Source: SS Notebook No. 5. 1943
We Germans have always played a special role in the world. We were the restless and tormented element among the peoples. Even in times of our greatest commercial prosperity we were dissatisfied with our fate. The outbreak of the First World War was felt as a liberation. The cause of this was not the fanatical warlike exaltation which has so often been imputed to us by our enemies, but the liberating feeling of having a new and decisive vocation. The German cannot live with the life of a shopkeeper. The state of rest and satiety is against his nature. He feels called to higher tasks than to engage in a lucrative trade in agricultural or industrial products. This way of being has been described as a Faustian characteristic of the German. It can be interpreted as a blessing or a curse; in any case it determines the reputation of Germanism for good or ill. It was the original fate of the entire Germanic world. Without this obsession to move, the Germans would have been an insignificant people of peasants in northern Europe. They shed their blood all over the West in constant battles, but they also shaped the face of this corner of the world. Even today, they seem to be called upon to fulfil the destiny of this century.
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The gigantic battles of the Second World War marked the end of one of the great eras of humanity. The domination of gold is stopped, the people regain their rights, man once again measures the value of things. This war is being fought for reasons other than changes in borders and interests. It is about the fate of a thousand-year-old culture that has given the world the magnificent expressions of human genius. The greatest revolution of all time is being accomplished in the storm of battle: the revolt of the peasants against the merchants, of labour against the power of gold. The same process that we experienced years ago in the struggle for power in Germany is being repeated today on a world scale, and we are facing the same adversaries. We know their methods of struggle too well to be surprised anymore. We are now in the thick of the struggle, and this war will not end until the continent is rid of its executioners. Whatever the future may bring, it is our duty, for the sake of our dead comrades, to resist, to attack unceasingly, until the enemy force is destroyed. There can be no compromise in this struggle, for the continuation of the previous situation would result in terrible upheavals which would ultimately destroy the West Germany has become the bulwark of European freedom. Our country’s enemies are also Europe’s enemies. It is no longer a question of a quarrel between peoples and states, but of various principles of configuration, the final realisation of which decides death or life. In this way, our struggle goes beyond the sphere of power and interests to that of the spirit. It is not primarily a question of oil sources or mineral deposits, but of maintaining all the spiritual values that allow the human presence to be magnificently realised. What do American railway magnates and Bolshevik despots have to do with Europe and its multi-millennial culture? England has long since turned to its overseas possessions and regards the continent only as the plaything of its interests. Germany, on the other hand, has remained tied to the West’s destiny, however painful this may be. There is now no choice for the peoples of Europe if they want to believe in their destiny. The fronts are sharper than ever, the divinity itself judges nations on their strength and worth.
War is again revealed, as it was in the past, to be a judgment of God. In the clash of the battles of our time, the face of the world will be reshaped and no one will recognise its old face. Whatever the outcome of the battle, there will be nothing left of the old world. The old primordial forces of life are in motion and will not stop until the powers of degeneration and destruction are finally crushed. For the past thirty years, the most gigantic process of transmutation that the history of the world has ever seen has been unfolding. The living forces are demanding their rights. The peoples are rushing out of the atrocious confines of their living space towards the light and the sun. A new migration of peoples is underway. With the old powers, a whole spiritual world that has held Europe back for two thousand years is collapsing. The alliance of the democracies with the Kremlin has put an end to the last doubts about the necessity of our struggle. Truth, justice and life are with us.
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The West is still engaged in a decisive struggle for its future. The horizon often seems obscured by terrible events, but at the height of danger the strength of the human heart proves itself. There are still large parts of Europe in a state of quiet contemplation, unaware of the threatening gravity of their situation. Blind madmen turn against the only power that can protect them from destruction and annihilation. These things no longer affect us. We are used to fighting alone, surrounded by hatred and contempt because we are aware of our mission. The destiny of the world is fulfilled by our action and by the will of the divinity. Even if thousands of men die, if tens of thousands return crippled, the Idea will live on as long as Germany sees the birth of men. We are invincible because we have an unshakeable faith. This faith has sustained us in all the circumstances of our existence; it has given us the precious moments of triumph and accompanied us in sorrow and misery; it will one day lead us to victory. The gods do not bestow their grace, they only grant their favours to the brave who resist all violence. Fate has given us special missions. It is up to us to fulfil them. In God’s eyes, a people is only a tool of His almighty will. He mercilessly defeats that which proves to be unfit. We stand and fight, for the Empire, the strength and the splendour are ours.
Hans Henning Festge
Man is superior to matter when confronted with the necessity of a great attitude, and no external power of any kind can be conceived to which spiritual force is not superior. Therefore, he who is capable of this can draw the conclusion that in man, in real man, there live values which cannot be destroyed either by projectiles or by mountains of explosives.
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