NSFrame2 MEIN KAMPF Adolf Hitler, born April 20, 1889, in Braunau-on-the-Inn, Austria, refused to surrender and died on April 29, 1945 in Berlin, Germany. "And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord." HURST AND BLACKETT LTD., Publishers since 1812 LONDON " NEW YORK " MELBOURNE This translation of the unexpurgated edition of "Mein Kampf " was first published on March 21st, 1939 INTRODUCTION file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf first.htm (1 of 5) [04/06/2000 16:01:11] NSFrame2 A RETROSPECT Volume I: CHAPTER I: IN THE HOME OF MY PARENTS CHAPTER II: YEARS OF STUDY AND SUFFERING IN VIENNA CHAPTER III: POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING OUT OF MY SOJOURN IN VIENNA CHAPTER IV: MUNICH CHAPTER V: THE WORLD WAR CHAPTER VI: WAR PROPAGANDA CHAPTER VII: THE REVOLUTION CHAPTER VIII: THE BEGINNING OF MY POLITICAL ACTIVITIES CHAPTER IX: THE GERMAN LABOUR PARTY CHAPTER X: WHY THE SECOND REICH COLLAPSED CHAPTER XI: RACE AND PEOPLE CHAPTER XII: THE FIRST STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT Volume II: CHAPTER I: WELTANSCHHAUUNG AND PARTY CHAPTER II: THE STATE CHAPTER III: CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS OF THE STATE CHAPTER IV: PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE PEOPLE(cid:25)S STATE CHAPTER V: WELTANSCHHAUUNG AND ORGANIZATION CHAPTER VI: THE FIRST PERIOD OF OUR STRUGGLE CHAPTER VII: THE CONFLICT WITH THE RED FORCES CHAPTER VIII: THE STRONG IS STRONGEST WHEN ALONE CHAPTER IX: FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS REGARDING THE NATURE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STORM TROOPS CHAPTER X: THE MASK OF FEDERALISM CHAPTER XI: PROPAGANDA AND ORGANIZATION CHAPTER XII: THE PROBLEM OF THE TRADE UNIONS file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf first.htm (2 of 5) [04/06/2000 16:01:11] NSFrame2 CHAPTER XIII: THE GERMAN POST-WAR POLICY OF ALLIANCES CHAPTER XIV: GERMANY(cid:25)S POLICY IN EASTERN EUROPE CHAPTER XV: THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE EPILOGUE Foot Notes: 1) In order to understand the reference here, and similar references in later portions of Mein Kampf, the following must be borne in mind: From 1792 to 1814 the French Revolutionary Armies overran Germany. In 1800 Bavaria shared in the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden and the French occupied Munich. In 1805 the Bavarian Elector was made King of Bavaria by Napoleon and stipulated to back up Napoleon in all his wars with a force of 30,000 men. Thus Bavaria became the absolute vassal of the French. This was (cid:24)The Time of Germany (cid:25)s Deepest Humiliation(cid:25), Which is referred to again and again by Hitler. In 1806 a pamphlet entitled (cid:24)Germany(cid:25)s Deepest Humiliation(cid:25) was published in South Germany. Amnng those who helped to circulate the pamphlet was the Nürnberg bookseller, Johannes Philipp Palm. He was denounced to the French by a Bavarian police agent. At his trial he refused to disclose the name of the author. By Napoleon(cid:25)s orders, he was shot at Braunau-on-the-Inn on August 26th, 1806. A monument erected to him on the site of the execution was one of the first public objects that made an impression on Hitler as a little boy. Leo Schlageter(cid:25)s case was in many respects parallel to that of Johannes Palm. Schlageter was a German theological student who volunteered for service in 1914. He became an artillery officer and won the Iron Cross of both classes. When the French occupied the Ruhr in 1923 Schlageter helped to organize the passive resistance on the German side. He and his companions blew up a railway bridge for the purpose of making the transport of coal to France more difficult. Those who took part in the affair were denounced to the French by a German informer. Schlageter took the whole responsibility on his own shoulders and was condemned to death, his companions being sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and penal servitude by the French Court. Schlageter refused to disclose the identity of those who issued the order to blow up the railway bridge and he would not plead for mercy before a French Court. He was shot by a French firing-squad on May 26th, 1923. Severing was at that time German Minister of the Interior. It is said that representations were made, to him on Schlageter(cid:25)s behalf and that he refused to interfere. Schlageter has become the chief martyr of the German resistancc to the French occupation of the Ruhr and also one of the great heroes of the National Socialist Movement. He had joined the Movement at a very early stage, his card of membership bearing the number 61. 2) Non-classical secondary school. The Lyceum and Gymnasium were classical or semiclassical secondary schools. 3) See Translator(cid:25)s Introduction. 4) When Francis II had laid down his title as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which he did at the command of Napoleon, the Crown and Mace, as the Imperial Insignia, file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf first.htm (3 of 5) [04/06/2000 16:01:11] NSFrame2 were kept in Vienna. After the German Empire was refounded, in 1871, under William I, there were many demands to have the Insignia transferred to Berlin. But these went unheeded. Hitler had them brought to Germany after the Austrian Anschluss and displayed at Nuremberg during the Party Congress in September 1938. 