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Title: Readings on Fascism and National Socialism

Author: Various

Release date: November 16, 2004 [eBook #14058]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK READINGS ON
FASCISM AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Readings on Fascism and National
Socialism, by Various, Edited by Alan Swallow

READINGS ON FASCISM AND
NATIONAL SOCIALISM

Selected By Members Of
The Department Of Philosophy

University Of Colorado

ALAN SWALLOW, Denver

PREFATORY NOTE

The ensuing readings are presented to encourage the student to clarify his
thinking on social philosophy. He will accordingly need to determine

whether the readings contain a more or less coherent body of ideas which
constitutes a social philosophy. He will also need to raise the more far-
reaching question whether the ideas are acceptable. To arrive at any
satisfactory answer to this latter question, he will necessarily have to
compare the ideas of fascism and their practical meanings with the
alternatives, real and ideal, that are the substance of live philosophical
issues.

CONTENTS

The Doctrine of Fascism
by Benito Mussolini
The Political Doctrine of Fascism
by Alfredo Rocco
The Philosophic Basis of Fascism
by Giovanni Gentile
National Socialism
by Raymond E. Murphy, Francis B. Stevens,
Howard Trivers, Joseph M. Roland
National-Socialism and Medicine
by Dr. F. Hamburger
Selected Bibliography

THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM

ToC

by

Benito Mussolini

From the Encyclopedia Italiana. Vol. XIV
The English translation of
the "Fundamental Ideas"
is by Mr. I.S. Munro,
reprinted by his kind
permission from "Fascism
to World-Power"
(Alexander Maclehose,
London, 1933).

FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS.

1. Philosophic Conception.

Like every concrete political conception, Fascism is thought and action.
It is action with an inherent doctrine which, arising out of a given system of
historic forces, is inserted in it and works on it from within. It has therefore
a form co-related to the contingencies of time and place; but it has at the
same time an ideal content which elevates it into a formula of truth in the
higher region of the history of thought.
There is no way of exercising a spiritual influence on the things of the
world by means of a human will-power commanding the wills of others,
without first having a clear conception of the particular and transient reality
on which the will-power must act, and without also having a clear
conception of the universal and permanent reality in which the particular
and transient reality has its life and being. To know men we must have a

knowledge of man; and to have a knowledge of man we must know the
reality of things and their laws.
There can be no conception of a State which is not fundamentally a
conception of Life. It is a philosophy or intuition, a system of ideas which
evolves itself into a system of logical contraction, or which concentrates
itself in a vision or in a faith, but which is always, at least virtually, an
organic conception of the world.

2. Spiritualised Conception.

Fascism would therefore not be understood in many of its manifestations
(as, for example, in its organisations of the Party, its system of education, its
discipline) were it not considered in the light of its general view of life. A
spiritualised view.
To Fascism the world is not this material world which appears on the
surface, in which man is an individual separated from all other men,
standing by himself and subject to a natural law which instinctively impels
him to lead a life of momentary and egoistic pleasure. In Fascism man is an
individual who is the nation and the country. He is this by a moral law
which embraces and binds together individuals and generations in an
established tradition and mission, a moral law which suppresses the instinct
to lead a life confined to a brief cycle of pleasure in order, instead, to
replace it within the orbit of duty in a superior conception of life, free from
the limits of time and space a life in which the individual by self-abnegation
and by the sacrifice of his particular interests, even by death, realises the
entirely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.

3. Positive Conception of Life as a Struggle.

It is therefore a spiritual conception, itself also a result of the general
reaction of the Century against the languid and materialistic positivism of
the Eighteenth Century. Anti-positivist, but positive: neither sceptical nor
agnostic, neither pessimistic nor passively optimistic, as are in general the

doctrines (all of them negative) which place the centre of life outside of
man, who by his free will can and should create his own world for himself.
Fascism wants a man to be active and to be absorbed in action with all
his energies; it wants him to have a manly consciousness of the difficulties
that exist and to be ready to face them. It conceives life as a struggle,
thinking that it is the duty of man to conquer that life which is really worthy
of him: creating in the first place within himself the (physical, moral,
intellectual) instrument with which to build it.
As for the individual, so for the nation, so for mankind. Hence the high
value of culture in all its forms (art, religion, science) and the supreme
importance of education. Hence also the essential value of labour, with
which man conquers nature and creates the human world (economic,
political, moral, intellectual).

4. Ethical Conception.

This positive conception of life is evidently an ethical conception. And it
comprises the whole reality as well as the human activity which domineers
it. No action is to be removed from the moral sense; nothing is to be in the
world that is divested of the importance which belongs to it in respect of
moral aims. Life, therefore, as the Fascist conceives it, is serious, austere,
religious; entirely balanced in a world sustained by the moral and
responsible forces of the spirit. The Fascist disdains the "easy" life.

5. Religious Conception.

Fascism is a religious conception in which man is considered to be in the
powerful grip of a superior law, with an objective will which transcends the
particular individual and elevates him into a fully conscious member of a
spiritual society. Anyone who has stopped short at the mere consideration of
opportunism in the religious policy of the Fascist Regime, has failed to
understand that Fascism, besides being a system of government, is also a
system of thought.

6. Historical and Realist Conception.

Fascism is an historical conception in which man could not be what he is
without being a factor in the spiritual process to which he contributes, either
in the family sphere or in the social sphere, in the nation or in history in
general to which all nations contribute. Hence is derived the great
importance of tradition in the records, language, customs and rules of
human society. Man without a part in history is nothing.
For this reason Fascism is opposed to all the abstractions of an
individualistic character based upon materialism typical of the Eighteenth
Century; and it is opposed to all the Jacobin innovations and utopias. It does
not believe in the possibility of "happiness" on earth as conceived by the
literature of the economists of the Seventeenth Century; it therefore spurns
all the teleological conceptions of final causes through which, at a given
period of history, a final systematisation of the human race would take
place. Such theories only mean placing oneself outside real history and life,
which is a continual ebb and flow and process of realisations.
Politically speaking, Fascism aims at being a realistic doctrine; in its
practice it aspired to solve only the problems which present themselves of
their own accord in the process of history, and which of themselves find or
suggest their own solution. To have the effect of action among men, it is
necessary to enter into the process of reality and to master the forces
actually at work.

