Chapter XI: Propaganda and
Organization
The year 1921 was specially important for me from many points of
view.
When I entered the German Labour Party I at once took charge of the
propaganda, believing this branch to be far the most important for the time
being. Just then it was not a matter of pressing necessity to cudgel one's
brains over problems of organization. The first necessity was to spread our
ideas among as many people as possible. Propaganda should go well ahead of
organization and gather together the human material for the latter to work up.
I have never been in favour of hasty and pedantic methods of organization,
because in most cases the result is merely a piece of dead mechanism and only
rarely a living organization. Organization is a thing that derives its
existence from organic life, organic evolution. When the same set of ideas have
found a lodgement in the minds of a certain number of people they tend of
themselves to form a certain degree of order among those people and out of this
inner formation something that is very valuable arises. Of course here, as
everywhere else, one must take account of those human weaknesses which make men
hesitate, especially at the beginning, to submit to the control of a superior
mind. If an organization is imposed from above downwards in a mechanical
fashion, there is always the danger that some individual may push himself
forward who is not known for what he is and who, out of jealousy, will try to
hinder abler persons from taking a leading place in the movement. The damage
that results from that kind of thing may have fatal consequences, especially in
a new movement.
For this reason it is advisable first to propagate and
publicly expound the ideas on which the movement is founded. This work of
propaganda should continue for a certain time and should be directed from one
centre. When the ideas have gradually won over a number of people this human
material should be carefully sifted for the purpose of selecting those who have
ability in leadership and putting that ability to the test. It will often be
found that apparently insignificant persons will nevertheless turn out to be
born leaders.
Of course, it is quite a mistake to suppose that those
who show a very intelligent grasp of the theory underlying a movement are for
that reason qualified to fill responsible positions on the directorate. The
contrary is very frequently the case.
Great masters of theory are only very rarely great
organizers also. And this is because the greatness of the theorist and founder
of a system consists in being able to discover and lay down those laws that are
right in the abstract, whereas the organizer must first of all be a man of
psychological insight. He must take men as they are, and for that reason he
must know them, not having too high or too low an estimate of human nature. He
must take account of their weaknesses, their baseness and all the other various
characteristics, so as to form something out of them which will be a living
organism, endowed with strong powers of resistance, fitted to be the carrier of
an idea and strong enough to ensure the triumph of that idea.
But it is still more rare to find a great theorist who is
at the same time a great leader. For the latter must be more of an agitator, a
truth that will not be readily accepted by many of those who deal with problems
only from the scientific standpoint. And yet what I say is only natural. For an
agitator who shows himself capable of expounding ideas to the great masses must
always be a psychologist, even though he may be only a demagogue. Therefore he
will always be a much more capable leader than the contemplative theorist who
meditates on his ideas, far from the human throng and the world. For to be a
leader means to be able to move the masses. The gift of formulating ideas has
nothing whatsoever to do with the capacity for leadership. It would be entirely
futile to discuss the question as to which is the more important: the faculty
of conceiving ideals and human aims or that of being able to have them put into
practice. Here, as so often happens in life, the one would be entirely
meaningless without the other. The noblest conceptions of the human
understanding remain without purpose or value if the leader cannot move the
masses towards them. And, conversely, what would it avail to have all the
genius and elan of a leader if the intellectual theorist does not fix the aims
for which mankind must struggle. But when the abilities of theorist and
organizer and leader are united in the one person, then we have the rarest
phenomenon on this earth. And it is that union which produces the great man.
As I have already said, during my first period in the Party I
devoted myself to the work of propaganda. I had to succeed in gradually
gathering together a small nucleus of men who would accept the new teaching and
be inspired by it. And in this way we should provide the human material which
subsequently would form the constituent elements of the organization. Thus the
goal of the propagandist is nearly always fixed far beyond that of the
organizer.
If a movement proposes to overthrow a certain order of
things and construct a new one in its place, then the following principles must
be clearly understood and must dominate in the ranks of its leadership: Every
movement which has gained its human material must first divide this material
into two groups: namely, followers and members.
It is the task of the propagandist to recruit the
followers and it is the task of the organizer to select the members.
The follower of a movement is he who understands and accepts its
aims; the member is he who fights for them.
The follower is one whom the propaganda has converted to
the doctrine of the movement. The member is he who will be charged by the
organization to collaborate in winning over new followers from which in turn
new members can be formed.
To be a follower needs only the passive recognition of the
idea. To be a member means to represent that idea and fight for it. From ten
followers one can have scarcely more than two members. To be a follower simply
implies that a man has accepted the teaching of the movement; whereas to be a
member means that a man has the courage to participate actively in diffusing
that teaching in which he has come to believe.
Because of its passive character, the simple effort of
believing in a political doctrine is enough for the majority, for the majority
of mankind is mentally lazy and timid. To be a member one must be
intellectually active, and therefore this applies only to the minority.
Such being the case, the propagandist must seek untiringly to acquire
new followers for the movement, whereas the organizer must diligently look out
for the best elements among such followers, so that these elements may be
transformed into members. The propagandist need not trouble too much about the
personal worth of the individual proselytes he has won for the movement. He
need not inquire into their abilities, their intelligence or character. From
these proselytes, however, the organizer will have to select those individuals
who are most capable of actively helping to bring the movement to victory.
The propagandist aims at inducing the whole people to
accept his teaching. The organizer includes in his body of membership only
those who, on psychological grounds, will not be an impediment to the further
diffusion of the doctrines of the movement.
The propagandist inculcates his doctrine among the
masses, with the idea of preparing them for the time when this doctrine will
triumph, through the body of combatant members which he has formed from those
followers who have given proof of the necessary ability and will-power to carry
the struggle to victory.
The final triumph of a doctrine will be made all the more
easy if the propagandist has effectively converted large bodies of men to the
belief in that doctrine and if the organization that actively conducts the
fight be exclusive, vigorous and solid.
When the propaganda work has converted a whole people to
believe in a doctrine, the organization can turn the results of this into
practical effect through the work of a mere handful of men. Propaganda and
organization, therefore follower and member, then stand towards one another in
a definite mutual relationship. The better the propaganda has worked, the
smaller will the organization be. The greater the number of followers, so much
the smaller can be the number of members. And conversely. If the propaganda be
bad, the organization must be large. And if there be only a small number of
followers, the membership must be all the larger – if the movement really
counts on being successful.
The first duty of the propagandist is to win over people
who can subsequently be taken into the organization. And the first duty of the
organization is to select and train men who will be capable of carrying on the
propaganda. The second duty of the organization is to disrupt the existing
order of things and thus make room for the penetration of the new teaching
which it represents, while the duty of the organizer must be to fight for the
purpose of securing power, so that the doctrine may finally triumph.
A revolutionary conception of the world and human
existence will always achieve decisive success when the new
Weltanschhauung has been taught to a whole people, or subsequently
forced upon them if necessary, and when, on the other hand, the central
organization, the movement itself, is in the hands of only those few men who
are absolutely indispensable to form the nerve-centres of the coming State.
Put in another way, this means that in every great revolutionary
movement that is of world importance the idea of this movement must always be
spread abroad through the operation of propaganda. The propagandist must never
tire in his efforts to make the new ideas clearly understood, inculcating them
among others, or at least he must place himself in the position of those others
and endeavour to upset their confidence in the convictions they have hitherto
held. In order that such propaganda should have backbone to it, it must be
based on an organization. The organization chooses its members from among those
followers whom the propaganda has won. That organization will become all the
more vigorous if the work of propaganda be pushed forward intensively. And the
propaganda will work all the better when the organization back of it is
vigorous and strong in itself.
Hence the supreme task of the organizer is to see to it
that any discord or differences which may arise among the members of the
movement will not lead to a split and thereby cramp the work within the
movement. Moreover, it is the duty of the organization to see that the fighting
spirit of the movement does not flag or die out but that it is constantly
reinvigorated and restrengthened. It is not necessary the number of members
should increase indefinitely. Quite the contrary would be better. In view of
the fact that only a fraction of humanity has energy and courage, a movement
which increases its own organization indefinitely must of necessity one day
become plethoric and inactive. Organizations, that is to say, groups of
members, which increase their size beyond certain dimensions gradually lose
their fighting force and are no longer in form to back up the propagation of a
doctrine with aggressive elan and determination.
Now the greater and more revolutionary a doctrine is, so
much the more active will be the spirit inspiring its body of members, because
the subversive energy of such a doctrine will frighten way the chicken-hearted
and small-minded bourgeoisie. In their hearts they may believe in the doctrine
but they are afraid to acknowledge their belief openly. By reason of this very
fact, however, an organization inspired by a veritable revolutionary idea will
attract into the body of its membership only the most active of those believers
who have been won for it by its propaganda. It is in this activity on the part
of the membership body, guaranteed by the process of natural selection, that we
are to seek the prerequisite conditions for the continuation of an active and
spirited propaganda and also the victorious struggle for the success of the
idea on which the movement is based.
The greatest danger that can threaten a movement is an
abnormal increase in the number of its members, owing to its too rapid success.
So long as a movement has to carry on a hard and bitter fight, people of weak
and fundamentally egotistic temperament will steer very clear of it; but these
will try to be accepted as members the moment the party achieves a manifest
success in the course of its development.
It is on these grounds that we are to explain why so many
movements which were at first successful slowed down before reaching the
fulfilment of their purpose and, from an inner weakness which could not
otherwise be explained, gave up the struggle and finally disappeared from the
field. As a result of the early successes achieved, so many undesirable,
unworthy and especially timid individuals became members of the movement that
they finally secured the majority and stifled the fighting spirit of the
others. These inferior elements then turned the movement to the service of
their personal interests and, debasing it to the level of their own miserable
heroism, no longer struggled for the triumph of the original idea. The fire of
the first fervour died out, the fighting spirit flagged and, as the bourgeois
world is accustomed to say very justly in such cases, the party mixed water
with its wine.
For this reason it is necessary that a movement should,
from the sheer instinct of self-preservation, close its lists to new membership
the moment it becomes successful. And any further increase in its organization
should be allowed to take place only with the most careful foresight and after
a painstaking sifting of those who apply for membership. Only thus will it be
possible to keep the kernel of the movement intact and fresh and sound. Care
must be taken that the conduct of the movement is maintained exclusively in the
hands of this original nucleus. This means that the nucleus must direct the
propaganda which aims at securing general recognition for the movement. And the
movement itself, when it has secured power in its hands, must carry out all
those acts and measures which are necessary in order that its ideas should be
finally established in practice.
With those elements that originally made the movement,
the organization should occupy all the important positions that have been
conquered and from those elements the whole directorate should be formed. This
should continue until the maxims and doctrines of the party have become the
foundation and policy of the new State. Only then will it be permissible
gradually to give the reins into the hands of the Constitution of that State
which the spirit of the movement has created. But this usually happens through
a process of mutual rivalry, for here it is less a question of human
intelligence than of the play and effect of the forces whose development may
indeed be foreseen from the start but not perpetually controlled.
All great movements, whether of a political or religious
nature, owe their imposing success to the recognition and adoption of those
principles. And no durable success is conceivable if these laws are not
observed.