5) The Phaecians were a legendary people, mentioned in Homer(cid:25)s Odyssey. They were supposed to live on some unknown island in the Eastern Mediterranean, sometimes suggested to be Corcyra, the modern Corfu. They loved good living more than work, and so the name Phaecian has come to be a synonym for parasite. 6) Spottgeburt von Dreck und Feuer. This is the epithet that Faust hurls at Mephistopheles as the latter intrudes on the conversation between Faust and Martha in the garden: Mephistopheles: Thou, full of sensual, super-sensual desire, A girl by the nose is leading thee. Faust: Abortion, thou of filth and fire. 7) Herodotus (Book VII, 213(cid:19)218) tells the story of how a Greek traitor, Ephialtes, helped the Persian invaders at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.) When the Persian King, Xerxes, had begun to despair of being able to break through the Greek defence, Ephialtes came to him and, on being promised a definite payment, told the King of a pathway over the shoulder of the mountain to the Greek end of the Pass. The bargain being clinched, Ephialtes led a detachment of the Persian troops under General Hydarnes over the mountain pathway. Thus taken in the rear, the Greek defenders, under Leonidas, King of Sparta, had to fight in two opposite directions within the narrow pass. Terrible slaughter ensued and Leonidas fell in the thick of the fighting. The bravery of Leonidas and the treason of Ephialtes impressed Hitler, as it does almost every schoolboy. The incident is referred to again in Mein Kampf (Chap. VIII, Vol. I), where Hitler compares the German troops that fell in France and Flanders to the Greeks at Thermopylae, the treachery of Ephialtes being suggested as the prototype of the defeatist policy of the German politicians towards the end of the Great War. 8) German Austria was the East Mark on the South and East Prussia was the East Mark on the North. 9) Carlyle explains the epithet thus: "First then, let no one from the title Gehoernte (Horned, Behorned), fancy that our brave Siegfried, who was the loveliest as well as the bravest of men, was actually cornuted, and had horns on his brow, though like Michael Angelo(cid:25)s Moses; or even that his skin, to which the epithet Behorned refers, was hard like a crocodile(cid:25)s, and not softer than the softest shamey, for the truth is, his Hornedness means only an Invulnerability, like that of Achilles&" 10) Lines quoted from the Song of the Curassiers in Schiller(cid:25)s Wallenstein. 11) The Second Infantry Bavarian Regiment, in which Hitler served as a volunteer. 12) Schwabing is the artistic quarter in Munich where artists have their studios and litterateurs, especially of the Bohemian class, foregather. 13) Here again we have the defenders of Thermopylæ recalled as the prototype of German valour in the Great War. Hitler(cid:25)s quotation is a German variant of the couplet inscribed on the monument erected at Thermopylæ to the memory of Leonidas and his Spartan soldiers who fell defending the Pass. As given by Herodotus, who claims that he saw the inscription himself, the original text may be literally translated thus: Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passeth by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf first.htm (4 of 5) [04/06/2000 16:01:11] NSFrame2 14)Swedish Chancellor who took over the reins of Government after the death of Gustavus Adolphus 15) When Mephistopheles first appears to Faust, in the latter(cid:25)s study, Faust inquires: "What is thy name?" To which Mephistopheles replies: "A part of the Power which always wills the Bad and always works the Good." And when Faust asks him what is meant by this riddle and why he should call himself (cid:24)a part,(cid:25) the gist of Mephistopheles(cid:25) reply is that he is the Spirit of Negation and exists through opposition to the positive Truth and Order and Beauty which proceed from the never-ending creative energy of the Deity. In the Prologue to Faust the Lord declares that man(cid:25)s active nature would grow sluggish in working the good and that therefore he has to be aroused by the Spirit of Opposition. This Spirit wills the Bad, but of itself it can do nothing positive, and by its opposition always works the opposite of what it wills. 16) The last and most famous of the medieval alchemists. He was born at Basle about the year 1490 and died at Salzburg in 1541. He taught that all metals could be transmuted through the action of one primary element common to them all. This element he called Alcahest. If it could be found it would prove to be at once the philosopher(cid:25)s stone, the universal medicine and the irresistible solvent. There are many aspects of his teaching which are now looked upon as by no means so fantastic as they were considered in his own time. 17) The Battle of Leipzig (1813), where the Germans inflicted an overwhelming defeat on Napoleon, was the decisive event which put an end to the French occupation of Germany. The occupation had lasted about twenty years. After the Great War, and the partial occupation of Germany once again by French forces, the Germans used to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig as a symbol of their yearning. 