The
Second World War - an ideological confrontation
It
is an undisputed fact that in Germany the historical view has always shown a
western orientation, which has shown very little understanding of the course of
history of the eastern region of our European continent. Only very few were
aware of the fact that it was only the resistance of Germanic man against the
peoples of the East, i.e. the securing of Europe against Slavic-Mongolian
tribes, that made possible the existence of the European peoples and states in
their present form. Today we are experiencing the greatest ideological
confrontation in the history of the world. The plutocracies and Bolshevism have
set Asiatism in march against the reorganization of Europe; again it is said:
secure Europe against the East!
- The
task of this paper shall therefore be to show how deeply founded is the claim to
leadership of Germanism in Europe for securing the living space not only of the
German people, but also of the other European cultural peoples against the
plutocratic and Bolshevik plans for world domination of every appearance. The
Second World War is first and foremost an ideological conflict; the political,
military and economic measures in its course are nothing other than the attempt
of each side to shape the world according to its own spirit. Europe, and with it
the whole world, is faced with the choice: Rule of superior races or rule of
inferiors with the suppression and annihilation of the most valuable races,
order or anarchy, cultural construction or cultural annihilation.
From
Russia the incendiary torch was to be thrown into all the countries of the
world. The slogan under which Jewish Bolshevism wants to ignite the world
revolution in order to establish world domination over the peoples of the earth
on its ruins is: destroy in order to rule! The Jew, by reason of his racial
composition, is an anti-social element, a criminal nature. Communism, as the
political organization of the criminal nature of the world, is, from the depths
of its subhumanity, an opponent of every fixed order. It knows no cultural
construction, it knows only cultural destruction. Through it, the vast, rich
Russian area became a land of the most terrible misery and the harshest terror.
If the seizure of power by Fascism in Italy was a serious sign to the whole
world that there were still peoples in Europe who were not willing to bow to the
international domination of Bolshevism, the National Socialist revolution in
Germany and the establishment of the Spanish state of order under General Franco
meant an exceedingly serious setback for the Jewish plans for world power of
every shade. But Jewry now held all the more doggedly to its plans. Jewish
hatred pursued „Fascism“ in every way, by the most ruthless means. It was
probably the strongest move to bring Bolshevik Russia and plutocratic England
into an alliance against the rising Germany and the reorganization of Europe.
This alliance could succeed only because Jewish Bolshevism had succeeded in
depriving former Tsarist Russia of its ruling class by murder, in bloodily
subjugating the peoples of that empire, and in establishing its own rule over
the countries. Furthermore, in the course of the last hundred years, Jewry had
succeeded in imposing politically, economically and culturally upon the
traditional English ruling class, and in this way had gradually usurped the
control of a people which, in its basic substance, must be regarded as almost
Germanic.
A similar
process exists in North America, which today is also dominated by a Jewish
plutocratic clique and its henchmen. Thus it is to be understood that Jewry,
under the leadership of England in particular, was able to bring together an
arms-strong coalition against the leader’s aims, which were in themselves
peaceful. France and Poland, as the best equipped states, were given the task of
eradicating by force a system which no longer gave Judaism any influence in
political, economic and cultural matters. Right at the beginning of this war,
the rapid demise of Poland showed the opponents that it was not so easy to bring
National Socialist Germany to its knees. The plans for the expansion of the war
were carried out, involving more and more European states in the coalition
against Germany. Belgium, Holland and Norway were strongly ideologically bound
to Jewish plutocratic England, especially in their leadership. But even these
states could not turn the tide. In dashing victories they too, together with
France, the states of Yugoslavia and Greece fared no differently, suffering a
politically and militarily devastating defeat as a result of their servility.
Thus the Soviet Union, the last „mainland sword“ of England and the plutocracy,
had to be led into the encounter in order to crush the hated National Socialism.
Had one hoped on the enemy side to encounter a German Wehrmacht weakened by the
previous campaigns and suffering from lack of material, one found oneself
thoroughly disappointed. In outrageously swift action, Germany and her allies
succeeded in the summer of 1941, despite desperate resistance, in beating the
Soviets all along the line and in the winter in taking up a position extending
from the North Sea via Leningrad to Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. Even the
extremely heavy winter battles and the spring offensives of the Soviet Russians
were not able to break the resistance of the Germans and their allies. If one
considers the course of events from the Polish campaign onwards, one comes to
the conclusion that the greatest credit for the successes is due to the Führer
himself, who time and again recognized the enemy’s intentions to attack in good
time and knew how to forestall them; Not only did he bring about the success of
the military actions by his timely action, but also an infinite number of blood
sacrifices were spared the German people by the fact that the Fuehrer’s actions
usually broke out at a time when the enemy had not yet completely finished his
preparations, The achievements of the German troops and their allies have often
been emphasized by the Fuehrer himself. But they could only be achieved because
an understanding of the National Socialist will and with it of the European
mission had sunk deep into the hearts of the people, giving each individual
soldier a final heroic attitude, a Germanic faith. It sprang from the
consciousness that sacrifice for the people was a vital necessity, a moral duty.
The National Socialist worldview thus proved stronger than the Jewish
plutocratic or Jewish-communist idea, which in the final analysis is the same
thing. Today it is not only a question of the existence or non-existence of the
German people, but the future of all valuable peoples is at stake who may claim
to live their own lives according to the laws of their nation and their race. In
the Far East it is Japan, our ally, which is fighting the most difficult battle
of its life for the preservation of its people, its kind and its morals. Europe,
however, has risen up against the constant threat and paternalism under German
leadership to create a new order instead of a development which sooner or later
would have to lead to chaos.
At the
same time as Germany, volunteers from all peoples and states have enlisted who
in some form or other have felt the Jewish plutocratic fist or the Red Beast in
their own flesh. Today there are thousands and thousands of volunteers from
Germanic countries in the Waffen-SS units, volunteers who only a few years ago,
misjudging the true interests of their peoples, seduced and incited by
incompetent governments, Jews and Jewish mercenaries, fought against Germany,
some with weapons in their hands. Today the situation for Germany is different
from that of 1914/18. At that time the whole world stood together against a
Central European Germanism that was not clearly aligned ideologically. Today,
however, strong allies with the same or similar ideals stand at Germany’s side.
The state orders which have hitherto prevailed in Europe are losing more and
more of their significance; a new idea of community is growing which will
embrace all phenomena of life.
I. The
east Germanic land take in eastern Europe
The
gigantic struggle which Germany’s Wehrmacht, and with it the selection of the
responsible nations of Europe, is waging in a mighty victory race into the
vastness of Soviet space has its historical foundations and prerequisites. Again
and again Asian peoples invaded Europe and again and again their attacks failed
because of the resistance of the Germanic- Germanic people. For thousands of
years Germanic tribes have formed the living eastern wall against the steppe
nomads. Only this defense made it possible in the course of history for the
states to be formed in Europe, as they have presented themselves to the
observing eye in the last millennia. Behind this defensive zone, which in the
course of history has diversified in its breadth, strengthen the European order,
culture and morals were able to rise to become the most dominant in the world.
It is thanks to this struggle of Germanism that Europe, which has no natural
frontiers separating it from Asia, has been able to build up its independent
life.
With
reverence and pride we see the German soldier today standing from the North Sea
to the Black Sea on ground that has more than once felt the tread of Germanic
warriors. When the East Germanic tribes prepared to move eastward from the
region between the Oder and the Vistula about 800 B.C., the first great Germanic
migration began in Eastern Europe. The reason for this search for land was the
following: The Germanic population had increased more and more; there was a
certain lack of space, which was aggravated by the fact that at that time storm
tides and a gradual deterioration of the climate in northern Europe began to
narrow the food base more and more. There were thus essentially two moments
which caused the migrations of the East Germanic people:
1.
Space shortage from population increase,
2.
Nutritional difficulties due to climatic
influences.
This
land-grabbing of the East Germanic tribes took place partly in a form completely
different from that of the West Germanic tribes. The West Germanic tribes had
spread slowly and step by step to the south and west, one settlement being
pushed forward after the other. By this slow procedure the inner coherence was
not lost, and made possible without difficulty, in a kind of neighbourhood
settlement, a close cohesion of the new settlement areas with the old ones. The
settlement of the East Germanic tribes, on the other hand, represented more of
an overseas and overland settlement, which proceeded in leaps and bounds, and
frequently enough left large stretches of country uninhabited behind their
backs. The first wave of settlers to move to Eastern Europe was the Bastarnes
and Skirs, who set out from the region of Posen and the Vistula arc in a broad
front between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians, heading for the Black Sea
around 500 B.C. The second wave of Germanic tribes, which reached the Black Sea
through the Vistula Arc, was the first to move to Eastern Europe. The second
Germanic wave, which took the way to the east, was formed by the Vandals, who
settled in Silesia, Galicia, Poland and Posen (about 100 B.C.). As the third and
last wave of East Germanism, but at the same time also the most powerful, the
Goths and Gepids moved to the east of Europe and founded a powerful empire at
the Black Sea around 200 AD. The Goth king Ostro-gotha commanded at that time a
Gothic empire, which extended in the west up to Romania and Hungary, over
today’s Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, in the east over the
Ukraine with Crimea to the Don. This Gothic foundation of the empire did not
last long, however, Ostrogotha itself divided the territory into that of the
Ostrogoths and the Visigoths; the dividing line was the Dniestr River. A lively
exchange of goods took place by sea with Byzantium and the Mediterranean
countries. The flowering of the Ostrogothic Empire falls under King Ermanarich,
who eventually ruled over a vast empire stretching from the Black Sea to the
Baltic, including the settlement areas of the Aists and Finns. The Goths had not
moved into completely deserted areas in southern Russia, but they found here the
remains of the Bastards and Skirs, as well as a native population, which they
brought under their rule. They ruled as a relatively small upper class. The
landgrabbing was out of all proportion to the real number of Goths. In spite of
all its prosperity and apparent strength, this powerful empire already carried
within itself the seeds of death. It lacked the influx of sufficient new forces
from the old Germanic region. The population did not grow in such proportions
that a lasting dominion could have been established. The popular strength of the
Gothic empire was sufficient to secure its rule over the subjugated peoples and
tribes, but not against a strong external enemy. Under these circumstances, even
the outstanding efficiency of Ermanarich could not preserve an empire against
the Huns who were advancing from the east.
Numerous
as swarms of locusts, the Huns invaded the land, small, yellow, slit-eyed Mongol
creatures. They hunted through the land as if they were mounted on their shaggy,
tough horses. Soon they appeared here, soon there. The decisive battle in 375 AD
against them was lost. Ztr. against them is lost. Ermanarich gives himself
death. With this, the wall that protected the rest of Germania was broken. A
large part of the Ostrogoths were annihilated, a part became tributary and
fought in future on the Hunnic side against their own brethren; only a small
part succeeded, as did the Visigoths, in escaping westward across the Danube. As
a result, the Hun hosts poured further and further into Central Europe,
spreading death and misery. In front of them, the Germanic tribes retreat into
the Central European area, in order to migrate further into the Western Roman
Empire, to Italy (Goths) or to France,
Spain,
even to North Africa (Vandals). The impetus for the great Germanic migrations,
which we know as the historical migration of peoples and as part of the Germanic
landgrabbing, is given. Franks, Alemanni, Saxons and above all the Visigoths,
together with the Roman governor of Gaul, Aetius, finally stopped the Hun king
Attila in his advance to the west in the famous decisive battle at Mauriacum,
now Chalons sur Marne (Catalaunian Fields, in 451), and beat him back. The
Hunnic danger to Central Europe was hereby for the time being eliminated. Since
the Hunnic eastern nomads had overrun the important, promising Ostrogothic
kingdom in 375, however, a firm guard against the eastern nomadic storm had been
lacking in that region between the mouth of the Volga and the White Sea.
That
Hunnic invasion in the year 375 belongs to the series of invasions, repeated
every few centuries, which have taken place westward from the living district of
the Mongolian racial core in Asia and have brought so much nameless misery and
senseless destruction of high cultural values for Europe: The invasions of the
Huns, Avars, Hungarians, Tartars, Ivan IV, turning his gaze westward, Peter the
Great’s European policy, Russia’s threat to Europe in 1914/18, and finally
belongs in great historical intimation in one and the same context. The advance
of Bolshevism against Europe. For centuries there has been a struggle to secure
Europe against Asia. The main share in this decisive struggle is borne by the
forces rooted in the Central European, Germanic region. The marching direction
of the Germanic peoples to the south and west was not stopped by the retreat of
the Huns. The Germanic peoples succeeded in destroying the Western Roman Empire
and in subjugating Italy, France, Spain and North Africa, but here the Germanic
tribes were gradually absorbed by the inhabitants of these countries. The
Christianization that began at that time undermined Germanic racial
consciousness by its slogan, „Christians are all equal!“ Thus, outside the
narrower area of Germanic settlement, a stream of blood seeped away, carrying
within it the most valuable forces. When Attila died suddenly two years after
the battle of Mauriacum, his empire disintegrated, The remnants of the
Ostrogoths were able to shake off the Hunnic rule,
A large
part of them turned to the west, united with the part of the people that had
already escaped before the Hunnic storm and stormed against the Western Roman
Empire, whose inheritance they finally took over, until they too tragically
perished. The Goths, who remained in the Russian region, essentially
successfully repelled further attempts by the Huns to resume their old rule over
the Ostrogoths. After a changeful fate, these Goths, who had partly preserved
their old Germanic language until the 16th century, were tartarized. From the
6th century onwards, a new danger for Germanicism became apparent, which is
still present today: the infiltration of the sites in Eastern Europe abandoned
by the Germanic tribes by cultureless Slavic tribes. It is true that
considerable parts of the Germanic tribes had at that time remained settled in
the Vistula region, but they were no longer of any importance for the Germanic
people as a whole; they became cultural fertilizer for the Slavic peoples.
Slowly and steadily, with uncanny precision, often silently and almost
imperceptibly, the Slavic peoples advanced in places as far as the Elbe, Saale,
Salzach and Drava rivers. The German model helped them to grow into the European
cultural community, even if they were not themselves capable of great cultural
achievements. It is a peculiarity of the primitive peoples rooted in the
European and Asiatic steppes is that they are not able to produce any
permanently valuable political, military, economic and cultural achievements of
their own; to the east and west of this cultural rift are countries of the
highest culture, such as the European and the East Asian. Achievements which the
peoples of this cultural rift have accomplished have not been accomplished by
pure-blooded members of these tribes. They always brought with them streams of
blood from other peoples who were at the same level of culture. Historical
research has made it clear how the advance of Slavs on Central European soil has
had a devastating effect on our German nationality. If the Ostwall had held in
375, perhaps 1500 years later there would have been no Slavic, i.e. Polish and
Czech, problem of such severity. This is the tragedy of the defeat of such a
great and proud people as the Goths. The existence of the Germanic tribes in the
region of the Vistula, the Ukraine, etc., before the Slavic settlement, however,
proves that the Germanic claim to these regions can be justified by us as their
descendants with more justification than the so-called „historical“ claims of
Slavic peoples to Central European, to German central space. If one wants to
justify historically a claim to possession of the East, then here in the first
place the claim of the Germanic peoples is given, who today basically only move
back into the territories which they once possessed.
II.
The repulsion of Mongolian-Slavic peoples from the Central European area
From the
9th century onwards, a second phase of the Germanic struggle against the Slavic
Mongolian peoples advancing from the East begins, which was to retain its
character for about a thousand years, until the World War of 1914/18. It is
characterized by two separate, independent processes:
1.
the direct defense and pushing back of
Mongolian-Slavic tribes coming from the east. Peoples from the German central
area. Establishment of the „Marches“ and the subsequent attempt to push back
Slavicism (Henry I, Crusaders, Frederick the Great, etc.);
2.
the indirect defense against and binding of
Slavic-Mongol forces in Eastern Europe since the Warager, the dwindling of
Germanic influence since the Mongol storm up to the World War, and the
annihilation of Germanic-Germanic influence in Bolshevik Russia. The advance of
Slavs into the central German area had essentially endangered Bavarians, East
Franks, Thuringians and Saxons. The relationship between Germanic and Slavic
neighbors was seldom completely peaceful, since the Western Slavs often provoked
the Germanic border tribes to the utmost by their assaults, cruelty and deceit.
It is not surprising that in these border wars the Germanic border tribes had to
do a great deal of work in order to create peace for themselves, and even went
so far as to exterminate entire Slavic tribes. These border wars, however, were
able to secure the soil from further encroachment by the Slavs, but Germanicism
was not in a position to regain formerly Germanic soil in this way. This could
only happen since the Germanic tribes were united by a central power, when
Charlemagne united the power over the German tribes in himself. It is to his
credit and to that of the following emperors and kings that the reclamation of
the East was again undertaken and further advanced in the following period. The
rulers of that time acted, on the one hand, out of military interest, and, on
the other hand, their deep religiousness, which, for racial reasons alone, was a
Gertnanian religiousness, a Gertnanian will in ecclesiastical form, was a
powerful impulse for them to convert the pagan or half-pagan Slavic tribes to
Christianity. Christianization thus acquired a Teutonic character, which in the
end remained in the long run more lasting in its effects through the re-Germanization
of the Eastern territories than the efforts of the Church to extend its
Christian sphere of power eastward. If one traces the reclamation of the German
eastern region in broad outline from a geographical point of view, its course is
as follows:
1.
