by Albert Hartl
Publisher’s Foreword
Original Introduction
About the Meaning of Life
Nordic Faith
Community
Law and Obedience
Responsibility
Honor
Guilt and Atonement
Soldierdom
Grace
Heroism
Reverence
Of Joy
Suffering
Festivals and Celebrations
Solitude
Body Hygiene
About Enjoying
Human Leadership
Fanaticism and Objectivity
Eternal Front
Publisher’s Foreword
Eternal Front
is translated from the Third Reich
original Ewige Front. It was written by Anton Holzner (the pseudonym for
SS-Sturmbannführer Albert Hartl) and published by Nordland-Verlag (which
published several SS books) in Berlin in 1940. Eternal Front presents a
non-Christian religious attitude often referred to as “gotgläubig”, which
literally means “believing in God”. This religious attitude was common in
National Socialist, and especially SS, circles in the Third Reich and still
exists in Germany today.
Original Introduction
When the German rebirth began under the
flags of the National Socialist revolution - after the World War from the war
experience - and the arising generation went through the hard character school
of the National Socialist movement, Germandom in the Sudetenland stood in a
difficult struggle for the preservation of its folkdom and its home soil. Cut
off from German cultural and intellectual life, borderland fate determined its
fighting bearing. It formed the people and their character and made them a tough
breed. And so, aside from the bonds of blood, it was the experience of struggle
on other front sector of German life that carried out the uniform general
direction of Germandom on this side and on the other side of the old borders of
the Reich.
After the return of the Sudeten-German
regions to Adolf Hitler’s Germany, it was a matter of giving a world-view
foundation to, and firming, the battle-proven character formation of the German
people. From this effort arose the essays of this little book, which appeared as
Sunday articles in the Sudeten-German provincial organ “Die Zeit” [“The Time”].
For the old fighters in the Bohemian- Moravian region they became an
interpretation of their sacrifice, struggle and victory, and for the folk
comrades who previous stood apart from the greater German revolt, they become an
introduction to our blood-determined world of feeling and thought. The
collection of these essays in this volume rescues them from the fate of a
newspaper article and makes them a valuable contribution to the character
formation of German people.
Reichenberg, Sudetengau, Winter Solstice
1939. Dr. Karl Viererbl
Chief Director of the “Zeit”
About the Meaning of Life
In all millennia, serious people have
researched and pondered about the meaning of this life. Some found their life
goal in enjoying the pleasures of this life as much as possible. They became
superficial materialists. Others figured this life is only a brief, but
difficult, test, a bridge to a better afterlife or eternal damnation. The most
diverse religions portrayed this afterlife each according to the racial nature
of its promoters and spreaders. The diverse priest castes did more of less good
business with this afterlife. Each claimed sole and absolute knowledge about
this afterlife. They sold - following - diverse cult ceremonies - to living and
dead places, advantages, honorary offices and mercy-gifts. It was the simplest
and most primitive business, because no person returned from the afterlife and
held the priest accountable. The witch doctor of the Negro Bushmen ran as little
risk as the oriental magician, if he sold the afterlife to the believers as
business.
In all periods there have also been
people who opposed this afterlife materialism. A medieval story relates: Two
monks portray the afterlife to each other again and again in their
conversations. They imagine all the individual choruses and departments of
angels and holy-men, the rank differences of the individual heavenly places, the
otherworldly music, the heavenly hallelujah songs, God’s throne etc. They
promise each other that the one who dies first will appear to the other the
first nigh in a dream and tell him what it looks like in the afterlife. If it is
as they imagined it, he will simply say “totally”. If it is different, he will
say “different”. When one of the monks died, he actually did appear to the other
the first night. But he did not say “totally” or “different”, rather “totally
different”.
This is the old wisdom of Nordic man:
The Almighty has put in curtain in front of life after death. It is a secret to
us. No person may presume to possess any privileged knowledge about life after
death. And yet, our faith and our knowledge go beyond our earthly life. We know
that each of us is a link in an endless chain that stretches from the oldest
ancestors to the most distant descendants, that our river of blood comes from
distant times and flows across our earthly life into the distant future. And
this knowledge broadens our view and leads it across hundreds of thousands of
years. And this knowledge gives us the strength of millennia and lets us surmise
eternity. It places us into the endless cycle of creation.
We know that even the person who is the
last link of his clan can secure an eternal future through his works and deeds.
The unknown worker who chisels, transports, and puts together the building
blocks for great protective wall of the German folk or for the splendid
buildings of the Third Reich, will live on in these works just like the great
intellectual creators of these works. The soldier and the policeman who were the
guarantors for the safe return of lost German territories to the Reich, and the
quiet fighters for the freedom of the German folk, will live on forever in the
Greater German Reich just like its great shapers.
Our reverence for the Almighty, however,
is so great that we reject portraying the afterlife materialistically. We openly
affirm here: About an afterlife we know nothing and will never know anything.
This affirmation leads us with doubled
energy to this side, to earthly life. The creator put us in the life cycle of
our folk. The meaning of our life is to fulfill the task given us in the
organism of this folk.
We fulfill the meaning of our life, when
we do everything possible to manifest and shape, to train and perfect the
energies and abilities the Lord has given us. We are on earth so that we
continue God’s work of creation in our blood and body, in our intellect and our
soul.
Nordic Faith
Nordic man stands in the middle of life.
He forms his picture of the world from nature. The laws of life that reveal
themselves in his blood, in nature and in history, are his guidelines for
action.
In life, God reveals himself to Nordic
man as the Divine, the Almighty, Providence, the Lord or the Creator; for him,
all these terms are an expression for one and the same divine power, which
appears in life and in nature, above life and above the worlds.
When Nordic man gazes at night into the
starry heaven, when he stands on the shore of a roaring sea, when he looks
across the land from a mountain peak, or when in all silence he immerses himself
in the beauty of a flower, of a living creative or a work of art, then he
experiences that there is a divine force.
When Nordic man listens to the voice of
his blood, and consciously thinks about the moral obligations prescribed him by
the laws of his blood, the indivisible bond to his folk, honor and truthfulness,
unshakeable faith and loyalty, then he feels that these laws of his action
represent the highest laws.
And when in a contemplative hour he
reviews his own life and the history of his folk, then he knows that a deep
meaning and a supreme goal has often found an expression in his and his folk’s
life.
So Nordic man will always be an
idealist, always possess faith in a higher power, and an abysm will always
separate him from that materialistic attitude, from godliness and lack of faith.
For Nordic man, therefore, there will
also always be a unity between life and religious belief, for him the belief in
God is and remains a necessary component of his world-view and life-view. For
him there can be no gap between faith and knowledge, no disagreement between
religion and life.
The path of people and their folks to
their god is different, each according to its own racial nature. There are
primitive folks for whom their god, their fetish, is simply their helper who
brings them nice weather or rain, whom they beat, when he does not obey them,
and whom they curse, when does not please them. There are folks for whom, due to
their blood-determined feeling, their god is a merchant who haggles with the
devil for the souls of people, for whom God is largely a wrecked, pitiful
creature who suffers infinitely from the evil will of people. There are folks
who want to banish their god to specific locations, folks who have a small or
inferior image of God.
For German people, who live in such
close bond to powerful nature, who life from such deep, blood-determined values
and such a great history, there can also be just a very great and very powerful
concept of the Almighty. Nordic man sees God not in the pasha to whom he is
servilely devoted, before whom he throws himself on the ground and toward whom
he acts like a slave, but he also does not see in God an inferior servant of his
wishes. Nordic man stands before the Divine in reverence and at the same time
feels himself closely connected to him like to a friend. Nordic man knows that
his God is not banished in certain statues or a few holy substances or in solid
houses, he feels close to his God everywhere, in his clan, in the great folk
community, in the forests and fields, at the fine festival locations and in the
quiet ceremony halls of his folk or at the home hearth.
Nordic man knows that he does not need
to tell his God what moves him in long addresses or hours of prayer, or with
oriental prayer chants or with Jewish phylacteries.
With a silent thought or a few short
words, he feels himself - in hours of distress, in great danger, after a
beautiful success, during the experiencing of a great joy - connected to his
God, he feels the nearness of the Divine. Nordic man knows that God does not
work for him, rather that success is only coming to him, if he himself -
however, in confidence in Providence - employs all his energy for his work; he
knows that God is only with him, if he himself fights and struggles bravely, if
he himself is tenacious and works ardently and is active on his work.
The affirmation of this Nordic faith
became covered over with weeds over the course of centuries by many foreign
worlds. All great German men, however, have in every period in the final
analysis been filled with this Nordic faith. This highest faith, this greatest
idealism, has given great Germans of every period their security and
fearlessness in life, has guided their artist hands and their creative genius in
all areas of art and research. The German folk will not allow itself to be
robbed of this faith in the Divine by anyone, never more. This faith, however,
also means at the same time the highest moral responsibility and the deepest
obligation toward these laws of life, which are God’s laws.
Community
The Creator has assembled us Germans
into a folk. The forces of blood, the same homeland soil and a millennia old
history have created an indivisible community out of this folk. There is not
other community that may be higher for us, that obligates us more, that is more
sacred to us, than our folk. That is the law of creation’s order, of God’s will.
