Source: Germany’s Hitler (Chapter XIV) - by Heinz A. Heinz
It is scarcely necessary to enlarge, here, upon the „Nationalism“
in Adolf Hitler’s political creed. Enough has already been written about it. It
has occupied so much space in the contemporary Press and been discussed in so
many books it has come to be regarded with a certain degree of Chauvinism. I
propose, therefore, to confine myself, in the conclusion of this work, to a few
observations under the second heading of our double-barrelled title. It is so
completely true that he who studies contemporary Germany with a view to
forecasting the future of the country, must study it from inside and not from
the outsider’s point of view.1 From outside one mainly perceives the
nationalism. From the inside the drive and force of the socialism is most
apparent.
German
Socialism – Adolf Hitler’s Socialism – is a totally different thing from what
is generally understood by this term, from the Socialism derived from Marxian
and Communistic theory. The first essential difference between the two consists
in this, that the former is strictly national in aim, scope and limit; the
latter is international, without boundaries of race or land. The second vital
distinction is that the first has been set up by the wish of the people
concerned, the second is imposed upon nations by the will of those who organise
and propagate it. A third contrast can be drawn inasmuch as German Socialism
tends to draw all sections of the nation closely together, international
socialism initiates class war. German Socialism is directed by the country’s
nationals; international Socialism is an instrument of the Jews2. In
the former it is the personality of the Leader which tells; in the latter we
have nothing but the inertia of the mass which is exploited by its organisers.
By
the above signs is German Socialism to be recognised and distinguished. When it
has completely assimilated Germany to itself, it will extend and become the
groundwork for the future development of other countries. Marxism and Communism
are finished in Germany. They have played their part and their role is over.
Long enough have they made their influence felt in every sphere of German life,
intellectual, political and economic, to the suppression of the truer
socialism. Socialism is not a thing to be apprehended through dreary theory
only, but to be tested and proved in action. We have written enough, elsewhere,
very fully to show that the present German Government is inspired in its
legislation by the spirit of active philanthropy which it calls Socialism. This
legislation incorporates the very essence of German Socialism.
As
Dr. Goebbels writes: „Socialism, as we understand it, does not reduce men to a
dead level, but ranges them in order according to their individual capacity and
leading. If I were to try and put our aims and objects in this direction in a
nutshell, I should say that it is our endeavour to build up in Germany a people
who all possess the same rights in life. We want everyone, high and low, to
belong to such a people. We desire that the highest among them shall feel
themselves more closely united with the last and lowest of their own kith and
kin than with the highest of any other nation. We aim at this – that the highest
of our people would rather be the lowest of his own nation, than the highest of
any other nation. Such an aspiration can only be the outcome of an absolutely
unified national will.”
It
would lead us too far afield to instance the many measures in which Hitler has
exemplified his conception of true Socialism. We must confine ourselves to a
mere sketch of the most important and obvious incorporations of the ideas
through which he has restored to the German worker his honour and self-respect.
THE GERMAN LABOUR FRONT
The
law of April 10th, 1933, which arranged May 1st as a great Labour Day Holiday
initiated the abovenamed reorganisation of labour in Germany. The first
celebration of the new holiday was unanimous and universal: the Germans had
never had anything like it before. Thousands of people gathered together at the
same time, all over the country to listen to the Leader’s speech, and then to
make high holiday. All trades and callings and professions for the first time
were assembled in common, symbolising the unity which was henceforth to unite
both types of labour – that of the head, and that of the hand, symbolising the
necessary equal value to the community of both. German Socialism recognises no
discriminating difference between the brain worker and the hand worker.
Quick
on the heels of May 1st and its celebrations, came action. The German Labour
Front emerged. On May 2nd the premises of all Marxian Labour Unions were taken
over and the contents sequestrated.
Abroad,
similar Marxist Unions described this action of Hitler’s as a theft of the
German workman’s hardly earned pay, saved up for years and years in the Unions’
funds. Such a charge could not be substantiated, since these moneys were not
taken from the workmen, to whom they rightly belonged, but from the greedy
grasp of union officials to whom they did not belong, but who administered them
wastefully, or appropriated them in disproportionate salaries.
With
the workman himself went his money also, into the Labour Front. Here it could
only be put to the best and most legitimate uses on his behalf.
The
great object of the Labour Front is to secure German industry from the
incessant recurrence of strikes and all their disintegrating consequences.
