free play of forces must be guaranteed as broad a field of endeavor as possible. On the other, it should be stressed that this free play of forces must remain for the person within the framework of communal goals, which we refer to as the people and the national community. Only in this way can we attain what we must, namely the highest level of human achievement and human productivity.”[71]

Der Schulungsbrief dismissed Marx’s disparate clamor for equitable shares in national assets and equal pay for all work as stifling to personal motivation:

“The man capable of greater achievement had no interest in realizing his full potential, when he saw that the lazy man sitting next to him received just as much as he himself… Any initiative to do more and willingness to accept responsibility could only die out under this system.”[72]

Well before taking power, Hitler combated a tendency toward Marxist socialism in his own movement. In November 1925, district party leaders in Hannover proposed dividing large farms and distributing the land among farmhands. The state would require everyone employed in the agrarian economy to join a cooperative. Independent sale of foodstuffs would be illegal. “Critical industries” such as power companies, banks and armaments manufacturers were to yield 51 percent of the shares as “property of the nation,” in other words become state controlled. The program also recommended that the government acquire 49 percent of other large business enterprises. In May 1930, Hitler met with a Berlin subordinate, Otto Strasser, who supported a similar program. Hitler told him his ideas were “pure Marxism” and would wreck the entire economy.[73] He bounced Strasser out of the party that July, underscoring his intolerance of Marxist socialism. Hitler considered the opportunity to acquire wealth and property an incentive for “eternal, enterprising personal initiative.” Enabling talented individuals to realize their full potential in life also elevated the society they belong to and serve.

Nationalism

A definitive characteristic of National Socialism was its rejection of foreign beliefs, customs and ideas within the German community. It holds that a nation consists of its blood and soil: an ethnically homogenous people and the land they cultivate, the domain that provides shelter, refuge and nourishment from the soil where their ancestors lie buried. Through self-development will a people realize their potential; through awareness of their intrinsic identity will generations fulfill the role nature and providence intended. The NSDAP held that every nation exhibits a collective personality. The influence of foreign peoples whose life experience, environment and ancestry formed them differently will debauch the nation and is hence immoral. Leers saw the introduction of liberalism and Marxism to Germany during the 19th Century as “threatening to destroy our own values… The history of the German people is a struggle lasting thousands of years against spiritual foreign penetration into the realms of politics, law, tradition and our way of life, a struggle against the destruction of our race and perversion of our souls.”[74]

The trend toward German independence of custom and spirit became more tangible in the 18th Century. It contributed to the wave of nationalism prevalent in the new German Reich founded in 1871. Rediscovered in the 15th Century, publication of the long-lost Germania (completed in 98 A.D. by the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus) had already provided Germans with details of their ancestors. Tacitus had written, “The peoples of Germania have never contaminated themselves by intermarriage with foreigners but remain of pure blood, distinct and unlike any other nation.”[75] He praised Rome’s ancient adversary for the men’s prowess and courage in battle, the women’s virtue, and strong family values: “Good morality is more effective in Germania than good laws are elsewhere.”[76]

The writings of Tacitus, together with those of other Roman historians, provide accounts of the empire’s unsuccessful bid to conquer Germania. The details are worth summarizing here, because of their contribution to the surge of German nationalism in the 19th Century and their significance for National-Socialist ideology.

Slowly advancing into German territory, the Romans established commerce, built towns and concluded tribal alliances. Many indigenous inhabitants traded with them or joined their army as auxiliaries. Rome also garrisoned troops, enacted laws and levied taxes. Aware of its military superiority, the Roman Empire was not prone to compromise. Decades earlier in neighboring Gaul, the Celtic princes had offered armed resistance to Roman rule. The Roman general Julius Caesar mercilessly crushed Gaul, killing or enslaving a third of the population.[77]

Arminius (also known as Hermann), the son of a chieftain in the Cheruskan clan, led several large Germanic tribes in 9 A.D. to fight the Romans. A loosely unified nation of some three million farmers faced a seasoned, well-equipped army supported by the resources of an empire encompassing 60 million inhabitants.[78] Arminius appealed to the various tribes to rise against the foreign laws, taxes, garrisons and settlements gradually spreading across their land. Assailing the summer encampment of the Roman governor Quintilius Varus, presumably at the site of the present-day German city of Horn, the Cheruskans and their allies annihilated three Roman legions.[79]

A Roman general, Drusus Germanicus, launched punitive expeditions in 15 A.D. and again the following year. He told his army of over 80,000 men, “This war will not be over until the entire German nation is exterminated.”[80] The legions vengefully massacred numerous village populations en route, but were unable to capture Arminius. Early in each of the two campaign seasons, Germanicus withdrew his forces completely after a pitched battle with the Germans, a circumstance discreetly understated by Tacitus.[81]