Bavarian settlement and Germanization of the eastern Alpine region (today’s
Ostmark east of the Salzach-Drau source). Time: 740-1200. Here are to be noted
as particularly remarkable:
a)
740-900 the long-lasting battles with the Avars
on the part of the Bavarian dukes and Charlemagne. Foundation of the Ostmark
around 800 by Charlemagne between Enns and the Vienna Woods. 100 years later
collapse in the Magyar storm. Time: 894-907.
b)
Re-establishment of the Ostmark and the Mark of
Carinthia by Otto the Great and new settlement with Bavarians and Franks. 855
Battle of the Lechfeld. 1198 Foundation of the united Duchy of Austria-Styria.
The southeastern cornerstone of ‘today’s German national territory was created
with the settlement of Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola (in
part), Burgenland and the linguistic island of Gottschee.
2. From
928 onwards, reclamation, Germanization and later settlement of the land between
the rivers Saale and Elbe up to the Oder (preparatory work of Charlemagne.
Creation of the Sorbian Mark).
a)
930-1120 Conquest, securing of castles in the
country (King Heinrich I, Emperor Lothar of Supplinburg), manorial and
ecclesiastical penetration of the country.
b)
1125-1250. Under the Wettins, the land is
settled by Germans; Slavicism is gradually assimilated. Hereby a country had
become German settlement area again, which covered approximately today’s Saxony
and the southeastern Brandenburg (Lausitz).
3. From
1125 to about 1375 reclamation and settlement of other eastern territories.
a)
Mark Brandenburg (Askanier), Mecklenburg
(Heinrich der Lowe), Pomerania, Silesia, Posen, East Prussia, Pommerellen up to
the area of the Vistula, Galizien.
b)
In the 14th century. Bohemia and Moravia
becomes more populated (Emperor Charles IV), Hungary (Transylvania, Spis)
4. The
land seizure that led to the settlement of Livonia and Estonia in the 13th
century had a different character, since despite the greatest efforts of the
Teutonic Knights, there was no influx of peasants.
German
rule here was based solely on the noble German landlords, on the German citizens
in the cities and the German scholars and clergy. The greatness of the deed of
this eastern settlement from the Baltic to the Balkans is to be sought above all
in the fact that it almost doubled the German area. This eastern settlement was
the precondition for Germany’s development into a great European power in later
centuries and in modern times. To a large extent, however, the German nation
owes its present greatness, in addition to the princes, to the beneficial work
of the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, which at that time grew far
beyond its task of Christianization. The deeds of a Frederick the Great for the
Eastern settlement in the 18th century then finally created a firm foundation on
which we are still able to build today. It is regrettable that the domination of
the Italian area, which was necessary in itself at that time, was tied up for
centuries in the south by the necessity of gaining influence on the occupation
of the papal throne in Rome, so that the German human effort in the east and
north-east to secure and fill up those areas filled with or threatened by Slavs
could not take place in a stronger form. The expansion in the east was basically
always only a matter of particular forces. It was endangered as soon as a
combined strong power arose on this frontier. The development of Germany’s
relations on her eastern frontier is closely connected with her development
within the country. Whereas in France, for example, the royalty triumphed over
the nobility and made possible an early union of states, in Germany it was the
nobility, with its statehood, which again and again prevented German unity. This
is one of the main reasons why the reclamation of German territory east of the
Oder
always remained a piecemeal effort and why the tasks of the East could only be
tackled again after the unification of the German people under Adolf Hitler.
It is
nevertheless remarkable that the German emperors and kings, in spite of the
general turning of their gaze to the south and west, saw themselves induced
again and again to intervene in the affairs of the Polish state that was forming
in the tenth century. The Polish state was a foundation of the Viking Dajo (Miesko
I, 960-992), who united the Slavic tribes that had advanced from the Ukraine.
Their residences extended over the area between the Oder and Vistula south of
the Netzelinie, This Polish state and the individual duchies into which it later
disintegrated were Germanic in their internal structure. At the top were the
nobles, descendants of Germanic conquerors. Gradually the Germanic lords became
more and more mixed with the Polish landed nobility and lost their inner
connection with the Germanic area. Asiatic blood came in through slaves and
through the later Mongol raids, and thus more and more Mongoloid traits
developed in the racial image of the eastern Polish peasant in particular. As a
result of its internal disunity, the Polish state succeeded only once in the
course of its history in bringing together a multi-ethnic state (from the Black
Sea to the Baltic), after the personal union between Poland and Lithuania in
1386, taking advantage of the weakness of the German and Russian empires. Even
the battle of Tannenberg in 1410 against the Crusaders did not bring the Polish
Empire a lasting victory. Later, the German element brought order and culture,
especially to the cities of the countries settled by the West Slavs. Many
thousands of German citizens were assimilated by the Polish and Czech national
bodies. But the West Slavs, like all the other tribes of the aforementioned
cultural rift, have never been able to produce a culture of their own. Here it
has always been purely Germanic forces, or Germanic forces that have merged into
Slavicism, that have created cultural values. With their poverty of their own
achievements, the Western Slavs themselves did not even shrink from claiming for
themselves the achievements of purely German artists and scholars, such as Veit
Stofl, Copernicus, Parler. But for the second time a Mongol storm was to
threaten German settlement territory. Under Temujin, the Mongols had brought an
enormous Asian- Eastern European empire under their rule. His grandson Batu
advanced with his Mongol armies, breaking through the barrier zone of the
Varangian Empire, as far as Central Europe. Again, as so often, the German
emperors were tied up in Italy and left the defence to the individual German
princes. Henry the Pious of Silesia finally succeeded, in an extremely bloody
battle of Wahlstatt near Liegnitz in 1241, in warding off the threatening Mongol
danger from the Germanic core area for the second time in German history. The
Mongols may have retreated to Eastern European soil, but, as is made clear
elsewhere, they destroyed the advanced rampart of the Varangian Empire between
the Dnieper and the Volga. For Eastern Europe, this Mongolian campaign became of
great importance in the course of the whole of its later development up to our
own day. The restless Mongol blood permeated the Slavic tribes and gave the
Russian empire a character with which we again have to contend today in a bloody
struggle.
III.
The founding of the Russian Empire and its consequences for Europe - The danger
of the Turks and Judaism threaten Europe
While the
land-grabbing from the German heartland, described in broad outline, slowly
gained ground again towards the east step by step from the 8th century onwards,
from the 4th century onwards, the German Empire had been in a state of decline.
In the sixteenth century a Germanic people, coming from Sweden, gradually began
to establish a far advanced eastern front: the Normans or Varangians. The
Normans, who advanced to the east of Europe, were only one wing of that mighty
North Germanic sea migration which in the east reached as far as the Volga, and
in the west discovered Iceland, Greenland, America, and advanced around the
whole European continent as far as the Mediterranean. These Viking campaigns
were essentially as bound to the water in the east of Europe as the great
voyages in the west. For a long time a trade route was known to the Varangians,
which led from the Gulf of Finland, from the Neva to Lake Ladoga and from there
upstream to Lake Ilmen, upstream to Lake Lowa and then, overcoming the narrow
watershed, to the Dnieper or the Volga, following these rivers downstream to the
Black Sea or the Caspian Sea and further to Byzantium and Persia. Likewise, at
times they navigated the Duna Dnieper-Black Sea connection and the Vistula with
its tributaries. The Vikings were strong merchants and colonizers with
unquestionably strong political and military talents. All their efforts in
Eastern Europe had to be directed towards securing the trade routes between
North and South, primarily between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, politically
and militarily. From Aldeigjuborg on Lake Ladoga and Holmgard or, as it was
later called, from Novgorod at Lake Ilmen, Rurik, a Varangian prince, laid the
foundation for a dominion in Eastern Europe in 862, from which the Russian
Empire was to emerge later in the course of the centuries. Coming from Holmgard,
the Varangians established themselves in Kanugard = Kiev on the Dnjepr. From
these two strong points, the neighboring tribes were subjugated and made
tributary, and they also voluntarily came under Varangian rule in order to gain
support and protection from the surrounding tribes. In time, all the tribes
between Lake Ladoga and the Black Sea along the trade route described above
belonged to the Varangian Empire. With this, a Germanic exclusion zone was again
created in Eastern Europe for the protection of the core area. This time,
however, this exclusion zone also protected the Slavic people from flooding and
made possible the formation of a Polish-Lithuanian state, which threatened the
German settlement in the East, which was advancing from the Elbe. As a
consequence, the Russian Empire attracted the attacks of the Mongolian nomads
(Golden Horde), who were only able to penetrate as far as Central Europe once in
the 13th century, as already mentioned (Battle of Wahlstatt near Liegnitz in
1241). The Varangians were culturally far above the Slavic peoples they ruled,
they brought to the same cultural goods that had been foreign to them until
then. Their military influence was strong. Castles were built, a new art of war
was developed, and the Slavic followers were introduced to new weapons.
The goals
of the Varangians were at first:
1.
to establish the most advantageous trade
relations with the neighbors and to secure the traffic with the foreign trade
centres,
2.
to unite the native tribes, and to consolidate
them firmly in one hand, in order to eliminate any threat to these trade routes,
3.
to protect the country from external enemies.
The
Varangians always remained in the minority. Although they had the power to
establish a new empire in Eastern Europe, they were unable to build a purely
Germanic empire in Eastern Europe due to the lack of essential additions in
terms of people and blood.
In the
course of the centuries, more and more Slavic and other components were added to
the originally pure Germanic blood of the Varangian princes and their men. The
constant power struggles of the princes among themselves often destroyed the
last remaining Germanic bloodlines. In addition, a powerful Russian nobility
emerged, which was Slavic and Mongolian by blood and had no relations to
Germanicism at all.
The 10th
century saw an event which, apart from the lack of blood refreshment of the
Gerrnanian lords, was to acquire the greatest significance for the further
direction of the Russian Empire: the adoption of Greek Orthodox Christianity by
the Varangian princes. The cultural and character development of the Russian
Empire in got by the acceptance of the Byzantine Christianity another direction
than that of the other European countries. Through this a dividing line was
drawn to the rest of Europe, which, the more the Greek-Orthodox faith distanced
itself from its common Christian origin from about 1054 (complete separation
from Rome), had an ever stronger effect. The Church as theology had just as
little creative effect on culture in Russia as in Europe. The Russian Empire
became more and more alienated from Europe, and this at a time when national
passions generally played a far less important role than religious passions. It
is not least to be attributed to their work that the Russian Empire remained
until our time at the door of Europe from a cultural point of view, that the
attempts on the part of Russia to introduce the Russian people as a full member
of the European cultural community failed again and again. But in no other
country, even in later centuries, has the Church had such a dominant position in
everything, culture, economy, legislation, etc., as in Russia. The reason for
this is to be found above all in the fact that the Greek Orthodox religion was
from the beginning the state religion, brought from above, the princes, to their
peoples, and which in the course of its history was seldom seriously shaken by
internal struggles. In its orientation it also played a great role that the
clergy was not formed by Germanic peoples, but by Slavs. This meant that the
Germanic character of the Russian empire founded by the Varangians was lost from
the outset. This purely Slavic spiritual influence contributed not
inconsiderably to the Slavization of the princely families. The fact that the
Greek Orthodox Church was, so to speak, of one piece, opened up possibilities
for it, which, however, it did not always know how to exploit for its own
blessing and for the blessing of the Russian peoples. The Russian Empire became
not only the land of Eastern Christianity, but also Orthodox at the same time
the land of sects. In no country has mysticism acquired such importance and
formed the character of the people as in the Russian Empire. It is the Russian
Church’s own fault that it had to perish so ignominiously in 1917.
For with
all the power that was given to it, it did not understand how to guide and
educate the Russian people spiritually and how to take over the spiritual
shaping of the Europeanization of the country that began with Ivan IV. The
decisive factor for this was the level of education of the Russian clergy. The
Greek Orthodox Church has always done little for the education of its clergy.
Often enough the clergy could just read and write. An occupation with foreign
languages was very rare and also not necessary, since the church writings were
written exclusively in Russian. Thus, the Church was no more capable of creating
and forming culture in Eastern Europe than it was in Central and Western Europe.
Here, too, it lacked the racial basis from which such tasks can only be
successfully tackled. The Western means of culture were given into the hands of
a people without any spiritual preparation, who were not at all accustomed to
handling such dangerous weapons. As a result, European culture always remained
something alien to the Russian people, much admired and eagerly imitated, but
not understood by the masses.
As a
result of the decline of the Germanic influence in the leadership and the
shaping of the Russian people in spiritual and cultural terms, the Russian
Empire lost more and more in the course of the centuries the character of a
protection for Europe against Asia. This development was accelerated by the
historical course of events in Eastern Europe. At the beginning of the 13th
century, an enormous power had accumulated in Asia, when the Mongol chieftain
Temujin was proclaimed Genghis Khan of all Mongol tribes and established a vast
Asian empire in huge campaigns of conquest. His sons and grandsons continued
these campaigns of conquest, and Temujin’s grandson Batu and his Mongols,
rushing against Europe, destroyed Kiev, the main pillar of the Vagaean empire,
in 1240, and set about the threatening advance into Central Europe. In the
aforementioned Battle of Wahlstatt in 1241, this threat to Central Europe was
averted. In spite of the victory, the Mongols had met with such resistance that
it seemed advisable for them to retreat to the Russian Empire after a march
through Hungary, Moravia, and Dalmatia. Europe had escaped a great danger, and
German blood had not flowed in vain; but all Eastern Europe was subdued by the
Mongols, and the Grand Princes of Moscow became subject to them. With Mongol
support they sought to extend their empire. They were related to the Mongol
Khans by marriage, had their dignities confirmed by them, and became more and
more compliant executors of Mongol aims. The number of Mongols in the state
service of Moscow increased, as did the resulting racial mixtures, Of the Grand
Prince Vasily II (1425-1462) it is said that he loved the Mongols and their
language above all things, and persecuted the native princes without mercy.
In this
connection it is of no importance whether the Mongols of Genghis Khan were one
or several tribes, what is important is that the racial basis of these tribes
was completely different from that of the Germanic or Indo-Germanic races of
Eastern Europe, Mongolism had a racially disintegrating effect to the highest
degree. This also explains to a certain extent the imbalance of character of the
peoples living in Eastern Europe. Bolshevism, in turn, brought an increase in
Mongol influence in Eastern Europe. Probably everyone, who in the first and
second world war the types of Russian prisoners of war it will have struck you
how much more pronounced the mongoloid influence of the prisoners of war of the
present war. In the course of the battles in the Russian Empire, the Lithuanians
also came into a relatively loose temporary dependence on the Mongols. This had
the consequence that the Greek Orthodox faith also gained stronger influence in
their country, which was only later pushed back after the unification of
Lithuania and Poland. Numerous are the fights between Lithuanians and Poles with
the Russian rulers, to which since the 16th century frequently fights with the
Swedes are added. At times, the Russian rulers succeeded in advancing their
domain almost to the East Prussian border (Ivan III), conquests which, however,
were always lost in the course of the battles. The influence of the Mongol rule
went so far that Moscow adopted Mongolian ways of life, When since the 15th
century the mighty Mongol empire approached its dissolution, Moscow took over
this inheritance, From this developed in the course of history an ever greater
danger for the rest of the continent. Central Europe could not enjoy a long
respite even after the Mongol storm. Again and again new dangers threatened from
the east or southeast. By the middle of the 14th century, the Turks had gained a
firm foothold in Europe. In 1389, the Serbs and Bulgarians were defeated in the
Battle of the Field of Blackbirds, and Emperor Sigismund lost the Battle of
Nicopolis (1396). Until the second siege of Vienna (1683), the direct Turkish
threat to Central Europe was to remain constant. It was at this time that the
first attempt was made to plunge Germany into a war on two fronts. The „most
Christian“ king of France allied himself with the Turks in order to achieve a
division of the German armies to the east and west. Subsequently, the attempts
of the Western European states were to be repeated again and again to heckle
Germany from the West and the East. In the Middle Ages we encounter a new power
that began to play a role in Europe; Judaism. The Judaism of the Middle Ages
showed exactly the same international connections as in modern times. Judaism
had established itself in Germany during the Roman campaigns, and from the 14th
century the position of the Jews was already so consolidated that they were to a
certain extent an economic power. Their unscrupulous trading practices and their
usury had since that time, the Jews spread more and more to the East and
gradually established themselves in Eastern Europe as well. In the Russian
Empire, however, they were to attain importance only in the 19th century.
IV.
The first signs of a threat to Europe from the Russian Empire.
