# Mein Kampf (Stackpole Sons)/Volume 2/Chapter 15

15. Self-Defense as a Right
In November 1918, at the time when we laid down our arms, a policy was entered upon which according to all human foresight would lead gradually to complete submission. Histor­ical examples of similar nature show that peoples who first lay down their arms without having the most urgent reasons prefer, in the time to come, to accept the greatest humiliations and extor­tions rather than to seek a change of their fate by means of a re­newed appeal to force.
Humanly speaking this is easily understood. A clever victor will always, if possible, impose his demands in parts upon the vanquished. He may count on it that a nation which has lost its firmness of character — and that is true of every nation which subjects itself voluntarily — will no more see sufficient ground in each one of these separate acts of oppression to take up arms once more. The more such extortions are voluntarily accepted, the more unjustifiable it appears to the people to resist finally because of a new, seemingly single but ever repeated oppression, especially when, counting all in all, they have silently borne so much more and greater misery.
The downfall of Carthage is the terrible demonstration of such a slow execution of a people brought about by its own fault.
In his Three Confessions Clausewitz, therefore, emphasizes in an incomparable manner this thought and immortalizes it when he says:
“The blot of a cowardly submission can never be wiped out. This drop of poison in the blood of a people is transmitted to posterity and will paralyze and undermine the strength of future generations;” that on the other hand, “even the destruction of ​this freedom after a bloody and honorable struggle assures the rebirth of a nation; it is the essence of life from which a new tree is sure to take root sometime in the future.”
Of course, a nation that has lost its honor and character will not be concerned with such doctrine. Whoever takes it to heart can never sink so low; only he who forgets or no longer wants to know it can thus break down. Therefore one cannot expect that those responsible for a characterless submission will suddenly repent and act differently than heretofore on the basis of logic and human experience. On the contrary, it is these people who will repel all such doctrine until either the people have become accustomed to their enslavement or until better forces appear to take away the power from the hands of the infamous corrupter. In the first place these people do not seem to feel very miserable since not infrequently they are assigned the duty of slave over­seers by the clever victors; these characterless natures usually exercise this office much more unmercifully over their own people than any foreign brute put into office by the enemy.
The development since 1918 shows that in Germany the hope to be able to gain the favor of the victors through voluntary subjection unfortunately determines in a fateful manner the poli­tical understanding and the actions of the wide masses. There­ fore I would like to lay special emphasis upon the word wide masses, since I am not of the conviction that all actions by the leaders of our people are to be ascribed to the same ruinous de­lusion. Since after the termination of the war the direction of our fate, as is now very obvious, lies in the hands of Jews, one cannot possibly assume that only a faulty knowledge is the cause of our misfortune; on the contrary, one must be convinced that a powerful intention is destroying our people. As soon as one examines the seeming madness of the foreign policy of the leaders of our people from this point of view, it reveals itself as the most cunning, ice-cold logic, in the service of the Jewish thought and struggle for world conquest.
Thus it becomes comprehensible even that the same span of time, which from 1806 until 1813 had been sufficient to fill the ​totally collapsed Prussia with new energy and a readiness to fight, has today elapsed, not only without having made use of, but in fact has led to an ever increasing weakening of our state.
Seven years after November 1918 the Treaty of Locarno was signed!
The succession of events has already been noted above: As soon as the disgraceful Armistice had been signed, no one had either the energy or the courage to suddenly oppose the oppres­sive measures taken again and again later on by the enemies. They, however, were too clever to ask for too much at any one time. They always limited their extortions to the degree which, according to their own opinion — and that of our German leader­ship - would for a moment be just bearable enough so that one did not need to be afraid of an explosion of public opinion because of it. The more of these single dictates that had been signed and choked down, the less it seemed justifiable that against one single additional extortion or demanded degradation one would sud­denly do that which had not been done against the many previous ones: offer resistance. This is the very “drop of poison” of which Clausewitz says: the first committed deed of characterlessness which is bound to grow and which gradually, as its worst heritage, encumbers every future decision. This lack of character may become an awful handicap which a people can hardly shake off and which ultimately pulls them down to the existence of a race of slaves.