The cells of this great folk body,
however, are the clans and families. For time eternal, the clans will remain the
most valuable foundations of folk life, clan welfare will be the necessary
prerequisite of folk welfare.
Between both these corner pillars of
folkish community life stand as connecting, natural communities and the
communities of ideas or struggle. The former shape the life of people who are
connected to each other through the same work, same workplace, same economic or
cultural or other professional tasks. The latter weld closely together the
people who are unconditionally devoted to the same world- view-political goals
of struggle. The party, its auxiliaries and affiliated associations are bearers
of these communities.
Countless artificial
community-constructions have in the course of history tried to push out the
natural life communities. With the growth of the natural communities, these
unnatural structures die off again.
Community gives strength. Vae soli,
Woe to whomever stands alone, goes an old Roman saying. Each person and each
folk can again and again experience how weak isolation and how strong community
makes. In daily life it is a support, it bestows supportive energy to great
events, in difficult times it preserves strength of resistance and faith. Where
a solid, natural community stands, the people are invincible.
Community gives joy. Countless of life’s
joys have been denied to the individual by the Creator. Much that is beautiful,
noble and great can only be experienced in the community. Where a community
leaves one cold and gives no joy, it is just a superficial framework without a
deeper core. By nature, community and joy belong together. Infinite happiness
can flow to each individual from a genuine marriage, work community, community
of struggle or folk community.
Community leads to eternity. The clan
community connects the people in the endless chain with the most distant
ancestors and descendants. But whomever Providence has denied descendants, can
through his work become immortal in his community of struggle or folk
community. Eternity, however, connects with the Divine. So the community becomes
a path to God. Service to the community becomes a religious service. Simple and
clear are the virtues in which the community proves itself.
Trust belongs to the community. Each
individual must have unconditional trust in each member of the community. He
must stand in front of him full of respect, regardless what rank he holds. This
trust is the prerequisite of the community and not the result of years of proven
performance. Whoever abuses his comrade or coworker for as long until he has
proven himself, is an enemy of any community. Basic distrust against each person
is a crime against the community. Trust must even be demanded, even if somebody
once took a wrong path and a wrong step. One may experience many a
disappointment in the process. But on the other hand, one will be able to
spiritually keep, save or boost the spirits of countless people though trust.
Basically, one must always see the good core inside the fellow human being, even
if a bad side sometimes prevails. Infinite trust is the greatest source of
strength for a community. To give this trust day after day, to always live in
the complete inner attitude of boundless trust, is the most sacred obligation.
Helpfulness is self-evident in any
community. It is not shame and nor always a misfortune, if a person finds
himself in psychological or physical distress. A world alien to us has exploited
distress of every kind to bring to the person needing help pity - from above
downward, with virtuous gesture - and mercifully donated to him help in the form
of physical or psychological charity. This form of help injures more that it
heals, destroys more than it helps, promotes not community, rather class hatred.
For a German, it is the most natural thing in the world that he gives honest
good advice to his fellow human being when he needs it, that he helps selflessly
where there is need, that he stands alongside with understanding, when somebody
no longer knows the way on his lonely path. Helpfulness must be a self- evident
component of any comradeship. Help for the individual is always self-help for
the community.
Honesty is self-evident for a German.
Without honesty, any community is especially lost. Honesty in a word and idea,
honesty toward all foreign intellectual property and honesty in all material
things are equally important. To honesty belongs being able to look superiors
and subordinates in the eye, not having to evade the one or the other though the
back door, and not having to be cowardly.
Loyalty toward the community will always
be carried by an unshakeable belief in it. This faith, however, grows from the
consciousness that all natural communities correspond to the laws of life
and are life essential. The loyalty toward the community is hence
boundless. It continues to exist even if the external framework of this
community has become damaged or even broken. Yes, precisely then, loyalty must
be especially maintained.
Egoism, mistrust, dishonesty,
disharmony, selfishness, distrust are crimes against the community and must be
eradicated.
No intricate moral doctrines are
required in order to be able to differentiate between what benefits a community
and what disturbs it.
Community is something so great and
mighty that any naturally feeling person can clearly recognize its basic lines
and distinctly comprehend its laws. Community is something that especially
belongs to the deepest nature of German man.
Law and Obedience
Where people live in a community, the
natural order of life demands that a leadership and a following exist.
The task of leadership is to create
regulations, measures and laws that serve the well-being and life interests of
the entire following.
The job of the following is to follow
these regulations and to obey these laws in trust in the good will and the
correct insight of the leadership.
This is true for the plant, the
community, the state. In the process, it is a self-evident prerequisite that the
leadership corresponds to the natural life laws. The community that, in
accordance to the God desired order of creation, stands at the top in human
life, is the folk community.
The laws of correct folk leadership are
hence also the most sacred laws. They obligate to unconditional, total
obedience. Where the well-being of the folk community demands obedience, where
the life necessities of the entire folk demand - through the voice of the folk
leadership - sacrifice and subordination r summon to struggle and work, the
individual no longer has any consideration for himself, for property and
belongings and life, then even the family must take second place behind the
great folk community.
Alien, supra-governmental powers have
tried to destroy, bend or weaken this natural life legality. International
Freemasonry, international Marxism and international [religious] confessionals
put their super-governmental communities above the natural folk community.
Whoever is a member of their lodge, their trade union, sect or confession, is
first of all a brother and stands - even if he is of alien race - above any folk
comrade who does not belong to this constructed community.
The laws of these super-governmental
powers hence stand for the followers of these world-views above the laws of the
folk community and of the folk leadership. Any state law, any regulation and
measure of a plant management, of an office of the municipalities or of the
state, only obligate insofar as this is compatible with the laws of their lodge,
sect etc.. Any oath has for them validity only insofar as it does not stand in
contradiction to their international obligations. Whoever formally designates
himself as a follower of a super-governmental power or inwardly feels bound to
such a power, must be clear in his own mind that, day for day, decisions could
face him that force him to decide to take seriously the obligations toward his
folk or toward some internal entity. There are thousands of cases in life in
which obedience to the laws of folk leadership are incompatible with obedience
to super-governmental powers.
A currency transfer can be a service to
a super-governmental power and at the same time a crime against the folk wealth.
A complaint against the traitor can be
sacred obligation toward the folk community and at the same time a betrayal of a
super-governmental power to which one belongs.
A marriage can, according to the laws of
folk well-being, be a crime, and at the same time, according to the laws of a
super-governmental power, be permitted.
The contents of a book can be desirable
from the national viewpoint, but be forbidden from the standpoint of some
international entity.
A teacher can, on the basis of his
inner, super-governmental ties feel obligated to obstruct, to disturb, to
sabotage the work of the Hitler Youth, which he would have to promote by all
means according to the laws of the folk leadership.
A police official or a judge can feel
conscious-bound through an international power to treat minor offenses
leniently, against which he would have to take most severe action, according to
the natural folkish laws.
As manifold as the conflicts are that
must arise from obedience to the laws of folk leadership and obedience to the
laws of super-governmental powers, so clear must one thing to be to each German:
The natural laws of the folk leadership, the laws of our natural communities are
for us the laws of the order of creation, are God’s law. In the face of these
laws, all other bonds lose their power. Obedience to these laws stands over any
other obedience.
Happy is the person for whom the
well-being of his folk is the solely obligating voice of God. For him there can
no longer be any doubts and conflicts. For him, law and obedience are clearly
and distinctly determined.
Responsibility
A basic question for the moral bearing
of a person in his private and public life is the question of responsibility.
Based on their racial makeup, individual
folks and countless world-views have taken very different stances toward this
question. There are natural, primitive folks who go through life with a certain
lack of worry, in their actions still largely driven by instinct, and for whom
great conflicts about responsibility and duty do not exist.
There is a Marxist world that has
managed to remove responsibility from the individual human being. The dominant
factor in life is, for these Marxist circles, the environment. The conditions
under which a person grows up, the people he lives with, the given surroundings
in which fate has put him, in short, the whole environment in which he finds
himself, shape his development. The criminal hence practically does not deserve
any punishment. Prisons must hence practically be transformed into institutions
of healing and sanatoriums for these unhappy people, toward whom all these mushy
feelings of Marxism and humanitarian do-gooders turn.
According to another view, which comes
from the oriental world, man is held down and chained by the original sin that
weighs upon him. All folks of all eras are affected by the original sin the same
way. Human reason is, according to this view, clouded, the human body is
shameful, human will is weak. Man is practically only to a limited degree
educatable. Insofar man can be led to positive action at all, so-called
supernatural and cult means are much more important for influencing him than all
natural forces.
The healthy German does not let his
actions or his whole inner bearing be suppressed by environment or original sin.
He feels that the Creator has not made him small - above all with an inescapable
original sin -, rather he is filled deep inside with the faith in the hereditary
nobility of his blood. Grateful and proud, the German carries within him the
consciousness that the Creator has given him the most precious energies, which
enable him to stand his ground in life.
Nordic man is basically always an
idealist and optimist. He indeed sees the hampering, the negative and the bad in
life, but he does not let himself be pulled down by that. His eye again and
again looks at the good, the beautiful and noble that Providence has given him.
His idealism is never unreal. In his heroic bearing he hence also overcomes
everything tragic in life.
