Adolf Bartels: National Socialism, Germany's Salvation - End (Rough Edit)
Original Translation of "Der Nationalsozialismus: Deutschlands Rettung"
Source Documents: German Scan | German Corrected
Editor-Translator’s Note: In the interest of providing a complete version of this work and not keeping the audience in suspense, I’m putting this post out. As I refine the work at my normal (slow) pace, I’ll strip out the rough section and create new posts.
Then Drexler sets forth the ideas that mark the departure from Social Democratic class obsession and the turn toward authentic National Socialism […] And so, the truth had dawned.
The National Socialist German Workers’ Movement found its principal champion in Adolf Hitler. Born in 1879 in Braunau (Upper Austria), he moved to Vienna at the age of seventeen, where he became an
absolute anti-Semite, mortal enemy of the entire Marxist worldview, and unyielding in his pan-German political convictions.
During the World War, he served in the German Army, distinguishing himself through exceptional bravery.
Later, having witnessed the Munich Council Republic period firsthand, he joined the National Socialist Workers' Movement in reaction against it – then a group of only six members. Through Hitler's relentless propaganda and, above all, his prodigious oratorical talent, the movement grew dramatically. This German-Austrian emerged as Bavaria's preeminent political figure, becoming the standard-bearer for völkisch Germans throughout the Reich.
One year after the party's founding, Hitler proclaimed the Twenty-Five Points of the National Socialist Program in the festival hall of Munich's Hofbräuhaus, where they were unanimously adopted. Let them be stated here:
The German Workers’ Party program is designed for its era. The leadership rejects establishing new objectives after achieving those outlined herein, particularly when such aims would artificially perpetuate mass discontent merely to ensure the Party’s survival.
We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany, on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations, and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germaine be abrogated.
We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.
Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Therefore no Jew can be a countryman.
Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the state shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen. We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and ability.
We demand that the state shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it is not possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since 2 August 1914 shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.
All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
The first duty of every citizen must be to work, mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all. Therefore we demand:
That all unearned income, and all interest-slavery, be abolished!
Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that the strongest consideration be given to ensure that small businessmen shall deliver the supplies needed by the state, the provinces, and the municipalities.
We demand agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common good. We demand the abolition of basis rents, and the prohibition of all land speculation.
We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the detriment of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.
We demand that Roman law, that serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.
In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the state must assume the responsibility of thoroughly organizing the entire public cultural system. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the state idea (civics) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that exceptionally talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the state’s expense.
The state has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national folk army.
We demand that there be a legal battle against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:
All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.
Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the state. They must not be published in the German language.
All financial interests that in any way affect German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.
Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand a legal battle against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our people; any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our people can only come about from the principle: Common Good before Individual Good.
In order to carry out this program we demand the creation of a strong central authority in the state, and the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole state and all its organizations. Also: The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the Reich, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.
I shall refrain from critiquing this program for now. It was subsequently published in January 1923 by the German People’s Publishing House in Munich under the title Essence, Principles, and Goals of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, with extensive commentary by Alfred Rosenberg. By that time, the movement had grown into a genuine political force within Germany, and alongside Hitler, it included many other distinguished figures, among them His Excellency General Ludendorff.
The great general, as is widely known, laid bare his heart without reserve when he spoke these words:
It is within the people—among the so-called common folk, the working class, and the middle class—that the moral forces reside, those which will forge for us a new Germany, one that shall be völkisch or cease to be. Not among the upper ten thousand. I, too, once numbered among them. I count myself no longer in their ranks, for there festers so much rot, cowardice, and corruption. In such soil, the seed of a new Germany cannot thrive.
It is clear that these words hardly won Ludendorff favor in exalted circles—yet they demanded to be spoken at least once: we Germans would scarcely have sunk so low had the upper ten thousand not faltered. Yet, though I myself spring from the people, I cannot fully adopt Ludendorff’s view. From my own experience, there dwell within the higher echelons—among, say, the steadfast nobility rooted to the land, or the scholars—figures of pronounced German-völkisch spirit and, in the finest sense, conservative bent, who grasp social concerns and, at their core, surely do not sanction the stance of the German National People’s Party for mere tactical gain.
Ludendorff later turned his voice directly to the workers’ plight, as he did in Königsberg:
I hold that it must at last prove possible to forge a German combat community where, as in the armies of old, distinctions fade away; where no one gazes down upon their fellow with arrogance or eyes them with mistrust; where every German, even the humblest laborer, is met with a warm heart and full understanding. Let us be frank: before the war, the possessing classes sinned grievously against this German worker. They abandoned him to the prey of Jewish capital—a fault not his alone, but theirs, who cast him off rather than safeguarding him for the German fatherland.
The bedrock belief in these words rings true beyond doubt. That sense of social duty—which, as I have shown above, once pulsed strongly through Germany—had, as noted earlier, all but withered by the eve of the World War. Among the propertied, even the learned, thought and feeling, tainted by Jewish influence, had turned wholly capitalistic or mammon-driven—a current that flows, for the most part, even now.
I shall not here recount the planned march of the Bavarians on Berlin nor its collapse on November 9, 1923, nor delve into the Hitler trial, however gripping it may be. These moments cannot be neatly traced to the National Socialist movement alone, which pressed on quietly even after Hitler began his sentence at Landsberg Fortress. Nor do I venture here to judge Hitler’s character. That it bears intellectual force shines through in his speeches and writings—take, for instance, his essay Why Did a November 8 Have to Come? published in Germany’s Renewal, issue 4, 1924—a work that would honor even a bold and able history professor.