As director of propaganda for the party, I took care not
merely to prepare the ground for the greatness of the movement in its
subsequent stages, but I also adopted the most radical measures against
allowing into the organization any other than the best material. For the more
radical and exciting my propaganda was, the more did it frighten weak and
wavering characters away, thus preventing them from entering the first nucleus
of our organization. Perhaps they remained followers, but they did not raise
their voices. On the contrary, they maintained a discreet silence on the fact.
Many thousands of persons then assured me that they were in full agreement with
us but they could not on any account become members of our party. They said
that the movement was so radical that to take part in it as members would
expose them to grave censures and grave dangers, so that they would rather
continue to be looked upon as honest and peaceful citizens and remain aside,
for the time being at least, though devoted to our cause with all their hearts.
And that was all to the good. If all these men who in their hearts
did not approve of revolutionary ideas came into our movement as members at
that time, we should be looked upon as a pious confraternity today and not as a
young movement inspired with the spirit of combat.
The lively and combative form which I gave to all our
propaganda fortified and guaranteed the radical tendency of our movement, and
the result was that, with a few exceptions, only men of radical views were
disposed to become members.
It was due to the effect of our propaganda that within a
short period of time hundreds of thousands of citizens became convinced in
their hearts that we were right and wished us victory, although personally they
were too timid to make sacrifices for our cause or even participate in it.
Up to the middle of 1921 this simple activity of gathering in
followers was sufficient and was of value to the movement. But in the summer of
that year certain events happened which made it seem opportune for us to bring
our organization into line with the manifest successes which the propaganda had
achieved.
An attempt made by a group of patriotic visionaries,
supported by the chairman of the party at that time, to take over the direction
of the party led to the break up of this little intrigue and, by a unanimous
vote at a general meeting, entrusted the entire direction of the party to my
own hands. At the same time a new statute was passed which invested sole
responsibility in the chairman of the movement, abolished the system of
resolutions in committee and in its stead introduced the principle of division
of labour which since that time has worked excellently.
From August 1st, 1921, onwards I undertook this internal
reorganization of the party and was supported by a number of excellent men. I
shall mention them and their work individually later on.
In my endeavour to turn the results gained by the
propaganda to the advantage of the organization and thus stabilize them, I had
to abolish completely a number of old customs and introduce regulations which
none of the other parties possessed or had adopted.
In the years 1920-21 the movement was controlled by a
committee elected by the members at a general meeting. The committee was
composed of a first and second treasurer, a first and second secretary, and a
first and second chairman at the head of it. In addition to these there was a
representative of the members, the director of propaganda, and various
assessors.
Comically enough, the committee embodied the very
principle against which the movement itself wanted to fight with all its
energy, namely, the principle of parliamentarianism. Here was a principle which
personified everything that was being opposed by the movement, from the
smallest local groups to the district and regional groups, the state groups and
finally the national directorate itself. It was a system under which we all
suffered and are still suffering.
It was imperative to change this state of affairs
forthwith, if this bad foundation in the internal organization was not to keep
the movement insecure and render the fulfilment of its high mission impossible.
The sessions of the committee, which were ruled by a protocol, and
in which decisions were made according to the vote of the majority, presented
the picture of a miniature parliament. Here also there was no such thing as
personal responsibility. And here reigned the same absurdities and illogical
state of affairs as flourish in our great representative bodies of the State.
Names were presented to this committee for election as secretaries, treasurers,
representatives of the members of the organization, propaganda agents and God
knows what else. And then they all acted in common on every particular question
and decided it by vote. Accordingly, the director of propaganda voted on a
question that concerned the man who had to do with the finances and the latter
in his turn voted on a question that concerned only the organization as such,
the organizer voting on a subject that had to do with the secretarial
department, and so on.
Why select a special man for propaganda if treasurers and
scribes and commissaries, etc., had to deliver judgment on questions concerning
it? To a person of commonsense that sort of thing seemed as incomprehensible as
it would be if in a great manufacturing concern the board of directors were to
decide on technical questions of production or if, inversely, the engineers
were to decide on questions of administration.
I refused to countenance that kind of folly and after a
short time I ceased to appear at the meetings of the committee. I did nothing
else except attend to my own department of propaganda and I did not permit any
of the others to poke their heads into my activities. Conversely, I did not
interfere in the affairs of others.
When the new statute was approved and I was appointed as
president, I had the necessary authority in my hands and also the corresponding
right to make short shrift of all that nonsense. In the place of decisions by
the majority vote of the committee, the principle of absolute responsibility
was introduced.
The chairman is responsible for the whole control of the
movement. He apportions the work among the members of the committee subordinate
to him and for special work he selects other individuals. Each of these
gentlemen must bear sole responsibility for the task assigned to him. He is
subordinate only to the chairman, whose duty is to supervise the general
collaboration, selecting the personnel and giving general directions for the
co-ordination of the common work.
This principle of absolute responsibility is being adopted
little by little throughout the movement. In the small local groups and perhaps
also in the regional and district groups it will take yet a long time before
the principle can be thoroughly imposed, because timid and hesitant characters
are naturally opposed to it. For them the idea of bearing absolute
responsibility for an act opens up an unpleasant prospect. They would like to
hide behind the shoulders of the majority in the so-called committee, having
their acts covered by decisions passed in that way. But it seems to me a matter
of absolute necessity to take a decisive stand against that view, to make no
concessions whatsoever to this fear of responsibility, even though it takes
some time before we can put fully into effect this concept of duty and ability
in leadership, which will finally bring forward leaders who have the requisite
abilities to occupy the chief posts.
In any case, a movement which must fight against the
absurdity of parliamentary institutions must be immune from this sort of thing.
Only thus will it have the requisite strength to carry on the struggle.
At a time when the majority dominates everywhere else a movement
which is based on the principle of one leader who has to bear personal
responsibility for the direction of the official acts of the movement itself
will one day overthrow the present situation and triumph over the existing
regime. That is a mathematical certainty.
This idea made it necessary to reorganize our movement
internally. The logical development of this reorganization brought about a
clear-cut distinction between the economic section of the movement and the
general political direction. The principle of personal responsibility was
extended to all the administrative branches of the party and it brought about a
healthy renovation, by liberating them from political influences and allowing
them to operate solely on economic principles.
In the autumn of 1921, when the party was founded, there
were only six members. The party did not have any headquarters, nor officials,
nor formularies, nor a stamp, nor printed material of any sort. The committee
first held its sittings in a restaurant on the Herrengasse and then in a café
at Gasteig. This state of affairs could not last. So I at once took action in
the matter. I went around to several restaurants and hotels in Munich, with the
idea of renting a room in one of them for the use of the Party. In the old
Sterneckerbräu im Tal, there was a small room with arched roof, which in
earlier times was used as a sort of festive tavern where the Bavarian
Counsellors of the Holy Roman Empire foregathered. It was dark and dismal and
accordingly well suited to its ancient uses, though less suited to the new
purpose it was now destined to serve. The little street on which its one window
looked out was so narrow that even on the brightest summer day the room
remained dim and sombre. Here we took up our first fixed abode. The rent came
to fifty marks per month, which was then an enormous sum for us. But our
exigencies had to be very modest. We dared not complain even when they removed
the wooden wainscoting a few days after we had taken possession. This panelling
had been specially put up for the Imperial Counsellors. The place began to look
more like a grotto than an office.
Still it marked an important step forward. Slowly we had
electric light installed and later on a telephone. A table and some borrowed
chairs were brought, an open paper-stand and later on a cupboard. Two
sideboards, which belonged to the landlord, served to store our leaflets,
placards, etc.
As time went on it turned out impossible to direct the
course of the movement merely by holding a committee meeting once a week. The
current business administration of the movement could not be regularly attended
to except we had a salaried official.
But that was then very difficult for us. The movement had
still so few members that it was hard to find among them a suitable person for
the job who would be content with very little for himself and at the same time
would be ready to meet the manifold demands which the movement would make on
his time and energy.
After long searching we discovered a soldier who
consented to become our first administrator. His name was Schüssler, an old war
comrade of mine. At first he came to our new office every day between six and
eight o'clock in the evening. Later on he came from five to eight and
subsequently for the whole afternoon. Finally it became a full-time job and he
worked in the office from morning until late at night. He was an industrious,
upright and thoroughly honest man, faithful and devoted to the movement. He
brought with him a small Adler typewriter of his own. It was the first machine
to be used in the service of the party. Subsequently the party bought it by
paying for it in installments. We needed a small safe in order to keep our
papers and register of membership from danger of being stolen – not to guard
our funds, which did not then exist. On the contrary, our financial position
was so miserable that I often had to dip my hand into my own personal savings.
After eighteen months our business quarters had become too small, so
we moved to a new place in the Cornelius Strasse. Again our office was in a
restaurant, but instead of one room we now had three smaller rooms and one
large room with great windows. At that time this appeared a wonderful thing to
us. We remained there until the end of November 1923.
In December 1920, we acquired the Völkischer Beobachter.
This newspaper which, as its name implies, championed the claims of the people,
was now to become the organ of the German National Socialist Labour Party. At
first it appeared twice weekly; but at the beginning of 1928 it became a daily
paper, and at the end of August in the same year it began to appear in the
large format which is now well known.
As a complete novice in journalism I then learned many a
lesson for which I had to pay dearly.
In contradistinction to the enormous number of papers in
Jewish hands, there was at that time only one important newspaper that defended
the cause of the people. This was a matter for grave consideration. As I have
often learned by experience, the reason for that state of things must be
attributed to the incompetent way in which the business side of the so-called
popular newspapers was managed. These were conducted too much according to the
rule that opinion should prevail over action that produces results. Quite a
wrong standpoint, for opinion is of itself something internal and finds its
best expression in productive activity. The man who does valuable work for his
people expresses thereby his excellent sentiments, whereas another who merely
talks about his opinions and does nothing that is of real value or use to the
people is a person who perverts all right thinking. And that attitude of his is
also pernicious for the community.
The Völkische Beobachter was a so-called 'popular' organ,
as its name indicated. It had all the good qualities, but still more the errors
and weaknesses, inherent in all popular institutions. Though its contents were
excellent, its management as a business concern was simply impossible. Here
also the underlying idea was that popular newspapers ought to be subsidized by
popular contributions, without recognizing that it had to make its way in
competition with the others and that it was dishonest to expect the
subscriptions of good patriots to make up for the mistaken management of the
undertaking.
I took care to alter those conditions promptly, for I
recognized the danger lurking in them. Luck was on my side here, inasmuch as it
brought me the man who since that time has rendered innumerable services to the
movement, not only as business manager of the newspaper but also as business
manager of the party. In 1914, in the War, I made the acquaintance of Max
Amann, who was then my superior and is today general business Director of the
Party. During four years in the War I had occasion to observe almost
continually the unusual ability, the diligence and the rigorous
conscientiousness of my future collaborator.
In the summer of 1921 I applied to my old regimental
comrade, whom I met one day by chance, and asked him to become business manager
of the movement. At that time the movement was passing through a grave crisis
and I had reason to be dissatisfied with several of our officials, with one of
whom I had had a very bitter experience. Amann then held a good situation in
which there were also good prospects for him.
After long hesitation he agreed to my request, but only
on condition that he must not be at the mercy of incompetent committees. He
must be responsible to one master, and only one.
