# Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 5

Chapter V
World War
In my youth the most depressing thing to me was that I had been born at a period of history in which temples of glory were erected only to tradesmen or state servants.
Why hadn’t I been born a hundred years sooner? At the time of the Wars of Liberation, say, when a man had a value quite apart from “business.” I looked upon it as a mean trick of Fate that I lived in the period of “peace and quiet”.
Even as I boy, I was no pacifist, and all attempts to train me in this direction were utter failures.
When the Boer War came, it was like a flash of lightning illuminating my horizon. Eagerly I devoured the newspapers each day, happy to follow this heroic campaign, even from such a great distance.
The Russian-Japanese War found me much more mature and observant. As a nationalist, I supported the Japanese, and gloried in the defeat of the Russians as a catastrophe for the Austrian Slavs.
The pre-war German belief in “Commercial Conquest” was a sign that real virtues of statecraft had been forgotten, and along with them all insight, will, and determination—by the law of God the result was the World War.
I asked myself:
“How could the great German state, part of the heroic Prussia of old, have become so ill? Was it poisoned?
More, and ever more, I thought of that power which I had met in Vienna—Marxism.
Once again I thoroughly investigated this doctrine of destruction, led this time not by personal experiences, but by observation of political processes.
Soon I was warning my acquaintances, as I do today on a greater scale, against the maxim of all cowards: “Nothing can happen to us!”
In these years, 1913 and 1914, I proclaimed my conviction that the question of Germany’s future was a question of the destruction of Marxism. This infection, almost invisibly, wherever it was present destroyed the cornerstone of a sound state.
Then the Balkan War came, and passed, but left hints of something more to come. The days that followed lay upon men like a horrible dream, similar to the throbbing heat of the tropics, and then finally the everlasting worry—the feeling of approaching disaster—turned into tonging: Let Heaven hasten her destiny, which could in no wise be turned aside!
World War!
Then the first bolt of lightning thrashed down to earth—the storm broke, and in the skies roared the batteries of the World War.
I was sitting far away, and heard only vague details, ​when first news arrived of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Momentarily, I feared that possibly the bullet had come from some German outraged over the Hapsburg pro-Slav policy. The results of such a deed could have been a true disaster, for then this pro-Slav policy would have been “justified” before the eyes of the world. Then I learned, with a slight feeling of horror, that the murderers were Serbs, for this was revenge of inexorable Fate upon a treacherous House.
    (This passage clearly reveals Hitler’s fantastic ability to twist his argument for his own purposes—and then to believe it. He convinces himself that the Austrians were pro-Slav and pro-Serb—although these minorities had struggled against the Austrian government for centuries in their desire for liberation. Therefore, no minority subject could have murdered the Austrian Ferdinand. Discovering that the assassins were Slavs, Hitler attributes this to the “revenge of inexorable Fate,” rather than to any flaw in this reasoning.)
To reproach the Vienna government for the ultimatum it presented is unjust—no other power could have acted at all differently. No, the Vienna government circles must not be reproached if they hurried into a war which perhaps was still avoidable—it could only have been postponed for a short time.
Conquest at Any Price
“Pre-war German foreign policy should have aimed to strengthen German power through conquest of new soil in Europe, either with the aid of a British alliance, or else with the force of such a mighty and abnormal military machine that its creation would have halted cultural activity for 40 or 50 years.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter XXV
The curse of German and Austrian diplomacy was that it always strove to put off unavoidable reckonings, until at last trouble broke out when unplanned for, and therefore at the most unfavorable moment. It was certain that still another attempt by Austria to save the peace would have only meant that the inevitable war would come at the wrong time.
    (The theory here propounded is evidently that upon which Adolf Hitler, now no longer a prisoner in a fortress but instead leader of Germany, conducts Nazi foreign policy in relation to such foreign diplomats as Chamberlain and Daladier. He feels that those foreign leaders will put off “unavoidable reckonings” as long as possible, and thus run the risk of finally becoming involved at “the most unfavorable moment”.)
To me those days seem like rescue from all the bitter moods of my youth, I am not ashamed to say that, swept off my feet by a storm of passion, I fell on my knees and thanked Heaven with all my heart that it had granted me the fortune to live this day.
It was not a matter of the fate of Serbia, or of Austria, but of the survival—or the death—of the German nation. Bismarck’s creation now had to go forth to battle.