7. The Individual and Liberty.

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception is for the State; it is for the
individual only in so far as he coincides with the State, universal
consciousness and will of man in his historic existence. It is opposed to the
classic Liberalism which arose out of the need of reaction against
absolutism, and had accomplished its mission in history when the State
itself had become transformed in the popular will and consciousness.

Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual;
Fascism reaffirms the State as the only true expression of the individual.
And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man, and not of the
scarecrow invented by the individualistic Liberalism, then Fascism is for
liberty. It is for the only kind of liberty that is serious—the liberty of the
State and of the individual in the State. Because, for the Fascist, all is
comprised in the State and nothing spiritual or human exists—much less
has any value—outside the State. In this respect Fascism is a totalising
concept, and the Fascist State—the unification and synthesis of every value
—interprets, develops and potentiates the whole life of the people.

8. Conception of a Corporate State.

No individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, labour unions,
classes) outside the State. For this reason Fascism is opposed to Socialism,
which clings rigidly to class war in the historic evolution and ignores the
unity of the State which moulds the classes into a single, moral and
economic reality. In the same way Fascism is opposed to the unions of the
labouring classes. But within the orbit of the State with ordinative
functions, the real needs, which give rise to the Socialist movement and to
the forming of labour unions, are emphatically recognised by Fascism and
are given their full expression in the Corporative System, which conciliates
every interest in the unity of the State.

9. Democracy.

Individuals form classes according to categories of interests. They are
associated according to differentiated economical activities which have a
common interest: but first and foremost they form the State. The State is not
merely either the numbers or the sum of individuals forming the majority of
a people. Fascism for this reason is opposed to the democracy which
identifies peoples with the greatest number of individuals and reduces them
to a majority level. But if people are conceived, as they should be,
qualitatively and not quantitatively, then Fascism is democracy in its purest

form. The qualitative conception is the most coherent and truest form and is
therefore the most moral, because it sees a people realised in the
consciousness and will of the few or even of one only; an ideal which
moves to its realisation in the consciousness and will of all. By "all" is
meant all who derive their justification as a nation, ethnically speaking,
from their nature and history, and who follow the same line of spiritual
formation and development as one single will and consciousness—not as a
race nor as a geographically determined region, but as a progeny that is
rather the outcome of a history which perpetuates itself; a multitude unified
by an idea embodied in the will to have power and to exist, conscious of
itself and of its personality.

10. Conception of the State.

This higher personality is truly the nation, inasmuch as it is the State. The
nation does not beget the State, according to the decrepit nationalistic
concept which was used as a basis for the publicists of the national States in
the Nineteenth Century. On the contrary, the nation is created by the State,
which gives the people, conscious of their own moral unity, the will, and
thereby an effective existence. The right of a nation to its independence is
derived not from a literary and ideal consciousness of its own existence,
much less from a de facto situation more or less inert and unconscious, but
from an active consciousness, from an active political will disposed to
demonstrate in its right; that is to say, a kind of State already in its pride (in
fieri). The State, in fact, as a universal ethical will, is the creator of right.

11. Dynamic Reality.

The nation as a State is an ethical reality which exists and lives in
measure as it develops. A standstill is its death. Therefore the State is not
only the authority which governs and which gives the forms of law and the
worth of the spiritual life to the individual wills, but it is also the power
which gives effect to its will in foreign matters, causing it to be recognised
and respected by demonstrating through facts the universality of all the
manifestations necessary for its development. Hence it is organization as

well as expansion, and it may be thereby considered, at least virtually, equal
to the very nature of the human will, which in its evolution recognises no
barriers, and which realises itself by proving its infinity.

12. The Rôle of the State.

The Fascist State, the highest and the most powerful form of personality
is a force, but a spiritual one. It reassumes all the forms of the moral and
intellectual life of man. It cannot, therefore, be limited to a simple function
of order and of safeguarding, as was contended by Liberalism. It is not a
simple mechanism which limits the sphere of the presumed individual
liberties. It is an internal form and rule, a discipline of the entire person: it
penetrates the will as well as the intelligence. Its principle, a central
inspiration of the living human personality in the civil community, descends
into the depths and settles in the heart of the man of action as well as the
thinker, of the artist as well as of the scientist; the soul of our soul.

13. Discipline and Authority.

Fascism, in short, is not only a lawgiver and the founder of institutions,
but an educator and a promoter of the spiritual life. It aims to rebuild not the
forms of human life, but its content, the man, the character, the faith. And
for this end it exacts discipline and an authority which descend into and
dominates the interior of the spirit without opposition. Its emblem,
therefore, is the lictorian fasces, symbol of unity, of force and of justice.

Political And Social Doctrine

1. Origins of the Doctrine.

When, in the now distant March of 1919, I summoned a meeting at
Milan, through the columns of the Popolo d'Italia, of those who had