The Roman emperor Tiberius called off the invasion in 16 A.D. “Heavy losses in combat during 15 and 16 A.D. broke the Roman will to invade and conquer. Stopped in their tracks, the Romans from then on assumed the defensive.”[82] This spared Germany the Latin influence that helped shape the civilizations of Italy, Spain, France, Britain, the Balkans, and the Near East. To 19th Century nationalists, Arminius was the “first German.” He saw beyond the local rivalries that made his people vulnerable to foreign domination. He unified the German tribes in a war of liberation that preserved his country’s independence for centuries. His life became symbolic of national solidarity and resistance to foreign values. In the opinion of the National Socialists, a Roman conquest of Germania would have corrupted the German people for all time.[83]

Johannes von Leers cited the “morally destructive influence … the habitual lying, swindles, calculated cruelty, treachery, duplicity, and inward insincerity of the sick, mixed race that wanted to rule the Germanic peoples.”[84] Arminius rescued Germany from the fate of Gaul, as Germanisches Leitheft maintained: “Thanks to the deeds of the Cheruskan prince Hermann, the Roman Empire, even though at the zenith of its power, failed to break through to the Baltic and North Seas, the ‘Germanic Mediterranean’. Because of this, the heartland of Germania was preserved from being sucked into the racially chaotic vortex of the crumbling Roman Empire.”[85]

Well before the 20th Century, the story of Arminius had inspired Germans with a sense of national unity and independence. It remained popular under Hitler’s rule, though not accorded as much attention as the wars of liberation against Napoleon. These two events became pillars of National Socialism’s stand against foreign influence, be it military aggression or of an ideological nature. France’s liberalism, by virtue of its international character, was still a menace. “What makes the French Revolution significant for Germany,” wrote Ganzer in Der Schulungsbrief, “is the fact that it advanced as a movement with a mission. It claimed the right to make demands for all of humanity… It presented the ‘citizen of the world’ concept as binding for all nations and every race.” Ganzer added that French liberalism “no longer acknowledges as valid the realities of natural origins, ethnic harmony and racial differences, nor even the need for consolidation into a state form.”[86]

Certain arrangements of an international character were acceptable from the National-Socialist viewpoint. Commerce, sports competitions like the Olympics, and humanitarian institutions such as Christian charities or the Red Cross foster good will among civilized nations. Internationalism was another matter, Die SA explained, if “connected with specific political objectives which ultimately sever the inner bond of a person to his people, in favor of a belief in universal humanity and commitment to so-called universal humanitarian goals to the detriment of service to one’s own nation… The objective of political internationalism is not the establishment of peaceful relations among nations, but undermining national vitality and the inner cohesion of a people.”[87]

The NSDAP capitalized on the strong nationalist current that took shape during the previous century and was common among the Great Powers at that time. The party appealed to pride in German heritage and pointed out the benefits of the country’s unmolested, natural historic development. These ideas were chauvinistic but politically expedient as well; Marxism was a genuine threat to German freedom. Promoting nationalism was an effective counterweight to this destructive foreign influence.

Racial Hygiene

A fundamental principle of liberalism and Marxism is the belief in universal equality of mankind. It challenged the bastion of absolutism, which had held that a superior privileged class was ordained to rule. It established a moral and legal foundation for individual freedom and parliament. The dictum of America’s Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal,” underscored a political demand for representative government. The French Revolution interpreted universal equality in a biological sense as well. It maintained that “all who bear the human countenance” possess comparable natural ability regardless of physical dissimilitude, gender or historic performance.

Scientists and historians disputed this view long before Hitler’s time. The 19th-Century English naturalist Charles Darwin theorized natural selection and evolution based on the study of animals and fossils. He concluded that species develop unequally, and that nature strives for improvement by favoring reproduction of those exhibiting superior traits and eliminating the unfit. Francis Galton researched the human personality, deducing that intellectual prowess and morality are inherited from parents. He advocated marriages among talented people, believing superior offspring important to advance civilization.

The French aristocrats Arthur de Gobineau and Georges Vacher questioned universal equality from a historical perspective. Gobineau identified a correlation between the growth and vitality of cultures and the races that founded them. Both men argued that ancient civilizations like Persia and India gradually crumbled as the original white populations intermarried with captive or neighboring non-white tribes. Published in 1898, Houston Steward Chamberlain’s Die Grundlage des 19. Jahrhunderts (The Foundations of the 19th Century) attributes all great cultures to the creativity of Germanic peoples. German language editions of Gobineau’s writing appeared in Germany at the turn of the century.

Newly formed institutions there challenged the liberal doctrine of equality on scientific and historical grounds. Similar movements came to life in Scandinavia and in Italy, where Paolo Mantegazza and Giuseppe Sergi founded academies for anthropology and race studies. Eugenics, Galton’s term for the biological investigation of inheritable traits in human lineage, became racial hygiene in Germany. European universities excluded these studies from the curriculum. Racial hygiene nonetheless acquired some legitimacy early in 20th Century. Grounded in the theories of Darwin and Galton, its proponents offered cogent arguments, based on research and analysis, to establish it as a valid science.

