This Nazi Book of Advice for Young German Men Puts Our Rotten Jewish-Influenced Youth 'Culture' to Shame
Background: This is translation of a thin Nazi book titled
“Faith and Action.” It is rather a “Book of Virtues,” discussing the
traits Nazi youth were to have. A Nazi era review noted that this was a
good book for those who wished to give their children something better
than “the Jewish myths of the Old Testament.”
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The author was in charge of military education for the Hitler Youth.
It was published by the party’s own publishing house. First published in
1938, I am using a 1943 printing that brought the print total to
150,000.
The source: Helmut Stellrecht, Glauben und Handeln. Ein Bekenntnis der jungen Nation (Berlin: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., Franz Eher Nachf., 1943).
Blood
You carry in your blood the holy inheritance of your fathers and
forefathers. You do not know those who have vanished in endless ranks
into the darkness of the past. But they all live in you and walk in your
blood upon the earth that consumed them in battle and toil and in which
their bodies have long decayed. §Your blood is therefore something
holy.
In
it your parents gave you not only a body, but your nature. §To deny
your blood is to deny yourself. No one can change it. But each decides
to grow the good that one has inherited and suppress the bad. Each is
also given will and courage. §You do not have only the right, but also
the duty to pass your blood on to your children, for you are a member of
the chain of generations that reaches from the past into eternity, and
this link of the chain that you represent must do its part so that the
chain is never broken. §But if your blood has traits that will make your
children unhappy and burdens to the state, then you have the heroic
duty to be the last. §The blood is the carrier of life. You carry in it
the secret of creation itself. Your blood is holy, for in it God’s will
lives.
Race
Race means to be able to think in a certain way. He who has
courage, loyalty and honor, the mark of the German, has the race that
should rule in Germany, even if he does not have the physical
characteristics of the “Nordic” race. The unity of the noble and a noble
body is the goal to which we strive. But we despise those whose noble
body carries an ignoble soul.
§A variety of related European races have merged in Germany. One
trunk grew from these roots. Each race gave its best strength. Each
contributed to the German soul We Germans have a fighting spirit, a look
to the horizon, the “desire to do a thing for its own sake” of the
Nordic race. Another racial soul gave us our cozy old cities and our
depth.
Yet another racial soul gave us mastery of the magical realm of
music. Yet another gave us our ability to organize, and our silent
obedience. §We can not hold it against anyone if he carries a variety of
racial lines, for the German soul does as well, and created out of it
the immeasurable riches which it possesses above all other nations.
The greatness of our Reich grew out of this soul. §But the Nordic
race must dominate in Germany and shape the soul of each German. It must
win out in the breast of each individual. Today our ideal is not the
artist or the citizen, but the hero. §Our highest treasure is the soul
that we have been given. He who mixes his blood with that of foreign
inferior races ruins the blood and soul that have been given to him to
pass on in purity to his children. He makes his children impure and
miserable, and commits the greatest crime that he as a National
Socialist can commit. §But he who follows the laws of race fulfills the
great commandment that only like should be brought together with like,
keeping apart those things like fire and water which do not mix.
A People (Volk )
A people
grows from god’s will. Woe to him who wishes to destroy the peoples and
make people alike. God created the trees, the bushes, the weeds and the
grass not so that they could merge into one species, but that each
should exist in its own way. §Just as a tree, a people grows as a living
whole from similar roots, but becoming one, the strongest of its kind.
§All of the same blood belong to it. A people knows no state
boundaries. It is bound by the ties of blood that bind all the sons of a
single mother. The German people is a nation of a hundred million. Each
German belongs to it, no matter where he may live. §A people cannot be
destroyed as long as its roots draw on the strength of the earth. Summer
and winter may come and go. But it always blooms anew in indestructible
life and perfects itself in the strength that rises from its roots
towards god’s will.
§What does it mean when an individual dies? It is as if the wind
blows leaves from a tree. New ones grow eternally every spring. §The
peoples are the greatest and most noble creation of god on this earth.
There is no institution in the world, no party and no church, that has
the right to make them the same or to rob them of even the tiniest bit
of their individuality.