A Fervent Wish Fulfilled
My wish as a boy, and then as a young man, that I be given one opportunity to prove by acts my national fervor was fulfilled! I was no longer paralyzed. I had so many times sung Deutschland über Alles, and cried Heil! with all the force of my lungs—and now I could prove myself. I would not fight for the Hapsburg State, but I was ready to die for my people and for my Reich.
On August 3rd I petitioned His Majesty King Ludwig III, requesting permission to join in a Bavarian regiment. Wild with my joy I was when the next day I received a favorable reply. My hands trembled as I read the notice of my acceptance. Within a few days I was in uniform—thus to stay for six years. The greatest era of my mortal life had begun.
Now the tenth anniversary of that great day approaches and it is with melancholy pride that I look back on those weeks when began the grand battle of my people, in which Fate granted me permission to take part.
Only one thing pothered me—I was afraid I would reach the front too late. This thought tortured me, only this disturbing my peace.
Soon I left Munich, and then saw the Rhine for the first time in my life as we roared westward to defend the German Reich against the greed of its old enemy.
Then there was a night, cold and wet, when we marched silently through Flanders, and just as day broke, a shell whined over our heads and bullets crashed through the ranks. We ran forward, through fields, leaping hedges, and rushed straight into hand-to-hand combat.
While Death busied himself with us, a song from afar reached our ears—then it burst from our lips as we passed it along:
“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt!”
Four days later we retraced our steps—but each step was different—for boys of seventeen now seemed like men.
That was the beginning.
Later the joy and romance of all this was buried beneath fear of death. I, too, felt this, but the harder this voice of self-preservation called me, the stronger was my resistance. My sense of duty won a victory by the winter of 1915-16. Now Will was master.
This change took place in the entire army. The heroism of this German army will burn gloriously down through all the pages of history.
I did not want to discuss politics, for I was a soldier, but some things annoyed me. The press, behind the backs of the soldiers, began to sow seeds of discontent concerning the war: “The battle was unworthy of a civilized nation … the bravery of a German soldier was a matter of course, and did not call for wild enthusiasm among cultured peoples … anyhow, this war was not of our intention.”
Soon people were protesting, more and more, against all demonstrations of war fever. But the people who provoked this attitude through their prattling press were not hanged, as they should have been. Instead, their propaganda worked, and people began to protest victory celebrations.
The important point is that such enthusiasm as war enthusiasm, once broken, cannot easily be awakened again. It is intoxication, and it should be kept.
As for myself, I was angered that nothing was done to increase war jubilation—that it could possibly, conceivably, be systematically restrained I could not understand.
Another thing that irritated me was the way Marxism was treated. Marxism aims for the ultimate destruction of all non-Jewish National States, and therefore it trembled to see, in July, 1914, how the German working class set about serving its Fatherland. In a few days the Marxist leaders were deserted; they stood alone. So what did they do but speedily and hypocritically join in the national renaissance!
These fakers should have been destroyed: if the best men were to die in the front line trenches, certainly the vermin at home should have been wiped out. Yet the Kaiser himself united with these criminals, turning the nation over to their mercy.
Thus the fight against Marxism failed once more, and for this reason:
Every attempt made for the sake of a world idea fails unless the struggle takes the form of a violent attack. The weapon of ruthless, brute force Is of greatest value in war between two diverse views of the world.
Bismarck’s Weakness
In the same way, Bismarck lost his battle against socialism, because instead of taking direct action, he entrusted responsibility for the overcoming of Marxism to the Bourgeoisie. The Iron Chancellor lacked a fundamentally new world view.
    (Hitler has always been jealous of Bismarck’s great role in Germany’s history, so here he scoffs at him because he lacked the talents necessary to create a Nazi program, or anything similar.)
Circumstances were no different at the outbreak of the World War. What was one to give the masses in the place of Marxism? There was nothing. No suitable party beckoned to the men who now left the ranks of his international class group—certainly the Bourgeois organizations were not attractive to him. But the Bourgeois political leaders failed to comprehend what was happening, and had no idea of how to win the masses.
We should never consider the masses stupider than they really are. Feeling is a more important factor than reason in most political matters; an alluring new concept was desperately needed to capture the workers who in a burst of national enthusiasm momentarily forgot the insidious teachings of the Marxist masters.
Long before the World War I was so convinced that there was no group capable of overcoming the Social Democrats, that I had no impulse to join any political party. As the World War raged I felt this more strongly, and expressed myself openly to my comrades.
Now I first thought that I might sometime become active in politics.
So I assured my intimates that after the war I would be an orator as well as an artist.
I think I meant this seriously.