"What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the
existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children
and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence
of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfil the mission
assigned to it by the Creator." (p.125)
"From time immemorial, however, the Jews have known better
than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their
very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious
community, whereas in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of the
greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all
time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. He (Schopenhauer)
called the Jew “The Great Master of Lies”. Those who do not realize the truth
of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend
a hand in helping Truth to prevail." (p.134)
"How devoid of ideals and how ignoble is the whole contemporary
system! The fact that the churches join in committing this sin against the
image of God, even though they continue to emphasize the dignity of that
image, is quite in keeping with their present activities. They talk about
the Spirit, but they allow man, as the embodiment of the Spirit, to degenerate
to the proletarian level. Then they look on with amazement when they realize
how small is the influence of the Christian Faith in their own country and
how depraved and ungodly is this riff-raff which is physically degenerate
and therefore morally degenerate also. To balance this state of affairs they
try to convert the Hottentots and the Zulus and the Kaffirs and to bestow
on them the blessings of the Church. While our European people, God be praised
and thanked, are left to become the victims of moral depravity, the pious
missionary goes out to Central Africa and establishes missionary stations
for negroes. Finally, sound and healthy – though primitive and backward
– people will be transformed, under the name of our ‘higher
civilization’, into a motley of lazy and brutalized mongrels." (p.226)
My Struggle (Mein Kampf)
by Adolf Hitler
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
On April 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the Fortress
of Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict of the Munich People’s Court
of that time.
After years of uninterrupted labour it was now possible for the first time
to begin a work which many had asked for and which I myself felt would be
profitable for the Movement. So I decided to devote two volumes to a description
not only of the aims of our Movement but also of its development. There is
more to be learned from this than from any purely doctrinaire treatise.
This has also given me the opportunity of describing my own development in
so far as such a description is necessary to the understanding of the first
as well as the second volume and to destroy the legendary fabrications which
the Jewish Press have circulated about me.
In this work I turn not to strangers but to those followers of the Movement
whose hearts belong to it and who wish to study it more profoundly. I know
that fewer people are won over by the written word than by the spoken word
and that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers
and not to great writers.
Nevertheless, in order to produce more equality and uniformity in the defence
of any doctrine, its fundamental principles must be committed to writing.
May these two volumes therefore serve as the building stones which I contribute
to the joint work.
The Fortress, Landsberg am Lech.
At half-past twelve in the afternoon of November 9th, 1923, those whose names
are given below fell in front of the Feldherrnhalle and in the forecourt
of the former War Ministry in Munich for their loyal faith in the resurrection
of their people:
Alfarth, Felix, Merchant, born July 5th,
1901
Bauriedl, Andreas, Hatmaker, born May
4th, 1879
Casella, Theodor, Bank Official, born
August 8th, 1900
Ehrlich, Wilhelm, Bank Official, born
August 19th, 1894
Faust, Martin, Bank Official, born January
27th, 1901
Hechenberger, Anton, Locksmith, born September
28th, 1902
Koerner, Oskar, Merchant, born January
4th, 1875
Kuhn, Karl, Head Waiter, born July 25th,
1897
Laforce, Karl, Student of Engineering,
born October 28th, 1904
Neubauer, Kurt, Waiter, born March 27th,
1899
Pape, Claus von, Merchant, born August
16th, 1904
Pfordten, Theodor von der, Councillor
to the Superior Provincial Court, born May 14th, 1873
Rickmers, Johann, retired Cavalry Captain,
born May 7th, 1881
Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, Dr.
of Engineering, born January 9th, 1884
Stransky, Lorenz Ritter von, Engineer,
born March 14th, 1899
Wolf, Wilhelm, Merchant, born October
19th, 1898
So-called national officials refused to allow the dead heroes a common burial.
So I dedicate the first volume of this work to them as a common memorial,
that the memory of those martyrs may be a permanent source of light for the
followers of our Movement.
The Fortress, Landsberg a/L.,
October 16th, 1924
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
In placing before the reader this unabridged translation of Adolf Hitler’s
book, Mein Kampf, I feel it my duty to call attention to certain historical
facts which must be borne in mind if the reader would form a fair judgment
of what is written in this extraordinary work.
The first volume of Mein Kampf was written while the author was imprisoned
in a Bavarian fortress. How did he get there and why? The answer to that
question is important, because the book deals with the events which brought
the author into this plight and because he wrote under the emotional stress
caused by the historical happenings of the time. It was the hour of
Germany’s deepest humiliation, somewhat parallel to that of a little over
a century before, when Napoleon had dismembered the old German Empire and
French soldiers occupied almost the whole of Germany.
In the beginning of 1923 the French invaded Germany, occupied the Ruhr district
and seized several German towns in the Rhineland. This was a flagrant breach
of international law and was protested against by every section of British
political opinion at that time. The Germans could not effectively defend
themselves, as they had been already disarmed under the provisions of the
Versailles Treaty. To make the situation more fraught with disaster for Germany,
and therefore more appalling in its prospect, the French carried on an intensive
propaganda for the separation of the Rhineland from the German Republic and
the establishment of an independent Rhenania. Money was poured out lavishly
to bribe agitators to carry on this work, and some of the most insidious
elements of the German population became active in the pay of the invader.