It is to the inestimable credit of this first business
manager of the party, whose commercial knowledge is extensive and profound,
that he brought order and probity into the various offices of the party. Since
that time these have remained exemplary and cannot be equalled or excelled in
this by any other branches of the movement. But, as often happens in life,
great ability provokes envy and disfavour. That had also to be expected in this
case and borne patiently.
Since 1922 rigorous regulations have been in force, not
only for the commercial construction of the movement but also in the
organization of it as such. There exists now a central filing system, where the
names and particulars of all the members are enrolled. The financing of the
party has been placed on sound lines. The current expenditure must be covered
by the current receipts and special receipts can be used only for special
expenditures. Thus, notwithstanding the difficulties of the time the movement
remained practically without any debts, except for a few small current
accounts. Indeed, there was a permanent increase in the funds. Things are
managed as in a private business. The employed personnel hold their jobs in
virtue of their practical efficiency and could not in any manner take cover
behind their professed loyalty to the party. A good National Socialist proves
his soundness by the readiness, diligence and capability with which he
discharges whatever duties are assigned to him in whatever situation he holds
within the national community. The man who does not fulfil his duty in the job
he holds cannot boast of a loyalty against which he himself really sins.
Adamant against all kinds of outer influence, the new business
director of the party firmly maintained the standpoint that there were no
sinecure posts in the party administration for followers and members of the
movement whose pleasure is not work. A movement which fights so energetically
against the corruption introduced into our civil service by the various
political parties must be immune from that vice in its own administrative
department. It happened that some men were taken on the staff of the paper who
had formerly been adherents of the Bavarian People's Party, but their work
showed that they were excellently qualified for the job. The result of this
experiment was generally excellent. It was owing to this honest and frank
recognition of individual efficiency that the movement won the hearts of its
employees more swiftly and more profoundly than had ever been the case before.
Subsequently they became good National Socialists and remained so. Not in word
only, but they proved it by the steady and honest and conscientious work which
they performed in the service of the new movement. Naturally a well qualified
party member was preferred to another who had equal qualifications but did not
belong to the party. The rigid determination with which our new business chief
applied these principles and gradually put them into force, despite all
misunderstandings, turned out to be of great advantage to the movement. To this
we owe the fact that it was possible for us – during the difficult period of
the inflation, when thousands of businesses failed and thousands of newspapers
had to cease publication – not only to keep the commercial department of the
movement going and meet all its obligations but also to make steady progress
with the Völkische Beobachter. At that time it came to be ranked among the
great newspapers.
The year 1921 was of further importance for me by reason
of the fact that in my position as chairman of the party I slowly but steadily
succeeded in putting a stop to the criticisms and the intrusions of some
members of the committee in regard to the detailed activities of the party
administration. This was important, because we could not get a capable man to
take on a job if nincompoops were constantly allowed to butt in, pretending
that they knew everything much better; whereas in reality they had left only
general chaos behind them. Then these wise-acres retired, for the most part
quite modestly, to seek another field for their activities where they could
supervise and tell how things ought to be done. Some men seemed to have a mania
for sniffing behind everything and were, so to say, always in a permanent state
of pregnancy with magnificent plans and ideas and projects and methods.
Naturally their noble aim and ideal were always the formation of a committee
which could pretend to be an organ of control in order to be able to sniff as
experts into the regular work done by others. But it is offensive and contrary
to the spirit of National Socialism when incompetent people constantly
interfere in the work of capable persons. But these makers of committees do not
take that very much into account. In those years I felt it my duty to safeguard
against such annoyance all those who were entrusted with regular and
responsible work, so that there should be no spying over the shoulder and they
would be guaranteed a free hand in their day's work.
The best means of making committees innocuous, which
either did nothing or cooked up impracticable decisions, was to give them some
real work to do. It was then amusing to see how the members would silently fade
away and were soon nowhere to be found. It made me think of that great
institution of the same kind, the Reichstag. How quickly they would evanesce if
they were put to some real work instead of talking, especially if each member
were made personally responsible for the work assigned to him.
I always demanded that, just as in private life so also
in the movement, one should not tire of seeking until the best and honestest
and manifestly the most competent person could be found for the position of
leader or administrator in each section of the movement. Once installed in his
position he was given absolute authority and full freedom of action towards his
subordinates and full responsibility towards his superiors. Nobody was placed
in a position of authority towards his subordinates unless he himself was
competent in the work entrusted to them. In the course of two years I brought
my views more and more into practice; so that today, at least as far as the
higher direction of the movement is concerned, they are accepted as a matter of
course.
The manifest success of this attitude was shown on November 9th,
1923. Four years previously, when I entered the movement, it did not have even
a rubber stamp. On November 9th, 1923, the party was dissolved and its property
confiscated. The total sum realized by all the objects of value and the paper
amounted to more than 170,000 gold marks.
Organization
The year 1921 was specially important for me from many points of
view.
When I entered the German Labour Party I at once took charge of the
propaganda, believing this branch to be far the most important for the time
being. Just then it was not a matter of pressing necessity to cudgel one's
brains over problems of organization. The first necessity was to spread our
ideas among as many people as possible. Propaganda should go well ahead of
organization and gather together the human material for the latter to work up.
I have never been in favour of hasty and pedantic methods of organization,
because in most cases the result is merely a piece of dead mechanism and only
rarely a living organization. Organization is a thing that derives its
existence from organic life, organic evolution. When the same set of ideas have
found a lodgement in the minds of a certain number of people they tend of
themselves to form a certain degree of order among those people and out of this
inner formation something that is very valuable arises. Of course here, as
everywhere else, one must take account of those human weaknesses which make men
hesitate, especially at the beginning, to submit to the control of a superior
mind. If an organization is imposed from above downwards in a mechanical
fashion, there is always the danger that some individual may push himself
forward who is not known for what he is and who, out of jealousy, will try to
hinder abler persons from taking a leading place in the movement. The damage
that results from that kind of thing may have fatal consequences, especially in
a new movement.
For this reason it is advisable first to propagate and
publicly expound the ideas on which the movement is founded. This work of
propaganda should continue for a certain time and should be directed from one
centre. When the ideas have gradually won over a number of people this human
material should be carefully sifted for the purpose of selecting those who have
ability in leadership and putting that ability to the test. It will often be
found that apparently insignificant persons will nevertheless turn out to be
born leaders.
Of course, it is quite a mistake to suppose that those
who show a very intelligent grasp of the theory underlying a movement are for
that reason qualified to fill responsible positions on the directorate. The
contrary is very frequently the case.
Great masters of theory are only very rarely great
organizers also. And this is because the greatness of the theorist and founder
of a system consists in being able to discover and lay down those laws that are
right in the abstract, whereas the organizer must first of all be a man of
psychological insight. He must take men as they are, and for that reason he
must know them, not having too high or too low an estimate of human nature. He
must take account of their weaknesses, their baseness and all the other various
characteristics, so as to form something out of them which will be a living
organism, endowed with strong powers of resistance, fitted to be the carrier of
an idea and strong enough to ensure the triumph of that idea.
But it is still more rare to find a great theorist who is
at the same time a great leader. For the latter must be more of an agitator, a
truth that will not be readily accepted by many of those who deal with problems
only from the scientific standpoint. And yet what I say is only natural. For an
agitator who shows himself capable of expounding ideas to the great masses must
always be a psychologist, even though he may be only a demagogue. Therefore he
will always be a much more capable leader than the contemplative theorist who
meditates on his ideas, far from the human throng and the world. For to be a
leader means to be able to move the masses. The gift of formulating ideas has
nothing whatsoever to do with the capacity for leadership. It would be entirely
futile to discuss the question as to which is the more important: the faculty
of conceiving ideals and human aims or that of being able to have them put into
practice. Here, as so often happens in life, the one would be entirely
meaningless without the other. The noblest conceptions of the human
understanding remain without purpose or value if the leader cannot move the
masses towards them. And, conversely, what would it avail to have all the
genius and elan of a leader if the intellectual theorist does not fix the aims
for which mankind must struggle. But when the abilities of theorist and
organizer and leader are united in the one person, then we have the rarest
phenomenon on this earth. And it is that union which produces the great man.
As I have already said, during my first period in the Party I
devoted myself to the work of propaganda. I had to succeed in gradually
gathering together a small nucleus of men who would accept the new teaching and
be inspired by it. And in this way we should provide the human material which
subsequently would form the constituent elements of the organization. Thus the
goal of the propagandist is nearly always fixed far beyond that of the
organizer.
If a movement proposes to overthrow a certain order of
things and construct a new one in its place, then the following principles must
be clearly understood and must dominate in the ranks of its leadership: Every
movement which has gained its human material must first divide this material
into two groups: namely, followers and members.
It is the task of the propagandist to recruit the
followers and it is the task of the organizer to select the members.
The follower of a movement is he who understands and accepts its
aims; the member is he who fights for them.
The follower is one whom the propaganda has converted to
the doctrine of the movement. The member is he who will be charged by the
organization to collaborate in winning over new followers from which in turn
new members can be formed.
To be a follower needs only the passive recognition of the
idea. To be a member means to represent that idea and fight for it. From ten
followers one can have scarcely more than two members. To be a follower simply
implies that a man has accepted the teaching of the movement; whereas to be a
member means that a man has the courage to participate actively in diffusing
that teaching in which he has come to believe.
Because of its passive character, the simple effort of
believing in a political doctrine is enough for the majority, for the majority
of mankind is mentally lazy and timid. To be a member one must be
intellectually active, and therefore this applies only to the minority.
Such being the case, the propagandist must seek untiringly to acquire
new followers for the movement, whereas the organizer must diligently look out
for the best elements among such followers, so that these elements may be
transformed into members. The propagandist need not trouble too much about the
personal worth of the individual proselytes he has won for the movement. He
need not inquire into their abilities, their intelligence or character. From
these proselytes, however, the organizer will have to select those individuals
who are most capable of actively helping to bring the movement to victory.
The propagandist aims at inducing the whole people to
accept his teaching. The organizer includes in his body of membership only
those who, on psychological grounds, will not be an impediment to the further
diffusion of the doctrines of the movement.
The propagandist inculcates his doctrine among the
masses, with the idea of preparing them for the time when this doctrine will
triumph, through the body of combatant members which he has formed from those
followers who have given proof of the necessary ability and will-power to carry
the struggle to victory.
The final triumph of a doctrine will be made all the more
easy if the propagandist has effectively converted large bodies of men to the
belief in that doctrine and if the organization that actively conducts the
fight be exclusive, vigorous and solid.
When the propaganda work has converted a whole people to
believe in a doctrine, the organization can turn the results of this into
practical effect through the work of a mere handful of men. Propaganda and
organization, therefore follower and member, then stand towards one another in
a definite mutual relationship. The better the propaganda has worked, the
smaller will the organization be. The greater the number of followers, so much
the smaller can be the number of members. And conversely. If the propaganda be
bad, the organization must be large. And if there be only a small number of
followers, the membership must be all the larger – if the movement really
counts on being successful.
The first duty of the propagandist is to win over people
who can subsequently be taken into the organization. And the first duty of the
organization is to select and train men who will be capable of carrying on the
propaganda. The second duty of the organization is to disrupt the existing
order of things and thus make room for the penetration of the new teaching
which it represents, while the duty of the organizer must be to fight for the
purpose of securing power, so that the doctrine may finally triumph.
