Adolf Bartels: National Socialism, Germany's Salvation - Part 1
Original Translation of "Der Nationalsozialismus Deutschlands Rettung"
Source Documents: German Scan | German Corrected
Part 1:
Defection of the German National People's Party.
The Collapse of Political Integrity.
The Dawn of a Reckoning.
The acceptance of the Dawes Plan by the German Reichstag, made possible by the defection of half of the German National People's Party (DNVP), has stripped sensible Germans of their last vestiges of trust in parliamentarism and the party system. Moreover, the DNVP’s efforts to insinuate itself into the government—specifically, to form a coalition with [Chancellor Wilhelm] Marx and [Foreign Minister Gustav] Stresemann—have provoked outright disgust among broad swathes of our people.
A whisper spreads: When a party composed chiefly of educated souls—indeed, of individuals deemed refined by traditional social standards—aligns itself with factions that have stood, and still stand, in league with the Socialist Internationale, all for opportunistic motives (to use the gentlest phrase), and when, to achieve some hollow triumph, it embraces a plan that, as it ceaselessly proclaimed, enslaves the German people for generations to come, then either a dreadful moral degradation prevails or there is a system at work so pernicious that it denies each individual the freedom to heed their natural and wholesome instincts.
Some have sought to see the acceptance of the Plan through a gentler, psychological lens: the wearied German soul, driven by inner despair, desperately grasped at the illusory alleviations dangled before it. Yet others spoke of assigned yes-men who would vote as they are told—reminiscent of those favored by the old National Liberal Party. In the end, despite prolonged negotiations, DNVP entry into the Marx-Stresemann government ultimately failed, and the German Reichstag was dissolved on October 20th.
To fully contextualize the chain of events precipitating these new elections before us today, it is prudent to cite a perspective from outside the German Reich. The Viennese Deutsch-österreichische Tageszeitung (German-Austrian Daily) (Issue 291, 21 October) observed:
When the people of the Reich cast their ballots in early May of this year, it was beyond doubt that this would determine the trajectory of German foreign policy. On one side stood the Erfüllungspolitik—the policy of compliance; on the other, the crusade against the "war guilt lie" and the shackles of the Versailles Treaty! Such was the rallying cry. The outcome of this election was an unmistakable lurch to the right, marked by the electoral surge of the Völkisch movement1 and, above all, the DNVP.2 By all logic, this mandate should have reshaped the Reich government’s composition and national policy. Instead, the opposite came to pass.
Through parliamentary sleight of hand—Herr [President Friedrich] Ebert knows his role—the DNVP, despite its decisive victory and irrefutable claim to governance, was barred from power. In its place returned the old Marx-Stresemann cabinet, ever subservient to Allied demands. This was not merely a distortion of the electorate’s will but the first scandal in a chain of betrayals. What followed was a foregone conclusion under such stewardship.
The new Reichstag, under this leadership, has not wrought much, yet what little it has done—the London Agreement and the Dawes Plan laws—carries a heavy weight, the magnitude of which the German people will likely soon come to feel. That the DNVP, ordained by the vote to lead a new course, instead enabled the old policy of capitulation—culminating in yet another humiliating diktat—stands as this era’s defining tragedy.
Now, for their ideological capitulation and scramble for patronage, they reap their reward. For weeks they were led by the nose, as Marx and Stresemann promised them a place in government but never intended to honor their pledge. The game was rigged from the start. Now that the Moor has served his purpose, he may take his leave.3
With its staged hypocritical pretense of innocence, this treachery epitomizes the nadir of political ethics in the German Republic. Not a vestige remains of decency or integrity in public life; they have been supplanted by the unchallenged dominion of Eastern Galician4 profiteer morality. We mourn not out of sympathy for the DNVP, architects of their own ruin, but from dread for the destiny of the German Volk.
The dissolution of the Reichstag is a triumph for the merchants of expediency, who now expect to benefit from the deep disillusionment of those upon responsible for the rightward shift in the last elections; yet they may well have miscalculated. Of decisive import is the possibility of the DNVP’s long-deferred ideological purge: a cleansing of compromised ideals that may restore coherence.
This reckoning alone, however, will not suffice. Ever clearer grows the truth: the primordial blight afflicting Germany lies in the rot of Weimar parliamentarism—itself a machinery of instability. Only when this system collapses under its own contradictions may we hope for true national renewal. The Volk’s fate must never again be hostage to capricious plebiscites; it demands the iron grip of leaders forged in duty and resolve.
It seems to me—and I have underscored the pivotal points—that what has been clearly stated here is precisely what the party-aligned newspapers across the Reich will likely continue to obscure. Yet I cannot, of course, bear responsibility for claims that Fritz Ebert was the driving force behind these events. The DNVP has hardly suffered a defining tragedy, but the German people certainly have.
It is deeply telling that even a Viennese newspaper—notably not a National Socialist mouthpiece—traces the root of Germany’s anguish to parliamentarism. In doing so, it frames the anti-parliamentary movement—embodied most potently in German National Socialism—as justified in its critique.
Deutsch-Völkische Freiheitspartei und NSDAP: 0% in 1920 to 6.5% in May 1924
DNVP: 15.1% in 1920 to 19.5% in May 1924
„Der Mohr seine Schuldigkeit getan hat, kann er gehen.“ This is a reference to Schiller's play, Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua (The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa). After fulfilling his role in the plot, Muley Hassan acknowledges that his task is complete and that he can now depart. This line has since evolved into a proverbial expression used to describe someone who, having completed their duty or purpose, is dismissed or leaves, often without further acknowledgment or reward.
Eastern Galician here is implicitly Jewish; Lemberg (today Lviv in Western Ukraine) was 1/3 Jewish in the 1920s.