Various
Readings on Fascism and National Socialism
NAZI AIMS AND METHODS
Political Aims
The political aims of National Socialism have been written so clearly in history in the past 10 years that it does not appear necessary to discuss them at length here.
The detailed program of the Nazi Party consists of the 25 points which were adopted on February 24, 1920 at a party mass meeting in Munich. (The 25-point program appears in the Appendix as document 12, post p. 222.) The points of particular interest in this study are the first four, which are set forth below:
1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a Great Germany on the basis of the right of the self-determination enjoyed by nations.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German People in its dealings with other nations, and abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the nourishment of our people and for settling our superfluous population.
4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.94
1. Internal Objectives
A statement of the internal objectives of National Socialism is made by Gauweiler in his Legal Organization and Legal Functions of the Movement (document 8, post p. 204). The laws of the Reich must seek to establish and promote the five basic values recognized by Nazi ideology:
1. Race: The legal protection of the race, which has created a new concept of nationality [Volkszugehörigkeit], is consciously put in first place, for the most significant historical principle which has been established by the victory of National Socialism is that of the necessity for keeping race and blood pure. All human mistakes and errors can be corrected except one: "the error regarding the importance of maintaining the basic values of a nation."
The purpose of this legal protection of the basic value of race must be the prevention for all time of a further mixture of German blood with foreign blood, as well as the prevention of continued procreation of racially unworthy and undesirable members of the people.
2. Soil [Boden]: The living-space and the basis for the food supply of the German people are its territory and soil. The farmer is the first and deepest representative of the people since he nourishes the people from the fertility of the earth and he maintains the nation through the fertility of his own family. Here National Socialism had to accomplish two great legal ends: the reestablishment and the protection of the farmer class and the securing of its land for the farmer family.
3. Work: The nation's work as a basic national value is grounded on the leading concept of "work of the hands and of the head" within and for the community of the people and the elevation of work to the only criterion for the value of an individual within the community. In place of the idea of class warfare, National Socialism had to establish the national community legally; in place of the defamation of work and its degradation to an object of barter, National Socialism had to raise it to an ethical duty and the right to work had to become the most clearly defined personal right of the individual. The concept of the honor of work had to be established as the basic concept of the national honor.
4. The Reich: With the securing of the three basic values of race, soil, and work arises the National Socialist Reich.
The infusion of foreign cultural and legal influences in Germany was a consequence of the weakening of the central authority of the German Reich since the Middle Ages. The creation and insuring of a strong central authority in contrast to the disorganized, federalistic system of the Weimar Republic became one of the principal lines of National Socialist legal policy. In consequence of the National Socialist revolution, the Reich took on the legal form of a totalitarian state and received a supreme and completely authoritative lawgiver in the person of the Führer. The principle of a division of power could no longer maintain itself: The formulation, the interpretation, and the execution of the law are all performed by the Führer himself or under his authority.
5. Honor: The fifth great value of the nation is its honor. The honor of the people, the Reich, the party, the Führer, and the individual citizen are all regarded as goods to be protected by law. The basis of national honor is loyalty. National Socialist criminal law is therefore essentially organized as a system of punishment for breaches of faith. Every crime and offense against the community is a breach of faith which must result in loss of honor.95
2. Foreign Policy
The close connection between the internal political program of the National Socialist movement, as expressed in the foregoing paragraphs, and its foreign policy was indicated by Hitler when he wrote in Mein Kampf (document 13-I, post p. 226):
As National Socialists we can further set forth the following principle with regard to the nature of the foreign policy of a folk-state:
It is the task of the foreign policy of a folk-state to secure the existence on this planet of the race which is encompassed by the state and at the same time to establish a healthy, viable, natural relation between the number and growth of the folk on the one hand and the size and quality of its soil and territory on the other hand. 96
And in the same work he states:
Yes, we can only learn from the past that we must undertake the setting of aims for our political activity in two directions: Soil and territory as the goal of our foreign policy, and a new, philosophically firm and uniform foundation as the goal of our domestic political activity.97
The political objectives of National Socialism, then, by definition of Hitler himself, are the internal unification of the German people and external expansion.
