Master Life

by Albert Hartl

 

Publisher’s Foreword

 

Master Life is translated from the Third Reich original Zwinge das Leben. It was published in 1942 by Nordland Verlag, the publisher of many significant SS works. The author, SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Hartl, wrote under the pseudonym Anton Holzner. Master Life was his fourth and last known book.

 

The Publisher, August 2007

 

Original Introduction

 

The life that the divine has given us has not come to us as a coincidental fate. We are happy that we ourselves can shape our lives days and years into our life work.

 

In war and in peace, this life formation faces a person as an equally obligating demand. Often all strength and final personal devotion are needed in order to be able to master life in every situation, in order to strengthen the inner front. The following thoughts were published in the war special service of the “National Socialist Party Correspondence”, the “Inner Front” (WSK) as Sunday articles under the title “Front of the Hearts”, in years 1940/41. They were printed in numerous newspapers of the Greater German Reich. The thoughts in the short work “Eternal Front” (Nordland Publishing House, Berlin) are continued in this short work, “Master Life”.

 

A.H.

 

Obligation

 

It has been contemplated again and again as to what represents the final obligation for a person to moral action, to decent life conduct and honorable behavior in all life situations.

 

Experience teaches that in the most difficult decisions, in the face of death, people and folks are guided by diverse motives. Fear of punishment and hope for reward in this or in the next world, strict obedience to a duty recognized as necessary, enthusiasm for an idea, love for family, folk and homeland appear again and again as the final motives for the behavior of people.

 

In hours of decision, it is of the foremost importance that a person proves himself.

 

The motives that have led to this self-confirmation recede into the background. But in the education and character schooling of a person, in the inner building of a folk, in the formation of a world, the greatest value must be put on filling people with those moral driving forces that withstand all the hardest tests of strength, that hold up in the face of death and in the greatest distress, as well as in times of prosperity and good fortune.

 

It must be noted that the motives that have the greatest impact on one folk can remain ineffective in a folk with a different nature.

 

Nordic man has initially, from his blood-related feeling, a natural feeling of honor that tells him what he should do and not do, what is honorable and decent or dishonorable and base. This feeling of honor is his guiding principle and the driving force for his action and his bearing.

 

He knows that he is equipped with forces that wait for a higher, divine order of development, that he is surrounded by a nature that will become serviceable to his work, if he obeys the laws of life. In this glorious task to be allowed to bring divine forces to development and to be able to carry on and complete the divine work of creation, Nordic man sees a driving force that makes life worth living and lets moral action become self-evident.

 

Nordic man is never alone. He never feels himself a loner. He knows that, through the close bond of blood and homeland, he is bedded into the great community of the folk. The well-being of the whole folk stands as a great, sacred ideal above the well-being of the individual. What serves the folk, is good and right. The well- being and the happiness, the life and blossoming of the folk is a driving force for moral action, which can bestow the ardor for the most daring deeds and total effort. For clan, folk and homeland Nordic people have in all ages, if necessary, taken the most difficult paths, have looked death in the eye, overcome the most bitter enemies, sacrificed property and life and preformed inconceivably heroic deeds. When the well-being of the folk is at stake, Nordic man knows no hesitation and wavering, no haggling and calculating, then he only knows effort with all his strength.

 

Nordic man believes in eternal life. In his children and grandchildren, in his deeds and works he lives on. Beyond that, he believes in living on the eternal forces of divine life in whatever form. This faith in eternal life also represents for him support and strength, signpost and guiding principle for moral behavior. This faith in eternal life also is for him an effective motive for moral obligation.

 

Nordic man, in his whole life, is most deeply filled with a religious reverence for the divine forces of life. He knows that this whole life of the world is not meaningless, rather obeys the sacred laws of the divinity. But he is not driven by the fear of punishment. For him, the consciousness that is great, beautiful and good to fulfill the laws of the divinity, and that it is low and base to oppose eternal laws of life, suffices as the driving force for his action.

 

So Nordic man possesses a great wealth of driving forces for his honorable and good moral conduct. The laws of his moral obligation are not cold and empty. These forces of his final moral obligation flow from inexhaustible depths and from rich, beautiful and natural wellsprings. Sometimes one motive, then another motive stands in the foreground. But together all these driving forces are an invincible guarantee for the victorious life of the individual and of the community.

 

Motion

 

There are people, folks and worlds for which their external and internal stiffness means imminent end. They no longer have any strength for new development and fresh life.

 

But there are also people, folks and worlds that are filled with an inner life energy, to whom, however, the motionless immersion into a divine power, the inner lack of touch with the motion of life, the peaceful rest in God appears the goal of all earthly existence.

 

For German man, life is the same as motion. If German man is threatened with standing still, then this is a sign that something is out of order with his organism. The whole history of the German folk is filled with constant motion, constant struggle, constant seeking and wrestling.

 

In the period of greatest distress after 1918, a great folk movement again awakened sick Germany to new energy and finally showed it the meaning of tis existence. Since then, it has been a special honor for each German to belong to the “movement”. But it is also part of the character bearing of Nordic man to be a person of motion inwardly.

 

To be a person of motion means to always be open for the course of life and the laws of development of this world. One of the most wonderful experiences of life is that all existence constantly develops in accordance to the creator’s eternal plan, manifests itself ever anew, always strides onward and changes again and again. Certain people and world-views have derived from one of the stages of development of the world form norms and have applied this scheme to cultural life, religious life, the political or economic conditions of all times. Nordic man knows there are indeed certain laws of inner bearing; his blood-related feelings gives him the key-note of his life formation. But he also knows that there can exist no eternally unchangeable scheme, no inalterable, rigid dogma for the individual formation of personal and folkish life.

 

Each era of historical development has its own causality, just as each season of the year and each age level in the life of nature has its own life norms. The voice of the time is the voice of God. It is not spiritual anarchy and not moral licentiousness, if one rejects rigid dogma and schematization of life. It instead means the most sacred obligation toward God’s laws, if one always obeys the always advancing laws of life, the call of awakening and the development of this life, only whoever hears this voice of the time and follows it, only whoever takes it upon himself to break with all rigid bonds and traditional schematic laws, if the call of the future demands it, can view himself as a person of motion.

 

To be a person of motion means not to be able to rest as long as the whole folk has not been filled with the same inner motion. People of motion are like torches who radiate the light of their world-view and their faith into the whole land and who happily consume themselves in the process. People of motion find no rest and no peace, if they still find ambiguity, uncertainty, error and misunderstanding somewhere among their folk comrades. They are, on all the paths of their life, preachers of their faith through their character bearing, their appearance, their words and their deeds. People of motion enthuse just by their mere existence, they draw along through their example, give strength and ardor by the idealism of their bearing.

 

A person of motion feels in his deepest interior contradiction and revolution, if cowardice, baseness, meanness, dishonesty, falsehood, dishonor or injustice threatens to drag his character in the mud.

 

A person of motion becomes restless at the bottom of his heart, if he sees somewhere distress, misery, poverty, wretchedness and helplessness. He sees in the poorest person his comrade of the same folk community. It is self-evident to him that he pitches in wherever distress requires immediate relief. It is self-evident to him that he puts himself at disposal, in word and deed, wherever there is distress and misery to sooth. He does not feel completely well, his own happiness is not complete, if he knows that, next to well-being, other folk comrades suffer undeservedly, that next to his happiness other people, who are no worse than he, wrestle with desperation. Every suffering child of man, every gaze into the poverty quarter must have an effect of shaking up and stirring up people of motion.

 

People of motion find stimulus and impetus for their action and their bearing everywhere in life. They are most deeply pleased by everything beautiful, themselves elevated by everything noble, enthused by everything great. The richness of life, which remains hidden to rigid or flat people, fertilizes people of motion to the highest development of strength, best performance and noblest bearing. People of motion hate doing nothing, laziness and constant comfort. For them, all rest and recreation only serve new gathering of strength. They are not happy, if they cannot constantly work, create, strive and research. They never exhaust themselves in negative criticism, in negation and destruction. They want to and must always build positively, shape new life, have a creating effect. They stand in life and they want to work for life’s forward development. The motion of sports, the rhythm of dance, the thing in human formative energy that is free of rigidity, belong to the life expression of people of motion.