The symbol of Nordic man is the sun,
which again and again shines, warms and radiates though every night and every
cloud.
So German man walks his path into the
future proud and happy, full of confidence in the strengths that the Creator
gave him.
A past world sought the most diverse
mitigating circumstances for its mistakes. For example, alcohol is mitigating
circumstances for the law and moral view of the past Marxist and oriental world.
In some areas it was downright common knowledge that one would rink before
certain actions to obtain so-called mitigating circumstances.
The new German legal view has
fundamentally cleared away these mitigating circumstances. German man considers
himself responsible for his actions, he takes responsibility for what he has
done. It is not his nature to shake off guilt, to burden other people with the
guilt, or to seek other mitigating circumstances. The guiding star for all moral
action is his concept of honor. Honor and responsibility flow together for him
into a great union, which lets him approach his work hard and serious, but at
the same time full of confidence and full of happy courage, and which keeps him
far from any licentiousness and superficiality.
In this consciousness of determined
moral responsible, German man directs his personal, private life and his
behavior in public according to the laws that his blood dictates to him,
according to what serves the well-being of his folk, his family and his
homeland. Not whatever super-governmental bonds are for him the guidelines for
his moral behavior, his responsibility is guided by the natural laws of life, by
the laws of the order of the Creator, which are God’s laws.
Proceeding from this consciousness, which bases his
responsibility on the most natural and fundamental norms that can exist in the
world, he can in his behavior make clear, calm decisions, and he is not
subjected to moral doubts and pains of conscience, which often face people with
artificial, unnatural doctrines. Straightforward like the great buildings of the
German present, clear and bright and full of greatness is the inner bearing of
German man as well, who stands in life full of moral responsibility. His moral
responsibility does not press him to the ground, it instead lifts him up and
makes him happy, free and great.
Honor
For many people, folks and world-views,
honor is something external, something that comes down to outward prestige, good
reputation and general social rank. Whoever in public and in private life
behaves correctly outwardly, whoever obeys the customary rules of bourgeois
decency, whoever above all knows how to keep and outer shell around his inner
bearing, he is considered an honorable gentleman in this superficial, liberal
world. People and folks carefully keep watch over this so-called honor and
thereby try to hide their inner degeneracy and hollowness. The appeal to this
honorableness is for them nothing else than an expression of their basic deceit.
For German man, honor reaches into the
final depths of his essence. It is the basic value of his character bearing. It
grows from the deepest foundations of his racial world-view.
For German man, honor reaches into the
final depths of his essence. It is the basic value of his character bearing. It
grows from the deepest foundations of his racial world-view.
Honor means loyalty toward God’s order
of creation, toward the life laws, toward the voice of blood, toward himself.
The Almighty has placed the laws of action for people and folks in their blood
inside them, in their conscience. To be loyal to these divine laws and hence to
be an executor and fulfiller of the divine work of creation and of the will of
creation, that is the greatest and highest thing for people, that is their
honor.
This honor must prove itself in the
thousands of big and little things of life. Whoever in great hours and in daily
routine serves his folk full of devotion, joy and loyalty, is conscious of his
honor.
Whoever keeps his blood and his soul
pure, whoever preserves woman’s honor and family happiness in his heart, whoever
fulfills his sacred duties toward ancestors and descendants he knows what German
honor is.
Whoever always remembers that money and
property were determined by the Creator for the whole folk community, whoever
gives from his plenty to the needy as self-evident, whoever views other people’s
property as inviolate, whoever guards folk fortune like his personal property,
that person keeps his honor pure.
Whoever respects and treats each folk
comrade as his blood brother, whoever does not arrogantly or self-adoringly
elevate himself over other folk comrades, whoever does not lower himself like a
dog and crawl before more powerful people, he is a man of honor.
Honor means loyalty to naturalness,
means loyalty toward oneself and one’s folk. German man hence does not need a
thousand individual moral rules, he does not need a Talmudic moral casuistry
that prescribes to him exact rules of conduct for ten thousand individual
situations in life. His honor is for him the clearest guideline for his life and
his action.
Honor hence means inner truthfulness,
genuineness and clarity. For German man there are no double standards for public
life and private chamber, for uniform and civilian dress. The most secret
thought, the most hidden deed and the most secret word must face German man’s
personal court of honor just like his great public works. He is aware that even
his mot secret feelings, stirrings, thoughts and actions are somehow building
blocks for his character formation, somehow change and shape with fine chisels
the image of his inner essence and hence also influence the physical reflection
of his character. Despite this inner honorableness and consciousness, honor does
not mean pettiness, pains of conscience of moral hypocrisy. Broad and clear,
sensitive and tender at the same time, like God’s entire creation, are the laws
of life and is hence also the honor of German man.
The consciousness that his life is
imbedded in the great connections of the universe, that the divine is at work in
his life wellsprings, that the Lord has given sacred forces to his blood, his
soul and his spirit, the certainty that his life is great and meaningful in the
consonance of eras and generations, the trust in the strengths that the Creator
has bestowed on him - all that gives German man a justified pride. And this
pride reflects itself in his feeling of honor.
With this proud consciousness of honor,
German man knows that he himself must keep his honor pure, but also that he must
not allow it to be soiled or attacked by anybody else. An injury of his honor is
an injury of divine rights. He hence has the sacred obligation to stand up for
his honor and to defend it against malicious people and folks. Here, too, he
will not be petty and sensitive. But here as well he will act clearly,
relentlessly and uncompromisingly, when the deepest and most sacred is really at
stake. In the process, he will, above all, always be conscious that he can only
expect respect for his honor from others, if he himself keeps the shield of his
honor clean.
In all times in Germany, loss of honor
was always considered the greatest shame and humiliation, and the worst treason.
The loss of honor is the loss of one’s own deepest essence.
There have been times and folks that had
no understanding for the concept of honor, they only knew moral action under the
whip or an action pure selfishness. We Germans are happy and proud that the
Creator has given us honor as the guidelines of our life and as the highest
moral property at the same time. We are happy that National Socialism has again
led us back to this moral basic value.
Guilt and Atonement
It is part of mankind’s nature that we
again and again make little mistakes and transgressions. We learn from these
mistakes, endeavor to avoid them in the future, but don’t take them too
tragically or burden ourselves with senseless guilt on their account.
But every person can someday become weak
in an important issue, in a basic matter, and take on major guilt. Then it is no
longer easy to get over this guilt. It would be frivolous, stupid and immoral,
if one would try to hide the guilt from oneself.
The most diverse religious communities,
especially those coming from the Asiatic- African world, have found an often
very mechanical way to free people from major guilt. In often very odd
redemption ceremonies, which are sometimes connected to a common or a
specialized confession in front of a priest or the community, the moral guilt of
the faithful is simply expunged, erased and eliminated.
The responsibility-conscious person
knows that a major guilt also requires an appropriate atonement, which he cannot
avoid through a simple cult ceremony, and that many a guilt can only be atoned
for by death. Very often, the atonement will be determined by the jurisprudence
of the natural communities. Often the guilty person will have to very personally
decide the atonement for himself and perform it. With great moral seriousness,
every naturally decent person will in the case of serious guilt obligate himself
to an appropriate atonement.
The crown of all atonement is the
readiness to balance the guilt with a positive accomplishment and to replace the
misdeed with a valuable work. Only where this unconditional will to the better
deed also becomes a reality in life, can guilt be viewed as fully atoned.
There are people who martyr themselves
because of whatever guilt. They ponder and wail, calculate and weigh what they
can no longer undo. They waste their energy with senseless self-reproaches,
pains of conscience and infertile artificial pains of regret. Then they usually
no longer have any time or energy for positive reparation for committed wrongs.
A past bourgeois world often no longer
gave an opportunity for atonement and rehabilitation to people whose misdeed
became publicly known. Whoever was sentenced by state jurisprudence for
whatever offense, whoever made himself guilty of whatever misdeeds, was expelled
from all time from so-called better society, despised and shunned. Full of
self-glorifying arrogance, people who had often bitterly and severely atoned for
whatever offense, were judged and discarded. Any return to life was barred them
by people who were inwardly much worse, with less character and less worthy.
Naturally feeling German man considers
it not just a tactlessness, rather meanness, if a long past, atoned for mistake
is again and again put forth, if one carelessly and cruelly touches matters that
a person perhaps atoned for years seriously and severely.
For German man, a folk comrade who has
completely atoned for a guilt is again a full-valued member of his community,
with all honors and rights. He is obligated to again unreservedly join the ranks
of the folk’s great front, and he is entitled to again expect and to be allowed
to demand from each folk comrade full trust and genuine comradeship.
Every guilt is at the same time a great
misfortune for the guilty. And atone guilt can often mean a great joy for the
person affected and his surroundings. Many people are so hopelessly addicted to
frivolity, obstinacy, brutality, extravagance, moral licentiousness, that they
can be torn away from this intoxication by a sudden awakening after an
especially serious offense. Purifying atonement after a major guilt has had the
effect of a healing medicine on the moral development of many people. Certainly,
there is usually the prerequisite that the healing doctor stands at their side,
and that, instead of healing, the complete moral and psychological destruction
is not caused through the brutality and tactlessness of superiors and fellow
human beings. Guilt and atonement are two terms that contain much tragedy for
human coexistence, German man, however, does not let himself be captured by
guilt, rather he fights the way upward his ideals though atonement.
