# Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 26

Chapter XXVI
Eastern Policy
I am led by two reasons to make a special study here of Germany’s relationship with Russia.
(1) This is probably the most critical point of German foreign policy.
(2) This matter tests the capacity of the young Nazi movement to think clearly and act intelligently in polltics.
So many of our followers come from other opinionated groups that many of them bring along prejudices or narrow views. There is less danger, however, that a follower who has come to us from the radical “left” will be destroyed in his thinking for good and all, than there is that the person who comes to us from among the intelligentsia, bringing with him the curse of objectivity—will prove harmful to our movement.
Germany’s Future: Conquest
If “foreign policy” means the way in which a people conducts itself in relation to the rest of the world, then we Nazis can draw this conclusion:
The task of the foreign policy of a racial state is to guard the existence of that race in this world through establishing a sound, lasting, and direct relationship between the number and growth of the population and the size and quality of national territory.
It is important that this relationship be considered unhealthy unless the people live upon soil which forms an actual part of the race state. Moreover, when a nation has taken necessary territory, it must not rest until possession is absolutely secure.
Therefore the German race must accept no position but that of a world power—in no other way is its security guaranteed for all time.
Germany cannot be considered a world power today. This is an age when the world is being divided up among a few great states, some of which cover entire continents, and it is ridiculous to speak of a nation which is limited to scarcely five hundred thousand square kilomoters as a power.
The far-flung British Empire, claiming almost a quarter of the world’s surface as its own, is in structure too different to be compared to Germany.
But look at the United States, and then at Russia, and China! Some of these countries are ten times greater than today’s Reich. Even France must be counted among these giant states. Her colored colonials vastly increase her military power, and she is so speedily mixing her blood stream with the blood of niggers that we can now speak of the creation of an African state on the European continent. If this continues for three centuries the world will see a great settlement, reaching from the Rhine to the Congo, of an interior mulatto state.
Our old German colonial policy is quite different from that of France, but it too, like everything else, bore all the traces of halfheartedness. Germans never settled extensively in Africa. During the war it was physically impossible to transport black troops to European battlefields, but even under more favorable circumstances we would never consider such a thing.
Thus we see the German nation fading away in an age of great development of strong states.
If the Nazi movement is to be hallowed down the pages of history it must wage war upon this aimlessness. We must unite and strengthen the German people and lead them down a road leading them to new territory, thus abolishing the danger of becoming a tiny slave state.
More Babies, More Space, More Babies, More Space…
The Nazi movement must do away with the disproportion between Germany’s large population and small national territory, fulfilling all the natural obligations to the supreme human race of this world.
Certainly our people are not surpassed by any other on earth in courage; we have surely sacrificed more blood than any other race to preserve our existence—therefore our present woeful condition must be due solely to the fact that our blood was spilled for mistaken purposes.
Out of a great sea of our wasted blood only three valuable prizes can be discerned:
(1) Colonization of Austria, done chiefly by Bavarians.
“The followers of the movement must not be afraid of the hostility of their adversaries—they should consider it proof of the justification of their existence. They should long for the hatred of enemies of our nationality and our view of the world.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter XII
(2) Conquest and infiltration of the land east of the Elbe.
(3) Organization of the Prussian state as a first cell and pattern for the Reich to come.
The first two represent the only victorious attempts ever made to win the soil for our people, and as historical movements they should be glorified.
Without the discipline and example of the great Prussian state our blood would by now have lost all purity.
I want briefly to outline my position in regard to our demand for soil from the moral and ethical standpoint. This is necessary, due to the fact that unfortunately even in so-called racial circles there always bob up foppish talkers who say German foreign policy must right the injustice of 1918, but who feel it necessary that the world be assured meanwhile of our true fraternity and sympathy.
Aim: Germany Big as U. S. A.
To aim merely at re-establishment of our 1914 frontiers is nonsense. These old frontiers were unnatural since they were political and not racial, and the result would anyhow be so miserable that it would not, by God, be worth the blood sacrifice it would entail.
