# Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 17

Chapter XVII
World View and Organization
A new view of life is intolerant, and cannot be content with being merely “one party among others”. It must proudly demand absolute recognition of its supremacy, and must never rest until the world is completely readjusted.
Thus while it is struggling for power it must violently attack everyone with any opposite view, and once it achieves authority it must not tolerate even the existence of anyone still representing the old condition.
    (This is another of those famous Mein Kampf prophecies that has come true. Thousands of refugees from Nazi Germany—and the slain and imprisoned inside the Reich—bear witness to the Nazi movement’s unwillingness to “tolerate even the existence of anyone still representing the old condition”.)
A battle is positively necessary above all because the first task is not the creation only of the idea of the racial state, but the destruction of the Jewish idea. In the same way Christianity was unable to start with the erection of its own altar—first of all heathen idols had to be broken.
Fanatical intolerance is indispensable to any creed. Political parties like to compromise—views of life claim their infallibility.
Since a new view of life must attack so many existing conditions and all hostile ideas, it immediately meets much resistance. Thus it must be strong and so it is necessary for it to express a few of its major premises in slogans able to capture and guide great numbers of men!
It is not at all necessary that each individual battler for a faith understand to any great degree the real ideas and aims in the head of the leader of the movement. It is important only that he understands a few basic trends, which must be burned into his mind so deeply that they can never be erased, and which must convince him for all time that victory is certain because it is totally right and justified. The soldier in an army is not instructed in high strategy; he is trained for discipline and fanaticism.
Wanted: The Primitive Soldier
A view of life needs the primitive soldier.
No organization can function properly unless a supreme intellectual giant has in his service the broad, emotional masses. A company of 200 high and equally intellectual men is much more difficult to control than a company of 190 less intelligent men, and 10 smart ones.
The power of a political party does not depend upon the great mentality of the individuals who make it up; but rather in the blind obedience with which the members follow their intellectual leader.
The program of our new movement was summed up in twenty-five points designed as a political credo intended to give the man in the street a rough idea of our aims. The great mass of the German workers were—and are—to be convinced that the party program as set down in these points is absolutely correct.
It must be understood that any attempt to reframe the ideas as set down in these points, or to replace any single one of them, is almost certain to lead to disastrous results, for the people must believe absolutely in these points, and as soon as they see any indecision or change of any sort their faith will be badly shaken.
Even if one point becomes out of date, it is much wiser to retain it, for throwing it overboard would risk the strength of the entire movement.
The Catholic Church proves this, for while its doctrines in many instances openly conflict, at many points quite unnecessarily, with science and modern knowledge, the Church is not willing to sacrifice one syllable of dogma.
It realizes that its great strength does not lie in close adjustment to facts of the moment, but in its ever-lasting, inalterable doctrines of faith.
The Nazi Party received in its twenty-five point program a foundation which must be immovable.
    (Actually, a few minor portions of various points on this program of the Nazi party have been changed from time to time. Some points, however, still scrupulously kept on the list, are completely in discord with current Nazi policies. Others are so broad that they can easily be interpreted in any way Hitler desires.)
The Nazi party having taken up the racial cause, it must now proclaim its own right and duty to be the sole representative of this cause of the German blood state. If the Nazi party wants to be victorious it must in the face of all opposition maintain absolutely and exclusively that since the basic ideas of the Nazi movement are racial, therefore racial ideas are basically Nazi.
Our movement must stress again and again that any effort to achieve the creation of a racial state without leadership of the Nazi party is not only impossible but actually based on fraud.
If anyone ever accuses the movement of acting as if it “owned” the racial idea, but a single answer can be given: the movement not only owns the idea, but it created it, as far as reality is concerned.
Only our movement has formed the basis for the achievement of German racial purity.
If today innumerable little groups claim the word “racial” for themselves, this is solely due to our movement— without us these people would never even have thought of the word racial.
Only our efforts have made them use words which they did not know eight years ago, which they laughed at seven years ago, called insanity six years ago, battled five years ago, detested four years ago, persecuted three years ago, and finally two years ago adopted as a battle-cry of their own.
Yet still they misunderstand the needs of the German race, and use the word “race” only superficially.