In the
Russian area the development to a united Russian state, as already mentioned
above, had progressed under the Mongol rule. With the destruction of the purely
Germanic- Varagian princely dynasties the Mongolian-Slavic element in the
leadership gained more and more the upper hand. After the Mongols had thrown off
their yoke (1480), the protective zone for Central Europe became a threat to
this area, which was to take shape for the first time under Ivan III (1462-1505)
and then above all under Ivan IV (1533-1584).Russia had developed into a
continental state in the vastness of the Russian plain, which lacked any direct
connection to the rest of Europe. The Baltic coast, as well as the Black Sea
coast and the Lithuanian-Polish land mass, was in the hands of foreign states.
Ivan IV had for the first time clearly recognized that if he wanted to open his
country to European progress, he would have to have a direct geographical
connection with Europe (1553 establishment of trade relations with England via
Arkhangelsk, 1558-1583 Livonian War, later from 1645 establishment of trade
relations with France). From this time on, beyond Peter the Great (1682-1725),
date the never-ending struggles of the Russian Empire to advance further into
Europe by land between the Baltic and the Black Sea and to gain useful coasts in
the south and north. Only in this sense can the struggles of the Russian Empire
to gain the Baltic area and Finland, the battles with the Turks over the
Balkans, the Black Sea and Constantinople, the struggles for the land of the
Vistula arc be understood. Peter the Great was the first Russian ruler who
purposefully thought far beyond the borders of his country. He had, perhaps in
no small part, acquired political foresight through his travels in Europe, who
included in his calculations the European countries of the center and the West.
The Russian people were to share in European culture and civilization, and the
Russian Empire was to become a European power. This inevitably led to a shift in
the European balance of power, the violence of which had to be borne first and
foremost by the Central European area, squeezing it between two powerful groups
of states in the West and the East. From now on, the Central European-Germanic
area from the coast of the Arctic Sea to the Black Sea was confronted with an
adversary in the East who ruled over a land mass larger than the whole of
Europe, an adversary who, moreover, had a constantly growing population. And
here we meet at the same time the Russian man in his thinking and feeling. These
Russian plans of conquest receive their mystical mantle: European progress is to
be made serviceable to the Russian people, but at the same time the Russian is
to redeem the peoples of Europe from their „depravity,“ bring them, as it were,
a new ethic. This idea of world improvement has never again sunk into the East
of Europe. From that time on it has remained alive in the Russian Empire through
Pan-Slavism and Bolshevism up to our own day. There is not a single Russian
ruler who did not have the frequently attacked and also denied double-sensed
testament of Peter the Great constantly before his eyes, the tsars were aware of
the inadequacy of the Russian peoples. They had recognized that Europe was
culturally centuries ahead of the Russian Empire. They sought in every way to
remedy this state of affairs. A constant stream, especially of German people,
peasants, citizens, scholars and officers, was directed by them into their
empire. They accomplished great creative deeds in all spheres of life and had an
exemplary effect on the Russian leadership and its peoples. Peter the Great was
the great reformer of the Russian Empire. He led Russia out of its isolation in
world politics, but also created a permanent threat to the Germanic people’s
soil. With the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Sweden forfeited its supremacy in the
Baltic Sea region and the Russian Empire became a European power. Since the
Peace of Nystadt in 1721, Sweden has not risen above its position as a
third-rate Germanic power. The claim to leadership soon passes to
Prussia-Germany. It has been asserted above that Peter the Great thought far
beyond the. thought far beyond the borders of his country. It can be assumed
that he already had a kind of tripartite division of the European area in mind,
which led him to conclude an alliance with Louis XV of France in a personal
attempt, France, however, had not yet recognized at that time that it might be
possible to take Germany in its heels with Russian help. Otherwise it cannot be
explained that it still had little interest in an alliance with the Russian
Empire.
Peter the
Great also expressed this turn towards the West in purely external terms.
Instead of the previous capital Moscow, he founded the new capital of his empire
in Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, Petersburg became the „window to Europe“. In
the later time flare up again and again fights of the Russian empire with the
Swedes and Turks. The participation in the Seven Years’ War against Frederick
the Great also has the goal to carry the Russian influence further into Europe.
Under Peter the Great, the second great attempt since the Mongol invasion to
penetrate Europe is recorded. The later policy of the rulers who followed -
including the Bolsheviks - is nothing other than the continuation of this
striving towards the West. The difference between now and then is that the
leading aristocracy of the time had certain ties of various kinds to the West,
ties which the Bolsheviks have thoroughly cleared up, except in the purely
practical field. A defense and securing of the Germanic core area in the
„force-field“ was practically not attempted in this century, with the exception
of the Swedes. There was by and large a lack of understanding in this century of
the dangers massing in the East. Frederick the Great, too, was far too busy
during his wars in the other theatres of war to be able to combat the dangers
threatening from the East in any other way than on a secondary theatre of war.
That he understood the great task of eastern settlement in time of peace is
proved by his attempts at internal colonization and by his recruitment’s for
land in the Polish divisions. If the Russian Czars always proceeded unerringly
on their western frontier, this was due to the fact that their hands were not
tied to the east, south and north in the way that they were to the German
Central States in the heart of Europe. In 1815 the land mass of the Russian
Empire had advanced to the national and cultural frontier of Europe proper. It
is a sign of the Russian thinking of that time, which was turned towards Europe,
that it almost completely neglected the great tasks that lay in Siberia and
approached the mobilization of the enormous sources of strength of this region
practically only with people who in most cases had been banished to this region
by the tsars as asocial elements. Often enough, however, these exiles were
racially valuable elements who carried strong streams of Germanic blood. The
Russian rulers always made the mistake of imposing European culture on their
country without taking into account the spiritual structure of the peoples.
There remained constantly an undigested residue of culture, which carried the
discord into the Russian souls. This is also the main reason why Russia is the
typical country of revolutionaries and do-gooder. For this reason the Jewish
element and Jewish thinking were able to take root here. In its state structure
and in its cultural aspirations, the Russian Empire had remained alien to the
Russian soul, and the latter took bitter revenge for the too little
understanding shown to it. It is the tragedy of the Russian people that they did
not carry out this revenge themselves, but in the end, in their lack of
independence, fell victim again to a current brought to them from outside:
Jewish Bolshevism.
V. The
development of parties and intellectual currents in the Russian Empire destroyed
the last Germanic influences in Eastern Europe and created the precondition for
the threat of in the 20th century
For a
deeper understanding of the present course of our contemporary events, it is
necessary to bear in mind the foreign and domestic political events of the
preceding century. The end of the 18th century, through the French Revolution,
brought forth schools of thought which placed the relationship of man to the
community, to the people, and to the State on an entirely different basis, and
from which parties developed which are called liberalist, democratic, and
socialist, with their various modifications. In the 19th century the struggle of
these ideas with the conservative direction and the struggle of the parties
among themselves began, which tried to assert their influence for the guidance
of the destinies of the state, A fourth power joined them, which now also
appeared as a party and again announced its claims to power: the Catholic
Church. These party struggles created entanglements that often made the domestic
and foreign policy of almost all European countries at this time appear only
from the point of view of party policy. The economic upswing which also began in
this century, and the manifold economic ties which arose as a result of the
economy increasingly leaving national soil and entering into supranational,
international entanglements, complicated and blurred the party fronts, and here
again gave rise to new questions of power which had never been felt in such
strength and in such breadth in the earlier centuries. And almost unnoticed,
Freemasonry and Judaism created for themselves a key position which in many
cases proved to be more powerful than the will of princes and politicians.
Seemingly all the leaders of states took the party currents into consideration
and sometimes, purely by force of the pressure of these currents, made mistakes
which had serious effects on the life of states and peoples. In this misjudgment
of dynamic forces, which were often only misguided, and in their wrong use from
the people’s point of view in the field of domestic and foreign policy, and
sometimes also in the purely military field, one has found the cause of the
great conflicts of the 20th century. It is a great opportunity to see the events
of the twentieth century that have brought such unspeakable suffering to
millions of people. In this century, however, one also finds the beginning of
the self-reflection which, as a reaction to these terrible mistakes, gave the
German people National Socialism and its leader Adolf Hitler. This is also the
beginning of the upheaval that made the Italian people fascist, gave the Spanish
people a rebirth, and caused the slow realization of a new national twilight
among many other peoples of Europe, and indeed of the world. And finally, in the
twentieth century, the injustice inflicted on the Japanese people, without
knowledge of the true circumstances, when in the middle of the last century, by
force of arms, the doors to the Japanese islands were opened to the American
merchants. The essentially imperceptible guidance by Jews and Freemasons, the
partly tragic mistakes, partly deliberate acts, born of ideologies, cost the
world tons of blood, destroyed cultures and economies, and brought misfortune
upon peoples who, in the broad mass, were often themselves little to blame for
their misfortunes. Thus a century which, on the face of it, had served,
especially in its last phase, the peaceful development of relations between
nations and the increase of material goods, became the source of profound
conflicts in the next century, in which, purely by force of events, the further
development of the world had to be clarified once and for all. From this point
of view one must therefore also consider the conditions which in the 19th and
20th centuries up to our own time have placed Russia in ever stronger opposition
to Europe and its bulwark Germany. All Russian schools of thought have in some
way pursued foreign policy aims and formed a threat to Europe. The help which
Russia had rendered to the European states against Napoleon in the wars of
liberation involuntarily brought about a stronger influence of the Russian
Empire on the destinies of Europe in the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The
Congress was dominated by the Austrian minister Metternich, who sought to
establish a certain balance of power in Europe, Austria and Prussia were to form
the „strong centre“, Russia and France as equally strong „side weights“ as
possible. He resolutely opposed the annexation of Poland to the Tsarist Empire
and was prepared to sacrifice the whole of Saxony in order to gain Prussian
support.
Hardenberg and Wilhelm von Humboldt would have been willing to join forces with
the Austrians against the Russians at such a price; then Frederick William
himself intervened. He did not want to endanger his personal friendship with the
Tsar and ordered his state chancellor to drop the resistance to the Russian
wishes. This swing of Prussia became decisive for the progress of the congress,
Alexander enforced his will. Although he had to give the German Danzig to the
Hohenzollerns, after considerable hesitation also the so-called Duchy of Posen
and the old German Thorn, furthermore the Tarnopol district and the salt mines
of Wielicka to the Austrians, he himself secured no less than 82 per cent of the
former Polish territory of 1772. Krakow was made into a small republic, because
no one begrudged the other the possession, later it fell to Austria. The
partition of Poland meant a considerable strengthening of Russian influence in
Europe. Like a huge wedge, the Russian Empire now pushed itself between the
German lands in the north and southeast. As the main points of the tsarist
policy it can be stated that they were:
1.
A foreign policy and military intentions were
to penetrate as far south, north and central Europe as possible,
2.
was pursuing the internal political goal of
Europeanizing the Russian Empire to the greatest possible extent.
This
policy was made easier for them by the fact that a European feeling of community
in any form did not exist, because the rulers of the individual countries and
states mostly thought in an absolutist and selfish way, and the conservative
schools of thought supporting them were constantly and jealously watching over
every movement of a different kind. The other intellectual and ideological
fronts after the French Revolution were only beginning to develop in the 19th
century. There was no sense of European responsibility at that time that saw the
concerns of its own states as part of a larger whole.
The
peoples were at this time struggling for their influence in politics and were
completely disunited in their foreign and domestic aims, conservative tendencies
were opposed to liberalist and later to socialist and anarchist ones, the latter
two always appearing as the enemies of the rulers, and in consequence of their
erroneous doctrine there could be no question of a politically or even
nationally understood European feeling of community. The monarchist top echelons
of the states camouflaged their egoistic views through a sense of community
among the rulers that was more outwardly displayed than inwardly felt, and which
found expression in addressing the ruling princes as „cousin“ or „cousin“. Only
a few reigning heads really meant the address „cousin“ inwardly as seriously as
it was expressed in the attitude of Emperor Wilhelm I. The danger which the
Russian Empire could mean for Europe was therefore not yet so outwardly
perceptible at that time, since the Russian Tsar stood in close alliance both
with the Prussian king and ultimately with the Austrian imperial house.
The
friendship apparently determined Russian foreign policy to no small extent and
ultimately made possible the unification of Germany under Bismarck The Russian
tsar actually felt drawn to the monarchs of Prussia and Austria in certain
matters, however, only on a purely personal level, since he perceived in their
emperorship and kingship the embodiment of traditional rulership par excellence,
Almost all Russian tsars consciously struggled to maintain their absolutist
position and believed that they were the only ones who had the power to rule.
Almost all Russian tsars consciously struggled to maintain their absolutist
position and believed that they could count on neighbourly help from the
friendly states of Prussia and Austria in an emergency, despite some differences
- especially with Austria in the Balkans, Their entire policy, however, suffered
from the fact that Peter the Great had made Petersburg a European capital,
without being able to win over Russianness for the tasks of a European state, In
the nineteenth century, Moscow Russianness embodied more than ever the
opposition to Petersburg. The Moscow Russianness embodied in the 19th century
more than ever the opposition to Petersburg and its European way of thinking,
Basically, the Russian Tsar since Peter III from the house of
Schleswig-Holstein-Gottrop was felt and fought by the old Muscovite direction as
a foreigner, as a German. Germans“ still held the most important offices of
state, and officers with German names and Germanic blood played an outstanding
role in Petersburg’s guard regiments. Petersburg increasingly became a city with
a typically international-European character, in which German, Italian and
French culture and art occupied a dominant position. Moscow, however, remained
the embodiment of the Muscovite turn. An important role in the further
development played the liberalist and romantic ideas, which brought with them
the young generation of the freedom wars. It is not surprising that Russians
returning from Europe made comparisons between Russia and the other countries of
Europe, that their culture and civilization, and for Russian conditions,
exceedingly liberal constitution made a special impression on them. It is in the
nature of the East Slav peoples to be radical. No doubt this is a consequence of
the whole disposition and history, a consequence of the religious nihilism which
has made itself felt again and again in the course of time. But it is also quite
understandable that the fear of this radicalism caused the Russian rulers, after
the epoch of the wars of liberation, to take only half measures in their liberal
reforms. The vacillating attitude of the Russian tsars caused an ever-increasing
radicalization among the people themselves, as a result of which hardly any
Russian ruler could leave his palace without the danger of assassination, truly
a shameful sign! But this eternal ferment in the country also had a strong
effect on foreign policy. In part, foreign policy tasks were undertaken by
Russian rulers primarily to distract the people from domestic difficulties. For
the first time this moment appeared with Nicholas I. His predecessor, Alexander
I (18011825), had himself brought liberal ideas from Europe, tried to push
through a reform of self government, but lapsed back into strong absolutism when
he noticed with concern the increasing radicalization among the people. In
foreign policy he increased Russia’s influence on Europe by concluding the Holy
Alliance. He made a significant attempt to settle peasant soldiers in western
Russia. Alexander I wanted to create a reliable border population capable of
military service, a counterweight against the restless Poles, but also to remedy
the peasant plight of some regions. In any case, these measures had a strong
Russifying effect in the border regions. The reign of his brother and successor,
Nicholas I (1825 to 1855), after some fluctuations, was strongly absolutist. His
reign saw events of a foreign and domestic political nature that were to carry
strong weight for the future. The Decembrist Uprising (Russian: December People)
in 1825 was the first attempt from officer circles to achieve a constitutional
change by force. It was put down, many hundreds of noblemen were banished to
Siberia for forced labor, Nicholas I created a secret political police in the
„3rd Department“, from which the „Ochrana“ later emerged. From this moment there
is a second, as it were, subterranean Russian history, which sometimes was to be
more significant for the fate of the Russian Empire than the official history of
the Tsar. On the one side stood the Russian state apparatus with the Tsar at its
head, and on the other stood the revolutionary groups and parties that were
forming, ranging from the liberalists to the anarchists and nihilists. It is
worth noting here that these revolutionaries included precisely the honest and
educated Russian, the awakening intelligentsia, which, thanks to its position,
was sometimes able to influence the direction of the state itself. It was in
this period that the works of the poets and thinkers Gogol, Pushkin, Turgentjeff,
etc., were written, all of whom were on the side of the revolutionary groups.
