The First Stage In The Development Of Nazi Party

All great reforms in the beginning only has one protagonist to come forward on behalf of several millions of people.

Millions of our people yearn for a radical change.

Some people show this yearning by:

• abstaining from voting at elections, or
• join the left wing as fanatical extremists.

Our young movement had to appeal first of all to those left wing extremists.

In 1918, Germany had been torn into two parts:

1. The smaller part contained the intellectual classes

They appeared to be national-minded and wanted to defend the interests of the State which really was the dynastic regime.

This class tried to defend its ideas and reach its aims by carrying on the fight with the aid of intellectual weapons. These had only a superficial effect against the brutal measures employed by the adversaries.

2. The broad masses of manual labourers

These had a radically Marxist tendency. They were determined to break any kind of intellectual resistance by the use of brute force.

They had no nationalist tendencies whatsoever.

On the contrary, they promoted the interests of the foreign oppressor.

In 1918, it was clear that Germany would have no resurgence until we had restored our national strength to face the outside world.

For this purpose, weapons are not the preliminary necessity, though our bourgeois ‘statesmen’ always blathered about it being so.

What was lacking was was will-power.

At one time the Germans had more than enough military armament. But they lacked:

• the energy* to for national self-preservation and
• the will to hold on to one’s own.

The best armament is only dead and worthless material as long as the spirit is wanting which makes men willing and determined to avail themselves of such weapons.

Germany was rendered defenceless not because she lacked arms, but because she lacked the will to keep her arms to maintain her people.

Today, Left-wing politicians insist that their obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany.

But the truth is that they are traitors.

Their giving up the arms was dictated by their anti-national policy.

But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach.

Their miserable cowardice let the ruffians of Jews, who came into power in 1918, steal Germany’s weapons.

The conservative politicians cannot use the disarmament as the excuse for their policy of prudence (that is to say, cowardice).

In reality, the disarmament is the result of their lack of spirit.

Therefore the problem of restoring Germany’s power is not a question of how can we manufacture arms but rather how we can produce that spirit which enables a people to bear arms.

Once this spirit prevails among a people then it will find a thousand ways, each of which leads to the necessary armament.

The problem of re-establishing Germany’s political power is first of all a problem of restoring the instinct of national self-preservation.

Every preparatory step in foreign policy and every foreign judgment on the worth of a State is not grounded on the weapons that they have. It is based on the moral capacity for resistance that the State is believed to have.

The question whether or not a nation be desirable as an ally is not so much determined by the inert mass of arms which it has at hand but by the obvious presence of a sturdy will to national self-preservation and a heroic courage which will fight through to the last breath. For an alliance is not made between arms but between men.

Britain will therefore be the most valuable ally in the world as long as it:

• can be counted on to show that brutality and tenacity in its government
• has the spirit of the broad masses, which enables it to carry through any struggle

All this even though the actual military equipment at hand may be utterly inadequate when compared with that of other nations.