Every person would do well from time to
time in a still honor to examine a bit his attitude and his actions relating to
guilt and atonement. He will then more easily avoid the misfortune of a serious
guilt and hence not require the healing effect of severe atonement.
Soldierdom
The virtue of German man is soldierdom.
His soldierly spirit has grown from the laws of his blood. German soldierdom has
proven itself in the millennia of fighting of our Germanic ancestors for their
living space, in the conflict of the Middle Ages with foreign powers and
world-views, in the world of Frederick the Great and in the time of the Wars of
Liberation. At Tannenberg in 1914, victories of soldierly bearing opened an
unprecedented struggle against a world of enemies. In 1933, German soldierdom,
purified and perfected, could celebrate its great resurrection. National
Socialism has drawn the ultimate conclusions from the laws of the blood and
taken the characteristics of soldierdom to final manifestation and made the
demands of soldierdom demands for every German man.
The most obvious symbol of the soldier
is the uniform, march in step, clear organization in ranks and columns. This
external commonality is a symbol for the inner commonality. In 1918, the German
folk could be temporarily chained, because the unified political and world-view
front was missing behind the front of the soldiers of the war. Soldierdom means
to German man the same marching direction, the same inner bearing, the same
psychological and world-view orientation of the entire folk. The arms-bearers of
the nation, the political soldiers and fighters for the cultural and world-view
rejuvenation of the German folk, must stand in one line.
Soldiers know that they can only win
victory, if they follow their leadership clearly and unreservedly. The
leadership determines the marching direction, goal and tempo. Like a unified
block, the German folk stands behind its leadership. Foreign powers and
world-views may beckon and promise, offer and curse; for German man, there is
only the command of his folk leadership and not the command of
super-governmental powers. German man obeys, with pitiless hardness against
himself, the commands of his leadership, because he has an unshakable faith in
this leadership and its idea, because he has unreserved trust in it.
The laws according to which the soldier
acts are the life laws of the folk, the laws of the blood, the laws of God’s
order of creation. It is the soldier’s honor to be loyal to these laws. It is
his pride to preserve and increase this sacred legacy of blood and folkdom.
There have been times when the honor of the soldier almost disappeared behind
the honor of the officer. Today there is still only one honor in the German folk
and with German man, the honor of soldierdom. It is his greatest honor, if his
soldierly honor is recognized. Honor is the shrine of the German soldier. His
military uniform is a uniform of honor, his armed service is a service of honor.
The soldier must always be ready for
action. Mobility, skill, constant readiness in the physical, intellectual and
psychological areas belong to soldierdom. That requires constant drill, constant
exercise, tireless schooling, constant watchfulness. These characterizes grow in
light and sun, in holy, joyful naturalness, not in mystical half-darkness and
unnatural rigidity. In God’s glorious nature, amid sun and water, at sports and
gaiety, witch cheerful jokes and happy songs, young people develop into fresh,
skilled, action-ready soldiers. Every German man, regardless where he stands,
however, must today possess at every hour this constant readiness for action,
must also acquire for himself this characteristic of soldierdom.
The German folk stands today and for all
the future like a single unified company of soldiers. The Führer has created
this new folk soldierdom. National Socialism has perfected this soldierly
spirit.
The task of this soldierdom is to secure
a lasting peace. Under the eternal protection of German soldierdom, the great
works of German peace work will evolve for all time.
Grace
Each folk has a very distinct ideal
concept of woman corresponding to its racial nature.
It is difficult to sum up in one word
everything that German man relates to the ideal image of woman in terms of
loftiness, nobility and beauty. One of the most fitting words for the totality
of all the virtues and advantages of German girl and the girl woman is the word
charm.
Charm means a natural, uniform, physical
beauty. Unhealthy distortion of natural beauty, unnatural muscle athleticism,
unnatural castigation of body, unfeminine masculinization or spiritualization of
the body stand in contradiction to charm. This natural beauty is shaped,
promoted and preserved through robust movement in air, sun and water. The charm
of the female body radiates in fresh, happy games and dances, in female physical
exercise and gymnastics; it enlivens celebrations and holidays, psychologically
enriches the community and transmits highest values above all to the man. For
the girl and woman herself, however, there lies therein wellsprings for
fulfillment and perfection of her deepest essence. Genuine Nordic art of every
millennium displays a mirror of this female charm.
Charm simultaneously means a
mental-psychological bearing which expresses itself in manifold forms. Charm
expresses the female harmony of mental and psychological forces, the gentle
harmony of reason and mood. The meaning of all female life fulfills itself in
the kind, caring loving and always helping mother and housewife. The art of all
of German history has again and again celebrated precisely this inexhaustible
depth of German female feeling, of German mother’s love, of selfless,
love-fulfilled devotion and the immeasurable wealth of the German woman’s soul.
And if one speaks of the charm of a girl or of a woman, then the psychological
sincerity is also expressed by precisely this term.
The German woman, however, should not
and does not want to only be a good mother and housewife. In the orient, the
woman was often only a birthing machine and maid. The German woman wants to
simultaneously, knowing and understanding, stand at the side of her husband as
comrade and coworker. She wants to share the husband’s cares, tasks and work,
yes, she wants to stimulate and fertilize. The German woman hence does not
exhaust herself in superficial beauty and fleeting charms. Rich spirit and deep
understanding for all things in life radiates from her charm. She does not just
take care of the table, rather she shapes the culture of the house, the style of
the residence, the family’s manner of life. Hence clear intellect and practical
sense also radiate simultaneously from the charm of the German girl and the
German woman.
The woman is the bearer of new life, the
protector of her folk’s blood and kind for distant generations. She must guard
the purity of the blood, maintain discipline and proper manner, ward off poison
and decay. The most sacred obligation and the greatest pride lies therein for
each girl and each woman. For each man this means immeasurable responsibility
toward his folk. The deepest essence and the most beautiful decoration of female
charm lies in this purity of blood and kind. The woman becomes a participant in
divine powers as the bearer of new life. Through her own blood, she is
inseparably bound to the folk’s eternal life.
The German world-view and life-view also
grows from German blood and German kind. The woman is natural bearer and teacher
of a world-view and life- view to her children fitting for her kind. She gives
them life. But she is also the first, closest, natural one to solve for her
child the riddle of life, to lead them into the little and larger worlds of
divine creation. The woman opens the child’s eyes and their view for the
manifoldness of this world and in the process she herself becomes ever richer
inwardly. She teaches to differentiate between good and evil, beautiful and
ugly, noble and base, useful and harmful. But she also lets her children surmise
the eternal relationships of family, folk, homeland and Führer, of workers,
peasants and soldiers, of war and peace and the eternal laws of life. The woman
also finally leads her children to the faith in a divine power, a “dear God”,
who lives above us. In this emersion in natural, genuine and deep world-wide, in
this familiarly with the divine order of creation, the woman herself finds that
inner strength and depth, that richness of the heart, which especially typifies
the German woman.
Natural beauty and health, purity of
blood, richness of feeling, clear sense, genuine, deep world-view - those are
the gifts and advantages that radiate from the charm of the German girl and
German woman.
To preserve and increase these
advantages is the pride, the striving and the obligation of each girl and each
woman. To win and keep such a girl and such a woman as the mother of his
children and as life comrade, is the yearning and the unconditional will of each
man. A folk, however, in which the radiance of this female charm is united with
the soldierly bearing of the man, will live and blossom forever.
Heroism!
Loyal fulfillment of duty down to the
smallest detail is for German man not a special virtue, rather self-evident.
Aside from this soldierly fulfillment of
duty, however, there is also another heroism, which is more that fulfillment of
duty, which towers above the average bearing.
Heroism means to totally devote oneself
to a great idea, to consume oneself like a torch in the flame of a mighty ideal,
to see only one great ideal in sight and in mind and in marching step. Heroism
is being stirred, obsessed, fulfilled with a very great task.
His own personality no longer plays a
role for the hero. Desire and suffering, life and death, step back for him
behind the tremendous obligation toward the work for which Providence has called
him. Heroic deeds are done not out of ambition and egoism, rather out of
ultimate selflessness, unselfishness and personal devotion. Infinite faith in
work, calling and idea fill and give wings to the deeds and the bearing of the
hero.
Heroism differentiates itself from
insanity, fantasy and senseless self-sacrifice.
In every age there have been people who,
misled by false doctrines or driven by a hysterical disposition, were devoted to
senseless and ineffective idols and fantasies and became pitiful, poor martyrs
of life-alien religious teachings.
And there have been people who, above
all, under the influence of the most diverse religions, viewed self-mutilation,
unnatural castigations of the body and deadening of all natural forces as
heroism.
Genuine heroism lives in reality and
reckons with reality. Genuine heroism is supported by the natural laws of life
and grows from the infinitely deep soil of folk, homeland and family. Only in
the framework of this divine order of creation can a genuine heroism exist. Only
in the service of real life - created and wanted by God - can a person become a
hero. And only this earthly reality connects the hero to the divine.