In a 1925 study, Professor Hans Günther acknowledged that 19th-Century education helped lower-class individuals advance vocationally and socially:

“This upward mobility, however, led to the lowest birthrate among the best in every stratum and drained away more vitality than it fostered.”[88]

According to Günther, this contradicted the main priority for a healthy society:

“The progress of humanity is only possible through augmenting the higher-quality genetic traits, which means having a greater number of children among the superior and stopping propagation of the unfit.”[89]

The study of race received public funding in Nationalist Socialist Germany. The NSDAP founded the Racial Policy Office in November 1933. Its director, Dr. Walter Gross, published articles on the subject in the monthly Der Schulungsbrief. This journal was an important medium for ideological propaganda, with a circulation of several million. In April 1934, Gross observed:

“Anyone who understands a people as bound together purely by language and culture, as scientific literature in a democracy propogates, disregarding common blood ties, stands a world apart from our organic, biological-racial concept of a nation.”[90]

His interpretation of the rise and fall of nations reveals how closely National-Socialist doctrine conformed to the principles of Gobineau, Chamberlain and Günther: “The old civilized states owe their existence to the Aryan man of Nordic blood who created them along with their cultures. When he encountered natives in a foreign land, he did not intermix but subjugated them. He placed those of his own kind over them as a ruling caste.

“Everything the ancient peoples produced of value and accomplished came from this stratum of Nordic conqueror. Their greatness lasted only so long as the Nordic blood that created it was strong and influential enough. As soon as the pure strain and sense of awareness of differences among races became lost, as soon as the foreign blood intermingled, so began the decay of the civilizations and states. We can see with a shudder how throughout history, the influx of foreign blood undermines traditions, religion, good character and morality, and irreparably destroys the foundation upon which the structure of a once-flourishing civilization was built.”[91]

The Racial Policy Office cited three biological factors which cause cultures to perish. The first was

“a numerical decline in birthrate, a diminishing of the population’s size that weakens the national strength in the face of a somewhat stronger growing neighbor. It shifts the proportionate power of the two peoples so that the numerically weaker, despite potential inner superiority, will eventually be overwhelmed by the numerically stronger neighbor.”[92]

A 1937 article in Der Schulungsbrief observed:

“Today, we must unfortunately point out that the birthrate among practically all nations of the white race is declining perilously swiftly.”[93]

The second factor was a decrease in births among society’s more talented elements, versus a parallel increase in children from families exhibiting “mediocre or below average ability, character, or physical and mental endowment.”[94] One author blamed the policy in many democracies of “maintaining the weak and ignoring development of the strong” on the liberal perception that everything human is “unconditionally worth preserving.”[95] Der Schulungsbrief pointed out how regarding education in democratic states, the liberal administrator

“groups the mentally deficient into small classes in special schools staffed by exceptionally proficient teachers. He then jams 50 to 60 talented and healthy youngsters together into classrooms that are too small due to budgetary constraints, and instructs them only in the basics.”[96]

Largely influenced by mankind’s more benevolent religions, sympathy for the weak or helpless has become a preeminent human emotion. Gross countered this with scientific arguments:

“Decisive for the historic fate of a people is whether over the centuries, bloodlines of the loftiest and most gifted elements increase in number and in so doing elevate the nation, or whether they instead become destroyed or curtailed and in their place those bloodlines augment that are genetically inferior and unfit… The result will be that the outstanding talent will gradually disappear, while on the other side the less worthwhile will become dominant. Sooner or later that means the inevitable downfall of the state and civilization.”[97]

The third factor leading to the fall of cultures addressed intermarriage with foreign races. This causes a drop in the birthrate among the people who founded the civilization and a corresponding rise in that of society’s less creative elements from cross-breeding:

“The resulting group of intermixed types and bastards lacks what alone brings enduring vitality to the comparatively racially pure and unmixed ethnic community: the harmony of body and soul, of spirit and character in every person.”[98]

Dr. Theodor Artz listed the “ABC’s” of National-Socialist policy:

“Bringing forth sufficient numbers of offspring, stifling procreation of the inferior, and preventing the assimilation of racially foreign elements.”[99]

What constitutes “racially foreign elements” was a matter of controversy within the NSDAP. Various ethnic groups comprise European civilization: Nordic, Gallic, Basque, Slavic, Baltic, Mediterranean and so forth. Pioneer racial hygienists maintained that intermarriage among diverse white clans produces a superior being. In 1924, the analyst Kurt Hildebrandt published an essay explaining:

“The highest standard of living evolved where the Nordic race represented the leadership, but intermixed with others who adopted its culture.”