Now there was also the mighty upsurge of the Slavophile idea and Pan-Slavism,
which grew out of Romanticism, and which held the conviction that the Russian
Empire could be saved only by Russianness, not by Europe. The Slavophiles
believed that Russia itself could leapfrog the whole of European development,
that from the Middle Ages via Pietism and Humanism, Reformation and
Enlightenment. Russia would be called to rejuvenate and renew Europe, which had
grown old. Are these not sounds that we have heard constantly from Soviet-
Russian Bolshevism down to our own day? The Pan-Slavic idea appealed to all
circles. It is no proof to the contrary that in 1830/31 and 1861 the Poles
revolted against Russian rule, for the Poles, too, felt themselves to be Slavs,
but because of their education and culture they considered themselves to be „the
chosen people of Slavdom. The Polish uprisings will have to be dealt with
elsewhere, since they had a strong foreign policy impact. After the death of
Nicholas I, Alexander II ascended the tsarist throne (1855-1881). Alexander II
was determined to usher in an age of reform. His reformist domestic policy was
in complete contrast to his father’s absolutist one. But he was not energetic
enough to carry through his plans fully. Alexander II, will to join the Russian
Empire to Europe, to make it a European constitutional and legal state, failed,
That his reform remained piecemeal became fatal for the entire Empire. The
liberation of the peasants in 1861 became an internal political burden, since it
freed the peasants externally, but did not give them enough land. In 1862,
therefore, the first radical party in Russia was founded under the name of „Land
and Freedom“ (Semlya i Volya), whose programme had significance until the
Bolshevik Revolution. The creation of the agricultural self-administration, the
Semstvos, also came to a halt halfway, even though its merit for the people’s
school system, medical system, road construction, etc., was not recognized. -
things which had hitherto received little attention in the Russian Empire -
should not be disregarded. The proclamation of compulsory military service in
1874 did not bring the people any closer to the tsar either, since the education
of the next generation of soldiers was more a matter of loyalty to Russia than
to the tsar. The revolutionary circles felt that the manner of carrying out the
reforms was not extensive enough. The half-measures rather increased the influx
both from the ranks of the intelligentsia and from the peasant population, since
the dangerous tension caused by the almost complete absence of a healthy middle
class in the cities and the deep abyss between the noble landowners and the
peasants had in no way been bridged by the reforms, Alexander II had probably
outwardly freed the Russian man, but his attempts to give him better living
conditions, to give him a new purpose in life, remained stuck in the rudiments.
The Russian became revolutionary in the sense of destruction.
In an
appeal of the „Young Russia“ it says already in 1862: „Russia is entering the
revolutionary period of its existence. From below, the muffled grumbling of the
people can be heard, Today beaten down, flogged to death, tomorrow the people
will rise again together with Stenka Razin and Pugachev. The only way out is
revolution, bloody and inexorable revolution. We shrink from nothing, although
we know that rivers of blood will flow, that innocent victims will be destroyed.
We are ready to sacrifice our own heads for it. „Thus the Russian would be
persecuted, banished and imprisoned as a „revolutionary idealist“; but he would
act, suffer and die as a „martyr“ for a resulting human „ideal state“ through
which Europe, indeed the whole world, would be redeemed. Insane as these
thoughts were, nevertheless a large part of the entire young Russian
intelligentsia fell into this delusion, Bakunin’s disciple Nethayev wrote in his
revolutionary catechism- „The revolutionary knows only one science -
destruction. For it and it alone he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and
even medicine. For him there exists but one enjoyment, but one consolation, one
reward, one satisfaction- the reward of revolution, Day and night he may have
but one thought, but one aim- relentless destruction, All means by which this is
promoted are right. While we admit no other activity than destruction, we
recognize that the form in which this activity is carried out may be very
manifold: Poison, dagger, rope, etc. The revolution sanctifies everything
without distinction.“
And so we
see Russian anarchism as the mastermind behind the scenes of history, and
assassination becomes a means used without restraint, to which the Russian
tsars, their relatives, members of the government and noble landowners fall
victim, as do leading personalities of the rest of Europe. Behind this
anarchism, however, stands Jewry as ruler and whipper-in, unwilling, however, to
sacrifice its own personality. Alexander II also fell victim to this last brutal
means, the assassination, in 1861. He died during a ride in Petersburg under the
bombs of the Narodnaya Volya. This was the last attempt of a Russian Czar to
carry out reforms in the Russian Empire. From now on, the fortunes of this
mighty empire, which had been so immensely rich and yet always so poor, were
drifting inexorably towards ruin. His successor, Alexander III (1881-1884),
wanted to turn the wheel again, wanted to return to the absolutist rule of the
all-powerful Tsar, but he did not consider that history knows no turning back,
that there is not even a standstill in history, His father’s liberal ministers
had to go, the beginnings of the constitutional state were destroyed by a decree
in 1881 on „Measures for the Preservation of State Order and Public
Tranquility“, the Semstvo order was nationalized, and the post of governor was
created, who was to be in charge of state affairs.
The
arbitrary rule and corruptibility of the officials increased. The arbitrary rule
and corruptibility of the officials increased and with it also the hatred of the
state by the broad masses, their destructive desire was from now on directed
against everything that had anything to do with the state and state building,
Slowly also the Russian church lost more and more the power over its followers,
Now also it was, as nihilistic and anarchistic directions gained in strength and
power, regarded by the revolutionaries only as an instrument for the domination
of the masses. Under Alexander III, after nihilism, an ideology finally
penetrated the Russian Empire which was to retain its terrible significance in
Eastern Europe to the present day: Marxism. It is typical of East Slavic thought
that even this European import was further sharpened and radicalized in the
Russian sphere. Russian Marxism has never been a workers’ movement in the sense
propagated by it. It was always a direction of the „intelligentsia“ and, above
all, of the „oppressed intelligentsia“. From the outset, therefore, Jewry played
a major role in this new party. Judaism, which, as already mentioned, had begun
to spread to the east of Europe in the Middle Ages, united with Judaism, which
had settled on the Black Sea coast from about the tenth century onwards. Since
the Jews had also made themselves unpopular in the Russian cities through their
trading practices and usury, the Tsars constantly tried to prevent the influx of
Jews into the interior of Russia. The so-called „Cherta“ fixed the Duna and the
Dnieper as the eastern boundary for the settlement of the Jews. It was not until
the reign of Tsar Alexander II, and later his successor Nicholas II, that this „Cherta“
was broken in many ways and Jews who practiced a trade and the Jewish
intelligentsia were allowed to settle in towns east of the aforementioned line.
The last remnants of the „Cherta“ disappeared during the World War. The Russian
Generalissimo Nikolai Nikolayevich recalled the experiences which Russia had
made with the Jews during the last Turkish War. There, too, as always, the Jews
had provided a large proportion of the spies and traitors, had served between
the enemy fronts whoever paid them best. When in 1915 the Russian side became
convinced that the German advance could no longer be stopped, Nikolai
Nikolaevich secured his front by having the Jews forcibly transported to the
interior of the Reich in May 1915. Thus Jewry had been given a completely free
hand inside Russia.
In a
short time the Jews dominated the leading positions in the international Marxist
secret societies. Marxism is a Jewish product, and its doctrine of the
international unification of the exploited proletarians against the capitalist
exploiters in order to bring about a classless and stateless social order has
always been akin in kind and spirit to the thinking and feeling of all Jews.
Their people-less and stateless parasitism could only gain by the destruction of
all states and peoples. Here one can already see how the circle begins to close,
how Jewry, out of its attitude, tries to establish Jewish world domination on
the one hand through the Marxist- Bolshevik doctrine and on the other hand
through the plutocratic-international money economy. If men like Lenin have
attained paramount importance in the Bolshevik leadership, they have been
basically only forward posts of Jewry, which has constantly known how to remain
in the background when in exposed positions. When the separation of the majority
party (Bolsheviks) from the minority party (Mensheviks) was completed at a
London congress of Russian Marxists in 1903, the struggle of the Bolsheviks for
power began under Lenin’s leadership; Europe was now threatened not only by the
danger of Russian imperialism but also by the undermining of Marxist doctrine.
The last tsar, Nicholas II (1894-1917), was himself much too weak to stop the
development inside the country. It came to the revolution in 1905 as a result of
the lost war against Japan. The sinister influence of the last tsars, and later
of“ Saint“ Rasputin, hastened the end of the Romanovs and closed another chapter
in the development of the Russian Empire. The fall of the Tsardom in Russia,
however, as history has shown, did not mean a cessation of the threats coming
from the East of Europe, but, on the contrary, a strengthening of them by the
subterranean stirrings of Bolshevism.
VI.
The antagonisms of European power in the 19th century prevent a clear position
on the Eastern Question and result in a stronger influence of the tsars on
European destinies.
The
domestic political development of the Russian Empire, described here in brief
outlines, was only decisive in the background for the shaping of Russia’s
foreign policy in the 19th century and in the period up to the World War. It was
still primarily the will of the Tsar that was decisive, although he knew very
well how to use internal political tensions and pan-Slavic ideas for foreign
policy actions. Thus the Turkish wars were quite popular in the Russian empire,
since they were led for the „protection of the Christians against the infidel
Turks“. Less popular was the thought of a war against the Germans, even though
Pan-Slavism was opposed to Pan-Germanism by interested parties. Moreover, from
the nineteenth century onwards, the expansion of the interests of European
states, the establishment of colonies, trading posts, etc., made political
relations between them more and more complicated. Political, military and
economic conditions of a country or a group of countries influenced in many ways
the actions of other, geographically distant peoples and states. In this century
it became obvious that any event in any part of the world could no longer be
regarded as an isolated act, but as a result of the extensive interconnection of
states and their interests began to have an effect on states and areas of other
parts of the world. Thus, the Balkan policy of the Russian Empire, the attempts
of its influence on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean resulted in
entanglements with states far away from the Russian Empire. These include the
Russo- Turkish War of 1827/29, the clash of British and Russian interests in
Persia and Afghanistan from 1829 onwards, the Crimean War of 1853-56, which in
its origins was a Russo-Turkish war, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, which
ended with the Congress of Berlin, the Russo- Japanese War and its background of
1904-05, and finally the fight against the Bolshevik armies by „White Armies“.
This also includes the expansions of the Russian Empire to Transcaucasia,
Armenia, Persia, south of the Aral and Balkan Sea to Afghanistan and in East
Asia to China, Manchuria and Korea. The influence on Finland increased the
pressure on Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic. In all these
cases, the largest land power in the world came up against the largest sea power
in the world: England. In the 19th century, England was the adversary of Russia,
who for the most part, in the proven British manner, sent foreign nations
forward to push back and weaken the Russian colossus. In the time of this
conflict, the young German Empire Bismarck later gained strength, and the skill
of the great German statesman succeeded in mastering the manifold dangers that
threatened the young foundation of the Empire.
It is the
duty of every politically thinking person to learn from history and to recognize
mistakes. From the Middle Ages to the present day, the borders of the German
nation have not coincided with the political borders of the German national
territory. In the north and south, the sea and mountains provided natural
protection, but not in the east and west. The large neighbors in the north, west
and south had it basically already from natural conditions easier to come to
volkisch unions (e.g. collecting area Paris basin). Germany has had to defend
itself constantly against attacks and influences of all kinds, has lived
constantly in a struggle with greater internal and external resistances in order
to come to a unification. Since the great conflicts of the Middle Ages, the
external power struggles in the West have always been basically in favor of
France and to the disadvantage of Germany.
The
German space has always been small and valuable in relation to its population
and could never be used generously in battle, as in the neighboring Russian
Empire, where the vastness of space has formed a strategic factor not to be
underestimated. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Germany’s central position has
been decisively used by her neighbors and adversaries in the East and West in
their calculations. It is true that Germany’s central position offers great
economic advantages in peace, and the advantages of an internal front in war
have been made quite clear during the World War; but it always compels
preparation for a war on two fronts, unified organization, planned spatial
planning, and the constant readiness of the entire nation to defend itself.
These moments have been of great importance in the policy between Germany and
the Russian Empire in the19th century until our time always played a major role.
The relationship of Russia to the Central European states, at their head
Austria- Hungary and Prussia, was, as already described, largely determined by
the personal relationship of Tsar Alexander I. to the Austrian Imperial House
and the Hohenzollerns.
Under him
Poland was established as a constitutional state, with a constitution that
embraced everything that European liberalism offered (1815). Poland was
connected with the Russian Empire only through the person of the Czar. Securing
Europe against the East no longer seemed necessary at the moment. Especially in
the period from 1818-1820 Germans streamed into the vastness of the Russian
Empire. Partly these were peasant settlers from the Old Empire, who were mostly
settled in Transcaucasia and received the same rights as the Germans who had
immigrated since Catherine II (Manifesto of July 22, 1763), partly the settlers
came from the Congress Polish area. Accordingly, the latter already represented
a kind of „daughter settlement“. It should be mentioned here that the flow of
German settlers to the East had again taken on stronger forms especially in the
18th and 19th centuries, since the promised freedom of religion,
self-administration, exemption from military and civilian service, tax relief,
etc., provided a strong impetus for migration to the East. In the 19th century
the existing maximum number of Germans, including those in Congress Poland (here
above all also urban settlements, industry in Litzmannstadt), can be estimated
at about 2 million people, however, their political influence in the Russian
empire was not high, since the Germans of Russia showed among themselves only
small cohesion, a task for the safety of Europe these settlers already purely
numerically no more to fulfill could, also hardly understanding for such a task
had, they lost with the beginning German persecutions in the 20, century ever
more their vested rights and are under Bolshevik rule the heaviest.
The
people have been subjected to oppression and persecution. To a large extent. To
a large extent, Bolshevik rule scattered the remaining Germans to the four
winds; many perished in Siberia. Today there may not be 300,000 Germans left in
the Soviet Union. Nikolaus I believed that he could master the internal
difficulties of his empire through a strong foreign policy. The relationship to
Austria worsened particularly by the resumption of the Balkan policy, With
support of France and England the Turkish-Egyptian fleet was destroyed in
Navarino in the course of the Greek freedom fight in 1827. In the Peace of
Adrianople in 1829, the Russian Empire got hold of the Danube estuaries and the
Black Sea coast north of Batum. The Danubian principalities and Serbia became
practically Russian vassal states, The „Holy Alliance“ which united the Russian
Tsar with the rulers of Austria and Prussia had fallen into disarray as a result
of the threat to Austria-Hungary. But after this conflict it was restored.
Nicholas I from that moment possessed the undisputed preponderance in the
three-night alliance. Twenty years later this preponderance was to acquire
special significance. In the meantime, in 1830, the Polish uprising had been
bloodily put down. Prussia, into whose eastern provinces the revolt threatened
to spill over, indirectly aided the Russian project by occupying its eastern
frontier under Gneisenau and Clausewitz; Congress Poland lost its free
constitution and became a Russian province. At the same time, the Russian Empire
began to expand across the Caucasus. Armenia with Yerevan was annexed to the
Russian Empire (1828), Turkestan and Afganistan came under Russian influence,
England saw this advance of the Russian sphere of power to the south as a threat
to its position in Persia and India, It approached from this time above all
France and sought in all ways to prevent a further disintegration of the Turkish
Empire. Meanwhile, the year 1848, with its turmoil, gave Nicholas I another
opportunity to consolidate his influence in Central Europe. The uprising of the
Hungarians against Vienna was put down with Russian help, Austria was saved from
a split. As a result, the Austrian Chancellor Schwarzenberg was given the
opportunity to take a more energetic stand at the Bundestag in Frankfurt am
Main, to reject the German constitution and to re-establish the Bundestag under
Austrian leadership. Then, at last, in 1850, Russian pressure compelled
Frederick William IV to renounce for the time being the Prussian policy of union
at Olmutz; Schleswig-Holstein was surrendered to the Danes at the Russian
instigation. This period showed the height of Russian power in Central Europe.
The Russian Czar influenced the history of the whole Central European area.
Prussia and Austria were too weak to escape Russian tutelage.
They were
in complete disagreement even as to the settlement of internal German relations.
It is obvious that the Russian Empire would have been in a position at this time
to take possession by force of large areas of Central Europe. The policy of the
Russian Czar was to support Austria, to prevent incipient Prussian attempts at
unification, and at the same time, as a powerful friend of the Prussian and
Austrian rulers, to indirectly direct the history of these states in such a way
that they could not become dangerous to the Russian Empire. A unified German
Empire could escape the tutelage of the Tsar, but not a Germany in which almost
two equally powerful groups of powers struggled for influence. Emperor Nicholas
I felt strong enough to resume the traditional Balkan policy. His decision was
facilitated by the disagreement and tension between Austria and Prussia, In the
year. 1853 war broke out between the Russian Empire and the Porte, England and
France immediately sided with Turkey, unwilling to tolerate an encroachment of
Russian influence on the south-eastern European area. Austria believed that she
could no longer tolerate an increase of Russian power in the Balkans, since half
of the state would then have been embraced by the Russian Empire from north to
south, and forced Russia by an ultimatum to vacate the Danubian principalities.
A Russian campaign against Turkey had hereby become impossible. The allied
powers attacked Russia in the Black Sea itself (Crimean War). The end of this
war experienced Nicholas I. no longer, his successor, Alexander II., after the
unfortunate course of the same, had no choice but to offer peace, The Russian
Empire lost the Danube estuaries, the Danubian principalities and its conquests
on the Armenian border in the Paris Congress of 1856, Maintaining a navy on the
Black Sea was also prohibited. On the Russian side, Austria- Hungary has always
been reproached with the fact that its policy during the Crimean War was
insincere and in no way friendly. It must be remembered that a seizure of the
Balkans by the Russian Empire would have meant a strong threat to the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The failure of the Russian action in the Balkans in
1853 averted from the Central European area a danger which should not be
underestimated. If the Russian plan had succeeded, a front in the south would
have been added to the front in the east. In the event of a later attack from
the Russian side, Hungary and Galicia would then have been difficult to hold,
apart from the unreliable attitude of the Hungarians at the time, since this
area would have offered the possibility of Russian attacks from the north, east
and south, and the geographical conditions could also only have been used to a
limited extent in favor of the defense of this area. By its resolute action
against the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary averted a great danger from Europe
in the middle of the last century.