Man’s heroic, ultimate effort for life
often takes place in a brand framework visible from afar.
But often heroism grows in all quietness
and seclusion. Heroic women and mothers, heroic soldiers and heroic workers are
at work by the thousands in large cities and small villages, on all life’s
battlegrounds and in all the folk’s workplaces.
The great heroes often awaken hundreds
of thousands, yes, millions of people within a folk and pull them along to
victorious charges and ultimate effort. Like shining torches, they often being
life, movement and glow into a dark night. Fortune is the folk for whom in every
age, but above all in difficult hours, heroes arise.
Not everyone is selected by Providence
for this radiant heroism.
But everyone can brighten and encourage
his small surroundings as a quiet hero of daily life, save them from exhaustion
numbness, and lead them to a victorious life.
In a folk’s hours of decision and in the
peaceful periods of confirmation, these quiet heroes are no less important than
the great heroic figures. These quiet heroes hold the front together, always
give new strength, again and again bring light and joy. They create calm where
agitation threatens to cause damage and bring motion where a stoppage could mean
danger. Hundreds of thousands of people owe it to the silent working of an
unknown hero that they have preserved their faith and their idealism, that they
have remained decent people or become ones again, that they hold their position
soldierly at the place where Providence has put them.
If among a thousand people one quiet
hero, man or woman, walks and works, then this heroic example will radiate onto
them all, then our whole folk will grow together into a great, eternal front.
Each of us can be this quiet hero, at
whom others looks, to whom they turn, even if no command calls for it.
But there can also come hours in life in
which we face the choice either to be heroes or cowards, either to be men or
traitors.
There are events in which a middle line
between heroism and baseness is no longer possible.
Whoever proves heroic bearing in the
quiet life struggle, will in these fateful hours all by himself grow to great
heroism.
Heroism is the dream
of all youth. Heroes are the shapers of all events.
God is with the heroes.
Reverence
When one divides the word reverence
[“Ehrfurcht”] into its two components [“Ehre’’ = honor & “Furcht’’ = “fear’’]
one still does not by a long shot exhaust its meaning. Reverence is the feeling
of appreciation and admiration toward a very great reality. Especially among the
great masters of German genius, such as Goethe, reverence has always represented
an essential component of their inner bearing.
German man shows reverence toward all
life. This life confronts us in million-fold diversity. We admire this life in
the colorful splendor of flowers and feathers, in the apparent rigidity of
stones, in the living greatness of forests and mountains, and in the endless
motion of the seas we admire this life. And just as amazed do we stand before
the life of all the countless animals that move in and on the ground, in the air
and in the water. In the dying and becoming that constantly repeats itself in
the eternal blossoming and withering, we see with amazed reverence a divine
power that fills and guides all this great and glorious life, this mighty
reality. This reverence forbids us from wantonly destroying this life, to
senselessly break flowers or heartlessly torment animals.
In all the millennia, Nordic man has
known reverence toward the stars in heaven. The sun has become to him a sacred
symbol of life ever renewing itself. For thousands of years, he has sought to
research the great consonances of the star world. In the process, he did not
drift into reality-alien mystical dreaming and he did not lose himself in
commercial astrology, rather he saw in the warmth, brightness and movement of
the stars a mighty reality which showed him traces and paths of the divine.
Today, like in the endless ages of the past, German man stands silent before the
greatness of the stars, moved by reverence.
German man feels reverence for human
life itself. Propagation and birth of new life are for him just as sublime
events as the passing of all life and death. He rejects frivolity and
superficiality just like fear. The innocence of youth, the experience of age,
great joys and deep sorrow are to him expressions of this life, which likewise
reveals to him the greatness and richness of this world. Reverently, he hence
affirms this reality of life. Reverently, German man stands before the
testaments of human life and works from the past. Cultural monuments, works of
art, written documents, ceremonial sites and ancestral sites from distant times
are for him witnesses to a great historical reality for which he has respect,
even if they stem from foreign or hostile worlds.
The greatest reality of this, for the
German, is the divine. He experiences the divinity in the endless diversity of
this world as something great and near, as friend and at the same time as an
inscrutable power. It is considered irreverent to dissect the Almighty
scientifically in words, to imprison it in temples like a cult or to want to
direct its eternal decisions in certain ceremonies. Nordic man knows that all
folks and eras have a different concept of God according to their blood and
level of culture. Hence he will always have the deepest reverence for all
genuine religious expressions, because he knows that every honest religion
bearing is directed at the one divine power.
Reverence is the basic tone that must
dominate man’s every touch with the great realities of this life. Whoever is
always filled with reverence, will find an intimate closeness and at the same
time a fitting distance to all things and all life. Whoever observes life and
its expressions full of reverence, will often first grasp its full richness and
its genuine greatness.
Hence, above all the youth must learn
reverence. It is, after all, so very open and so receptive for all life.
The reverent person simultaneously
spares himself a long moral code and clumsy morality handbooks. Reverence shows
him the clear, right and straightforward position on reality.
Reverence has nothing to do with
mystical terror and cult half-darkness. Reverence springs instead from bright,
fresh and living naturalness, and is one of the basic traits of a German life
bearing that is close to reality and full of light.
Of Joy
Nationalist Socialist German man stands
in life with both feet and is happy with this life. Happy and confident, he
looks to the future. He stands in the present joyfully and is happy that he is
able to enjoy this beautiful life. Today one still cannot measure at all what a
great revolution in shaping life has taken place with the creation of “Strength
through Joy”, with the rediscovery of joy for all people. There was a Marxist
past when it was hammered into the working people with all means that they are
slaves of a ruling class, and that it is their task to one day break these heavy
slave chains. And indeed, often a small group of owners endeavored to exploit
the working folk and make them slaves. It was really a joyless life.
Today every productive person knows he
has an important place to fill in the overall organism of his folk, and that -
at the place he now stands - he bears responsibility toward all folk comrades.
Hence every person is today proud of the task that fate and the folk community
have given him. For him there is nothing more beautiful and greater than to be
allowed to employ all his energy, his whole personality, for his family and his
folk.
An oriental and confessional world has
made work a burden, a punishment for sins, something oppressive, a torment.
German man sees in work something great and beautiful. He would not be happy, if
he could not create and work. He opposes the Jewish curse of work with the
beauty of work.
When we Germans hike through our
glorious homeland and admire the beauty of our forests, fields and seas, and the
greatness of the mountains and seas, then we are proud that the Almighty has
given us such a precious land, then we are joyful, free and happy, and draw life
energy from this joy. And just as our work simultaneously becomes a joyful
affirmation of God’s works of creation, a noble prayer, so does our joyful
hiking through God’s nature simultaneously become the most beautiful religious
service in the great temple that the Lord himself has built. A hundred-fold is
the shape of the joy that German man has rediscovered. Natural and genuine is
this kind of joy. There are people who only know a measured, dignified joy; for
whom there is only a restrained smile. We are joyful and happy that we can again
laugh from a full hear, fresh and unforced. This laughter can sometimes be
haughty, this joy can sometimes be unbridled. It will always be pure, because it
is always natural. It will never be cruel, because it flows from nobility of our
blood.
The sun is our symbol. It radiates pure
and clear and warm. Just as the sun accompanies us, so does joy accompany us on
our march into the future. Bright and sunny is our path. Work and struggle are
also shined upon joy. Being German means being happy. Hence be happy with your
life!
The faith in our idea is so great, the
certainty that we again live according to God’s natural laws, according to the
norms of the order of creation, gives us such security and confidence, the trust
in the Führer gives us much strength that we can look into and walk toward the
future, inwardly and outwardly happy, with honest joy, full of justified
optimism.
Many of us must first again reconquer
this joy, must first again learn to be happy. The coming generation will already
hike in the middle of this happy German world and will hence by itself overcome
many things that still cling to and hamper us as the inhibiting dregs of alien
world-views.
But only then will once also be able to
completely understand that the rediscovery of joy was for German man one of the
greatest deeds of all millennia. Only then will one comprehend that the saying
coined by Dr. Ley, “Strength through Joy”, is one of the most important
principles of National Socialist, German life bearing.
Suffering
Suffering cannot be denied or removed
from this world.
But in the position toward suffering,
much can become different compared to past worlds. The National Socialist
world-view must also prove itself in regard to suffering. A serious illness, the
death of a dear or dearest person, a great psychological distress can suddenly
strike any person.
An oriental, fatalistic world says:
Suffering is predetermined for each person. It cannot be escaped. One can just
devoutly accept suffering as part of fate. One must patiently bear his “cross”.
One must bow beneath one’s “cross”. Quiet, devout, patient person, resigned
sufferer, bowed “cross bearer” - those are the types of this fatalistic bearing.
These people sink into their suffering, they surrender themselves fully to their
suffering, they gradually become totally dominated by their suffering. Suffering
becomes the center point of their life. They are devoted to it. They can no
longer be liberated from suffering. And everywhere they are, they speak of their
suffering, everywhere they go, they spread the dark shadow of their suffering,
they always just complain.
There is another version of this
oriental bearing. According to it, suffering is necessary for people as
atonement for sins. This view is exaggerated so much that suffering seems
downright desirable in order to be able to atone for as many sins as possible.
