# Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 7

Chapter VII
Revolution
Enemy propaganda first struck us in 1915; in 1916 it was intensified, until as 1918 dawned it had swelled to a giant food. The army began to think as the enemy wanted it to.
Remember how France came back, when at first, in 1914, we crashed victoriously into that country! What did Italy do in the days of the destruction of her Isonzo front? Remember France again in 1918, when our far-shooting batteries hammered at the very gates of Paris!
This was all the result of propaganda.
But meanwhile what came forth from Berlin?
Nothing, or worse.
Constantly I was infuriated as papers behind the lines passed into my hands, and I read of the mass murder they were committing back home, I was wracked with the thought that if only fate had placed me there instead of those criminally incompetent wretches, things would have been very different.
I felt at last the irony of fate, which could put me at the front where any stray gesture of some negro might shoot me down, while in another place I might have done different service for my Fatherland. I was confident enough even then to believe that I would have been successful. But I was unknown among eight millions—so I held my tongue and did my duty.
The first leaflets distributed by the enemy dropped into our hands in the summer of 1915.
Always, with never any changes except in form, their contents were the same: Germany was tortured by distress, the war would never end, our hope of winning was vanishing. We were told that those at home therefore longed for peace, but that “Militarism” and “The Kaiser” would not allow it. The world did not oppose the German people, these leaflets said, but only the real villain—“The Kaiser”; the war would only end when this enemy of all mankind was eliminated. Then, and only then, “Prussian Militarism” destroyed, the Democratic world would embrace Germany in happy, eternal peace.
Wherever Bavarian regiments fought, foreign planes dropped sheets denouncing Prussia, asserting that only Prussia was guilty of wrong, and that there was no enmity at all against Bavaria. Feeling against Prussia visibly grew among the troops.
For a long time the enemy swamped us with “letters from home” wherein the Germans we were defending cried out against the horrible conditions way back in the heart of Germany. But in 1916 our soldiers began to receive an endless flood of letters from their own unthinking women at home supporting the claims of the enemy propaganda, ruining the morale of the soldiers, and actually costing hundreds of thousands of men their lives. We had grumbled enough at the front as it was, hungry and abused, but with the realization that there was misery at home, things became infinitely worse.
Hitler:— War Is Hell!
Near the end of September, 1916, my division marched into the battle of the Somme. It was like Hell rather than like war. We stood our ground in whirlwinds of fire, pushed back, then advancing, never retreating.
On October 7th, 1916, I was wounded.
Carried back to the rear, I was sent to Germany.
I had not seen home for two years—I could not even imagine how Germans not in uniform would look. As I lay in the hospital at Hermies, I jerked with shock when suddenly I heard the voice of a German woman—a nurse—speak to a man lying near to me. Such a sound—for the first time in two years!
As the homeward-bound train neared the German frontier, we all became greatly excited. Past us drifted the towns through which we had marched two years before as sodiers: Brussels, Louvain, Liege, and then finally we thought we recognized the first German house with its high gable and attractive shutters.
The Fatherland!
Back in October, 1914, we were aflame with enthusiasm when we crossed the frontier; now quiet emotion reigned. Each was happy to be allowed to see once more that which he had so fearlessly defended with his life.
One day, almost on the anniversary of my marching out, I was taken into the hospital at Beelitz near Berlin. What a change from the Somme mud to these white beds.
Yes, and the spirit of the war front was lacking, too. I heard bragging of one’s own cowardice! One person even boasted of thrusting his own hand into barbed wire so as to get into the hospital! He even went so far as to flaunt his act as the consequence of bravery higher than that with which an heroic soldier falls.
Many listened silently, others left the room, but some actually agreed with the man.
I was overpowered with disgust, but this agent of trouble was tolerated in the hospital. What could be done? The authorities knew of this talk, in fact knew quite well the attitude of tihs man as well as of many others. But nothing happened.