Hans Günther wrote:

“The French anatomist and race researcher de Quatresages observed in 1857 that the greatest mental and physical activity rests not among those of pure race, but among racially cross-bred populations.”[100]

Günther argued that just as competition can motivate people, the merger of different bloodlines creates a conflict within the psyche of the individual or population itself, animating a hitherto latent zest for struggle:

“Tension, confrontation, and the urge to prevail produce the greatest achievements of mind and spirit. There is more potential for anxiety and altercation in the racially intermixed person than is the case for a pure-blooded one. Compared to the cross-bred, the pure-blooded man harbors too little restlessness. Germans, Englishmen, or non-Scandinavians in general are struck by the ‘all too placid demeanor’ of many purely Nordic Scandinavians.”[101]

Under Gross, the Racial Policy Office walked a thin line between the more relaxed criteria envisioned by Günther and many of his contemporaries, and the “blond rapture” they cautioned against. In 1934, Gross’s colleague, Wolfgang Abel, published generalizations of Germany’s ethnic tribes: the Nordic, Palatine, Eastern Baltic, Dinaric, Alpine, Western Nordic, and Western Mediterranean. He described physical characteristics, illustrated with camera portraits resembling mug shots, and collective personality traits of each. Abel offered for example, this profile of the Nordic type:

“The least spontaneous, he surpasses all other races in steadfastness of purpose and cautious foresight. Thinking ahead, he subordinates his driving impulses to long-range goals. Self-composure is perhaps the most distinguishable trait of the Nordic race. In this lies a significant part of the ability to create civilizations. Races lacking this quality are incapable of following through and implementing long-term realizable objectives.”[102]

Palatine Germans were

“more steadfast than pliant, more grounded than adaptable, more level-headed than daring, more freedom-loving than power seeking, and more ponderous than industrious.”

The Western Mediterranean German

“takes life less seriously. Empty formula courtesies and insincere gestures play a major role, such as promising gifts and extending invitations he doesn’t really expect people to accept. His inclination toward truthfulness and ethics is weaker than the Nordic person’s.”[103]

Hitler disapproved of such comparisons. He especially opposed reference to physical contrasts of stature, coloring, or physiognomy among German ethnic groups. In 1930 he told an aide:

“Discussions about the race problem will only divide the German people further, incite them against one another and atomize them, and in this way make them inconsequential with respect to foreign affairs.”

He admonished senior officials of the party to avoid the subject of ethnic diversity in speeches and articles:

“Everything that unifies and welds the classes together must be brought to the fore, nourished and promoted, and everything that divides them, re-animates the old prejudices, must be avoided, fought and eliminated…They are the surest way to destroy a community.”

He remarked that people should be selected for leadership roles “not according to outward appearance, but by demonstrating inward ability.”[104]

Goebbels, himself a diminutive man with a slight limp, recorded in his diary in October 1937:

“Discussed race policy with Dr. Gross. I reproached him for our flawed standards for making selections. According to them, practically every officer today would be dismissed.”[105]

Like the earlier race hygienist Günther, Hitler believed that the more capable and fit among the Germans should not set themselves above other groups to preserve or advance their particular bloodline. It was their duty to help elevate the German nation as an entity. As summarized by his chronicler Dr. Henry Picker, Hitler was

“firmly resolved to transfer racially excellent military units, such as formations of the Waffen SS, to every region where the indigenous people are substandard. They will provide for the population by replenishing its bloodlines.”[106]

The Waffen SS was an elite branch of the German military requiring high physical standards for enrollment.

Though believing in the inequality among mankind, Hitler opposed clique-forming or elitist attitudes among his countrymen’s more gifted persons or ethnic groups. He measured people not by what nature gave them, but by how they contributed their talents, be they lofty or modest, to advance the national community. This was a standard every German could aspire to, regardless of his or her station in society. Personal attitude and endeavor, not the circumstances of birth, determine the superior being.

In a speech as chancellor of Germany, Hitler described the evolution of his country into a social, national, and spiritual entity:

“The German people came into being no differently than almost every truly creative civilized nation we know of in the world. A numerically small, talented race, capable of organizing and creating civilization, established itself over other peoples in the course of many centuries. It in part absorbed them, in part adapted to them. All members of our people have of course contributed their special talents to this union. It was, however, created by a nation- and state-forming elite alone. This race imposed its language, naturally not without borrowing from those it subjugated. And all shared a common fate for so long, that the life of the people directing the affairs of state became inseparably bound to the life of the gradually assimilating other members. All the while, conqueror and conquered had long become a community. This is our German people of today… Our only wish is that all members contribute their best to the prosperity of our national life. As long as every element gives what it has to give, this element in so doing will help benefit all our lives.”[107]

Racism versus Marxism

The NSDAP also perceived racial hygiene as a political controversy. Der Schulungsbrief pointed out:

“The National-Socialist ideology is the first worldview in history to consciously incorporate the laws of nature and apply their wisdom and efficiency to mankind.”[108]

Germanisches Leitheft contended that emphasis on race

“is the antithesis of the western perception, especially former France. It was there that the grand revolution proclaimed the equality of all who bear the human countenance… Intermixing of human types was a main thrust of French democracy.”