German Socialism utterly opposes itself to strife between employers and men.
Here again it shows quite a different face from that of Marxian Socialism which
seeks to foment such discord, whereby, moreover, it maintains its own
sovereignty.
In
Germany to-day a strike is impossible for the reason that no employer dare pay
less than the standardised daily wage, or the State would immediately take up
the workers’ grievance. On the other hand, were the workers to demand more than
their due they themselves would bring about the collapse of the concern for
which they worked. The standard of wages is arrived at by experts representing
the men and concerned to secure their best interests.
Together
with wages, the question of hours has also been considered. In
Marxist-Socialist Germany after the War, very hard times set in for German
working men. Their leaders had every opportunity to show what the theory could
accomplish; they had a majority in the Reichstag, a member of the Party was
President of the Reich. Nevertheless, they were all either too lazy or too
indifferent to carry out their programme.
So long as the masses went hungry
they were easy to inflame, and to excite against capitalism and the wealthy.
While six and a half million unemployed hung about the streets while their
wives and children were starving, selfish employers exploited this wretched
state of things just because they were paying the dole, forsooth! If a man
grumbled he lost his job; hundreds were only waiting to pounce upon it in his
stead. If he sought the assistance of the Secretary of his Union he drew
another blank. What cared the employer for the Unions? Should a strike ensue
all he had to do was to close shop or factory as the case might be, and say, „All
right. We’ll see who can stick it out the longest, you or I.”
Days
or even weeks might go by, but the result was always the same. The men came
back with hangdog mien, glad of the work again at any cost! This is where the
German working man had lost in his own eyes. It was from this sort of
victimisation and wretchedness that Hitler designed to rescue him, and give him
back his self-respect. Hitherto he had been the prey of vicious circumstances,
the slave of an unscrupulous class.
All
was altered in a twinkling when Adolf Hitler came to power. A cry of gratitude
and relief went up from all ranks of German working men. The Brown Shirts were
everywhere welcomed as they made their way into shop and factory and yard to
enquire after the needs and circumstances of every employee in the place. Union
secretaries were hauled to account no less than unsocialistic-minded employers.
The German Labour Front was out to accomplish what it promised.
With
the exception of peasants and officials, who have their own organisations, the
German Labour Front comprises workmen of all kinds, employees, employers and
people working on their own account. Hitler is its patron, Dr. Ley is its
Leader. The standards of wages are carefully regulated and observed by reliable
workers themselves. The Reich is divided up, under this scheme, into Regions,
these, in turn, into Districts, these into Circuits or Local Groups, and these
latter again into Trade Communes, Cells and Blocks.
STRENGTH THROUGH JOY
Perforce
of its iron will, its absolute refusal to com-promise and its terrific onset,
National Socialism wrenched itself suddenly into power. Long years before this
happened its better ideas had attracted people away from those of the old
system then in vogue, and so it is readily to be understood how, in March,
1933, the aforesaid old system simply collapsed.
The
first and greatest duty before National Socialism was to win the German people
back to a sense of nationality, and in impressing its own principles upon them.
A State that is to endure for centuries ahead must be built upon the very
foundations of organic life, upon blood and soil, nationality and home.
In
order to replace one kind of State with another, and better one, it is not
enough merely to do away with the former: the people themselves must be
re-educated. In place of a system full of class enmity and distinctions and
pride of place, there is now a commonwealth. The new State, organically
designed, is founded upon the principle “The common good before that of the
individual.”
Under
National Socialism the culture of an entire people must not be identified with
any particular caste, class, or level: it must characterise and belong to the
mass. Nor must aesthetic enjoyments be only for the few; they must be common to
all. Just as the creation of a united working people has been confided to the
German Labour Front, so is it the business of another organisation, that of
“Strength through Joy,” to make every member of the nation free of its cultural
and artistic treasures and resources. The two endeavours are inter-related. By
means of the latter every German working man can look to his free evening as a
real opportunity for refreshment and „uplift ”; money which had formerly gone
merely in organising strikes, can now be spent far more profitably and
agreeably.
It
is not the object of „Strength through Joy“ to educate the people politically.
Few want to attend classes in civics after a hard day’s work. Its aim is rather
to bring the people together on a broad basis of enlightenment, an effort in
which they, too, of course, must concur.