While the Nazis have never concealed the first of these objectives, the second was the subject for a great deal of dissimulation up to the outbreak of the present war. Typical of the false front which the Nazis presented to the outside world with reference to their foreign policy objectives are the statements made by Dr. Scurla in Basic Principles of National Socialism With Special Reference to Foreign Countries. Dr. Scurla quotes Hitler's speech of May 17, 1933 in which he said, "We see the European nations around us as given facts. French, Poles, etc., are our neighbor peoples, and we know that no conceivable historic occurrence could change this reality,"98 and comments:
This folk principle, which has grown out of the National Socialist ideology, implies the recognition of the independence and the equal rights of each people. We do not see how anyone can discern in this a "pan-Germanic" and imperialistic threat against our neighbors. This principle does not admit the difference between "great powers" and "minor states," between majority peoples and minorities. It means at the same time a clear rejection of any imperialism which aims at the subjugation of foreign peoples or the denationalization of alien populations. It demands the unqualified acknowledgment of the right to live of every folk, and of every folk-group, which is forced to live as a foreign group in another state. The western European national state together with its parliamentary democracy was not able to do justice to the natural and living entities, the peoples, in their struggle for existence.99
Farther on in the same work Scurla states:
Out of its fundamental ideologic view, however, Germany rejects every form of imperialism, even that of peaceful penetration. It is unable to concede to any people the authority to develop ideas and ways of living, to which then another people has to subordinate itself, even if some other order is suited to its essential nature … It does not at all, however, consider the German order obligatory for other peoples. National Socialism, as has been said a hundred times, is exclusively the sum total of the German world-view.100
Similar assurances by Nazi leaders were frequently made in order to induce a sense of security in neighboring countries. Hitler, for example, in a proclamation opening the party congress at Nuremberg on September 11, 1935 said:
National Socialism has no aggressive intentions against any European nation. On the contrary, we are convinced that the nations of Europe must continue their characteristic national existence, as created by tradition, history and economy; if not, Europe as a whole will be destroyed.101
But such assurances, which were intended exclusively for foreign consumption, were refuted by the basic policy laid down in Mein Kampf, which has been persistently pursued throughout the 10 years of the Nazi regime and has been realized to the extent that Germany now dominates and is in control of most of the European continent. In Mein Kampf (document 13-I, post p. 226) Hitler wrote:
Our task, the mission of the National Socialist movement, however, is to lead our folk to such political insight that it will see its future goal fulfilled not in the intoxicating impression of a new Alexandrian campaign but rather in the industrious work of the German plow, which waits only to be given land by the sword. 102
Hitler suggests a future foreign policy for Germany which would assure Lebensraum and domination of the European continent. In Mein Kampf he states:
But the political testament of the German nation for its outwardly directed activity should and must always have the following import:
Never tolerate the establishment of two continental powers in Europe. See an attack against Germany in every attempt to organize a second military power on the German borders, even if it is only in the form of the establishment of a state which is a potential military power, and see therein not only the right but also the duty to prevent the formation of such a state with all means, even to the use of force, or if it has already been established, to destroy it again. See to it that the strength of our folk has its foundations not in colonies but in the soil of the European homeland. Never regard the foundations of the Reich as secure, if it is not able to give every off-shoot of our folk its own bit of soil and territory for centuries to come. Never forget that the most sacred right in the world is the right to the soil which a man wishes to till himself, and the most sacred sacrifice is the blood which he spills for this soil.103
It is impossible to adduce from the writings of Hitler, or other Nazi leaders direct statements indicating that they aspire to the domination of the entire world. Such expressions, however, may be inferred not only from the direction of German foreign policy and the effusions of the geopoliticians but also from the following statement made by Hitler in Mein Kampf (document 13-I, post p. 226):
… If the German folk, in its historical development, had possessed that herdlike unity which other peoples have enjoyed, the German Reich would today be mistress of the globe. World history would have taken another course, and no one can tell whether in this way that might not have been attained which so many deluded pacifists are hoping today to wheedle by moaning and whining: a peace supported not by the palm branches of tearful pacifistic female mourners but founded by the victorious sword of a master race [Herrenvolk] which places the world in the service of a higher culture.104
Like Hitler, Rosenberg envisaged the extension of Nazi power far beyond the borders of Germany. In his Nature, Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP he stated, "But National Socialism also believes that, far beyond Germany's borders, its principles and its ideology … will lead the way in the unavoidable struggles for power in the other countries of Europe and America."105
Propaganda
1. Professed Peaceful Intentions as a Cloak for Imperialistic Designs
The falsity of Nazi propaganda has been demonstrated repeatedly during the past decade. That its keynote was set by Hitler himself becomes evident upon an examination of his statements on foreign policy over a period of years. Not only has his policy been marked by a series of shifts and turns, so that the policy of one year was frequently canceled by the policy of the next, but a comparison of his words with his subsequent deeds makes it evident that he deliberately sought to lull other countries into a feeling of security until he was ready to move against them. On May 17, 1933 he asserted:
No fresh European war is capable of putting something better in the place of unsatisfactory conditions which exist to-day … The outbreak of such madness without end would lead to the collapse of existing social order in Europe … The German Government are convinced that to-day there can be only one great task, and that is to assure the peace of the world … The German Government wish to settle all difficult questions with other Governments by peaceful methods. They know that any military action in Europe, even if completely successful, would, in view of the sacrifice, bear no relation to the profit to be obtained …
Germany will tread no other path than that laid down by the Treaties. The German Government will discuss all political and economic questions only within the framework of, and through, the Treaties.