When I could again walk, I went to Berlin on leave. Distress was everywhere. Millions were hungry. Great was the discontent. Homes were filled with just such talk as existed in the hospitals.
Munich was much worse!
I could hardly recognize the town. Anger, complaining, and curses were encountered everywhere. Avoidance of duty was considered the smart thing.
The state officials were now all Jews. So were the clerks in the stores. I could not refrain from comparing this mass of “fighters” of the chosen people with the few representatives the race had under fire in the front line trenches.
“The organizer must not over-estimate the masses of people; he must know their weakness and bestiality, and must be able to convince them of the truth of an idea, even if to do this he must be a demagogue.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter XXIII
    (Actually, approximately 100,000 of Germany’s total Jewish population of a half million were enlisted, as official records show, and an overwhelming majority of these fought at the front. Furthermore, countless engineers, chemists, doctors, etc., served their country with distinction at the battle front and behind the lines.)
Safe in positions of ever-growing economic power, the Jew despoiled Germany. They also egged on the split between the “Prussians”, who were blamed for the war and its hardships, and the Bavarians.
The Scapegoat
I was deeply wounded at this. For in the Bavarian-Prussian row, I clearly saw only a Jew trick to distract attention from his own culpability in order to nail the blame upon others. While Germans quarreled among themselves, the Jews systematically robbed all of them, organized the revolution, and prepared the collapse of Bavaria and Prussia—the end of Germany.
I could not stand this feud between the Germanic tribes, and it was a great relief to have my request to return to the front, filed immediately after my arrival in Munich, granted.
Early in March, 1917, I rejoined my regiment.
I found a new spirit at the front. The collapse of the Russians and Italians heralded great things for the coming Spring. Victory was at hand.
Then came the great crime. The munition strike was organized, and its success would mean the breakdown of the German army. Of course, the attack we had planned was thus forestalled, the Allies were saved, and international capital seized Germany.
But the strike failed physically to ruin the German army, for it was broken in time. But how infinitely worse was the moral damage wreaked! Why should the soldiers at the front continue to battle, suffering constantly and ever facing death, if those sitting peacefully at home didn’t even want victory?
And imagine the effect upon Germany’s enemies, who for so long had helplessly battered themselves to pieces against a giant, unflinching, force! Now the worn out, discouraged fighters could again be inspired. The power of the German fighting force mattered little, for behind there was revolution!
British, French, and American newspapers wasted no time. The opportunity was seized, the people at home were reassured, and the battlers driven on with this:
“Germany on the eve of revolution! Victory of the Allies certain!”
Luckily, I was in the first two attacks, and also in the last one.
Some time before the munition strike, there was a good deal of bewilderment among the soldiers. They had gone out, in the face of death, with this cry on their lips at Flanders:
“Deutschland über alles in der Welt!”
The Noose For Democrats!
But now the cry, back home at least, apparently was supposed to be:
“Long live universal suffrage!”
The warriors could only wonder at this new war aim of Messrs. Ebert, Scheldemann, Barth, Liebknecht, etc. And why should these slackers now suddenly assume the right to go over the heads of the soldiers and take control of the state?
My attitude was certainly solid from the start: I hated with all my heart these villains who betrayed the people. I well knew that this gang was only out to serve itself. They were ready to sacrifice the people for themselves, and in my eyes, they were fit and ready for the noose.
These were the feelings of most of the old soldiers at the front, but the reinforcements sent up from the rear were quite different, and their arrival really only weakened our strength. It was a strain to think that these were the sons of the people which once sent out its youth to the battle of Ypres.
The signs of decay were worse in August and September, but even now the enemy attacks were far different from the horrible defensive battles we had waged before. As September drew to a close, my division for the third time approached those positions which we had once stormed as young volunteers.
What a memory!
We had marched into our baptism of fire as youth steps into a dance. Blood was given gleefully for the Fatherland’s freedom.