 

The goal of all education, personal character schooling and human leadership must be to preserve this spirit of motion in people or to again regain it. For motion means, for German man, life, but rigidity leads to death.

 

Life Affirmation

 

There are people who see only the dark side and the bad in life. There are folks and religions for whom life only exists in order to be denied and forgotten, despised and overcome in order to be able to be absorbed as completely as possible into the great void. There are people who just wait their whole life for death and eternity and who believe to thereby especially please God.

 

German man knows that God has first places him into this life so that he masters the tasks of this life. He views life as a gift of the divinity, puts himself fully into this life and affirms life.

 

Glorious is the nature that God has designated mankind’s guarantor. In infinite manifoldness, nature offers man in its richness a symbol of the divine. Wretched people see in this work of God always just the thistles and thorns, the heat and cold, the shadows and fog, the darkness and the filth. When they walk through creation, they only register what they don’t like, what is not comfortable for them, what seems useless and impractical to them. They always just feel called on for criticism and correction of the divine forces. German man admires in each landscape its uniqueness and its special beauty. He knows that a heath landscape cannot be gigantic and high mountains cannot be darling. He immerses himself in the character of every manifestation of nature and sees everywhere, amazed and happy, inwardly moved and open, an expression of divine richness. For himself, however, German man inhales in nature the most valuable energies for body and soul.

 

German man says yes to the tasks that life has put to him. He stands completely at the post that has once been assigned to him. He masters the tasks that precisely he has to master. There are people who dream for half their life about what they will one day do; and the other half of their life they dream about what they would have done under other circumstances. So their life then passes without them having come to the ground of reality. One can be filled with ideas, plans and great tasks without dreaming away life in the process. One can perform something great at any post of human life. One just has to affirm work and struggle as two glorious and great tests that the Lord God has given man as a very special distinction.

 

German man finds a positive bearing toward everything that fate sends him on his life path. Many people always walk around with a painful demeanor of toleration, with a tormented expression of suffering, an openly displayed bitterness, although things aren’t really going so bad for them at all. They are those negative people who simply want to see bad and suffering everywhere and who intentionally close their eyes to everything positive in human life. Nordic man openly and happily accepts all gifts of fate. But he just as decisively and firmly also says yes to all the disagreeable things and every misfortune. He does not surrender to blows of fate, illnesses and suffering, rather he masters them in certain and determined overcoming. If he himself is not abundantly blessed with good fortune, he still summons the strength to be honestly pleased by the happiness of other folk comrades and, above all, by the well-being of the folk community. When his youth is long gone, the sight of strange youth does not make him angry and bitter, rather happy and sunny, and gives him new energy and freshness. If his own life has become empty of love, the experience and the sight of loving people can still radiate happiness and warmth for him. Always and everywhere, German man finds even in the darkest hours rays of light, even in the most difficult times sunny sides, even in the most bitter suffering sources of strength, and even in the gravest distress the prospect for inner richness.

 

People always thinking and feeling negatively weaken their own strength and the strength of their folk. In times of crisis, the erosive influence of these negative people can lead to a catastrophe.

 

But when an entire folk has unified itself in a positive attitude toward life, in determined life affirmation, then this commonly directed, positive field of energy bestows onto the folk an invincible, victorious eternity, and the individual human being participates in this eternity.

 

Inner Freedom

 

In every age, Germans have fought in a very special way for the preservation or conquest of their freedom, they were especially filled with the yearning for freedom or with the happiness of freedom.

 

Outward freedom from the chains of slavery can only be earned through inner freedom from whatever servitude. But despite all advantages of Nordic blood, this inner freedom must be won anew every day.

Whoever stands so firm and clear in life than he can fulfill his work sure and straight, undistracted by the vicissitudes of existence and unhampered by the weaknesses and moods of people, that person is inwardly free.

 

There are people who - at their work and in their decisions, in their thinking and feeling – bear like a heavy burden the bond to whatever external, magical force. They trust in the power of an amulet or secretive means of magic, in the mysticism of whatever numbers or words, in the effect of foreign ceremonies or formulas or in the supernatural influence of the stars. These bonds often take such solid forms that such people many times become slaves of this their delusion. Their freedom of will becomes limited, their decisiveness weakened. They become dependent and helpless and become totally dependent on their magic.

 

German man believes in a higher, divine energy. But he keeps himself free of any magic. He knows that God is with him, if he himself creates and struggles.

 

There are other people who stand all too much under the spell of the vicissitudes of life. Illnesses and cases of deaths, storms and natural catastrophes, personal misfortune or the misfortune of the folk, coincidences or blows of fate of any kind can totally confuse these people, make them lose their composure, beat them down and shake them up. The natural, inwardly free person knows that, according to the causality of life, there is not just youth, rather also age, not just blossoming, rather also dying, that sunshine alternates with rain, mildness with storm, health with sickness, peace with war, good fortune with misfortune. He hence looks toward the death of a person, for example, just as free as toward any other event of nature. But he is not blindly devoted to fate in oriental fatalism. He knows that he must fight against every adversity, must stride through every misfortune and overcome all injustice. His sacred faith tells him that, for every creative and fighting person, after every darkness the sun shines again and again, and that death is a gateway to eternity. German man preserves his inner freedom, however, even in unexpected happiness and unanticipated prosperity. Many battle-proven people lose their inner freedom, if things suddenly go well for them, if they unexpected receive honors and prestige. Precisely in good fortune as well, German man maintains the long view of freedom. He does not become arrogant in good fortune and unruly, and overpowered by misfortune. And nonetheless, German man is always open for all depths of suffering and all heights of joy. Superficiality and blasé are alien to him despite all inner free-dom.

 

Many people are in their action and in their bearing all too dependent on their fellow human beings. The dispositions and moods, the talk and opinions of people who wander through life next to or beneath them, but especially above them, dominate their existence. They are no longer capable of any independent thoughts and deeds. They have become slaves of their environment. Precisely here, especially, it may often be the most difficult to obtain toward friends and foes. But whoever does not grant this freedom, is just as little German as the one who does not strive for inner freedom. Only on the ground of this freedom can great works grow and coming generations mature.

 

Political Freedom

 

Every person must regain inner freedom every day anew. Whoever possesses inner freedom, possesses a mighty human greatness. The inner freedom of the individual is the prerequisite for the political freedom of the folk.

 

A folk that does not have any inner strength for freedom of the individual human being also cannot claim any political freedom. For such a folk, political freedom would mean arbitrariness, lack of restraint, anarchy of character and of economics, cultural decline and total internal collapse. Such a folk can only achieve its own prosperity and contribute to the prosperity of mankind under an energetic foreign rule. This condition may be a tragic fate for a folk. But it would be insanity to want to deny this fate. The history of all millennia shows instructive examples from which each person and each folk must learn. A folk to whom fate has given a leadership obligation over another, independent folk, can forfeit this right, if the individual members of this folk stray to brutality, personal exploitation, baseness of character, moral decay and hence political inability. Every German knows the mighty obligating task that history has given him, and indeed each individual personally. Every German is proud of this obligation and takes it upon himself with a sacred, serious feeling of responsibility. But he also bears within himself the happy consciousness and the unshakeable will that he will master this task, come what may.

 

A great, politically independent folk, with a calling to freedom, feels it an unbearable yoke, if it is tyrannically raped, horribly subjugated and drawn into unnatural rule by force by petty and narrow political leaders. The German folk knows well enough from its history such absolutist arbitrariness and such incapable rule. Great German fighters and singers have again and again fought with passion and hatred against such tyranny. Base rule by force always stands in crass contradiction to the well-being of the folk.