In Germany too, disarmament and enslavement edicts, politi­cal disarming and economic robbery alternated and finally pro­duced that moral spirit which is able to see a blessing in the Dawes Plan and a success in the Treaty of Locarno. When view­ing it from a higher standpoint one can speak of a single good fortune in this lamentable situation, the good fortune that they may have been able to dupe men, but were unable to bribe heaven. For the blessing of heaven failed to come: Misery and care have since become the steady companions of our people and misery is our only true ally. Fate has not made an exception in this instance, but gave us what we deserved. Since we no longer ​know how to value honor, this teaches us at least to value freedom in connection with bread. People have already learned to cry for bread but some day they will learn to pray for freedom.
Just as bitter and as evident as the collapse of our people was in the years after 1918, just as determinedly was everyone violently persecute just at that time who dared to prophecy what in each case did take place later. As miserable as the leader­ ship of our people was, it was conceited to the same degree, especially at such times when it was the question of the removal of disagreeable and therefore undesirable monitors. At that time it was likely to happen (and it is even happening today!) that the greatest parliamentary blockheads, genuine members of the saddler and glover’s guild, not only in regard to their profession — which would not mean anything — would suddenly be elevated to the pedestal of a statesman, to rebuke the ordinary mortals from their lofty heights. It made and makes no difference that after six months of his craftsmanship such a “statesman” is gen­erally unmasked as the most miserable good-for-nothing and showered with scorn and ridicule by the rest of the world. By this time he is at the end of his wits, not knowing what to do next, and has given definite proof of his complete incom­petency! No, that makes no difference, on the contrary: the more these parliamentary statesmen of this Republic lack real accomplishments, the more furiously they persecute those who expect accomplishments from them, and those who have the audacity to reveal the failure of their activities and to predict their future failure. But if one has definitely cornered such a parliamentary gentleman and if such a political reformer is then no longer able to deny the collapse of all his activities and their results, then they find thousands and thousands of reasons to ex­cuse their failures; only one reason they will not admit, that they themselves are the principal cause of all evil.
During the winter 1922-23 at the latest it should have been generally realized that even after the conclusion of peace France was still striving with an iron determination to reach her original ​war aims. No one will believe that France during the most de­cisive struggle of her history had risked for four and a half years the rather meagre blood of her people simply in order to have restored to them through reparations what had previously been damaged. Even Alsace-Lorraine alone would not account for the energy of the French war tactics if it had not been a part of the really large political future program of the French foreign policy. But this goal is: dissolution of Germany into a hodge­-podge of small states. That was what chauvinistic France fought for: but in so doing she really sold her people to be bondsmen of the international world Jewry.
This French war goal could have been reached by the war alone, if, as they had hoped in Paris at the outset, the war had been fought on German soil. Let us suppose that the bloody battles of the World War had not been fought on the Somme, in Flanders, in the Artois, near Warsaw, Nishnij Novgorod, Kowno, Riga and wherever else, but had instead been fought in Germany, on the Ruhr and on the Main, on the Elbe, near Hanover, Leipzig, Nuernberg, etc.; then one can readily realize that the possibility of a complete destruction of Germany would have been at hand. It is very doubtful whether or not our young federated State would have endured the same burdensome ordeal for four and a half years as did France, which had been rigidly centralized for centuries and looked only to the indisputable center, Paris. The fact that this huge struggle of the nations took place outside the boundaries of our Fatherland was not only to the merit of the unsurpassed old army but also the greatest piece of good fortune for the future of Germany. It is my unshakable conviction, which sometimes causes me great anguish, that in the opposite case the German Reich would long since have ceased to exist, and today nothing but “German states” would have re­mained. This is the only reason why the blood of our friends and brothers who have died on the battlefield has not altogether been shed in vain.