18) The flag of the German Empire, founded in 1871, was Black-White-Red. This was discarded in 1918 and Black-Red-Gold was chosen as the flag of the German Republic founded at Weimar in 1919. The flag designed by Hitler (cid:19) red with a white disc in the centre, bearing the black swastika (cid:19) is now the national flag. 19) After the debacle of 1918 several semi-military associations were formed by demobilized officers who had fought at the Front. These were semi-clandestine associations and were known as Freikorps (Volunteer corps). Their principal purpose was to act as rallying centres for the old nationalist elements. 20) Schiller, who wrote the famous drama of William Tell. 21) The reference here is to those who gave information to the Allied Commissions about hidden stores of arms in Germany. 22) Before 1918 Germany was a federal Empire, composed of twenty-five federal states. 23) Probably the author has two separate incidents in mind. The first happened in 390 B.C., when, as the victorious Gauls descended on Rome, the Senators ordered their ivory chairs to be placed in the Forum before the Temples of the Gods. There, clad in their robes of state, they awaited the invader, hoping to save the city by sacrificing themselves. This noble gesture failed for the time being; but it had an inspiring influence on subsequent generations. The second incident, which has more historical authenticity, occurred after the Roman defeat at Cannae in 216 B.C. On that occasion Varro, the Roman commander, who, though in great part responsible for the disaster, made an effort to carry on the struggle, was, on his return to Rome, met by the citizens of all ranks and publicly thanked because he had not despaired of the Republic. The consequence was that the Republic refused to make peace with the victorious Carthagenians. file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf first.htm (5 of 5) [04/06/2000 16:01:11] NSFrame2 INTRODUCTION AUTHOR(cid:25)S PREFACE On April 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the Fortress of Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict of the Munich People(cid:25)s Court of that time. After years of uninterrupted labour it was now possible for the first time to begin a work which many had asked for and which I myself felt would be profitable for the Movement. So I decided to devote two volumes to a description not only of the aims of our Movement but also of its development. There is more to be learned from this than from any purely doctrinaire treatise. This has also given me the opportunity of describing my own development in so far as such a description is necessary to the understanding of the first as well as the second volume and to destroy the legendary fabrications which the Jewish Press have circulated about me. In this work I turn not to strangers but to those followers of the Movement whose hearts belong to it and who wish to study it more profoundly. I know that fewer people are won over by the written word than by the spoken word and that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers. Nevertheless, in order to produce more equality and uniformity in the defence of any doctrine, its fundamental principles must be committed to writing. May these two volumes therefore serve as the building stones which I contribute to the joint work. The Fortress, Landsberg am Lech. At half-past twelve in the afternoon of November 9th, 1923, those whose names are given below fell in front of the Feldherrnhalle and in the forecourt of the former War Ministry in Munich for their loyal faith in the resurrection of their people: Alfarth, Felix, Merchant, born July 5th, 1901 Bauriedl, Andreas, Hatmaker, born May 4th, 1879 Casella, Theodor, Bank Official, born August 8th, 1900 Ehrlich, Wilhelm, Bank Official, born August 19th, 1894 Faust, Martin, Bank Official, born January 27th, 1901 Hechenberger, Anton, Locksmith, born September 28th, 1902 Koerner, Oskar, Merchant, born January 4th, 1875 Kuhn, Karl, Head Waiter, born July 25th, 1897 Laforce, Karl, Student of Engineering, born October 28th, 1904 Neubauer, Kurt, Waiter, born March 27th, 1899 Pape, Claus von, Merchant, born August 16th, 1904 file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf intro.htm (1 of 7) [04/06/2000 16:04:03] NSFrame2 Pfordten, Theodor von der, Councillor to the Superior Provincial Court, born May 14th, 1873 Rickmers, Johann, retired Cavalry Captain, born May 7th, 1881 Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, Dr. of Engineering, born January 9th, 1884 Stransky, Lorenz Ritter von, Engineer, born March 14th, 1899 Wolf, Wilhelm, Merchant, born October 19th, 1898 So-called national officials refused to allow the dead heroes a common burial. So I dedicate the first