The revolution of 1789, the periodical noted, was a poor example for such an altruistic ideal:

“As it progressed, the revolution became a power struggle among ambitious party leaders. This no longer led toward a new order, but climaxed in the elimination of those public representatives still conscious of their civic responsibility. In this atmosphere the so-called Reign of Terror began, which depopulated entire towns and parishes. ‘Death to the blonds’ was the battle cry.”[109]

The National Socialists viewed Marxism as the political descendant of revolutionary France. It leveled humanity off to a “faceless mass” by destroying society’s more talented, productive elements.[110] Der Schulungsbrief saw Marxism as personifying the worst of the French Revolution, fashioned after its brutal consequences instead of in the spirit of the promising elements of its liberal ideals.[111] The journal Volk und Reich (Nation and Realm) wrote:

“The Bolshevik revolution regards itself as the legitimate successor to the French.”[112]

Brutality was indeed an element common to both France’s Reign of Terror and Bolshevik Russia. The first Soviet dictator, Vladimir I. Ulyanov alias Lenin, became the only member of the original Politburo, the governing council, to die a natural death. Stalin proclaimed a “war on terror” in December 1934, personally writing a new law imposing a death sentence for “acts of terrorism” and leading to massive executions for several years. In 1937, the Soviet state carried out 353,074 executions, the following year 328,618.[113] Houston Steward Chamberlain described Russia’s Bolshevik regime as

“having sprung solely from the influence of the French revolutionary ideal, which in the course of a century, turned decent people into half-beasts filled with envy and loathing.”[114]

Goebbels described the rise of the NSDAP as “one continuous confrontation with the problem of Marxism.”[115] The ideologies were at loggerheads regarding questions of the significance of race. The German study Der bolschewistische Weltbetrug (The Bolshevik World Swindle) provides this comparison:

“The National-Socialist worldview interprets the nation racially, as a national community grounded in common historical blood ties of its people as determined by fate. The primary conviction of Marxist ideology is the class concept defining those with possessions and those who possess nothing. This class concept is bound neither by nationality nor by race. It stands like a dividing wall between people of the same nation. At the same time, it joins as brothers persons of the most diverse racial types. ‘Society is dividing more and more into two immense, diametrical, hostile camps, bourgeois and proletariat,’ declared the Communist Manifesto… Adolf Hitler’s judgment runs a different course. It finds expression in the concept of a nationalistic socialism and desires the unity of naturally related people, the removal of class distinctions, and the personal feeling within every individual of belonging to the national community that the person, through fate, was born into.”[116]

A primary liberal argument against the significance of race is environmentalism. Supported by democracy and Marxism alike, this theory holds that not racial ancestry, but factors such as climate, arable land, education, luck, and social opportunities determine group or individual achievement. As Der Schulungsbrief explained it:

“Marxism is built on the teaching that all men are equal at birth. Differences that become apparent in the course of a lifetime are the result of external influences. Personal development therefore depends on surroundings. The more favorable the environment, the better the person will turn out. The progressive development of people can and must be attained through the path of improving their outward circumstances.”[117]

The periodical NS Briefe countered that

“this view degraded man to a slave of his circumstances. The consequence of this was that the person was no longer the subject but the object. The determining factor supposedly rested with the environment; that man does not mold the age, the age molds the man.”[118]

Application of environmentalism’s principles as a matter of state policy, according to Gross, demonstrates how impractical the theory is:

“The habitual criminal, the cold-blooded murderer who since boyhood went through life harboring asocial instincts detrimental to society, was just a ‘victim of his surroundings.’ The ruthless eradication of those manifesting such bestial, menacing natures is not the obvious solution, but attentive, painstaking education, and improvement through transfer to a ‘better environment’. The onset of a ‘modern’ table of punishments has become manifest in the prison with radio, billiards, and a library. Here the killer experiences a hundred-times more comfortable lifestyle than the hard-working laborer in the land. This is the logical consequence of the belief that exterior influences decide or can alter the nature of a person.”[119]

The periodical NS Briefe related the German position:

“No amount of education can change the inner substance of a person, since the factors that determine who he is do not come from without. They rest within him, given to him by his parents and grandparents”[120]

Germanisches Leitheft summarized:

“The genuine greatness of a community, its cultural, social and political evolution, depends exclusively on the forces that made the individual and therefore the entire clan masters of their environment and external conditions and shaped them according to their will. This force that determines the rise or fall of a community is the blood line or better said, race.”[121]