State
A people gives itself its form through the state. There is only one
natural form for each people, only one state. §In the natural process of
growth, each people finds its form and its state, and finds them again
when it has lost them, if only it wants to. §National Socialism has
broken foreign compulsion and eliminated the unnatural. Germany once
again grows into its own state and is once more itself. §The best rules,
the Führer, and he carries the responsibility because he is best able
to bear it. The parliament has ceased to exist. This form of Western
democracy has been abolished. The German states established by the grace
of counts or by Napoleon disappear. The Reich becomes one. The new
state rises:
“The day is coming when a single tent will cover all the German land.”Socialism
Socialism means: “The common good before the individual good.”
Socialism means: “Think not of yourself, but of the whole, of the people and the state.”
Socialism means: “Not the same for everyone, but to each his own.”
Socialism means: “Think not of yourself, but of the whole, of the people and the state.”
Socialism means: “Not the same for everyone, but to each his own.”
These sentences make clear what we call “German socialism.” No
one is a socialist who does not live according to them. §A new order
grows from these sentences. The sentence “To each his own” has killed
the “mass,” the slogan of Marxism, and replaced it with the “community.”
Every community grows around a leader. He is the center of its order,
which forms around him.
A number of these leaders form a larger community, and stand around
their leader as a living order. It all grows from below—the number
growing ever smaller—like a pyramid, and finds its epitome in the Führer
of the Reich. All are bound by the community. Each community is a
living order. The whole, the great living order, is the people’s
community. It binds inextricably person to person, leader to leader. It
does not give the same to everyone, but to each his own. It creates the
socialist people in a socialist state.
§Each has his task in the community, given to him according to his
gifts. Never do all have the same task, but rather each his own. His
task gives him a place in the community, If he fulfills it completely,
he wins the esteem of the others. He is happy, even if his task is not
large in the overall scheme of things. §Such communities grow in the
field, in assault troops, in artillery battalions, in submarines, in
S.A. units. Strong, bound forever together, wordlessly understanding
each other, together until the end, sworn to a common goal. Strength
grows from such communities, and from them grows the state. §We want
community in Germany so that we can stand unshaken in the face of
whatever may come. The mass is conquered by the community. It gives to
each his own, to each his goal and his task, and everyone together one
goal: the people’s community in the new state.
Fatherland
“Oh holy heart of the peoples, O Fatherland!” You were created from
the endless forests and wide moors that the glaciers of the ice age left
us. It was poor land only made fruitful through sweat and toil, in joy
and sorrow, in endless work. §One passed you on to the next and laid
down in your earth from which new life grew. In you rest the endless
ranks of past generations, the seed for new sowing in the wide land.
The
blood of the noble and brave who defended you fell on you. You were
fertilized by the best that you bore. §From you, castles and cathedrals
rose to the heavens, as if the earth itself wished to rise up to the god
it was seeking. From our earth, from the seed of our dead. §The land is
broad. Under the care of industrious hands it became a garden. They
protected it lovingly, like the mountains and valleys protect their
villages. Proud cities by the rivers, displaying the splendor of the old
Reich.
The market fountain has flowed for hundreds of years here. The
gates still stand through which once the Kaiser, the knights and the
nobility passed. §The silver stream of fate winds through. On the other
bank is land that was lost. The heart almost stops. How one wishes to
stroke the distant forests as one would an old and beloved face. But the
heart beats once more on the plains and the coasts that German
colonists won. The castle of the knights stands in the east, an eternal
testimony of strength and virtue. There are the fields from which
Frederick’s eagle rose toward the sun, and there, far from the borders,
is the wall of German dead, an eternal memorial of the nation that
withstood the world as long as it believed in itself. §Everything is
founded in and rests in you, Fatherland.
Our strength and our greatness, but also our need and our misery. You
are the ground that bore us and will bear those distant generations
that will work and bleed for you. §No one can live without you, but each
will gladly give his life back to you who gave it to him.
Courage
Courage is the most beautiful and noble trait a man can have. He who
has no courage is not a man. §The “storming courage” of an attack is
wonderful. The feeling of having risked all in service of a high ideal
frees one and lets him charge forward with joy. Courage bears a man as
if he had wings, and fills his heart. §The attack becomes the high point
of life.
When everything depends on one card, when one can lose everything,
when one can win everything, life is at its best. He who has never
charged and attacked, filled with courage, has never fully
lived. §Alongside “stormy courage” is the “indomitable courage” of those
facing hard fate. “Fate is great and powerful, but greater still is the
person who bears it unshaken.” §Life is often harder than death.