VII.
Securing Europe through Bismarck
The
following period saw, perhaps also as a result of the still existing bitterness
against Austria, a stronger rapprochement of the Russian Tsar with Prussia. Not
least, the close family ties to the Prussian ruling house may have played a role
here. In addition, Bismarck had succeeded in gaining Alexander’s goodwill and
friendship during his time as envoy to St. Petersburg in 1859/62, so that the
ruler of Prussian history from 1862 onwards was no stranger to the Tsar. The
Russian Empire had been weakened to a large extent by the Crimean War. It was
still in political opposition to England, France and Austria-Hungary. An
alliance with Prussia was the natural counterweight. The apparent abandonment of
Central European interests by Bismarck was necessary in the same period in order
to finally wrest the leadership of the German tribes and states from the
incompetent Austria. It is the mainspring of Bismarck’s actions in the sixties.
He needed the unconditional goodwill of the Czar to be able to unify Germany;
Prussia could not afford to create enemies on all fronts at once. Bismarck would
never have succeeded in uniting the small German states under Prussia’s
leadership against the opposition of Austria, France, and the Russian Empire. It
is from this standpoint that the Prussian-Russian friendship must be viewed. It
also makes Bismarck’s action appear in the right light when, in 1863, during the
renewed uprising of the Poles, he resolutely opposed the steps taken by the
Western powers to force the Czar to yield to the Poles. The so-called
Alvensleben Convention for the defeat of the Poles had less a military than a
political significance. All his life Bismarck stood on the view that „an
independent Poland would mean a second French army on the Vistula.“ The
correctness of this view was confirmed in the years after the World War.
It was on
this basis of friendship with Russia that Bismarck was able to tackle the urgent
tasks in Prussia (army organization under Roon, curbing the dangerous liberal
influence in parliament) and the settlement of internal German relations (war
with Denmark in 1864, Austro-Prussian War in 1866). With Russian cover behind
him, Bismarck could set about countering French claims to power, which had been
growing since the benevolent attitude of the Russian Czar, which Bismarck’s
diplomacy had caused, is to be attributed to the fact that Bismarck was able to
undertake the great work of unification in the Franco Prussian War of 1870/71
and that Austria-Hungary was prevented from intervening in favor of France.
Bismarck was convinced that a unification of Germany could only be achieved in a
war against France. As early as 1862, on the occasion of the Hessian
constitutional question, the Prussian war plan saw in war against France a means
of unifying Germany. Bismarck, however, would never have been able to put his
thoughts into practice if the genius of a Moltke had not been at his disposal
for the elaboration of military plans. Moltke had constantly to take account of
possible opponents in his war plans. Austria had not forgotten the defeat of
1866, and regarded with anxiety the increase of Prussia’s power; Napoleon III.
likewise believed that he must by all means prevent a unification of Germany
under Prussian leadership. Only Russia was only too glad to see Austria weakened
as a result of her opposition in the Balkan question and was sympathetic to
Bismarck’s aims. As early as 1867, Moltke drew up war plans, all of which took
into account an Austrian-French alliance against Prussia. In 1868 a firm
military agreement was reached between Prussia and the southern German states,
which guaranteed Prussian leadership in a war against France. The war of 1870/71
then united the German states with the exclusion of Austria to the Little German
Empire, as it should exist until 1918. Even after the establishment of the
German Empire, relations with the Russian Empire initially remained unclouded,
the balance of power in Central Europe had shifted fundamentally, as long as the
German-Russian understanding was maintained, however, no serious threat to this
area was to be expected. The year 1872 saw the Three Emperors’ Alliance, which
also outwardly certified the agreement of Austria-Hungary and the Russian Tsar
with the rise of Germany. Not only Prussia-Germany was the beneficiary of the
Prussian-Russian agreement, but also Russia was backed by it, which enabled it
to start further conquests. Under the protection of the benevolent neutrality of
the new German Empire, Russia expanded further, in 1865 Tashkent was conquered,
in 1867 the General Government of Turkestan was founded, in 1868 Russia
established its rule over Samarkand and Bukhara, in 1873 Shiva followed. This
empire also appeared as a competitor in East Asia. In 1858, the Amur River was
established as the Russian-Chinese border, but in 1860, despite this agreement,
Russian troops occupied the coastal province south of the Amur on the Sea of
Japan, and Vladivostok was founded. The Russian Empire sold its possession of
Alaska, which appeared strategically and economically unimportant and
endangered, to the United States of America for a few million dollars. The great
European success of these years, however, the Russian Empire owed decidedly to
Bismarck, who stood up for Russia at the London Conference in 1871 and thus
succeeded in having the provisions of the Peace of Paris, which had forbidden
Russia’s rearmament on the Black Sea after the Crimean War, dropped again.
VIII.
The natural antagonisms between the peoples of Central Europe
The year
1875 then brought the first disgruntlement between Germany and Russia, which,
however, in its first stage was more a mutual mistrust between Bismarck and the
Russian Prime Minister Gortschakow. In 1873, the French Defense Commission (Seri
de Riviere, Brianon, etc.) was founded with the aim of reorganizing the French
army. In 1875 it came to the „war-in-sight“. Such a crisis due to the French
Cadre Law, The Russian Prime Minister Gorchakov was convinced that Bismarck
intended a preventive war against France in order to throw the strengthening
France back to the ground. Bismarck in no way wanted to stop France from
rearming by force of arms at that time. He was of the opinion that the newly
founded German Empire first needed peace in order to consolidate itself and to
exploit the fruits of its victory, especially in the economic field. He tried,
by political pressure alone, to limit the French armament tempo. Gorchakov
nevertheless intervened in favor of France, as did England. The disgruntlement
was there, aggravated by Bismarck’s distrust of the Pan- Slavist idea, of which
Gorchakov was a supporter, and which from the beginning had been strongly
anti-German and had gradually become a political power in the Russian Empire. A
year later a serious tension arose in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of
1877-78, which reached its peak when in the Berlin Congress Russia felt cheated
of the fruits of its successes by Bismarck, who acted as an „honest broker“.
Russia
strengthened the garrisons on the western border of its empire. From now on,
Pan-Slavism increasingly demanded a war against the hated Germans. In 1879/80
the situation in Germany was considered so serious from the military side that a
detailed memorandum by Moltke pointed out the military strengthening of the
neighbors. Bismarck concluded a secret agreement with Andrassy in Gastein in
1879, which secured the dual alliance of Germany-Austria-Hungary against attacks
by Russia, while Emperor Wilhelm I and Tsar Alexander II met in Alexandrovo to
discuss the situation. Once again they succeeded in convincing the Russian Czar
that the German states did not intend to attack the Russian Empire. Gorchakov
had to go and Giers took over the direction of Russian foreign policy, but the
development could no longer be stopped. Russian military circles were already
preparing an alliance with France. Miljutin built roads, railways and fortresses
on the western border of the Empire. Gradually, more and more cavalry regiments
were transferred to the western section. French money gained more and more
influence in the Russian Empire, Still Bismarck managed to keep open the way to
Petersburg by peaceful means. In 1881 a neutrality agreement was concluded
between the three emperors - empires, the year 1884 saw the Three Emperors
Alliance; the secret reinsurance treaty was signed in 1887 between the German
and the Russian empires, which was to withdraw Russia from France according to
Bismarck’s will, the tension between the two empires nevertheless continued to
rise, even if after the death of Alexander II in 1881 with his successor
Alexander III some hopeful attempts at an understanding between the German
emperor and the Russian tsar were made, Bismarck’s policy was the policy of a
great genius, which violated natural conditions and forced them to its will, The
reinsurance treaty with Russia was the masterpiece of a statesman, but by its
very nature it could only have significance as long as Bismarck’s power stood
behind it; it had to forfeit its value when the figure of Bismarck was relegated
to the background and eliminated by Kaiser Wilhelm II. At this moment the
natural antagonisms between the East and the centre of Europe again came into
their own. Germanness was forced into a defensive position and had to prepare
itself for a tremendous confrontation. That this did not happen in a sufficient
manner is the criminal fault of the German political parties. The year 1885 was
to be fateful in this respect. Out of concern for its position in the Balkans,
Austria broke up the Three Emperors’ Alliance by intervening in the Balkan
turmoil. Austria’s relations with the Russian Empire were subsequently disturbed
to such an extent by Russia’s behavior in the Bulgarian sovereign question that
the Three Emperors’ Alliance could no longer be extended. The eighties of the
previous nineteenth century also shows a wealth of tensions outside the
Austro-Russian antagonisms. Germany had taken the first tentative steps towards
a world policy through the acquisition of colonies, which immediately set her at
odds with England. Similarly, the England-Russia tension had grown stronger as
the Russians continued to exert influence in Persia and Afghanistan; England
therefore sought to gain annexation to Austria in order to obtain a „continental
diagonal“ against Russia. But the occupation of Egypt by England also meant a
far-reaching disturbance of the England-France relationship. Turkey, under
pressure from Bismarck, refused to act against Russia. In 1887 there was a
Mediterranean entente between England, Austria-Hungary and Italy, with special
encouragement from Bismarck. In addition, there were strong internal
difficulties in Germany, which led to the rejection of the military draft. And
in the background stood France, which for the moment remained isolated, but knew
only one goal: to rearm in order to take revenge on Germany for the ignominy
suffered in 1870/71. There would always have remained the possibility of
fundamentally relaxing the relations of the great powers. German peace policy
was honest, almost too honest, and sought only to preserve the peace that was
generally threatened. The formidable, awe-inspiring figure of Bismarck prevented
the worst at that time. It continued to have an effect even after Bismarck had
resigned as Chancellor of the Reich, and even, in a certain sense, after his
death. From now on, however, Germany was irredeemably caught between two
ideologies that wanted nothing more than the destruction of this state: Eastern
Pan-Slavism and the French Revancheidee. At its side, Germany had only Austria
as a confederate, which was itself in need of support because of its nature as a
nationstate. The Triple Alliance of 1882 between Germany, Austria, and Italy
was, for purely political reasons, a more than questionable structure from a
military point of view. Gradually the fronts began to emerge that were present
in 1914 at the beginning of the struggle between nations, Germany and Austria
were more and more torn apart by factional pity. The parties fought each other
to the knife, forgetting that there were unfavorable neighbors on the borders of
the Reich, who were only waiting to pounce on the states of Central Europe as
soon as they had achieved greater military strength. In 1888, Moltke wrote a
memorandum on the deployment in a two-front war. The years 1890/94 brought an
increase in the standing army of a whole 60,000 men, in return for a reduction
in the period of service from three to two years. In 1894, Schlieffen for the
first time drafted a memorandum on a war on two fronts. This memorandum, like
Moltke’s, was also imbued with the conviction that a middle-ranking state such
as Germany’s can only defend its limited space by attacking the strongest
opponent. The liberalist economic upswing feigned a flourishing of the
German-Austrian economy, which, however, had to be regarded as highly
questionable from the point of view of defense economics. In 1883, in a letter
to the War Ministry, Moltke drew attention to the question of food and raw
materials in the event of war. In 1900 General Blume dealt with the economic
difficulties. But nothing was done on the part of the Imperial Government to
meet all the threatening dangers.
When
Bismarck’s successor, Caprivi, refused to extend the reinsurance treaty in 1890,
this meant a radical departure from Bismarck’s political principles. The events
that followed are nothing but the consequence of the collapse of Bismarck’s
policy. In the same year the military conventions between France and the Russian
Empire were concluded, and in 1893 they were extended into an alliance, and with
them the fears of England about a union of Germany with Russia faded away. It is
the tragic fault of Kaiser Wilhelm II to have overestimated the strength of
Germany. He always believed that he could tip the scales of European, indeed of
world politics, He overlooked the fact that the political antecedent had passed
to another group of powers through the non-renewal of the reinsurance treaty
with Russia. It was no longer Germany that determined the political direction in
the future, but a group of powers hostile to Germany in the East and West of
Central Europe. The danger of Germany’s change of course was not recognized
until it was too late. The events of these years, however, meant not only a
tremendous break in German policy, but also in Russian policy. Russia did not
believe in the policy of the „two irons in the fire“ which henceforth determined
German policy; it believed in a German-English unification and took refuge in
the alliance with France. The alliance between the republican France and the
completely absolutist Tsar Alexander III was concluded by the latter only with
reluctance, In 1899 the Franco-Russian alliance got the version in which it was
later incorporated into the Entente- cordiale with England (1904), In 1907
England finally reached an agreement with the Russians on the Asiatic questions,
In the meantime there were still various weak attempts, especially on the part
of Germany, to clarify the increasingly worsening situation. But the strong
personality was missing to stop the contemplative storm. The death of Alexander
III placed the leadership of Russian destiny in the hands of Nicholas II. Young,
inexperienced and weak in his decisions, he, like the German imperial
leadership, was unable to turn the helm of his ship of state, which, driven by
pan-Slavic power groups, was inevitably heading for war with Germany and thus to
its demise. The understanding reached between Austria and the Russian Empire in
1897 brought temporary relief and apparently lessened the pressure of the
Russian colossus on Central Europe. It was also probably honestly meant on all
sides, but the conditions themselves had already become too strong. Even the
attempts of the Tsar through the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 to
reduce armaments and to create international peace conferences, although born of
good will, could no longer stop the fate.
Once
again, in 1905, an opportunity presented itself for the Central Powers to escape
from their oppressive grip, when the Russian Empire lay weakened by the loss of
the Japanese war and by the revolution. But it was used neither politically nor
militarily to avert fate. Thus conditions drifted unceasingly toward world war.
German parties, it must be said to their shame, often pursued a policy which
meant damage to German prestige and position. One need only think of the
interaction of the Center with the Reichstag deputies of the Polish minorities,
which revealed that it was more important for the Center to pursue a Catholic
policy than a German one. The German governments were themselves a plaything of
the parties. Instead of uniting the divergent forces in the German peoples in
one stream, preparing them for the impending struggle for existence, they
allowed themselves to be carried along by the waves of party passion. It is only
one example of the political arrogance and lack of understanding that had taken
hold everywhere when, after the Russo-Japanese War, Kaiser Wilhelm II awarded
both the Russian defender of Port Arthur and his conqueror the Order Pour le
Merite. It must be regarded as the greatest fault of the influential
personalities and Kaiser Wilhelm II that they pushed Germany onto the path of
world politics without themselves having the unconditional upper hand in Europe.
Germany was thus led into entanglements which it was unable to cope with in
terms of power politics and population policy. The few warnings, especially on
the military side, were not heard; Germany neglected her task in the East and
missed the last opportunity in 1905 to avert the danger threatening from the
East. But it also neglected to secure its position vis-a-vis England. One spoke
of English „cousins“ and did not see that the latter were not even thinking of
supporting the Germans „as relatives“. England saw only the threat to her world
empire from the rising Germany. Germany lulled herself into the hope that, in
spite of all differences, the close economic interdependence of these two states
would not lead to a warlike conflict with England as an enemy, and yet it was
precisely from England’s side that the encirclement had been pursued in the last
years before the World War, All the enemies of Germanness and enemies of the
Central European regional order had found each other in this policy of
encirclement. Behind these games on the world stage, however, stood the Masonic
and Jewish powers, and ultimately also England, which felt threatened by the
growth of the German fleet and German world trade.
England
has never been concerned with a real European order, she has never understood
the danger threatening Europe from the East, England has been anxious for
centuries to keep Europe in a state of political equilibrium, and this was by no
means done out of a European community feeling, but solely out of her urge for
her own world position. Whenever Great Britain encroached upon the European
mainland, it was always in order to gain some advantage for herself or to fight
states which threatened her position as a world power. Thus, England’s action
against Germany was primarily because, on the principle that „to trade follows
the flag,“ it feared English trade being outflanked by German trade. England
always regarded trade as a question of political power. One of the last phases
was the construction of the Baghdad Railway, through which Germany interfered
strongly with English spheres of interest in terms of space policy. It was
always England’s endeavor that in Europe two groups of powers of approximately
equal strength held each other in balance. In pursuit of this tactic, England
alternately offered her help to this or that state which was outstripped by
another in economic or military terms. The promises of aid made by England
frequently enough brought the continental states into warlike entanglements, and
while the European states were tearing themselves apart in wars, the overseas
theatre became free to England; she was able to subdue the most valuable
countries of the earth to her dominion and incorporate them into her world
empire. After all, England ruled over about 1/5 of the earth’s surface. Thus the
conviction was formed in England that it was the God given profession of the
Englishman to rule seas and countries and to patronize other nations, anyone who
opposed this was a sinner against the divine world order. It is understandable
that Freemasonry and Judaism found similar tendencies in the English ideologies
of world domination as they themselves aspired to. The amalgamation of these
three efforts at domination is therefore to be regarded as quite understandable.
