Source: SS Leitheft No. 7, 1942
Since Darwin, like Linnaeus, was no longer satisfied with defining a system of species, but also questioned their origin and tried to find an answer, the idea of selection has gained new momentum. In the past decades, efforts were already being made to apply it to humans. Today, the idea of selection is one of the key elements of the National Socialist worldview. Since its victorious eruption, the public domain has also taken a keen interest in it. Added to this is the fact that all the questions concerning the selection and orientation of men, their type of function and the distribution of tasks are particularly bright today.
Races and species are created through selection and elimination
Two fundamentally opposed answers have been given to the causes of the origin of the species and races on Earth. One looks for driving factors in external impulses, in the environment, in the „milieu”. The other, on the other hand, speaks of the laws of hereditary transmission, and locates the basis of the origin, conservation and consolidation of the characteristic traits of the species at the heart of the living plasma itself. We feel closer to the second answer than to the first. We know, for example, that the loss of a limb due to freezing or the environment does not result in the disappearance of that limb in the offspring. Nor would this be the case if the cooling were to be repeated over several generations. Despite this, there are deep interrelationships between the origin of species and habitat conditions that we cannot consider from the point of view of any superficial theory of the environment. Homogeneous human groups, i.e., entire racial groups as well as specific races, only acquire the homogeneous characteristic of their own physical and psychic features in the course often to one hundred thousand years in harmonious connection with a living area appropriate to the species in question. Under the effect of all its geological, climatic and biological conditions, the area of life gradually brings about the consolidation and internal harmonisation of a perfectly determined hereditary trait. This was not the result of „the hereditary transmission of acquired qualities”, but of selection in a positive sense and elimination in a negative sense.
The habitat produces a specific type of selection
The selection and elimination carried out in a territory specific to a given species means that only those that have grown up under the conditions of that particular area reproduce in the long term. Conversely, those that do not overcome these conditions disappear. An example: As the researcher v. Eickstedt has done, let us assume that the light-skinned Europoid Nordic mankind was particularly marked by the uniform and isolated North Eurasian (Siberian) habitat of the Ice Age. We can easily imagine the consequences of natural selection and elimination in this area. Only those who had been subjected to the harshest conditions could survive and perpetuate themselves over the following millennia. Reproduction and growth were given only to those who ultimately proved superior to this climate and inhospitable aspect of the earth, those who were ultimately stronger than nature through their inflexibility and hardness. Only those qualities that enabled the victorious man to overcome nature were perpetuated and consolidated through hereditary transmission. During the war in the East, the winter gave us a foretaste and a vivid illustration of what it means for people who are living beings not only to be subject to an all- powerful nature but to defy it victoriously.
Overcoming nature means more than having two specific qualities. Muscular strength or insensitivity to cold are not enough. Overcoming nature and the environment refers to the general character traits of body and soul. Nature must be overcome by physical toughness and an inflexible will to live. It must also be overcome by spiritual strength and great zeal. Already in our earliest ancestors, it fostered those qualities that we still feel in our souls today as the highest: defiance of external obstacles, toughness towards ourselves, an insatiable will to live, depth and belief in the victory of the soul, as well as all our higher qualities and strengths.
The origin of species is not the result of an easy adaptation process
We can never regard the triumph over stingy nature and the harshness of its living conditions as the result of easy adaptation. It is obvious that man also adapts and follows the path of least resistance, as far as he is allowed to do so. But escaping from the environment circumscribed by the ice age and surrounded by powerful natural barriers was often impossible or only to a limited extent during long periods of evolution. When the natural barriers gradually disappeared and could be overcome, the conquest of more favourable living spaces, then as now, was only possible by confronting other human groups already established there.
The birth of a species is not the product of an easy adaptation to an environment and to a „milieu”. Rather, it is a gradual crystallisation and accentuation of all the qualities that make it possible to face the harsh conditions of life victoriously. Only the heaviest sacrifice makes this possible. The being who cannot stand the test delivered by elemental nature disappears and is ruthlessly eliminated. We therefore feel a deep respect for this process, which encourages us to be responsible for the preservation and reproduction of the humans of our species.