A revolutionary conception of the world and human
existence will always achieve decisive success when the new
Weltanschhauung has been taught to a whole people, or subsequently
forced upon them if necessary, and when, on the other hand, the central
organization, the movement itself, is in the hands of only those few men who
are absolutely indispensable to form the nerve-centres of the coming State.
Put in another way, this means that in every great revolutionary
movement that is of world importance the idea of this movement must always be
spread abroad through the operation of propaganda. The propagandist must never
tire in his efforts to make the new ideas clearly understood, inculcating them
among others, or at least he must place himself in the position of those others
and endeavour to upset their confidence in the convictions they have hitherto
held. In order that such propaganda should have backbone to it, it must be
based on an organization. The organization chooses its members from among those
followers whom the propaganda has won. That organization will become all the
more vigorous if the work of propaganda be pushed forward intensively. And the
propaganda will work all the better when the organization back of it is
vigorous and strong in itself.
Hence the supreme task of the organizer is to see to it
that any discord or differences which may arise among the members of the
movement will not lead to a split and thereby cramp the work within the
movement. Moreover, it is the duty of the organization to see that the fighting
spirit of the movement does not flag or die out but that it is constantly
reinvigorated and restrengthened. It is not necessary the number of members
should increase indefinitely. Quite the contrary would be better. In view of
the fact that only a fraction of humanity has energy and courage, a movement
which increases its own organization indefinitely must of necessity one day
become plethoric and inactive. Organizations, that is to say, groups of
members, which increase their size beyond certain dimensions gradually lose
their fighting force and are no longer in form to back up the propagation of a
doctrine with aggressive elan and determination.
Now the greater and more revolutionary a doctrine is, so
much the more active will be the spirit inspiring its body of members, because
the subversive energy of such a doctrine will frighten way the chicken-hearted
and small-minded bourgeoisie. In their hearts they may believe in the doctrine
but they are afraid to acknowledge their belief openly. By reason of this very
fact, however, an organization inspired by a veritable revolutionary idea will
attract into the body of its membership only the most active of those believers
who have been won for it by its propaganda. It is in this activity on the part
of the membership body, guaranteed by the process of natural selection, that we
are to seek the prerequisite conditions for the continuation of an active and
spirited propaganda and also the victorious struggle for the success of the
idea on which the movement is based.
The greatest danger that can threaten a movement is an
abnormal increase in the number of its members, owing to its too rapid success.
So long as a movement has to carry on a hard and bitter fight, people of weak
and fundamentally egotistic temperament will steer very clear of it; but these
will try to be accepted as members the moment the party achieves a manifest
success in the course of its development.
It is on these grounds that we are to explain why so many
movements which were at first successful slowed down before reaching the
fulfilment of their purpose and, from an inner weakness which could not
otherwise be explained, gave up the struggle and finally disappeared from the
field. As a result of the early successes achieved, so many undesirable,
unworthy and especially timid individuals became members of the movement that
they finally secured the majority and stifled the fighting spirit of the
others. These inferior elements then turned the movement to the service of
their personal interests and, debasing it to the level of their own miserable
heroism, no longer struggled for the triumph of the original idea. The fire of
the first fervour died out, the fighting spirit flagged and, as the bourgeois
world is accustomed to say very justly in such cases, the party mixed water
with its wine.
For this reason it is necessary that a movement should,
from the sheer instinct of self-preservation, close its lists to new membership
the moment it becomes successful. And any further increase in its organization
should be allowed to take place only with the most careful foresight and after
a painstaking sifting of those who apply for membership. Only thus will it be
possible to keep the kernel of the movement intact and fresh and sound. Care
must be taken that the conduct of the movement is maintained exclusively in the
hands of this original nucleus. This means that the nucleus must direct the
propaganda which aims at securing general recognition for the movement. And the
movement itself, when it has secured power in its hands, must carry out all
those acts and measures which are necessary in order that its ideas should be
finally established in practice.
With those elements that originally made the movement,
the organization should occupy all the important positions that have been
conquered and from those elements the whole directorate should be formed. This
should continue until the maxims and doctrines of the party have become the
foundation and policy of the new State. Only then will it be permissible
gradually to give the reins into the hands of the Constitution of that State
which the spirit of the movement has created. But this usually happens through
a process of mutual rivalry, for here it is less a question of human
intelligence than of the play and effect of the forces whose development may
indeed be foreseen from the start but not perpetually controlled.
All great movements, whether of a political or religious
nature, owe their imposing success to the recognition and adoption of those
principles. And no durable success is conceivable if these laws are not
observed.
As director of propaganda for the party, I took care not
merely to prepare the ground for the greatness of the movement in its
subsequent stages, but I also adopted the most radical measures against
allowing into the organization any other than the best material. For the more
radical and exciting my propaganda was, the more did it frighten weak and
wavering characters away, thus preventing them from entering the first nucleus
of our organization. Perhaps they remained followers, but they did not raise
their voices. On the contrary, they maintained a discreet silence on the fact.
Many thousands of persons then assured me that they were in full agreement with
us but they could not on any account become members of our party. They said
that the movement was so radical that to take part in it as members would
expose them to grave censures and grave dangers, so that they would rather
continue to be looked upon as honest and peaceful citizens and remain aside,
for the time being at least, though devoted to our cause with all their hearts.
And that was all to the good. If all these men who in their hearts
did not approve of revolutionary ideas came into our movement as members at
that time, we should be looked upon as a pious confraternity today and not as a
young movement inspired with the spirit of combat.
The lively and combative form which I gave to all our
propaganda fortified and guaranteed the radical tendency of our movement, and
the result was that, with a few exceptions, only men of radical views were
disposed to become members.
It was due to the effect of our propaganda that within a
short period of time hundreds of thousands of citizens became convinced in
their hearts that we were right and wished us victory, although personally they
were too timid to make sacrifices for our cause or even participate in it.
Up to the middle of 1921 this simple activity of gathering in
followers was sufficient and was of value to the movement. But in the summer of
that year certain events happened which made it seem opportune for us to bring
our organization into line with the manifest successes which the propaganda had
achieved.
An attempt made by a group of patriotic visionaries,
supported by the chairman of the party at that time, to take over the direction
of the party led to the break up of this little intrigue and, by a unanimous
vote at a general meeting, entrusted the entire direction of the party to my
own hands. At the same time a new statute was passed which invested sole
responsibility in the chairman of the movement, abolished the system of
resolutions in committee and in its stead introduced the principle of division
of labour which since that time has worked excellently.
From August 1st, 1921, onwards I undertook this internal
reorganization of the party and was supported by a number of excellent men. I
shall mention them and their work individually later on.
In my endeavour to turn the results gained by the
propaganda to the advantage of the organization and thus stabilize them, I had
to abolish completely a number of old customs and introduce regulations which
none of the other parties possessed or had adopted.
In the years 1920-21 the movement was controlled by a
committee elected by the members at a general meeting. The committee was
composed of a first and second treasurer, a first and second secretary, and a
first and second chairman at the head of it. In addition to these there was a
representative of the members, the director of propaganda, and various
assessors.
Comically enough, the committee embodied the very
principle against which the movement itself wanted to fight with all its
energy, namely, the principle of parliamentarianism. Here was a principle which
personified everything that was being opposed by the movement, from the
smallest local groups to the district and regional groups, the state groups and
finally the national directorate itself. It was a system under which we all
suffered and are still suffering.
It was imperative to change this state of affairs
forthwith, if this bad foundation in the internal organization was not to keep
the movement insecure and render the fulfilment of its high mission impossible.
The sessions of the committee, which were ruled by a protocol, and
in which decisions were made according to the vote of the majority, presented
the picture of a miniature parliament. Here also there was no such thing as
personal responsibility. And here reigned the same absurdities and illogical
state of affairs as flourish in our great representative bodies of the State.
Names were presented to this committee for election as secretaries, treasurers,
representatives of the members of the organization, propaganda agents and God
knows what else. And then they all acted in common on every particular question
and decided it by vote. Accordingly, the director of propaganda voted on a
question that concerned the man who had to do with the finances and the latter
in his turn voted on a question that concerned only the organization as such,
the organizer voting on a subject that had to do with the secretarial
department, and so on.
Why select a special man for propaganda if treasurers and
scribes and commissaries, etc., had to deliver judgment on questions concerning
it? To a person of commonsense that sort of thing seemed as incomprehensible as
it would be if in a great manufacturing concern the board of directors were to
decide on technical questions of production or if, inversely, the engineers
were to decide on questions of administration.
I refused to countenance that kind of folly and after a
short time I ceased to appear at the meetings of the committee. I did nothing
else except attend to my own department of propaganda and I did not permit any
of the others to poke their heads into my activities. Conversely, I did not
interfere in the affairs of others.
When the new statute was approved and I was appointed as
president, I had the necessary authority in my hands and also the corresponding
right to make short shrift of all that nonsense. In the place of decisions by
the majority vote of the committee, the principle of absolute responsibility
was introduced.
The chairman is responsible for the whole control of the
movement. He apportions the work among the members of the committee subordinate
to him and for special work he selects other individuals. Each of these
gentlemen must bear sole responsibility for the task assigned to him. He is
subordinate only to the chairman, whose duty is to supervise the general
collaboration, selecting the personnel and giving general directions for the
co-ordination of the common work.
This principle of absolute responsibility is being adopted
little by little throughout the movement. In the small local groups and perhaps
also in the regional and district groups it will take yet a long time before
the principle can be thoroughly imposed, because timid and hesitant characters
are naturally opposed to it. For them the idea of bearing absolute
responsibility for an act opens up an unpleasant prospect. They would like to
hide behind the shoulders of the majority in the so-called committee, having
their acts covered by decisions passed in that way. But it seems to me a matter
of absolute necessity to take a decisive stand against that view, to make no
concessions whatsoever to this fear of responsibility, even though it takes
some time before we can put fully into effect this concept of duty and ability
in leadership, which will finally bring forward leaders who have the requisite
abilities to occupy the chief posts.
In any case, a movement which must fight against the
absurdity of parliamentary institutions must be immune from this sort of thing.
Only thus will it have the requisite strength to carry on the struggle.
At a time when the majority dominates everywhere else a movement
which is based on the principle of one leader who has to bear personal
responsibility for the direction of the official acts of the movement itself
will one day overthrow the present situation and triumph over the existing
regime. That is a mathematical certainty.
This idea made it necessary to reorganize our movement
internally. The logical development of this reorganization brought about a
clear-cut distinction between the economic section of the movement and the
general political direction. The principle of personal responsibility was
extended to all the administrative branches of the party and it brought about a
healthy renovation, by liberating them from political influences and allowing
them to operate solely on economic principles.
In the autumn of 1921, when the party was founded, there
were only six members. The party did not have any headquarters, nor officials,
nor formularies, nor a stamp, nor printed material of any sort. The committee
first held its sittings in a restaurant on the Herrengasse and then in a café
at Gasteig. This state of affairs could not last. So I at once took action in
the matter. I went around to several restaurants and hotels in Munich, with the
idea of renting a room in one of them for the use of the Party. In the old
Sterneckerbräu im Tal, there was a small room with arched roof, which in
earlier times was used as a sort of festive tavern where the Bavarian
Counsellors of the Holy Roman Empire foregathered. It was dark and dismal and
accordingly well suited to its ancient uses, though less suited to the new
purpose it was now destined to serve. The little street on which its one window
looked out was so narrow that even on the brightest summer day the room
remained dim and sombre. Here we took up our first fixed abode. The rent came
to fifty marks per month, which was then an enormous sum for us. But our
exigencies had to be very modest. We dared not complain even when they removed
the wooden wainscoting a few days after we had taken possession. This panelling
had been specially put up for the Imperial Counsellors. The place began to look
more like a grotto than an office.