supported and endured the war and who had followed me since the
constitution of the fasci or Revolutionary Action in January 1915, there was
no specific doctrinal plan in my mind. I had the experience of one only
doctrine—that of Socialism from 1903-04 to the winter of 1914 about a
decade—but I made it first in the ranks and later as a leader and it was
never an experience in theory. My doctrine, even during that period, was a
doctrine of action. A universally accepted doctrine of Socialism had not
existed since 1915 when the revisionist movement started in Germany,
under the leadership of Bernstein. Against this, in the swing of tendencies, a
left revolutionary movement began to take shape, but in Italy it never went
further than the "field of phrases," whereas in Russian Socialistic circles it
became the prelude of Bolscevism. "Reformism," "revolutionarism,"
"centrism," this is a terminology of which even the echoes are now spent—
but in the great river of Fascism are currents which flowed from Sorel, from
Peguy, from Lagardelle and the "Mouvement Socialiste," from Italian
syndicalists which were legion between 1904 and 1914, and sounded a new
note in Italian Socialist circles (weakened then by the betrayal of Giolitti)
through Olivetti's Pagine Libere, Orano's La Lupa and Enrico Leone's
Divenire Sociale.
After the War, in 1919, Socialism was already dead as a doctrine: it
existed only as a grudge. In Italy especially, it had one only possibility of
action: reprisals against those who had wanted the War and must now pay
its penalty. The Popolo d'Italia carried as sub-title "daily of ex-service men
and producers," and the word producers was already then the expression of
a turn of mind. Fascism was not the nursling of a doctrine previously
worked out at a desk; it was born of the need for action and it was action. It
was not a party, in fact during the first two years, it was an anti-party and a
movement.
The name I gave the organisation fixed its character. Yet whoever should
read the now crumpled sheets with the minutes of the meeting at which the
Italian "Fasci di Combattimento" were constituted, would fail to discover a
doctrine, but would find a series of ideas, of anticipations, of hints which,
liberated from the inevitable strangleholds of contingencies, were destined
after some years to develop into doctrinal conceptions. Through them
Fascism became a political doctrine to itself, different, by comparison, to all
others whether contemporary or of the past.

I said then, "If the bourgeoisie think we are ready to act as lightning-
conductors, they are mistaken. We must go towards labour. We wish to train
the working classes to directive functions. We wish to convince them that it
is not easy to manage Industry or Trade: we shall fight the technique and
the spirit of the rearguard. When the succession of the regime is open, we
must not lack the fighting spirit. We must rush and if the present regime be
overcome, it is we who must fill its place. The claim to succession belongs
to us, because it was we who forced the country into War and we who led
her to victory. The present political representation cannot suffice: we must
have a direct representation of all interest. Against this programme one
might say it is a return to corporations. But that does not matter. Therefore I
should like this assembly to accept the claims put in by national
syndicalism from an economic standpoint...."
Is it not strange that the word corporations should have been uttered at
the first meeting of Piazza San Sepolcro, when one considers that, in the
course of the Revolution, it came to express one of the social and legislative
creations at the very foundations of the regime?

2. Development.

The years which preceded the March on Rome were years in which the
necessity of action did not permit complete doctrinal investigations or
elaborations. The battle was raging in the towns and villages. There were
discussions, but what was more important and sacred—there was death.
Men knew how to die. The doctrine—all complete and formed, with
divisions into chapters, paragraphs, and accompanying elucubrations—
might be missing; but there was something more decided to replace it, there
was faith.
Notwithstanding, whoever remembers with the aid of books and
speeches, whoever could search through them and select, would find that
the fundamental principles were laid down whilst the battle raged. It was
really in those years that the Fascist idea armed itself, became refined and
proceeded towards organisation: the problems of the individual and of the
State, the problems of authority and of liberty, the political and social
problems, especially national; the fight against the liberal, democratic,

socialistic and popular doctrines, was carried out together with the "punitive
expeditions."
But as a "system" was lacking, our adversaries in bad faith, denied to
Fascism any capacity to produce a doctrine, though that doctrine was
growing tumultuously, at first under the aspect of violent and dogmatic
negation, as happens to all newly-born ideas, and later under the positive
aspect of construction which was successively realised, in the years 1926-
27-28 through the laws and institutions of the regime. Fascism today stands
clearly defined not only as a regime, but also as a doctrine. This word
doctrine should be interpreted in the sense that Fascism, to-day, when
passing criticism on itself and others, has its own point of view and its own
point of reference, and therefore also its own orientation when facing those
problems which beset the world in the spirit and in the matter.

3. Against Pacifism: War and Life as a Duty.

As far as the general future and development of humanity is concerned,
and apart from any mere consideration of current politics, Fascism above all
does not believe either in the possibility or utility of universal peace. It
therefore rejects the pacifism which masks surrender and cowardice. War
alone brings all human energies to their highest tension and sets a seal of
nobility on the peoples who have the virtue to face it. All other tests are but
substitutes which never make a man face himself in the alternative of life or
death. A doctrine which has its starting-point at the prejudicial postulate of
peace is therefore extraneous to Fascism.
In the same way all international creations (which, as history
demonstrates, can be blown to the winds when sentimental, ideal and
practical elements storm the heart of a people) are also extraneous to the
spirit of Fascism—even if such international creations are accepted for
whatever utility they may have in any determined political situation.
Fascism also transports this anti-pacifist spirit into the life of individuals.
The proud squadrista motto "me ne frego" ("I don't give a damn") scrawled
on the bandages of the wounded is an act of philosophy—not only stoic. It
is a summary of a doctrine not only political: it is an education in strife and

an acceptance of the risks which it carried: it is a new style of Italian life. It
is thus that the Fascist loves and accepts life, ignores and disdains suicide;
understands life as a duty, a lifting up, a conquest; something to be filled in
and sustained on a high plane; a thing that has to be lived through for its
own sake, but above all for the sake of others near and far, present and
future.

4. The Demographic Policy and the "Neighbour."

The "demographic" policy of the regime is the result of these premises.
The Fascist also loves his neighbour, but "neighbour" is not for him a vague
and undefinable word: love for his neighbour does not prevent necessary
educational severities. Fascism rejects professions of universal affection
and, though living in the community of civilised peoples, it watches them
and looks at them diffidently. It follows them in their state of mind and in
the transformation of their interests, but it does not allow itself to be
deceived by fallacious and mutable appearances.

5. Against Historical Materialism and Class-Struggle.

Through this conception of life Fascism becomes the emphatic negation
of that doctrine which constituted the basis of the so-called scientific
Socialism or Marxism: the doctrine of historical materialism, according to
which the story of human civilisation is to be explained only by the conflict
of interests between the various social groups and by the change of the
means and instruments of production.
That the economic vicissitudes—discovery of prime or raw materials,
new methods of labour, scientific inventions—have their particular
importance, is denied by none, but that they suffice to explain human
history, excluding other factors from it, is absurd: Fascism still believes in
sanctity and in heroism, that is to say in acts in which no economic motive,
immediate or remote, operates.