The consequences of the November Revolution,
he writes there,
were and remain dire—a political unraveling, a moral and economic ruin! From this mire of unparalleled corruption in politics, administration, and commerce, certain marks stand starkly forth. Politically: the shameless corruption of the civil service, wrought by a parliamentary patronage bent to the whims of fleeting majorities; the upright, duty-bound official flounders against the young party crony who, though lesser in skill (to say nothing of character), overtakes him with ease, if not displacing him outright. Economically: the flooding of the administration with unneeded, unfit hands; the shattering of every practical foundation for fruitful labor in state or private ventures. The result: a sprawling deficit economy, from which the state sought escape—or rather deceit—through the fraudulent issue of worthless, unsecured paper money, ending in the currency’s utter collapse. Five years of this reckless squander sufficed to fritter away the savings of fifty years’ honest toil, to plunge countless blameless families into beggary, and, above all, to crush the lesser middle class. Morally: a self-defilement and debasement of the soul scarce seen in history’s annals. The lie of war guilt, pressed to stand as godfather to the birth and baptism of this new revolution, was an infamy posterity will never absolve. Thus, the question—‘national’ or ‘international,’ Marxism or its foe—looms as the cornerstone for the rebirth of our German people and fatherland. Its answer will never again lie with parliamentary majorities, but with the final surge of those hale forces ready to stand for their folk, not in words alone, but with their very lives.
Hitler has now been granted the probation to which he was due, and he could, no doubt, unfold a work of blessing if allowed. Yet how far that license stretches is hard to foresee. Still, as already said, the National Socialist movement’s course is not tethered to his person; it is a truly völkisch tide, rising from the whole of the people, and it soon swayed parliamentary elections mightily—not only in Bavaria and the south, but in Germany’s central and northern reaches too.
Here, born more from the older völkisch current, the German Völkisch Freedom Party took form—marked outwardly by the 1921 exit of Reichstag deputies von Graefe, Wulle, and Henning from the German National People’s Party. It soon wove bonds with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and, bit by bit, fused with it. Elections in Mecklenburg and Thuringia then revealed how wider swaths of the people had seized these fresh ideals, and the Reichstag elections of May 1924 yielded a faction of thirty-two deputies.
Among them stood Count Ernst zu Reventlow, editor of Reichswart, who may well be deemed the movement’s intellectual beacon in northern Germany. I may venture to say at the close that every educated German knows, more or less, who Count Reventlow is. As far back as 1906, he penned Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Byzantines, sounding a warning of perils ahead.
Through the World War, his lead articles in the Deutsche Tageszeitung won him renown abroad as Germany’s keenest political mind; at home, his grand work Germany’s Foreign Policy from 1888 to 1914 and his weekly Reichswart drew throngs of followers.
No mere theorist of foreign affairs, he grasped early that without a deep social bent in all politicians, a true healing of Germany’s state could not be won. Thus, he stepped readily into the National Socialist movement, crafting for it in January 1924 a program of extraordinary care and depth.
We now turn to a closer examination of the National Socialist endeavors, building upon the old Munich Program and the new Reichswart Program, to demonstrate that they spring from the people and life itself, yet also emerge as the fruit of profound intellectual evolution—fresh and fertile in contrast to the usual party rhetoric—and are undoubtedly capable of becoming Germany’s salvation.
In both Count Reventlow’s program and the Munich Program, one must distinguish between provisions bound by their time and those of enduring principle.
For instance, the Munich Program demands that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, be immediately compelled to leave the Reich—a measure aimed chiefly at Eastern Jews.
Likewise, the calls for the total confiscation of war profits and the death penalty for common criminals against the people, usurers, and profiteers are clearly products of their historical moment. Count Reventlow, too, demands:
Ruthless purification of public and private life. The severest penalties against usury, profiteering, and all that accompanies them. The professional parliamentarian must vanish. Any monarchy borne on the shoulders of Jewry is to be rejected.
Yet both programs also contain fundamental provisions designed to reshape German völkisch and state life, and it is with these that we shall chiefly concern ourselves here.
The first section of Reventlow’s program, titled Foundations of the Völkisch State, begins by rejecting estates and classes (save for professional guilds), followed immediately by the declaration:
Private property is recognized in the völkisch state and stands under its protection.
This point must be sharply emphasized, for opponents of the National Socialists persistently portray them as foes of private property, eager to align with socialists and communists. Yet socialism does not inherently mean communal ownership; rather, it first signifies an orientation toward communal life, toward the people’s community, as we German-völkisch envision it.
Joseph Maria von Radowitz, friend of King Frederick William IV, expressed it thus:
Every property owner owes an account not only to God but also to his fellow men.
Count Reventlow, naturally, does not subscribe to capitalism—that is, the principles of unscrupulous wealth accumulation. On the contrary, he declares in the Foundations:
The völkisch state must strive in all domains to advance the people’s prosperity, preventing or eliminating the amassing of vast riches, while combating impoverishment and poverty with all its might.
How this is to be achieved is set forth in greater detail in the second part of the program, Völkisch-Social Transformation. It begins with a firm repudiation of international Jewish capitalism, which enslaves all nations. Then it states:
Capital is essential for enterprise, both large and small. The völkisch struggle is not against capital itself, but against international capitalism; it seeks the nationalization and völkisch alignment of capital in Germany, and thus of the financial system, economic life, and social existence as a whole. Without resolving the social question—or at least addressing it earnestly and thoroughly, guided solely by social considerations—the German people cannot be healed, nor saved. Grounded in these facts and convictions, we present our programmatic demands, free of partisan spirit or selfish ambition: State oversight of all banks; nationalization of those banks whose combined share and reserve capital exceeds a specified threshold, to be determined. Above all, the Reichsbank must be nationalized. Strict, unwavering state supervision of the stock exchange and its entire system. Immediate measures to be enacted: Prohibition of futures trading, options trading, and so-called speculative transactions. Shares and mining stocks of new ventures may only be traded once their first proper annual balance sheet is available. Prohibition of trading in unlisted securities. An upper limit set on interest rates. Every periodic interest payment must include an amortization component, to be determined. Prohibition of bearer shares. Introduction of registered shares. Shares not registered by name within a set period revert to the state. Major public works and enterprises should, in principle, no longer be financed through interest-bearing loans, but directly by the state, provided inflation is avoided.
