Mein Kampf

by Adolf Hitler

I consider the foundation or destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.

And in another sense it would be unjust to make religion as such or even the Church responsible for the failings of individuals.

And the aim of studying history is not to forget its lessons when occasion arises for its practical application, or to decide that the present situation is different after all, and that therefore its old eternal truths are no longer applicable; no, the purpose of studying history is precisely its lesson for the present.

The more unified the application of a people's will to fight, the greater will be the magnetic attraction of a movement and the mightier will be the impetus of the thrust.

The longer I lived in this city, the more my hatred grew for the foreign mixture of peoples which had begun to corrode this old site of German culture.

I hoped some day to make a name for myself as an architect and thus, on the large or small scale which Fate would allot me, to dedicate my sincere services to the nation. But finally I wanted to enjoy the happiness of living and working in the place which some day would inevitably bring about the fulfillment of my most ardent and heartfelt wish: the union of my beloved homeland with the common fatherland, the German Reich.

for the mood of the people was always a mere discharge of what was funneled into public opinion from above.

For as soon as procreation as such is limited and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which leaves only the strongest and healthiest alive is obviously replaced by the obvious desire to `save' even the weakest and most sickly at any price, and this plants the seed of a future generation which must inevitably grow more and more deplorable the longer this mockery of Nature and her will continues.

Mankind has grown great in eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish.

Since they now have only a balance' between domestic production and demand in all fields, they make the subsistence of the people as a whole more or less independent of foreign countries, and thus help to secure the freedom of the state and the independence of the nation, particularly in difficult periods.

Today many European states are like pyramids stood on their heads. Their European area is absurdly small in comparison to their weight of colonies, foreign trade, etc. We may say: summit in Europe, base in the whole world; contrasting with the American Union which possesses its base in its own continent and touches the rest of the earth only with its summit. And from this comes the immense inner strength of this state and the weakness of most European colonial powers. Nor is England any proof to the contrary, since in consideration of the British Empire we too easily forget the Anglo-Saxon world as such. The position of England, if only because of her linguistic and cultural bond with the American Union, can be compared to no other state in Europe.

In 1914, as long as the German people thought they were fighting for ideals, they stood firm; but as soon as they were told to fight for their daily bread, they preferred to give up the game. And our brilliant `statesmen' were astonished at this change in attitude. It never became clear to them that from the moment when a man begins to fight for an economic interest, he avoids death as much as possible, since death wo-ild forever deprive him of his reward for fighting. Anxiety for the rescue of her own child makes a heroine of even the feeblest mother, and only the struggle for the preservation of the species and the hearth, or the state that protects it, has at all times driven men against the spears of their enemies.

Anyone with constant occasion in the last years to observe the relation of Austria to Serbia could not for a moment be in doubt that a stone had been set rolling whose course could no longer be arrested.

The guilt of the German government was that in order to preserve peace it always missed the favorable hours for striking, became entangled in the alliance for the preservation of world peace, and thus finally became the victim of a world coalition which countered the idea of preserving world peace with nothing less than determination for world war.

Thus it went on year after year; but the romance of battle had been replaced by horror.

Yes, in those days I hated all those politicians. And if it had been up to me, a parliamentary pick-and-shovel battalion would have been formed at once; then they could have chewed the fat to their hearts' content without annoying, let alone harming, honest, decent people.

It didn't occur to them in the least that enthusiasm once scotched cannot be reawakened at need.

If the best men were dying at the front, the least we could do was to wipe out the vermin.

Any philosophy, whether of a religious or political nature - and sometimes the dividing line is hard to determine - fights less for the negative destruction of the opposing ideology than for the positive promotion of its own. Hence its struggle is less defensive than offensive.

Any attempt to combat a philosophy with methods of violence will fail in the end, unless the fight takes the form of attack for a new spiritual attitude.

The content of propaganda is not science any more than the object represented in a poster is art.

The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc.

The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.

The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for.

For instance, a slogan must be presented from different angles, but the end of all remarks must always and immutably be the slogan itself.

This point of view could then be defined between two restrictive limits: preservation of a solvent, national, and independent economy on the one hand, assurance of the social rights of the workers on the other.

The fight against international finance and loan capital became the most important point in the program of the German nation's struggle for its economic independence and freedom.