Fascism having denied historical materialism, by which men are only
puppets in history, appearing and disappearing on the surface of the tides
while in the depths the real directive forces act and labour, it also denies the
immutable and irreparable class warfare, which is the natural filiation of
such an economistic conception of history: and it denies above all that class
warfare is the preponderating agent of social transformation.
Being defeated on these two capital points of its doctrine, nothing
remains of Socialism save the sentimental aspiration—as old as humanity—
to achieve a community of social life in which the sufferings and hardships
of the humblest classes are alleviated. But here Fascism repudiates the
concept of an economic "happiness" which is to be—at a given moment in
the evolution of economy—socialistically and almost automatically realised
by assuring to all the maximum of well-being.
Fascism denies the possibilities of the materialistic concept of
"happiness"—it leaves that to the economists of the first half of the
Seventeenth Century; that is, it denies the equation "well-being-happiness,"
which reduces man to the state of the animals, mindful of only one thing—
that of being fed and fattened; reduced, in fact, to a pure and simple
vegetative existence.

6. Against Democratic Ideologies.

After disposing of Socialism, Fascism opens a breach on the whole
complex of the democratic ideologies, and repudiates them in their theoretic
premises as well as in their practical application or instrumentation.
Fascism denies that numbers, by the mere fact of being numbers, can direct
human society; it denies that these numbers can govern by means of
periodical consultations; it affirms also the fertilising, beneficient and
unassailable inequality of men, who cannot be levelled through an extrinsic
and mechanical process such as universal suffrage.
Regimes can be called democratic which, from time to time, give the
people the illusion of being sovereign, whereas the real and effective
sovereignty exists in other, and very often secret and irresponsible forces.

Democracy is a regime without a king, but very often with many kings,
far more exclusive, tyrannical and ruinous than a single king, even if he be
a tyrant. This explains why Fascism which, for contingent reasons, had
assumed a republican tendency before 1922, renounced it previous to the
March on Rome, with the conviction that the political constitution of a State
is not nowadays a supreme question; and that, if the examples of past and
present monarchies and past and present republics are studied, the result is
that neither monarchies nor republics are to be judged under the assumption
of eternity, but that they merely represent forms in which the extrinsic
political evolution takes shape as well as the history, the tradition and the
psychology of a given country.
Consequently, Fascism glides over the antithesis between monarchy and
republic, on which democraticism wasted time, blaming the former for all
social shortcomings and exalting the latter as a regime of perfection. We
have now seen that there are republics which may be profoundly absolutist
and reactionary, and monarchies which welcome the most venturesome
social and political experiments.

7. Untruths of Democracy.

"Reason and science" says Renan (who had certain pre-fascist
enlightenments) in one of his philosophical meditations, "are products of
mankind, but to seek reason directly for the people and through the people
is a chimera. It is not necessary for the existence of reason that everybody
should know it. In any case if this initiation were to be brought about it
could not be through low-class democracy, which seems to lead rather to
the extinction of every difficult culture and of every great discipline. The
principle that society exists only for the welfare and liberty of individuals
composing it, does not seem to conform with the plans of nature: plans in
which the species only is taken into consideration and the individual
appears sacrificed. It is strongly to be feared that the last word of
democracy thus understood (I hasten to add that it can also be differently
understood) would be a social state in which a degenerated mass would
have no preoccupation other than that of enjoying the ignoble pleasures of
the vulgar person."

Thus Renan. In Democracy Fascism rejects the absurd conventional
falsehood of political equality, the habit of collective responsibility and the
myth of indefinite progress and happiness.
But if there be a different understanding of Democracy if, in other words,
Democracy can also signify to not push the people back as far as the
margins of the State, then Fascism may well have been defined by the
present writer as "an organised, centralised, authoritarian Democracy."

8. Against Liberal Doctrines.

As regards the Liberal doctrines, the attitude of Fascism is one of
absolute opposition both in the political and in the economical field. There
is no need to exaggerate the importance of Liberalism in the last century—
simply for the sake of present-day polemics—and to transform one of the
numerous doctrines unfolded in that last century into a religion of humanity
for all times, present and future. Liberalism did not flourish for more than a
period of fifteen years. It was born in 1830 from the reaction to the Holy
Alliance which attempted to set Europe back to the period which preceeded
'89 and had its years of splendour in 1848, when also Pius IX was a Liberal.
Its decadence began immediately afterwards. If 1848 was a year of light and
poesy, 1849 was a year of weakness and tragedy. The Roman Republic was
killed by another Republic, the French Republic. In the same year Marx
issued his famous manifesto of Communism. In 1851 Napoleon III made
his anti-Liberal coup d'état and reigned over France until 1870. He was
overthrown by a popular movement, following one of the greatest defeats
registered in history. The victor was Bismarck, who always ignored the
religion of liberty and its prophets. It is symptomatic that a people of high
civilisation like the Germans completely ignored the religion of liberty
throughout the whole Nineteenth Century—with but one parenthesis,
represented by that which was called "the ridiculous parliament of
Frankfurt" which lasted one season. Germany realised its national unity
outside of Liberalism, against Liberalism—a doctrine which seemed alien
to the German spirit essentially monarchical, since Liberalism is the
historical and logical ante-chamber of anarchy.