To speak plainly, I cannot judge whether these measures are practicable or will prove beneficial.
Beyond Reventlow’s program, I have read Gottfried Feder’s The German State on National and Social Foundations, subtitled New Paths in State, Finance, and Economy, Rudolf Jung’s National Socialism, which delves deeper into economic matters, and Artur Dinter’s Origin, Goal, and Path of the German Völkisch Freedom Movement, along with numerous pamphlets and essays on these topics—yet I hesitate to offer an opinion.
Indeed, it seems clear to me that every interest payment should also reduce the principal: as a boy, I felt it unjust that my father had to pay interest endlessly on the modest mortgage burdening his home—yet whether interest can be wholly abolished, I cannot say.
What must be achieved, however, is that most Germans no longer think in purely capitalist or mammonistic terms, as they do now, and that money ceases to be seen as life’s highest aim.
By their very nature, Germans are not inherently mammonistic—if they were, they would not have borne the immense wealth losses of recent times so calmly; in fierce bitterness, they would have struck down the Jews, who, in the end, will bear the blame.
Instead, as I have often observed, they met these events with a certain humor.
Yet the Jewish contagion persists.
Even those who aspire to refinement often reveal a stark selfishness, above all an absolute distrust of anything that does not uphold the sanctity of capital, never attaining a social or völkisch perspective.
And yet, our salvation lies solely here: something must finally be done in the economic realm; this pernicious capitalism must somehow be confronted. Only then will the people’s faith in the integrity of the higher circles return, and the purely Jewish-Marxist divide between bourgeois and proletarian fade away. I would strongly advocate that the National Socialist Party, at the next Reichstag session, introduce a motion to mandate the universal adoption of amortizing interest, as a first step.
Reventlow further calls for a reshaping of inheritance law. Here, too, he has encountered fierce resistance: the misguided parental love that seeks to ease life for one’s children remains widespread.
Beyond a certain minimum threshold,
Reventlow writes,
the larger the inheritance, the greater the number of heirs it should benefit, extending to more distant kin.
Thus, the accumulation of wealth can be regulated, the formation of small and medium-sized properties encouraged, and the creation of unsocially vast estates prevented. This demand must be governed by provisions ensuring that, in the inheritance of urban and rural real estate, the heir remains economically viable and the property operable, while preventing evasion through lifetime gifts or sales.
Here, too, extremes are avoided—a truth that grows clearer as one reads on:
The völkisch program does not seek to shatter land ownership, expropriate it, or proceed along communist lines. Rather, it strives for a balanced blend of small, medium, and large landholdings. The consolidation of oversized estate complexes in one hand, where not naturally curbed by reformed inheritance law, must be restrained through land cession. If parts of large estates remain unworked or underworked, the state—specifically a völkisch state—holds both the right and duty to intervene.
This, indeed, is the crux for Reventlow and National Socialists broadly: “The duty of every owner to employ and manage their property in a truly social spirit,” applying to both monetary wealth and landed property.
“Social is understood to mean that the employment, administration, and management of property serve the interest of the whole, conceived in a völkisch sense—not an anti-völkisch, unsocial self-interest.”
Underpinning this is the ancient Germanic and Christian notion that every owner is, in the end, merely a steward of their property before God and their people, accountable to both, as Radowitz also affirmed.
Let no one suppose this can be evaded in the future.
Certainly, the individual must live, and the family takes precedence over state and people—but only insofar as its existence is secured; once that is assured, völkisch priorities outweigh mere business interests.
This does not overturn the principle that every labor merits its reward, but it does reject the notion that all speculation is permissible so long as it remains within the law.
What Reventlow further says on the land question, I will only briefly note:
“Creation of a new German land law to render land usury impossible, freeing the soil from the grip of financial capital; to this end, special state powers; land must be made unlendable by private capital. Vigorous promotion of settlement based on social, racial, and professional considerations. All land acquisition companies are to be prohibited, dissolved, or liquidated.”
The housing question follows, but I will not delve into it here.
It was a vile falsehood spread by certain German-national factions during the penultimate Reichstag elections to claim that the National Socialist program demanded uncompensated land expropriation.
It states “for public purposes” (Point 17), implying only minor portions, and always to the grantor’s benefit.
One of my cherished notions, lingering a moment longer on the matter of property, has always been to compel great capital—or, more broadly, large estates—to undertake specific cultural services. In ancient Athens, as is well known, there existed the so-called liturgies, which the historian Schlosser described as
“a peculiar financial institution, [one] utterly foreign to all modern states.”
By Athenian law, certain public expenditures were shouldered and managed by individual wealthy citizens. All those possessing a fortune of at least three talents were obliged, in turn, to perform these distinctive duties—though no one could be called upon in consecutive years. Far from being seen as a burden, these liturgies were regarded as honorable obligations, and those bound to them typically offered more than the law required.
They fell into two categories: regular and extraordinary. The regular ones included
the choregia (equipping choruses for grand theatrical performances),
the gymnasiarchy (providing athletes for public festival games),
the hestiasis (arranging public banquets), and
the architheoria (outfitting and leading public embassies);
among the extraordinary,
the trierarchy (fitting out warships) stood foremost.