Still it marked an important step forward. Slowly we had
electric light installed and later on a telephone. A table and some borrowed
chairs were brought, an open paper-stand and later on a cupboard. Two
sideboards, which belonged to the landlord, served to store our leaflets,
placards, etc.
As time went on it turned out impossible to direct the
course of the movement merely by holding a committee meeting once a week. The
current business administration of the movement could not be regularly attended
to except we had a salaried official.
But that was then very difficult for us. The movement had
still so few members that it was hard to find among them a suitable person for
the job who would be content with very little for himself and at the same time
would be ready to meet the manifold demands which the movement would make on
his time and energy.
After long searching we discovered a soldier who
consented to become our first administrator. His name was Schüssler, an old war
comrade of mine. At first he came to our new office every day between six and
eight o'clock in the evening. Later on he came from five to eight and
subsequently for the whole afternoon. Finally it became a full-time job and he
worked in the office from morning until late at night. He was an industrious,
upright and thoroughly honest man, faithful and devoted to the movement. He
brought with him a small Adler typewriter of his own. It was the first machine
to be used in the service of the party. Subsequently the party bought it by
paying for it in installments. We needed a small safe in order to keep our
papers and register of membership from danger of being stolen – not to guard
our funds, which did not then exist. On the contrary, our financial position
was so miserable that I often had to dip my hand into my own personal savings.
After eighteen months our business quarters had become too small, so
we moved to a new place in the Cornelius Strasse. Again our office was in a
restaurant, but instead of one room we now had three smaller rooms and one
large room with great windows. At that time this appeared a wonderful thing to
us. We remained there until the end of November 1923.
In December 1920, we acquired the Völkischer Beobachter.
This newspaper which, as its name implies, championed the claims of the people,
was now to become the organ of the German National Socialist Labour Party. At
first it appeared twice weekly; but at the beginning of 1928 it became a daily
paper, and at the end of August in the same year it began to appear in the
large format which is now well known.
As a complete novice in journalism I then learned many a
lesson for which I had to pay dearly.
In contradistinction to the enormous number of papers in
Jewish hands, there was at that time only one important newspaper that defended
the cause of the people. This was a matter for grave consideration. As I have
often learned by experience, the reason for that state of things must be
attributed to the incompetent way in which the business side of the so-called
popular newspapers was managed. These were conducted too much according to the
rule that opinion should prevail over action that produces results. Quite a
wrong standpoint, for opinion is of itself something internal and finds its
best expression in productive activity. The man who does valuable work for his
people expresses thereby his excellent sentiments, whereas another who merely
talks about his opinions and does nothing that is of real value or use to the
people is a person who perverts all right thinking. And that attitude of his is
also pernicious for the community.
The Völkische Beobachter was a so-called 'popular' organ,
as its name indicated. It had all the good qualities, but still more the errors
and weaknesses, inherent in all popular institutions. Though its contents were
excellent, its management as a business concern was simply impossible. Here
also the underlying idea was that popular newspapers ought to be subsidized by
popular contributions, without recognizing that it had to make its way in
competition with the others and that it was dishonest to expect the
subscriptions of good patriots to make up for the mistaken management of the
undertaking.
I took care to alter those conditions promptly, for I
recognized the danger lurking in them. Luck was on my side here, inasmuch as it
brought me the man who since that time has rendered innumerable services to the
movement, not only as business manager of the newspaper but also as business
manager of the party. In 1914, in the War, I made the acquaintance of Max
Amann, who was then my superior and is today general business Director of the
Party. During four years in the War I had occasion to observe almost
continually the unusual ability, the diligence and the rigorous
conscientiousness of my future collaborator.
In the summer of 1921 I applied to my old regimental
comrade, whom I met one day by chance, and asked him to become business manager
of the movement. At that time the movement was passing through a grave crisis
and I had reason to be dissatisfied with several of our officials, with one of
whom I had had a very bitter experience. Amann then held a good situation in
which there were also good prospects for him.
After long hesitation he agreed to my request, but only
on condition that he must not be at the mercy of incompetent committees. He
must be responsible to one master, and only one.
It is to the inestimable credit of this first business
manager of the party, whose commercial knowledge is extensive and profound,
that he brought order and probity into the various offices of the party. Since
that time these have remained exemplary and cannot be equalled or excelled in
this by any other branches of the movement. But, as often happens in life,
great ability provokes envy and disfavour. That had also to be expected in this
case and borne patiently.
Since 1922 rigorous regulations have been in force, not
only for the commercial construction of the movement but also in the
organization of it as such. There exists now a central filing system, where the
names and particulars of all the members are enrolled. The financing of the
party has been placed on sound lines. The current expenditure must be covered
by the current receipts and special receipts can be used only for special
expenditures. Thus, notwithstanding the difficulties of the time the movement
remained practically without any debts, except for a few small current
accounts. Indeed, there was a permanent increase in the funds. Things are
managed as in a private business. The employed personnel hold their jobs in
virtue of their practical efficiency and could not in any manner take cover
behind their professed loyalty to the party. A good National Socialist proves
his soundness by the readiness, diligence and capability with which he
discharges whatever duties are assigned to him in whatever situation he holds
within the national community. The man who does not fulfil his duty in the job
he holds cannot boast of a loyalty against which he himself really sins.
Adamant against all kinds of outer influence, the new business
director of the party firmly maintained the standpoint that there were no
sinecure posts in the party administration for followers and members of the
movement whose pleasure is not work. A movement which fights so energetically
against the corruption introduced into our civil service by the various
political parties must be immune from that vice in its own administrative
department. It happened that some men were taken on the staff of the paper who
had formerly been adherents of the Bavarian People's Party, but their work
showed that they were excellently qualified for the job. The result of this
experiment was generally excellent. It was owing to this honest and frank
recognition of individual efficiency that the movement won the hearts of its
employees more swiftly and more profoundly than had ever been the case before.
Subsequently they became good National Socialists and remained so. Not in word
only, but they proved it by the steady and honest and conscientious work which
they performed in the service of the new movement. Naturally a well qualified
party member was preferred to another who had equal qualifications but did not
belong to the party. The rigid determination with which our new business chief
applied these principles and gradually put them into force, despite all
misunderstandings, turned out to be of great advantage to the movement. To this
we owe the fact that it was possible for us – during the difficult period of
the inflation, when thousands of businesses failed and thousands of newspapers
had to cease publication – not only to keep the commercial department of the
movement going and meet all its obligations but also to make steady progress
with the Völkische Beobachter. At that time it came to be ranked among the
great newspapers.
The year 1921 was of further importance for me by reason
of the fact that in my position as chairman of the party I slowly but steadily
succeeded in putting a stop to the criticisms and the intrusions of some
members of the committee in regard to the detailed activities of the party
administration. This was important, because we could not get a capable man to
take on a job if nincompoops were constantly allowed to butt in, pretending
that they knew everything much better; whereas in reality they had left only
general chaos behind them. Then these wise-acres retired, for the most part
quite modestly, to seek another field for their activities where they could
supervise and tell how things ought to be done. Some men seemed to have a mania
for sniffing behind everything and were, so to say, always in a permanent state
of pregnancy with magnificent plans and ideas and projects and methods.
Naturally their noble aim and ideal were always the formation of a committee
which could pretend to be an organ of control in order to be able to sniff as
experts into the regular work done by others. But it is offensive and contrary
to the spirit of National Socialism when incompetent people constantly
interfere in the work of capable persons. But these makers of committees do not
take that very much into account. In those years I felt it my duty to safeguard
against such annoyance all those who were entrusted with regular and
responsible work, so that there should be no spying over the shoulder and they
would be guaranteed a free hand in their day's work.
The best means of making committees innocuous, which
either did nothing or cooked up impracticable decisions, was to give them some
real work to do. It was then amusing to see how the members would silently fade
away and were soon nowhere to be found. It made me think of that great
institution of the same kind, the Reichstag. How quickly they would evanesce if
they were put to some real work instead of talking, especially if each member
were made personally responsible for the work assigned to him.
I always demanded that, just as in private life so also
in the movement, one should not tire of seeking until the best and honestest
and manifestly the most competent person could be found for the position of
leader or administrator in each section of the movement. Once installed in his
position he was given absolute authority and full freedom of action towards his
subordinates and full responsibility towards his superiors. Nobody was placed
in a position of authority towards his subordinates unless he himself was
competent in the work entrusted to them. In the course of two years I brought
my views more and more into practice; so that today, at least as far as the
higher direction of the movement is concerned, they are accepted as a matter of
course.
The manifest success of this attitude was shown on November 9th,
1923. Four years previously, when I entered the movement, it did not have even
a rubber stamp. On November 9th, 1923, the party was dissolved and its property
confiscated. The total sum realized by all the objects of value and the paper
amounted to more than 170,000 gold marks.
Chapter XII: The Trade-Union
Question
Owing to the rapid growth of the movement, in 1922 we felt compelled
to take a definite stand on a question which has not been fully solved even
yet.
In our efforts to discover the quickest and easiest way for the
movement to reach the heart of the broad masses we were always confronted with
the objection that the worker could never completely belong to us while his
interests in the purely vocational and economic sphere were cared for by a
political organization conducted by men whose principles were quite different
from ours.
That was quite a serious objection. The general belief
was that a workman engaged in some trade or other could not exist if he did not
belong to a trade union. Not only were his professional interests thus
protected but a guarantee of permanent employment was simply inconceivable
without membership in a trade union. The majority of the workers were in the
trades unions. Generally speaking, the unions had successfully conducted the
battle for the establishment of a definite scale of wages and had concluded
agreements which guaranteed the worker a steady income. Undoubtedly the workers
in the various trades benefited by the results of that campaign and, for honest
men especially, conflicts of conscience must have arisen if they took the wages
which had been assured through the struggle fought by the trades unions and if
at the same time the men themselves withdrew from the fight.
It was difficult to discuss this problem with the average
bourgeois employer. He had no understanding (or did not wish to have any) for
either the material or moral side of the question. Finally he declared that his
own economic interests were in principle opposed to every kind of organization
which joined together the workmen that were dependent on him. Hence it was for
the most part impossible to bring these bourgeois employers to take an
impartial view of the situation. Here, therefore, as in so many other cases, it
was necessary to appeal to disinterested outsiders who would not be subject to
the temptation of fixing their attention on the trees and failing to see the
forest. With a little good will on their part, they could much more easily
understand a state of affairs which is of the highest importance for our
present and future existence.