 

But if a great leader arises, who with iron energy, and, if necessary, an iron fist, leads the folk back to its own life laws, puts the stamp of his own energy and greatness on the folk with every power, again opening to the folk the wellsprings of its happiness and well-being, then this mighty leadership has nothing to do with tyranny. It is a leadership to freedom, even if the path may often be painful for the individual. Only petty selfish people, petrified music students and dumb contradiction fanatics can feel a strong leadership to a great goal as rape and rule by rule. Natural people voluntarily join the great, closed and unified march of the folk into the future and feel it as the most beautiful happiness to be allowed to follow a great leader.

 

Petty spirits many times believe they can or must copy a great political leader. What is for him expression of great energy, looks ridiculously blown up with them, which one is not ready to gladly follow. What is the infectious ardor of the genius with the exceptional leader, looks like pitiful compulsion among the copies. What is voluntary following of the exceptional leader, becomes servile subjugation among the narrow-minded copies. Political leaders who are not equal to the genius can only preserve freedom for their following and protect it against rule by force by showing themselves to be not copies, rather genuine followers of their leader, by not playing leader, rather by they themselves serving, showing their following the path.

 

Political freedom will always be the prerequisite for a healthy development of the energies of a great folk. It is hence worthwhile for every German to always struggle for this political freedom. It is necessary that the song of political freedom be sung again and again.

 

German Faith

 

There are times in human life in which the whole world threatens to collapse, all certainty becomes uncertainty and all life foundations seem to sink, in which one only experiences disappointments, darkness and total abandonment.

 

Those are the times of test for faith.

 

Every faith of a man must find its final anchor in a clear, secure world-view. In hours of most difficult test, only a faith resting upon a solid world-view basis can point the path into the future.

 

Observation of the world and of life gives German man the certainty that there is a higher power, a divine force. God, the Almighty, the divinity, providence, the godly – those are some names that worldwide German bearing gives to the divine essence. History, daily life, nature and the voice of his own action reveal to German man with unconditional certainty the rule of the divinity. It is fulfillment, everything great, good and beautiful. For German man, no world-alien doctrine, no uncertain presumption is his faith in God. He feels, recognizes and comprehends God’s laws in the clear laws of life. The faith in God again and again helps man to preserve the faith in everything noble, beautiful and great, and saves him from straying into base materialism and from nihilism. Faith in the divine means for German man the unconditional affirmation of a sacred idealism, of a divine meaning of this life. And even if so much meanness falls upon a person, even if the bitterest misfortune follows him and the vilest ugliness surrounds him, the once experienced traces of God keep him faithful.

 

German man knows that the Almighty has united him with the great natural community of his folk by the bond of blood. This German folk, however, was bestowed most glorious gifts of the homeland, of the blood, of character and of spirit. This folk has journeyed from distant millennia into history known today and shows its today still unknown future path. The mission of this folk and each of its members is to bear within itself, to carry on God’s eternal work of creation, to make it shine into the world and pass along to the future. Faith in the folk is not to be separated from faith in the divinity. This faith is the most glorious joy for every human being. What does it matter, if at some time distress befalls the individual human being, if he just sees his folk’s future radiate in happiness! What does a German man care, if the torch of his life is extinguished all too early in heroic death, if the survival of his folk is thereby secured into coming centuries! How can the German mother be tormented the by pains she suffers because of her children, if she thereby contributes her part to her folk’s eternal life. This faith is the faith that inspires every work, makes every sacrifice, enlivens the daily routine and consecrates each holiday. In the most difficult hours of German history, this unshakeable faith in the folk has again prepared the paths to new ascent. In the most beautiful hours of the greatest German victory, this faith must protect against shallowness and arrogance.

 

Great men have arisen for the German folk over the course of its history. The greatest German of all times is Adolf Hitler. The coming millennia will be an immortal monument to his deeds, to his exemplary life, to his teaching and to his human leadership. His work now already points beyond all concepts of time familiar to us. It is not deification, when the German folk gives this man unshakeable faith as their leader. It is only self-evident that the folk leadership created by Adolf Hitler can count on the faith of the German folk for all the future.

 

Manifold are the hostile powers that want to destroy German man’s faith. The German folk has become acquainted with these folk-alien enemies. It will only oppose this subversion with even more firm faith in the future. No power of darkness will ever shake the faith of the German folk. The German folk’s sacred faith is the pledge of its eternal life.

 

Trust

 

When one admires a great factory or a mighty technological masterpiece, one is again and again amazed at the precision with which the individual gears and parts align and interact.

 

Infinitely finer than the most complicated machine is the organism of human community. Here as well, one member must supplement the other, here as well, all members must coordinate and intermesh.

 

The prerequisite and the guarantor for an orderly and fruitful interaction of the individual forces of each human humanity is trust.

 

The starting point for all human trust is self-trust. People who have no trust in themselves, who are personally unsure and unsteady, will also always encounter their fellow human beings with suspicion and distrust. Based on the belief that God has placed man in this life so that he can, at his own place, fulfill, shape and complete the Almighty’s work of creation, man must possess a tremendous inner support, a mighty self-trust, a very great self-confidence. This self-consciousness, which lies in the blood of especially Nordic man, gives strength for the most daring deeds, the courage for the greatest sacrifices, the tenacity for the most difficult tasks and the openness for the affirmation of everything great and beautiful in life. This trust in the forces of the blood, of the spirit and of the soul finds expression in inner bearing and in deeds and is reflected in the clear, self-confident gaze of the eye and in the movements and posture of the body. One certainly cannot fake the overall bearing of self-confidence through purely external drill and intentional outward smartness.

 

Whoever possesses no self-confidence, will again and again become a pain to himself, but in any community, above all, in hours of danger and of decision, be a burden and a hindrance. Oriental self-debasement, slavish servitude and nervous inferiority complexes must be decisively and tenaciously combated as the main enemies of healthy self-consciousness.

 

Only whoever possesses self-confidence can also have a natural trust in fellow human beings. Whoever possesses self-confidence, however, must also have a healthy trust in the fellow human being, even though self-confidence is not supposed to degenerate into dumb arrogance.

 

Trust toward fellow human beings is above all directed toward members of the own clan, toward the comrades of the same community of work, ideas and occupation, and toward the folk comrades and race comrades. Trust toward them stems from the same natural, biological laws as healthy self-confidence.

 

Trust within any natural community is not a gift that one mercifully passes down from above, rather a self-evident duty that one owes each member of this community. There are people who always first wait until trust has been proven, who treat trust like a business, who are filled with mistrust until they have themselves reaped trust. With their constant mistrust they destroy over the course of time any human trust. They themselves bear the blame, if their originally unjustified mistrust gradually becomes justified, and they themselves finally reap just suspicion and mistrust instead of natural trust. As richly and gloriously, however, as trust fertilizes every community and every individual person, do suspicion and mistrust have an erosive, decaying and destructive effect. They can suffocate the most blossoming life, tear the most ardent bonds, poison the most beautiful joys and thwart every success.

 

Every trust must be able to pass tests, it must prove itself with disappointments. There are people who become distrustful enemies of the community, if they have once experienced a great disappointment, if a person has one time not fulfilled their trust or even badly misused it. Natural German man knows that there will always be dark sides, mistakes, badness and inferiority among people. But his natural trust, which flows from the laws of blood and of life, can and must not experience any shock from this human tragedy. It may be difficult in many hours of disappointment to preserve for oneself trust undiminished. But the triumph of trust will always be a triumph of German blood.

 

In every community, leadership and following have the same right and the same duty for reciprocal trust. Both are obligated to always give this trust full of inner readiness, to themselves begin with the trust and not just first demand trust from the other.