In a certain sense, our princes, too, took up such liturgies: maintaining court theaters, establishing libraries, founding schools of art and music, preserving castles and parks—these were no less. What the princes achieved (take the Grand Duke of Saxony, for instance, whose civil list of a mere million marks surely devoted half to public purposes), our great capitalists could certainly accomplish as well. There would be no objection if every rentenmark millionaire, beyond his taxes, were required to make an annual contribution—perhaps supporting a theater, purchasing paintings or books—for the state’s benefit. The form of this patronage could, to a degree, be left to the benefactor’s choice, and thus, in time, we too might come to see such liturgies not as burdens but as honorable duties. At any rate, I deem the revival of this ancient custom most worthy of consideration.
No less pressing than the property question, in my view, is the worker question. In his Principles, Reventlow declares:
“Every German capable of work bears the duty to labor and must be compelled by the state to do so. The völkisch state is obliged to provide work for the able-bodied who lack it.”
Thus, a right to work, paired with a universal duty to work. The idle class, still lingering among us, will simply be eradicated in the völkisch state. Yet this does not mean that someone who—so to speak—lives a life of cultural enjoyment, thereby serving as a bearer of culture, must vanish (just as larger estates must endure to sustain cultural sites; the state cannot take on every castle or patrician house). Still, he too must perform his share of the labor owed to society—tasks abound in this very sphere, waiting to be addressed.
In the section titled “Völkisch-Social Reorganization,” Reventlow turns to the measures pursued and enacted by the Social Democratic Party, seeking to reconcile them with his vision:
“Fundamental recognition of the eight-hour workday as the norm. Freedom for any worker to agree, directly or through elected representatives, with his employer to work longer hours.
Prohibition of employers’ associations, whatever their form or name; likewise, prohibition of trade unions. Both fuel class struggle and economic power contests, making them anti-social and anti-völkisch.
In their stead, professional-guild organizations shall arise, uniting all workers within a single enterprise.
Wages shall be determined strictly by personal output.
Salaries and wages should, as far as possible, reflect the true value of the work performed. On this newly shaped foundation, a vigorous expansion of genuine workplace community—especially along cooperative lines—must be pursued.
Workers shall share in the enterprise itself and its profits. In rural areas, such profit-sharing, long an established custom, takes various forms suited to local conditions; its further development should be encouraged.
In industrial and other commercial ventures, such efforts have often faltered. Profit-sharing is feasible only where profits exist. Perhaps the concept of a ‘super-dividend,’ as practiced by the Zeiss Works, offers a path worth exploring. Yet more salutary than profit-sharing may be worker participation in the enterprise itself—or in industry at large—through, say, small shareholdings, as still found in England. In sum, the völkisch demand endures: to seek every path and test every means to forge a living bond between entrepreneur and worker.”
Here, too, I withhold judgment, especially since Reventlow offers chiefly suggestions. We stand before a vast field of experimentation, one that must at last be tackled with resolve. Success hinges on the right spirit, as Reventlow keenly emphasizes:
“Such collaboration—that inner unity of purpose between entrepreneur and worker—can be pursued with hope of success only through a spiritual, indeed a moral, transformation. The employer must learn to see the worker as a comrade of the Volk, not merely a ‘labor force,’ not just ‘hands,’ as the Americans put it, to be exploited with ruthless efficiency as the enterprise’s chief aim. The worker, too, must come to view the employer as a comrade, not a loathsome exploiter. Save for many noble exceptions, contempt on one side and hatred on the other have divided them for half a century, stoked and sharpened by the deliberate machinations of Jewry. Only the völkisch spirit, only völkisch feeling, can avert the hollowness of social reforms. Such an inner reversal cannot be mandated; it must be awakened through education and example. The völkisch state itself must take up this education, methodically aligning laws and practices with the völkisch-social ethos. This ranks among its most urgent tasks. Should it fail, even the most progressive laws will ring empty, and the rift within the German Volk will remain unbridged.”
Beyond the questions of property and labor—its paramount concerns—Reventlow’s program also grapples with constitutional order, foreign policy, and the Jewish question. Here, I limit myself to the essentials:
“The structure and form of the völkisch state must flow from these core principles: The parliamentary system is to be rejected. The fate of land and people must never again rest with parliamentary bodies. Instead, there must be a unified leadership—whether one person or several—ensuring unity, continuity, independence, and impartiality. A largely dictatorial transitional phase would, at first, be a practical necessity.
Otherwise, the principles of decentralization, self-administration, and guild-based associations shall hold: professional-guild and parliamentary bodies shall coexist, but without final decision-making power. The career parliamentarian vanishes.
Among the German tribes or federal states, the federal element must again prevail, both inwardly and outwardly—for instance, through the states’ representation in shaping the Reich’s foreign policy.”
Reventlow offers no firm pledge to monarchy:
“Since 1918, the old aura of monarchy has faded. A new monarchy must, from the start, embody values—real, personal, and intangible—that render aura unnecessary.”
Perhaps the old, good tradition can yet be built upon; in any case, I stand for monarchy under all circumstances, preferring the question of rule and leadership to rest with divine will rather than human decrees or elections. Naturally, Reventlow also calls for a German military constitution and a unified German legal code.
Equally striking is his stance on foreign policy—I cite but one sentence:
“Germany’s foreign policy must not be tethered to the international interests of industry and commerce.”
Time and again, I have noted that Fichte’s Closed Commercial State already holds the ideas we need: detachment from the world economy, the cultivation of an independent national life.