In the first volume of this book I have already expressed
my views on the nature and purpose and necessity of trade unions. There I took
up the standpoint that unless measures are undertaken by the State (usually
futile in such cases) or a new ideal is introduced in our education, which
would change the attitude of the employer towards the worker, no other course
would be open to the latter except to defend his own interests himself by
appealing to his equal rights as a contracting party within the economic sphere
of the nation's existence. I stated further that this would conform to the
interests of the national community if thereby social injustices could be
redressed which otherwise would cause serious damage to the whole social
structure. I stated, moreover, that the worker would always find it necessary
to undertake this protective action as long as there were men among the
employers who had no sense of their social obligations nor even of the most
elementary human rights. And I concluded by saying that if such self-defence be
considered necessary its form ought to be that of an association made up of the
workers themselves on the basis of trades unions.
This was my general idea and it remained the same in
1922. But a clear and precise formula was still to be discovered. We could not
be satisfied with merely understanding the problem. It was necessary to come to
some conclusions that could be put into practice. The following questions had
to be answered:
(1) Are trade unions necessary?
(2) Should the German National Socialist Labour Party
itself operate on a trade unionist basis or have its members take part in trade
unionist activities in some form or other?
(3) What form should a National Socialist Trades Union
take? What are the tasks confronting us and the ends we must try to attain?
(4) How can we establish trade unions for such tasks and aims?
I think that I have already answered the first question adequately.
In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense
with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important
institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in
the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national
political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs
satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole
nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby.
Before everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building
stones for the future economic parliament, which will be made up of chambers
representing the various professions and occupations.
The second question is also easy to answer. If the trade
unionist movement is important, then it is clear that National Socialism ought
to take a definite stand on that question, not only theoretically but also in
practice. But how? That is more difficult to see clearly.
The National Socialist Movement, which aims at
establishing the National Socialist People's State, must always bear
steadfastly in mind the principle that every future institution under that
State must be rooted in the movement itself. It is a great mistake to believe
that by acquiring possession of supreme political power we can bring about a
definite reorganization, suddenly starting from nothing, without the help of a
certain reserve stock of men who have been trained beforehand, especially in
the spirit of the movement. Here also the principle holds good that the spirit
is always more important than the external form which it animates; since this
form can be created mechanically and quickly. For instance, the leadership
principle may be imposed on an organized political community in a dictatorial
way. But this principle can become a living reality only by passing through the
stages that are necessary for its own evolution. These stages lead from the
smallest cell of the State organism upwards. As its bearers and
representatives, the leadership principle must have a body of men who have
passed through a process of selection lasting over several years, who have been
tempered by the hard realities of life and thus rendered capable of carrying
the principle into practical effect.
It is out of the question to think that a scheme for the
Constitution of a State can be pulled out of a portfolio at a moment's notice
and 'introduced' by imperative orders from above. One may try that kind of
thing but the result will always be something that has not sufficient vitality
to endure. It will be like a stillborn infant. The idea of it calls to mind the
origin of the Weimar Constitution and the attempt to impose on the German
people a new Constitution and a new flag, neither of which had any inner
relation to the vicissitudes of our people's history during the last half
century.
The National Socialist State must guard against all such
experiments. It must grow out of an organization which has already existed for
a long time. This organization must possess National Socialist life in itself,
so that finally it may be able to establish a National Socialist State that
will be a living reality.
As I have already said, the germ cells of this State must
lie in the administrative chambers which will represent the various occupations
and professions, therefore first of all in the trades unions. If this
subsequent vocational representation and the Central Economic Parliament are to
be National Socialist institutions, these important germ cells must be vehicles
of the National Socialist concept of life. The institutions of the movement are
to be brought over into the State; for the State cannot call into existence all
of a sudden and as if by magic those institutions which are necessary to its
existence, unless it wishes to have institutions that are bound to remain
completely lifeless.
Looking at the matter from the highest standpoint, the
National Socialist Movement will have to recognize the necessity of adopting
its own trade-unionist policy.
It must do this for a further reason, namely because a
real National Socialist education for the employer as well as for the employee,
in the spirit of a mutual co-operation within the common framework of the
national community, cannot be secured by theoretical instruction, appeals and
exhortations, but through the struggles of daily life. In this spirit and
through this spirit the movement must educate the several large economic groups
and bring them closer to one another under a wider outlook. Without this
preparatory work it would be sheer illusion to hope that a real national
community can be brought into existence. The great ideal represented by its
philosophy of life and for which the movement fights can alone form a general
style of thought steadily and slowly. And this style will show that the new
state of things rests on foundations that are internally sound and not merely
an external façade.
Hence the movement must adopt a positive attitude towards
the trade-unionist idea. But it must go further than this. For the enormous
number of members and followers of the trade-unionist movement it must provide
a practical education which will meet the exigencies of the coming National
Socialist State.
The answer to the third question follows from what has
been already said.
The National Socialist Trades Union is not an instrument
for class warfare, but a representative organ of the various occupations and
callings. The National Socialist State recognizes no 'classes'. But, under the
political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely equal rights and
equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by side with these, it
recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rights whatsoever.
According to the National Socialist concept, it is not the task of
the trades union to band together certain men within the national community and
thus gradually transform these men into a class, so as to use them in a
conflict against other groups similarly organized within the national
community. We certainly cannot assign this task to the trades union as such.
This was the task assigned to it the moment it became a fighting weapon in the
hands of the Marxists. The trades union is not naturally an instrument of class
warfare; but the Marxists transformed it into an instrument for use in their
own class struggle. They created the economic weapon which the international
Jew uses for the purpose of destroying the economic foundations of free and
independent national States, for ruining their national industry and trade and
thereby enslaving free nations to serve Jewish world-finance, which transcends
all State boundaries.
In contradistinction to this, the National Socialist
Trades Union must organize definite groups and those who participate in the
economic life of the nation and thus enhance the security of the national
economic system itself, reinforcing it by the elimination of all those
anomalies which ultimately exercise a destructive influence on the social body
of the nation, damaging the vital forces of the national community, prejudicing
the welfare of the State and, by no means as a last consequence, bringing evil
and destruction on economic life itself.
Therefore in the hands of the National Socialist Trades
Union the strike is not an instrument for disturbing and dislocating the
national production, but for increasing it and making it run smoothly, by
fighting against all those annoyances which by reason of their unsocial
character hinder efficiency in business and thereby hamper the existence of the
whole nation. For individual efficiency stands always in casual relation to the
general social and juridical position of the individual in the economic
process. Individual efficiency is also the sole root of the conviction that the
economic prosperity of the nation must necessarily redound to the benefit of
the individual citizen.
The National Socialist employee will have to recognize
the fact that the economic prosperity of the nation brings with it his own
material happiness.
The National Socialist employer must recognize that the
happiness and contentment of his employees are necessary pre-requisites for the
existence and development of his own economic prosperity.
National Socialist workers and employers are both
together the delegates and mandatories of the whole national community. The
large measure of personal freedom which is accorded to them for their
activities must be explained by the fact that experience has shown that the
productive powers of the individual are more enhanced by being accorded a
generous measure of freedom than by coercion from above. Moreover, by according
this freedom we give free play to the natural process of selection which brings
forward the ablest and most capable and most industrious. For the National
Socialist Trades Union, therefore, the strike is a means that may, and indeed
must, be resorted to as long as there is not a National Socialist State yet.
But when that State is established it will, as a matter of course, abolish the
mass struggle between the two great groups made up of employers and employees
respectively, a struggle which has always resulted in lessening the national
production and injuring the national community. In place of this struggle, the
National Socialist State will take over the task of caring for and defending
the rights of all parties concerned. It will be the duty of the Economic
Chamber itself to keep the national economic system in smooth working order and
to remove whatever defects or errors it may suffer from. Questions that are now
fought over through a quarrel that involves millions of people will then be
settled in the Representative Chambers of Trades and Professions and in the
Central Economic Parliament. Thus employers and employees will no longer find
themselves drawn into a mutual conflict over wages and hours of work, always to
the detriment of their mutual interests. But they will solve these problems
together on a higher plane, where the welfare of the national community and of
the State will be as a shining ideal to throw light on all their negotiations.
Here again, as everywhere else, the inflexible principle must be
observed, that the interests of the country must come before party interests.
The task of the National Socialist Trades Union will be to educate
and prepare its members to conform to these ideals. That task may be stated as
follows: All must work together for the maintenance and security of our people
and the People's State, each one according to the abilities and powers with
which Nature has endowed him and which have been developed and trained by the
national community.
Our fourth question was: How shall we establish trades
unions for such tasks and aims? That is far more difficult to answer.
Generally speaking, it is easier to establish something in new
territory than in old territory which already has its established institutions.
In a district where there is no existing business of a special character one
can easily establish a new business of this character. But it is more difficult
if the same kind of enterprise already exists and it is most difficult of all
when the conditions are such that only one enterprise of this kind can prosper.
For here the promoters of the new enterprise find themselves confronted not
only with the problem of introducing their own business but also that of how to
bring about the destruction of the other business already existing in the
district, so that the new enterprise may be able to exist.
It would be senseless to have a National Socialist Trades
Union side by side with other trades unions. For this Trades Union must be
thoroughly imbued with a feeling for the ideological nature of its task and of
the resulting obligation not to tolerate other similar or hostile institutions.
It must also insist that itself alone is necessary, to the exclusion of all the
rest. It can come to no arrangement and no compromise with kindred tendencies
but must assert its own absolute and exclusive right.
There were two ways which might lead to such a
development:
(1) We could establish our Trades Union and then
gradually take up the fight against the Marxist International Trades Union.
(2) Or we could enter the Marxist Trades Union and inculcate a new
spirit in it, with the idea of transforming it into an instrument in the
service of the new ideal.
The first way was not advisable, by reason of the fact
that our financial situation was still the cause of much worry to us at that
time and our resources were quite slender. The effects of the inflation were
steadily spreading and made the particular situation still more difficult for
us, because in those years one could scarcely speak of any material help which
the trades unions could extend to their members. From this point of view, there
was no reason why the individual worker should pay his dues to the union. Even
the Marxist unions then existing were already on the point of collapse until,
as the result of Herr Cuno's enlightened Ruhr policy, millions were suddenly
poured into their coffers. This so-called 'national' Chancellor of the Reich
should go down in history as the Redeemer of the Marxist trades unions.
We could not count on similar financial facilities. And nobody could
be induced to enter a new Trades Union which, on account of its financial
weakness, could not offer him the slightest material benefit. On the other
hand, I felt bound absolutely to guard against the creation of such an
organization which would only be a shelter for shirkers of the more or less
intellectual type.
At that time the question of personnel played the most
important role. I did not have a single man whom I might call upon to carry out
this important task. Whoever could have succeeded at that time in overthrowing
the Marxist unions to make way for the triumph of the National Socialist
corporative idea, which would then take the place of the ruinous class warfare
– such a person would be fit to rank with the very greatest men our nation has
produced and his bust should be installed in the Valhalla at Regensburg for the
admiration of posterity.
But I knew of no person who could qualify for such a
pedestal.
In this connection we must not be led astray by the fact
that the international trades unions are conducted by men of only mediocre
significance, for when those unions were founded there was nothing else of a
similar kind already in existence. To-day the National Socialist Movement must
fight against a monster organization which has existed for a long time, rests
on gigantic foundations and is carefully constructed even in the smallest
details. An assailant must always exercise more intelligence than the defender,
if he is to overthrow the latter. The Marxist trade-unionist citadel may be
governed today by mediocre leaders, but it cannot be taken by assault except
through the dauntless energy and genius of a superior leader on the other side.