 

Trust is not only one of the most sacred obligations of the community, trust is also simultaneously one of the most beautiful gifts of the community. It is one of the happiest hours in human life, when genuine trust proves itself in great danger or in a hard test. It is one of the best distinctions for a person, if one promises and gives him total trust. Trust is one of the basic prerequisites for natural, human bearing. Trust is quite especially a credit to German essence.

 

The Power of Love

 

There are few things in human life than are so rich in content and yet often so terribly empty, so magically tender and yet many times so worn out, so nobly treat and yet often so pitifully low than what one calls love.

 

One must again and again feel in moving hours of silent experience the greatness, tenderness and depth of love in order to be able to surmise its full power. Whoever does not understand that, has wasted an essential part of his life.

 

Love creates knowledge. One often says: love makes blind. One would have to say: Being in love makes blind. Whoever strays from deep love to unrealistic being in love, may go astray like a blind person. Genuine, great love makes knowing. With reason, one can calculate things and work out problems. With reason, one can even conclude a political treaty or a marriage bond. Seeing the final connections, understanding a human heart, grasping a great miracle of nature, feeling the greatness of divine forces – but one can only become knowing, if the heart is there as well, if one radiates with deep love. Whoever wants to achieve ultimate knowledge, must know that he must first be possessed by this the deepest love. Genuine love wisdom is only possessed by the person who loves life infinitely. Puzzles of science and research can only be solved by the person who devotes himself to the problems with all his heart. Understanding and knowledgeable educator and human leader can be only the person whose heart glows for his following. Wise people, to whom fate has given a special sense for the secretive connections of life, are always people full of love.

 

Love is creative. From the love of a man and a woman grows a new creature. From the amorous rapture of many clans a new generation arises for the folk. Great works are only created from a moved heart. A life-like sculpture, deep literature, a powerful or ardent musical composition can only be created by an artist who burns with an inner fire. Often, these creative people do not find the full fulfillment of their passionate love. They are, in this regard, many times empty of love. But they thirst for love. They are, for their part, bursting full of love. In their deepest inside loveless people are never creative. One often ponders what gives a certain person the invincible energy for creative formation. It is God’s gift of devoted love. Infinitely creative is the loving mother who enchants her child at Christmas with the simplest means of a fairy-tale of happiness and joy, who solemnly fills her family - from the ancient sources of the gifts of nature and of the forces of folk custom - with spiritual depth. With inexhaustible love, loving people can reciprocally shape their happiness. A folk that is filled with a deep love for blood and homeland, for a great idea and a great leader, will also be a creatively productive folk.

 

The power of love is a divine power. Ancient sagas again and again relate that the divinity embraced earthly life out of and through love, that through love, divine forces filled the earth. Whoever is filled with love, feels in a special way the nearness of the divinity. Divine radiance glistens in the eyes of the people who carry a great love within themselves, who cherish a person, their folk, a work, an idea with infinite love. And because every great love is an outflow of divine forces, every deep love also deserves sacred reverence and tender shyness. Youth and age should always carry this reverence for love in their heart in always the same manner.

 

The ardent and deep love of German man is known in the whole world. Every German should at every time carry, cherish and increase love in his heart. Then this love will be an eternal pledge of the inexhaustible wealth of the German folk.

 

Endurance

 

The Germans are known in the whole world for their tenacity and endurance. They owe their successes in all areas of life not least to this great endurance.

 

Endurance requires thoroughness. Whoever flatters through live superficially, whoever just quickly sips all things, whoever only superficially touches problems and is not accustomed to seriously solve them - of that person one also cannot expect that he devotes himself full of dedication and endurance to a certain job or task, to tough fighting and struggle. Only whoever fully puts himself at the post given him, whoever penetrates into the depths of his life task, can possess the strength for stubborn persistence.

 

Endurance is nourished by an unshakeable faith. Whoever doubt and despair take hold, all strength of resistance is soon worn down, every front breaks, there can be no endurance there. Sacred enthusiasm, glowing faith and total trust are the foundations upon which alone stubborn persistence lets itself be based in the hardest fighting, in the most difficult work, in the bitterest tests of endurance for body, spirit and soul.

 

War demands iron endurance. In many historical conflicts, folks faced each other as equal opponents for years without a decision. Victory finally fell to the more tenacious opponent, who possessed better nerves and greater endurance. Not seldom in the course of history, the mightier and stronger opponent also fell, because internal enemies undermined his strength and took away his endurance. The promotion of stubborn strength of resistance is always one of the most necessary war preparations. The unflinching deepening of the unified, steel endurance of the whole external and internal front is one of the most essential war tasks.

 

Work often requires bitterly difficult endurance. For Nordic man, work is not a curse, but also not a superficial game. For him, it is so full of beauty and charm, because he sees a great task in work, to which he can completely devote himself with every ounce of his being, through which he wrestles in stubborn struggle and which he masters triumphantly. The miner must possess the greatest endurance, who unearths coal and metal, and the precision machinist who performs the most valuable precision work. The home worker must struggle through his work with the same constancy as the factory worker, the worker in the office and the peasant. Only through this unshakeable firmness and endurance can work led to final successes. Silent heroism of invincible endurance must stand behind the worker.

 

Great works of creative formation are usually envisioned and surmises in a blessed moment, but then born only from most tenacious struggle full of totally harnessed energy and often superhuman endurance. Day and night, the creative person carries his work around with him, he is occupied with his work in silence and in the hubbub of life. Inwardly, he never gets away from it. He is so obsessed with it that he very often seems to his close family circle very far away, living in another world. Moving and shocking are the examples of this stubborn endurance and admirable constancy of the creative person are offered by history. But nature itself shows man and in her as well, new life is indeed conceived in a moment, but is born only after a long time of silence demanding patience. For nine months the mother cherishes and protects, cares for and nurtures the child under her heart with self-sacrificing endurance until it sees the light of day as the most beautiful work of the human being. Every creative formation receives its crown only through endurance.

 

People and folks whose endurance has never failed are the actual victors in life. They have the right to be proud of this victory.

 

Education for endurance, however, is one of the most important components of youth education and any human leadership.

 

Of Being Able to Wait

 

There is endurance in work, struggle and movement. But there is also often an equally important endurance in standing still, waiting and readiness.

 

All people and folks experience times of the most tense anticipation before a great event. When the rays and shadows of imminent, important decisions become ever more distinct, than one often thinks: Now it must start – or tomorrow, certainly -, but it cannot take longer than next week!

 

And then weeks or months often pass before the great tension is relieved and world and human history quite clearly rolls a bit forward. Many people cannot wait. Neither life nor education have taught them waiting. And if they must wait, they fail, the same people who have often proven themselves a hundred times in struggle.

 

Many people confuse waiting with resting, relaxing and comfort. They loaf and get rusty in waiting. And when this great event finally breaks loose, then they are surprised, confused and dumbfounded, then they are not there, then they are not equipped, then they have failed. Many people and folks have so lost the decisive battle of their life and of their history.

 

Being able to wait does not mean patient acceptance of fate or oriental, weak surrender to the unchangeable.

 

Being able to wait means standing ready. With the torch of clear, bright light, with the sword of struggle, with the banner of faith, so do the great German artists portray readiness. But readiness often requires endurance. To keep the torch constantly lit is more difficult than to quickly light a blazing fire. To always hold the weapons ready often demands more strength than a brief, heated struggle. To always keep the symbols of faith high and pure requires more character than to just once wave them full of enthusiasm in the high wind.

 

If fate makes us wait, then that always has a meaning, then that should always be a test for us to prove ourselves.

 

If the leadership makes us wait for decisions and deeds, which we long await with tension, then this means that something must still ripen. Our trust in our leadership is so great that we know that it does not miss and lose something. If it makes us wait, for us it is solely about unconditional readiness.

 

Our readiness should always be clear and clairvoyant, tenacious and energetic, enduring and firm in character!

 

For we do not want to triumph only in the great battles! We also want to show that we have learned to be able to wait.