A coward holds on to it. No one faces a challenge greater than
the strength he has been given to face it. Courage overcomes all. When
one has done all in his power, good luck comes to show him a new way and
help him along. But it is not really good luck. “Resist all powers,
never give in, be strong, calls the army of the gods.” §Courage is
needed not only by the man, by the soldier, a woman too needs courage.
For the man battle, the attack is the greatest challenge. For the woman
it comes when she gives a new person life. Men who no longer want to
wage war cannot face the mothers who give new life at the risk of their
own. §Courage is the noblest trait of a man or woman. It determines the
battle and gives victory.
Hardness
Life demands hardness. One must strive with burning heart
toward the ideal of hardness. To be hard for the sake of life, to become
a fighter, to win the victory. §Our environment is a given. Burning
heat in summer, biting cold in winter, long marches in the wet and cold.
Working long at the factory, or behind a machine gun.
Bearing hunger and thirst, sleeping on the bare earth, not
surrendering in battle, never, never, no matter how hopeless everything
sees, hurling an empty pistol in the face of the enemy, reaching for his
neck without regard for oneself, even if it leads to death. To be a
fighter, a fighter with faith in his cause, even if everyone says it is a
false cause. That brings victory, the victory that belongs to him who
is the harder. §You should never give up in battle or work.
Even if you fail a thousand times, you must make the thousand and
first attempt. In the end it will succeed and you will be the victor,
even if almost bled dry, almost faint, but filled with the triumphant
knowledge of having overcome. You are victor in your struggle and victor
over yourself. §Each must prepare for his battle. Each must train as if
he will one day fight the decisive battle for Germany.
Each must be able to march, suffer hunger and thirst, sleep on bare
ground, bear all privations, be a fighter, a soldier from the moment he
can understand what is at stake. §We need men hard and tough as steel,
harder than anything else in the world. Only they will master the great
future of Germany. Do you want to be one of them, or stand aside as a
weakling? §Germany will be the land of the brave and the strong. Either
you belong to them, or you will no longer be a German.
Will
Will
is the force inside you that commands. You may hesitate from weariness,
anxiety, weakness. Will lifts you over every barrier and orders you to
do what your feelings and understanding tell you to do. §A man without
will is like a machine without power. It is useless. But “where there is
a will, there is a way,” and where a will orders, it is obeyed, whether
a person follows his own will or men follow the will of a leader.
§Where there is faith that comes from strength, it is will
that gives it the push. §Exercise your will so that it is as taut and
ready as a drawn bowstring, ready to let loose in the moment it should,
neither a second too late nor a second too early. Exercise your will in
little things until it is strong enough to bring from you that which
Germany expects.
Self Control
One expects that a person who drives a car is in control, and that he
causes no accidents. One expects that a person who lives with other
people will control himself, so that he does not endanger himself or
others. §The forces within us can raise or lower us. It depends on the
use we make of them, on whether we control them and therefore
ourselves. §Hunger and thirst exist to be satisfied. But woe to him who
eats for the sake of eating or drinks for the sake of drinking. He is
lower than an animal that knows when it has had enough.
But he to whom understanding has been given does not know it. We hate
the gluttons and drunkards with bulging bodies and swollen eyes, people
with no character or self control. We eat and drink to live, but we
never live in order to eat and drink. §The body must be kept under iron
discipline so that we are always in charge of it and it is always
dependable. We also may never allow the sexual drive to control us. For
adults it is not there to be satisfied, but rather a force that should
be used to produce future generations healthy in both body and soul.
A young person is given strength not to use in bed, but rather in the
sun and the wind, on the sports field and countryside, until we have a
body in front of us full of strength and speed, a body in which courage
and faith are joined in a free soul, a body that is master of its
passions, master of itself, the German person of the future. Out of it
will grow the strength of a renewed people, the bearer of a future
generation of nobility and freedom. §If you control yourself, you
control life. §If you control yourself, you must be able to bear pain
without uttering a sound. Men do not complain or cry, and boys who want
to become men behave in the same way.
§You should not give in to every little problem. Be open, be
determined, never play the cripple, but control yourself. Be the master
of your pain and problems. Force yourself to be cheerfully faithful.