It turned out altogether differently! Germany did indeed col­lapse with lightning rapidity in November, 1918. Yet, when the ​catastrophe occurred at home, the armies of the soldiers at the front were still deep in enemy country. France’s foremost care at that time was not the disintegration of Germany, but rather how to rid France and Belgium as quickly as possible of the Ger­man armies. Hence, the first task of the Parisian political leaders to terminate the World War was to disarm the German armies and to force them as quickly as possible back into Germany, and not until after that had been achieved could they devote them­selves to the accomplishments of their original and actual war aim. In this, however, France had already been venders impotent. For England the war had been terminated successfully after Germany had been destroyed as a colonial and commercial power and after she had been reduced to the rank of a secondary power. She not only had no interest in destroying the German State completely, but she had every reason to wish for a future rival of France in Europe. Thus the French policy had to resolutely continue in times of peace what the war had commenced and now Clemenceau’s declaration that, as far as he was concerned, peace was merely a continuation of the war became of greater significance.
Continually, at each provocation, the structure of the Reich had to be shaken. In Paris one hoped to gradually break up the Reich’s structure by the imposition of ever new disarmament demands on the one hand, and on the other hand, by the eco­nomic extortions rendered possible thereby. The more national honor died out in Germany, the sooner economic pressure and everlasting need could lead to politically destructive results. Such a policy of political suppression and economic robbery, pursued for a period of ten or twenty years, would have ruined even the best state and eventually dissolve it. Thus the ultimate war goal of the French would have been reached.
This must have been recognized long before the winter of 1922-23 as being France’s intentions. With that, however, there remained only two possibilities: One could hope either to wear out the will of the French by means of the tenacity of German people, or to finally do that which in any case must eventually ​take place, namely, turn the helm of the Reich’s ship during some especially drastic situation and turn the rammer against the enemy. This would, of course, mean a struggle for life and death and yet a chance for life would exist only in case one suc­ceeded beforehand in isolating France to such an extent that this second conflict would no longer be a struggle of Germany against the world, but a defense of Germany against France which was continually disturbing the world and her peace.
I emphasize it and I am firmly convinced that this second case shall have to and will happen in some way or other. I shall never believe that the intentions of France regarding us will ever change; because they are after all rooted deeply in the thought for self-preservation of the French nation. Were I myself a Frenchman and were the greatness of France as dear to me as the greatness of Germany is sacred to me, then I too could and would not act differently than a Clemenceau did in the end. The French race which is gradually dying out, not only in respect to the size of her population, but more so in regard to her best racial elements, can retain her world importance for any length of time only through the destruction of Germany. French policy may pursue thousand roundabout ways, somewhere at the end this goal will always exist as the fulfilment of the greatest desires and deepest longing. It is incorrect to believe that a purely passive will, one that wants to preserve only itself, can for any great length of time withstand a not less powerful and actively progressing will. The everlasting conflict between Germany and France will never be decided as long as it consists merely of a German defense against French aggression, but century after century Germany will lose one position after another. If one studies the change of the German language frontier from the twelfth century up to the present time, one will hardly trust any longer in an attitude and a development which up to this time has inflicted so much harm upon us.
Not until this is fully realized in Germany, to the extent that we will cease to let the German nation’s will-to-live degenerate into a mere passive defense, but rather concentrate this will upon ​a final active dispute with France and use it in a last decisive battle to reach the greatest ultimate goals for Germany; not until such a time will we be able to terminate the eternal and in itself fruitless struggle between us and France; under the condition, to be sure, that in the destruction of France Germany really sees only a means finally to give to our people the possibility to expand else­where. Today there are eighty million Germans in Europe! Not until then will such a foreign policy be appreciated, when, after scarcely one hundred years, there will live two hundred and fifty million Germans on this continent, not crowded together like factory coolies of the other world, but: as farmers and workers who by their labors give each other mutual assistance to gain a livelihood.
In December 1922 the friction between Germany and France had again reached a dangerous peak. France was intending new immense extortions and needed pledges. Political pressure had to precede the economic robbery and only a bold cut into the nerve center of our whole German life seemed to the French to be sufficient in order to put this obstinate people under a heavier yoke. It was hoped in France that the occupation of the Ruhr territory would not only definitely break Germany’s back-bone, but that it would also force us into such an economic position that we would be forced to accept any obligations even the heaviest, whether we wanted it or not.