 

Modesty

 

Many people always admonish to modesty, because they always want to see their associates small, low and servile. They need small people around them, because they could not otherwise assert themselves. They confuse modesty with lowness.

 

Genuine modesty, however, is something completely different from self- debasement. Genuine modesty is true greatness.

 

The modest person knows and feels what place he has in life. He is grateful to the divinity for the life goal that was put to him and stands happily and gladly at his post. He feels himself to be a component in God’s great creation and knows that without God’s wide world he would mean nothing and with the divinity can do anything. He does not seek to appear to be more or less than he is in reality in the great world of the divine. The modest person is great, because he knows himself to be a small component in the infinity universe. Strength and self-awareness give him his modesty. In living connection with mighty nature, the genuinely modest person lives with the suns and stars. He does not blindly and stupidly put his own person at the center of the whole world, rather he feels that his existence is embedded in the great river of eternity.

 

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Whoever does not know this modesty toward the divinity, will never learn modesty toward other people. One must, above all, be modest toward the following, toward the people at whose head one stands, for whose leadership one is responsible. To play the Pasha, to assert one-self as superior through external means of pressure, to surround one’s high-placed person with a cold, high wall, to look down arrogantly and superficially on the so-called subordinates, is dumb and ridiculous and requires no kind of spiritual education. Only whoever sees in each member of his following a living person with blood and soul, whoever can feel the cares of the outwardly smallest and simple person, whoever respects in each folk comrade the same blood, whoever recognizes the value of the most unpretentious member in God’s eternal work of creation, that person fulfills the prerequisite of genuine greatness and true modesty. The modest person is great, because he does not need to draw attention to himself with purely external advertisement. The great personality of the modest person conquers, persuades, enthuses, leads the following by itself. In the proximity of genuinely great people, one hence never feels small and squeezed, rather always free and uplifted.

 

Modesty and greatness always go together. That is why even the person at the lowest position in life’s eternal line of rank is – through modesty - uplifted in the great person’s community. After all, it is not necessary for him to rebel, to feel pushed back, to play the suppressed person, to talk of injustice, to demonstrate as proletariat or to proclaim class hatred. He fills the position where he stands and knows how important his daily work as well is in the folk’s great course of life. So he becomes equal in his inner value to the person who must march at the head of his work community. But if a pitiful Pasha should stand over a modest man, the modest person stands before himself, all above, before all thinking people and before the verdict of the eternal, as infinitely more noble than the sad tyrant.

 

In the final analysis, modesty is nothing else than naturalness, than integration into the great laws of life. Given the inexhaustible wealth of German essence, modesty is just one of the many tones in which genuine German nature is reflected.

 

Arrogant vanity and servile self-debasement, however, are enemies of this modest German greatness.

 

Character Hardness

 

It is an experience of the millennia that all people and folks who fall into softness and slackness approach their decline or their total annihilation.

 

It is a life-law of Nordic man that a soft essence is irreconcilable with especially his nature.

 

Strict and clear, Nordic man keeps his body disciplined. In air, sun and invigorating water, in games and sports, dance and gymnastics, male and female bodies maintain their appropriate tension and bearing. This bearing has nothing to do with oriental deadening of the body.

 

Nordic man does not want to deaden his body, rather master it, he does not want to disrobe it of its physicality, rather bring it to fill development and enliven the bodily energies.

 

For Nordic man, body, soul and spirit form an inseparable union. As firm and clear as the physical bearing is hence for him the character nature as well. Far from any softening, character hardness is a special credit to Nordic man.

 

Character hardness means an inner psychological discipline. It must prove itself the same way in difficult hours, in which one threatens to collapse under the weight of the test, and in times of prosperity, in which the danger of slackening and softening is especially great.

 

Character strength is only acquired and preserved through constant inner alertness and tireless psychological discipline. Whoever does not in pleasure become the slave of his senses, whoever does not confuse recreation with total slackening, whoever does not allow passion to become licentiousness, whoever can differentiate rest from laziness, justified pride from dumb arrogance, natural sensuousness from base shamelessness, reinforcing pleasure from senseless pleasure, that person possesses character hardness.

 

Any kind of unnaturalness, all artificial nature, everything contrary to nature is alien to character hardness.

 

German man hence maintains his youthful freshness his whole life long, but he is not childish, he has tender feeling for the finest stirrings of the heart, but he is not sentimental, he is comradely, but not unisexual, he is kind, but not soft.

 

Discipline of the intellect is also part of character hardness. It is precisely to this mental discipline that the German folk owes its reputation of being a folk of poets and thinkers. Only through ongoing mental schooling and education does one become a clear spirit, an objective thinker, a profound researcher. Meaningless debating over unreal worlds, fruitless dreaming about occult matters, undisciplined daydreaming in empty bliss, vain occupation with mystical magic is alien to the German spirit.

 

Each person must first practice character hardness toward himself It must find expression uniformly in all areas of life. It does not help at all, if one abstains from all narcotics but instead sinks into sexual depravity. It is senseless for one to seek mastery of his life and totally overlooks mental discipline. Balance is part of the essence of character hardness.

 

But character hardness must also sometimes find expression toward the fellow human being. When it is important to speak a serious word, when it is necessary to be hard toward a dear person, if it is necessary to impose a severe punishment, that is not always easy. It is certainly easier to cowardly shirk such decisions.

 

Only if one is hard where necessity demands it, is one suited for human leadership. The first prerequisite there, admittedly, is always hardness toward oneself.

 

This character hardness, however, has nothing to do with cold brutality, superficial arbitrariness, egotistical striving for power, dumb lust to rule. Whoever confuses character hardness with that shows that character building is totally alien to him.

 

The Almighty has given Germans abundant opportunity to prove character hardness in difficult hours. May the future show that the German also proves his character in times of happiness!

 

Personal Kindness of Heart

 

Many people believe that they must prove their energy, their sharpness of mind and their soldierly bearing through ruthlessness and brutality toward their fellow human beings. They forget that personal kindness of heart is also part of inner maturity and genuine greatness.

 

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The first prerequisite for personal kindness of heart is inner openness and caring understanding. Whoever does not have any heartfelt understanding for the silent splendor of a flower, will mindlessly stomp it into the mud. Whoever cannot immerse himself in the values and characteristics of a noble animal, will easily degenerate into senseless cruelty to animals. Whoever for reasons of ugly egoism does not make any effort to understand the nature and uniqueness of his fellow human beings, will be unsuited for personal kindness of heart and hence for any human leadership. The essence of people is so rich and manifold that nobody may dare to judge all people by a dead schematic. An energetic, coarse word that will shake awake one person can hopelessly crush a tender soul. A finely calculated gesture than bestows energy on one person will not be noticed at all by another person.

 

Inner understanding for a fellow human being will be directed in the same way at his good characteristics and as at his dark sides. Precisely where the person is weak, requiring help, bad or inferior, he especially needs serious, deep and caring understanding.

 

Deep personal understanding has as a result an inner harmony, a psychological equal rank. Two people who mutually understand each other will be able to work on a common task with much more energy than two people who are inwardly strangers. If leadership and following honestly and sincerely seek to understand each other, they will be forged into a fruitful community that is full of energetic life. The deepest knowledge and recognition of human essence is not conveyed by sober reason, rather devoted love, deep kindness of heart. Human understanding and heartfelt kindness fertilize each offer in reciprocal alternation. This kind understanding will discover values in even the most inferior person, even next to the most repulsive baseness one will in this manner still find tendencies toward good. This good spark will then often be ignited anew by the understanding kindness and will chime in harmony with the noble forces of the understanding person.

