The Christian-Socialist Movement

The Christian-Socialist Movement had only a vague concept of a German revival as part of its object.

But it was intelligent and fortunate in the choice of means to carry out its policy as a Party. The Christian-Socialists grasped the significance of the social question;

But they adopted the wrong principles in their struggle against Jewry, and they utterly failed to appreciate the value of the national idea as a source of political energy.

If the Christian-Socialist Party, together with its shrewd judgment in regard to the worth of the popular masses, had only judged rightly also on the importance of the racial problem–which was properly grasped by the Pan-German Movement–and if this party had been really nationalist; or if the Pan-German leaders, on the other hand, in addition to their correct judgment of the Jewish problem and of the national idea, had adopted the practical wisdom of the Christian-Socialist Party, and particularly their attitude towards Socialism–then a movement would have developed which, in my opinion, might at that time have successfully altered the course of German destiny.

If things did not turn out thus, the fault lay for the most part in the inherent nature of the Austrian State.

I did not find my own convictions upheld by any party then in existence, and so I could not bring myself to enlist as a member in any of the existing organizations or even lend a hand in their struggle. Even at that time all those organizations seemed to me to be already jaded in their energies and were therefore incapable of bringing about a national revival of the German people in a really profound way, not merely outwardly.

My inner aversion to the Habsburg State was increasing daily.

The more I paid special attention to questions of foreign policy, the more the conviction grew upon me that this phantom State would surely bring misfortune on the Germans. I realized more and more that the destiny of the German nation could not be decisively influenced from here but only in the German Empire itself. And this was true not only in regard to general political questions but also–and in no less a degree–in regard to the whole sphere of cultural life.

Here, also, in all matters affecting the national culture and art, the Austrian State showed all the signs of senile decrepitude, or at least it was ceasing to be of any consequence to the German nation, as far as these matters were concerned.

This was especially true of its architecture. Modern architecture could not produce any great results in Austria because, since the building of the Ring Strasse–at least in Vienna–architectural activities had become insignificant when compared with the progressive plans which were being thought out in Germany.

And so I came more and more to lead what may be called a twofold existence. Reason and reality forced me to continue my harsh apprenticeship in Austria, though I must now say that this apprenticeship turned out fortunate in the end. But my heart was elsewhere.

A feeling of discontent grew upon me and made me depressed the more I came to realize the inside hollowness of this State and the impossibility of saving it from collapse. At the same time I felt perfectly certain that it would bring all kinds of misfortune to the German people.

I was convinced that the Habsburg State would balk and hinder every German who might show signs of real greatness, while at the same time it would aid and abet every non-German activity.

This conglomerate spectacle of heterogeneous races which the capital of the Dual Monarchy presented, this motley of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Serbs and Croats, etc., and always that bacillus which is the solvent of human society, the Jew, here and there and everywhere–the whole spectacle was repugnant to me. The gigantic city seemed to be the incarnation of mongrel depravity.

The German language, which I had spoken from the time of my boyhood, was the vernacular idiom of Lower Bavaria. I never forgot that particular style of speech, and I could never learn the Viennese dialect. The longer I lived in that city the stronger became my hatred for the promiscuous swarm of foreign peoples which had begun to batten on that old nursery ground of German culture. The idea that this State could maintain its further existence for any considerable time was quite absurd.

Austria was then like a piece of ancient mosaic in which the cohesive cement had dried up and become old and friable. As long as such a work of art remains untouched it may hold together and continue to exist; but the moment some blow is struck on it then it breaks up into thousands of fragments. Therefore it was now only a question of when the blow would come.

Because my heart was always with the German Empire and not with the Austrian Monarchy, the hour of Austria’s dissolution as a State appeared to me only as the first step towards the emancipation of the German nation.

All these considerations intensified my yearning to depart for that country for which my heart had been secretly longing since the days of my youth. I hoped that one day I might be able to make my mark as an architect and that I could devote my talents to the service of my country on a large or small scale, according to the will of Fate.

A final reason was that I longed to be among those who lived and worked in that land from which the movement should be launched, the object of which would be the fulfilment of what my heart had always longed for, namely, the union of the country in which I was born with our common fatherland, the German Empire.

There are many who may not understand how such a yearning can be so strong; but I appeal especially to two groups of people. The first includes all those who are still denied the happiness I have spoken of, and the second embraces those who once enjoyed that happiness but had it torn from them by a harsh fate. I turn to all those who have been torn from their motherland and who have to struggle for the preservation of their most sacred patrimony, their native language, persecuted and harried because of their loyalty and love for the homeland, yearning sadly for the hour when they will be allowed to return to the bosom of their father’s household. To these I address my words, and I know that they will understand.

Only he who has experienced in his own inner life what it means to be German and yet to be denied the right of belonging to his fatherland can appreciate the profound nostalgia which that enforced exile causes. It is a perpetual heartache, and there is no place for joy and contentment until the doors of paternal home are thrown open and all those through whose veins kindred blood is flowing will find peace and rest in their common REICH.

Vienna was a hard school for me. But it taught me the most profound lessons of my life.

There I:

• acquired the foundations of a WELTANSCHAUUNG in general
• developed a faculty for analysing political questions in particular.

That WELTANSCHAUUNG and the political ideas then formed have never been abandoned, though they were expanded later on in some directions.

I do not know what my attitude towards Jewry, Social-Democracy, or rather Marxism in general, to the social problem, etc., would be to-day if I had not acquired a stock of personal beliefs at such an early age, by dint of hard study and under the duress of Fate.

For, although the misfortunes of the Fatherland may have stimulated thousands to ponder over the inner causes of the collapse, that could not lead to such a thorough knowledge and deep insight as a man may develop who has fought a hard struggle for many years so that he might be master of his own fate.

Notes

[Note 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, girl by the nose is leading thee. Faust: Abortion, thou of filth and fire.]

[Note 7. Herodotus (Book VII, 213-218) 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 tobreak through the Greek defence, Ephialtes came to him and, on being promiseda definite payment, told the King of a pathway over the shoulder of the mountainto the Greek end of the Pass. The bargain being clinched, Ephialtes led adetachment of the Persian troops under General Hydarnes over the mountainpathway. 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, asit does almost every schoolboy. The incident is referred to again in MEIN KAMPF (Chap. VIII, Vol. I), where Hitler compares the German troops thatfell 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.]