The three wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 conducted by "Liberals" like
Moltke and Bismarck mark the three stages of German unity. As for Italian
unity, Liberalism played a very inferior part in the make-up of Mazzini and
Garibaldi, who were not liberals. Without the intervention of the anti-
Liberal Napoleon we would not have had Lombardy, and without the help
of the anti-Liberal Bismarck at Sadowa and Sedan it is very likely that we
would not have got Venice in 1866, or that we would have entered Rome in
1870.
During the period of 1870-1915 the preachers of the new Credo
themselves denounced the twilight of their religion; it was beaten in the
breach by decadence in literature. It was beaten in the open by decadence in
practice. Activism: that is to say, nationalism, futurism. Fascism.
The "Liberal Century" after having accumulated an infinity of Gordian
knots, sought to cut them in the hecatomb of the World War. Never did any
religion impose such a terrible sacrifice. Have the gods of Liberalism slaked
their blood-thirst?
Liberalism is now on the point of closing the doors of its deserted
temples because nations feel that its agnosticism in the economic field and
its indifference in political and moral matters, causes, as it has already
caused, the sure ruin of States. That is why all the political experiences of
the contemporary world are anti-Liberal, and it is supremely silly to seek to
classify them as things outside of history—as if history were a hunting
ground reserved to Liberalism and its professors; as if Liberalism were the
last and incomparable word of civilisation.

9. Fascism Does Not Turn Back.

The Fascist negation of Socialism, of Democracy, of Liberalism, should
not lead one to believe that Fascism wishes to push the world back to where
it was before 1879, the date accepted as the opening year of the demo-
Liberal century. One cannot turn back. The Fascist doctrine has not chosen
De Maistre for its prophet. Monarchical absolutism is a thing of the past,
and so is the worship of church power. Feudal privileges and divisions into
impenetrable castes with no connection between them, are also "have

beens." The conception of Fascist authority has nothing in common with the
Police. A party that totally rules a nation is a new chapter in history.
References and comparisons are not possible. From the ruins of the
socialist, liberal and democratic doctrines, Fascism picks those elements
that still have a living value; keeps those that might be termed "facts
acquired by history," and rejects the rest: namely the conception of a
doctrine good for all times and all people.
Admitting that the Nineteenth Century was the Century of Socialism,
Liberalism and Democracy, it is not said that the Twentieth century must
also be the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, of Democracy. Political
doctrines pass on, but peoples remain. One may now think that this will be
the century of authority, the century of the "right wing" the century of
Fascism. If the Nineteenth Century was the century of the individual
(liberalism signifies individualism) one may think that this will be the
century of "collectivism," the century of the State. It is perfectly logical that
a new doctrine should utilise the vital elements of other doctrines. No
doctrine was ever born entirely new and shining, never seen before. No
doctrine can boast of absolute "originality." Each doctrine is bound
historically to doctrines which went before, to doctrines yet to come. Thus
the scientific Socialism of Marx is bound to the Utopian Socialism of
Fourier, of Owen, of Saint-Simon; thus the Liberalism of 1800 is linked
with the movement of 1700. Thus Democratic doctrines are bound to the
Encyclopaedists. Each doctrine tends to direct human activity towards a
definite object; but the activity of man reacts upon the doctrine, transforms
it and adapts it to new requirements, or overcomes it. Doctrine therefore
should be an act of life and not an academy of words. In this lie the
pragmatic veins of Fascism, its will to power, its will to be, its position with
regard to "violence" and its value.

10. The Value and Mission of the State.

The capital point of the Fascist doctrine is the conception of the State, its
essence, the work to be accomplished, its final aims. In the conception of
Fascism, the State is an absolute before which individuals and groups are
relative. Individuals and groups are "conceivable" inasmuch as they are in

the State. The Liberal State does not direct the movement and the material
and spiritual evolution of collectivity, but limits itself to recording the
results; the Fascist State has its conscious conviction, a will of its own, and
for this reason it is called an "ethical" State.
In 1929 at the first quinquiennial assembly of the Regime, I said: "In
Fascism the State is not a night-watchman, only occupied with the personal
safety of the citizens, nor is it an organisation with purely material aims,
such as that of assuring a certain well-being and a comparatively easy social
cohabitation. A board of directors would be quite sufficient to deal with this.
It is not a purely political creation, either, detached from the complex
material realities of the life of individuals and of peoples. The State as
conceived and enacted by Fascism, is a spiritual and moral fact since it
gives concrete form to the political, juridical and economical organisation
of the country. Furthermore this organisation as it rises and develops, is a
manifestation of the spirit. The State is a safeguard of interior and exterior
safety but it is also the keeper and the transmitter of the spirit of the people,
as it was elaborated throughout the ages, in its language, customs and
beliefs. The State is not only the present, but it is also the past and above all
the future. The State, inasmuch as it transcends the short limits of individual
lives, represents the immanent conscience of the nation. The forms in which
the State expresses itself are subject to changes, but the necessity for the
State remains. It is the State which educates the citizens in civic virtues,
gives them a consciousness of their mission, presses them towards unity;
the State harmonizes their interests through justice, transmits to prosperity
the attainments of thoughts, in science, in art, in laws, in the solidarity of
mankind. The State leads men from primitive tribal life to that highest
expression of human power which is Empire; links up through the centuries
the names of those who died to preserve its integrity or to obey its laws;
holds up the memory of the leaders who increased its territory, and of the
geniuses who cast the light of glory upon it, as an example for future
generations to follow. When the conception of the State declines and
disintegrating or centrifugal tendencies prevail, whether of individuals or
groups, then the national society is about to set."