 

Happy giving and joyful receiving grew from understanding and inner harmony. One of the most beautiful joys in human life is when one has penetrated deeply into a soul, found inner resonance and can then give this person advice, help, leadership and enrichment. It is something wonderful, if one can give a fellow human being a little light, strength, sun and warmth from overflowing, inner wealth. It the greatest happiness of human leadership, if one may radiate the energies that one possesses as a gift from the creator onto one’s following. Certainly, egoists can never radiate this kindness. Only whoever has educated oneself to unselfish comradeship possesses the strength for never failing kindness of heart. The energy of the suns lies in this kindness of heart. It can awaken to new life, can radiate light and warmth and be the signpost to new worlds. But kindness of heart also means inner readiness to receive. There are people who become uncomfortable, angry, bristly and prickly, if somebody wants to approach them with advice, a gift, a suggestion. In this manner they make themselves poor, joyless hermits.

 

Every person is somehow requiring help and imperfect. Every person is still susceptible for suggestions, for new enrichment and vitalization. Every person should therefore also be ready to receive from his full, innermost heart the gift of his fellow human beings. Just as the flower drinks the dew of the night and the light of the sun in order to be able to grow and blossom, man as well should absorb the energies that flow toward him in order to become greater, more mature and richer. Wherever in the community givers and receivers are devoted to each other in this kindness of heart, rich fruits will grow.

 

Many people confuse kindness of heart with weakness, softness, slackness and sentimentality. Many people reject kindness of heart as unmanly. But they hide their own weakness and insecurity behind outward brutality.

 

In reality, tremendous strength of character and psychological energy are needed in order to always preserve for oneself personal kindness of heart and to not just display it daily anew outwardly, rather to achieve it most deeply inside as well. One has often cursed the Germans as barbarians. It will be the pride of every German man to nurture precisely his kindness of heart and to thereby secure for himself and his folk emotional wealth.

 

Courage

 

Heroism is not given to all. Each must be courageous.

 

Heroism is a calling for which each must fight, if fate calls him. But not everyone who strives for heroism is also a hero.

 

Courage is a duty for every German. And every genuine German can and must be a hero. As in all things of life, so is the Führer an example of courage for all the German future as well. He has shown the German folk that within the sphere of the natural life-laws, the word impossible no longer exists for the German. Through courage, every danger can be defied, every opponent overcome, every difficult eliminated. Courage works miracles.

 

Seldom does the harmony of body, soul and spirit became as clear as in courage. Courage has as a prerequisite in the same manner disciple of the body, disciple of the mind and discipline of the soul.

 

Courage must prove itself in sports and physical exercises. A sports bearing is not expressed solely in muscle skill and muscle strength, rather in the tenacious, determined courage with which one faces the dangers of athletic competition and sport exercise, and then overcomes the unpleasantness of constant physical steeling and training.

 

Courage must prove itself in the unpleasantness of weather. Heaven has not given Nordic man eternal spring, because it wanted to make him hard. It has not given him eternal summer, because it wanted to protect himself against enervation. Aside from spring and sun, the Almighty has allotted German man rough storms and hard winter days. To defy the storm, to resist the icy winter cold with concentrated energy, those are some of the tests of courageous Nordic bearing.

 

At accidents, wounds and illnesses, it is shown who is courageous. There are unbearable sick people who torment and vex their helpers, even if their pains are not unbearable. And there are courageous sick people who even in the bitterest pains and torments radiate a glorious, courageous bearing and are unpretentious even where they would have the right to demand.

 

One must be courageous in the manifold distresses, suffering and dangers of daily life. Every person - who does not glide through life superficially or trot through his life deadened - experiences unpleasantness with which he must deal, conflicts he must handle, dangers that he must overcome. Life brings a person many distresses that he must endure all alone, without any kind of help. Then only courage, brave action, determined striding into the future helps.

 

Courage is not a prerogative of the male. Women and mothers, boys and girls have in the same manner the proud right and the sacred duty to be courageous.

 

Courage is good. Cowardice is bad. Whoever has always acted courageously in the fateful hours of his life and in the little things of daily life, may have made many mistakes in his life.

 

Courage makes happy. There are people who endure their fate with stubborn bitterness. And there are people who play the patient, sacrificial lamb full of gentleness and a pain-filled gaze. All that has nothing to do with courage. The courageous person encounters life with fresh, happy bravery. Happy and proud, upright and free, the courageous person strides into the future – even if he sees death in front of him.

 

Courage always means affirmation of life. The courageous person stands firmly in life. He never seeks to save himself from a difficult situation through flight to death.

 

This courage must prove itself in daily life, so that it can lead to victory in the decision. Courage must be practiced in the daily work of peace so that the folk can pass the test in war. One cannot hurriedly fetch courage in the hour of danger from an old weapons arsenal. Courage is part of the eternal bearing of German man. Because he is always courageous in victory and defeat, in war and peace, God is with him.

 

Justice

 

One of the bitterest pains in human life is when one must constantly suffer unjust treatment. Everybody can bear an occasional undeserved misfortune with dignity. Whoever has bad luck in the little things of daily life, can still overcome that with a certain humor. But whoever is treated unjustly, totally undeserved, over a prolonged period, perishes physically and, above all, emotionally. If one continuously treats a person unjustly, ones takes from him light, sun, life joy, happiness, confidence, life-courage, energy, inner support and strength. To continuously treat a person unjustly means to slowly and systematically torture him to death. The brutal despot who always confronts his fellow human beings full of injustice is guilty of ongoing mistreatment and emotional fratricide. It is one of the worst crimes against the folk community.

 

There are certainly people whose nature and behavior seem to directly challenge one to constantly treat them coarsely, cowed, to always only deal with them severely and debase them. They are those people who always appear superficial, always senselessly playful or always dully trotting along the same. But genuine justice must also be given to precisely these people who outwardly appear somewhat clumsy. If one makes the effort, one will discover good sides, inner depth and valuable bearing among these people as well. Precisely among these people, one will harvest a rare gratitude for just treatment.

 

To be just means to treat every person as he deserves, according to human measure, to treat him as one would wish to be treated oneself under the same circumstances.

 

Justice thus has as a prerequisite that one does not treat the fellow human being superficially, rather immerses oneself into his disposition, his life fates, his surroundings. Whoever wants to be just, must first of all make a great effort full of human kindness to understand the traits, advantages and disadvantages, happy experiences and bitter experiences of his fellow human being, in short, the whole person in his final depth.

 

Justice initially expresses itself in outward conduct, in actions, in outward behavior. It often requires very great discipline to be totally just in one’s whole demeanor, in the final details of gestures, in the finest nuances of words. But precisely Nordic man is characterized by this outward and inward discipline of bearing and of conduct.

 

But Nordic man is especially honored by the fact that with him there is no double- dealing between outward conduct and inner bearing, that his essence represents a perfect inner union. In Nordic man, justice must hence also especially show itself in the inner view. One cannot treat a person justly outwardly and inwardly think unjustly of him, if one wants to face oneself. But whoever judges a fellow human being unjustly in thought, should not believe that this inner view remains hidden. Every somewhat naturally inclined person immediately feels and senses deep inside, whether a fellow human being encounters him with inner affection, rejection or indifference. Not a single word need fall between two people and not a gesture exchanged, they very soon sense on their own how they feel toward each other. For Nordic man, inner justice in thought and in judgment is a characteristic self-evident thing. But it also a practical wisdom of life that tremendously simplifies any living together in a community.

 

Justice does not only mean that one does not inflict a bad injustice upon the fellow human being. Justice obligates that one does not unjustly favor the fellow human being. The creator has arranged life so that some people immediately feel a consonance of blood, of spirit and of soul, while other people sense no kind of blood-related or inner echo, or even mutually repel each other. But where people are connected to each other in a community, personal affection, indifference and dislike must step into the background. But this personal relationship must totally step into the background where the relationships between leadership and following, teacher and student, educator and pupil are involved. The teacher who constantly favors a student unjustly does not just sow the poisonous seed of disadvantage in the other students, he harms the favored darling himself by spoiling him, making him weak, destroying his life energy, taking away his inner support. The best youth has in every age found a tragic, sad end under the influence of unjust favor from educators. Unjust favor is in life in general just as much an injustice and a crime against the community as unjust disfavor.