At the same time a vigorous movement was being carried on in Bavaria for
the secession of that country and the establishment of an independent Catholic
monarchy there, under vassalage to France, as Napoleon had done when he made
Maximilian the first King of Bavaria in 1805.
The separatist movement in the Rhineland went so far that some leading German
politicians came out in favour of it, suggesting that if the Rhineland were
thus ceded it might be possible for the German Republic to strike a bargain
with the French in regard to Reparations. But in Bavaria the movement went
even farther. And it was more far-reaching in its implications; for, if an
independent Catholic monarchy could be set up in Bavaria, the next move would
have been a union with Catholic German-Austria. possibly under a Habsburg
King. Thus a Catholic bloc would have been created which would extend from
the Rhineland through Bavaria and Austria into the Danube Valley and would
have been at least under the moral and military, if not the full political,
hegemony of France. The dream seems fantastic now, but it was considered
quite a practical thing in those fantastic times. The effect of putting such
a plan into action would have meant the complete dismemberment of Germany;
and that is what French diplomacy aimed at. Of course such an aim no longer
exists. And I should not recall what must now seem “old, unhappy, far-off
things” to the modern generation, were it not that they were very near and
actual at the time Mein Kampf was written and were more unhappy then
than we can even imagine now.
By the autumn of 1923 the separatist movement in Bavaria was on the point
of becoming an accomplished fact. General von Lossow, the Bavarian chief
of the Reichswehr no longer took orders from Berlin. The flag of the German
Republic was rarely to be seen, Finally, the Bavarian Prime Minister decided
to proclaim an independent Bavaria and its secession from the German Republic.
This was to have taken place on the eve of the Fifth Anniversary of the
establishment of the German Republic (November 9th, 1918.)
Hitler staged a counter-stroke. For several days he had been mobilizing his
storm battalions in the neighbourhood of Munich, intending to make a national
demonstration and hoping that the Reichswehr would stand by him to
prevent secession. Ludendorff was with him. And he thought that the prestige
of the great German Commander in the World War would be sufficient to win
the allegiance of the professional army.
A meeting had been announced to take place in the Bürgerbräu Keller
on the night of November 8th. The Bavarian patriotic societies were gathered
there, and the Prime Minister, Dr. von Kahr, started to read his official
pronunciamento, which practically amounted to a proclamation of Bavarian
independence and secession from the Republic. While von Kahr was speaking
Hitler entered the hall, followed by Ludendorff. And the meeting was broken
up.
Next day the Nazi battalions took the street for the purpose of making a
mass demonstration in favour of national union. They marched in massed formation,
led by Hitler and Ludendorff. As they reached one of the central squares
of the city the army opened fire on them. Sixteen of the marchers were instantly
killed, and two died of their wounds in the local barracks of the
Reichswehr. Several others were wounded also. Hitler fell on the pavement
and broke a collar-bone. Ludendorff marched straight up to the soldiers who
were firing from the barricade, but not a man dared draw a trigger on his
old Commander.
Hitler was arrested with several of his comrades and imprisoned in the fortress
of Landsberg on the River Lech. On February 26th, 1924, he was brought to
trial before the Volksgericht, or People’s Court in Munich. He was sentenced
to detention in a fortress for five years. With several companions, who had
been also sentenced to various periods of imprisonment, he returned to Landsberg
am Lech and remained there until the 20th of the following December, when
he was released. In all he spent about thirteen months in prison. It was
during this period that he wrote the first volume of Mein Kampf.
If we bear all this in mind we can account for the emotional stress under
which Mein Kampf was written. Hitler was naturally incensed against the Bavarian
government authorities, against the footling patriotic societies who were
pawns in the French game, though often unconsciously so, and of course against
the French. That he should write harshly of the French was only natural in
the circumstances. At that time there was no exaggeration whatsoever in calling
France the implacable and mortal enemy of Germany. Such language was being
used by even the pacifists themselves, not only in Germany but abroad. And
even though the second volume of Mein Kampf was written after
Hitler’s release from prison and was published after the French had left
the Ruhr, the tramp of the invading armies still echoed in German ears, and
the terrible ravages that had been wrought in the industrial and financial
life of Germany, as a consequence of the French invasion, had plunged the
country into a state of social and economic chaos. In France itself the franc
fell to fifty per cent of its previous value. Indeed, the whole of Europe
had been brought to the brink of ruin, following the French invasion of the
Ruhr and Rhineland.