It was a matter of bending or breaking. And Germany bent at the very beginning, only to break completely at the end.
With the occupation of the Ruhr, Fate once more lent Ger­many a hand, offering her an opportunity to rise again. For what at first consideration was bound to look like a terrible misfortune, proved upon closer examination to be the greatly promising pos­sibility for the termination of all German sufferings.
The occupation of the Ruhr had for the first time really deeply estranged England from France in foreign policy, and not only British diplomatic circles which had looked at and entered upon this alliance and maintained it only with sober eyes and cold­ blooded calculation, but also the most extended circles of the ​English people. The English business world especially, felt with ill concealed resentment this great additional continental strength­ening of France’s power. For aside from the fact that looking at France from a military-political standpoint, she now occupied a position in Europe which not even Germany had enjoyed pre­viously, she also gained economic support which almost made its political competitive ability economically a monopoly. The greatest iron and coal mines in Europe were now placed into the hands of a nation which, very much unlike Germany, had looked after her own interests in a decisive and active manner, a nation which reminded the world again of its military com­petency during the great war. France’s occupation of the Ruhr deprived England of all her success gained in the war, and now the industrious and active British diplomacy was no longer the victor, but rather Marshal Foch and the France he represented.
The sentiment in Italy toward France which since the end of the war had not been exactly friendly, turned now into real hatred. It was the great historical moment when former allies might be future enemies. The fact that this did not happen and that the allies did not suddenly quarrel among each other, as it happened during the second Balkan War, is to be ascribed only to the further fact that Germany had no Enver Pasha, but merely a Chancellor Cuno.
In respect not only to Germany’s future foreign but to her domestic policies, the invasion of the Ruhr territory by the French offered the greatest possibilities. A large part of our people which, due to the uninterrupted influence of its lying press, still regarded France to be the champion of progress and liberty, was suddenly cured of this delusion. Just as the year 1914 had banished all dreams of an international solidarity of nations from the minds of our German workers and had suddenly led them back into the world of eternal struggle, since everywhere one being nourishes upon another, and the death of the weaker means life for the stronger, so was the spring of 1923.
When the French carried out their threats and finally began to march into the German coal territory still with great caution and ​hesitation at first, a decisive hour for Germany had struck. If our nation at this moment would combine a changing of its opinion with a change of her former attitude, then the German Ruhr territory might become for France a Napoleonic Moscow. There were only two possibilities: Either one submitted to this also, and did nothing, or, with the eyes on the territory of the flaming smelting-furnaces and the smoking funnels, one created for the German nation a flaming desire to liberate itself of this eternal shame and be willing to take upon oneself the horrors of the mo­ment rather than to endure the endless horror any longer.
It was to the immortal merit of Chancellor Cuno, then in office, to have discovered a third way; and it was to the even more praiseworthy merit of the German bourgeois to have admired and followed him.
First I would like to examine the second way as briefly as possible:
With the occupation of the Ruhr, France, had become guilty of a notorious breach of the Treaty of Versailles. At the same time she placed herself in opposition to a number of guarantee powers, especially to England and Italy. France could no longer hope for any support for her own selfish raids from these powers. This adventure, for that is what it was at the beginning, had therefore to be satisfactorily liquidated by herself alone. For a German national government there was only one way, i.e. the one which honor prescribed. One thing was certain, one could not as yet actively oppose France by force of arms. It was neces­sary to realize that all negotiations without the backing of power would be ridiculous and fruitless. It was absurd to take the posi­tion: “We are not participating in any negotiation” without be­ing able to offer active resistance. Yet it was much more absurd to negotiate anyway in the end without having created a power in the meantime.