volume of this work to them as a common memorial, that the memory of those martyrs may be a permanent source of light for the followers of our Movement. The Fortress, Landsberg a/L., October 16th, 1924 TRANSLATOR(cid:25)S INTRODUCTION In placing before the reader this unabridged translation of Adolf Hitler(cid:25)s book, Mein Kampf, I feel it my duty to call attention to certain historical facts which must be borne in mind if the reader would form a fair judgment of what is written in this extraordinary work. The first volume of Mein Kampf was written while the author was imprisoned in a Bavarian fortress. How did he get there and why? The answer to that question is important, because the book deals with the events which brought the author into this plight and because he wrote under the emotional stress caused by the historical happenings of the time. It was the hour of Germany(cid:25)s deepest humiliation, somewhat parallel to that of a little over a century before, when Napoleon had dismembered the old German Empire and French soldiers occupied almost the whole of Germany. In the beginning of 1923 the French invaded Germany, occupied the Ruhr district and seized several German towns in the Rhineland. This was a flagrant breach of international law and was protested against by every section of British political opinion at that time. The Germans could not effectively defend themselves, as they had been already disarmed under the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. To make the situation more fraught with disaster for Germany, and therefore more appalling in its prospect, the French carried on an intensive propaganda for the separation of the Rhineland from the German Republic and the establishment of an independent Rhenania. Money was poured out lavishly to bribe agitators to carry on this work, and some of the most insidious elements of the German population became active in the pay of the invader. At the same time a vigorous movement was being carried on in Bavaria for the secession of that country and the establishment of an independent Catholic monarchy there, under vassalage to France, as Napoleon had done when he made Maximilian the first King of Bavaria in 1805. The separatist movement in the Rhineland went so far that some leading German politicians came out in favour of it, suggesting that if the Rhineland were thus ceded it might be possible for the German Republic to strike a bargain with the French in regard to Reparations. But in Bavaria the movement went even farther. And it was more far-reaching in its implications; for, if an independent Catholic monarchy could be set up in Bavaria, the next move would have been a union with Catholic German-Austria. possibly under a Habsburg King. Thus a Catholic bloc would have been created which would extend from the Rhineland through Bavaria and Austria into the Danube Valley and would have been at least under the moral and military, if not the full political, hegemony of France. The dream seems fantastic now, but it was considered quite a practical thing in those fantastic times. file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf intro.htm (2 of 7) [04/06/2000 16:04:03] NSFrame2 The effect of putting such a plan into action would have meant the complete dismemberment of Germany; and that is what French diplomacy aimed at. Of course such an aim no longer exists. And I should not recall what must now seem (cid:28)old, unhappy, far-off things(cid:29) to the modern generation, were it not that they were very near and actual at the time Mein Kampf was written and were more unhappy then than we can even imagine now. By the autumn of 1923 the separatist movement in Bavaria was on the point of becoming an accomplished fact. General von Lossow, the Bavarian chief of the Reichswehr no longer took orders from Berlin. The flag of the German Republic was rarely to be seen, Finally, the Bavarian Prime Minister decided to proclaim an independent Bavaria and its secession from the German Republic. This was to have taken place on the eve of the Fifth Anniversary of the establishment of the German Republic (November 9th, 1918.) Hitler staged a counter-stroke. For several days he had been mobilizing his storm battalions in the neighbourhood of Munich, intending to make a national demonstration and hoping that the Reichswehr would stand by him to prevent secession. Ludendorff was with him. And he thought that the prestige of the great German Commander in the World War would be sufficient to win the allegiance of the professional army. A meeting had been announced to take place in the Bürgerbräu Keller on the night of November 8th. The Bavarian patriotic societies were gathered there, and the Prime Minister, Dr. von Kahr, started to read his official pronunciamento, which practically amounted to a proclamation of Bavarian independence and secession from the Republic. While von Kahr was speaking Hitler entered the hall, followed by Ludendorff. And the meeting was broken up. Next day the Nazi battalions took the street for the purpose of making a mass demonstration in favour of national union. They marched in massed