And so we arrive at the Jewish question, which Reventlow confronts with particular vigor in the section Jewish Legislation. Even his definition of a Jew stands out:
“Jews are adherents of the Mosaic law (there is no Jewish ‘faith’ or ‘confession’) and all who descend paternally from such adherents. Germans married to Jews are deemed Jews, as are those with both a Jewish father and a Jewish mother.”
As a specialist on this matter, I would urge the state to compile a comprehensive Jewish register and group all Jews and those wed to Jews into distinct political communities, perhaps even mandating a formal Jewish confession. Reventlow’s immediate demands are:
“Jews may neither hold nor gain the civil rights of a German.
In Germany, Jews may not occupy public office or perform public functions. They shall have neither active nor passive voting rights. They may act as lawyers or doctors only for their Jewish fellows. They are to be barred from the German press, book trade, and literature—whether as owners, publishers, printers, authors, contributors, editors, or financiers. The same applies to theater and all other realms of cultural life. In German banking, Jews may hold no role. Any leading or influential position in German business life is to be made impossible for Jews through specific legal measures.”
Thus, a special Jewish statute. Its creation will be immensely difficult, its enforcement perhaps more so. Yet the crux is this: at last, the Jewish question is being taken seriously. Should National Socialism achieve nothing beyond opening this path in Germany, it would have fulfilled its völkisch mission. For the Jewish question has become the world’s life-and-death question—a truth only the naive or the obstinate can deny. The fate of our people, and indeed of nearly all nations, hangs upon its resolution. I take pride in having recognized and proclaimed this over a generation ago.
My quotations from Reventlow’s program should offer a reasonably clear insight into what German National Socialism seeks and the means by which it seeks it. For an accessible introduction, readers may turn to Artur Dinter’s lucid and gracefully penned pamphlet, already noted: Origin, Goal, and Path of the German Völkisch Freedom Movement (Alexander Duncker Verlag, Weimar). From this work, I draw the appraisal of Social Democracy since 1918:
“When Social Democracy seized power in the 1918 Revolution, it revealed itself wholly incapable of freeing the worker from capitalist exploitation. On the contrary, it propelled exploitative industrial capitalism to a dominance it had never known before the war. Since the Revolution, banks and capitalist enterprises have sprouted like mushrooms from the soil. New bank buildings have risen on every street corner, adorned with a grandeur and extravagance that clash starkly with the widespread misery of the people.”
I would also emphasize Dinter’s incisive distinction between the entrepreneur’s productive working capital and the unproductive, exploitative capital of banks and the stock exchange. A more scholarly depth is found in Rudolf Jung’s substantial work, also previously cited, National Socialism (Deutscher Volksverlag, Munich). This text divides into three sections:
Foundations of National Socialism,
Development and Documents of National Socialism, and
Goals of National Socialism.
The first section offers a meticulous historical survey, highlighting the vigor of medieval German economic life and tracing how the shift to a pure money economy plunged us into materialism and mammonism. The Jewish spirit and its ambition for global mastery are, naturally, subjected to piercing scrutiny.
“The new German Reich ultimately crumbled,”
Jung asserts,
“because, despite its predominantly German populace, its leadership and governance yielded entirely to un-German influences.”
Social Democracy, the Center Party, and Jewish liberalism each receive their due measure of reproach.
In tracing the rise of National Socialism, Jung also recounts the Austrian experience. He then explores ground rent and value growth, interest, cooperatives, profit-sharing, and other pressing economic matters, concluding with a program he presents as a mere outline. Unlike Count Reventlow, he upholds the trade unions, envisioning them as schools for works councils, which he sees as the foundation for a healthier, more fitting form of popular representation for our people. He imagines Germany’s state reorganization in terms akin to those of Paul Tafel in his work The New Germany: A Council State on a National Basis.
It would be futile here to dissect the National Socialist worldview in every detail; it is enough to affirm its existence and its vast superiority over the outdated, hollow doctrines of the old parties. Whether the theorist gives way to the practitioner—whether a true statesman arises to forge the vital new forms we need—only time will reveal. Yet we may hold faith, for the National Socialist movement springs from natural roots, and the enmity of Social Democracy, the Center Party, and other bourgeois factions only confirms their recognition of its force.
Though one might view National Socialism as Germany’s probable salvation, we must beware of delusions. A people’s community imbued with social spirit is a noble vision, yet the spiritual, emotional, and above all moral state of the German people today renders it difficult to achieve. Many among us are undeniably reactionary, clinging to fantasies of a return to Wilhelm II’s era—the capitalist monarchy and unadulterated class state, as one might plainly term it. These are the hardest for us National Socialists to reach, though decent souls dwell even within their ranks.
Far less appealing is the republican ambition pervading the middle parties, from the Social Democrats through the Democrats and Center Party to the German People’s Party. Lately, this ambition has birthed a military vanguard in the Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold, thrusting civil war into alarming proximity—unless, as their democratic creed might suggest, most of these fighters prize life above all else. The Reichsbanner has been bluntly labeled a “Jewish protection force,” and indeed, it stands not far from Jewry, just as republican striving walks hand in hand with it.
We then enter the broad expanses where thought and feeling have all but ceased. Truly, a vast segment of our people today is utterly indifferent to politics and society: cars and motorcycles outweigh national survival or social justice in their hearts. When the Tietz department store unfurls its balloon advertisement, this crowd—rural folk included—falls for it without hesitation.
Lastly, we must not overlook the vile elements among us: profiteers and usurers who have connived their way into high society, flaunting villas and automobiles, alongside Bolsheviks driven by avarice and baser instincts. I have purposely left these so-called “also-Germans” unlinked to their parties, for those parties bear no blame for them. The aim is simply to prove that a national echo of Schiller’s
“Be embraced, ye millions”
is no easy feat; the great people’s community remains a formidable challenge.