IX.
Germany beats back the danger coming from the East in the World War 1914-1918
The
defensive geographic situation of Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning
of the World War of 1914/18 was as follows. To the north, the Central European
bloc was largely protected by the Baltic and North Seas. The Baltic offered a
partially suitable coast to possible Russian landing attempts. But the German
fleet as a whole was always superior to the Russian. The passage through the
canal between the North and Baltic Seas passed close to the German coast and
could easily be blocked. The German fleet at Kiel held the Russian Baltic fleet
in check by its mere presence, The North Sea coast was thoroughly hostile to
landing attempts. The strength of the German fleet was also sufficient to
protect this short stretch of coast. However, the fleet in the „wet triangle“ of
the German Bight was to be regarded as blocked by the stronger British fleet
itself. In the south, the Alps represented a strong strategic obstacle. They
offered a variety of defensive possibilities. The Adriatic coast was probably
difficult for the small Austrian navy to monitor, but for strategic reasons it
offered little incentive for a landing. The frontier against Serbia, with the
exception of the Sava-Danube section, might be regarded as not secured by
nature. However, the inhospitality of the terrain had to be taken into account,
the western border showed no obstacles difficult to cross. The Vosges ridge gave
friend and foe the same opportunities for attack and defense. The northern
section was completely open. Fortifications, especially in the central section,
prevented the enemy from breaking through to the Main line and from separating
the spaces between north and south by an enemy push-through. If necessary, the
Rhine formed a considerable defensive position in the background, but this could
only be used in extreme emergencies, since it would have eliminated
war-important industries from the enemy and would have brought the armament
center in the Ruhr area into the immediate vicinity of the enemy. The eastern
border was divided into two clearly separated sections, the southern section and
the northern section. The southern section could be seen as a defensive zone
against Romania. In its northern part, the further course of the Carpathian
ridge, albeit at the cost of Galicia, provided opportunities for defending the
Hungarian lowlands. The junction between the northern and southern sections
could offer the enemy an incentive to break through into the Bohemian Basin. The
northern section, which stretched from the Carpathians along the German-Russian
border to the Baltic Sea, was essentially unprotected. However, there were also
some natural obstacles on this northern section, such as the Inasurian Lake
District in East Prussia, which was to gain great importance during this war.
The
connections between the eastern and western fronts were sufficient for rapid
troop movements. Only between the Balkan and Carpathian fronts were traffic
conditions unfavorable. The railroad lines along the eastern front were poorly
developed and caused considerable difficulties for troop movements on a large
scale. In the given circumstances, however, one had to reckon with the fact that
the two Central Powers would be enclosed on all sides in a besieged fortress.
Exceptions were perhaps a part of the Balkans, the Baltic Sea, and the traffic
with Sweden, which could not be disputed by German shipping. From the English
side, it was believed in Germany that a close blockade of the German Bight was
to be feared. In the course of the war it turned out that the English were not
willing to move their precious warships so far from their base in England. As is
well known, England preferred to make a wide blockade generally out of the North
Sea, extending from about the Orkney and Shetland Islands to the coast of
southern Norway. It is certain that military geographic considerations played a
major role in the German military authorities. Both the elder Moltke and
Schlieffen recognized exactly the weaknesses and strengths of the
German-Austrian positions and used them in their calculations. Above all, German
considerations must have been that the space of the Central European states was
narrow and far too precious to be sacrificed to generous plans.Both states were
to be defended only by attack. Only in an emergency did the war plan provide for
the surrender of East Prussia and West Prussia up to the Vistula line.For
reasons of transport and organization, it was expected that the French would
mobilize more quickly than the Russians. The German railway deployment had been
determined down to the last detail and guaranteed that the German troops on the
borders would be ready for war quickly. However, consultation with Austrian
military authorities on the war plans had only taken place in very vague terms,
since the German side feared that the plans would be kept secret, a fear that
was quite justified in view of the wide variety of nationalities in the Austrian
army. Polish and Czech circles, in particular, were considered unreliable and
often contributed to the betrayal of military secrets.
Schlieffen’s plan of attack was initially directed against the west, in order to
first decisively defeat the strongest and most combat-ready opponent here. In
the east, it was believed that energetic attacks by the Austrians would be able
to stop and tie up the Russian army to a large extent until troops were released
in the west. The German plan therefore believed that it could manage with only a
few divisions in addition to Landwehr and Landsturm formations to protect the
eastern border, although it was known on the German side that in the
Franco-Russian general staff discussions a French demand for an immediate
offensive by the Russians in the general direction of Berlin had been made and
promised by the Russian general staff. The course of the World War battles on
the fronts, especially in the East, is generally too well known for it to be
necessary to go into detail. In general, it may be said that the allied troops
succeeded, in part after the heaviest fighting, in driving back the Russians who
had penetrated beyond their borders and in penetrating far into Russian
territory in the course of the campaign. Even the later intervention of the
Romanians on the side of the enemy forces did not bring them any success. The
occupation of Rumania was extremely valuable for the Central Powers, since from
that moment on, above all, Rumanian oil was at their unrestricted disposal. It
is a proven fact that it was only Rumanian oil that made possible the spring
offensive in the West in 1918. In addition, the food situation, which had become
extremely scarce, was not insignificantly improved. In 1917, when the strategic
advantage in the West passed to the enemy powers, the old Tsarist Russia was at
the end of its tether. The Central European area had remained free from the
invasion of the Slavic and Mongol troops of the Russian Empire, and the enemy
had been driven far from all frontiers into the interior of the country.
In this
context, the play of the West Slavic forces is interesting. The Czechs were
almost entirely on the side of the Russians. They were the most unreliable
element in the Austrian army. In droves they defected to the Russians, only to
reunite there in the „Czech Legion“. Among the Poles the forces were striving
apart. At the beginning of the war, the Tsar had promised the Poles a
constitution. After the occupation of Poland by German and Austrian troops, the
German Emperor had also promised the Poles the establishment of a Kingdom of
Poland. This promise of the Emperor was a political imprudence and at the same
time a slap in the face of the Tsar. With the exception of a small minority, the
Poles did not even think of accepting the gift of a Kingdom of Poland from the
hand of Emperor Wilhelm II. Their hope went to France and the gradual exhaustion
of German forces. In no way during the World War did the Poles succeed in
gaining substantial cooperation for the goals of the Central Powers. The
completely unclear war aims of the German government also contributed a great
deal to creating uncertainty everywhere in East and West. As a result, however,
the fighting troops in particular lacked an impetus. The idea of an eastern
settlement in the Baltic countries, which came later from Hindenburg and
Ludendorff, probably showed a definite direction, but was also vague and
indefinite. In any case, planning was lacking in every respect. It could not
even begin, since there was no great German idea promoting the continuation of
the German settlement in the East. It was certainly the conviction that somehow
the East, which was rich in foodstuffs, would have to be made serviceable for
German nutrition even after the war, in order to prevent similar catastrophes as
during the war in the future, but the regulation of the conditions was postponed
until later. On the German side it was also believed that consideration would
have to be given to Austrian conditions, since the Austrians also wanted to be
taken into account in the case of a land acquisition in the East. There was,
however, no common line either in Germany or in Austria, much less between these
two powers, even in the slightest. In this sense, the Peace of Brest-Litovsk was
never a peace that was in any way satisfactory. It may well have separated the
new revolutionary Russian Empire from the Central European area to a
considerable extent, it may well have eliminated this empire as a European power
factor to a large extent, but it lacked the final consequence, it lacked the
idea of what to do with these newly won territories. The threat to central
European soil from the Slavic voice had in no way disappeared. It was rather
aggravated, especially since the Poles had been promised their own kingdom,
which had to be closely related to the Central European area, in order not to
have a Poland as a hostile power on the eastern border right from the start. One
thing, however, had been achieved: the new revolutionary bloc within the old
Russian Empire had been considerably pushed away from the Central European area.
The defeats that the Russian troops had to accept from the Central Powers did
not remain without repercussions within the country. The organization of
transportation, which had always been one of the weakest points of the East
Slavic peoples, became increasingly difficult. The most necessary war, crew, and
material transports generally met the requirements of the front, but there was a
lack of an organizing hand and of sufficient rolling stock and manpower to
ensure further civilian supplies. Inflation and food shortages led to unrest;
the political incitement of the masses by Jewry and its fellow travelers took on
ever more threatening forms. The intolerable conditions of society, the cultural
high status of a few and the half-education of the leading classes on the one
hand, the presence of primitive people who were far behind culturally and
economically, on the other hand, led to the creation of a new social order.
They
were, on the other, working together to make the appeal to the baser instincts
fall on fertile ground. The tsarist government had become weary of war in
contrast to the people’s representatives, the Duma opposed the tsarist
government, close threads ran to the English embassy. Finally, even the highest
generals of the army agreed to a revolution and to the deposition of the tsar.
In early March 1917, hunger revolts broke out in Petersburg, The government used
garrison troops against the revolutionaries. They failed. The requested
regiments of guards from the front were not deployed at all or were deployed too
late, Revolution ensued. On March 15, 1917, the Tsar signed his abdication.
England, however, which was usually so tradition-bound, welcomed the change in
the political leadership of the Russian Empire with the greatest satisfaction,
since it believed that in this way it could continue to count the Russian masses
as a factor in the war. The House of Commons sent a telegram of congratulations
to the Duma to the following effect: „The House of Commons sends fraternal
greetings to the Duma, and offers its hearty congratulations to the Russian
people on the introduction of libertarian institutions, in the fullest
confidence that these institutions will not only secure happy and speedy
progress to the Russian nation, but will also secure the continuance, with
renewed firmness and energy, of the war against the stronghold of an autocratic.
Militarism which threatens the freedom of Europe. „It is a mistake to believe
that this Duma represented the peoples of the Russian Empire. In the real
Russian people lived quite different volcanic and subterranean forces. Stronger
influences than those of the Masons, Liberals and Democrats were already
preparing to usurp power in the Russian Empire. The bourgeois revolution formed
only an intermediate stage to the final revolution in November of the same year,
when Lenin took over the chairmanship of the Council of People’s Commissars,
where the Red Tsar took the place of the White. The revolution raged through the
country, spreading terror, misery and death. The counter-revolutionary uprisings
repeatedly challenged the conduct of the Red Revolution. The continuation of the
revolution was carried out by exerting all the forces within the country. The
reign of terror of the Bolsheviks ruthlessly swept away the hitherto leading
strata of the Russian Empire. Thus the last Germanic bloodstreams, which in the
East could still have some significance for the whole of Germany, were
destroyed, and the German settlers in the Ukraine, in the Caucasus and on the
Volga also fell victim to it. From the moment that Jewish Bolshevism raised the
red flag on the Kremlin in Moscow, the last vestige of a German-German influence
in Eastern Europe was destroyed. This danger became immense when the last
remnants of Europe’s security against the East were eliminated in the violent
peace of Versailles. In order to free their hands on the outside world, the
Bolsheviks soon concluded an armistice with the Central Powers. In December
1917, the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations began. Trotsky Bronstein, in Jewish
rabble-rousing, tried to drag the negotiations along on Lenin’s behalf, since in
Petersburg and Moscow themselves they hoped for the outbreak of a revolution
among the Central Powers. Moreover, Lenin was not at all willing of his own
accord to cede Russian soil to any other powers. Only the energetic intervention
of German military authorities and the further advance of German troops saw the
Bolsheviks ready to sign the peace treaty at the beginning of March 1918.
Meanwhile, Ukraine had broken away from Bolshevik Russia with German help.
German troops secured German soil far ahead of the old line of 1917. In spite of
this quarantine line, however, the Bolshevik poison penetrated to a greater
extent into the Central European area, contaminating the homeland and above all
weakening the position of the stage.
From this
time on, the Bolsheviks began to intensify their attempts to revolutionize the
world. The revolutionaries had at first only the possibility of spreading their
ideas without substantial support, only out of themselves. From the moment
Jewish Bolshevism got hold of the Russian Empire, it had at its disposal a state
power which it was willing to use to revolutionize the world, despite all
attempts at denial. The Bolshevik rulers were always guided by the clear
realization that he who possesses Europe and the Central European area above all
else can have influence over the most important parts of the world. After the
collapse of the Central Powers in 1918a development took place which had as its
aim, in an unbroken chain, the revolutionization of the European area. The
healthy forces in the German people desperately resisted the Jewish-Marxist
doctrine. From the Kapp Putsch, through the internal political struggles of the
systemic era of the birth and the struggles of the National Socialist Party of
Germany, through November 1923 in Munich, the sacrificial death of one Horst
Wessel and the reorganization of the German area after the seizure of power, to
the tremendous struggle of our day, there leads a single chain of struggles for
the security not only of the German people but of Europe. The disgraceful Treaty
of Versailles aided and abetted the Jewish subhumans, leading the German people
to the brink of ruin. One good thing came out of the disgraceful Treaty of
Versailles: even if many good Germans regarded the ideological dangers
threatening from the East as slight, this disgraceful treaty led them to a
self-contemplation of their Germanness; it became the seedbed for the
reawakening of the German people. The German people, as a result of this
humiliation, turned back to themselves. The National Socialist Party and its
leader Adolf Hitler, however, became the heralds and executors of this purified
will of the people.
X.
Bolshevism interferes in the internal political relations of the European
states.
Stalin
continues the policy of the tsar in foreign affairs. The Peace of Versailles
threw back the development of Germany in the East more or less to the line of
the times of Frederick the Great. Although the unity of the Kleindeutsche Reich
had not been shattered, such a number of military provisions had been added to
the Versailles Dictate that Germany as a military power was no longer able to
represent a factor in Europe, much less in the world. The Versailles Dictate
represents a compilation of the desires of politicians, military leaders, and
economists from a wide variety of countries, all of whom, each against the
other, sought to realize their views and goals. The Dictate of Versailles has
pronounced relations with the East of Europe, even if at first sight it appears
to be a work of purely Western Jewish- democratic machinations. Here again one
must delve into the background of the Jewish plans for world domination and
their foundations. The Jewish plans for world domination cannot be separated
from certain national foundations. There is no people on earth which shows such
a branching out and intermarriage over all the countries of the world as the
Jewish. Detailed observations have proved, for example, that there is hardly a
Jewish family which does not have relatives both in Eastern Europe and in the
countries of the West. From this point of view the new foundations of the
Eastern European states also gain their special significance. With the exception
of Estonia and Finland, all the others formed the reservoir of strength for
Jewry in Western Europe and America. Thus, for example, one can trace a
comparatively short line from the Jews surrounding the American President to the
Jews in Germany and the countries farther east. In this sense the genesis and
consequences of the Versailles Dictate also take on a face that is particularly
turned towards Eastern Europe. The sufferer was the Germanic-German man, who was
sacrificed without pity to all the dangers rushing upon him from the East.
From the
point of view of foreign policy, the new „democratic“ Germany found itself in a
dangerous position. It was surrounded by enemies, and there was no thought of
fulfilling its tasks in the East, despite the fact that the Slavic-Germanic
border had been moved forward into the middle of the European area. Polish land
began 150 km east of Berlin. Poles and Czechs subjugated and harassed the same
Germans who had been their culture-bringers for centuries. One German position
after another was occupied by the Slavs. East Prussia, cut off from the
territory of the Reich, faced an uncertain fate. Slowly and tenaciously
Slavicism tried to work its way across these borders and gain further ground.
Fanatical Polish and Czech priests and teachers were the tireless propagators of
Slavic ideas. The Poles and Czechs have always been aware that only he who owns
the soil can call a country his own. In the first place, therefore, their
efforts were directed to getting hold of the land in order to make the German
people rootless; millions of Germans have had to leave their ancestral home. And
in spite of the fact that the German people lay on the ground without rights or
protection, they still feared it at bottom, they tried in imperialist
megalomania to lay claim to further power on German soil and to realize it. The
maps circulated by Poles and Czechs about this speak eloquently. (Maps 14 and
15.)Poland as well as Czecho-Slovakia suffered constantly from the fact that, on
the one hand, despite all their pan-Slavic ties, they were nevertheless
compelled, if they did not want to give up their independence, to make a front
against their great Slavic brother in the East; on the other hand, they were
constantly in the strongest opposition to Germanism and could not come to any
agreement with it. The existence of these West Slavic states meant a permanent
threat to European peace. Europe can never come to peace if to the east of its
core there exist a Polish and a Czech state which are not willing to live in
peace and quiet with Germanness. Since, according to the experience of history,
neither Poles nor Czechs are capable of pursuing peaceful aims together with
Germany, their attitude entitles Germany, in the interest of the whole, to
pursue a policy towards the Poles and Czechs which forces them - even against
their will - to cooperate in the great European tasks. To have given little
thought to the consequences of the establishment of the Polish and Czech States
in this sense is one of the greatest crimes of the authors of the Versailles
Dictate. They saw here something new, something foreign, which they did not
understand and which they endeavored to keep away from old Europe by means of a
barrier zone extending from the Arctic Sea to the Black Sea. The Versailles
Dictate therefore created states and groupings of states such as are unique in
history. Everywhere a groping and searching for political and military alignment
began, everywhere a reestablishment and recycling of trade relations. The
politicians of both the old and the new states were not in a position to start
again from where they had stopped in 1914. Everything was in flux. Rarely have
the views of politicians and the military been so opposed to each other anywhere
in Europe as in the post-Versailles period. The military experiences of the
World War, the experiences of the use of space and time and their filling with
new weapons, with air fleets and submarine flotillas, contributed in no small
measure to this. All had to realize that hardly any point on earth still
possessed a permanent strategic value, whether in Europe or the rest of the
world.