The German people have no thought of invading any country. 106 (Document 14, post pp. 282-233.)
And on March 7, 1936 he stated:
After three years I believe that I can regard the struggle for German equality as concluded to-day. I believe, moreover, that thereby the first and foremost reason for our withdrawal from European collective collaboration has ceased to exist. We have no territorial demands to make in Europe.107 (Document 14, post p. 237.)
Moreover, he did not shrink from giving specific assurances of Germany's peaceful intentions toward his subsequent victims:
There are Germans and Poles in Europe, and they ought to live together in agreement. The Poles cannot think, of Europe without the Germans and the Germans cannot think of Europe without the Poles. (Oct. 24, 1933)
Germans and Poles must reconcile themselves as to the fact of each others' existence. It has seemed to me necessary to demonstrate by an example that it is possible for two nations to talk over their differences without giving the task to a third or a fourth …
The assertion that the German Reich plans to coerce the Austrian State is absurd and cannot be substantiated or proved … The assertion of the Austrian Government that from the side of the Reich an attack would be undertaken or planned I must emphatically reject … The German Reich is always ready to hold out a hand for a real understanding, with full respect for the free will of Austrian Germans … (Jan. 13, 1934)
The lie goes forth again that Germany to-morrow or the day after will fall upon Austria or Czecho-Slovakia. I ask myself always: Who can these elements be who will have no peace, who incite continually, who must so distrust, and want no understanding? Who are they? I know they are not the millions who, if these inciters had their way, would have to take up arms. (May 1, 1936)
Germany and Poland are two nations, and these nations will live, and neither of them will be able to do away with the other. I recognized all of this, and we all must recognize that a people of 33,000,000 will always strive for an outlet to the sea … We have assured all our immediate neighbors of the integrity of their territory as far as Germany is concerned. That is no hollow phrase; it is our sacred will …
(Sept. 26, 1938)108
(Document 14, post pp. 233, 234, 238, 240-241.)
Yugoslavia is a State that has increasingly attracted the attention of our people since the war. The high regard that the German soldiers then felt for this brave people has since been deepened and developed into genuine friendship. Our economic relations with this country are undergoing constant development and expansion, just as is the case with the friendly countries of Bulgaria, Greece, Rumania, Turkey, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic States. (Jan. 30, 1939)109
In Hitler's Reichstag speech of April 28, 1939, in which he replied to President Roosevelt's telegraphic message inviting him and Mussolini to pledge themselves not to attack 31 countries mentioned by name, he stated:
… All states bordering on Germany have received much more binding assurances, and above all suggestions, than Mr. Roosevelt asked from me in his curious telegram …
The German Government is nevertheless prepared to give each of the States named an assurance of the kind desired by Mr. Roosevelt on the condition of absolute reciprocity, provided that the State wishes it and itself addresses to Germany a request for such an assurance together with appropriate proposals.110
And on September 1, 1939, with reference to the recently concluded pact between Germany and Russia, he said:
You know that Russia and Germany are governed by two different doctrines. There was only one question that had to be cleared up. Germany has no intention of exporting its doctrine. Given the fact that Soviet Russia has no intention of exporting its doctrine to Germany, I no longer see any reason why we should still oppose one another. On both sides we are clear on that. Any struggle between our people would only be of advantage to others. We have, therefore, resolved to conclude a pact which rules out forever any use of violence between us.111
Additional assurances of this nature are quoted in a series of extracts from Hitler's speeches, dating from February 10, 1933 to September 1, 1939, which was printed in the London Times of September 26, 1939 (document 14, post p. 232).
2. Internal Propaganda
Within Germany the notorious propaganda machine of Dr. Goebbels, together with a systematic terrorization of oppositionist elements, has been the principle support of the rise and triumph of the Nazi movement. In his Legal Organization and Legal Functions of the Movement (document 8, post p. 204), Gauweiler gives an idea of the permeation of all phases of national life with a propaganda designed to make Nazi "legal principles" acceptable to the masses. He makes it clear that all of the Nazi propaganda machinery is in the service of this program; political lecturers, the press, the radio, and the films all play a part in helping the people to understand and appreciate the new legal code. The schools and Hitler Youth groups provide instruction for all young people in the fundamentals of National Socialist law, and pupils in those schools which train the carefully selected future leaders are given an especially strong dose of Nazi legal theory and practice.