Nearly all parties today profess it with their lips, but we Völkisch socialists alone are earnest in its pursuit—even if it means first undertaking a thorough “cleansing” of our people. Our foes sense this, fueling their ferocious wrath, ceaselessly stoked by the Jewish press, and the torrent of slander against us. Consider only the persistent effort to paint us as Wotan’s devotees, despite the Munich Program and Reventlow’s program bearing clear witness to Christianity, and despite old Völkisch leaders like myself laboring lifelong in a deeply Christian spirit.
During the penultimate Reichstag elections, a (likely Catholic) clergyman issued a leaflet,
“The Völkisch Movement as Apostasy from Christianity,”
brimming with distortions and chiefly peddled by Jew-friendly outlets. A Völkisch journal countered it with
“The Völkisch Movement Is No Apostasy from Christianity,”
a rebuttal that stands here and may yet prove useful in elections to come.
Presently, non-Catholic papers are spreading a leaflet across Germany—reprinting two pieces from the Berlin Center Party’s Germania—under the title The Völkisch Movement as Apostasy from Christianity. Its shrewd crafting may lend it greater sway. At root, it is an election tract aimed at curbing the German Völkisch movement’s rise and its sway in Reichstag contests. Scrutinize it closely, and the partisan twists and falsehoods—so typical of our political fray—emerge. Credited to
“a clergyman,”
it lacks the mandated printer’s mark—perhaps funded by wealthy Jews, for it serves Judaism, allied with Ultramontanism, nearly more than Ultramontanism itself.
The leaflet’s foundation lies in Alphons Steiger’s Catholicism and Judaism (Germania-Verlag), a work largely untrustworthy, as Völkisch voices will soon thoroughly expose. For now, it suffices to tackle its core claim:
“No doubt exists that the Völkisch movement is an apostasy not merely from Catholicism, but from all Christianity, indeed all religion—a turn toward paganism.”
This is false; the German Völkisch movement is political, not religious. The leaflet and Steiger wrongly entangle it with the German Faith Movement and German Christian Movement, the latter being far from “pagan.”
Nor is it true, as the leaflet asserts, that the World War birthed the German Völkisch movement. It predates that conflict by years, rooted in the staunch Christian ethos of figures like Ernst Moritz Arndt, and counts among its present leaders resolute Christians—names like Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Hans von Wolzogen, and Adolf Bartels come to mind.
The truth is this: today’s German Völkisch movement strives only to reclaim for our people their rightful equality among nations, to mold Germany’s constitution to its own essence, to purge its Judaized culture and restore its German soul, to shatter international capitalism’s grip, and to foster social conditions that grant every German comrade their due. On the religious debates of our time, it has taken no stance—not least because it draws support from Catholics and Protestants alike.
Yet Hitler, in the 25-Point Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), has proclaimed these foundational tenets:
“We demand freedom for all religious confessions within the state, provided they do not jeopardize its existence or offend the moral and ethical sensibilities of the Germanic race. The Party itself champions a positive Christianity, without tying itself confessionally to any single denomination. It opposes the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and beyond us, firm in the belief that a lasting recovery of our people can only arise from within, rooted in the principle: Common good before self-interest.”
Should one infer from these words that the German Völkisch movement elevates the nation above religion, such a conclusion is wholly erroneous: Hitler addresses confessions within the state, and their utility or detriment to it is surely judged by the moral sensibility of the nation—a nation, let it be noted, also crafted by God, undoubtedly destined to live true to its essence.
Truly deplorable is the pamphlet’s chaotic mingling of the German Völkisch movement with the German Faith communities and leagues. These latter groups do indeed seek to sever ties with Christianity, deeming it a Jewish construct, yet they are mere trifling circles, insignificant beside the broader Völkisch movement. Scarcely 5,000 souls across Germany and Austria could be counted among them. Moreover, these German Faith adherents are not devotees of Wotan, as Center Party critics persistently allege; they harbor no desire to revert to ancient paganism but aspire instead to a spiritually and morally exalted All-Father religion.
It is a flagrant deceit to include the Deutschbund (German League) among the German Faith leagues: its statutes breathe not a word of religion, and the notable presence of clergy within its ranks wholly precludes any pledge to a distinctly German faith—though it does not exclude the call for a German spirit within religion. Equally indefensible are the pamphlet’s assaults on the Jungdeutscher Orden (Young German Order): one may cherish the heritage of Germanic forebears without thereby diminishing one’s Christian fidelity.
Utterly preposterous is the effort to drag the German Christian movement into the anti-Christian fold: true, the German Christians renounce the Old Testament as a binding sacred text for Christians, yet they find support—beyond the lucid affirmation of the eminent theologian Schleiermacher—in the widely held view that the New Testament supersedes the Old. They do assert Christ’s Aryan nature, but this rests on biblical authority, which (in 1 Maccabees 5:23) declares all Jews removed from Galilee. Beyond this, the German Christians pursue a renewal and deepening of religious life, centered on the person of Jesus Christ, whom they, like this writer, largely regard as divine.
It may well be that some German Christians stand among the German Völkisch, yet the Völkisch movement itself has no cause to tolerate being jumbled with every manner of clear or murky religious pursuit; the resolute Völkisch outright repudiate much of the men and currents the pamphlet thrusts upon them. Every political movement spawns its zealots and profiteers, but the honest adversary looks beyond these to the clear-minded leaders.