formation, led by Hitler and Ludendorff. As they reached one of the central squares of the city the army opened fire on them. Sixteen of the marchers were instantly killed, and two died of their wounds in the local barracks of the Reichswehr. Several others were wounded also. Hitler fell on the pavement and broke a collar-bone. Ludendorff marched straight up to the soldiers who were firing from the barricade, but not a man dared draw a trigger on his old Commander. Hitler was arrested with several of his comrades and imprisoned in the fortress of Landsberg on the River Lech. On February 26th, 1924, he was brought to trial before the Volksgericht, or People(cid:25)s Court in Munich. He was sentenced to detention in a fortress for five years. With several companions, who had been also sentenced to various periods of imprisonment, he returned to Landsberg am Lech and remained there until the 20th of the following December, when he was released. In all he spent about thirteen months in prison. It was during this period that he wrote the first volume of Mein Kampf. If we bear all this in mind we can account for the emotional stress under which Mein Kampf was written. Hitler was naturally incensed against the Bavarian government authorities, against the footling patriotic societies who were pawns in the French game, though often unconsciously so, and of course against the French. That he should write harshly of the French was only natural in the circumstances. At that time there was no exaggeration whatsoever in calling France the implacable and mortal enemy of Germany. Such language was being used by even the pacifists themselves, not only in Germany but abroad. And even though the second volume of Mein Kampf was written after Hitler(cid:25)s release from prison and was published after the French had left the Ruhr, the tramp of the invading armies still echoed in German ears, and the terrible ravages that had been wrought in the industrial and financial life of Germany, as a consequence of the French invasion, had plunged the file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf intro.htm (3 of 7) [04/06/2000 16:04:03] NSFrame2 country into a state of social and economic chaos. In France itself the franc fell to fifty per cent of its previous value. Indeed, the whole of Europe had been brought to the brink of ruin, following the French invasion of the Ruhr and Rhineland. But, as those things belong to the limbo of a dead past that nobody wishes to have remembered now, it is often asked: Why doesn(cid:25)t Hitler revise Mein Kampf? The answer, as I think, which would immediately come into the mind of an impartial critic is that Mein Kampf is an historical document which bears the imprint of its own time. To revise it would involve taking it out of its historical context. Moreover Hitler has declared that his acts and public statements constitute a partial revision of his book and are to be taken as such. This refers especially to the statements in Mein Kampf regarding France and those German kinsfolk that have not yet been incorporated in the Reich. On behalf of Germany he has definitely acknowledged the German portion of South Tyrol as permanently belonging to Italy and, in regard to France, he has again and again declared that no grounds now exist for a conflict of political interests between Germany and France and that Germany has no territorial claims against France. Finally, I may note here that Hitler has also declared that, as he was only a political leader and not yet a statesman in a position of official responsibility, when he wrote this book, what he stated in Mein Kampf does not implicate him as Chancellor of the Reich. I now come to some references in the text which are frequently recurring and which may not always be clear to every reader. For instance, Hitler speaks indiscriminately of the German Reich. Sometimes he means to refer to the first Reich, or Empire, and sometimes to the German Empire as founded under William I in 1871. Incidentally the regime which he inaugurated in 1933 is generally known as the Third Reich, though this expression is not used in Mein Kampf. Hitler also speaks of the Austrian Reich and the East Mark, without always explicitly distinguishing between the Habsburg Empire and Austria proper. If the reader will bear the following historical outline in mind, he will understand the references as they occur. The word Reich, which is a German form of the Latin word Regnum, does not mean Kingdom or Empire or Republic. It is a sort of basic word that may apply to any form of Constitution. Perhaps our word, Realm, would be the best translation, though the word Empire can be used when the Reich was actually an Empire. The forerunner of the first German Empire was the Holy Roman Empire which Charlemagne founded in A.D. 800. Charlemagne was King of the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes that subsequently became Romanized. In the tenth century Charlemagne(cid:25)s Empire passed into German hands when Otto I (936(cid:19)973) became Emperor. As the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, its formal appellation, it