VÖLKISCH is Excluded

It is absolutely necessary for the movement to be dominated by a strong central force as authoritative leadership.

This is only way to counteract the fatal elements.

Our members are to be firmly united under one leader and one discipline.

This is why we laid down a clearly defined programme for the new movement and excluded the word VÖLKISCH from it.

VÖLKISCH cannot be the basis of a movement because it is too indefinite and general in its application.

A designation of VÖLKISCH is not a definite party affiliation.

This indefinite-ness gives rise to various interpretations. Thus, people can appeal to it all the more easily as a sort of personal recommendation.

Whenever such a vague concept, which is subject to so many interpretations, is admitted into a political movement it tends to break up the disciplined solidarity of the fighting forces.

No such solidarity can be maintained if each individual member be allowed to define for himself what he believes and what he is willing to do.

One feels it a disgrace when one notices the kind of people who float about nowadays with the VÖLKISCH symbol stuck in their buttonholes, and at the same time to notice how many people have various ideas of their own as to the significance of that symbol.

A well-known professor in Bavaria fights only with the weapons of the mind. He boasts of having marched against Berlin. He believes that the word VÖLKISCH is synonymous with ‘monarchical’.

But he has neglected to explain how our past German monarchs can be identified with the word VÖLKISCH today.

If VÖLKISCH meant monarchy, then monarchies would not have disappeared.

If monarchies were VÖLKISCH, then their downfall proves that the VÖLKISCH outlook on the world (WELTANSCHAUUNG) is false.

Everybody interprets this concept in his own way.

But such multifarious opinions cannot be adopted as the basis of a militant political movement.

These Messianic Precursors of the 20th Century lack worldly wisdom and understanding the nation’s soul.

And so they have been ridiculed by the left-wing parties.

I see no value on the friendship of such academics. In fact, I see such friendship as dangerous to our young movement.

This is mainly why we first called ourselves THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMAN LABOUR PARTY – so can scare away the VÖLKISCH dreamers.

“Party” keeps away all those:

• dreamers who live in the past and all the lovers of bombastic nomenclature
• who went around beating the big drum for the VÖLKISCH idea.

The full name of the Party kept away all those heroes whose weapon is the sword of the spirit and all those whining poltroons who take refuge behind their so-called ‘intelligence’ as if it were a kind of shield.

It was only to be expected that this latter class would launch a massed attack against us after our movement had started; but, of course, it was only a pen-and-ink attack, for the goose-quill is the only weapon which these VÖLKISCH lancers wield. We had declared one of our principles thus: “We shall meet violence with violence in our own defence”.

Naturally that principle disturbed the equanimity of the knights of the pen. They reproached us bitterly not only for what they called our crude worship of the cudgel but also because, according to them, we had no intellectual forces on our side.

These charlatans did not think for a moment that a Demosthenes could be reduced to silence at a mass-meeting by fifty idiots who had come there to shout him down and use their fists against his supporters. The innate cowardice of the pen-and-ink charlatan prevents him from exposing himself to such a danger, for he always works in safe retirement and never dares to make a noise or come forward in public.

Even to-day I must warn the members of our young movement in the strongest possible terms to guard against the danger of falling into the snare of those who call themselves ‘silent workers’.

These ‘silent workers’ are not only a whitelivered lot but are also, and always will be, ignorant do-nothings. A man who is aware of certain happenings and knows that a certain danger threatens, and at the same time sees a certain remedy which can be employed against it, is in duty bound not to work in silence but to come into the open and publicly fight for the destruction of the evil and the acceptance of his own remedy.

If he does not do so, then he is neglecting his duty and shows that he is weak in character and that he fails to act either because of his timidity, or indolence or incompetence. Most of these ‘silent workers’ generally pretend to know God knows what.

Not one of them is capable of any real achievement, but they keep on trying to fool the world with their antics. Though quite indolent, they try to create the impression that their ‘silent work’ keeps them very busy. To put it briefly, they are sheer swindlers, political jobbers who feel chagrined by the honest work which others are doing.

When you find one of these VÖLKISCH moths buzzing over the value of his ‘silent work’ you may be sure that you are dealing with a fellow who does no productive work at all but steals from others the fruits of their honest labour.

In addition to all this one ought to note the arrogance and conceited impudence with which these obscurantist idlers try to tear to pieces the work of other people, criticizing it with an air of superiority, and thus playing into the hands of the mortal enemy of our people.

Even the simplest follower who has the courage to stand on the table in some beer-hall where his enemies are gathered, and manfully and openly defend his position against them, achieves a thousand times more than these slinking hypocrites. He at least will convert one or two people to believe in the movement.

One can examine his work and test its effectiveness by its actual results. But those knavish swindlers–who praise their own ‘silent work’ and shelter themselves under the cloak of anonymity, are just worthless drones, in the truest sense of the term, and are utterly useless for the purpose of our national reconstruction.

In the beginning of 1920 I put forward the idea of holding our first mass meeting. On this proposal there were differences of opinion amongst us. Some leading members of our party thought that the time was not ripe for such a meeting and that the result might be detrimental.

The Press of the Left had begun to take notice of us and we were lucky enough in being able gradually to arouse their wrath. We had begun to appear at other meetings and to ask questions or contradict the speakers, with the natural result that we were shouted down forthwith.

But still we thereby gained some of our ends. People began to know of our existence and the better they understood us, the stronger became their aversion and their enmity. Therefore we might expect that a large contingent of our friends from the Red Camp would attend our first mass meeting. I fully realized that our meeting would probably be broken up. But we had to face the fight; if not now, then some months later.

Since the first day of our foundation we were resolved to secure the future of the movement by fighting our way forward in a spirit of blind faith and ruthless determination. I was well acquainted with the mentality of all those who belonged to the Red Camp, and I knew quite well that if we opposed them tooth and nail not only would we make an impression on them but that we even might win new followers for ourselves. Therefore I felt that we must decide on a policy of active opposition.

Harrer was then chairman of our party. We did not agree on the opportune time for our first mass meeting. Accordingly, he resigned, as an upright and honest man, and was replaced by Anton Drexler.

We decided our first great popular meeting would be on February 24, 1920.

We used posters and leaflets designed according to my principles on propaganda to appeal to the crowd.

They concentrated on a few points which were repeated again and again.

The text was concise and definite, an absolutely dogmatic form of expression being used.

We chose red as our principal colour, as it has an exciting effect on the eye. This could arouse the attention of our opponents and irritate them.

One result of our tactics was to show up clearly the close political fraternization that existed also here in Bavaria between the Marxists and the Centre Party.

The Bavarian People’s Party (affiliated with the Centre Party) held power in Bavaria. They did their best to counteract the effect which our placards were having on the ‘Red’ masses.

They made a definite step to fetter our activities.

If the police could find no other grounds for prohibiting our placards, then they might claim that we were disturbing the traffic in the streets.

These placards will:

• refute the theory that there was then a national government in Bavaria.
• confirm that if Bavaria remained nationally-minded from 1919-1923 because of the national spirit and not because of the national government.