The Nation as One

The crux of National-Socialist ideology and state form was German unity. Hitler promoted whatever contributed to this goal and rejected what did not. A literate man with a profound grasp of history, he fashioned a political philosophy that interpreted Germany’s past as a continuous, progressive struggle for independence and unification. Disharmony among the Germans had cost them freedom and life. The Roman Empire had imposed an immoral foreign influence until the Cheruskan Arminius unified prominent German tribes to force the invaders out. During the 17th Century, a politically discordant Germany became the battleground for the 30 Years’ War. More than half the population perished. The subsequent Peace of Westphalia in 1648, engineered by Sweden and France, partitioned Germany into a myriad of insignificant duchies and principalities. The treaty established a parliament at Regensburg for their common representation. “Our diplomacy set the wheels of the Reichstag in motion for the purpose of making any serious government in Germany impossible,” boasted the French historian Jacques Bainville in 1915.[122]

Austria and Prussia regained diplomatic and military poise during the 18th Century. Due to a lack of connection between the royal hierarchy and the population, neither state could later repulse the invasion by Napoleonic France. Conquered in 1806, only through nationalism did the Prussians again become free. Prussia unified Germany in 1871, and this introduced prosperity and progress. Crass social discrepancies nonetheless persisted. At that time, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed the yearning among his people for a deeper, enduring bond:

“There are many fine threads in the German soul, but they are not woven into a single, solid and mighty rope; a sorry spectacle and a solemn peril. This must be remedied, a greater solidarity in the nature and soul of our people created, the rupture between the internal and the external eliminated. In the loftiest sense we must strive for German unity, and strive more passionately than for mere political unification: for the harmony of the German spirit and an existence based on the destruction of the conflicts of form versus content, of inward spirit versus convention. Create the concept of a nation.”[123]

Hitler grew up in the social milieu that Nietzsche criticized for its class distinctions. World War I, during which Hitler saw combat in an infantry regiment, welded various social factions into an entity. “At the front, the feeling of being destined to belong together, the feeling of a community, was by and large reborn,” Gross wrote in Der Schulungsbrief.[124] Hitler and his comrades felt solidarity in the trenches but found it undermined by political discord at home.

“The enemy no longer faced the frontline soldier purely as an honorable fighting man, but also caused trouble behind the front,” a journal for the German armed forces related. “He paid people off, who not only carried on their vile handiwork in the streets, but even in our parliament itself raised their insolent heads and preached plain treason loud and clear.”[125]

During the post-war period, the country suffered economic distress, political disharmony and foreign exploitation. Hitler later declared that when the German people

“form a unified bloc, they are a power. When they are divided, they are defenseless and impotent.”[126]

By emphasizing German unity, National Socialism followed in the footsteps of the Romans’ nemesis Arminius, the Prussian reformers who rose against Napoleon, the statesman Bismarck, and the eminent Nietzsche. The matter of Germany’s moral, social, and political harmony influenced the NSDAP’s stand on virtually every major issue. National Socialism, the journal Der SA. Führer (The SA Officer) wrote, “recognized that the labor question was the cardinal social problem of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and eliminated the class warfare that the French social structure with its economic system built on the concepts of freedom and equality had introduced… It confronted liberalism’s materialistic, distorted idea of freedom, which leads to abuse and to the rule of a capitalist minority, with a new freedom; one based on the growth of the individual fellow citizen within the national community according to performance. Unlike the disfranchisement of labor through liberalism, National Socialism incorporates the worker into German society, elevating him and his accomplishments onto par with the rest of the nation.”[127]

Judging someone’s worth according to performance, as far as Hitler was concerned, superseded questions of ethnic standing within the German community. Though many National Socialists based their worldview on scientific research on race, the government under Hitler also relied on education to realize human potential. Goebbels wrote in his diary in June 1936, “the Führer sharply disapproves of the work of all the race committees.”[128] Hitler based his attitude on the potential negative impact such activities could have on national unity.

National Socialism was largely a product of 18th- and 19th-Century values. Hitler saw how the fall of absolutism released powerful forces slumbering within mankind. But as the creative surge burst traditional bonds and restraints associated with the old order, it gave birth to doctrines that evolved independently of one another and were without historical precedent. Liberalism, the dominant philosophy, shattered convention and institution alike, entering uncharted political waters in the unassailable conviction that individual freedom was the future of humanity. Composed at the dawn of the liberal age, the fable of the sorcerer’s apprentice, who tampered with and unleashed extraordinary powers he was unable to control, proved a prophetic allegory.

The National Socialists believed that the exaltation of the individual in the liberal-democratic sense would “dissolve the healthy social order and lead to ruin.”[129] They nonetheless sanctioned the free play of forces, opportunity for personal development and free enterprise. The task of their authoritarian government was to promote these practices, simultaneously ensuring that the collective interests of the population remain decisive. As the individual advanced in National-Socialist Germany, so did the nation. Hitler harnessed yet stimulated the forces of human creativity reanimated by the Enlightenment, giving them a form, purpose, and direction not envisioned by the pioneers of liberalism and democracy.