Permanent
new groupings of powers therefore emerged time and again. The interwar period
between the First and Second World Wars became a time of agreements and pacts
because of this uncertainty. Whereas before the world war of 1914/18 there had
been a kind of European equilibrium which essentially influenced the fate of the
world, it had become clear that as a result of the changed circumstances, the
growth of American power, Japan’s position of power in the East Asian region and
the fragmentation of Europe, this play of forces had moved far beyond the
borders of Europe. From a purely European point of view, it could no longer be
understood. Even a small European continental state, such as Czecho-Slovakia,
had to take this change into account and had to be evaluated as a factor from
this point of view as well. And one more fact stands out in this connection. The
Western powers and the Soviet Union had a variety of states in their grip,
ranging from the North Cape to Greece. All these were states which had no direct
possibility of expanding themselves without causing the most serious shocks.
Likewise, none of these states possessed even the smallest overseas colony. If
one considers the demarcation of the Central European area intended by
Versailles at that time, then one first understands its hopeless situation, but
also the greatness of the Führer’s deed in leading Germany out of this chaos of
states. It is understandable that this Central European area, as long as it
possessed the Versailles form, could never come to rest, an area above all in
which almost as many peoples of other states as Germans lived, but who only had
at their disposal a surface area which amounted to somewhat more than one-sixth
of the possessions of the other states of the Central European area. Versailles
had profoundly shaken the fabric of the German state. The leaders of Germany’s
fortunes after Bismarck had failed utterly in domestic and foreign policy.
Short-sightedly they themselves brought up the emancipation of the Jews. Jews
suddenly appeared in all the leading positions of the new state, The ship of
state sailed under the Jewish flag, Let us mention only a few names such as
Rosenfeld, Simon, Schiffer, Meyer-Gerhard, Eisner, Rathenau and others. After
all, one never forgets. It was Jews living in Germany who gave the enemy the
opportunity to prove Germany’s war guilt as enshrined in the Versailles
Dictate.The antagonisms in Germany became more and more acute, Spartacist
uprisings were supported by Russia with money, organizers and propaganda means
of every kind. The founding of the „People’s State of Bavaria“ by the Jew
Eisner, the founding of the soviet republic in Munich by the Jews Levin, Muhsam,
Landauer and Sinzheimer, the establishment of the „Red Guard“, looting in Berlin
and other places in Germany, in addition to the shooting of nationalists, these
were the highlights of that sad time, In Thuringia, the Vogtland and the Ruhr,
the Reichswehr and volunteers soon crumbled the Spartacist uprising. These power
struggles cannot be seen as isolated acts in German history. One must constantly
bear in mind that the ideologies which gave rise to the bloody clashes in
Germany at that time were nourished by the Jewish- Bolshevik side. They
represent nothing more than Soviet interference in Central Europe in order to
make the countries in the heart of Europe ripe for Bolshevik rule. The threat of
violence from the East had only taken on a different sign as in the days of the
Russian Czars.
In other
countries, too, the revolution was raging; after the collapse, Austria had made
an attempt to join the German Reich, but here, all at once, the famous „right of
selfdetermination of peoples“ was not allowed to be applied, since a union would
have given German concerns an unwelcome boost. After the collapse of
Austria-Hungary, the Jew took over the management of the rest of the Austrian
state, and Austria, as a result of its legislation for the protection of
minorities, which had been forced upon it, became a paradise for the Jews, who
immigrated en masse from Poland and other countries of the East. After a short
time the Jews had already acquired such power in Austria that Vienna had almost
become a Jewish city, Austria almost a Jewish republic. In Hungary, Bela Khun
(Cohn) had set up a Russian-style soviet dictatorship. A reign of terror raged
that surpassed everything that had ever happened on European soil in terms of
robbery, torture and murder. When the counterrevolution succeeded, Bela Khun
fled with his Jewish followers to Austria and was accepted there as a „state
guest“. Italy too, shamefully abandoned by the beneficiaries of the Versailles
Dictate, was close to the brink of Bolshevik destruction until Mussolini
powerfully seized the helm of the state at the last minute. In Poland and
Czechoslovakia, Bolshevism used PanSlavism as a pretext for spreading its ideas.
Here Bolshevism was given a national mantle in order to penetrate the national
circles of Western Slavs. Especially in Czecho-Slovakia his efforts were
accompanied by success. This was less successful in Poland, which, as a direct
neighbor of the Soviet Union, was at least able to lift a small corner of the
camouflage which enveloped the Bolshevik Empire from the barbed wire of its
border onwards. For one thing the Russian Empire has always understood and has
been developed by the Bolshevik rule to a true art: not to let itself be seen in
the cards in any respect. Even old York von Wartenburg felt this when . he
exclaimed. „It is the puzzling thing about Russia that we cannot see into it!“
Even we of to-day have well recognized the nature of Jewish-Bolshevik
domination; of the magnitude of its military might we had only a vague idea
until this conflict in the Second World War.
In all
other European countries, Bulgaria, Romania, Sweden, France and Spain,
Bolshevism is very active. The Jew was always the promoter and propagator of
Bolshevik demagogy. How many people have fallen victim to the ravages of
Bolshevism is still not clear today. Many millions have lost their lives in the
Soviet Union alone. In the twenties Bolshevism had become a power in all
countries, demanding its attention both domestically and externally. Another
Jewish power, however, which had become great through the world war, also
influenced the destinies of the nations - the Jewish plutocracy. Jewry was now
in a position to throw the ball to each other from two sides, just as the
circumstances demanded. It was on this background of Jewish international world
influence that the politics of the states of Europe and the rest of the world
took place. The Versailles Dictate had created an intermediate or buffer zone
between the Soviet Union and the rest of Europe, which included the new states
of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. Lithuania, Poland
and Romania, which already existed from earlier times. These weak border states
were responsible for guarding the East. They were supported in the first place
by France and England, who, in creating this cordon, had in mind above all the
avoidance of close contact between the Soviet Empire and Germany, which was
lying on the ground. All the Western States feared an immediate bloody campaign
of revenge if Germany became Soviet and the strength of the Russian Empire’
could be placed directly at its disposal. It was believed, often not wrongly,
that German nationalism, in despair of national misfortune, would throw itself
into the arms of Bolshevism. Thus the League of Nations became a supervisory
body over the Central European area, especially over Germany. Constant pressure
was brought to bear to prevent Germany from daring to adopt a policy of her own.
Gradually even the most die-hard democrats, centrists, etc., in Germany saw in
the twenties that the draining of the German people by the Versailles provisions
must lead to a catastrophe. In a certain sense an antagonism arose in the own
ranks of Internationalism, Masons and Jews against their own Judeo-Masonic
leadership, as the Jewish economic and financial circles of Germany themselves
began to suffer under the oppression of the German Reich. It must be stated in
any case that the economic stranglehold on the German throat was loosened only
because even Jewish international circles rooted in the German area resolutely
resisted a further strangulation of the German people, because this would have
plunged Central Europe into chaos and made a further economic utilization of the
German people impossible. Only in that case, if the German economy were allowed
to recover to some extent, could one hope to continue to exercise international
domination in Germany with success. All too soon the world had to realize that
with the destruction of Germany there had also begun a simultaneous destruction
of the prosperity of the world, that the center of Europe could not be destroyed
with impunity.
These
general considerations accommodated a German policy which, in 1922, sought for
the first time to regain a certain freedom of movement through the Treaty of
Rapallo with the Soviet Union. This act on the part of Germany, in order to gain
something like a free hand on one side at least, was regarded with the greatest
suspicion on all sides, since at that time the ruling forces of the West still
did not know how the course in the Soviet Union would one day run, and for this
reason it had been preferred up to that time not to resume diplomatic relations
with the Soviet Union. The Jewish financial circles had supported the Menshevik
direction of the Russian Social-Democracy most vigorously, but when the
Bolsheviks declared that the foreign debt was no longer due, the wrath of the
Jewish bankers was aroused. They realized that the leadership of Eastern Europe
had slipped out of their hands. This also sufficiently explains the support of
the White armies and Poland against the Bolsheviks in the years 1918/20. Only
very gradually did the international solidarity of Jewry, of Jewish rule in East
and West, again become more apparent, to the same extent that the Bolshevists
had again become „socially acceptable“. At that time the Treaty of Rapallo had
immediately aroused the opposition of England and France in particular, but also
of Poland and Czechoslovakia, which manifested itself in renewed and intensified
blackmail. The international Jewry and the stock exchange controlled by it saw
to it that through further pressure the Mark sank into the bottomless pit in
1922/23 and that any desire for freedom on the part of the German people was
nipped in the bud. During this time there was a lively exchange of goods between
Germany and the Soviet Union. German machines, German engineers and skilled
workers went to the Soviet Union in increased numbers and were employed there
within the framework of the Russian Five-Year Plan. Germany was very restricted
in its freedom of movement, it had to somehow get its economy going again and
try to make an impact abroad. The Russian Five-Year Plans accommodated the
German striving to get out of the confines of space. It must be stated with all
clarity that Germany played an outstanding role in the initial construction of
the Soviet Union. Only later did America take its place. It is the tragic
consequence of the foolishness of that time that Germany’s participation in many
of the military points of the Five-Year Plans forged weapons which were later to
be used against the same Germany when it had to take up the flag of Europe in
the Second World War against the Jewish Bolshevik Asiatism. It was against this
economic background that the political power struggles of the last ten years
before the National Socialists came to power in Germany were played out. Germany
was always viewed with suspicion, especially by France. France had set up the
system of „collective pacts“ to secure its hegemony in Europe and did not think
of letting go of it. Any attempt, even the slightest, to rearmament was nipped
in the bud. The power struggles of the parties in the German Reichstag prevented
any strong external political activity, and Germany ultimately remained isolated
despite its admission to the League of Nations. In no way could it think of
fulfilling its historical tasks towards the East. The situation was no better
for the USSR, which, despite all its efforts, was unable to join the West for
the reasons already described. Germany and the Soviet Union were directly and
indirectly confronted with a pact system which was unmistakably directed against
Germany at its apex, but which, through the interweaving of interests, also
always contained a point against the Soviet Union. After all, Poland, which was
in an alliance with France, also saw the danger coming from the East, even if it
was seen here more in terms of power politics than ideology. Relations with the
Lithuanians and the Czechs were tense anyway Romania had found a foothold in the
small Entente, but also found itself between three probable opponents in the
East, South and West, namely between the USSR, Bulgaria and Hungary Only with
difficulty could the League of Nations bridge all these antagonisms, even if
only externally. League of Nations has never in any way promoted or even
possessed a European sense of community, despite the fact that European states,
namely France and England, were the most influential partners in it.
The two
isolated states of Germany and the Soviet Union came closer together in the
so-called Berlin Treaty of April 24, 1926 (extended in 1931 and 1933). On the
one hand, this treaty defined the line of Germany, which did not want to be
drawn into the threatening Anglo-Soviet conflict (marching through Germany
against the Soviet Union); on the other hand, it indirectly gave the USSR
protection against strong attacks by the Western powers. Already in the years
1921 to 1925 the USSR had managed to secure its southern border by treaties of
friendship with Persia, Afghanistan, Turkey, China and Japan. The Soviet Empire
had to gain time in order first to consolidate its forces within the country,
and then to be able to place the power of the state in a strengthened form
behind the Bolshevik idea. Never did the Soviet Union renounce the international
character of Bolshevism, in spite of its apparent renunciation of it. The two
Five-Year Plans always served primarily to create out of the Red Army an
offensive weapon, in order to bring with its help to the world the gratification
of the Bolshevik idea. Germany’s turning to the USSR sprang only from the
compulsion to get out of the entanglement in which the Western Powers held her.
Lenin and Stalin, through the failure of the partial Bolshevik uprisings in the
states of Europe, had seen that with the underground work of Bolshevism alone
the goal of bringing the whole world under sickle and hammer could not be
attained, There had to be a strong military force behind it to force, if
necessary by force of arms, the carrying out of the Bolshevik revolution. The
struggle of the Bolsheviks in Moscow for de jure and de facto recognition in the
twenties also served only this one aim, They sought to stimulate the
covetousness of the countries by means of trade earnings in order to in turn
gain entry for Bolshevism into these countries through trade representations and
consulates. In addition, the trade relations had to serve the rearmament in the
second place. Thus the Soviet Union slowly grew to become an important factor in
the world economy and thus also became a considerable political power again.
Gradually, however, the Bolshevik Jews succeeded in convincing their plutocratic
co-religionists that basically their ideas of world domination were not so
different; only the methods of achieving this world domination of Jewry were
different. After all, the League of Nations was nothing more than an institution
for the fortification of Jewish plutocratic power. This League of Nations of the
Western States was opposed by a League of Nations of the Bolshevik Eastern
peoples in their union as the „Union of Socialist Republics“. England and
France, as the dominant powers of the League of Nations, never grasped the
danger threatening Europe from this union. Sailing in the Jewish wake, they have
betrayed it without understanding. The work done in this respect by Litvinov-Finkelstein
is in no way to be underestimated. These considerations also make the admission
of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations (1934) and the finally intimate
relationship between plutocracy and Bolshevism in this world war appear
understandable. In this way, the Soviet Union was able to „consolidate itself
internally and gain a certain role as a state power externally. At a feverish
pace, the more the conditions in Europe seemed to be coming to a head, the more
rearmament was undertaken in order to be able, when the time came, to get it in
time. Germany, on the other hand, still had a long and arduous road ahead of
her. The fetters of the Versailles Dictate, its defensive geography, and the
hatred and resentment of its neighbors made a rise much more difficult and
dangerous.And yet this rise was to come. It is regrettable that in this small
framework the internal political events in Germany cannot be dealt with in more
detail, even though they are closely related to the later events in foreign
policy. Never have domestic events and foreign policy actions had such a strong
mutual interaction as in the German Reich since the National Socialists took
power in 1933. The Führer’s assumption of power created the internal conditions
for a turnaround in foreign policy. In a short time, a formidable Wehrmacht was
again created. Germany, united and strengthened under National Socialist
leadership, suddenly became a participant in the political game that should not
be underestimated. The German revolution, however, ‘simultaneously meant the
revolution of interstate relations. In a short time, they threw the distorted
images of democratic political leadership overboard.
If one
examines the period from the end of the World War to the assumption of power, it
can be seen, looking to the East, that two currents are pressing against the
Central European area:
1. The
attempt by West Slavic peoples, the Poles and the Czech Republic, to penetrate
further into the Central German area. These attempts find benevolent toleration
from the Western powers, and economic support from the Versailles Dictate itself
through the provision of two rivers, the Elbe and the Oder. The free port
district for Czecho-Slovakia in the port of Hamburg marks the furthest extension
of a West Slavic advance. The advances into the Central European area itself are
weak and, seen as a danger, do not go much beyond the limits laid down in the
Versailles Dictate, since these Slavic states are for the time being still fully
occupied with their work of consolidating conditions in their own new state
formations. The weak defense from the German side is therefore to be regarded as
sufficient within the German Reich territory, but not the protection of their
own nationality in the newly founded states of Poland and Czecho-Slovakia.
2. The
attempt of the East Slavic-Mongolian peoples, especially under Jewish
leadership, to penetrate the Central European area and beyond into the whole of
Europe by three routes.
a)
By blending the Pan-Slavic idea with the
Bolshevik doctrine, to give the Incidental Slav peoples a new impulse to unite
all Slav peoples and to unite the West Slav peoples, not forgetting the Slav
Balkan peoples, with the Bolshevik core empire. In the course of the
Polish-Soviet War in 1920, a violent confrontation ensued, which, however, was
lost by the Soviet side. Later the attempt of the economic influence follows.
