The 3 Fruits of German Foreign Policy

From the ocean of blood of our wars, our foreign policy has led to only 3 lasting fruits:

1. The colonization of the Eastern Mark

This was mostly the work of the Bavarians.

2. The conquest and settlement of the territory east of the Elbe.

These first 2 great successes of our foreign policy turned out to be the most enduring.

Without them, our people would play no role in the world today.

These were the only successful attempts to establish a harmony between our:

• increasing population and
• livelihood

3. The organization of the Brandenburg-Prussian State

This:

• was the work of the Hohenzollerns
• became the model for a new REICH.
• led to the instinct of national self-preservation and self-defence in the German Army, an achievement which suited the modern world.*

The duty of national defence is derived from the Prussian State and the new statal concept which it introduced.

Disrupted by excessive individualism, the German nation became disciplined under the organization of the Prussian Army.

In this way, it recovered some of the capacity to form a national community, which in the case of other people had originally arisen through the constructive urge of the herd instinct.

Consequently, the abolition of compulsory national military service had fatal consequences for us but not for other nations.

Ten generations of Germans left without the corrective and educative effect of military training and delivered over to the evil effects of those dissensions and divisions the roots of which lie in their blood and display their force also in a disunity of world-outlook–these ten generations would be sufficient to allow our people to lose the last relics of an independent existence on this earth.

The German spirit could then make its contribution to civilization only through individuals living under the rule of foreign nations and the origin of those individuals would remain unknown. They would remain as the fertilizing manure of civilization, until the last residue of Nordic-Aryan blood would become corrupted or drained out. It is a remarkable fact that the real political successes achieved by our people during their millennial struggles are better appreciated and understood among our adversaries than among ourselves. Even still to-day we grow enthusiastic about a heroism which robbed our people of millions of their best racial stock and turned out completely fruitless in the end.

The distinction between the real political successes which our people achieved in the course of their long history and the futile ends for which the blood of the nation has been shed is of supreme importance for the determination of our policy now and in the future.

We, National Socialists, must never allow ourselves to re-echo the hurrah patriotism of our contemporary bourgeois circles. It would be a fatal danger for us to look on the immediate developments before the War as constituting a precedent which we should be obliged to take into account, even though only to the very smallest degree, in choosing our own way.

We can recognize no obligation devolving on us which may have its historical roots in any part of the 19th century.

In contradistinction to the policy of those who represented that period, we must take our stand on the principles already mentioned in regard to foreign policy: namely, the necessity of bringing our territorial area into just proportion with the number of our population. From the past we can learn only one lesson.

This is that the aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct must be twofold: namely (1) the acquisition of territory as the objective of our foreign policy and (2) the establishment of a new and uniform foundation as the objective of our political activities at home, in accordance with our doctrine of nationhood.

How far are our territorial aims justified according to ethical and moral principles?

In nationalist circles, phrase-mongers try to persuade the German people that the great aim of their foreign policy should be to right the wrongs of 1918. At the same time, they assure the world of the brotherly spirit towards all other nations.

I believe that to demand that the 1914 frontiers should be restored is a glaring political absurdity that is fraught with such consequences as to make the claim itself appear criminal.

The confines of the REICH as they existed in 1914 were thoroughly illogical; because they were not really complete, in the sense of including all the members of the German nation. Nor were they reasonable, in view of the geographical exigencies of military defence.

They were not the consequence of a political plan which had been well considered and carried out.

But they were temporary frontiers established in virtue of a political struggle that had not been brought to a finish; and indeed they were partly the chance result of circumstances. One would have just as good a right, and in many cases a better right, to choose some other outstanding year than 1914 in the course of our history and demand that the objective of our foreign policy should be the re-establishment of the conditions then existing.

The demands I have mentioned are quite characteristic of our bourgeois compatriots, who in such matters take no political thought of the future, They live only in the past and indeed only in the immediate past; for their retrospect does not go back beyond their own times.

The law of inertia binds them to the present order of things, leading them to oppose every attempt to change this. Their opposition, however, never passes over into any kind of active defence. It is only mere passive obstinacy.

Therefore, we must regard it as quite natural that the political horizon of such people should not reach beyond 1914.

In proclaiming that the aim of their political activities is to have the frontiers of that time restored, they only help to close up the rifts that are already becoming apparent in the league which our enemies have formed against us.

Only on these grounds can we explain the fact that eight years after a world conflagration in which a number of Allied belligerents had aspirations and aims that were partly in conflict with one another, the coalition of the victors still remains more or less solid.

Each of those States in its turn profited by the German collapse. In the fear which they all felt before the proof of strength that we had given, the Great Powers maintained a mutual silence about their individual feelings of envy and enmity towards one another.

They felt that the best guarantee against a resurgence of our strength in the future would be to break up and dismember our REICH as thoroughly as possible.

A bad conscience and fear of the strength of our people made up the durable cement which has held the members of that league together, even up to the present moment. And our conduct does not tend to change this state of affairs.

Our bourgeoisie sets up the restoration of the 1914 frontiers as the aim of Germany’s political programme. This is absurd because:

1. there are no available means of extricating it from the twilight atmosphere of political soirees and transforming it into reality
2. Even if it could be really carried into effect the result would be so miserable that, surely to God, it would not be worth while to risk the blood of our people once again for such a purpose.

Each State feels itself aimed at and threatened by it.

Only through bloodshed could we achieve the restoration of the 1914 frontiers.

One must have the simple mind of a child to believe that the revision of the Versailles Treaty can be obtained by indirect means and by beseeching the clemency of the victors; without taking into account the fact that for this we should need somebody who had the character of a Talleyrand, and there is no Talleyrand among us.

• 50% of our politicians consists of artful dodgers
• 50% are well-meaning, harmless, and complaisant incompetents

Times have changed since the Congress of Vienna. It is no longer princes or their courtesans who contend and bargain about State frontiers, but the inexorable cosmopolitan Jew who is fighting for his own dominion over the nations. The sword is the only means whereby a nation can thrust that clutch from its throat.

Only when national sentiment is organized and concentrated into an effective force can it defy that international menace which tends towards an enslavement of the nations. But this road is and will always be marked with bloodshed.

If we are once convinced that the future of Germany calls for the sacrifice, in one way or another, of all that we have and are, then we must set aside considerations of political prudence and devote ourselves wholly to the struggle for a future that will be worthy of our country.

For the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers are of no significance. They did not serve to protect us in the past, nor do they offer any guarantee for our defence in the future.

With these frontiers the German people cannot maintain themselves as a compact unit, nor can they be assured of their maintenance. From the military viewpoint these frontiers are not advantageous or even such as not to cause anxiety.

While we are bound to such frontiers it will not be possible for us to improve our present position in relation to the other World Powers, or rather in relation to the real World Powers. We shall not lessen the discrepancy between our territory and that of Great Britain, nor shall we reach the magnitude of the United States of America. Not only that, but we cannot substantially lessen the importance of France in international politics.

The restoration of the frontiers of 1914 would demand so much bloodshed on the part of our people that no future sacrifice would be possible to carry out effectively such measures as would be necessary to assure the future existence of the nation.

On the contrary, under the intoxication of such a superficial success further aims would be renounced, all the more so because the so-called ’national honour’ would seem to be revindicated and new ports would be opened, at least for a certain time, to our commercial development.