Then you will find strength you did not know you had. §You must practice
self control. How often does duty call, but something distracts you?
Command yourself so that you can master yourself. §Do something every
day that you do not like to do, and avoid doing something every day that
you would gladly have done. §Do everything you are ordered to do
immediately, without thinking about it. You must in order to become a
real man. §That is the secret of every great personality.
It has gained all the strength it directs outwardly from overcoming
itself. §But you should not be a meek person who gives up everything in
order to live in a cave to receive a promised blessing. God does not
want that for a person. He should have pleasure in his work. He should
use it, but never misuse it, and should be the master of himself.
Discipline
Savages and half-savages have courage, but only advanced people have
discipline. Discipline is the ability to fall in line. Discipline is
carrying out an order without knowing the reason, without understanding.
Discipline also means enduring injustice for the sake of a good
cause. §Discipline is iron virtue and silent obedience. §Discipline
comes from within yourself.
You accept it because you follow a higher will. He who does not do
this will be forced by steely necessity, which alone can overcome the
lack of will and weakness of many, making of them useful members of the
people and the state. §Discipline is a spiritual attitude. Law and
command work through it for the good of all. Any weakening of discipline
is the beginning of collapse. Each is called to ensure that he himself
and the man next to him behaves in a disciplined way.
Duty
Duty is a hard word as long as one has not done it. Duty is a
pleasant word as soon as one has done it. §Duty is the “you should” that
you feel inside. Duty is that which family, people and the state demand
of you. Doing one’s duty does not mean being controlled by the reins
that rule a horse, but rather doing one’s duty means that one does it
with joy, no matter how hard.
§The fatherland grew from the duty done by our fathers and
forefathers. From the duty we all do grows the present state and the
future both of the individual and the whole. §Duty can also mean
sacrifice, the sacrifice of one’s own life. Your people can demand of
you what it has given you. But what does demand mean? The state, the
fatherland dwell in your own breast. You demand it of yourself, and the
path of highest duty is the way of greatest happiness, even if it leads
to your death.
§ Justice comes from fulfilled duty. There is no other justice in the
National Socialist state, just as there is no pay without labor. The
greater the duty, the greater the justice. He who does the most for
Germany has the greatest right to guide Germany and determine its fate.
He is the Führer of the Reich, and others follow him according to the
duty they have fulfilled. §A worker on the street can stand higher in
the ranks than a government minister if he has better done his
duty. §Fulfilling one’s duty to the utmost is required of each of us.
Who will wait until the demand comes, until it is required? He who does
his duty of his own free will, he is a free man and not a slave.
Honor
You live by honor, not by bread. Slaves believe that they only need
food and drink to live. The free man knows that he needs honor first of
all. §Your honor is your standing with your comrades and fellow
citizens. It is just as much your standing with yourself.
§To be honorable is to be courageous. To be honorable is to be
selfless and loyal. To be honorable is to be in control of oneself. He
who does great things for his fatherland is honorable. §Honor comes not
from money and possessions. But he who creates new values or gives other
work through his spirit or the work of his hands can thereby win
honor. §It is also honorable to be the son of someone noble, someone who
has done much for his people and his state. But the son is unworthy of
his honor if he does not win it anew.
§Inherited honor does not last forever, but always demands work and
struggle. Honor is like a crown. He who ceases to live and act like a
king loses it — and has lost it, even if he still wears it on his
head. §Not everyone can take honor from another. The insult of a boy
cannot harm one’s honor. But he who accepts an insult in a cowardly way
loses honor before others.
§We do not reply to an insult ourselves at first. That is why
superior leaders and judges are there. But if someone hits you, hit
back, and if someone strikes your face, strike him back. For we National
Socialists in Germany today, there is only one honor, one concept of
honor. There is no particular concept of honor for particular classes
any longer. National Socialism has given us all a new common sense of
honor. We know it.
He who does not have it is not free, but a slave. The least important
worker today can be free and honorable, the prosperous businessman a
slave and a serf. §That is the new law, which gives honor only to the
brave, the selfless, the loyal, the self controlled, those who do
everything for Germany that they can. §The way to honor is open for
every German.