The so-called `intelligentsia' always looks down with a really limitless condescension on anyone who has not been dragged through the obligatory schools and had the necessary knowledge pumped into him. The question has never been: What are the man's abilities? but: What has he learned? To these `educated' people the biggest empty-head, if he is wrapped in enough diplomas, is worth more than the brightest boy who happens to lack these costly envelopes.

So deep is the downfall of the Reich and the German people that everyone, as though seized by dizziness, seems to have lost feeling and consciousness; people can scarcely remember the former height, so dreamlike and unreal do the old greatness and glory seem compared to our present-day misery.

The cure of a sickness can only be achieved if its cause is known, and the same is true of curing political evils. To be sure, the outward form of a sickness, its symptom which strikes the eye, is easier to see and discover than the inner cause. And this is the reason why so many people never go beyond the recognition of external effects and even confuse them with the cause, attempting, indeed, to deny the existence of the latter.

Furthermore, these discussions are intended to give our propaganda fighters an instrument which is very much needed at a time when the spoken word is often twisted in our mouths.

It was no accident that man mastered the plague more easily than tuberculosis. The one comes in terrible waves of death that shake humanity to the foundations, the other slowly and stealthily; the one leads to terrible fear, the other to gradual indifference. The consequence is that man opposed the one with all the ruthlessness of his energy, while he tries to control consumption with feeble means. Thus he mastered the plague, while tuberculosis masters him. Exactly the same is true of diseases of national bodies. If they do not take the form of catastrophe, man slowly begins to get accustomed to them and at length, though it may take some time, perishes all the more certainly of them.

Journalistic circles in particular like to describe the press as a `great power' in the state. As a matter of fact, its importance really is immense. It cannot be overestimated, for the press really continues education in adulthood. Its readers, by and large, can be divided into three groups: First, into those who believe everything they read; second, into those who have ceased to believe anything; third, into the minds which critically examine what they read, and judge accordingly.

They are not able or willing themselves to examine what is set before them, and as a result their whole attitude toward all the problems of the day can be reduced almost exclusively to the outside influence of others. This can be advantageous when their enlightenment is provided by a serious and truth-loving party, but it is catastrophic when scoundrels and liars provide it.

Today, when the ballot of the masses decides, the chief weight lies with the most numerous group, and this is the first: the mob of the simple or credulous. It is of paramount interest to the state and the nation to prevent these people from falling into the hands of bad, ignorant, or even vicious educators. The state, therefore, has the duty of watching over their education and preventing any mischief.

The ultimate wisdom is always the understanding of the instinct I - that is: a man must never fall into the lunacy of believing that he has really risen to be lord and master of Nature - which is so easily induced by the conceit of half-education; he must understand the fundamental necessity of Nature's rule, and realize how much his existence is subjected to these laws of eternal fight and upward struggle. Then he will feel that in a universe where planets revolve around suns, and moons turn about planets, where force alone forever masters weakness, compelling it to be an obedient slave or else crushing it, there can be no special laws for man. For him, too, the eternal principles of this ultimate wisdom hold sway. He can try to comprehend them; but escape them, never.

The one variety oozes respectability, so all soft-heads are ready to believe them when they say that the faults of others are only trivial abuses, which should never lead to an infringement of the `freedom of the press' - their term for poisoning and lying to the people.

The invention of a remedy of questionable character and its commercial exploitation can no longer help much against this plague.

Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and stimulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth.

She, in particular, has little to gain from it; in most cases she will be the one to suffer most - for she will be struck much harder by the contempt of her loveless fellow creatures than would be the case with a man.

In such times the people would best like to efface the memory of mankind's past completely, so that by excluding every possibility of comparison they could pass off their own trash as `art.' Hence every new institution, the more wretched and miserable it is, will try all the harder to extinguish the last traces of the past time, whereas every true renascence of humanity can start with an easy mind from the good achievements of past generations; in fact, can often make them truly appreciated for the first time. It does not have to fear that it will pale before the past; no, of itself it contributes so valuable an addition to the general store of human culture that often, in order to make this culture fully appreciated, it strives to keep alive the memory of former achievements, thus making sure that the present will fully understand the new gift. Only those who can give nothing valuable to the world, but try to act as if they were going to give it God knows what, will hate everything that was previously given and would best like to negate or even destroy it.