The 1914 frontiers mean nothing to Germany’s future. They were not a protection in the past, and they would not mean power in the future. The distance to England would not be lessened, the size of the United States would not be equalled, nor would France be deprived of any political power.
Any attempt to re-establish the 1914 borders would merely bleed our people; and if this small aim was achieved, the drunken joy of victory would weaken interest in greater goals.
We Nazis must ever retain our foreign policy aims—to secure for the German people the soil which is due them on this earth.
I bitterly oppose those “racial” writers who claim that such an acquisition of soil “breaks sacred human rights”. These people only create confusion which serves the enemies of our people.
No nation on earth holds a scrap of soil because of superior right. National frontiers, are made by men—and they can be changed by men. Our forebears were not handed German soil from heaven—not even that upon which we of today dwell—and only the conquering sword will bring us territory in the future.
Smash France— Then Seize Ukraine
We recognize the necessity for a reckoning with France, but our foreign policy must not concern itself only with that. Settlement with France has significance only if it protects us in the rear while we turn to enlarge our European territory—for not in colonial conquest but only by increasing the size of the actual fatherland will we solve our great national problem.
The racial state must not concern itself with the interests of other states, but must battle for its own people. The future will not be guided by international sentimentality, but by soldiers fighting for our nation.
We Nazis must go even further than this: the right to possess soil becomes a duty when the decline of a nation is at hand unless new territory is conquered.
This becomes especially true when it is not the cause of some petty negro tribe, but that of the great German mother of all life, and of world culture.
Thus we Nazis cast aside the foreign policy of the pre-war epoch. We take up the task that was abandoned six hundred years ago. We halt the eternal German flow to the south and west of Europe, and gaze to the land to the east.
When we speak today of new territory in Europe, fundamentally we can think only of Russia and her subjugated border states.
Fate seems willing to guide us in this. When Russia surrendered to Bolshevism, the people were deprived of the intelligence which had created and led its government. The Russian state was not organized by Slavs, but by the creative ability of the German element in an inferior race.
Countless great empires have been created in this way.
Today the nourishing German clement in Russia has been wiped out—and replaced by the Jew, but the Jew cannot organize, he can only destroy, and so the Jewish reign in Russia is ready to collapse—and with it will die the Russian state. We have been selected by fate to witness this catastrophe which will be the greatest proof of the race theory.
The mission of the Nazi movement, however, is to give our people such insight that they do not see their wishes filled merely by a new Alexandrian campaign, but only by the labor of the German plow upon soil won by the sword.
Of course the Jew is against the policy which we must follow, but even some “racial” groups denounce such an eastern policy, even quoting Bismarck, with toe claim that he always worked for friendly relations with Russia.
To this one must counter with the remark that Bismarck allied himself with Italy. Therefore why are we not today to form an alliance with Italy ourselves? It will be said, “Because modern Italy is not the Italy of old”. Good, honorable gentlemen, but permit me to remark that present Russia is not what Russia once was.
The question should not be: “What did Bismarck do?” It should be: “What would Bismarck do today?” The answer is certainly that he would not ally himself to a state doomed to disappear!
In 1920 and 1921, as the Nazi movement was beginning to develop, people used to come to us from all parts of the world wanting to form links between ourselves and groups struggling for freedom in other nations. This was similar to the much advocated “League of Oppressed Nations”. Some Asiatic individuals even came to us to declare that the British Empire was about to fail into ruin, with India the scene of collapse. It should be known that Indian insurgents will never break India free from England—England will only be deprived of India if England is struck by a mighty sword in the hand of a potent enemy, or if racial degeneration sets in.
Alliance With Russia?
As a racially conscious man, who estimates humanity from a racial view, I cannot link my nation’s fate with the destiny of these “oppressed nations”, which I see are racially inferior.