And if one considers himself so just that one no longer has any sins of his own
for which to atone, then one atones for the sins of others. With downright inner
orgasm one paints for oneself the horrible sins of fellow human beings, and then
imagines atoning for them with suffering. One atones for living and dead, for
friends and enemies, and with special inner satisfaction for the grave sins of
chiefs of state and the responsible men of public life. The suffering and hence
atoning person becomes the ideal of human life. Gaiety and joy are rejected as
frivolity and arrogance. Suffering is considered the sign of selection, as a
special sign of God’s friendship. Joy is considered a temptation, as a bad sign
of the devil’s threatening power.
And still others believe with falsely
understood piety they must by this means become a similar to Christ as possible
and copy him as much as possible, that they must yearn for a life full of
suffering, that they must want to spend their whole life as cross bearer. Among
especially so inclined people, this can go so far that all their thought and
feeling and action stand under the spell of Christ’s’ crucifixion, and such
people then even gets wounds on their body of the kind of Christ’s biblical
wounds.
German man knows that next to light,
darkness, and next to joy, suffering as well are in store for him. But he also
knows that the Lord does not send him pain so that he will become the devoted
slave of his suffering, rather so that man overcomes suffering. The fighting
bearing is a special characteristic of the National Socialist world-view. German
man knows that the Almighty has put forces into nature, not so that man must
passively let himself be tormented by them, rather so that man researches and
overcomes them, expands them and makes them useful. So German man also looks
clear and calm, sure and objective at suffering, and knows that every suffering
is a test of strength for him. Whoever in the struggle simply surrenders to
fate, is lost. Whoever quietly surrenders to suffering, remains under the spell
of suffering. German man always looks toward the future full of confidence, even
if the present is ever so dark and painful for him. In every life question, even
in the deepest suffering, even in the greatest distress, he has an unshakable
faith in the future. Adolf Hitler’s faith in the German folk’s most difficult
days will for all time be a signpost for all Germans.
Many people are hurled back and forth
between frivolous superficiality and painful depression.
The objective look at the difficulty and
hardness of life and the unshakable faith in the future, the always fighting and
simultaneously always confident and optimistic bearing, protect German man
against the power of frivolity and superficiality as well as against depression,
disheartenment and passive surrender to suffering.
Help yourself, then God will help you;
this old saying is correct precisely toward suffering.
One should not yearn for suffering,
rather give in to the joy that fate grants one. Suffering comes at the right
time by itself. But then one should face it strong and certain. There are many
hours in life when any hope seems impossible, any faith senseless, when one
believes so see the sole escape in suicide. And yet, suicide is usually just
cowardice, just desertion. Precisely in these hours of greatest suffering and
greatest distress, the National Socialist must prove himself. Precisely then he
must overcome distress and suffering, even if he must completely rebuild his
life from the beginning. Again and again, days and years will come in life in
which one is happy that one has overcome the suffering, in which the suffering
and past pains seem small and insignificant.
The motto for German man is not “Take
your suffering upon yourself”, rather “Overcome the suffering!”. In the process,
he knows that in life it is not just about him, rather that he is a link in the
organism of the great community of his folk. And when he alone threatens to
become too weak, he is held by the firm bond that ties him to more than eighty
million people. When he alone wants to lamely surrender to the suffering, the
marching step of his folk pulls him up; when he wants to throw away his life, he
is called back to life by the obligation toward his folk.
When the whole folk is filled with this
joyful faith in the future, with this sacred will to overcome any suffering,
then whatever wants to can befall the individual and the whole Reich.
But whoever preaches surrender, preaches
weakness; he is not German, he is our enemy.
Festivals and Celebrations
Human life does not proceed in a
straight line with boring monotony. It is shaped by the constant up and down of
happy times and serious hours. Among natural German man, this God desired rhythm
of life grows out of a multiple festival circles.
German man lives in closest bond with
great nature. He has hence in all times especially celebrated winter solstice
and summer solstice, spring festival and harvest festival. The eternal return of
the sun’s light is celebrated with manifold customs in the holy night of winter
solstice. This day becomes a festival of always renewing life. The symbols of
this life are united on the tree of light, the always green evergreen, and light
radiating energy, brightness and warmth. Spring festival is a festival of youth
and joy, of cheerful work and community. It is spent with fun games and joyous
dance. The summer festival in the middle of radiant, hot summer days admonishes
to contemplation, reminds of the constant up and down of life, but also ties
again, with all contemplativeness, to the faith in the unshakeable force of our
idea. Harvest festival is a festival of joy over the completed harvest and a
festival of thanks to the Almighty for his gifts.
All these nature festival show the deep
inwardness of Nordic man. His close bond to the Creator find expression in the
bond to nature.
A second circle of festivals encompasses
the holidays of the family. The goal of every marriage is the child. When an
offspring comes to the family, this happy event is celebrated. In the circle of
the relatives, it is ceremoniously accepted into the clan, it receives it name
and receives the best wishes for its life path. The father or clan elder is
usually the speaker for the whole clan.
When a young couple has decided to go
through life together, they ceremonially enter into marriage before a
representative of the state. This act as well becomes a celebration for the
whole clan. Relatives, work colleagues, comrades and friends shape this day into
a memorable experience.
When a person has ended this earthly
life, his relatives and friends, coworkers and leaders prepare for him an
honorable departure from this world with a dignified burial. Naturalness and
inner honesty are the main prerequisites for these celebrations. As uniform as
the basic idea will be among Germans so manifold will be the individual
frameworks, according to the circle from which these celebrations are shaped,
Family and clan will always stand at the center. Millennia ago, our ancestors
shaped these celebrations inwardly, dignified and genuine. Our time again
returns to this naturalness.
The national holidays and our folk’s
days of remembrance belong to the third circle of festivals.
Very great historical days of
remembrance, Memorial Day for the Dead, the celebration of a great victory, the
Führer’s birthday, days when parades are held for the political, military and
cultural soldiers of the folk, great market days and similar events became
celebrations for the whole folk. All available means are employed in order to
forge the whole folk community into an inner union and to have it resound in a
uniform idea, a uniform experience. It is a beautiful and great task to be
allowed to help shape these days.
This triple circle of festivals is for
everyone the annual cycle of festivals that corresponds to life’s natural laws;
it enlivens the daily routine, enthuses, and becomes a self-evident life rhythm.
In this rhythm of festivals, people,
families and clans harmonize into the great folk community.
Confessional powers have sought to
replace these natural festivals with their confessional holidays. In the
process, the folk community is torn and split.
Over three hundred churches and sects
try to present precisely their holidays as the holiest festivals. The
Adventists, Baptists, Mormons and Methodists, the followers of the Mazdaznan
movement or the Weissenberg sect, the Catholics and Protestants all celebrate
their festivals in their own manner. Whoever is not Catholic may not be buried
in a Catholic and whoever is not Protestant may be not buried in a Protestant
cemetery. The Catholic folk must conclude his marriage according to Latin
formulas in Latin and the Protestant according to Hebrew songs translated into
German. The confessions have sought to totally push out the folk’s great days of
remembrance and the natural festivals of the year. They have adopted the most
valuable elements from the customs of these festivals, and used them to decorate
Old Testament festivals like Easter or Pentecost and have then constructed a
festival year thrown together from the most diverse worlds, above all from Asia
Minor, Greece, Rome, North Africa, Gaul and Germania.
Just as the great building of the Third
Reich rise to heaven clear and testify that a folk has again found its way back
to the simple greatness of the natural, so do the festivals of the three natural
festival circles also again differentiate themselves from the artificial
festival constructions of the recent past and proclaim that the German folk
again wants to live according to God’s natural laws.
These festival days should be days of
honest, great, inner and outer celebration. They should bestow strength and
unity, should make inwardly rich. They should indicate the great lines of life,
the mighty goals of the folks, the meaning of nature and of history. People,
residences, streets and squares wear a festive dress on these days. The great
works of art fill the expanse of the folk soul. Ideas that encompass millennia
are brought to man’s consciousness, the festivals themselves should become a
sacred religious service.
Whoever wants a measuring stick for his
inner worth and his spiritual wealth, should consider how he celebrates
festivals.
Solitude
For centuries, Germans were often
inwardly cut off from each other. The borders of class, confession and party
separated them from each other.
Only the National Socialist revolution
has again brought a genuine folk community.
At work, at festivals and celebrations,
at recreation and sports, at school and enjoyment of art, the community idea,
the community experience, stands in the foreground.
From time to time, however, a person
also needs quiet hours, in order - all alone, somewhere in solitude - to let
thoughts travel, to shape works, to shape his own inside.
The Catholic Church has made a brilliant
soul training out of these quiet hours in its devotions.
For German man, here, as everywhere, the
supreme principle of formation is naturalness.
There are certain days that are
especially suited for these quiet hours: the birthday as the beginning of a new
year of life, days when one had an experience that especially moved one
inwardly, days of a great success or of a severe outward or inward defeat.
The places where one can devote oneself
to this creative solitude are manifold: one’s own home, a quiet work room, a
quiet field path, a forest, a mountain height, the sea shore, an art or cultural
monument away from much traffic, an ancestral site.