Loyalty
Loyalty is a holy word. Speak it rarely. It must be as
taken-for-granted as the air we breathe. §What exists exists because of
loyalty. If that which exists ceases to be loyal, it returns to
nothingness. That tears the bonds that hold everything together. It
shatters camaraderie; it shatters leadership; it shatters honor; it
shatters confidence in the law; it shatters the army; it shatters the
state; it shatters everything that exists. §Germany collapsed in 1918
because disloyalty replaced loyalty. An “excess of loyalty” raised it
again from the abyss. Now it stands on the foundation of loyalty, which
must be stronger than the destructive forces of the world. §What is
loyalty, comrade?
§Your loyalty is that you never, never turn from the ideals to which
you have sworn allegiance. National Socialism has raised them high, so
that they live in you and will go into the grave with you. That is your
first and deepest loyalty. §And you are true to your fatherland, called
Germany. As its earth brought forth your blood, you belong to it
forever. §The third claim on your loyalty is to follow the Führer both
in the brightest and the darkest days. It is better for you to follow
him ever into darkness and misery than that your loyalty weakens even
once.
§Fourth, you owe loyalty to your comrade. You will always help him in
need and danger. He should always know that he can come to you, that he
can rely on you entirely, as if you were his physical
brother. §Sigfried and Hagen were loyal. Siegfried, the bright hero,
fought battles for his king. His life was joy and jubilation and
victory. Love and loyalty accompanied him, as if bearing him on their
hands.
§Hagen slew Siegfried not as a cowardly murderer, but rather because
Siegfried invited guilt upon himself. The honor of the king was at
stake. Siegried had to die. But Hagen took the guilt upon himself. His
loyalty to his king was more to him than his own outward honor. He took
the curse of a murderer on himself and was greater than all and he was
loyal [This story is part of the Niebelung saga].
§The German warrior loyally followed his nobleman and did not return
home without him. The knights loyally followed their lords and emperors.
Prussia’s greatest sons were served their king loyally, even when they
were better than he. They served not his person, but the crown that he
bore. The millions who died in the World War loyally followed their
leaders. In loyalty, they lie with them as a ring of dead around
Germany. In loyalty, we all follow the Führer and his flag. The hand of
each will hold the flag until death, the flag that leads Germany to new
life.
§We show loyalty in daily life as well. Once again, a man’s word is
dependable. Promises must be kept and will be kept. We do not need a
handshake and an oath. Each can depend on our word, because we again
have become loyal. §Germany is the land of loyalty. It dwells in its
vast forests. It dwells in its knights and soldiers. It dwells again in
us. Loyalty is our honor. Who wants to be dishonorable amidst the brave
and the heroes?
Freedom
There is no freedom in Germany to do whatever one wants, and there
will be no such freedom, because otherwise Germany would not
exist. §Freedom does not mean taking advantage of others, stealing from
them, without being punished. Freedom does not mean living as one
pleases. Nor does it mean preserving one’s life through cowardice.
§Freedom is choosing to follow the path that duty requires. The
others are slaves of themselves. He is the only free man: upright and
proud, master of everything that might demean him, the best of the
nation, the bearer of the state. He has elevated himself. He does his
duty while others take a holiday. But his duty raises him above over his
little ego and makes him free.
§Somewhere in the middle of a hot summer, a village’s well dries up.
Day and night, someone works hard to dig a new well. No one gave the
order. But for him it is a happy duty to find water for women and
children and comrades. The other does what he likes. The one is a free
man amidst the hard work he has chosen to do. The other is the slave of
his desires and passions. He is a rogue who may say in the pub that man
is born free and can do whatever he wishes. §He who thinks of himself is
a slave and bound; he who thinks of others is master and free.
Faith
Knowledge is that which can be measured by reason. Knowledge alone
means nothing and is dead. §A wish that you can fulfill is called hope.
Hope can easily come to nothing. §But faith can never fail, for faith is
strength. Faith springs from your deepest feelings. It is that
knowledge for which there is no explanation through reason. In faith the
soul sees a part of the world order. It has a sense of that which
should be, and sees through its eyes a part of the way that it should
and can go. It knows that by going this way it fulfills god’s command
and is working toward the great work that is immeasurable,
incomprehensible.
§Because faith sees this and can do it, it is more than human
strength. It is a part of the enormous power that fills all life and all
worlds. With faith, a person walks with the assurance of a sleepwalker.
