Mein Kampf - the Official 1939 Edition (17 page)

At first sight, that argument seems sound. But then another question arises -namely, why are five hundred persons elected if only a few have the wisdom which is required to deal with the more important problems?

It is not the aim of our modern democratic parliamentary system to bring together an assembly of intelligent and well-informed deputies. Not at all. The aim rather is to bring together a group of nonentities who are dependent on others for their views and who can be all the more easily led, the narrower the mental outlook of each individual is. That is the only way in which a party policy, according to the evil meaning it has to-day, can be put into effect. And by this method alone it is possible for the wirepuller, who exercises the real control, to remain in the dark, so that personally he can never be brought to account for his actions. For under such circumstances none of the decisions taken, no matter how disastrous they may turn out for the nation as a whole, can be laid at the door of the individual whom everybody knows to be the evil genius responsible for the whole affair. All responsibility is shifted to the shoulders of the Party as a whole.

In practice no actual responsibility remains. For responsibility arises only from personal duty and not from the obligations that rest with a parliamentary assembly of empty talkers.

The parliamentary institution attracts people of the badger type, who do not like the open light. No upright man, who is ready to accept personal responsibility for his acts, will be attracted to such an institution.

That is the reason why this brand of democracy has become a tool in the hand of that race which, because of the inner purposes it wishes to attain, must shun the open light, as it has always done and always will do. Only a Jew can praise an institution which is as corrupt and false as himself.

As a contrast to this kind of democracy we have the German democracy, which is a true democracy; for here the leader is freely chosen and is obliged to accept full responsibility for all his actions and omissions. The problems to be dealt with are not put to the vote of the majority; but they are decided upon by the individual, and as a guarantee of responsibility for those decisions he pledges all he has in the world and even his life.

The objection may be raised here that under such conditions it would be very difficult to find a man who would be ready to devote himself to so fateful a task. The answer to that objection is as follows:

We thank God that the inner spirit of our German democracy will of itself prevent the chance careerist, who may be intellectually worthless and a moral twister, from coming by devious ways to a position in which he may govern his fellow-citizens. The fear of undertaking such far-reaching responsibilities, under German democracy, will scare off the ignorant and the feckless.

But should it happen that such a person might creep in surreptitiously it will be easy enough to identify him and apostrophize him ruthlessly. somewhat thus: "Be off, you scoundrel. Don’t soil these steps with your feet; because these are the steps that lead to the portals of the Pantheon of History, and they are not meant for place-hunters but for men of noble character."

Such were the views I formed after two years of attendance at the sessions of the Viennese Parliament. Then I went there no more.

The parliamentary regime became one of the causes why the strength of the Habsburg State steadily declined during the last years of its existence. The more the predominance of the German element was whittled away through parliamentary procedure, the more prominent became the system of playing off one of the various constituent nationalities against the other. In the Imperial Parliament it was always the German element that suffered through the system, which meant that the results were detrimental to the Empire as a whole; for at the close of the century even the most simple-minded people could recognize that the cohesive forces within the Dual Monarchy no longer sufficed to counterbalance the separatist tendencies of the provincial nationalities. On the contrary!

The measures which the State adopted for its own maintenance became more and more mean spirited and in a like degree the general disrespect for the State increased. Not only Hungary but also the various Slav provinces gradually ceased to identify themselves with the monarchy which embraced them all, and accordingly they did not feel its weakness as in any way detrimental to themselves. They rather welcomed those manifestations of senile decay. They looked forward to the final dissolution of the State, and not to its recovery.

The complete collapse was still forestalled in Parliament by the humiliating concessions that were made to every kind of importunate demands, at the cost of the German element. Throughout the country the defence of the State rested on playing off the various nationalities against one another. But the general trend of this development was directed against the Germans. Especially since the right of succession to the throne conferred certain influence on the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the policy of increasing the power of the Czechs was carried out systematically from the upper grades of the administration down to the lower. With all the means at his command the heir to the Dual Monarchy personally furthered the policy that aimed at eliminating the influence of the German element, or at least he acted as protector of that policy. By the use of State officials as tools, purely German districts were gradually but decisively brought within the danger zone of the mixed languages. Even in Lower Austria this process began to make headway with a constantly increasing tempo and Vienna was looked upon by the Czechs as their biggest city.

In the family circle of this new Habsburger the Czech language was favoured. The wife of the Archduke had formerly been a Czech Countess and was wedded to the Prince by a morganatic marriage. She came from an environment where hostility to the Germans had been traditional. The leading idea in the mind of the Archduke was to establish a Slav State in Central Europe, which was to be constructed on a purely Catholic basis, so as to serve as a bulwark against Orthodox Russia.

As had happened often in Habsburg history, religion was thus exploited to serve a purely political policy, and in this case a fatal policy, at least as far as German interests were concerned. The result was lamentable in many respects.

Neither the House of Habsburg nor the Catholic Church received the reward which they expected. Habsburg lost the throne and the Church lost a great State. By employing religious motives in the service of politics, a spirit was aroused which the instigators of that policy had never thought possible.

From the attempt to exterminate Germanism in the old monarchy by every available means arose the Pan-German Movement in Austria, as a response.