In these hours of solitude, one gives an
accounting to oneself, his folk and his Lord for the previous year, for a
completed work or task. One reflects what one has done well and has done poorly,
where one failed and where one was successful. One researches the cause of the
success or failure, why one receives praise or scolding, what were the sources
of mistakes and errors.
This search of conscience must be
inward, honest and natural, without makeup and fixing up, free of rigidity.
Clear and objective, one tells oneself what was right and resolves to continue
to do so. Sober, one admits to oneself what was wrong and unjust, and promises
oneself to do better next time.
Brief and clear is the line of
separation that one draws under the past. There is no long complaining and
brooding, nor fruitless pains of conscience, not useless inner martyrdom and
waste of energy. There is only one thing: The resolution to improve oneself, and
the new, better work, the more noble deed, the greater performance.
German man is directed forward, active,
life affirming here as well.
In the hours of solitude, one reviews
one’s relationship with fellow human beings. Has one given enough love, joy and
trust to one’s family? Was one always comradely, honest and kind toward one’s
superiors and subordinates? Did one leave nobody aside or behind, unjustly
favored or disfavored, annoyed, insulted, slighted his honor? Was one selfish,
brutal, cruel, quarrelsome, jealous, flattering, false?
Perhaps one can make everything well
again with a word, a small deed? Perhaps, however, more effort, serious,
conscientious work is necessary to again smooth out a past injustice.
If one has to shape a great work, carry
out an important assignment, one faces a grave decision, then one will likewise
have to collect oneself for it for a short time in solitude. The energies that
one has gathered in the community, at festivals and celebrations, often take
creative shape in solitude, suddenly become fertile in quiet hours, in order to
then again serve the community, According to the words of Alfred Rosenberg,
community and solitude supplement each other like breathing and breathing out,
and together mean fruitful life. This life, however, enriches the individual
just as it does the whole folk.
There are people who never feel
comfortable in solitude, who always have to have motion around them.
These people become inwardly empty and
superficial. Whoever wants to be up to great tasks, whoever wants to succeed in
daily life, whoever wants to live his life as a deep German, seeks quiet hours
of solitude from time to time. They bring him close to the divine and put him in
the middle of life again with new energy, clear sight and greater faith.
Body Hygiene
It is reported of church saints that
they martyred and deformed their body, that they let it decay, in order to
deaden the body’s natural drives and already on earth become as heavenly as
possible.
Saint Benedict hurled himself naked into
bushes of thorns and stinging nettles and then rolled around in it, because a
lovely female being appeared to him as a temptation. Saint Simon the Stylite for
years always stood on one leg on a tall pole. Saint Rita did not wash at all for
many years until her underwear rotted, worms grew on her head and her whole body
was eaten by dirt and wounds. The holy recluses had themselves walled in so that
the only had a small opening to receive food and to teach the amazed faithful,
and preached about the vanity of earthly life for so long until they gradually
perished in their own waste. Saint Ignatius - who, like many saints, martyred
himself with penance belts and whips - sets down in his work “The Spiritual
Exercises” that the human body is nothing but a festering wound, a boil that
breathes pure poison. One could for hours relate from the church’s pious books
the most repulsive self-mutilations, senseless forms of martyrdom and martyrdom
tools for deadening the body, the most unnatural castigations and penance
exercises. The purpose of this so-called piety is expressed in the
characteristic term deadening. For these people, the body is a constant stimulus
to sin, the devil’s welcome tool to rob the soul’s innocence. According to this
view, the body must hence be held down and deadened.
In order to counter the so-called
dangers of the body, it is prescribed that the body must be hidden as much as
possible. The face may indeed be shown openly. According to church biographies,
the Catholic Patron Saint of Youth, Aloysius, did not even dare to look his own
mother in the face in order not to come into unchaste temptation. According to
the clothing regulations of the Fulda Bishop’s Conference, of the rest of the
body, only the neck, the arms beneath the elbows and the legs beneath the knees
may be shown free and uncovered. Bathing (with swimsuit), according to church
decrees, is only allowed separated by gender. The visit to family baths is
considered a voluntary search for serious moral dangers and hence a grave sin.
In many Catholic girls hostels, even individual bathing in the shower of a
closed off bathroom is only allowed with a long shirt reaching down to the
ankles. The monks and nuns, who strive for perfection in a quite special manner,
keep their bodies completely covered, wrapped in thick cloths up to neck and
face and down to the ankles, in order to present their fellow human beings no
stimulus for unchastity.
Although - in accordance to this
confessional view - the body is “conquered” through deadening and covering, the
oriental position toward the body is shown in another manner, through systematic
dematerialization of the body. Through intensive training the fakir manages to
make his body no longer feel, he no longer feels pain and he can subject his
body to the most unbelievable martyrdom without feeling the slightest thing in
the process. The followers of oriental, occult sects seek - through rhythmic
dancing and unique rhythmic gymnastics - to animate, dematerialize and
spiritualize their bodies so much that it becomes supernatural and genderless.
Oriental, middle-eastern hostility to the body tries here - by detour of many
sect schools of gymnastics and dance - to sneak into the Nordic world. Pale,
aesthetic, over-intellectualized, boneless, genderless or bisexual types are the
product of this bearing alien to us. Precisely the youth is threatened by this
poison. Externally, this world is often difficult to spot at first look. It
sometimes appears in artistic garb or in festive dress. But if one goes to the
depth, then the differences to natural body hygiene are unmistakable.
The middle-eastern attitude is hostile
to the body. Everywhere, where the body is supposed to be deadened or
dematerialized by apparent physical exercise and a so-called earthly burden is
supposed to be cast off, where the body is deprived of its natural nature and
task, where it is supposed to become unreal and spiritual, the laws of the order
of creation are broken and combated, Nordic bearing is destroyed and denied. Not
deadening and dematerialization of the body, rather development of the body and
its abilities is the demand of German man. He gives his body much air and sun,
movement and freedom and refreshing water. He protects his body against poisons
of every kind, against unnatural constriction, cramping and violation.
Naturalness is the guideline for his body hygiene and clothing. From this
naturalness results the measure for the beauty and skill, energy and health of a
person. Hence body hygiene must not be made genderless. It must rather develop
the uniqueness of the genders. Body hygiene, clothing, game and dance must hence
also never become base, senseless, immoral or inferior.
In his body hygiene, Nordic man can do
without measuring morality with an inch ruler to classifying individual
exercises according to the templates of rubrics. His laws are great and
straightforward, unforced and natural. Natural feeling, healthy beat and
properly formed moral consciousness tell him what is appropriate, what is
allowed, and what does not belong.
The education of a beautiful, healthy,
talented and strong breed is the goal of body hygiene. The education of a good
and noble breed is better achieved by that than through long morality sermons
and pushy advice.
About Enjoying
Seldom goes a word simultaneously
include so much valuable and so much harmful as the word enjoyment. Genuine
enjoyment corresponding to the life laws can enrich, strengthen and perfect the
body, intellect and soul of a person. Senseless enjoyment debases, weakens and
destroys the whole person.
There are pleasure substances that right
from the start contain dangers and biological damage. The youthful human
organism - which is still blossoming and developing - must be protected from
these dangers.
But even things that are themselves
valuable can lead to senseless pleasure and ruination. As a basic rule: any
pleasure that aims at deadening or intoxicating body, mind and soul and to
escape reality, contradicts the Nordic bearing rooted in life.
Primitive people used alcohol, opium or
other narcotics in order to be able to forget this life for a while and to hover
in unreal regions.
Base characters seek a temporary numbing
of their senses and their soul through excessive eroticism and the unnatural
abuse of sexual desire.
Still other people reach to religious
means of numbing in order to leave the earthly world behind them for a few
hours. The cult buildings of many religious communities, the mystic
half-darkness, incense scent, cult ceremonies and cult music are much used to
promote religious bliss and ecstasy and to temporarily hold people under their
spell.
In many cults, even sexual excesses are
and were - along with other means of numbing - tied with religious pleasures and
put in the service of human domination.
Nordic man stands in the middle of life.
His world-view proceeds from life, remains in reality and stays away from
illusions.
He must instinctively reject any
pleasure tat distances him from life, which even temporarily makes him
incompetent in reality and threatens to permanently make his inner bearing
powerless toward life. He must fundamentally combat any pleasure that leads him
to illusions.
The life of Nordic man does not thereby
become desolate and joyless. Rather it puts him in the position to fully enjoy
real life. Genuine joy corresponding to the natural life order really leads back
to reality and not away from it.
Wine, for example, is a gift of the
Creator. Reasonable, sensible enjoyment of wine, moderate drinking and breathing
in the powers of wine, teaches the noble enjoyment of this gift of God,
encourages joy and industrious work, promotes the community and ennobles heart
and mind.
That is the goal of every pleasure: The
energies that a divinity has given people should be promoted, ennobled,
perfected, strengthened and heightened by any pleasure. For pleasure of any kind
should stimulate the person to work and joy in performance, to the experience of
the natural community, to happy spirit and genuine affirmation of life. Reality
should not be darkened by pleasure, rather put into clear light. A person should
enjoy all the bodily, material and cultural gifts and goods of this world in
order to thereby better fulfill his creative purpose and his life goal, and to
be able to stand more firmly in life.