Who can resist him, for he follows the path of the highest will. He
will succeed when he believes. No hand raised against him will divert
him from his way. The bullet aimed at him will not hit as long has he
has not finished his path, as long as he has not turned from
it. §Thousands do not understand the believing person because their
souls cannot see.
But what do the faithful care about the opinion of others, what do
those who can see care about the opinion of the blind, what do those who
have become strong care about what the weak think. §The way of faith is
the way of everything great. Before our eyes Adolf Hitler went the way
fate led him. He was filled with it and believed what no reason of the
reasonable could see.
§The path of faith is before each of us. Even if it is not the path
of fame and honor, it is still the path of duty and of greatest
happiness. To find it means to gain a part of the eternal strength that
moves the worlds. §Because faith is strength, it can do what seems
impossible. It is the foundation for every deed. No one can do anything
without faith. No one can even jump over a ditch if he does not believe
he can do it. The highest and most important in a person is not
knowledge and understanding, but rather his faith. Each is worth only as
much as the faith he has.
§This new Reich began with faith. The first party rally after the
seizure of power was called “The Victory of Faith.” It grew and became
great through faith. It no longer grew from the faith of one man, but
from the faith of us all, and was borne by the strength of all. More
than human strength was present. §Woe to those who do not believe. They
are not on the side of the strength of creation, but rather
annihilation. They are the destroyers of the Reich. §Faith is however
stronger than all other powers that can be found in this world.
Fate
We do not believe in a blind fate that leads people through their
lives. We do not believe that god’s angels protect us in every step that
we take and keep us from falling. But we do believe in a godly will
that gives meaning to each each life that is born. Not an arbitrary
generally meaning, but rather each life has its own particular purpose
and meaning. §In the depths of our souls we sense whether we act
according to this meaning. One can call this conscience or something
else. It is there.
We probably know the right path. We need only ask. A voice within us
gives the answer, and speaks of the godly will that shows us the path we
should go. §This path is our fate. Each has but one proper path. To
follow it makes one happy to the highest degree, even if it is a path
that brings only poverty and toil. §Any path that leads away from the
meaning and purpose of life is death and sin. And even if the path seems
ever so pleasant, you will sin every day of your life. §But you have
the freedom to decide which path you want to follow.
No blind fate rules you. You go your own way. §If you follow the law
in your own heart, it is the way to your god. It is the way that comes
from eternity and goes to eternity; in all the world there is never an
end, only transformation. There is no death that is not also a
beginning. Everything is part of the enormous plan of the worlds, of
which you are a part if you seek your path. Everything is in
development. The joy of creation lives in each. for it belongs to the
builders at work. There is no heaven of pleasure and blessedness. But
work and life alternate in eternal form, whether in the realm of the
body or the sphere of the spirit.
§Those who fell for an idea of god — and people and fatherland are
such — continue to work for it. They become a part of the soul and the
strength of their people., They continue to work and grow. They are in
reality in us as our better thoughts. §Thus each creature plays its
part, both in body and soul, in the great plan of the worlds. It is god,
the eternal wisdom and the exalted sense of that which is beyond
comprehension.
When you submit and follow the path, it is also in you. You
understand your part and do what you can, and whatever happens to you,
you will be happy. You carry god in your own heart. You have overcome
death, and if you do die, you live on as a part of the eternal strength
that works continually and creates. §Your fate is the path that is shown
to you. Your free will decides if you follow it and if you fulfill your
task.
Birth and Death
Birth and death are the same; they are the two sides of one door. To
enter one room always means leaving another. It depends on which room or
which life we are in as to whether we say “entrance” or “exit,” life or
death. §For he who understands it, death holds no terrors. But he who
did not go his proper way in life and sinned will see his guilt in
death.
But there is after death no place of torture, no hell. To see one’s
guilt is the severest judgment and at the same time the greatest
penalty. Judgment and punishment are within yourself. §Neglected work
can only be made up by double effort. It will once more be your choice,
either to work toward the world plan, or to be its enemy. That is the
only death that there is, to become a force for destruction rather than
for creation, and this death is not physical. It is your free choice to
decide on which side you belong, on god’s or, to use an old term, “the
devil’s.”
§What we call birth and death is only the door between two worlds.
There is no birth and no death, only change, and we can go confidently
through the door, for all the worlds were created by one hand.