If such a leader cannot be found it is futile to struggle with Fate and even
more foolish to try to overthrow the existing state of things without being
able to construct a better in its place.
Here one must apply the maxim that in life it is often
better to allow something to go by the board rather than try to half do it or
do it badly, owing to a lack of suitable means.
To this we must add another consideration, which is not
at all of a demagogic character. At that time I had, and I still have today, a
firmly rooted conviction that when one is engaged in a great ideological
struggle in the political field it would be a grave mistake to mix up economic
questions with this struggle in its earlier stages. This applies particularly
to our German people. For if such were to happen in their case the economic
struggle would immediately distract the energy necessary for the political
fight. Once the people are brought to believe that they can buy a little house
with their savings they will devote themselves to the task of increasing their
savings and no spare time will be left to them for the political struggle
against those who, in one way or another, will one day secure possession of the
pennies that have been saved. Instead of participating in the political
conflict on behalf of the opinions and convictions which they have been brought
to accept they will now go further with their 'settlement' idea and in the end
they will find themselves for the most part sitting on the ground amidst all
the stools.
To-day the National Socialist Movement is at the
beginning of its struggle. In great part it must first of all shape and develop
its ideals. It must employ every ounce of its energy in the struggle to have
its great ideal accepted, and the success of this effort is not conceivable
unless the combined energies of the movement be entirely at the service of this
struggle.
To-day we have a classical example of how the active
strength of a people becomes paralysed when that people is too much taken up
with purely economic problems.
The Revolution which took place in November 1918 was not
made by the trades unions, but it was carried out in spite of them. And the
people of Germany did not wage any political fight for the future of their
country because they thought that the future could be sufficiently secured by
constructive work in the economic field.
We must learn a lesson from this experience, because in
our case the same thing must happen under the same circumstances. The more the
combined strength of our movement is concentrated in the political struggle,
the more confidently may we count on being successful along our whole front.
But if we busy ourselves prematurely with trade unionist problems, settlement
problems, etc., it will be to the disadvantage of our own cause, taken as a
whole. For, though these problems may be important, they cannot be solved in an
adequate manner until we have political power in our hand and are able to use
it in the service of this idea. Until that day comes these problems can have
only a paralysing effect on the movement. And if it takes them up too soon they
will only be a hindrance in the effort to attain its own ideological aims. It
may then easily happen that trade unionist considerations will control the
political direction of the movement, instead of the ideological aims of the
movement directing the way that the trades unions are to take.
The movement and the nation can derive advantage from a
National Socialist trade unionist organization only if the latter be so
thoroughly inspired by National Socialist ideas that it runs no danger of
falling into step behind the Marxist movement. For a National Socialist Trades
Union which would consider itself only as a competitor against the Marxist
unions would be worse than none. It must declare war against the Marxist Trades
Union, not only as an organization but, above all, as an idea. It must declare
itself hostile to the idea of class and class warfare and, in place of this, it
must declare itself as the defender of the various occupational and
professional interests of the German people.
Considered from all these points of view it was not then
advisable, nor is it yet advisable, to think of founding our own Trades Union.
That seemed clear to me, at least until somebody appeared who was obviously
called by fate to solve this particular problem.
Therefore there remained only two possible ways. Either to
recommend our own party members to leave the trades unions in which they were
enrolled or to remain in them for the moment, with the idea of causing as much
destruction in them as possible.
In general, I recommended the latter alternative.
Especially in the year 1922-23 we could easily do that. For, during
the period of inflation, the financial advantages which might be reaped from a
trades union organization would be negligible, because we could expect to
enroll only a few members owing to the undeveloped condition of our movement.
The damage which might result from such a policy was all the greater because
its bitterest critics and opponents were to be found among the followers of the
National Socialist Party.
I had already entirely discountenanced all experiments
which were destined from the very beginning to be unsuccessful. I would have
considered it criminal to run the risk of depriving a worker of his scant
earnings in order to help an organization which, according to my inner
conviction, could not promise real advantages to its members.
Should a new political party fade out of existence one
day nobody would be injured thereby and some would have profited, but none
would have a right to complain. For what each individual contributes to a
political movement is given with the idea that it may ultimately come to
nothing. But the man who pays his dues to a trade union has the right to expect
some guarantee in return. If this is not done, then the directors of such a
trade union are swindlers or at least careless people who ought to be brought
to a sense of their responsibilities.
We took all these viewpoints into consideration before
making our decision in 1922. Others thought otherwise and founded trades
unions. They upbraided us for being short-sighted and failing to see into the
future. But it did not take long for these organizations to disappear and the
result was what would have happened in our own case. But the difference was
that we should have deceived neither ourselves nor those who believed in us.
Question
Owing to the rapid growth of the movement, in 1922 we felt compelled
to take a definite stand on a question which has not been fully solved even
yet.
In our efforts to discover the quickest and easiest way for the
movement to reach the heart of the broad masses we were always confronted with
the objection that the worker could never completely belong to us while his
interests in the purely vocational and economic sphere were cared for by a
political organization conducted by men whose principles were quite different
from ours.
That was quite a serious objection. The general belief
was that a workman engaged in some trade or other could not exist if he did not
belong to a trade union. Not only were his professional interests thus
protected but a guarantee of permanent employment was simply inconceivable
without membership in a trade union. The majority of the workers were in the
trades unions. Generally speaking, the unions had successfully conducted the
battle for the establishment of a definite scale of wages and had concluded
agreements which guaranteed the worker a steady income. Undoubtedly the workers
in the various trades benefited by the results of that campaign and, for honest
men especially, conflicts of conscience must have arisen if they took the wages
which had been assured through the struggle fought by the trades unions and if
at the same time the men themselves withdrew from the fight.
It was difficult to discuss this problem with the average
bourgeois employer. He had no understanding (or did not wish to have any) for
either the material or moral side of the question. Finally he declared that his
own economic interests were in principle opposed to every kind of organization
which joined together the workmen that were dependent on him. Hence it was for
the most part impossible to bring these bourgeois employers to take an
impartial view of the situation. Here, therefore, as in so many other cases, it
was necessary to appeal to disinterested outsiders who would not be subject to
the temptation of fixing their attention on the trees and failing to see the
forest. With a little good will on their part, they could much more easily
understand a state of affairs which is of the highest importance for our
present and future existence.
In the first volume of this book I have already expressed
my views on the nature and purpose and necessity of trade unions. There I took
up the standpoint that unless measures are undertaken by the State (usually
futile in such cases) or a new ideal is introduced in our education, which
would change the attitude of the employer towards the worker, no other course
would be open to the latter except to defend his own interests himself by
appealing to his equal rights as a contracting party within the economic sphere
of the nation's existence. I stated further that this would conform to the
interests of the national community if thereby social injustices could be
redressed which otherwise would cause serious damage to the whole social
structure. I stated, moreover, that the worker would always find it necessary
to undertake this protective action as long as there were men among the
employers who had no sense of their social obligations nor even of the most
elementary human rights. And I concluded by saying that if such self-defence be
considered necessary its form ought to be that of an association made up of the
workers themselves on the basis of trades unions.
This was my general idea and it remained the same in
1922. But a clear and precise formula was still to be discovered. We could not
be satisfied with merely understanding the problem. It was necessary to come to
some conclusions that could be put into practice. The following questions had
to be answered:
(1) Are trade unions necessary?
(2) Should the German National Socialist Labour Party
itself operate on a trade unionist basis or have its members take part in trade
unionist activities in some form or other?
(3) What form should a National Socialist Trades Union
take? What are the tasks confronting us and the ends we must try to attain?
(4) How can we establish trade unions for such tasks and aims?
I think that I have already answered the first question adequately.
In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense
with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important
institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in
the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national
political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs
satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole
nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby.
Before everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building
stones for the future economic parliament, which will be made up of chambers
representing the various professions and occupations.
The second question is also easy to answer. If the trade
unionist movement is important, then it is clear that National Socialism ought
to take a definite stand on that question, not only theoretically but also in
practice. But how? That is more difficult to see clearly.
The National Socialist Movement, which aims at
establishing the National Socialist People's State, must always bear
steadfastly in mind the principle that every future institution under that
State must be rooted in the movement itself. It is a great mistake to believe
that by acquiring possession of supreme political power we can bring about a
definite reorganization, suddenly starting from nothing, without the help of a
certain reserve stock of men who have been trained beforehand, especially in
the spirit of the movement. Here also the principle holds good that the spirit
is always more important than the external form which it animates; since this
form can be created mechanically and quickly. For instance, the leadership
principle may be imposed on an organized political community in a dictatorial
way. But this principle can become a living reality only by passing through the
stages that are necessary for its own evolution. These stages lead from the
smallest cell of the State organism upwards. As its bearers and
representatives, the leadership principle must have a body of men who have
passed through a process of selection lasting over several years, who have been
tempered by the hard realities of life and thus rendered capable of carrying
the principle into practical effect.
It is out of the question to think that a scheme for the
Constitution of a State can be pulled out of a portfolio at a moment's notice
and 'introduced' by imperative orders from above. One may try that kind of
thing but the result will always be something that has not sufficient vitality
to endure. It will be like a stillborn infant. The idea of it calls to mind the
origin of the Weimar Constitution and the attempt to impose on the German
people a new Constitution and a new flag, neither of which had any inner
relation to the vicissitudes of our people's history during the last half
century.
The National Socialist State must guard against all such
experiments. It must grow out of an organization which has already existed for
a long time. This organization must possess National Socialist life in itself,
so that finally it may be able to establish a National Socialist State that
will be a living reality.
As I have already said, the germ cells of this State must
lie in the administrative chambers which will represent the various occupations
and professions, therefore first of all in the trades unions. If this
subsequent vocational representation and the Central Economic Parliament are to
be National Socialist institutions, these important germ cells must be vehicles
of the National Socialist concept of life. The institutions of the movement are
to be brought over into the State; for the State cannot call into existence all
of a sudden and as if by magic those institutions which are necessary to its
existence, unless it wishes to have institutions that are bound to remain
completely lifeless.
Looking at the matter from the highest standpoint, the
National Socialist Movement will have to recognize the necessity of adopting
its own trade-unionist policy.
It must do this for a further reason, namely because a
real National Socialist education for the employer as well as for the employee,
in the spirit of a mutual co-operation within the common framework of the
national community, cannot be secured by theoretical instruction, appeals and
exhortations, but through the struggles of daily life. In this spirit and
through this spirit the movement must educate the several large economic groups
and bring them closer to one another under a wider outlook. Without this
preparatory work it would be sheer illusion to hope that a real national
community can be brought into existence. The great ideal represented by its
philosophy of life and for which the movement fights can alone form a general
style of thought steadily and slowly. And this style will show that the new
state of things rests on foundations that are internally sound and not merely
an external façade.
Hence the movement must adopt a positive attitude towards
the trade-unionist idea. But it must go further than this. For the enormous
number of members and followers of the trade-unionist movement it must provide
a practical education which will meet the exigencies of the coming National
Socialist State.
The answer to the third question follows from what has
been already said.
The National Socialist Trades Union is not an instrument
for class warfare, but a representative organ of the various occupations and
callings. The National Socialist State recognizes no 'classes'. But, under the
political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely equal rights and
equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by side with these, it
recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rights whatsoever.
