Hitler Propaganda a Preparation for War of Revenge

(In this, the fifth of a series of articles by Miss Thompson under the general heading of "Hitler, the menace", the writer discusses the militaristic aspects of the Hitler program)

Hitler’s Germany is a Germany preparing for War. No other interpretation of the Hitler program is possible if one accepts it at its face value. No other interpretation of the program makes sense. If Hitler’s political theories are regarded as theories of a nation at peace and intending to remain at peace, they sound like "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing". If, however, they are considered as a program for a nation already surrounded by enemies and soon to be engaged in Armageddon, then they are somewhat sensible, even rationally supportable.

The program, succintly, is as follows: Re-armament— unless the rest of the world disarms. The National Socialists’ opinion of the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference has been expressed often enough on the public platform, so that no one needs to doubt the Nazis’ contempt for all pacifistic programs. The Nazis are convinced that the world will not disarm. Therefore, re-armament.

But not in the sense of the old army. What the Nazis want is "a people in arms". They believe that the last war was lost because the whole folk was not completely united. Hence, when the front began to crack, defeatism began from within. The War was lost because of the famous "dolch stoss"— the knife thrust through the back. To avoid this happening again, they wish all possible defeatist elements purged from the body politic. The conception of the "racialist" and "Germanic" state is essentially the conception of a people united in a fight for the maintenance of their blood. They think in other words, that blood is thicker than water, and that the best fighting unit ever devised is the tribal feud. There will be perfect unanimity in case of war, Hitler thinks, in the tribal state. The "dangerous elements" in case of siege, are the internationalists, i.e. com### socialist, and Jews. Some National Socialists also include all Roman Catholic Christians. The Jews are tied to the world outside Germany in a thousand ways; through international finance and trade; through the fact that they often have relatives or members of their race in other countries. Hitler believes that they never thoroughly associate themselves with any culture in which they live "but are parasites". According to Hitler — a theory which he advances in his book, "My Struggle", and which he has often enunciated on the public platform— the socialists, communists, pacifists, and Jews broke the morale of fighting Germany in 1918. Had it not been for them, "Folk" and army would have stood out against a hostile world until ultimate victory. That they might have stood out until ultimate obliteration is another possibility not raised in Nazi propaganda.

RE-EDUCATION PROGRAM

To obtain a united "people in arms" it is not only necessary to remove, or put under lock and key, or reduce to impotence, all internationally-minded elements, but it is also necessary to re-educate the Germanic pure-blooded folk, spoiled as they have been for more than a decade of Republicanism. The Nazi program for re-education is one of the most interesting and— to the outsider— appalling features of the Nazi regime. The first things that must be dinned into all Germans from childhood upward is that war, and not peace, is the normal condition of mankind. Over and over again, the Nazi propaganda reiterates the theory that man reaches his highest development in war and degenerates in peace.

To make an aggressive people, prepared to defend their own race and assure its dominance on the globe, education must stop putting the emphasis upon intellectual achievement, and must stress physical perfection and "character". "The Racial State", says Hitler in "My Struggle", "must concentrate in the first line on producing absolutely sound physical beings. Then comes the development of character, especially of the qualities of will-power and decision, and, as a last step, scientific training." Education must further create in every German the belief that he belongs to a superior people. To quote Hitler again "Belief in himself must be taught the youngest citizen. His whole education must be directed at creating in each person the belief that he is superior to those of other races. His bodily strength and cleverness must support his beliefs that the people to whom he belongs are unconquerable"

"THE TRIUMPHANT SWORD"

The child must also be brought up in the belief that his nation has a world mission. The peace of the future, according to Hitler, "must be a peace, supported not by the palm branches of snivelling womanish pacifists but secured by the triumphant sword of a master-folk who have captured the world, in the service of a higher culture"

Education and physical training are not sufficient, however, to secure a fighting and triumphant race. The National Socialists are eugenists. They believe , first, that Aryan blood is superior to other, and that among the Aryans the Germans are a tribe with a great world mission. All mixing of German blood is to be deplored. If the National Socialists are consistent, they will certainly forbid intermarriage with Jews, and whether they forbid it or not, their schools and universities will be encouraged to teach the doctrine that mixed races (they call them "bastard" or "mongrel") have lower vitality and strength than "pure" races.