This life rule is simple and clear, like
every German character bearing. No morality casuistic is necessary in order to
be able to find the right place here. The natural laws of life clearly and
self-evidently show this great, simple and noble Nordic life order.
Human Leadership
The difference between Nordic bearing
and Mideastern essence is seldom shown more clearly than in the manner of human
leadership.
The Mideastern nature, which also finds
expression in manifold priesthoods, is that the superior is the pasha, the
despot, the tyrant of his subordinates. He puts himself outside any community,
surrounded with lavish, senseless pomp, makes himself free of all laws and
obligations, and plays himself up as a small god or at least as God’s deputy.
But he seeks to forge as many chains as possible for his subordinates, to make
them little and inferior, to push them down and always hold them down. He stomps
manly honor, female dignity and youthful joy into the dirt cold and heartless.
He walks over corpses brutally, if he can thereby serve his egoism. He
solidifies his rule through fear of hell, fear of demons and other terrors.
For him, leading men and keeping slaves
is the same thing.
German man, instead of the words despot
and slave, knows the concepts of leader and following. It belongs to the nature
of the German leader type that the person leading as much as possible also leads
the following upward, makes them as great as possible, seeks to educate them to
be proud, honor conscious, free German people. People who were once with the
Führer Adolf Hitler stress again and again that his presence never made one feel
crushed or little like among many superiors from alien times, rather one became
uplifted, great and free.
The Nordic leader always feels himself
to be the first member of the community. He draws his productive strength from
the community. He feels himself foremost obligated to the laws of the community.
When he marches at the point of his following, then this means that he must also
go ahead of the others to work, to daily life, to combat and, if necessary, to
death as well. The Reichsführer SS Himmler has in many addresses again and again
stressed that one of the first prerequisites for the SS officer is the personal
kind heart. This is true for German human leadership overall. The leader must
project to his following a personal kind heart that never gets cold or
paralyzed, is always fresh and sunny. In objective decisions hard and
straightforward, in personal contact happy and kind, that is our leader ideal.
The leader must acquire a deep understanding for all the distresses, suffering
and contacts of his following, a fine tactfulness for all weaknesses and
delicate things, and honest empathy for all the joys. Only a few are born
leaders. Most are officer cadets and must first learn, fight for and work for
leadership, and experience it deeply and joyfully. The leader from whose eyes a
personal kind heart shines and from whose nature it radiates can demand from his
following sacrifice, work and performance. He no longer needs to use major
pressure. Based on his inner bearing, he introduces his following with hearty
comradeship to the purpose of their work, of their sacrifice, of their struggle.
He treats them like full-valued comrades, not like servants, not like machines,
but also not condescendingly or with pity. Not pushy, not like a school master,
not like a professor, not like a pastor - he gives to his subordinates, who are
for him coworkers, winks, tips, explanations, encouragements, clarifications in
speech and conversation that is not forced. He shows them the work, helps to
shape the work himself, is the first foreman. Foreman is the name of the
department head in many areas. That is the German meaning: He is the man who
stands at the front in leadership, work and performance.
The leader does not exploit his
following, he does not pump them empty, he does not weight on them like a
nightmare. He gives his people energy and strength, shows them in their work and
in their life ever new possibilities, new opportunities, visions. He enriches
his following inwardly with ideas, new joys, energies and sources of strength.
The leader is not a guard. He does not
lurk for offenses. He is not happy when he catches a coworker at a mistake or
ineptitude. He is not dissatisfied if he cannot find fault. Serious and kind,
comradely and straightforward, he discusses everything that is not in order, he
praises what has been made good.
Individuals may exploit this personal
kind heart. The totality is forged together by this bearing.
Whoever has acquired this kind of
leadership, does not have to intensively study long recipes and rules of
behavior, he never has to fear for his reputation, he will always do the right
thing. Whoever still discovers within himself traces of egoistical, heartless
tyranny or slavish servitude, knows that he is not yet free of alien oriental
bearing. But whoever makes this foreign nature his own, becomes a traitor
against German essence.
For Nordic man it is the most beautiful
goal to be the leader, to be allowed to march at the point of a sworn community,
n the great organism of the folk, for a high idea.
Whoever is such a genuine leader, has
taken on responsibility for his following before God and represents them before
God in the community’s festive hours as well. In these festive hours, the whole
community then grows together anew and at the same time grows into the infinite
connections of God’s great order of creation.
Fanaticism and Objectivity
Two characteristics must distinguish the
bearing of German man above all in personal and public life: fanaticism and
objectivity. They must dominate all actions of daily life, they must above all
glow through great hours and difficult decisions.
German man loves his folk, because God
has put him in this folk, because his blood is inseparably bound to this folk.
His homeland and his folk form a component of his essence. German man’s honor,
love and remorse are for his folk. With God for Germany! is the slogan of every
German at quiet daily work and in fateful, great times.
There is no tepidity, no mediocrity, no
halfway, no hesitation and no question, no hedging and no doubt. There is just
one glowing, always enthusiastic fanaticism. German hearts blaze like torches in
devotion to their folk. Whoever is once seized by this fire, radiates with
indestructible energy, may he stand at a lonely post, perform simple daily work
or march in the foremost line of the soldierly, political or world-view
struggle. But when a storm rages through the land, all these millions of torches
untie into a huge sea of flames that lights up the dark night, devours all
rubbish and destroys everything that opposes it.
The Führer’s personality, however,
shines before all as a great example. The folk is given invincible strength by
the consciousness that such a God blessed leader marches at its point.
There are hours and days when one can
become weary and slack. There are times when one could be relaxed and
indifferent. Then one thought of Führer and folk, a glance at the flag and the
great symbols of the Reich, must suffice to shake us awake and ignite the
glowing ambers to flame.
If one threatens to become weary from
endless little adversities, if foreign world- view poison secretly seeks to
spread, if one is in danger of cowardly wanting to ignore the distress or
suffering of the folk comrades then fanaticism must break out again and again
and lead hack to life again and again.
Fanaticism alone, however, can take
wrong paths. Enthusiasm can smolder uselessly. Hence fanaticism must always be
accompanied by objectivity. Germany is considered the land of poets and thinkers
In German man, the deep view for reality combines with the élan of enthusiasm.
Fanaticism alone can make one-sided, can
lead to injustice, senselessness and blindness. But whoever combines sober
objectivity with fanaticism, will strike the opponent the deepest and hardest.
The pure fanatic is often not taken seriously. But whoever is objective and
fanatical at the same time, will overcome any resistance that opposes him in
good times and bad. This is true for the positive construction of the natural
German world for which we fight and this is equally true for the defense against
all opponents. If we build and defend, in big things and in little things,
fanatically and objectively at the same time, then this world will successfully
withstand all enemies.
Eternal Front
Through external power, through sly
calculation, clever reason, talented propaganda and skillful organization,
temporary victories won.
However, the forces that in the life of
people and folks lead to ongoing verification and eternal existence lie in the
character bearing, in the blood determined final psychological substance.
Health, cleverness and reason,
organizational talent and many other gifts of nature are prerequisites for man’s
successful work. The decisive battles of the world, however, are fought by great
characters. Without deep character, psychological foundation, every work is just
a temporary illusion, any success just a fleeting flash in the pan.
A folk that wants to succeed in the
struggle of political powers and world-view forces must hence blend together
into one great front of inner, character bearing. No artificial missionary work
with complicated moral doctrines and constructed dogmas is required for that.
Character values flow from the racial, blood-related condition of the individual
folks.
It just needs to make real in daily life
this great, eternal front of divine life laws, which the Creator has put into
the folks, to nurture it, to always clean it of rubbish, to protect it against
alien seeds of decay.
For Nordic man, the purpose of life lies
in this life itself. The divinity, however, rules for him in the middle of this
world. Each individual person is a member of the natural communities. He hence
owes obedience to the laws of the community. Every person is responsible for his
actions and bearing. Honor is guideline for him in this. Whoever takes a guilt
upon himself, he has the obligation for atonement. The character bearing of
German man finds its best expression in the soldier spirit. The character of
German woman is reflected in her charm. Decisive times often demand
unprecedented heroism from men and women.
Nordic man faces all great realities of
this life full of reverence. He finds a natural, self-evident bearing toward
suffering and joy.
Festivals and celebrations in the circle
of the community and quiet, creative activity in solitude mutually supplement
his life rhythm.
Body hygiene and enjoyment of Creation’s
gift are affirmed by German man as means toward the positive unfolding of life.
German human leadership as well is
shaped, clearly and simply, by these laws without long moral regulations.
Fanaticism and objectivity together lead
the individual person and the whole folk to the great successes of life and
history.
Each individual German has the sacred
obligation to join this great, eternal front of the character bearing of the
German folk.
Anybody who fails to defeat his
political opponents and foreign worlds, should first ask himself whether he is
up to his opponents in terms of character.
By anybody who needs energy and strength
in the present change of eras, should reflect that the great, eternal front -
which is the bulwark of the German folk - represents the world of its
psychological and character values.
This
eternal front is great, straightforward and clear, turned toward the world and
life affirming, following the divine order of creation, cheerful and sunny, but
at the same time hard and invincible. It stood millennia ago, today is has
awakened anew, and it will stand in millennia.
