FROM
Adolf Hitler was bom in Austria in 1889, the son of a customs official, and after leaving school at sixteen engaged in minor artistic pursuits. At the outbreak of World War I he volunteered for the German army, was promoted corporal in an infantry regiment and was gassed. He became an army political agent at the end of the war and from 1920 on devoted himself to the creation of the National Socialist party. An unsuccessful attempt to seize power with Ludendorff in 1923 was followed by five years imprisonment. In 1932 he was constitutionally appointed chancellor and quickly gained absolute power. After defeat by the Allies in World War II he committed suicide in his Berlin bunker in 1945.
My Struggle was first published in 1925.
Hence Germany's only hope of carrying out a sound territorial policy lay in acquiring fresh lands in Europe itself. Colonies are useless for that object if they appear unsuitable for settling Europeans in large numbers. In the Nineteenth Century, however, it was no longer possible to acquire such territory for colonization by peaceful methods. A colonizing policy of that kind could only be realized by means of a hard struggle, which would be far more appropriate for the sake of gaining territory in the continent near home than for lands outside Europe.
For such a policy there was only one possible ally in Europe—Great Britain. Great Britain was the only Power which could protect our rear, supposing we started a new Germanic expansion. We should have had as much right to do this as our forefathers had.
No sacrifice would have been too great in order to gain England's alliance. It would have meant renunciation of colonies and importance on the sea, and refraining from interference with British industry by our competition.
There was a moment when Great Britain would have let us speak to her in this sense; for she understood very well that, owing to her increased
The Twentieth Century
population, Germany would have to look for some solution and find it either in Europe with Great Britain's help, or elsewhere in the world without it.
The attempt made from London at the turn of the century to obtain a rapprochement with Germany was due first and foremost to this feeling. But the Germans were upset by the idea of "having to pull England's chestnuts out of the fire for her"—as if an alliance were possible on any basis other than that of reciprocity. On that principle business could very well have been done with Whitehall. British diplomacy was quite clever enough to know that nothing could be hoped for without reciprocity.
Let us imagine that Germany, with a skilful foreign policy, had played the part which Japan played in 1904—we can hardly estimate the consequences that would have had for Germany.
There would never have been a World War.
That method, however, was never adopted at all.
There still remained the possibility: industry and world trade, sea power and colonies.
If a policy of territorial acquisition in Europe could only be pursued in alliance with Great Britain against Russia, a policy of colonies and world trade, on the other hand, was only conceivable in alliance with Russia against Great Britain. In this case they should have drawn their conclusion ruthlessly, and have sent Austria packing.
They adopted a formula of "peaceful economic conquest of the world," which was destined to destroy for ever the policy of force which they had pursued up to that time. Perhaps they were not quite certain of themselves at times when quiet incomprehensible threats came across from Great Britain. Finally they made up their minds to build a fleet, not for the purpose of attacking and destroying, but to defend the "world-peace" and for the "peaceful conquest of the world." Thus they were constrained to maintain it on a modest scale, not only as regards numbers, but also as regards the tonnage of individual ships and their armaments, so as to make it evident that their final aim was a peaceful one.
The talk about "peaceful economic conquest of the world" was the greatest piece of folly ever set up as a leading principle in State policy, especially as they did not shrink from quoting Britain to prove that it was possible to carry it out in practice. The harm done by our professors with their historical teaching and theories can scarcely be made good again, and it merely proves in a striking fashion how many "learn" history without understanding it or taking it in. Even in the British Isles they had had to confess to a striking refutation of the theory; and yet no nation ever prepared better for economic conquest even with the sword, or later maintained it more ruthlessly, than the British.
Adolf Hitler
Is it not the hallmark of British statecraft to make economic gains out of political strength and at once to reconvert each economic gain into political power? Thus it was a complete error to imagine that England personally was too cowardly to shed her blood in defence of her economic policy! The fact that the British possessed no national army was no proof to the contrary; for it is not the military form of the national forces that matters, but rather the will and determination to make use of what there is. England always possessed the armaments which she needed. She always fought with whatever weapons were necessary to ensure success. She fought with mercenaries as long as mercenaries were good enough; but she seized hold of the best blood in all the nation whenever such a sacrifice was needed to make victory sure, and she had always determination to fight, and was tenacious and unflinching in the conduct of her wars.
In Germany, however, as time went on they encouraged, by means of the schools, the Press and the comic papers, an idea of British life and even more so, of the Empire, which was bound to lead to the most ill-timed self- deception; for everything became gradually contaminated with this rubbish, and the result was a low opinion of the British, which ended by revenging itself most bitterly. This mistaken idea ran so deeply that everyone was convinced that the Englishman, as they imagined him, was a business man, both crafty and incredibly cowardly. It never occurred to our worthy professorial imparters of knowledge that anything as vast as the British world Empire could never have been assembled and kept together merely by swindling and underhand methods. The few who gave warnings were either ignored or silenced. I remember distinctly the amazement on the faces of my comrades in arms when we came face to face with the Tommies in Flanders. After the very first days of fighting it dawned on the brain of each man that those Scotchmen did not exactly correspond with the people whom writers in comic papers and newspaper reports had thought fit to describe to us.
I began to reflect then on propaganda and the most useful forms of it.
—James Murphy (translator)