In order to appeal to the broadest audience, Nazi propaganda has always sought to present all questions in the simplest possible terms. Goebbels himself, in his Nature and Form of National Socialism (document 2, post p. 170), wrote as follows:
National Socialism has simplified the thinking of the German people and led it back to its original primitive formulas. It has presented the complicated processes of political and economic life in their simplest terms. This was done with the well-considered intention of leading the broad masses of the people once again to take part in political life. In order to find understanding among the masses, we consciously practiced a popular [volksgebundene] propaganda. We have taken complexes of facts which were formerly accessible only to a few specialists and experts, carried them to the streets, and hammered them into the brain of the little man. All things were presented so simply that even the most primitive mind could grasp them. We refused to work with unclear or insubstantial concepts but we gave all things a clearly defined sense. Here lay the secret of our success.112
The character and quality of Nazi propaganda was fully presaged in Mein Kampf. Here Hitler paid a striking tribute to the power of lies, commenting on—
the very correct principle that the size of the lie always involves a certain factor of credibility, since the great mass of a people will be more spoiled in the innermost depths of its heart, rather than consciously and deliberately bad. Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it is more readily captivated by a big lie than by a small one, since it itself often uses small lies but would be, nevertheless, too ashamed to make use of big lies. Such an untruth will not even occur to it, and it will not even believe that others are capable of the enormous insolence of the most vile distortions. Why, even when enlightened, it will still vacillate and be in doubt about the matter and will nevertheless accept as true at least some cause or other. Consequently, even from the most impudent lie something will always stick …113
A number of other passages display Hitler's low opinion of the intellectual capacities and critical faculties of the masses:
All propaganda has to appeal to the people and its intellectual level has to be set in accordance with the receptive capacities of the most-limited persons among those to whom it intends to address itself. The larger the mass of men to be reached, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be set.114
The receptive capacity of the great masses is very restricted, its understanding small. On the other hand, however, its forgetfulness is great. On account of these facts all effective propaganda must restrict itself to very few points and impress these by slogans, until even the last person is able to bring to mind what is meant by such a word.115
The task of propaganda is, for instance, not to evaluate diverse rights but to emphasize exclusively the single right of that which it is representing. It does not have to investigate objectively the truth, so far as this is favorable to the others, in order then to present it to the masses in strict honesty, but rather to serve its own side ceaselessly.116
If one's own propaganda even once accords just the shimmer of right to the other side, then the basis is therewith laid for doubt regarding one's own cause. The masses are not able to distinguish where the error of the other side ends and the error of one's own side begins.117
But all talent in presentation of propaganda will lead to no success if a fundamental principle is not always strictly followed. Propaganda has to restrict itself to a few matters and to repeat these eternally. Persistence is here, as with so many other things in the world, the first and most important presupposition for success.118
In view of their slowness of mind, they [the masses] require always, however, a certain period before they are ready even to take cognizance of a matter, and only after a thousandfold repetition of the most simple concept will they finally retain it.119
In all cases in which there is a question of the fulfilment of apparently impossible demands or tasks, the entire attention of a people must be concentrated only on this one question, in such a way as if being or non-being actually depends on its solution …
…The great mass of the people can never see the entire way before them, without tiring and doubting the task.120
In general the art of all truly great popular leaders at all times consists primarily in not scattering the attention of a people but rather in concentrating it always on one single opponent. The more unified this use of the fighting will of a people, the greater will be the magnetic attractive force of a movement and the more powerful the force of its push. It is a part of the genius of a great leader to make even quite different opponents appear as if they belonged only to one category, because the recognition of different enemies leads weak and unsure persons only too readily to begin doubting their own cause.
When the vacillating masses see themselves fighting against too many enemies, objectivity at once sets in and raises the question whether really all the others are wrong and only one's own people or one's own movement is right.121 (Document 13-II, post pp. 229-231.)
It has been the aim of Nazi propaganda, then, to unite the masses of the people in hatred of certain enemies, designated by such conveniently broad and simple terms as "Jews," "democrats," "plutocrats," "bolshevists," or "Anglo-Saxons," which so far as possible were to be identified with one another in the public mind. The Germans were represented to themselves, on the other hand, as a racial folk of industrious workers. It then became possible to plunge the people into a war on a wave of emotional hatred against those nations which were pictured as combining to keep Germany from attaining her rightful place in the sun.