This does not mean that it would have been possible to avert the occupation of the Ruhr territory by military means. Only a madman could advocate such a decision. Under the influence of this action of France and during the time of its execution, ​however, one could and should have been intent on securing (without taking the Treaty of Versailles into consideration, which France herself has torn to shreds) those military means which would later strengthen the hands of the negotiators. From the very beginning it was clear that some day, at some conference table, a decision would have to be made regarding this territory oc­cupied by France. On the other hand one had to realize that even the best negotiators could attain but little success, as long as the ground upon which they stand, and the chair on which they sit, is not protected by their nation. A weak little cowardly tailor cannot dispute with athletes, and a powerless negotiator has al­ways had to submit with good graces to seeing the sword of Brennus on the balance-scale of the enemy, if he did not have his own sword to throw in the balance. Or was it not really a pity to have to watch the negotiation-comedies, which since the year 1918 always preceded the respective dictates? This degrading spectacle which was presented to the whole world, while we were scornfully asked to come to the conference table in order, for the purpose of insulting us, to then present us with previously drawn-up decisions and programs which were nominally open to discussion, but which, from the very outset, had to be re­garded as irrevocable. It is true that our negotiators were in hard­ly one single instance above the most conservative average, and justified usually only too well the insolent remark of Lloyd George, who had said scornfully in regard to the former German Secretary of State, Simon, “that the Germans did not understand how to elect men of intelligence as leaders and representatives.” Yet even a genius would have attained but little in view of the decided will of the enemies and the pitiful defenselessness of his own nation.
Whoever in the spring of 1923 intended to use the occupation of the Ruhr by France as a pretext for the reconstruction of mili­tary power would first of all have to supply the nation with spiritual weapons, strengthen its willpower and destroy those who intended to disintegrate this most valuable national power.
The fact that they neglected in 1914 and 1915 to crush the ​Marxist serpent once and for all had to be paid for with blood in 1918, so in the same way the most dire results were bound to come if advantage was not taken of the opportunity which pre­sented itself in the spring of 1923 to block the activities of the Marxist traitors and murderers of our nation.
Every thought of actual resistance against France was pure folly as long as one did not proclaim war against those powers that five years previously had broken German resistance on the battlefield from within. Only bourgeois elements could conceive the incredible idea that Marxism now might be different from what it used to be, and that these verminous would-be-leaders of the year 1918, who at that time stepped in cold blood upon two million dead in order to be better able to ascend the various government seats, would now in the year 1923 suddenly be ready to pay their tribute to the national conscience. What an incredible and really absurd thought, this hope that former national traitors should suddenly become defenders of German liberty! They never even thought of it! Just as a hyena will not turn from a car­cass, a Marxist will not turn from high treason. One should re­frain from making the most stupid objection, namely, that also many workers had once died for Germany. German workers, yes, but then they were no longer international Marxists. If in the year 1914 the German workers (Arbeiterschaft) had still consisted of convinced Marxists, then the war would have ended after three weeks. Germany would have collapsed, before even the first soldier had stepped across the border. No, the fact that Germany was still fighting at that time was proof that the Marxist delusion had not yet been able to penetrate the entire mind. To the same degree to which the German worker and German soldier returned to the hands of the Marxist leaders, to the same degree was he lost to the Fatherland. If at the beginning and during the war one had once kept twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people under poisonous gas, as hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all stations and occupations on the battlefield had to endure it, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain. ​On the contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels, removed in time, might have saved a million real Germans of great value for the future. It was, however, a part of the bourgeois “art of states­manship” to deliver millions to a bloody end on the battlefield without batting an eye, but to regard at the same time ten or twelve thousand traitors, parasites, usurers and swindlers as a valuable national sacred object and to declare them to be unim­peachable at the same time. One really does not know what is considered greater in this bourgeois world, woodenheadedness, weakness and cowardice, or a thoroughly corrupted sentiment. It is really a class destined by fate to perish, only it unfortunately drags a whole nation along with it into the abyss.
The very same situation that had existed in 1918, existed in the year 1923. Regardless of what kind of resistance one decided upon, the first condition was always the excretion of the Marxist poison from the body of our nation. And according to my con­viction, at that time it was the first duty of a real National govern­ment to look for and find those forces that were determined to declare a war of destruction on Marxism, and to give these forces free reign; it was its duty not to worship the folly of “law and order” at a time when the foreign enemy dealt the most destruc­tive blow to the Fatherland and treason lurked around every corner at home. No, a real nationalistic government at that time should have wished for unrest and disorder, if only under its confusion at last a final settlement with the Marxist arch-enemies of our nation would be possible and take place. If one did not do that, then every thought of resistance, no matter of what kind, was pure folly.