Enemy Never Right
“The moment one’s own propaganda grants even a glimmer of justice to the other side, seeds are sown for the doubting of one’s own cause. The masses are incapable of deciding where the enemy’s sins end and their own begin.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter VI
In July, 1917, we trod the sacred soil once more, where so many of our comrades lay.
The British, firing incessantly for three weeks, prepared the great offensive of Flanders. We dug into the mud, clawed grips in the shell holes, and waited.
The British attack was launched on July 31, 1917. Early in August our regiment was relieved and we stumbled to the rear, but the British had won only a short stretch—a few hundred yards—of shell holes.
Tears For Royalty
Now, in the autumn of 1918 for the third time we stood on this ground. The little village of Comines, once our quarters, now was our battlefield. But now the troops were discussing politics, for this poison from home had reached the front.
On the night of October 13-14 the English unloosed a gas attack before Ypres. It was Yellow Cross, new to us, but I was to find out its effect. On a hillock south of Wervick we encountered the gas, violently unleashed through all the night. Around midnight, half of us were out, some of us forever.
As morning approached I was hit with ever more terrible pains, and at 7 o’clock in the morning I staggered to the rear. After a few hours my eyes were red-hot coals. All about me it was growing dark.
I was sent to a hospital at Pasevalk in Pomerania—there to experience the greatest infamy of the century.
A gradually increasing tension was suddenly worse in November. Then suddenly one day catastrophe struck us. Sailors rode in on trucks shouting for the revolution—led by a few Jews. None of these had been at the front. By way of what we called a “gonorrhea hospital” three Jews had been sent home from behind the lines. Now they ran up the red flag.
I was somewhat better, the pain in the balls of my eyes was lessening, and I was beginning to see things in vague outline. I was thinking about how I would be unable to see well enough to paint again—although I would be able to see—when the monstrous event occurred.
I hoped this treason was merely a local affair. But day after day the rumors were more alarming: it was general revolution. Added soon was the shaming news from up front—capitulation was intended. Was it possible?
On November 10th a pastor came to the hospital, and we learned the truth. Greatly excited, I went to hear him speak: an old gentleman trembling like a leaf told us the House of Hohenzollern was no longer to wear the Imperial Crown, that our land was now a “republic”—and that we should beg the Almighty’s blessings upon this change.
When the pastor came to a few words of praise for the Royal House, and what it had done for Germany, tears fell silently from his eyes.
But when he went on, attempting to tell us that now we must end the war, that it was lost and we must submit ourselves to the mercy of the victors, that our Fatherland faced inevitable oppression—I rose up, faltered back to my cot, and buried my burning head in the covers.
He Makes A Sad Decision
I wept for the first time since the day when I stood over the grave of my mother. Fate had handled me brutally, had torn comrade after comrade from my side, had sent creeping gas to eat my eyes until I was threatened with eternal blindness, but whenever I was about to cry out in complaint, conscience had thundered to me: wretch, you’ll cry while thousands are a hundred times worse off than you?
But now I broke down—this time it was a disaster of the Fatherland. Vain had been the hunger, the thirst, the torture, and vain the death of two millions. Had they died for this, those soldiers? Was it only for this that boys of seventeen fell at Flanders? Was all this so that a band of criminals should lay hands on the Fatherland?
What of the home land? Was the Germany of old worthless? Owed we no obligations to our history? How could this deed be submitted to the future?
Depraved criminals!
Days and nights of horror followed—I knew only that all was lost. Only idiots—or liars and villains—could hope for mercy from the enemy. In those nights my hatred flared against those guilty of this deed.
Days that followed brought me awareness of my own destiny. Now I laughed at my old worries about my personal future. It became clear that the events I had witnessed were those I had always dreaded, but scarcely believed possible.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was the first German emperor to extend his hand to Marxist leaders—and while they held the imperial hand in their own, with the other they reached for a dagger.
There can be no dickering with the Jews but only ruthless either—or.
I resolved to become a politician.