About the Author

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Richard Tedor is a graduate of the American Academy of Art, Chicago, and the School of Airbrush Arts, Villa Park, Illinois. He studied journalism at Columbia College, Chicago, and German language at Saint Xavier College, Chicago. He is a translator and researcher, specializing in German foreign policy and war propaganda during the National-Socialist epoch.

In his perusal of countless wartime and postwar German accounts covering the Hitler era, the author is struck by the different interpretations of historical events these sources offer. He presents this material in order to offer American and English readers the opportunity to balance their perspective of a significant period in world history.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Notes

[1] Günther, Gerhard, Deutsches Kriegertum im Wandel der Geschichte, p. 108
[2] Cochenhausen, Friedrich von, Die Verteidigung Mitteleuropas, p. 170
[3] Günther, G., Deutsches Kriegertum im Wandel der Geschichte pp. 114-115
[4] Ibid., p. 115
[5] Ibid., p. 119
[6] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #9, März 29, 1940, p. 11
[7] Ibid.
[8] “Die deutsche und die westliche Freiheit,” Germanisches Leitheft 8/9 1942, p. 388
[9] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 387
[10] Ibid., p. 389
[11] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA.#9, 1940, p. 11
[12] Kautter, Eberhard, “Das Sozialproblem,” Der Schulungsbrief 5/37, pp. 180-181
[13] Klüver, Max, Vom Klassenkampf zur Volksgemeinschaft, p. 12
[14] “Der Geist des Westens,” Germanisches Leitheft 8/9, 1942, p. 335
[15] Wirsing, Giselher, Der masslose Kontinent, p. 435
[16] Schadewaldt, Hans, Was will Roosevelt? p. 37
[17] Klüver, Max, Vom Klassenkampf zur Volksgemeinschaft, p. 25
[18] Ganzer, Karl, “Der Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Der Schulungsbrief 6/37, p. 225
[19] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #9, p. 11
[20] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #6, März 8, 1940, pp. 5-6
[21] Bouhler, Philipp, Der grossdeutsche Freiheitskampf Band II, pp. 158-159
[22] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #6, 1940, p. 6
[23] Schadewaldt, Hans, Was will Roosevelt, p. 38
[24] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 381
[25] “Why – Warum?”, Germanisches Leitheft 8/9, 1942, p. 393
[26] Wofür kämpfen wir? pp. 19-20
[27] Fell, Robert, “Briefe über Menschenführung,” NS Briefe, Mai 1939, p. 155
[28] Ibid.
[29] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #6, 1940, p. 4
[30] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 388
[31] Klüver, Max, Vom Klassenkampf zur Volksgemeinschaft, p. 103
[32] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, pp. 397-398
[33] Fell, Robert, “Briefe über Menschenführung,” NS Briefe, Mai 1939, p. 152
[34] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #6, 1940, p. 4
[35] Goebbels, Joseph, Signale der neuen Zeit, pp. 236, 240
[36] Domarus, Max, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, p. 206
[37] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 379
[38] Ibid., 381
[39] Picker, Henry, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, p. 489
[40] Goebbels, Joseph, Signale der neuen Zeit, p. 202
[41] Bouhler, Philipp, Der Grossdeutsche Freiheitskampf Band II, p. 206
[42] Kautter, Eberhard, “Das Sozialproblem,” Der Schulungsbrief 5/37, p. 188
[43] Fell, Robert, “Briefe über Menschenführung,” NS Briefe, Mai 1939, p. 155
[44] Bley, Wulf, Der Bolschewismus, p. 157
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ehrt, Adolf, Bewaffneter Aufstand, pp. 10-11
[47] Front in der Heimat, pp. 16-17
[48] Bley, Der Bolschewismus, p. 146
[49] Leers, Johannes von, Odal, p. 636
[50] Ibid., p. 637
[51] Bley, Wulf, Der Bolschewismus, p. 146
[52] Leers, Johannes von, Odal, p. 658
[53] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 178
[54] Feder, Gottfried, Program of the Party of Hitler, p. 46
[55] Ganzer, Karl, “Der Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Der Schulungsbrief 6/37, p. 229
[56] Ibid.
[57] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 176