The progress of civilisation facilitates the conditions of existence and thus also modifies the original biological laws of selection
The more a human group succeeds in mastering and transforming the conditions of its living area through the establishment of a culture faithful to the law of life, the more easily the individual succeeds in preserving himself and avoiding elimination. The laws of selection and elimination, which are severe at the beginning, gradually disappear and become less severe. The older a culture gets and the later it reaches the stage of civilising eras, the more it loses its vigour. It even produces the opposite process. Weak and sick individuals can also survive and reproduce; different racial types mix. The law creating the species no longer seems to act.
When culture develops its own spiritual evolution and at the same time produces greatly facilitated conditions of existence, the spirit and nature of selection are greatly compromised. The preservation of purity, further education and the evolution of the species developing over millennia are gradually called into question.
Cultural selection replaces biological selection
Species and races were the magnificent result of natural biological selection. The civilisation that evolves as a result of the change in its conditions of existence imposes a certain form of selection on its side. This kind of selection results from the conditions of existence, the necessities and the fundamental ideas of the dominant culture and its spirit. The objective of selection pursued by a culture may have a different relationship to the original biological natural selection. This relationship determines our assessment of the value of cultural selection and its justification. It does not matter by what means it is carried out. It is of secondary importance whether it requires certain skills, a minimum degree of education, places the preservation of life at the top of its values, or uses the means of modern science to get to know man.
Different forms of cultural selection
The most favourable case of the relationship between cultural selection and the original biological natural selection is when the objective of the latter is pursued by the former. Thanks to a keen sense of the law governing the origin of their species, peoples such as the Spartans resorted in their selection to the same principles of inflexible severity originally prescribed by nature, even after their arrival on more hospitable territories. Other peoples of the Nordic race, such as our Germanic ancestors, naturally obeyed the biological laws governing the creation of their species.
On the other hand, we know that other forms of natural selection are totally contrary to the biological laws of species origin, or even hostile to them. This is mainly the case when the civilising spirit comes from outside and is not the product of the species itself. The acceptance, as well as the forcible establishment, of an alien culture of mind produces other types of selection and ultimately leads to the denial and destruction of the original and specific character of the species. The intrusion of Christianity into the culture of our Germanic ancestors gave rise to a form of selection which, from the very beginning, proved hostile to our species and its laws of evolution. The Christian priestly elite selects suitable and usable men for their purposes, but forbids them the perpetuation and preservation of the best racial heritage by forcing them into celibacy. A form alien to the principles of cultural selection, it makes advantageous use of the consequences of natural biological selection hundreds of thousands of years old. It makes use of the rich treasure of physical-spiritual talents of our race, but consciously and instinctively refuses to let them be preserved and renewed. For centuries it has lived on this capital, a process the full extent of which we are only now realising. We see that this capital of talent is already under threat and is by no means inexhaustible.
The spirit behind the forms of cultural selection of our time
The current forms of cultural selection are closely related to the cultural level itself.
Insofar as culture already has the characteristics of a late civilising action, „selection“ has already turned into a frightening counter-selection. This is the result of protecting the sick and inferior as a result of the misguided „interest” in the value of the individual alone. Moral depravity, welfare, decadence of feeling and loss of all natural instincts are the cause. Our view of all this is clear and needs no explanation.
Apart from this automatically resulting civilising counter-selection, there are many attempts to practice conscious and methodical cultural selection. Its aim and intention is always „to put the right man in the right place”. No one will dispute the practicality of such efforts. All the important institutions and organisations in our cultural life are now concerned to provide their offspring with a sufficient number of qualities. The great historical tasks which fate has assigned to our people no longer allow for the development of existing gifts. It is therefore all the more necessary to put the right man in the right place.
The problematic biological character of our cultural selection
In order to assess the significance of the attempts at selection made by our time, we cannot only start by looking at its undoubted immediate success. We must constantly ask ourselves whether they are consistent with the biological laws of species conservation. We must examine whether they both promote and prosper the millennial species, or at least conserve it, apart from their momentary practical effect. When we take this necessity into account, we find that our forms of cultural selection have lost sight of the original biological meaning of all selection. In some cases, we even come to a total unconsciousness or indifference, sometimes even to an instinctive and manifest hostility. This last case particularly concerns all forms of „purely spiritual” selection.