In the ’eighties of the last century Manchester Liberalism, which was Jewish in its fundamental ideas, had reached the zenith of its influence in the Dual Monarchy, or had already passed that point. The reaction which set in did not arise from social but from nationalistic tendencies, as was always the case in the old Austria. The instinct of self-preservation drove the German element to defend itself energetically. Economic considerations only slowly began to gain an important influence; but they were of secondary concern. But of the general political chaos two party organizations emerged. The one was more of a national, and the other more of a social, character; but both were highly interesting and instructive for the future.

After the war of 1866, which had resulted in the humiliation of Austria, the House of Habsburg contemplated a revanche on the battlefield. Only the tragic end of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico prevented a still closer collaboration with France. The chief blame for Maximilian’s disastrous expedition was attributed to Napoleon III and the fact that the Frenchman left him in the lurch aroused a general feeling of indignation. Yet the Habsburgs were still lying in wait for their opportunity. If the war of 1870-71 had not been such a singular triumph, the Viennese Court might have chanced the game of blood in order to get its revenge for Sadowa. But when the first reports arrived from the Franco-German battlefield, which, though true, seemed miraculous and almost incredible, the ‘most wise’ of all monarchs recognized that the moment was inopportune and tried to accept the unfavourable situation with as good a grace as possible.

The heroic conflict of those two years (1870-71) produced a still greater miracle; for with the Habsburgs the change of attitude never came from an inner heartfelt urge but only from the pressure of circumstances. The German people of the East Mark, however, were entranced by the triumphant glory of the newly established German Empire and were profoundly moved when they saw the dream of their fathers resurgent in a magnificent reality.

For - let us make no mistake about it - the true German-Austrian realized from this time onward, that Koniggratz was the tragic, though necessary, precondition for the re-establishment of an Empire which should no longer be burdened with the palsy of the old alliance and which indeed had no share in that morbid decay. Above all, the German-Austrian had come to feel in the very depths of his own being that the historical mission of the House of Habsburg had come to an end and that the new Empire could choose only an Emperor who was of heroic mould and was therefore worthy to wear the ‘Crown of the Rhine’. It was right and just that Destiny should be praised for having chosen a scion of that House of which Frederick the Great had in past times given the nation an elevated and resplendent symbol for all time to come.

After the great war of 1870-71 the House of Habsburg set to work with all its determination to exterminate the dangerous German element - about whose inner feelings and attitude there could be no doubt - slowly but deliberately. I use the word exterminate, because that alone expresses what must have been the final result of the Slavophile policy. Then it was that the fire of rebellion blazed up among the people whose extermination had been decreed. That fire was such as had never been witnessed in modern German history.

For the first time nationalists and patriots were transformed into rebels.

Not rebels against the nation or the State as such but rebels against that form of government which they were convinced, would inevitably bring about the ruin of their own people. For the first time in modern history the traditional dynastic patriotism and national love of fatherland and people were in open conflict.

It was to the merit of the Pan-German movement in Austria during the closing decade of the last century that it pointed out clearly and unequivocally that a State is entitled to demand respect and protection for its authority only when such authority is administered in accordance with the interests of the nation, or at least not in a manner detrimental to those interests.

The authority of the State can never be an end in itself; for, if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred.

If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right but also the duty of every individual citizen.

The question of whether and when such a situation exists cannot be answered by theoretical dissertations but only by the exercise of force, and it is success that decides the issue.

Every government, even though it may be the worst possible and even though it may have betrayed the nation’s trust in thousands of ways, will claim that its duty is to uphold the authority of the State. Its adversaries, who are fighting for national self-preservation, must use the same weapons which the government uses if they are to prevail against such a rule and secure their own freedom and independence. Therefore the conflict will be fought out with ‘legal’ means as long as the power which is to be overthrown uses them; but the insurgents will not hesitate to apply illegal means if the oppressor himself employs them. Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a State of Government but rather the conservation of the race.

If the race is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated the question of legality is only of secondary importance. The established power may in such a case employ only those means which are recognized as ‘legal’. yet the instinct of self-preservation on the part of the oppressed will always justify, to the highest degree, the employment of all possible resources.

Only on the recognition of this principle was it possible for those struggles to be carried through, of which history furnishes magnificent examples in abundance, against foreign bondage or oppression at home.

Human rights are above the rights of the State. But if a people be defeated in the struggle for its human rights this means that its weight has proved too light in the scale of Destiny to have the luck of being able to endure in this terrestrial world.

The world is not there to be possessed by the faint-hearted races.

Austria affords a very clear and striking example of how easy it is for tyranny to hide its head under the cloak of what is called ‘legality’.

The legal exercise of power in the Habsburg State was then based on the anti-German attitude of the parliament, with its non-German majorities, and on the dynastic House, which was also hostile to the German element. The whole authority of the State was incorporated in these two factors. To attempt to alter the lot of the German element through these two factors would have been senseless. Those who advised the ‘legal’ way as the only possible way, and also obedience to the State authority, could offer no resistance; because a policy of resistance could not have been put into effect through legal measures. To follow the advice of the legalist counsellors would have meant the inevitable ruin of the German element within the Monarchy, and this disaster would not have taken long to come. The German element has actually been saved only because the State as such collapsed.