 

Justice often requires hardness. It would be so simple, easy and comfortable to evade a just and clear, serious and open judgment. It is often very difficult to speak stern, but necessary serious, words to a dear person. A punishment often strikes the punishing party more painfully than the punished. But hardness is just as much a component of justice as kindness.

 

Every person has a fine feeling for justice. The smallest child feels justice and injustice exactly like the oldest elder. Justice is one of the necessary prerequisites of every community. Justice is one of the most sacred duties of every member of the community.

 

Cleanliness

 

Fighting and wars, dangers and obstacles of every kind are concentrated tests for people and folks. They will only pass, if the person has proven himself in daily life. The test of daily life are often more dangerous than life’s great tests of strength. Many people and folks who have triumphantly survived the hardest fighting have in daily life unnoticed slid into frivolity, superficiality, comfort and unclean bearing and then perished.

 

German man hence always strives, in war as in peace, in misfortune and in good fortune, to shape his inner life from inner cleanliness. Honor is the guiding principle of his action for his political and militant battle front as well as for the front of his work. It becomes clear to him again and again that this clean bearing, which is of the same genuine depth as his blood, must always be won anew and preserved through the use of all his energies.

 

One often feels it at the first encounter with many people, one experiences it with many people in years of experience that their whole being is filled with pure cleanliness. The acquaintance with such pure, genuine, valuable people always brings joy. Any association with these people of purest character cleanliness is a gain. It ennobles and transfigures any community. A folk that possesses a number of such people can pass the test of history. It ensures itself eternal life.

 

Purity of thought is generally reflected in outward cleanliness. A clear eye, a clean exterior, the natural effort to remain free of outer dirtiness, usually indicates that behind this exterior cleanliness an inner purity is also to be found.

 

Above all, honesty is part of character cleanliness. There are people who pretend that they serve the Reich with the exertion of all their energy. But they radiate no inner blaze and no gripping enthusiasm. They are cold and leave empty, because they only strive for a high office, for promotion and distinction. Service to the Reich is for them only a pretty facade for their egoism.

 

There are people who claim they serve the folk community. But one feels in their proximity that they only know the common good, if they have first ensured their own gain. The German moral law “common good before personal good” has not been absorbed by them. Their whole conduct is hence hollow and false. Among clean people, there is no disharmony between outward appearance and inner bearing, between words and deeds. The purest person has weaknesses and imperfections. That has nothing to do with the disharmony, dirtiness and filthiness of people who are inwardly completely dishonest and false.

 

Honesty toward the fellow human being is part of inner cleanliness. One must always be able to look the fellow human being in the eye. The pure person honestly allows the fellow human being any joy and is always an honest friend. But he also knows how to openly encounter him with seriousness, with punishment, or, if necessary, with hostility. The honest attitude toward the property of the fellow human being and toward the property of the community is part of cleanliness. Where millions of people can barely earn their necessary life basis through hard work, it is a crime, if individuals enrich themselves without effort and thereby swindle the folk comrades. Where work and wage are justly distributed, dishonesty, swindle, corruption, embezzlement, or receiving stolen property are all the more contemptible offenses.

 

Above all, cleanliness must show itself in the most intimate relationships between people. In comradeship and friendship, and above all in love, all dishonesty, any swindle, any mutual deception must be excluded. Precisely in the most personal relationships between people, one must renounce everything upon which one has no claim. Precisely here, one must not secretly take possession of something that does not belong to one.

 

Many people believe they can even deceive fate. They do not want to believe that any dirtiness of character always just hurts themselves. In the final analysis, one can never deceive fate through impurity. One always just dirties oneself through dirtiness. Every German feels within himself the obligation to look inside himself from time to time in a quiet hour and to check the purity of his life. Constant self-checking will save him and his folk for all future in the dangers of daily life and strengthen them for times of distress and struggle.

 

Breeding [Zucht]

 

There was a time in which the term breeding was in content torn apart into two different parts. Applied to people, it meant good and strict upbringing. But in animal breeding, it meant biological betterment of breed and racial selection.

 

The National Socialist world-view has again led people back to the simple and great connections of life and has again given the term discipline its full, natural and original meaning.

 

Seen biologically, a person of good breeding is a person with clean blood and highly valuable physical-mental-psychological genes. It is the first and most natural law that the creator has given man that he keep his blood legacy pure and noble. Every person has the sacred obligation to protect the energies of his blood against any falsification and decomposition, against destruction and annihilation. The worst crime and the greatest misfortune is simultaneously such a sin against the blood.

 

But it is also an offense against the blood to senselessly waste the healthy energies of the blood and thereby weaken the blood current of his clan. The life energies of a folk are so valuable and sacred that any folk that in good times frivolously wastes these energies in times of distress and decision many times no longer has any strength of resistance and no energy for self-assertion. Many a folk has bled to death over the course of history due to this frivolous self-surrender.

 

Whoever lives so with breeding, is full of the highest morality. This natural breeding is the healthy opposition to any lack of breeding. This breeding has nothing to do with moral hypocrisy and prudery. Breeding certainly means more than biological selection. The energies of soul and intellect cannot be separated from the energies of the blood.

 

Preservation of blood purity simultaneously means the obligation for inner cleanliness. The moral and psychological contamination and decomposition of people or folks always goes hand in hand with the biological contamination of the blood. The most unnatural products of a degenerate art correspond to the psychological deformity, blood contamination and moral depravity of that time. Breeding of the body, however, is the prerequisite for decent moral bearing. Whoever believes he can or must – from the standpoint of physical breeding - be morally licentious, has not comprehended the meaning of breeding. It is the most beautiful fulfillment of the laws of life, if a glorious body full of noble breeding also harmonizes with the nobility of inner breeding. In every age, German art has in sculpture and painting portrayed the splendid people who simultaneously embody the noblest breeding of the body with the purest moral energy.

 

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In the term breeding, the great natural harmony of body, soul and mind finds the expression that especially characterizes the harmonic essence of Nordic man. There are people who indeed strive for moral breeding. But they lack the breeding of the mind and hence never achieve a balanced bearing. There are people who are outwardly somewhat flawless. But in their thoughts, in their fantasy they surrender themselves to a deformed, contaminated and decadent world. This inner lack of breeding somewhat reflects itself in the outer conduct of the people. Each most secret thought somehow shapes the physical and moral bearing of the person with a fine chisel. Becoming accustomed to clear, consequential and logical thinking is also part of mental discipline, the freedom from any mental jumpiness and superficiality, the effort for intellectual depth and intensification. Where this mental discipline is lacking, the best physical breeding will not be able to convey final values to the person.

 

From childhood on, a person must be educated toward this high, broad breeding. For breeding, adolescence represents the decisive period in human life. In the full power of his years, a person can and must work day after day on the disciplined formation of his personality. This is not only a sacred duty, rather also a moral gift for him. And even in old age, when many energies long slumber, a person can still be an expression and a shaper of disciplined essence.

 

There are several words in the German language that concisely, but flexibly and broadly, express the whole bearing of Nordic man. The term breeding is one of them.

 

A person full of breeding is a person with a healthy, fresh, natural and sound body, with moral energy and psychological depth, with clear, objective and deep, schooled intellect.

 

Breeding so becomes the highest ideal of the German. A folk that holds this breeding sacred will be capable of the greatest deeds and works. A person who embodies this breeding secures for himself eternity.

 

Politeness

 

There was once a time when one could learn politeness according to a precisely prescribed system of rules, according to an etiquette set down to the finest detail, according to a schematic of regulations and decrees. Whoever had enough time to memorize and to practice all these things, that person was polite.

 

Meanwhile, man has again remembered that politeness is a natural characteristic

and a self-evident obligation of German man.