Such leaders are indeed present within the German Völkisch movement: it would be absurd to label Artur Dinter’s lucid Gospel as unchristian; it is a base distortion to portray Adolf Bartels’ hope—that Stresemann might yet find his man—as a veiled incitement to assassination, when this honest, steady champion of Germandom clearly meant only a spiritual mentor by “man.” In the end, the notorious pamphlet is steeped in Jesuitical guile, and thus stands condemned in the eyes of all upright Germans.
Yes, the struggle National Socialism must wage is arduous and may grow sterner still, yet victory shall not elude it, for in time all decent Germans will rally to its cause. It is not merely a party faction, but a confession of authentic national essence.
Whether the forthcoming elections will advance its aims remains, of course, uncertain. The National Socialist Freedom Party, the Völkisch Bloc, possesses scant resources, and electoral outcomes hinge greatly on the execution of expansive propaganda—a costly endeavor indeed. Knowing full well what is at stake, Jewry proved even more “generous” in the last elections than ever before, succeeding in drawing a substantial share of the ever-wavering to its side—that is, to the parties in its sway.
Yet we National Socialists, unbound at heart by parliamentarism and party machinations, have not, as noted, taken this electoral setback too gravely: the party dealings of the Reich will, as previously stated, one day crash; Jewish dominion, for all its cunning execution, bears bankruptcy within itself—and then dawns the hour when the steadfast minority, ever the bearer of the future, may undertake its mission.
Some believe the Reich Presidential Election next year might already herald the turning point: by then, the Dawes Plan will have pressed heavily enough, and the people will have amassed sufficient revulsion for party antics and Jewry (the Barmat Scandal looms large). An essay by the politician H. Dietrich, known well to me, published in various journals and newspapers, now proposes nominating Ludendorff as a presidential candidate. I shall cite it here to anchor my reflections at last in tangible politics:
“The notion of electing General Ludendorff over Friedrich Ebert as Reich President in 1925 gains ever wider traction and will surely lead to his candidacy. It springs from the sound conviction that Ludendorff is the most eminent German alive today, a Bismarck of our era, and must thus assume the station affording him supreme influence over his people’s fate. Faith that Germany’s salvation might emerge from democracy has faded among most Germans; they yearn once more for ‘the one man in millions,’ and, expecting no redemption from monarchist counter-revolutions or putsches, they advocate the sole path to vest him with the authority he requires.”
Yet, as is only natural among the German people, the fiercest opposition rises against Ludendorff’s candidacy. Foremost, of course, from the parties forming today’s ruling Grand Coalition—the Social Democrats, the Center Party, the Democrats, the German People’s Party. They know full well their dominion would be utterly undone should Ludendorff claim the Reich Presidency, and thus will spare no effort to foil his election. Behind them looms Jewry, keenly aware that Ludendorff is its most formidable living foe—a man undaunted by the Jewish question and its resolution in the Völkisch vein; one need only recall the vitriolic attacks on Ludendorff in Georg Bernhard’s Vossische Zeitung (where he tellingly masks himself with the pseudonyms “Gracchus” and “Plutus”).
Today, Gustav Stresemann stands as the preeminent German champion of Jewry, and one might justly juxtapose him with Erich Ludendorff as Ormuzd to Ahriman—yet Stresemann, far from consciously embodying the evil principle, may well fancy himself the savior of the German people, convinced their endurance rests solely on cultivating a harmonious bond with world Jewry.
The Grand Coalition, however, as the most recent Reichstag elections have laid bare, no longer commands robust prospects; it is conceivable that in the Reich Presidential Election, they might fail to rally even half the German electorate behind their candidate. To stay the course, would that candidate be Friedrich Ebert? It is, after all, Stresemann’s achievement that Ebert still clings to his office; yet can that tenure be prolonged further? Assuredly, the Grand Coalition would relish deferring the Reich Presidential Election by a few years, but such a gambit now falters, for the German Nationalists and Communists have swelled in might, and unrelenting adversaries even menace a tax strike should delay prevail—thus, they must, in any event, resign themselves to renominating Ebert.
Even so, a host of misgivings emerges: a substantial bloc of the German People’s Party will, of course, never cast their lot with Ebert, and now certain Catholics, recoiling from the Jewish influence within the Centre Party and bristling against both the nascent and seasoned strains of Marxism, begin to mount resistance—thus, the question of candidacy demands meticulous deliberation. Perhaps they will hazard an experiment, each party advancing its own contender; then Ludendorff might confront half a dozen foes rather than a mere two or three.
The verdict on his election rests squarely with the German National People’s Party. Little doubt clouds the notion that he scarcely endears himself to its leading lights; hence, they have anointed the seventy-five-year-old Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz as their rising star, already heralding him as Reich Chancellor in the wake of the Reichstag triumph. Who conjured this ingenious stratagem remains a mystery—perhaps His Excellency Oskar Hergt, fully cognizant that Ludendorff sees through his veneer and that his own dominion would crumble beneath a Ludendorff presidency.
Ludendorff, for his part, has hardly minced words about the erstwhile “higher” classes, proclaiming salvation springs from the people; he has strode arm in arm with Adolf Hitler, who never climbed beyond corporal in the Great War, and as a man of common birth, he holds no allure for those circles yearning to resurrect the old order. His towering genius as a field commander admits no question, alas, prompting these quarters to incessantly chant that Ludendorff is “no politician”—a slur, mere Jewish nonsense, like most political catchphrases crafted by Jews for the credulous Germans, and so it finds fervent embrace.