[58] Ganzer, Karl, “Der Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Der Schulungsbrief 6/37, p. 229
[59] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 176
[60] Hitler, Adolf, Die Reden des Führers am Parteitag 1938, pp. 58-59
[61] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 178
[62] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #13/14, 1940, p. 10
[63] Ibid.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, p. 459
[66] Rehm, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #13/14, 1940, p. 11
[67] Papst, Martin, Roter Terror, p. 40
[68] Ibid., p. 60
[69] Ibid., p. 62
[70] Gross, Walter, “Sieg der Rassenkraft,” Der Schulungsbrief, 11/12, 1942, p. 67
[71] Kautter, Eberhard, “Das Sozialproblem,” Der Schulungsbrief, 5/37, p. 185
[72] Ibid., p. 183
[73] Klüver, Max, Vom Klassenkampf zur Volksgemeinschaft, p. 18
[74] Leers, Johannes von, Odal, p. 5
[75] Tacitus, Cornelius, The Agricola and the Germania, p. 104
[76] Ibid., p. 118
[77] Fichtel, Konrad, Roms Kreuzzüge gegen Germanien, p. 31
[78] Ibid., p. 88
[79] Ritter-Schaumburg, Heinz, Hermann der Cherusker, p. 51
[80] Ibid., p. 239
[81] Fichtel, Konrad, Roms Kreuzzüge gegen Germanien, pp. 77-78
[82] Reckel, Gustav, “Feldherrntum der Germanien,” Wehr und Wissen #8, p. 31
[83] Leers, Johannes von, Odal, p. 85
[84] Ibid., p. 140
[85] “Der europäische Befreiungskrieg,” Germanisches Leitheft 1, 1941, p. 11
[86] Ganzer, Karl, “Der Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Der Schulungsbrief 6/37, p. 219
[87] Rehm, Theo, “Politisches Wörterbuch,” Die SA. #7, 1940, p. 7
[88] Günther, Hans, Der Nordische Gedanke, p. 15
[89] Ibid., p. 13
[90] Gross, Walter, “Der Rassengedanke,” Der Schulungsbrief, April 1934, p. 10
[91] Ibid., p. 14
[92] Gross, Walter, “Volk und Rasse,” Der Schulungsbrief, 4/1939, p. 144
[93] Lüddecke, Theodor, Der Schulungsbrief 1/1937, pp. 34-35
[94] Gross, Walter, “Volk und Rasse,” Der Schulungsbrief, 4/1939, p. 144
[95] Kaütter, Eberhard, “Das Sozialproblem,” Der Schulungsbrief 5/37, p. 170
[96] Gross, Walter, “Volk und Rasse,” Der Schulungsbrief, 4/1939, p. 156
[97] Gross, Walter, “Der Rassengedanke,” Der Schulungsbrief April 1934, p. 13
[98] Gross, Walter, “Volk und Rasse,” Der Schulungsbrief, 4/1939, p. 144
[99] Ibid., p. 145
[100] Günther, Hans, Der Nordische Gedanke, p. 83
[101] Ibid., p. 98
[102] Abel, Wolfgang “Die Rasser Europas” Der Schulungsbrief, June 1934 p. 12
[103] Ibid, p. 15
[104] Zitelmann, Rainer, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, pp. 422, 423
[105] Ibid., p. 424
[106] Picker, Henry, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, p. 288
[107] Abel, Wolfgang, “Die Rassen Europas,” Schulungsbrief Juni 1934, pp. 17-18
[108] Gross, Walter, “Volk und Rasse,” Der Schulungsbrief, 4/1939, p. 155
[109] “Der Abstieg,” Germanisches Leitheft 8/9, 1942, pp. 365, 369-370
[110] Fischer, Rudolf, “Europa und der Bolschewismus,” Volk und Reich, 10/36, p. 746
[111] Ganzer, Karl “Der Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Der Schulungsbrief, 6/37, p. 229
[112] Fischer, Rudolf, “Europa und der Bolschewismus, Volk und Reich 10/36, p. 746
[113] Schweiger, Herbert, Mythos Waffen-SS, p. 116
[114] “Freiheit Gleichheit Brüderlichkeit”, Der Schulungsbrief 5/37, p. 169
[115] Goebbels, Joseph, Signale der neuen Zeit, p. 238
[116] Leistritz, Hans, Der bolschewistische Weltbetrug, p. 33
[117] Der Schulungsbrief Mai 1934, p. 6
[118] Fell, Robert, “Briefe über Menschenführung,” NS Briefe, Mai 1939, p. 148
[119] Gross, Walter, “Der Rassengedanke,” Der Schulungsbrief, April 1934, p. 15
[120] Fell, Robert, “Briefe über Menschenführung,” NS Briefe, Mai 1939, p. 148
[121] “Der Abstieg,” Germanisches Leitheft 8/9, 1942, p. 367
[122] Bainville, Jacques, Geschichte zweier Völker, pp. 69, 73
[123] Löbsack, Wilhelm, “Nietzsche und der Krieg,” Offiziere des Führers, 5/44, p. 22
[124] Gross, Walter, “Der Rassengedanke,” Der Schulungsbrief April 1934, p. 9
[125] Müller, Hans, “Der politische Wille,” Offiziere des Führers, 5/1944, p. 34
[126] Bouhler, Philipp, Der grossdeutsche Freiheitskampf, Band I, p. 146
[127] Höhn, Reinhard, “Demokratie und Neuordnung,” Der SA. Führer, 5/1941, p. 5
[128] Klüver, Max, Vom Klassenkampf zur Volksgemeinschaft, p. 98
[129] Wofür kämpfen wir?, p. 20