We must take a similar view of Russia. From a military standpoint a war with Germany and Russia fighting against western Europe—which means the Rest of the world—would be ruinous, for the battle would be fought upon German soil, and Russia would be of little help to Germany in any way. Our industrial regions would he completely open to the brunt of the enemy attack. More, Russia would have to dispose of Poland before it could even attempt to come to our aid. Technically speaking, Germany is in a bad way herself, but the Russian situation is truly horrible—the Russians have not a single factory which can even produce an automobile!
Someone will now object that an alliance with Russia would not necessarily mean immediate war, or that if war was implied, it could be slowly prepared for.
War is the aim of every alliance which is not foolish and worthless.
Alliances are made only for purposes of a military struggle, no matter how far removed the outbreak of the battle may seem at the time the alliance is forged. No power will look at an alliance in any way but this.
It is naive to think that if a German-Russian alliance was made England and France would wait ten years until war had been fully prepared. The storm would crash upon Germany with lightning speed! An alliance with Russia would mean declaration of war, and the end of Germany.
“Bloody Criminals… Tyrants… Liars…”
Moreover, the rulers of the Russia of today never consider entering an alliance honestly. They are bloody criminals; they are the scum of the earth, who, favored by opportunity in a tragic moment overran a great state, killing millions of the best intellects and leading millions more into a mad lust for blood. For ten years they have held over Russia the cruellest tyranny of all time. And they are the greatest liars in the world.
Today those ruling Russia see in Germany not an ally, but a state singled out for the same destruction. An alliance is not formed with a partner whose sole interest is the destruction of the other.
An alliance is not made with creatures to whom no treaty is to be honored, who know no truth, and who only represent lies, theft, and rape.
The danger which wrecked Russia faces Germany. Russian Bolshevism symbolizes Judaism’s effort to conquer the world in the twentieth century. Now Germany is the great objective of the Bolshevist Jew. All our energies and powers are needed to defend ourselves.
I felt, even before the World War, that Germany should have formed an alliance with England against Russia, thus transforming our weak colonial-commercial policy into a powerful drive for territorial conquest.
I never forget the perpetual and insolent threats which the old pan-Slav Russia dared flaunt against Germany; I do not forget the border mobilizations designed to annoy Germany; I cannot forget the Russian press, which before the war hated Germany and courted the French.
Even so, before the war there was an alternative—for Russia would have been willing to turn upon England. Today, however, all this is changed, and if before the war it might have been possible—by holding in check all feeling—to approach Russia, today this is not possible.
The Nazi Political Testament
If the Nazi movement throws away all illusions, our nation can rise up, from its time of trial with a new internal life and a new foreign policy, and can thus achieve what England has, what Russia had, and what ever enables France to serve faithfully her own interests: a political testament.
The political testament of the German nation, with regard to relations with other nations, should forever be:
Never tolerate two powers on the European continent. It is the duty of the German state never to permit a power to be created on any German frontier, to use force if necessary to prevent this, and to smash with armed force any such power ever actually constructed. The power of Germany must be based upon European territory, and not upon colonies. The Reich must never be considered secure unless it can guarantee for centuries to come sufficient soil to every single citizen. The holiest right on this earth is that of tilling one’s own soil, and the holiest sacrifice is the blood one sheds for that soil.
I will not end these reflections without once again ​emphasizing that only England and Italy are potential allies for the German Reich. France is the only power which would seriously disapprove, and France would be helpless to stop formation of the coalition. This entente would give Germany the opportunity quietly to prepare, within the bounds of this alliance, a settling of accounts with France. France would be devoid of allies, isolated—this deadly enemy of our people!
But all of the necessities of life would be guaranteed to Germany, and for the first time Germany would be reinforced by great stores of raw material wealth, supplemented by great technical skill.
The greatest world power in the world, and a youth-spirited national state, would be quite a different basis for a war in Europe from that presented by the rotting corpses—Turkey and Russia—to which Germany was allied in the last war.
We need soil. Therefore France, the mortal enemy who stifles us, must be nullified—and every power fearful of France’s aim for European hegemony is our natural ally.
Our Nazi movement must because of all this take its place in the eyes of the outer world as the creator of a clear political idea.