Readings on Fascism and National Socialism Part 11

[Footnote 87: Gauweiler, _op. cit._, p. 3.]

[Footnote 88: Huber, _Verfa.s.sungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches_ (Hamburg, 1939), p. 361.]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid._, pp. 365-366.]

[Footnote 90: _Ibid._, pp. 372-373.]

[Footnote 91: _Reichsgesetzblatt_ (1937), pp. 39-70.]

[Footnote 92: Gauweiler, _op. cit._, p. 156.]

[Footnote 93: Reported in a bulletin of the official German news agency, DNB, Apr. 14, 1942.]

n.a.z.i AIMS AND METHODS

Political Aims

The political aims of National Socialism have been written so clearly in history in the past 10 years that it does not appear necessary to discuss them at length here.

The detailed program of the n.a.z.i Party consists of the 25 points which were adopted on February 24, 1920 at a party ma.s.s meeting in Munich.

(The 25-point program appears in the Appendix as doc.u.ment 12, _post_ p. 222.) The points of particular interest in this study are the first four, which are set forth below:

1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a Great Germany on the basis of the right of the self-determination enjoyed by nations.

2. We demand equality of rights for the German People in its dealings with other nations, and abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the nourishment of our people and for settling our superfluous population.

4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.[94]

_1. Internal Objectives_

A statement of the internal objectives of National Socialism is made by Gauweiler in his _Legal Organization and Legal Functions of the Movement_ (doc.u.ment 8, _post_ p. 204). The laws of the Reich must seek to establish and promote the five basic values recognized by n.a.z.i ideology:

1. Race: The legal protection of the race, which has created a new concept of nationality [_Volkszugehorigkeit_], is consciously put in first place, for the most significant historical principle which has been established by the victory of National Socialism is that of the necessity for keeping race and blood pure. All human mistakes and errors can be corrected except one: "the error regarding the importance of maintaining the basic values of a nation."

The purpose of this legal protection of the basic value of _race_ must be the prevention for all time of a further mixture of German blood with foreign blood, as well as the prevention of continued procreation of racially unworthy and undesirable members of the people.

2. Soil [_Boden_]: The living-s.p.a.ce and the basis for the food supply of the German people are its territory and soil.

The farmer is the first and deepest representative of the people since he nourishes the people from the fertility of the earth and he maintains the nation through the fertility of his own family. Here National Socialism had to accomplish two great legal ends: the reestablishment and the protection of the farmer cla.s.s and the securing of its land for the farmer family.

3. Work: The nation's work as a basic national value is grounded on the leading concept of "work of the hands and of the head" within and for the community of the people and the elevation of work to the only criterion for the value of an individual within the community. In place of the idea of cla.s.s warfare, National Socialism had to establish the national community legally; in place of the defamation of work and its degradation to an object of barter, National Socialism had to raise it to an ethical duty and the right to work had to become the most clearly defined personal right of the individual. The concept of the honor of work had to be established as the basic concept of the national honor.

4. The Reich: With the securing of the three basic values of race, soil, and work arises the National Socialist Reich.

The infusion of foreign cultural and legal influences in Germany was a consequence of the weakening of the central authority of the German Reich since the Middle Ages. The creation and insuring of a strong central authority in contrast to the disorganized, federalistic system of the Weimar Republic became one of the princ.i.p.al lines of National Socialist legal policy. In consequence of the National Socialist revolution, the Reich took on the legal form of a totalitarian state and received a supreme and completely authoritative lawgiver in the person of the Fuhrer. The principle of a division of power could no longer maintain itself: The formulation, the interpretation, and the execution of the law are all performed by the Fuhrer himself or under his authority.

5. Honor: The fifth great value of the nation is its honor.

The honor of the people, the Reich, the party, the Fuhrer, and the individual citizen are all regarded as goods to be protected by law. The basis of national honor is loyalty.

National Socialist criminal law is therefore essentially organized as a system of punishment for breaches of faith.

Every crime and offense against the community is a breach of faith which must result in loss of honor.[95]

_2. Foreign Policy_

The close connection between the internal political program of the National Socialist movement, as expressed in the foregoing paragraphs, and its foreign policy was indicated by Hitler when he wrote in _Mein Kampf_ (doc.u.ment 13-I, _post_ p. 226):

As National Socialists we can further set forth the following principle with regard to the nature of the foreign policy of a folk-state:

_It is the task of the foreign policy of a folk-state to secure the existence on this planet of the race which is encompa.s.sed by the state and at the same time to establish a healthy, viable, natural relation between the number and growth of the folk on the one hand and the size and quality of its soil and territory on the other hand._[96]

And in the same work he states:

Yes, we can only learn from the past that we must undertake the setting of aims for our political activity in two directions: _Soil and territory as the goal of our foreign policy, and a new, philosophically firm and uniform foundation as the goal of our domestic political activity._[97]

The political objectives of National Socialism, then, by definition of Hitler himself, are the internal unification of the German people and external expansion.