Thus, these are attempts to drive the Slavic-Mongolian front directly to the
west.
b)
The direct attempts of ideological, political,
military and economic influence on the states sanctioned by the Versailles
Dictate, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. Here, too, the Soviet
Union attempted to gain influence through military means of power as early as
1919/20. In Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania German troops played an
important part in driving out the Bolshevik hordes. The later defensive
struggle, as a result of German powerlessness and political opposition, was not
supported by Germany, if one does not want to call Germany’s relatively strong
economic relations with these countries a support, but primarily politically by
the states of the European West, by France and England, which, however, were
also Poland and Czecho-Slovakia in the struggle for their state existence. In
these countries, therefore, it is likewise a question of Bolshevism attempting
to work directly beyond its western frontier.
c)
To make spatially distant peoples ripe for the
Bolshevik revolution by spreading Jewish- Bolshevik doctrine, to expand and
occupy these outlying positions in order to conquer the other surrounding states
from them again. Special attention is paid here to the states of Central and
Northern Europe, since their importance had become clear to the Bolsheviks.
After the failure of the attempt at Bolshevik interference, their main activity
was transferred to Asia Minor, North Africa and, above all, Spain. The defense
in the European states is of varying strength in itself. In three important
states it leads in the course of time to a radical renunciation of Bolshevism,
in Italy, which dominates the central part of the Mediterranean, in Germany,
which dominates Central Europe, and later on the Iberian Peninsula in Spain and
Portugal. In general, it must be said here that the defense against the danger
threatening from the East is at first not led out of the strength of a superior
worldview, but that state-political concerns play the greatest role. Later, the
picture changes in part through the creation of the German-Italian-Spanish bloc
of order. Neither France nor England had the slightest thought of seeing the
enemy in the Bolshevik idea that was storming from the East; they were concerned
only with the preservation of the status quo as it had been established by the
Versailles Dictate. The European states, already undermined by Bolshevism, were
thus just as defenseless in the face of Soviet propaganda as they were
militarily completely inadequate to counter the threatening advance of the
Russian war machine.
XI.
National Socialist Germany takes over again the old historical task of securing
Europe against the East.
The
period of the German attempt to come to terms with the new Soviet Russia without
any ideological defensive force was brought to an end by the National Socialist
revolution in Germany their sudden end, It meant at the same time a rupture of
political principles and actions, which the states of the Versailles Dictate
were at first almost stunned to face. They did not understand German policy,
they did not understand the speed of German action, and above all they did not
understand that the principles of the National Socialist world view determined
their political actions down to the last detail. They faced the sudden German
activity with a lack of understanding which made it partly more difficult,
partly also easier, since the enemy’s policy here simply could not keep pace.
German foreign policy could at first count on no other help than the willingness
of its own people to go along with and support this policy to the utmost. The
seizure of power in Germany had dealt a heavy blow to world Jewry. Jewry knew
very well that only he who possessed the heart of Europe could really rule
Europe. From all sides the heat against National Socialist Germany began. New
plots, new alliances were prepared and .forged to finally destroy this hated
country, perhaps even to wipe it off the map. There may have been many leading
Jews at that time who „regretted“ that at that moment there was no sword
available in any country of Europe to crush National Socialist Germany.
Moreover, during the first years of the National Socialist revolution it was
hoped that there was still time and that the movement would collapse again of
its own accord. Italy was the first to take account of the emerging shift in
power by attempting to create a bloc out of Italy, France, England and Germany.
The Four-Power Pact of Rome in 1933 was never ratified, however. In the first
place, it was again England that made Jewish views its own. The agitation of
Jewry against National Socialism and the plans for world domination foisted upon
it soon fell on fertile ground in London, but England did not feel militarily
strong enough to take immediate action against Germany. The secret archives of
the former Czechoslovak Foreign Office have made the duplicity of British policy
convincingly clear. But they also prove that the British Government prepared the
war against Germany against the will of the broad mass of the English people,
that the British Government counted even then on being able to play off the USSR
against National Socialist Germany. The whole of Chamberlain’s readiness to
understand, according to these documents, had only the purpose of gaining time
for rearmament. There has never been in England, before the Second World War as
before the First, a sense of European unity which recognized the necessity of
protecting Europe in its open flank against the East. Even now England has only
her own policy in mind, never the interests of Europe. In this world war, just
as in earlier times, England has committed historical treason against Europe and
has driven Bolshevik Russia against Europe out of her own narrow capitalist
interests, in order to relieve herself and not to have to make any sacrifices in
the interests of Europe.
This
egoistic policy of England was opposed by the purposeful will of the Führer, who
was imbued with the conviction that Europe, without a strong Germany, must
constantly be and remain the plaything of intersecting interests. The Führer
consciously pursued a European policy which did not shrink from the
responsibility for the fate of Europe. In 1934 the Führer succeeded in reaching
a certain political agreement with Pilsudski, in which the question of
minorities also played a role, and in dispersing the heavy weather clouds in the
German-Polish sky. This treaty and the later apparently improving relations
between Germany and Poland had far reaching significance; France was greatly
disturbed by this agreement and sought to join with the Soviet Union, which was
only too glad to seize the opportunity to regain greater influence in Europe
(Eastern Pact Plan). Again and again the Führer emphasized, contrary to the
bellicose sounds which resounded above all from the other side of the Rhine, the
willingness to live in peace and tranquility with all peoples, especially France
and England (e.g., in the reclamation of the Saar region). The Jewish-led press,
however, deliberately created everywhere a psychosis of hatred and aggression
against the German Reich, which was transmitted to the governments and prevented
a peaceful understanding. There was no willingness to allow Germany to satisfy
its most elementary needs. In the meantime, the situation in Austria had become
more and more acute.
The
Marxist unrest of 1934 was followed by a steady increase in Austrian voices in
favor of National Socialism and of union with Germany. The possibility of a
union of Germany and Austria to form the Greater German Reich met with excited
protest on all sides and led to various declarations of guarantee and tensions.
It always proved to be the greatest obstacle that France did not want to
renounce the security system of the „collective pacts“. In the opinion of the
Western powers, a union of Austria and Germany would have shaken the balance of
power in the whole of Europe to the greatest possible extent. It was a long and
arduous road that the Führer had to travel until finally, in 1938, Austria and
then the Sudetenland were allowed to return to the Greater German Fatherland.
One of the most important stages in this process were the declarations of
October 24, 1936, between Germany and Italy, which overcame Italy’s distrust of
German efforts at hegemony and made possible a strong German policy after the
establishment of the Berlin-Rome axis. After the establishment of German
military freedom and the invasion of the neutralized territories of the Western
Zone, which had been caused by the Franco-Soviet-Czech pact of 1935, Germany had
again become capable of alliance, (Map 16.) Like a red thread running through
the Führer’s active policy since the assumption of power is the idea of securing
the German and European area against the dangers threatening from the East. The
defeat of Bolshevik ideologies within the Reich has always been carried out with
this in mind. For in the East of Europe sat the power in the USSR which
threatened Europe with its Bolshevik claims to power. This internal Bolshevik
danger had first of all to be overcome, if the further preconditions for a
strengthening Germany were to be given. As a second problem, it was only then
that the tensions with the West Slavic states, whose anti-German policy posed a
constant threat to the German area, could be settled.
As we
know, the attempt was successful at first, since Poland was also increasingly
feeling the Soviet pressure coming from the East. It was only Poland’s later
turning towards France and England and its rejection of German proposals for the
settlement of the ethnic differences that led to warlike confrontations. In the
same way the anti-German attitude of Czecho-Slovakia finally caused the
dissolution of that state. Hereby the dangers directly threatening the German
heartland had been averted. Thirdly, during the Spanish Civil War it seemed
necessary to combat the Bolshevik attempts at influence here too, since in the
event of a Bolshevik victory in Spain there was a danger - here the Führer’s
purposeful action in the overall interests of Europe obviously already begins -
that the rest of Europe might be taken in hand by Bolshevism. The fourth and
most important problem to be settled was the relation to the Soviet Union, the
hearth of all unrest in Europe, unrest. At first the Führer, like Bismarck,
succeeded in settling the problems peacefully with the USSR, contrary to the law
of gravity. These efforts were foreign policy and military in nature, since
Germany’s military strength was not sufficient to enable it to throw its
Wehrmacht into the balance as a political weight. Only the unchanged
anti-European attitude of the Soviet Union brought the natural heavyweights back
into their own. Throughout its existence, during the struggle and after the
seizure of power, National Socialism has drawn attention to the questions
threatening the world through Bolshevism. In 1936 it became obvious even to
those who were far away that National Socialism was in no way willing to abandon
the main points of its program, but to realize honestly and with conviction what
it had written on its banners. It caused a great sensation everywhere when, on
November 25, 1936, Germany and Japan joined forces to fight the Communist
International. A year later, in November 1937, Italy also signed this agreement.
The fronts were fixed in their main lines, on the ramparts of which Bolshevism
was to and must one day break. Today too, imbued with the spirit of National
Socialism, it follows the call of the Führer, who with a strong hand and a sense
of responsibility takes up again the flag which Germanic leaders had already
held aloft more than 2000 years ago against the Mongol hordes charging in from
the East.
Again and
again the Führer tried to settle the differences peacefully; again and again he
tried to reach an agreement with the „democratic“ states for the good of Europe,
out of true conviction he extended his hand of peace to them, he offered
disarmament, wanted to guarantee borders and tried to free the Western powers
from the entanglement of their collective security pacts and to make them aware
again of their great European cultural mission. Again and again his peace
proposals were rejected. It is not Germany’s fault that these unification for
the good of Europe, which have been striven for again and again, have remained
without success. The fault was and is borne only by international Jewry, which
already dominates France and England to such an extent that these peoples are no
longer able to free themselves from their tutelage.
As a
result of the resurgence of Germany, a reassessment of the Central European area
and, above all, of the states of the buffer zone vis-a-vis the Soviet Union had
to be undertaken. Whereas in the period before the seizure of power this border
area had had the task, according to the will of the authors of the Versailles
Dictate, of preventing the coming together of two states, it now separated two
mortal enemies, the National Socialist world view and Bolshevism, and for the
time being prevented a warlike confrontation. The Soviet Union grew militarily
stronger with every year of the Five-Year Plan and prepared itself for a passage
of arms into Europe. But also the German Wehrmacht became more powerful day by
day.Whereas Germany had hitherto been able to consider defence policy only
passively as a result of its military weakness, it now gradually became an
active factor in European politics. Germany had a decisive interest in not
allowing the Soviet Union to penetrate further into the Baltic region. Germany
was militarily and economically interested to the highest degree in the
independence of the buffer belt, especially as long as its armaments were not
superior to those of the Soviet Union and of a possible second adversary in the
West. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, if it wanted to regain full weight as
a European power at all, if it wanted to carry the Bolshevik revolution further
into the Baltic and Central European area by force of arms, had to try to break
up this belt and, if possible, to reach a frontier into Europe roughly
corresponding to that before the First World War in 1914. Germany, as long as
these buffer states existed, was the natural ally of them. Poland, too, which
could hardly do without the flank cover provided by the existence of Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia and Rumania against the East, if only for purely strategic
reasons, was deluded enough not to include in its calculations, for ideological
reasons, the support which it could have found in Germany. The Jewry of the
world, in its hatred of National Socialist Germany, has always succeeded in
keeping all these States from adopting a rational policy towards the
strengthening German Reich. In Finland and Estonia alone, which have only very
small Jewish populations, there were perceptive sections which regarded National
Socialist Germany as a natural ally against the Bolshevik Moloch. The peace
efforts of the Führer, who in the final analysis wanted nothing more than to
build up the new German state in peace after the establishment of the Greater
German Reich, were unsuccessful, since Jewry of all shades had already decided
on a war of extermination against Germany. It is in this sense that all
Germany’s efforts for peace are to be understood: the lifting of the war-guilt
lie by Germany, the attempt to guarantee Belgium by Germany, and the efforts to
come to a reasonable settlement with England. Even the Munich Agreement remained
only an episode, honestly meant on the part of the Führer, dishonestly held and
commented on by the enemies.
Germany
was willing to live in peace and friendship with her neighbors, but she could
not admit that Czechoslovakia was becoming the „aircraft mother ship“ of the
Soviets. Czechoslovakia stuck out like a thorn in the German flesh. The Fuehrer,
in spite of all the oppression and enslavement to which German people were
subjected in Czechoslovakia, was prepared to live in peace and friendship with
that state also. The hostile influences were stronger and forced a radical
solution of this question. It was Poland’s blindness that finally brought about
the Second World War. The Fuehrer’s desire for the annexation of German Danzig
and the creation of a narrow, strategically worthless connection to East Prussia
were certainly modest. Fate had willed otherwise. Poland, too, had become so
completely enslaved to the international Jewish and West-Idustrial currents that
it did not see the danger of jeopardizing its existence as a state after barely
twenty years of independence. After the Polish campaign had ended, it had become
clear before all the world that Germany had rediscovered the historic path to
the East. Germany was once again securing Europe; but at the same time a people
of almost 100 million was in the process of acquiring the space it needed in
order to be able to live. Today we are still in the midst of events of that
Second World War, and yet we must already bow reverently before a higher power
which forced the German people, one might almost say against its own will for
peace and against the patient peace efforts of the Führer, onto a course which
will give it once and for all the space for its peoplehood and which will secure
Europe for a long time against attacks from the East. But even with the
destruction of the Polish state, the way to European peace had not been cleared.
The Führer’s renewed offer of peace to the West was rejected by England and the
Jewish plutocracy. Germany had to fight on. In the background, however,
Bolshevik Russia was already preparing for the decisive clash of arms. Since
Germany was still strongly bound by its enemies in the West, it had to agree to
the Soviet Union „liberating“ the Belorussian and Ukrainian parts of the former
Polish Empire and advancing to a demarcation line agreed between the German and
Soviet governments in the catchment area of the Vistula. At the same time,
Germany could not prevent the Soviet Union from establishing itself through
bases on the Baltic coast. A short time later the Soviet-Finnish war broke out
(December l, 1939), which was broken off by the Soviet side, in order to bring
Finland also under Soviet influence. Finland was forced to surrender bases at
the Baltic Sea to the Soviet Union after a heroic fight (March 12, 1940).
The year
1940 saw the destruction of German opponents in the northwest and west, then in
the spring of 1941 of the Balkan peoples under Jewish plutocratic influence.
Again the Soviet Union took advantage of the German bond and brought Lithuania,
Latvia and Estonia completely under Soviet influence (August 3, 5 and 6, 1940).
From this moment on, the Soviet Union had gained a starting position against
National Socialist Germany which appeared more dangerous than at the beginning
of the First World War. If the First World War, at least in its beginning, had
essentially still been fought in two dimensions, on water and on land, now the
air was added as a third dimension, in which and from which enemy action was to
be expected. For the Soviet air force, together with the naval forces, now
threatened the German Baltic shipping and the military-economic assets of
northern and northeastern Germany in the most serious way. When finally, on
November 10, 1940, Molotov demanded in Berlin that the Führer agree to the
occupation of the whole of Finland and northern Scandinavia, it had become clear
that the Soviet Union was not thinking of renouncing its expansion into Europe
that it would soon feel strong enough to pursue its aims further by military
means a new Chinggis Khan threatened Central and Northern Europe, a new
procession of Slavic-Mongolian peoples was preparing itself, and once again the
core of Germanic peoples was faced with the task of securing its living space.
This Mongol storm, however, got its special face through the international
forces of Jewry behind it, which whipped the masses of the Russian peoples
forward against the German Reich for the preservation of its world dominion.
Germany entered into a struggle for being or not being, Germany’s Wehrmacht
stood as a wall in front of its own and European borders and protected its own
country and Europe, which was often enough still inwardly hostile to it, from
the Bolshevik hordes. Even if today many members of European nations still do
not understand the purpose and deeper meaning of this titanic struggle that
broke out in the East, one day they will have to realize that this struggle was
also waged for them in order to preserve their own kind and morals. Some of the
peoples of Europe still stand aloof, but they too will one day understand that
the victims of this war have fallen for them too, and will bow down before them
in gratitude; Germany, however, is consciously fighting for the ground in order
to free and secure herself and Europe from Jewish plutocratic and Jewish
Bolshevik domination. Securing Europe! Towards the north, the west and the south
Europe is secured by defensive geographical conditions, but it is also
constricted, never has a people in the long run been able to benefit from these,
for European people were able to conquer and hold substantial parts of the
European soil from their own sides. In the East, however, Europe lacks all
natural protection; from the East, through the Caspian depression, the streams
of foreign blood flooded into the European region. Thousands upon thousands of
Germanic clans have been annihilated in this eastern region, because the
heartland was unable or unwilling to protect them. From now on Germany will not
let the safeguarding of Europe out of her hands, neither in terms of blood nor
politically, militarily and also economically. The most valuable human races of
the European area shall never again be corrupted by blood streams and ideologies
of foreign races. German energy will see to it that what has been won by the
sword will never again be lost in peace. One word of the Reichsführer-SS,
however, must become a fact for the fulfillment of this task:
„Our
task is not to Germanize the East in the old sense, that is, to teach the people
living there German language and German laws, but to see to it that only people
of really Germanic German blood live in the East.”
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