But, as those things belong to the limbo of a dead past that nobody wishes
to have remembered now, it is often asked: Why doesn’t Hitler revise Mein
Kampf? The answer, as I think, which would immediately come into the mind
of an impartial critic is that Mein Kampf is an historical document
which bears the imprint of its own time. To revise it would involve taking
it out of its historical context. Moreover Hitler has declared that his acts
and public statements constitute a partial revision of his book and are to
be taken as such. This refers especially to the statements in Mein Kampf
regarding France and those German kinsfolk that have not yet been
incorporated in the Reich. On behalf of Germany he has definitely acknowledged
the German portion of South Tyrol as permanently belonging to Italy and,
in regard to France, he has again and again declared that no grounds now
exist for a conflict of political interests between Germany and France and
that Germany has no territorial claims against France. Finally, I may note
here that Hitler has also declared that, as he was only a political leader
and not yet a statesman in a position of official responsibility, when he
wrote this book, what he stated in Mein Kampf does not implicate him
as Chancellor of the Reich.
I now come to some references in the text which are frequently recurring
and which may not always be clear to every reader. For instance, Hitler speaks
indiscriminately of the German Reich. Sometimes he means to refer
to the first Reich, or Empire, and sometimes to the German Empire
as founded under William I in 1871. Incidentally the regime which he inaugurated
in 1933 is generally known as the Third Reich, though this expression
is not used in Mein Kampf. Hitler also speaks of the Austrian Reich and
the East Mark, without always explicitly distinguishing between the Habsburg
Empire and Austria proper. If the reader will bear the following historical
outline in mind, he will understand the references as they occur.
The word Reich, which is a German form of the Latin word
Regnum, does not mean Kingdom or Empire or Republic. It is a sort
of basic word that may apply to any form of Constitution. Perhaps our word,
Realm, would be the best translation, though the word Empire can be used
when the Reich was actually an Empire. The forerunner of the first German
Empire was the Holy Roman Empire which Charlemagne founded in A.D. 800.
Charlemagne was King of the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes that subsequently
became Romanized. In the tenth century Charlemagne’s Empire passed into German
hands when Otto I (936–973) became Emperor. As the Holy Roman Empire
of the German Nation, its formal appellation, it continued to exist under
German Emperors until Napoleon overran and dismembered Germany during the
first decade of the last century. On August 6th, 1806, the last Emperor,
Francis II, formally resigned the German crown. In the following October
Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph, after the Battle of Jena.
After the fall of Napoleon a movement set in for the reunion of the German
states in one Empire. But the first decisive step towards that end was the
foundation of the Second German Empire in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian
War. This Empire, however, did not include the German lands which remained
under the Habsburg Crown. These were known as German Austria. It was
Bismarck’s dream to unite German Austria with the German Empire; but it remained
only a dream until Hitler turned it into a reality in 1938’. It is well to
bear that point in mind, because this dream of reuniting all the German states
in one Reich has been a dominant feature of German patriotism and statesmanship
for over a century and has been one of Hitler’s ideals since his childhood.
In Mein Kampf Hitler often speaks of the East Mark. This East Mark
– i.e. eastern frontier land – was founded by Charlemagne as the
eastern bulwark of the Empire. It was inhabited principally by Germano-Celtic
tribes called Bajuvari and stood for centuries as the firm bulwark of Western
Christendom against invasion from the East, especially against the Turks.
Geographically it was almost identical with German Austria.
There are a few points more that I wish to mention in this introductory note.
For instance, I have let the word Weltanschhauung stand in its original
form very often. We have no one English word to convey the same meaning as
the German word, and it would have burdened the text too much if I were to
use a circumlocution each time the word occurs. Weltanschhauung
literally means “Outlook-on-the World”. But as generally used in German
this outlook on the world means a whole system of ideas associated together
in an organic unity – ideas of human life, human values, cultural and
religious ideas, politics, economics, etc., in fact a totalitarian view of
human existence. Thus Christianity could be called a Weltanschhauung,
and Mohammedanism could be called a Weltanschhauung, and Socialism
could be called a Weltanschhauung, especially as preached in Russia. National
Socialism claims definitely to be a Weltanschhauung.
Another word I have often left standing in the original is
völkisch. The basic word here is Volk, which is sometimes
translated as People; but the German word, Volk, means the
whole body of the people without any distinction of class or caste. It is
a primary word also that suggests what might be called the basic national
stock. Now, after the defeat in 1918, the downfall of the Monarchy and the
destruction of the aristocracy and the upper classes, the concept of Das
Volk came into prominence as the unifying co-efficient which would embrace
the whole German people. Hence the large number of völkisch
societies that arose after the war and hence also the National Socialist
concept of unification which is expressed by the word
Volksgemeinschaft, or folk community. This is used in contradistinction
to the Socialist concept of the nation as being divided into classes.
Hitler’s ideal is the Völkischer Staat, which I have translated
as the People’s State.
Finally, I would point out that the term Social Democracy may be misleading
in English, as it has not a democratic connotation in our sense. It was the
name given to the Socialist Party in Germany. And that Party was purely Marxist;
but it adopted the name Social Democrat in order to appeal to the democratic
sections of the German people.
JAMES MURPHY.
Abbots Langley, February, 1939
Volume 1
Volume 2
Look here for other Classics of Tyranny.
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from The Laissez Faire Electronic Times, Vol 1, No 21,
July 8, 2002
Editor: Emile Zola Publisher: http://orlingrabbe.com/