Nature
The divine is powerful in its creatures. It dwells not in walls that
people build. They may be witnesses of its will, but god is in the
living. §Our ancestors went into the forests to find or to honor god.
They greeted his light rising in the morning. That was more to them than
a lamp in a man’s hand. They stood on mountain tops because his
greatest work, the starry sky, was nearest there, not covered by a roof
of stone. The great spring flowing from the mountain was more genuine
and nearer to god than anything that could flow from a bottle held by a
human hand.
§Who dares to say that they were not close to the living god? §Other
peoples may seek refuge in the stone walls of their cities or seek their
god in caves. The true German senses god with holy fear in the life of
creation. He prays to god by honoring his great works. §Who dares to say
that God is nearer to us in that which human beings have built? §The
faith of our fathers remains strong in us. Still today the German
wanders through his countryside and is moved by the beauty of the land
god has given him. The summits of his mountains give freedom. He feels
eternity amidst the sea. Flowing water is to him the image of eternal
change.
§He protects the forest and the tree and the bush as if they were his
comrades. He loves the animals that are tortured and tormented in other
countries. What to him is part of his household is elsewhere only a
possession. §He sees and honors in everything god’s creation, in the
holy earth, in the wandering wind, in the flickering flames, in which
there is always change. Ever again we stand on the summits of the peaks
and wave the torch and feel the magnificent and the ineffable. §Who
dares chide us because our eyes are open?
To Do a Thing for its Own Sake
You should never do anything for pay, but rather always because it is
worth it for its own sake. Did ever a German soldier go to war for the
sake of money? He did it for the Fatherland. He who asks us to be good
and pious for money seduces us and draws us away from god. He is the
devil’s advocate, even if he promises us heaven.
§God is in the good that we do, but he is not in a heaven that we
will enjoy for eternity. §It is German to do something for its own sake.
Such was always the first and highest service to god in Germany, and
thus it will remain as long as our nation lives and the world is there
to warn us.
Order
The world came into being when order first appeared. It will exist as
long as there continues to be order. It will reach its culmination when
it has reached the highest state of order. §The German has the gift of
creating order, living order, whether in the form of factories, armies
or states. An order in which each has his place and his task, in which
everything flows together smoothly as if it were a single body.
§The ability of Germans to create order is evident also in small
things, in precision. It shows itself in the German home, which has no
equal in its cleanliness and order. It shows itself in a machine, in an
apparatus, that function so precisely that they are unparalleled in the
world. It shows itself in the German soldier, whose weapon is spotless,
whose boots are not missing a single nail. It shows itself in the SA man
or Hitler Youth, whose backpack or locker is perfectly arranged and
maintained.
§It always the same German trait. It is not because of the presence
of a spot of the absence of a nail, but rather it because of order
itself, because one must be brought up to do his task as best as is
possible and maintain German accomplishment at the highest
level. § Results always depend on small things. A valuable machine is
unusable because one part is not quite right. A machine gun on which
everything depends fails because a grain of sand got in the
barrel. §There must be order for there to be accomplishment, because
every accomplishment begins with order. That is true for each individual
part of life, and for the whole of it as well.
Honesty
There should be nothing false in you! The Jew is dishonest. He is
born that way and is ever full of deceit. You are born to be honest and
to remain honest. Your face does not lie, your words are true, your
actions are clear and can stand before all.
§You will say no word about a comrade that you cannot say to his
face. If you do so, you destroy the community and injure your honor and
that of the other. You become dishonest. §You would not think of
stealing ten pfennig from a comrade. How trivial that is when compared
to stealing honor from someone who does not realize it, who is unable to
defend himself. Compared to that, the thief one puts in prison has
committed but a small offense. Possessions are of less value than honor.
A thief has more honor than a slanderer. The first demand of honor is
that one holds the honor of others as their highest possession. The
next demand of honor is that one respects the property of others, which
they have earned by hard word and industry. §It must again become such
in Germany that one can leave one’s doors unlocked at night. It must
again be such that every lost piece of property is returned and that one
can trust unknown citizens with one’s money and possessions.
§We want once again to have the honor of a farmer. It should be as it
still is in the north, where one can leave one’s house and land without
locking the door, because there is no dishonesty. §An end must be made
of all dishonest behavior. It should be wrung out of us. There should be
a new generation in Germany, honest in word and deed, because honor is
to it more necessary than life itself. And woe to him who sins against
it.
