European Front

Source: SS Leitheft, February 1944

The harder this war affects the European folks, the greater the energies which it awakens in these folks and sets into motion. Outmoded government ideas disappear under the impact of this war as if they never existed. The artificial assortment of states of the Versailles Treaty is crushed, and under suffering and tears a new era is born. We ourselves are only a wave in the flood which is setting the folks of Europe in motion. The ideas of race and socialism are shaking the folks of Europe and pushing them to new forms of state life. Under the impact of the Bolshevik drive of expansion and the meanness of the enemy's bombing attacks the folks of Europe are being irresistibly drawn closer together, and a feeling of community is emerging which never existed before in the past times of the only apparent prosperity in Europe. It would be wrong to compare the condition of Europe with the one it found itself in when the French Revolution and Napoleon shook the states and folks. Back then the waves of a revolutionary flood struck an outdated Europe lacking an idea under the leadership of the reactionary Chancellor Metternich and destroyed the untenable and hollow system of a European state jumble under Austrian leadership. Today’s Europe does not find itself in a condition of the mere preservation and defence of the past. In that it has become conscious of its Germanic tradition, it breaks outmoded state borders and brings folks together. The old world is represented by the enemy in the west and in the east. Capitalism and Marxism are only the sick tips of the outmoded conception of the purpose of life and of the value of man. The New Europe is carried by the energy of the revolutionary idea of socialism and race. It thus finds itself simultaneously in a condition of defence and attack: attack, because it opposes a sick and outdated world with a better one. The socialism is not only a domestic program of the Reich, which strives for a human order on the basis of accomplishment, but also contains - viewed beyond the state - the program of a New Order of the European folks on the basis of the free development of their folkish values and on the basis of their historical accomplishment.

The Power of the Reich Idea

In the ranks of the Waffen-SS today fight Dutchmen, Flemings, Walloons, Scandinavians, Estonians and Latvians, and soon other folks will dress their awakened youth in the same uniform and thus form the European Front under the SS symbol, which has been born from the need of this hour and forms the foundation of a coming order in Europe. Whoever may have had doubts about the strength of the idea is corrected when he today meets Dutchmen or Estonians in the Waffen-SS, who are more fanatical and determined champions of the Reich idea than many Germans inside the Reich. Thereby we meet the recognition that the service of these men in the east is the steel bath of the Reich idea. The men who have fought over there with the Reich German SS against the Bolsheviks have cast everything behind, all the prejudices that still hamper their contemporaries who have not shared the unique, difficult front experience. In the struggle against our most difficult opponent, the Reich idea in all its radiant beauty is reborn. A European feeling of community is emerging which no longer knows the hesitations of the politicians stuck in the old state theories. These European volunteer SS leaders and SS men are the vanguard of the European front. They love their homeland, and because they love this homeland and are loyal to it deep down, they want as a prize of war a new world, organized by a strong Reich which alone is able to save their homeland and protect the living body of their folk. Certainly, these men are minorities in their folks. World history, however, is always made by the few men who have the courage to dare the new. The hesitations follow only later. One must page through the family history of one such volunteer in order to feel how powerful the idea of the Reich affects this youth. There is, for example, a Fleming. He fights in the ranks of the Waffen-SS. His father is a high-ranking Belgian colonial administrator and now stands in English service; his grandfather was a member of the Belgian parliament, a fanatical representative of French culture against the Flemish opposition of his own homeland. The grandson embraces the Reich and Adolf Hitler. What a break in eras declares itself! What a strong attraction is possessed by the personality of the Führer! How powerful do the blood and the Reich idea speak, that the young men of these folks declare themselves ready to die for this Reich, from which their ancestors have lived apart for decades, yes for centuries!

The European Task of the SS

The SS is hence growing more and more into its European task: It gathers the awakened European youth in the struggle against Bolshevism and the Jewish plutocracies. Whoever may think that the SS hence forfeits its original character or deviates from the strict principles of the Reich has no understanding of the revolutionary idea of National Socialism, which sweeps across the borders of nation states. No one in Europe today believes, regardless of how the war may end, in the return of the artificial state system of Versailles, which owes its existence solely to the English interference in European affairs. It is understandable that through the impact of this war the veneer of a historical development, which often has only lasted a few decades, is wiped away and now the common roots of the European family of folks again comes to light. The fact of the Germanic wandering and the former Germanic settlement between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa has formed the blood unity of Europe and created that which we call European culture. The New Order of these folks arises on this same foundation. America and England have no genuine program for a political New Order of the European continent. They view Europe already today only as a colony, which they intend to economically exploit. Bolshevism has just as little to offer Europe in ideas. Marxism recognizes no real folk, just as little as it can accept the concept of blood into its dictionary. National Socialism alone affirms the roots of each genuine folk. It knows that only he who is loyal to his homeland can be loyal to the Reich. The revolutionary socialism of Adolf Hitler means for Europe not only a regulation of the relations of the European folk to each other on the basis of their historical accomplishment and their participation in the present struggle. From the world view of this movement alone emerges the creative strength and the rich fullness of possible bonds of the folks and nations of Europe to the leadership of a strong Reich. One must clearly see that an inner and outer order of Europe can only stem from the depth of the National Socialist view of history. The SS already today forms the iron ring of those men who yearn with passionate hearts for the New Order of Europe under the leadership of a strong Germanic middle. Without the participation of these men the new cannot emerge. It is as if our continent is shaken by a high fever; it is the birth pain of a new era, which wants to arise from the foundation of the blood community of the European family of folks and of a socialist order of their life together.

Whatever path fate may lead us down toward this goal and whatever setbacks may still be in store for us, the goal itself remains fixed. It is the only goal for which it is at all worth living and fighting for. The SS knows that everything must be employed so that the comrades from the European East grow together with it into a community of struggle just like those from the west. Intelligent treatment, a great measure of ability must be used to achieve this goal. The SS remains uncompromising in its principles, in the accomplishment of its practical tasks creative and generous. It must be flexible enough to treat each folk according to its nature and history. It must be our task to form the European youth together into a hard and determined front. The western enemy is not ready to die for a higher world, because he does not recognize it. The enemy in the east has only brought the folks suppression and degradation. If there are inalienable human values, then they are defended by the front of the German army. On our side stands a new idea. To our side must eventually tip the scale of fate, if we remain hard and conscious of the entire historical responsibility of this struggle.