continued to exist under German Emperors until Napoleon overran and dismembered Germany during the first decade of the last century. On August 6th, 1806, the last Emperor, Francis II, formally resigned the German crown. In the following October Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph, after the Battle of Jena. After the fall of Napoleon a movement set in for the reunion of the German states in one Empire. But the first decisive step towards that end was the foundation of the Second German Empire in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War. This Empire, however, did not include the German lands which remained under the Habsburg Crown. These were known as German Austria. It was Bismarck(cid:25)s dream to unite German Austria with the German Empire; but it remained only a dream until Hitler turned it into a reality in 1938(cid:25). It is well to bear that point in mind, because this dream of reuniting all the German states in one Reich has been a dominant feature of German patriotism and statesmanship for over a century and has been one of Hitler(cid:25)s ideals since his childhood. In Mein Kampf Hitler often speaks of the East Mark. This East Mark (cid:19) i.e. eastern frontier land (cid:19) was founded by Charlemagne as the eastern bulwark of the Empire. It was inhabited principally by Germano-Celtic tribes called Bajuvari and stood for centuries as the firm bulwark of Western file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf intro.htm (4 of 7) [04/06/2000 16:04:03] NSFrame2 Christendom against invasion from the East, especially against the Turks. Geographically it was almost identical with German Austria. There are a few points more that I wish to mention in this introductory note. For instance, I have let the word Weltanschhauung stand in its original form very often. We have no one English word to convey the same meaning as the German word, and it would have burdened the text too much if I were to use a circumlocution each time the word occurs. Weltanschhauung literally means (cid:28)Outlook-on-the World(cid:29). But as generally used in German this outlook on the world means a whole system of ideas associated together in an organic unity (cid:19) ideas of human life, human values, cultural and religious ideas, politics, economics, etc., in fact a totalitarian view of human existence. Thus Christianity could be called a Weltanschhauung, and Mohammedanism could be called a Weltanschhauung, and Socialism could be called a Weltanschhauung, especially as preached in Russia. National Socialism claims definitely to be a Weltanschhauung. Another word I have often left standing in the original is völkisch. The basic word here is Volk, which is sometimes translated as People; but the German word, Volk, means the whole body of the people without any distinction of class or caste. It is a primary word also that suggests what might be called the basic national stock. Now, after the defeat in 1918, the downfall of the Monarchy and the destruction of the aristocracy and the upper classes, the concept of Das Volk came into prominence as the unifying co-efficient which would embrace the whole German people. Hence the large number of völkisch societies that arose after the war and hence also the National Socialist concept of unification which is expressed by the word Volksgemeinschaft, or folk community. This is used in contradistinction to the Socialist concept of the nation as being divided into classes. Hitler(cid:25)s ideal is the Völkischer Staat, which I have translated as the People(cid:25)s State. Finally, I would point out that the term Social Democracy may be misleading in English, as it has not a democratic connotation in our sense. It was the name given to the Socialist Party in Germany. And that Party was purely Marxist; but it adopted the name Social Democrat in order to appeal to the democratic sections of the German people. JAMES MURPHY. Abbots Langley, February, 1939 Excerpts: "What soon gave me cause for very serious consideration were the activities of the Jews in certain branches of life, into the mystery of which I penetrated little by little. Was there any shady undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not participate? On putting the probing knife carefully to that kind of abscess one immediately discovered, like a maggot in a putrescent body, a little Jew who was often blinded by the sudden light." (p.42) "And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord." (p.46) "The yoke of slavery is and always will remain the most unpleasant experience that mankind can endure. Do the Schwabing decadents look upon Germany(cid:25)s lot to-day as (cid:24)aesthetic(cid:25)? Of course, one doesn(cid:25)t discuss such a question with the Jews, because they are the modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their very existence is an incarnate denial of the beauty of God(cid:25)s image in His creation." (p.107) "What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfil the mission assigned to it by the Creator." (p.125) file:///F|/Irving/Mein Kampf/mein kampf intro.htm (5 of 7) [04/06/2000 16:04:03]