The
Director of „Strength through Joy“ is also Dr. Ley. His work is comprised under
many headings. It is one of his principal endeavours to open up to worker and
unemployed alike all the best sources of entertainment, opera, theatre and
concert hall. For the fact that a workman in any German city can obtain
admission to the finest operas for practically a nominal sum is Hitler himself
directly to be thanked. Hitler often starved, in the old days, in order to buy
the meanest standing room in the house, to hear Wagner. Now that he is
Chancellor, no working man in Germany need be put to such shifts to gratify his
artistic longings.
The
„Kulturamt“ has opened to the people all sorts of intellectual resorts hitherto
sacred to the upper ten. It is a mistake to suppose that only such appreciate
the best. In Germany Wagner takes precedence, even with the poorest people,
over nigger minstrelsy and jazz.
Even
the working man’s week-ends are provided for. Previously he went for a bit of a
walk in the park perhaps, on Sunday, or took a tram out of the suburbs to get a
breath of air. If he were a single man he might spend the most part of his
leisure in a beer hall, listening to the band. Although this sort of thing can
still be observed everywhere, nowadays the workman looks to the sort of
week-end right away which previously could only be enjoyed by the better to do.
For a couple of marks, to-day, he can go thirty miles out of the city, follow a
personally conducted tour around some beauty spots, and enjoy a good meal into
the bargain. When his holiday comes round, it is provided for, lavishly as far
as good things are concerned, at equally small cost.
Workmen
from Munich can now envisage holidays by the North Sea with all sorts of trips
and bathing fun thrown in. Those from Berlin can go to the Alps, do a bit of
mountaineering and try what hotel life is like. These are dreams come true
which for whole generations past must have ever remained unrealisable. All
thank: to Adolf Hitler.
The
section of this activity which deals with „Volkstum und Heimat,” seeks to
revive, for urban populations, the knowledge of and delight in old peasant and
traditional customs, songs, dances, costumes. This sort of thing reawakens love
of the country and their origins in people long divorced from the land. It
bridges the gull between the peasant and the townsman.
Kraft
durch Freude (“Strength through Joy”) looks also to sport to give the working
man zest and change in exercise. It is Hitler’s keenest desire to see the
worker, particularly the youthful worker (Hitler’s Germany is all being built
for the future – the past must now look after itself, „let the dead bury the
dead”) made „crisis resisting.” The young workman goes in for tennis and golf
and every other vigorous game that’s going.
Through
the instrumentality of innumerable exhibitions, it is sought to rouse the
worker’s pride in his own achievements, in his niche in society, in the part he
plays in the whole. His craft is displayed before him in its entire interest,
or beauty, or significance. Prizes and com-petitions abound. Each man becomes
conscious of the part he takes in the whole, and discovers fresh pride in his
trade and in himself.
Cheap
classes are held for those who desire to advance in their particular calling,
or to study more particularly the trade to which they belong, and for the
acquisition of foreign languages. The best teachers are retained and the
instruction is given in the buildings of the local University.
People
are assisted to acquire their own dwelling- houses. Loans for this purpose can
be repaid by instalments over a series of years. In this way it is hoped to
promote a cheerful small villadom beyond the limits of the greater cities.
The
department for propaganda aims at bringing all these activities and facilities
before the people, to encourage them to make the utmost use of them. Only so
will they be bringing about the National Socialist State envisaged by Adolf
Hitler. There are still more departments in this one Movement alone, but space
forbids their description.
Much,
indeed, has been written about the new Germany. In England and America so much
attention has been directed to its political aspect, that these others have
been neglected. Of that attention, moreover, by far the greater part is highly
inimical, highly critical. Few outside Germany yet realise why Hitler is
prepared to go to all lengths to save this new Germany from being torpedoed
either from within or without. He saves it in his own way and from those he
considers its enemies, whether his action is understood abroad or not.
Let
those disbelieve it who will, Adolf Hitler has done more for Germany since he
came to power than any other statesman at any other time, and the wrecking of
his work would not only spell the final ruin of Germany, but the ruin of Europe
at large.
Notes:
1.
Germany’s political development has been along lines totally different from
those in England, and has led to a type of political public opinion very
different from that of the average Englishman. The latter make a great mistake
to judge of affairs in another country as if they had happened in their own.
This is the universal mistake of the onlooker and critic: perhaps it accounts
for two-thirds of the international misunderstanding in Europe today.
2. Vide the period of the Soldiers’ and
Workmen’s Councils in Munich.
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