The important role which propaganda would have to play in the coming war was fully recognized by Ewald Banse, an ardent Nazi military theorist of the geopolitical school and professor of military science at Brunswick Military College. In his book Raum und Volk im Weltkrieg (Space and People in the World War) which appeared in 1932 (an English translation by Alan Harris was published under the title Germany Prepares for War (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1934)), he stated:
Preparation for future wars must not stop at the creation, equipment and training of an efficient army, but must go on to train the minds of the whole people for the war and must employ all the resources of science to master the conditions governing the war itself and the possibility of endurance. In 1914 we had a first-class army, but our scientific mobilization was bad, and the mobilization of men's minds a thing undreamed of. The unveiling of war memorials, parades of war veterans, flag-waggings, fiery speeches and guard-mounting are not of themselves enough to prepare a nation's mind for the dangers that threaten. Conviction is always more lasting than enthusiasm.
… Such teaching is necessary at a time and in a world in which countries are no longer represented by monarchs or a small aristocracy or by a specialist army, but in which the whole nation, from the commander-in-chief to the man in the ranks, from the loftiest thought to the simplest wish, from corn to coal, from the treasury vaults to the last trouser-button, must be permeated through and through with the idea of national defense, if it is to preserve its national identity and political independence. The science of national defense is not the same as military science; it does not teach generals how to win battles or company commanders how to train recruits. Its lessons are addressed first and foremost to the whole people. It seeks to train the popular mind to heroism and war and to implant in it an understanding of the nature and prerequisite conditions of modern warfare. It teaches us about countries and peoples, especially our own country and its neighbors, their territories and economic capacity, their communications and their mentality—all for the purpose of creating the best possible conditions for waging future wars in defense of the national existence.122
Infiltration Tactics
The Nazis, while entirely without scruple in the pursuit of their objectives, endeavor whenever possible to give their actions the cloak of legality. This procedure was followed in Germany to enable them to gain control of the Government of the Reich and in their foreign policy up to September 1, 1939. It has been a cardinal principle of the Nazis to avoid the use of force whenever their objectives may be attained in another manner and they have assiduously studied their enemies in an effort to discover the weak points in their structure which will enable the Nazis to accomplish their downfall. The preceding pages have demonstrated that the Nazis have contributed practically nothing that is original to German political thought. By the use of unscrupulous, deceitful, and uninhibited tactics, however, they have been able to realize many of the objectives which had previously existed only in theory.
The Weimar Constitution provided the Nazis with a convenient basis for the establishment of the totalitarian state. They made no effort to conceal their intention of taking advantage of the weaknesses of the Weimar Republic in order to attain power. On April 30, 1928 Dr. Goebbels wrote in his paper Der Angriff:
We enter Parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. We become members of the Reichstag in order to paralyze the Weimar sentiment with its own assistance. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear's work, that is its affair …123
And later in the same article:
We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come.124
Hitler expressed the same idea on September 1, 1933, when, looking back upon the struggle for political power in Germany, he wrote:
This watchword of democratic freedom led only to insecurity, indiscipline, and at length to the downfall and destruction of all authority. Our opponents' objection that we, too, once made use of these rights, will not hold water; for we made use of an unreasonable right, which was part and parcel of an unreasonable system, in order to overthrow the unreason of this system.125
Discussing the rise to power of the Nazis, Huber (document 1, post p. 155) wrote in 1939:
The parliamentary battle of the NSDAP had the single purpose of destroying the parliamentary system from within through its own methods. It was necessary above all to make formal use of the possibilities of the party-state system but to refuse real cooperation and thereby to render the parliamentary system, which is by nature dependent upon the responsible cooperation of the opposition, incapable of action.126
As its parliamentary strength increased, the party was able to achieve these aims:
It was in a position to make the formation of any positive majority in the Reichstag impossible.... Thus the NSDAP was able through its strong position to make the Reichstag powerless as a lawgiving and government-forming body.127
The same principle was followed by Germany in weakening and undermining the governments of countries which it had chosen for its victims. While it was Hitler's policy to concentrate on only one objective at a time, German agents were busy throughout the world in ferreting out the natural political, social, and economic cleavages in various countries and in broadening them in order to create internal confusion and uncertainty. Foreign political leaders of Fascist or authoritarian persuasion were encouraged and often liberally subsidized from Nazi funds. Control was covertly obtained over influential newspapers and periodicals and their editorial policies shaped in such a way as to further Nazi ends. In the countries Germany sought to overpower, all the highly developed organs of Nazi propaganda were utilized to confuse and divide public opinion, to discredit national leaders and institutions, and to induce an unjustified feeling of confidence in the false assertions of Nazi leaders disclaiming any aggressive intentions.