According to the National Socialist concept, it is not the task of
the trades union to band together certain men within the national community and
thus gradually transform these men into a class, so as to use them in a
conflict against other groups similarly organized within the national
community. We certainly cannot assign this task to the trades union as such.
This was the task assigned to it the moment it became a fighting weapon in the
hands of the Marxists. The trades union is not naturally an instrument of class
warfare; but the Marxists transformed it into an instrument for use in their
own class struggle. They created the economic weapon which the international
Jew uses for the purpose of destroying the economic foundations of free and
independent national States, for ruining their national industry and trade and
thereby enslaving free nations to serve Jewish world-finance, which transcends
all State boundaries.
In contradistinction to this, the National Socialist
Trades Union must organize definite groups and those who participate in the
economic life of the nation and thus enhance the security of the national
economic system itself, reinforcing it by the elimination of all those
anomalies which ultimately exercise a destructive influence on the social body
of the nation, damaging the vital forces of the national community, prejudicing
the welfare of the State and, by no means as a last consequence, bringing evil
and destruction on economic life itself.
Therefore in the hands of the National Socialist Trades
Union the strike is not an instrument for disturbing and dislocating the
national production, but for increasing it and making it run smoothly, by
fighting against all those annoyances which by reason of their unsocial
character hinder efficiency in business and thereby hamper the existence of the
whole nation. For individual efficiency stands always in casual relation to the
general social and juridical position of the individual in the economic
process. Individual efficiency is also the sole root of the conviction that the
economic prosperity of the nation must necessarily redound to the benefit of
the individual citizen.
The National Socialist employee will have to recognize
the fact that the economic prosperity of the nation brings with it his own
material happiness.
The National Socialist employer must recognize that the
happiness and contentment of his employees are necessary pre-requisites for the
existence and development of his own economic prosperity.
National Socialist workers and employers are both
together the delegates and mandatories of the whole national community. The
large measure of personal freedom which is accorded to them for their
activities must be explained by the fact that experience has shown that the
productive powers of the individual are more enhanced by being accorded a
generous measure of freedom than by coercion from above. Moreover, by according
this freedom we give free play to the natural process of selection which brings
forward the ablest and most capable and most industrious. For the National
Socialist Trades Union, therefore, the strike is a means that may, and indeed
must, be resorted to as long as there is not a National Socialist State yet.
But when that State is established it will, as a matter of course, abolish the
mass struggle between the two great groups made up of employers and employees
respectively, a struggle which has always resulted in lessening the national
production and injuring the national community. In place of this struggle, the
National Socialist State will take over the task of caring for and defending
the rights of all parties concerned. It will be the duty of the Economic
Chamber itself to keep the national economic system in smooth working order and
to remove whatever defects or errors it may suffer from. Questions that are now
fought over through a quarrel that involves millions of people will then be
settled in the Representative Chambers of Trades and Professions and in the
Central Economic Parliament. Thus employers and employees will no longer find
themselves drawn into a mutual conflict over wages and hours of work, always to
the detriment of their mutual interests. But they will solve these problems
together on a higher plane, where the welfare of the national community and of
the State will be as a shining ideal to throw light on all their negotiations.
Here again, as everywhere else, the inflexible principle must be
observed, that the interests of the country must come before party interests.
The task of the National Socialist Trades Union will be to educate
and prepare its members to conform to these ideals. That task may be stated as
follows: All must work together for the maintenance and security of our people
and the People's State, each one according to the abilities and powers with
which Nature has endowed him and which have been developed and trained by the
national community.
Our fourth question was: How shall we establish trades
unions for such tasks and aims? That is far more difficult to answer.
Generally speaking, it is easier to establish something in new
territory than in old territory which already has its established institutions.
In a district where there is no existing business of a special character one
can easily establish a new business of this character. But it is more difficult
if the same kind of enterprise already exists and it is most difficult of all
when the conditions are such that only one enterprise of this kind can prosper.
For here the promoters of the new enterprise find themselves confronted not
only with the problem of introducing their own business but also that of how to
bring about the destruction of the other business already existing in the
district, so that the new enterprise may be able to exist.
It would be senseless to have a National Socialist Trades
Union side by side with other trades unions. For this Trades Union must be
thoroughly imbued with a feeling for the ideological nature of its task and of
the resulting obligation not to tolerate other similar or hostile institutions.
It must also insist that itself alone is necessary, to the exclusion of all the
rest. It can come to no arrangement and no compromise with kindred tendencies
but must assert its own absolute and exclusive right.
There were two ways which might lead to such a
development:
(1) We could establish our Trades Union and then
gradually take up the fight against the Marxist International Trades Union.
(2) Or we could enter the Marxist Trades Union and inculcate a new
spirit in it, with the idea of transforming it into an instrument in the
service of the new ideal.
The first way was not advisable, by reason of the fact
that our financial situation was still the cause of much worry to us at that
time and our resources were quite slender. The effects of the inflation were
steadily spreading and made the particular situation still more difficult for
us, because in those years one could scarcely speak of any material help which
the trades unions could extend to their members. From this point of view, there
was no reason why the individual worker should pay his dues to the union. Even
the Marxist unions then existing were already on the point of collapse until,
as the result of Herr Cuno's enlightened Ruhr policy, millions were suddenly
poured into their coffers. This so-called 'national' Chancellor of the Reich
should go down in history as the Redeemer of the Marxist trades unions.
We could not count on similar financial facilities. And nobody could
be induced to enter a new Trades Union which, on account of its financial
weakness, could not offer him the slightest material benefit. On the other
hand, I felt bound absolutely to guard against the creation of such an
organization which would only be a shelter for shirkers of the more or less
intellectual type.
At that time the question of personnel played the most
important role. I did not have a single man whom I might call upon to carry out
this important task. Whoever could have succeeded at that time in overthrowing
the Marxist unions to make way for the triumph of the National Socialist
corporative idea, which would then take the place of the ruinous class warfare
– such a person would be fit to rank with the very greatest men our nation has
produced and his bust should be installed in the Valhalla at Regensburg for the
admiration of posterity.
But I knew of no person who could qualify for such a
pedestal.
In this connection we must not be led astray by the fact
that the international trades unions are conducted by men of only mediocre
significance, for when those unions were founded there was nothing else of a
similar kind already in existence. To-day the National Socialist Movement must
fight against a monster organization which has existed for a long time, rests
on gigantic foundations and is carefully constructed even in the smallest
details. An assailant must always exercise more intelligence than the defender,
if he is to overthrow the latter. The Marxist trade-unionist citadel may be
governed today by mediocre leaders, but it cannot be taken by assault except
through the dauntless energy and genius of a superior leader on the other side.
If such a leader cannot be found it is futile to struggle with Fate and even
more foolish to try to overthrow the existing state of things without being
able to construct a better in its place.
Here one must apply the maxim that in life it is often
better to allow something to go by the board rather than try to half do it or
do it badly, owing to a lack of suitable means.
To this we must add another consideration, which is not
at all of a demagogic character. At that time I had, and I still have today, a
firmly rooted conviction that when one is engaged in a great ideological
struggle in the political field it would be a grave mistake to mix up economic
questions with this struggle in its earlier stages. This applies particularly
to our German people. For if such were to happen in their case the economic
struggle would immediately distract the energy necessary for the political
fight. Once the people are brought to believe that they can buy a little house
with their savings they will devote themselves to the task of increasing their
savings and no spare time will be left to them for the political struggle
against those who, in one way or another, will one day secure possession of the
pennies that have been saved. Instead of participating in the political
conflict on behalf of the opinions and convictions which they have been brought
to accept they will now go further with their 'settlement' idea and in the end
they will find themselves for the most part sitting on the ground amidst all
the stools.
To-day the National Socialist Movement is at the
beginning of its struggle. In great part it must first of all shape and develop
its ideals. It must employ every ounce of its energy in the struggle to have
its great ideal accepted, and the success of this effort is not conceivable
unless the combined energies of the movement be entirely at the service of this
struggle.
To-day we have a classical example of how the active
strength of a people becomes paralysed when that people is too much taken up
with purely economic problems.
The Revolution which took place in November 1918 was not
made by the trades unions, but it was carried out in spite of them. And the
people of Germany did not wage any political fight for the future of their
country because they thought that the future could be sufficiently secured by
constructive work in the economic field.
We must learn a lesson from this experience, because in
our case the same thing must happen under the same circumstances. The more the
combined strength of our movement is concentrated in the political struggle,
the more confidently may we count on being successful along our whole front.
But if we busy ourselves prematurely with trade unionist problems, settlement
problems, etc., it will be to the disadvantage of our own cause, taken as a
whole. For, though these problems may be important, they cannot be solved in an
adequate manner until we have political power in our hand and are able to use
it in the service of this idea. Until that day comes these problems can have
only a paralysing effect on the movement. And if it takes them up too soon they
will only be a hindrance in the effort to attain its own ideological aims. It
may then easily happen that trade unionist considerations will control the
political direction of the movement, instead of the ideological aims of the
movement directing the way that the trades unions are to take.
The movement and the nation can derive advantage from a
National Socialist trade unionist organization only if the latter be so
thoroughly inspired by National Socialist ideas that it runs no danger of
falling into step behind the Marxist movement. For a National Socialist Trades
Union which would consider itself only as a competitor against the Marxist
unions would be worse than none. It must declare war against the Marxist Trades
Union, not only as an organization but, above all, as an idea. It must declare
itself hostile to the idea of class and class warfare and, in place of this, it
must declare itself as the defender of the various occupational and
professional interests of the German people.
Considered from all these points of view it was not then
advisable, nor is it yet advisable, to think of founding our own Trades Union.
That seemed clear to me, at least until somebody appeared who was obviously
called by fate to solve this particular problem.
Therefore there remained only two possible ways. Either to
recommend our own party members to leave the trades unions in which they were
enrolled or to remain in them for the moment, with the idea of causing as much
destruction in them as possible.
In general, I recommended the latter alternative.
Especially in the year 1922-23 we could easily do that. For, during
the period of inflation, the financial advantages which might be reaped from a
trades union organization would be negligible, because we could expect to
enroll only a few members owing to the undeveloped condition of our movement.
The damage which might result from such a policy was all the greater because
its bitterest critics and opponents were to be found among the followers of the
National Socialist Party.
I had already entirely discountenanced all experiments
which were destined from the very beginning to be unsuccessful. I would have
considered it criminal to run the risk of depriving a worker of his scant
earnings in order to help an organization which, according to my inner
conviction, could not promise real advantages to its members.
Should a new political party fade out of existence one
day nobody would be injured thereby and some would have profited, but none
would have a right to complain. For what each individual contributes to a
political movement is given with the idea that it may ultimately come to
nothing. But the man who pays his dues to a trade union has the right to expect
some guarantee in return. If this is not done, then the directors of such a
trade union are swindlers or at least careless people who ought to be brought
to a sense of their responsibilities.
We took all these viewpoints into consideration before
making our decision in 1922. Others thought otherwise and founded trades
unions. They upbraided us for being short-sighted and failing to see into the
future. But it did not take long for these organizations to disappear and the
result was what would have happened in our own case. But the difference was
that we should have deceived neither ourselves nor those who believed in us.