Such a settlement of real, world-historical importance does not take place, however, according to the scheme of some privy councillor or of an old withered state-minister’s soul, but accord­ing to the eternal laws of life on this world which mean straggle for this life and which remain a straggle. One must realize that often out of the most bloody civil wars a sound national body, hard as steel, has sprung up, while from artificially fostered conditions of peace more often than once the foul odor of decay ​reached up into heaven. The fates of nations are not changed with kid gloves. Therefore one had to proceed with the utmost brutal steps in 1923, in order to seize the rattlesnakes which were feeding on our national body. Not until succeeding with this would the preparation for active resistance have any sense what­ever.
At that time I talked my throat hoarse again and again and tried to make clear, at least to the so-called national circles, what was at stake this time, and that mistakes like those of the year 1914 and the following years were bound to result in an end like that of 1918. I have asked them again and again to let fate take its free course, and to give our movement the possibility to come to a reckoning with Marxism; but I preached to deaf ears. They all seemed to know much better, including the Chief of the Defense Force, until finally they were confronted with the most miserable capitulation of all times.
At that time I became fully conscious of the fact that the Ger­man bourgeoisie had reached the end of its mission and had no further call to fulfil any task. At that time I saw that all these parties quarreled with Marxism only for competition’s sake, with­out really wanting to wipe it out. They had long since become reconciled to the idea of the destruction of the Fatherland; the only thing that moved them was solely their great anxiety to be able to partake of the funeral repast. It is only for this that they are still “fighting.”
During this period — I admit it frankly — I conceived the deep­est admiration for the great man south of the Alps, whose fervent love for his people did not permit him to make pacts with Italy’s domestic enemies, but who strove for their destruction through every possible method and means. The reason why Mussolini will be ranked among the great men of this world is his deter­mination, not to share Italy wih Marxism, but to save his Fatherland from it, by giving Internationalism over to destruction.
How pitifully small, in comparison seem our German would be statesmen and how one must retch with nausea when these nonentities with the most direspectiful conceit dare to criticize ​the man who is a thousand times greater and how painful it is to think that this is happening in a country that scarcely a half a century ago could call a Bismarck its leader.—
With this attitude of the bourgeoisie and their sparing Marxism in 1923, one could easily predict the outcome of every armed re­sistance in the Ruhr territory. To fight against France, while hav­ing the deadly enemy in one’s own ranks, was pure folly. What­ ever else was done could at the most be only a make-believe fight a fight game staged in order to somewhat pacify the nationalistic element in Germany and to lull the “boding soul of the nation,” or rather to dupe it. Had they seriously believed in what they did, then they would have been bound to recognize the fact that the strength of a nation lies primarily not in its arms, but in its will, and that before one can conquer foreign enemies, the enemy within must first be annihilated; otherwise, woe, if victory does not crown the battle at the very first day. As soon as merely the shadow of a defeat passes over a nation which is not free from internal enemies, its resisting power is broken, and the opponent is bound to become the final victor.
This could easily be predicted as early as spring of 1923. It is useless to discuss whether or not there was any chance of a mili­tary success against France! Even if the French invasion of the Ruhr territory had resulted only in the destruction of Marxism in Germany due to German actions, that alone would have brought success on our side. A Germany, delivered from the deadly enemies of her existence and future, would possess powers which no world could ever strangle again. The day in which Marxism is totally crushed in Germany marks, indeed, the com­plete shattering of her fetters. For never in our history have we been conquered by the forces of our opponents, but it has al­ways been a result of our own vices and by the enemy in our own camp.
Since the German state executives at that time were not able to pull themselves together for such a heroic action, they could as a matter of course have followed only the first road, i.e. to do nothing and let things take their own course.