That Ludendorff’s writings, such as Politics and Warfare, offer cogent proof of his statesmanlike prowess, and that his public bearing since returning to Germany—most notably during the Hitler Trial—exudes sound political instinct and finesse, can, of course, be blithely dismissed beneath the sheen of that polished phrase. It is but an echo of what we learned from Otto von Bismarck of old: even upright Germans shrink from their one true titan, leaving their progeny to yearn, with tearful hands, to wrest him from the grave.
Yet the Völkisch Movement endures, marching in lockstep with Ludendorff. True, its entanglement with parliamentarism ushers in a medley of human, all-too-human frailties; the party bosses and petty intriguers sprouting within it will bluster and weave their ploys. But such efforts will profit them little; borne by vibrant youth and veteran leaders untainted by personal ambition, the movement shall swiftly vault beyond them. “Ludendorff is the divinely ordained leader—heed him!” rings the clarion call, plain and true, and so it shall come to pass.
For now, the nascent party has yet to seize upon naming Ludendorff its candidate for the Reich Presidency, but that reckoning looms near. When the German people crave a man, he must be granted the station befitting him, and the lawful path to that summit aligns most keenly with the German essence. It was a misstep to pitch Ludendorff as a Reichstag contender; that chamber—whose scathing epithets I here withhold—ill suits him; only the loftiest honor in Germany will do. And he shall seize it!
Germans of every stripe will rally to his banner, for men and women across the land sense what teeters in the balance should this destined one not ascend to power. Woe unto the German National People’s Party should it dare to thrust a rival against Ludendorff! Then the long-uttered indictment—
“Weighed and found wanting!”
—shall stand proven, and a tide of hatred shall rise to obliterate it.
The Reich Presidential Election shall loom as a divine tribunal for Germany: with it, the epoch of timidity fades, and a new dawn of German valor breaks. In Ludendorff’s name lies our redemption—not an eternal balm, but the spark of resurgence. Our foreign foes will, no doubt, bristle with threats should we nominate and crown him. Yet they will not kindle a fresh fray; they know full well the peril of stoking a people’s direst despair, and scant spoils remain to be reaped from us—especially as the Dawes Plan will stand ratified long ere the election dawns [the man’s foresight proved sharp].
To set bounds upon it, to unshackle us from its yoke, shall be Ludendorff’s foremost charge, and triumph he will, for he shall wield the might of German courage—a force that, though it grasp not the sword, compels reverence. Then unfurls the grand endeavor of “Germanizing” our nation’s fabric, commencing with a sweeping remake of the Weimar Constitution: a collective sigh will ripple through Germany when, for instance, the vaunted Article 148—
“In all schools, moral education, civic duty, personal and vocational excellence in the spirit of German folkhood and reconciliation among nations shall be pursued”
—is flung to the scrapheap.
How our future shall take shape, none can yet divine, but this stands clear: the reign of political grandees shall vanish, and men called to the German cause shall rise in their stead. They stand ready—geniuses may be scarce, but steadfast toilers in the German spirit abound, all eager to serve as Ludendorff’s vanguard. Yet should our fiercest adversary seek to stifle their labor, to thwart our renewal, and once more summon the world’s rancor against us, we know our duty. I speak but one word here: hostage theory—a notion all initiates among us grasp, its terror already glimpsed by the foe.
Yet perchance Ludendorff shall shepherd us past the final, most fearful abyss. On the whole, I deem these views herein sound: Ludendorff may not be our redeemer, but he could well prove the man to till the ground for salvation’s work—and that by lawful means. A Reich Government to table the needful bills must take form, as must, in all likelihood, a Reichsrat to affirm them.
I count not myself among those clamoring for an instant clean slate; the thorns of new National Socialist legislation I have already sufficiently sketched. Yet I hold it plausible that a new Reich President, steeped in Völkisch and social zeal, might assume his mantle with a pledge of vital reforms to enact—and enforce them with unwavering aim. He need not vow overmuch at the outset: the universal embrace of amortizing interest (which, by enabling reinvestment of the repayment share, trespasses not upon capital), the nationalization of the Reichsbank, a ban on all land speculation, the fortification of works councils, the state’s seizure of advertising, the Völkisch stewardship of theater and cinema, and, not least, a new Jewish Law—these would suffice to proclaim the Völkisch will and guide Germany’s path anew.
Assuredly, Jewry would strain every sinew to derail this bold dawn, and might, under certain stars, even muster France to its banner. Yet we have gradually forged ample intellectual arms against France, and in Ludendorff’s hour, we might invoke Marshal MacMahon—if France, post-1870-71, crowned its premier general president, why should we not, after 1914-18, do the same?
A German campaign of revanche lingers yet afar, though one day it shall surely crest—albeit scarce for Alsace-Lorraine. Germany’s deliverance must first bloom on the planes of intellect and virtue; we must emerge a people in the noblest mold—a folk with fresh, vital ways of being, a folk of truly hale culture. Liberalism, democratism, and international socialism avail us naught—they stand exhausted, whatever luminaries like Hermann Müller, Wilhelm Marx, or Stresemann proclaim; nor will the hollow Völkisch and social refrains, oft wielded by Hergt and his cohort in election tides, bear fruit.
Work, work, work—upon ourselves and our kinfolk, with valor and daring against the dire foes of Germandom and the age’s stern trials, and at last, German love and fealty woven through all life’s threads, enduring beyond the grave. No other path avails.
“Great merits have the National Socialists won,”
a renowned constitutional scholar averred ere the last elections.
“They have roused vast throngs and claimed them for the fatherland’s cause. Yet to build they are unfit; they are harbingers, forerunners—not redeemers bearing a new creed of salvation.”
Nor do we aspire so; it suffices us to blaze the trail—the rightful trail! The redeemer, God shall send.
Weimar, early January 1925. (Penned late October 1924.)