 

Politeness flows by itself from the inner wealth of a noble person. It is not something empty, hollow, weak and external. It is not tied to rigid formulas and regulations, to mechanical ceremony and a stiff etiquette. Politeness is an expression of genuine community spirit, honest respect for life and deep character formation. Politeness is hence not a secondary manifestation and an unimportant accessory of decent human bearing. It is an inner obligation for every proper person.

 

Where life is dominated by impoliteness and unfriendliness, this proves that the affected people cannot deal with life, that they possess a character deficiency or that their spirit and mind are narrow and limited.

 

Corresponding to the essence of people and the given circumstances, the expression of politeness can be very diverse. There is a reserved politeness that is not stiff, but also not overflowing, and yet sincere. This is a plain, heartfelt and natural politeness. The dry, somewhat angular and rough politeness is again different, but no less valuable than the politeness of sunny people who always overflow with - dearness. And the calm, security and safety radiating politeness of especially deep people has yet another character.

 

People with a calm nature should not strive for bubbling politeness, otherwise this politeness appears false. And people who always radiate sunshine should not unnaturally hold back their politeness, otherwise it becomes rejection.

 

Toward the own blood, politeness takes a different form than toward strangers. At events full of stormy joy it has a different tone than on serious and sad occasions.

 

But in all life situations and toward all people, there exists a clear duty to politeness, which nobody can cast off – politeness makes life easier and more beautiful. Much aggravation and quarrel, much unpleasantness and difficulty, much time loss and loss of work, much dissatisfaction and suffering arises from impolite people. All of human life together, the atmosphere of the community, the spirit of daily life becomes more sunny, more free and unencumbered through politeness. Politeness spares people the most precious work energy and the most valuable life energy. Precisely those people who are called upon to be special servants of the folk, the political leaders of the party, factory managers, officials and policemen, and the employees of public offices hence also have the special obligation to constant politeness.

 

Politeness ennobles people. Whoever strives day after day to always be polite, that person will become free of class hatred, of brutality and base cruelty, of political favoritism, of dishonesty and any indecency. In the final analysis, politeness is only the one side of inner breeding, which is a credit to especially Nordic man. Politeness means inner self-control and outer as well as inner discipline. Politeness is a sign of deep character formation.

 

In daily life and in time of rest and peaceful life, politeness is necessary. In times of high tension and hard test, in times of struggle and crisis, however, impolite, sullen people can become criminal saboteurs of healthy life and of the triumphant struggle.

 

Sacrifice and Renunciation

 

German man stands in life with both feet. He enjoys this life and reaches, full of gratitude to the divinity, for the fruits of this life. But it is the greatest joy for him to be allowed to himself work along on God’s work of creation, to be able to himself shape life according to the great laws of eternal order, to be allowed to create, sow and harvest with his own strength. German man only knows a full, unconditional yes to this life.

 

But precisely because being German means restless life affirmation, the obligation to renunciation and sacrifice also arises again and again for Germans.

 

Self-evident is the renunciation of all those things, comforts, desires and pleasures that must lead to a permanent damage to one’s own life and to the well-being of the folk community. Stimulants of the most diverse kind can in small doses liven up a listless person, bestow new energy to a worn out person, without somehow harming. Unrestrained enjoyment of whatever bodily or emotional poisons, however, must always be a disadvantage. May the temptation beckon ever so greatly and the radiance enchant ever so much, here there is only a clear no, a strong renunciation.

 

But the German will occasionally also have to renounce harmless joys and, above all, the comforts of life in order to thereby protect himself against slackness, stiffness, calcification and softness.

 

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Whoever is accustomed to deprivations and fighting, does not have to practice this kind of renunciation. But whoever spends his days in abundance and prosperity, whoever is spoiled by good fortune, whose life flows in ever constant comfort, that person must make an effort to keep himself fresh, elastic, mobile and action-ready through systematically and voluntary renunciation.

 

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German man is always aware that he does not stand alone in life, rather is a member in the great organism of the folk community. Wherever a folk comrade lives in need, the person next to him is obligated to stand at his side as a comrade, to help him, even if this help requires a renunciation, to support him, even if this readiness to help demands personal sacrifice. Wherever a fellow human being is in danger, it is self-evident for every German that he stands by him, even if he must himself survive dangers and take on discomforts.

 

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Sacrifices and renunciation in favor of the folk community have become a self- evident duty of comradeship to German man. A past world portrayed such sacrifices and such renunciation as a very special virtue. For German man, this is part of natural bearing. A past world sometimes sacrificed and renounced full of “generous” condescension and gracious pity. We happily fulfill a natural duty in the process. But as long as one has not fulfilled this duty, one cannot as a German achieve inner peace, one must be in turmoil deep inside, one may not become free and happy.

 

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If the well-being of the community demands it, a German must also sometimes renounce the development of his reason and his will and must integrate himself full of soldierly discipline into a set, delineated life structure. Precisely for the creative person, it is often very difficult to totally integrate himself into a prescribed framework. But he nonetheless renounces his own will without contradiction, without a thought of refusal, if a closed, soldierly action requires this.

 

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German man sacrifices property and goods, he renounces health and life joy, he sacrifices his whole life full of upright joy and honest enthusiasm, if thereby the life of the community, the existence and the eternity of the folk is preserved and saved. Heroic death for folk and homeland is the greatest sacrifice and the most difficult renunciation for a person. Millions of Germans have made this blood sacrifice over the course of history. They are eternal admonishments to sacrifice and renunciation. Through this sacrifice and this renunciation, a person grows beyond himself and steps into great, divine eternity.

 

Sacrifices and renunciation do not mean life rejection or life negation for German man.

 

For him, sacrifices and renunciation only then have a meaning, if the forces of life are thereby heightened and strengthened, refined and steeled. Renunciation grows precisely from life affirmation. And each renunciation is great and glorious, if thereby the ground for new life and blossoming, for new seed and new harvest becomes free and ready.

 

Master Life

 

It is one of the most shocking experiences, when one encounters people who have been crushed in life, who have suffered a shipwreck in life.

 

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Whoever wants to master life, must shape his life energetically and goal- consciously. His action and his bearing must be filled with meaningful and compelling driving forces. Whoever just blindly obeys the drives of physical self- preservation, will often disturb life order more than promote it. Deep meaning and sacred obligation must always transfigure human life.

 

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Many people follow a rigid dogma in their life conduct, an inalterable schematic of formulas and rules, which some prophet has worked out as a sure life recipe. And if things happen that no longer fit this scheme, they then are dumbfounded and go astray in life. German man knows that all life is growth and motion, and that he can only master life, if he himself is a living person of motion and hears the voice of God in the voice of life. Only from this open attitude can a person achieve full life affirmation.

 

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People who want to pass the test of life must, above all, win inner freedom. Whoever does not possess this inner freedom, becomes a pitiful slave of life. Inner freedom is just as necessary for the life of the individual person as political freedom is for the life of the folk.

 

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Victor in the life struggle always remains the person who fills his energies with a glowing faith and a rock-hard trust and simultaneously bears a heart full of life inside. For that, all ardor and enthusiasm must also be accompanied by endurance in work and struggle and endurance in readiness.

 

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After great life successes, people often suddenly fall due to vanity and arrogance. Whoever has really mastered life, will remain modest despite all self-awareness. In a person’s inner bearing, however, character hardness and personal kindness of heart must supplement each other.

 

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Courageous bearing and just sense, clean essence, disciplined manner and politeness of conduct simplify the life struggle for the individual person and for the community, and simultaneously make this life struggle beautiful, honorable and good.

 

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Despite all life joy and life affirmation, precisely Nordic man knows that he will never master life without renunciation and sacrifice. But he is not unhappy about that. For him it is self-evident that he must win his life through much sacrifice and must stand at the side of his fellow human being’s life through much renunciation. Fighting spirit is always part of the basic core of Nordic essence. But his motto is not “kill life”, rather “master life”. Only through this life mastery does he bring life to the fullest development.