​At this momentous hour, however, Heaven gave the German nation a great man; Herr Cuno. He was not really a statesman or politician by profession, less so, of course, by birth, but he represented only a sort of political dummy whom one used only for the completion of certain tasks; otherwise he was more truly skilled in business. This politicizing merchant was a curse for Germany because he regarded politics also as an economic under­taking, and began to act accordingly.
“France occupied the Ruhr territory; what is to be found there? Coal. Was France therefore occupying the Ruhr territory for the sake of its coal? What thought would therefore seem more natural for Herr Cuno than the idea to strike, in order that the French could no longer get any coal, whereupon, according to the conception of Herr Cuno, they would certainly evacuate the Ruhr territory some day because the enterprise did not prove to be a paying one. This was the train of thought of this “out­standing” “national” “statesman” whom one permitted to speak to “his people” in Stuttgart and other places and whom this entire nation blissfully admired.
For a strike, of course, the Marxists were needed, since it were primarily the workers who had to strike. It was necessary to bring the worker into a unified front with all the other Germans (for the worker is always a Marxist in the brain of such a bourgeois statesman). One must really have seen the glowing of these bourgeois party-political mould cultures in response to such an inspired slogan! National and inspired at the same time, now they finally had found what they had been searching for all the time! The bridge to Marxism had been found; now it was possible for the national swindler to extend a respectable hand to the international traitor with a “genuinely German” mien and national phrases. And he grasped it immediately. For just as much as Cuno needed the Marxist leaders for his “unified front” the Marxist leaders needed Cuno’s money. Thus both sides benefited. Cuno received his united front, built up of national babblers and anti-national scoundrels; the international swindlers were able to serve their most lofty fighting mission while in government pay; ​i.e. they were able to destroy national economy, this time even at the expense of the government. An immortal thought, this idea of saving a nation by means of a paid general strike, but in any case it was a slogan which even the most indifferent ne’er-do?well could accept with the greatest enthusiasm.
Generally it is known that one does not liberate a nation through prayers. Whether or not it could be liberated by means of lazyness still had to be historically tested. If Herr Cuno at that time had only demanded two more hours of work from every German instead of calling a paid strike, thus making it the basis of the “united front,” then the swindle of this “united front” would have been settled on the third day. Nations are not liberated by doing nothing, but by sacrifice.
This so-called passive resistance alone could not, however be maintained very long. Only a man completely ignorant of war tactics could imagine that an army of occupation could be driven out by such absurd means. That alone could have been the pur­pose of an action, the cost of which amounted to billions and which essentially aided in the total destruction of the national money exchange.
The French, of course, were able, to make themselves at home in the Ruhr territory with a certain calmness at the moment they saw resistance making use of such means. We ourselves had placed into their hands the best prescription for bringing a stub­born civilian population back to its senses, in case its activities seemed to seriously endanger the occupation authorities. Did we not nine years ago chase the Belgian guerrilla bands with lightning rapidity and make clear to the civilian population the seriousness of the situation, when the German armies were endangered by their activities? The moment the passive resistance in the Ruhr territory woud really have become dangerous to France, the army of occupation could with greatest ease have put a grue­some end to this whole childish nonsense in less than a week’s time. For this question always remains: What is to be done when the passive resistance finally does wear out the patience of an enemy and he begins to combat it with brutal brachial force? ​Is one then ready to continue the resistance? If so, one has to willy-nilly take upon oneself the most severe and bloody per­secutions. This is the same result as that of an active resistance, namely, the battle. For this reason every so-called passive resist­ance is only of any value, when it is backed up by a determina­tion to continue this resistance by open war or by an under-cover guerrilla warfare. Generally speaking, every struggle of this kind will be dependent on the conviction of a possible success. When­ever a besieged fortress, fiercely attacked by the enemy, is forced to give up its last hope for help, it is in reality giving up itself, es­pecially, when in such a case the defender is lured by the certainty of living instead of the probability of dying. Should one deprive the garrison of a besieged stronghold of the faith in a possible de­liverance, all powers of resistance would break down at the very same instant.