11. The Unity of the State and the Contradictions of Capitalism.

From 1929 onwards to the present day, the universal, political and
economical evolution has still further strengthened the doctrinal positions.
The giant who rules is the State. The one who can resolve the dramatic
contradictions of capital is the State. What is called the crisis cannot be
resolved except by the State and in the State. Where are the ghosts of Jules
Simon who, at the dawn of Liberalism, proclaimed that "the State must set
to work to make itself useless and prepare its resignation?" Of MacCulloch
who, in the second half of the past century, proclaimed that the State must
abstain from ruling? What would the Englishman Bentham say today to the
continual and inevitably-invoked intervention of the State in the sphere of
economics, while, according to his theories, industry should ask no more of
the State than to be left in peace? Or the German Humboldt according to
whom an "idle" State was the best kind of State? It is true that the second
wave of Liberal economists were less extreme than the first, and Adam
Smith himself opened the door—if only very cautiously—to let State
intervention into the economic field.
If Liberalism signifies the individual—then Fascism signifies the State.
But the Fascist State is unique of its kind and is an original creation. It is
not reactionary but revolutionary, inasmuch as it anticipates the solution of
certain universal problems such as those which are treated elsewhere: 1) in
the political sphere, by the subdivisions of parties, in the preponderance of
parliamentarism and in the irresponsibilities of assemblies; 2) in the
economic sphere, by the functions of trade unions which are becoming
constantly more numerous and powerful, whether in the labour or industrial
fields, in their conflicts and combinations, and 3) in the moral sphere by the
necessity of order, discipline, obedience to those who are the moral
dictators of the country. Fascism wants the State to be strong, organic and at
the same time supported on a wide popular basis. As part of its task the
Fascist State has penetrated the economic field: through the corporative,
social and educational institutions which it has created. The presence of the
State is felt in the remotest ramifications of the country. And in the State
also, all the political, economic and spiritual forces of the nation circulate,
mustered in their respective organisations.
A State which stands on the support of millions of individuals who
recognise it, who believe in it, who are ready to serve it, is not the
tyrannical State of the mediaeval lord. It has nothing in common with the

absolutist States before or after '89. The individual in the Fascist State is not
annulled but rather multiplied, just as in a regiment a soldier is not
diminished, but multiplied by the number of his comrades.
The Fascist State organises the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin
afterward to the individual; it has limited the useless or harmful liberties
and has preserved the essential ones. The one to judge in this respect is not
the individual but the State.

12. The Fascist State and Religion.

The Fascist State is not indifferent to the presence or the fact of religion
in general nor to the presence of that particular established religion, which
is Italian Catholicism. The State has no theology, but it has morality. In the
Fascist State religion is considered as one of the most profound
manifestations of the spirit; it is therefore not only respected, but defended
and protected. The Fascist State does not create its own "God," as
Robespierre wanted to do at a certain moment in the frenzies of the
Convention; nor does it vainly endeavour to cancel the idea of God from the
mind as Bolschevism tries to do. Fascism respects the God of the ascetics,
of the saints and of the heroes. It also respects God as he is conceived and
prayed to in the ingenuous and primitive heart of the people.

13. Empire and Discipline.

The Fascist State is a will expressing power and empire. The Roman
tradition here becomes an idea of force. In the Fascist doctrine, empire is
not only a territorial or a military, or a commercial expression: it is a moral
and a spiritual one. An empire can be thought of, for instance, as a nation
which directly or indirectly guides other nations—without the need of
conquering a single mile of territory. For Fascism, the tendency to empire,
that is to say the expansion of nations, is a manifestation of vitality, its
contrary (the stay-at-home attitude) is a sign of decadence. Peoples who
rise, or who suddenly flourish again, are imperialistic; peoples who die are
peoples who abdicate. Fascism is a doctrine which most adequately

represents the tendencies, the state of mind of a people like the Italian
people, which is rising again after many centuries of abandonment and of
foreign servitude.
But empire requires discipline, the coordination of forces, duty and
sacrifice. This explains many phases of the practical action of the regime. It
explains the aims of many of the forces of the State and the necessary
severity against those who would oppose themselves to this spontaneous
and irresistible movement of the Italy of the Twentieth century by trying to
appeal to the discredited ideologies of the Nineteenth century, which have
been repudiated wherever great experiments of political and social
transformation have been daringly undertaken.
Never more than at the present moment have the nations felt such a thirst
for an authority, for a direction, for order. If every century has its own
peculiar doctrine, there are a thousand indications that Fascism is that of the
present century. That it is a doctrine of life is shown by the fact that it has
created a faith; that the faith has taken possession of the mind is
demonstrated by the fact that Fascism has had its Fallen and its martyrs.
Fascism has now attained in the world an universality over all doctrines.
Being realised, it represents an epoch in the history of the human mind.

THE POLITICAL DOCTRINE OF FASCISM[1]
ToC

by

His Excellency Alfredo Rocco

Premier Mussolini's Endorsement Of Signor Rocco's Speech

The following message was sent by Benito
Mussolini, the Premier of Italy, to Signor Rocco
after he had delivered his speech at Perugia.
Dear Rocco,

I have just read your magnificent address which I
endorse throughout. You have presented in a
masterful way the doctrine of Fascism. For
Fascism has a doctrine, or, if you will, a particular
philosophy with regard to all the questions which
beset the human mind today. All Italian Fascists
should read your discourse and derive from it both
the clear formulation of the basic principles of our
program as well as the reasons why Fascism must
be systematically, firmly, and rationally inflexible
in its uncompromising attitude towards other
parties. Thus and only thus can the word become
flesh and the ideas be turned into deeds.

Cordial greetings,
Mussolini.

Fascism As Action, As Feeling, and As Thought

Much has been said, and is now being said for or against this complex
political and social phenomenon which in the brief period of six years has
taken complete hold of Italian life and, spreading beyond the borders of the
Kingdom, has made itself felt in varying degrees of intensity throughout the
world. But people have been much more eager to extol or to deplore than to
understand—which is natural enough in a period of tumultuous fervor and

