Adolf Hitler on Worldview and Organization of the folkish State

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FROM MEIN KAMPF, CHAPTER FIVE OF VOLUME TWO, pages 163-183 of the Thomas Dalton dual-translation. (See here for series introduction.)

Another highly enlightening chapter for me, even more so than the previous one. Read it thoughtfully. So glad to be able to bring these abbreviated versions to you. -cy

THE FOLKISH STATE … WON’T BECOME A REALITY simply due to the fact that we know what’s necessary for it. It’s not enough to know how such a State should appear. … The existing parties … cannot be expected to bring about a change in the regime … because the leading elements are always Jews and yet more Jews. The present trend of development would, if allowed to go on unhampered, lead to the realization of the pan-Jewish prophecy—that the Jews will one day devour the other nations of the Earth and become their master.

In contrast to the millions of ‘bourgeois’ and ‘proletarian’ Germans—who are stumbling to their ruin, mostly through timidity and stupidity—the jew persistently pursues his way and keeps his mind fixed on his future goal. … his interests certainly have nothing in common with those of the Aryan nations. […]

If we wish to transform our ideal picture of the folkish state into reality … the first objective isn’t the creation of a folkish State-conception, but rather the elimination of the Jewish one.

That’s why the fighter for a new idea is unfortunately, and despite his desire for positive work, compelled to wage a negative battle first—in order to abolish the existing state of affairs.

5.1 Struggle and Criticism

[A] young doctrine of great and essential importance must adopt the sharp probe of criticism as its weapon. … A worldview is intolerant and cannot exist as ‘one party among many.’ … It can never allow the previous condition to continue in existence.

Political parties are prone to compromises, but worldviews never. Political parties tend to reckon with their opponents, but worldviews proclaim their own infallibility.

5.2 Community as Basis for a New Worldview

In the beginning, political parties … almost always show a slight tendency to become worldviews. But the limited nature of their program robs them of the heroism that a worldview demands. The conciliatory nature of their will attracts those petty and weak-hearted people who aren’t fit for any crusade. And so they soon become stuck in their miserable pettiness. They give up fighting for their worldview and, by way of so-called ‘positive collaboration,’ they try as quickly as possible to wedge themselves into some tiny place at the feeding trough, and to stay there as long as possible. That’s their whole effort. […]

Any new worldview will bring its ideas to victory only if the most courageous and active element of its time and its people are formed together in a powerful fighting organization. … While the program of the solely political party is nothing but a recipe for favorable results in the next general election, a worldview’s program represents a declaration of war against an existing order of things, against present conditions—in short, against the established world-conception.

5.3 Leadership and Following

By it’s very nature, an organization can exist only if leaders of high intellectual ability are served by a large and emotionally-devoted mass. […]

The fact that only the so-called uneducated classes joined Marxism was the very basis on which this party achieved its success—something that was always greeted with head-shaking by our bourgeoisie. Because they mostly consisted of intellectuals, the bourgeois parties were only a feckless band of undisciplined individuals; whereas the Marxists, from non-intellectual human material, formed an army of party soldiers who obeyed their Jewish masters just as blindly as they formerly obeyed their German officers. [… ]

The decisive factor is the leadership itself. … This is the basic knowledge that we must always bear in mind when we examine the possibility of transforming a worldview into action.

5.4 Guiding Principles of the Movement

If the folkish idea, which is at present an obscure wish, is one day to attain a clear success, it must draw forth certain definite principles … which, of their essence and content are calculated to attract a broad mass of men. This mass can alone guarantee that the worldview will be fought for.[my emphasis -cy] This is the group of German workers.

Therefore, the new movement’s program was condensed into a few guiding principles, 25 in all. They are meant … to give the ordinary man a rough sketch of the movement’s goals. They are, so to say, a political faith that, on the one hand, is meant to win recruits for the movement and, on the other, to unite such recruits together in a commonly-recognized covenant.

Hence we must never lose sight of the following: What we call the movement’s program [the 25 Points of the NSDAP -cy] is absolutely right in its ultimate aims, but … in the course of time, the opinion may well arise that certain principles should be expressed differently and might be better formulated. But any attempt at a different formulation usually has a disastrous effect. … As soon as a single point is removed from the sphere of dogmatic certainty, discussion won’t simply result in a new, better, and more consistent formulation, but may easily lead to endless debates and general confusion. …[W]hich is better: a new and more adequate formulation, though it may cause a controversy within the movement, or to retain the old formula that, though probably not the best, represents a solid, unshakeable, internally-unified organism.

All experience shows that the second alternative is preferable. … [G]iven that most people think superficially, there’s a great danger that the merely external formulation of the program will be taken as essential to the movement. Then the will and power to fight for these ideas are weakened, and activities that ought to be directed outward are dissipated in internal programmatic squabbles.

The essentials of a teaching must never be sought in external formulas, but always in an inner meaning. And this is unchangeable; and in its interest, one can only wish that a movement should exclude everything that tends towards disintegration and uncertainty, in order to preserve the necessary force.

Here again we can learn from the Catholic Church. … It has rightly recognized that its powers of resistance would be weakened by introducing greater or lesser adaptations to meet the temporary conclusions of science, which in reality are always fluctuating. Thus it holds to its fixed dogmas, which alone can give to the whole system the character of a faith. […]

Therefore whoever really and seriously desires the victory of a folkish worldview must realize that this can be assured only through a militant movement, and that this movement must ground its strength only on the firmness of an impregnable and coherent program.[…]

In its 25-point program, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party attained a foundation that must remain unshakable. … For most of our followers, the essence of the movement will consist not so much in the letter of our principles but in the meaning that we attribute to them.

5.5 National Socialism and the Folkish Idea

In order to carry the folkish ideal to victory, a popular party had to be founded—a party that didn’t consist only of intellectual leaders but also of manual workers! …

Just as the fundamental principles of the National Socialist Movement are folkish, so folkish ideas are National Socialist. [… We have] not only the right but also the duty to sharply emphasize that any attempt to represent folkish ideas outside of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party is impossible, and in most cases fraudulent. […] For what previously existed under this name was utterly incapable of influencing the destiny of our people, since all those ideas lacked a clear and coherent formulation. … Only the National Socialist Movement has accomplished this. … Only the work of the NSDAP gave [the folkish] ideas meaning, and only then was it adopted by all kinds of people.

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