Therefore a passive resistance at the Ruhr with the prospects of the final consequences to which it might and was bound to lead to, should it really be successful, would be of significance only if backed up by an active front. In that case the possibilities of doing something with our people would have been infinite. If each of these Westphalians had known that their Fatherland was putting up an army of eighty or one hundred divisions, the French would have been treading on thorns. There are always more courageous men ready to sacrifice themselves for success than for an evident futility.
It was a classic situation which forced us National-Socialists to take up the opposition with the sharpest weapons against a socalled national slogan. And we did this too. During these months I was not infrequently attacked by people whose total national convictions consisted only of a mixture of stupidity and fake, people who were all shouting with the others because they suc­cumbed to the pleasant sensation of being suddenly able to act in national fashion without endangering themselves. I regarded this most miserable of all unified fronts as one of the most ridiculous of manifestations, and history has affirmed my views.
As soon as the trade unions had practically filled their ​treasuries with Cuno’s contributions, and passive resistance came be­fore the hour of the decision to change from a lazy defensive to an active offensive, the red hyenas instantly broke away from the national flock of sheep and became again what they had been all the time. Without much ado Herr Cuno sneaked off to his ships. Germany, however, had been enriched by an additional expe­rience and deprived of a great hope.
Up to late mid-summer, many officers, and certainly not the worst among them, had never thought such a shameful develop­ment possible. They all had hoped, though perhaps not openly, but at least secretly, that preparations would be made to make this most brazen invasion of France a turning point in German history. Also in our ranks there were many who placed their trust at least in the army of the Reich. This conviction was so strong that it influenced the actions and especially the training of count­less young people in a most decisive way.
When the appalling and disgraceful capitulation took place at the moment of the shameful collapse, after millions in wealth and many thousand young Germans had been sacrificed, Germans who had been stupid enough to take the promises of the Reich leaders seriously—a blazing revolt broke out against such a be­trayal of our unhappy country. At that time in millions of people suddenly the conviction was bright and clear that only a radical removal of the whole ruling system could save Germany.
Never was the time as ripe, never did it cry for such a solution more emphatically than it did at this moment, when on the one hand undisguised treason clearly manifested itself, while on the other hand a nation had been left to gradual economic starvation. Since the State itself had trampled upon all laws of good faith, had scorned all the privileges of its citizens, had rendered value­less the sacrifices of millions of its most faithful sons, robbed millions of their last penny, it no longer had the right to expect anything but hatred from its subjects. This hatred against the cor­rupters of the nation and of the Fatherland was simply bound to explode. Here I can merely refer to the final sentence of my last speech at the great Trial in the spring of 1924:
​“The judges of this State may, if they care to, condemn our actions, yet History, the goddess of a nobler truth and of a more perfect law, will some day smilingly tear up this judgment and free us from all blame and guilt.”
She will, however, call also those before her tribunal who to­ day, because they have the power, trample upon justice and law, who have led our people into suffering and misery, and who in the time of the Fatherland’s humiliation loved themselves more than the life of the community.
I shall not describe here the events which led to and finally de­cided the development of the 8th of November, 1923. I do not care to do it because I expect nothing profitable for the future from it but primarily because it is useless to tear open wounds that scarcely seem to be healed; besides it is useless to talk about the guilt of people who deep down in their hearts perhaps after all clung with equal love to their nation, but who had only gone astray or did not recognize the common road.
In view of the great common calamity of our Fatherland neither I would not like to hurt more and deny, and thereby perhaps separate from us those, who some day in the future will have to form the big united front of all true Germans against the common front of the enemies of our nation. For I know the day will come when even those who once opposed us, will think respectfully of those who went the bitter way of death for the sake of the Ger­man nation.
These eighteen heroes to whom I dedicated the first volume of my work I want to present to the adherents and defenders of our doctrine as the heroes who knowingly sacrificed themselves for our sake. They must, as it were, call back again and again the fickle and weak to the fulfilment of his duty, a duty which they themselves fulfilled in good faith and to the last consequences. Among them I shall also count that man who as one of the best has dedicated his life to the awakening of his and our nation by his words and thoughts and finally by his acts:
Dietrich Eckart.