Their contempt for science has probably closed their eyes to the obvious fact that the most aggressive, vital, and creative peoples in the world today are precisely the ones of mixed blood. Walter Darré, who is now leader of the "Bauernbund", advocates "breeding stations" and would have all German women divided into four classes: those who can and must mate with elite males, and produce children; those who may mate and produce children; those who may mate but will not be allowed to have children, and finally, those who may neither marry nor breed.

ARMS FOR THE YOUNG

This zoological garden conception of eugenics will, it is believed, produce a vigorous race irresistible in war and capable of building up a superior culture.

The child will not only be physically trained and taught to believe in the superiority of his race and its mission in the world, but he will actually, and at an early age, be taught the use of firearms. He will be taught to be obedient, to take punishment absolutely quietly, without protest. The new German state, like the Spartan state, and unlike the old Prussian state, is to be democratic; that is to say, leadership is to come from all classes, but it is to be the democracy of a popular army; obedience always to the one above. "Only he who can obey can command"

Sport is to be subjected to military discipline, military drill is to be the substitute for football.

Germany’s foreign policy is likewise directed toward the possibility of war as the chief thing in mind. "An alliance, the goal of which does not encompass war, is senseless and worthless", says Hitler, His opposition to alliance between Germany and Russia is on the ground that Russia is not technically equipped to help a Western nation fight, and that a war between Germany and Russia and the rest of the world would be catastrophic from a military standpoint because it would be fought upon German soil.

OTHER IDEAS IN ROME

The much-desired alliance with Italy is desired chiefly because of the belief in Germany that Italy desires in future a war with France; i.e., they have a common enemy. Mussolini, however, seems to have a more complicated conception of foreign politics.

Even more importantly, the domestic economic program is only to be understood if it is believed that Germany is preparing for war. This is the true sense of the propaganda for "Autarckie", economic self-sufficiency. The National Socialist argues as follows: Germany lost the last war because of defeatism within; that will be avoided by quenching all non-folkish elements. But we also lost the war because of the hunger blockade. Therefore, from now on, and always with another war in mind, we must become capable of feeding ourselves.

Now, Germany, a nation of sixty million people, with a vast industry organized for export, cannot possibly feed herself without doing two things: first, supporting the agricultural classes at the cost of the towns and industries, and therefore lowering the export, reducing the whole standard of living.

It is obvious that Hitler is quite prepared to do both things and is preparing the nation for the sacrifice which such a system of economics will entail. Before the March elections when the Nazis were seeking votes, they stressed the misery of the German worker. Today they tell the German worker that he must be prepared to make sacrifices for his country. A great campaign is on against all forms of luxury. There is a revival of puritanism on all fronts.

The autarckial policy was inaugurated in Germany previous to Hitler, out of necessity, due to the fear that the mark would be endangered by too great imports, and due to Germany’s need for meeting foreign payments. But Hitler has made a virtue and a cult out of this necessity.

The naivité in Hitler’s program is that it is carried out in the eyes of the whole world, and that the National Socialist Government actually seems to think that an occasional public statement of desire to live at peace with all men will sufficiently quiet foreign apprehensions. The result of Hitler’s accession to power has actually been that Germany is more isolated today than at any moment since 1918. National Socialist speeches, raids against Soviet offices, and insults to Soviet journalists, have antagonized Russia, Germany’s ally since the Treaty of Rapallo in 1921. France believes that the military provisions of the Treaty of Versailles are already being flouted by the arming of some tens of thousands of "auxiliary police".

POLAND WELL-ARMED

Poland, well armed, and supported by a France which is more militantly anti-German than at any moment since the close of the War— for, as one Frenchman put it to me, "the French right parties hate Germany and the parties of the left hate Hitler"— is prepared to resent the slightest trespass on her rights, doubtless thinking that if war is to come at all, it were better that it came while Poland is prepared and before Germany is. Hitler counted for a long time on England, forgetting that England is still a bourgeois democracy in the liberal tradition, and perfectly capable of seeing that the Nazi conception of the state lays almost as powerful an axe at the roots of the modern commonwealth as does communism.

What the result of the new military spirit will be, it would be reckless to predict. But it is fairly certain, I think, that Germany will not, in the near future, take any aggressive action. Germany is still frankly — and she confesses naively — not prepared for war. She is still without a single whole-hearted ally. The next months will be a great test of the patience of the rest of Europe.