While the n.a.z.is have never concealed the first of these objectives, the second was the subject for a great deal of dissimulation up to the outbreak of the present war. Typical of the false front which the n.a.z.is presented to the outside world with reference to their foreign policy objectives are the statements made by Dr. Scurla in _Basic Principles of National Socialism With Special Reference to Foreign Countries_. Dr. Scurla quotes. .h.i.tler's speech of May 17, 1933 in which he said, "We see the European nations around us as given facts.

French, Poles, etc., are our neighbor peoples, and we know that no conceivable historic occurrence could change this reality,"[98] and comments:

This folk principle, which has grown out of the National Socialist ideology, implies the recognition of the independence and the equal rights of each people. We do not see how anyone can discern in this a "pan-Germanic" and imperialistic threat against our neighbors. This principle does not admit the difference between "great powers" and "minor states," between majority peoples and minorities. It means at the same time a clear rejection of any imperialism which aims at the subjugation of foreign peoples or the denationalization of alien populations. It demands the unqualified acknowledgment of the right to live of every folk, and of every folk-group, which is forced to live as a foreign group in another state. The western European national state together with its parliamentary democracy was not able to do justice to the natural and living ent.i.ties, the peoples, in their struggle for existence.[99]

Farther on in the same work Scurla states:

Out of its fundamental ideologic view, however, Germany rejects every form of imperialism, even that of peaceful penetration. It is unable to concede to any people the authority to develop ideas and ways of living, to which then another people has to subordinate itself, even if some other order is suited to its essential nature ... It does not at all, however, consider the German order obligatory for other peoples. National Socialism, as has been said a hundred times, is exclusively the sum total of the German world-view.[100]

Similar a.s.surances by n.a.z.i leaders were frequently made in order to induce a sense of security in neighboring countries. Hitler, for example, in a proclamation opening the party congress at Nuremberg on September 11, 1935 said:

National Socialism has no aggressive intentions against any European nation. On the contrary, we are convinced that the nations of Europe must continue their characteristic national existence, as created by tradition, history and economy; if not, Europe as a whole will be destroyed.[101]

But such a.s.surances, which were intended exclusively for foreign consumption, were refuted by the basic policy laid down in _Mein Kampf_, which has been persistently pursued throughout the 10 years of the n.a.z.i regime and has been realized to the extent that Germany now dominates and is in control of most of the European continent. In _Mein Kampf_ (doc.u.ment 13-I, _post_ p. 226) Hitler wrote:

_Our task, the mission of the National Socialist movement, however, is to lead our folk to such political insight that it will see its future goal fulfilled not in the intoxicating impression of a new Alexandrian campaign but rather in the industrious work of the German plow, which waits only to be given land by the sword._[102]

Hitler suggests a future foreign policy for Germany which would a.s.sure _Lebensraum_ and domination of the European continent. In _Mein Kampf_ he states:

But the political testament of the German nation for its outwardly directed activity should and must always have the following import:

_Never tolerate the establishment of two continental powers in Europe. See an attack against Germany in every attempt to organize a second military power on the German borders, even if it is only in the form of the establishment of a state which is a potential military power, and see therein not only the right but also the duty to prevent the formation of such a state with all means, even to the use of force, or if it has already been established, to destroy it again. See to it that the strength of our folk has its foundations not in colonies but in the soil of the European homeland. Never regard the foundations of the Reich as secure, if it is not able to give every off-shoot of our folk its own bit of soil and territory for centuries to come. Never forget that the most sacred right in the world is the right to the soil which a man wishes to till himself, and the most sacred sacrifice is the blood which he spills for this soil_.[103]

It is impossible to adduce from the writings of Hitler, or other n.a.z.i leaders direct statements indicating that they aspire to the domination of the entire world. Such expressions, however, may be inferred not only from the direction of German foreign policy and the effusions of the geopoliticians but also from the following statement made by Hitler in _Mein Kampf_ (doc.u.ment 13-I, _post_ p. 226):

... If the German folk, in its historical development, had possessed that herdlike unity which other peoples have enjoyed, the German Reich would today be mistress of the globe. World history would have taken another course, and no one can tell whether in this way that might not have been attained which so many deluded pacifists are hoping today to wheedle by moaning and whining: a peace supported not by the palm branches of tearful pacifistic female mourners but founded by the victorious sword of a master race [_Herrenvolk_] which places the world in the service of a higher culture.[104]