of political passion. The time has not yet arrived for a dispassionate
judgment. For even I, who noticed the very first manifestations of this great
development, saw its significance from the start and participated directly in
its first doings, carefully watching all its early uncertain and changing
developments, even I do not feel competent to pass definite judgment.
Fascism is so large a part of myself that it would be both arbitrary and
absurd for me to try to dissociate my personality from it, to submit it to
impartial scrutiny in order to evaluate it coldly and accurately. What can be
done, however, and it seldom is attempted, is to make inquiry into the
phenomenon which shall not merely consider its fragmentary and
adventitious aspects, but strive to get at its inner essence. The undertaking
may not be easy, but it is necessary, and no occasion for attempting it is
more suitable than the present one afforded me by my friends of Perugia.
Suitable it is in time because, at the inauguration of a course of lectures and
lessons principally intended to illustrate that old and glorious trend of the
life and history of Italy which takes its name from the humble saint of
Assisi, it seemed natural to connect it with the greatest achievement of
modern Italy, different in so many ways from the Franciscan movement, but
united with it by the mighty common current of Italian History. It is suitable
as well in place because at Perugia, which witnessed the growth of our
religious ideas, of our political doctrines and of our legal science in the
course of the most glorious centuries of our cultural history, the mind is
properly disposed and almost oriented towards an investigation of this
nature.
First of all let us ask ourselves if there is a political doctrine of Fascism;
if there is any ideal content in the Fascist state. For in order to link Fascism,
both as concept and system, with the history of Italian thought and find
therein a place for it, we must first show that it is thought; that it is a
doctrine. Many persons are not quite convinced that it is either the one or
the other; and I am not referring solely to those men, cultured or uncultured,
as the case may be and very numerous everywhere, who can discern in this
political innovation nothing except its local and personal aspects, and who
know Fascism only as the particular manner of behavior of this or that well-
known Fascist, of this or that group of a certain town; who therefore like or
dislike the movement on the basis of their likes and dislikes for the
individuals who represent it. Nor do I refer to those intelligent, and

cultivated persons, very intelligent indeed and very cultivated, who because
of their direct or indirect allegiance to the parties that have been
dispossessed by the advent of Fascism, have a natural cause of resentment
against it and are therefore unable to see, in the blindness of hatred,
anything good in it. I am referring rather to those—and there are many in
our ranks too—who know Fascism as action and feeling but not yet as
thought, who therefore have an intuition but no comprehension of it.
It is true that Fascism is, above all, action and sentiment and that such it
must continue to be. Were it otherwise, it could not keep up that immense
driving force, that renovating power which it now possesses and would
merely be the solitary meditation of a chosen few. Only because it is feeling
and sentiment, only because it is the unconscious reawakening of our
profound racial instinct, has it the force to stir the soul of the people, and to
set free an irresistible current of national will. Only because it is action, and
as such actualizes itself in a vast organization and in a huge movement, has
it the conditions for determining the historical course of contemporary Italy.
But Fascism is thought as well and it has a theory, which is an essential
part of this historical phenomenon, and which is responsible in a great
measure for the successes that have been achieved. To the existence of this
ideal content of Fascism, to the truth of this Fascist logic we ascribe the fact
that though we commit many errors of detail, we very seldom go astray on
fundamentals, whereas all the parties of the opposition, deprived as they are
of an informing, animating principle, of a unique directing concept, do very
often wage their war faultlessly in minor tactics, better trained as they are in
parliamentary and journalistic manoeuvres, but they constantly break down
on the important issues. Fascism, moreover, considered as action, is a
typically Italian phenomenon and acquires a universal validity because of
the existence of this coherent and organic doctrine. The originality of
Fascism is due in great part to the autonomy of its theoretical principles.
For even when, in its external behavior and in its conclusions, it seems
identical with other political creeds, in reality it possesses an inner
originality due to the new spirit which animates it and to an entirely
different theoretical approach.

Common Origins and Common Background of Modern Political
Doctrines:
From Liberalism to Socialism

Modern political thought remained, until recently, both in Italy and
outside of Italy under the absolute control of those doctrines which,
proceeding from the Protestant Reformation and developed by the adepts of
natural law in the XVII and XVIII centuries, were firmly grounded in the
institutions and customs of the English, of the American, and of the French
Revolutions. Under different and sometimes clashing forms these doctrines
have left a determining imprint upon all theories and actions both social and
political, of the XIX and XX centuries down to the rise of Fascism. The
common basis of all these doctrines, which stretch from Longuet, from
Buchanan, and from Althusen down to Karl Marx, to Wilson and to Lenin is
a social and state concept which I shall call mechanical or atomistic.
Society according to this concept is merely a sum total of individuals, a
plurality which breaks up into its single components. Therefore the ends of
a society, so considered, are nothing more than the ends of the individuals
which compose it and for whose sake it exists. An atomistic view of this
kind is also necessarily anti-historical, inasmuch as it considers society in
its spatial attributes and not in its temporal ones; and because it reduces
social life to the existence of a single generation. Society becomes thus a
sum of determined individuals, viz., the generation living at a given
moment. This doctrine which I call atomistic and which appears to be anti-
historical, reveals from under a concealing cloak a strongly materialistic
nature. For in its endeavors to isolate the present from the past and the
future, it rejects the spiritual inheritance of ideas and sentiments which each
generation receives from those preceding and hands down to the following
generation thus destroying the unity and the spiritual life itself of human
society.
This common basis shows the close logical connection existing between
all political doctrines; the substantial solidarity, which unites all the political
movements, from Liberalism to Socialism, that until recently have
dominated Europe. For these political schools differ from one another in
their methods, but all agree as to the ends to be achieved. All of them
consider the welfare and happiness of individuals to be the goal of society,

itself considered as composed of individuals of the present generation. All
of them see in society and in its juridical organization, the state, the mere
instrument and means whereby individuals can attain their ends. They differ
only in that the methods pursued for the attainment of these ends vary
considerably one from the other.
Thus the Liberals insist that the best manner to secure the welfare of the
citizens as individuals is to interfere as little as possible with the free
development of their activities and that therefore the essential task of the
state is merely to coordinate these several liberties in such a way as to
guarantee their coexistence. Kant, who was without doubt the most
powerful and thorough philosopher of liberalism, said, "man, who is the
end, cannot be assumed to have the value of an instrument." And again,
"justice, of which the state is the specific organ, is the condition whereby
the freedom of each is conditioned upon the freedom of others, according to
the general law of liberty."
Having thus defined the task of the state, Liberalism confines itself to the
demand of certain guarantees which are to keep the state from overstepping
its functions as general coordinator of liberties and from sacrificing the
freedom of individuals more than is absolutely necessary for the
accomplishment of its purpose. All the efforts are therefore directed to see
to it that the ruler, mandatory of all and entrusted with the realization,
through and by liberty, of the harmonious happiness of everybody, should
never be clothed with undue power. Hence the creation of a system of
checks and limitations designed to keep the rulers within bounds; and
among these, first and foremost, the principle of the division of powers,
contrived as a means for weakening the state in its relation to the individual,
by making it impossible for the state ever to appear, in its dealings with
citizens, in the full plenitude of sovereign powers; also the principle of the
participation of citizens in the lawmaking power, as a means for securing, in
behalf of the individual, a direct check on this, the strongest branch, and an
indirect check on the entire government of the state. This system of checks
and limitations, which goes by the name of constitutional government
resulted in a moderate and measured liberalism. The checking power was
exercised only by those citizens who were deemed worthy and capable,
with the result that a small élite was made to represent legally the entire
body politic for whose benefit this régime was instituted.