Property
In the National Socialist state, there is no longer property with
which the individual can do with whatever he wishes. There is no
unlimited right of property, only a right that has been earned to
administer it for the good of the whole. §Property is a loan. One may
certainly use it, but only to advance the interests of the whole. §A
farmer has a field. It belongs to him. And it should belong to him, for
his ancestor tilled it, his fathers toiled on it. It belongs to him as
long as he tills it so that food for other citizens grows on it.
But the field must be taken from him if he leaves it fallow because
he is too lazy or unambitious to till it. §A house! Why shouldn’t a
German have a house, a home for his children. The apartment in the city
has taken a piece of the fatherland from the German. His own house and
garden give him again a piece of Germany, and he has a right to that.
§ But it is not an unearned gift. Property must be earned by the work
of the hand or the mind. The ambitious and hard-working settler in
newly-won land will plow more land for himself and his children than
others. Is that a failing on his part? He grows grain not only for
himself, but also for others. What he grows is his property. §But he who
through treachery and deceit gains possession of that which the mind
and hands of others have created is a thief and a deceiver.
He is like the swindler and the Jew who, without creating anything
themselves, live greedily from that which they steal from others using
corrupted justice. To eliminate them in Germany is our highest law. Once
Germany’s forests were freed of wolves. In the same way, Germany must
be freed of those who are worse and craftier than wolves.
Law and Justice
It is better that the individual suffers under the law than that
there be no law. §Law defeats arbitrariness, for all are the same to it.
Humanity is not permitted to exercise supreme justice. But the law
gives the individual judge the measure of justice and punishment.
Justice no longer rests on what the individual thinks, but rather the
law must be anchored in the sentiments of the whole people.
That is the case when a people has its own law, not that of another
people. §The state is founded on justice. Injustice destroys it. A state
without justice is the playground of freebooters and highwaymen. The
farmer, the worker and the citizen need law to protect their labors. Law
protects honor, life, marriage, possessions, all those things that we
want and must have as the foundations of our state. The judge, fully
independent, projects justice. The policeman is not the representative
of some arbitrary order, but rather of that which a people finds good
and right.
§No sacrifice is too great in the cause of justice. “It is better
that my son die than justice perish in the world,” a great Prussian king
once said. §We want justice once more to rule in Germany, that great,
unwritten justice that came to us with our blood. It should be the law
in Germany that all obey this justice. §Justice is not that which serves
the individual, but rather that which serves the people. That is the
supreme law of National Socialism, to which all must bow.
Building a Life
Life begins in youth. It reaches its high point in the man and the
woman. It sinks like the sun into old age. §One must see life as a
whole, as a natural process, which is perfected in each moment. There is
nothing wrong in youth or age. Youth is youth and old age is old age,
neither good nor bad, but rather only natural. §Youth is hope, maturity
becoming.
Youth means the possibility of a proper life and great deeds. If one
sees in youth the signs of a coming bad and useless life, that is the
worse reproach, for the greatest gift is being wasted. §Youth does not
have the goal of remaining young, but of becoming man or woman. In a man
is found courage and strength, seriousness and experience. Life follows
its course to great deeds. For the man as well as the woman. §After the
great battle is fought and the heavy work done, people have formed
themselves inwardly and outwardly.
Body and soul have shown what they are, where they belong, whether to
the strength that builds or to that which destroys. The softening of
age comes. The impatience of youth, the strength of the man, fade. A
wide vision comes, the clear knowledge of the what is valuable and
useless in this world. §After a person has fought a good fight, his last
expression is the best, because it reveals the greatness of his life.
It reveals all, need and toil, struggle and joy, and a reflection of the
world to come. We sense that when we see the death mask of Frederick
the Great. Is there a face that speaks more eloquently to us? §He who
has fought such a fight earns honor in old age.
Failing to respect the aged is a failure to respect life itself. §“I
spent myself in the service of the Fatherland,” Bismarck said. Who
should not honor those who have grown old and worn in such a cause. Or
do we want to honor those who say: “I have avoided service to the
fatherland?” §Each stage of life is good: youth full of hope, maturity
in the fullness of strength, the old filled with honor. Nothing deserves
honor more than that which is greater than we are!
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