From a practical point of view, cultural selection is mainly carried out on superior individuals adapted to particular cultural purposes. The original biological meaning of selection, i.e., that good men should be favoured in their reproduction, is mostly not taken into account, or even intentionally denied. Many culturally conditioned forms of life and organisations prevent their members from reproducing through the establishment of multiple economic or moral barriers. For example, the incentive to follow excessively long training courses makes it economically and practically impossible to start a family. The number of children is limited because education requires enormous sacrifices. Other cultural organisations, which naturally claim the right to choose the best, erect moral barriers instead. A class morality, for example, in which the sense of biological duty is not well regarded, which condemns early marriage as vulgar as well as many children or young parents, betrays the original meaning of biological selection. The classes that express their „distinguished” cavalier morality by the formula: „Fall in love often, get engaged rarely, never marry”, therefore have no moral right to participate in the selection within our race.
Cultural selection also has the opposite effect at the biological level when the best are chosen whose existence is endangered because they have to risk their lives to accomplish their tasks. The current war is a clear example of this, where the best of us are prevented from reproducing fully by death.
When we look at the big picture, cultural selection is still carried out today, in the most varied fields despite different reasons, in a biological way that is totally similar to the selection of the Church, which is constantly feeding on the capital of talent. While it rightly, yet deceptively, strives to put the right man in the right place, it often fails to realise the original meaning of any selection because of its narrow historical-temporal, ideological and moral horizon. And not infrequently, it even believes that it must disdainfully reject biological viewpoints on ‘spiritual’ grounds. It thus becomes a form of counter-selection that is frightening at the practical level because it is perfectly concealed. Added to this is the soundness and correctness of its partly highly developed selective procedures.
We cannot forgo the immediate result of good cultural selection in the gigantic struggle for the existence of our people. But this must not be achieved at the cost of an impoverishment of our popular and racial substance rich in talent, accelerated by the most refined means. That would be short-sighted politics. What civilising counter-selection gradually produces, i.e., the extinction and drying up of the good and even the best blood by the simultaneous increase of all that is mediocre, would then be accelerated by conscious processes. What, left to itself, would be a process spread over centuries, would take place in a few decades: a cultured race would see its final concentrated and exalted forces disappear all the more rapidly and dramatically! This would be tragic heroism in the Spenserian sense! Seeing this danger means fighting it by all means.
The reproduction of good people is more important than any cultural selection
Our point of view is clear: Any cultural selection – no matter what means it employs – must be exculpated and justified in the face of the millennial history of our race. In the light of the God-given principles governing our species, it has no reason to exist insofar as it opposes biological laws in a hostile, indifferent or unconscious manner. Voluntarily or not, it encourages the destructive exploitation of the highest and most eminent works of creation. Nature and the creator then apply the only sanction, namely the disappearance, the death of the species. Any conscious selection with its immediate successes, which may be assessed over years and decades, must be able to take place over centuries, millennia and hundreds of millennia. Otherwise, it loses all credit with the history of our species and ultimately with its divine creator.
Our right to selection
National Socialism can only conceive of its demand for selection with the aim of bringing it into line with the biological laws of the origin of the species. It must therefore ensure that the idea of selection is defended and applied only in terms of the entire National Socialist world view. All its partial and rational applications produce the opposite effect. So far, the SS has become its most suitable instrument. Its laws of order and its institutions are animated by the spirit of biological duty. As early as 1931, the Reichsführer SS promulgated the order on engagement and marriage in this spirit. The SS order of 28 October 1939, concerning the entire SS and police, emanates from the same sense of duty to the race, of submission to the Creator, and for this reason it has been misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who do not think biologically.
Ludwig Eckstein
(Author’s note: the order of 28 October stipulates that assistance and support must be given indiscriminately to the children, legitimate or not, of SS personnel who died at the front. The religious and reactionary camps saw this as an intolerable moral violation).
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