It was evident, however, that this moderate system, being fundamentally
illogical and in contradiction with the very principles from which it
proceeded, would soon become the object of serious criticism. For if the
object of society and of the state is the welfare of individuals, severally
considered, how is it possible to admit that this welfare can be secured by
the individuals themselves only through the possibilities of such a liberal
régime? The inequalities brought about both by nature and by social
organizations are so numerous and so serious, that, for the greater part,
individuals abandoned to themselves not only would fail to attain
happiness, but would also contribute to the perpetuation of their condition
of misery and dejection. The state therefore cannot limit itself to the merely
negative function of the defense of liberty. It must become active, in behalf
of everybody, for the welfare of the people. It must intervene, when
necessary, in order to improve the material, intellectual, and moral
conditions of the masses; it must find work for the unemployed, instruct and
educate the people, and care for health and hygiene. For if the purpose of
society and of the state is the welfare of individuals, and if it is just that
these individuals themselves control the attainment of their ends, it becomes
difficult to understand why Liberalism should not go the whole distance,
why it should see fit to distinguish certain individuals from the rest of the
mass, and why the functions of the people should be restricted to the
exercise of a mere check. Therefore the state, if it exists for all, must be
governed by all, and not by a small minority: if the state is for the people,
sovereignty must reside in the people: if all individuals have the right to
govern the state, liberty is no longer sufficient; equality must be added: and
if sovereignty is vested in the people, the people must wield all sovereignty
and not merely a part of it. The power to check and curb the government is
not sufficient. The people must be the government. Thus, logically
developed, Liberalism leads to Democracy, for Democracy contains the
promises of Liberalism but oversteps its limitations in that it makes the
action of the state positive, proclaims the equality of all citizens through the
dogma of popular sovereignty. Democracy therefore necessarily implies a
republican form of government even though at times, for reasons of
expediency, it temporarily adjusts itself to a monarchical régime.
Once started on this downward grade of logical deductions it was
inevitable that this atomistic theory of state and society should pass on to a

more advanced position. Great industrial developments and the existence of
a huge mass of working men, as yet badly treated and in a condition of
semi-servitude, possibly endurable in a régime of domestic industry,
became intolerable after the industrial revolution. Hence a state of affairs
which towards the middle of the last century appeared to be both cruel and
threatening. It was therefore natural that the following question be raised:
"If the state is created for the welfare of its citizens, severally considered,
how can it tolerate an economic system which divides the population into a
small minority of exploiters, the capitalists, on one side, and an immense
multitude of exploited, the working people, on the other?" No! The state
must again intervene and give rise to a different and less iniquitous
economic organization, by abolishing private property, by assuming direct
control of all production, and by organizing it in such a way that the
products of labor be distributed solely among those who create them, viz.,
the working classes. Hence we find Socialism, with its new economic
organization of society, abolishing private ownership of capital and of the
instruments and means of production, socializing the product, suppressing
the extra profit of capital, and turning over to the working class the entire
output of the productive processes. It is evident that Socialism contains and
surpasses Democracy in the same way that Democracy comprises and
surpasses Liberalism, being a more advanced development of the same
fundamental concept. Socialism in its turn generates the still more extreme
doctrine of Bolshevism which demands the violent suppression of the
holders of capital, the dictatorship of the proletariat, as means for a fairer
economic organization of society and for the rescue of the laboring classes
from capitalistic exploitation.
Thus Liberalism, Democracy, and Socialism, appear to be, as they are in
reality, not only the offspring of one and the same theory of government,
but also logical derivations one of the other. Logically developed
Liberalism leads to Democracy; the logical development of Democracy
issues into Socialism. It is true that for many years, and with some
justification, Socialism was looked upon as antithetical to Liberalism. But
the antithesis is purely relative and breaks down as we approach the
common origin and foundation of the two doctrines, for we find that the
opposition is one of method, not of purpose. The end is the same for both,
viz., the welfare of the individual members of society. The difference lies in

the fact that Liberalism would be guided to its goal by liberty, whereas
Socialism strives to attain it by the collective organization of production.
There is therefore no antithesis nor even a divergence as to the nature and
scope of the state and the relation of individuals to society. There is only a
difference of evaluation of the means for bringing about these ends and
establishing these relations, which difference depends entirely on the
different economic conditions which prevailed at the time when the various
doctrines were formulated. Liberalism arose and began to thrive in the
period of small industry; Socialism grew with the rise of industrialism and
of world-wide capitalism. The dissension therefore between these two
points of view, or the antithesis, if we wish so to call it, is limited to the
economic field. Socialism is at odds with Liberalism only on the question of
the organization of production and of the division of wealth. In religious,
intellectual, and moral matters it is liberal, as it is liberal and democratic in
its politics. Even the anti-liberalism and anti-democracy of Bolshevism are
in themselves purely contingent. For Bolshevism is opposed to Liberalism
only in so far as the former is revolutionary, not in its socialistic aspect. For
if the opposition of the Bolsheviki to liberal and democratic doctrines were
to continue, as now seems more and more probable, the result might be a
complete break between Bolshevism and Socialism notwithstanding the fact
that the ultimate aims of both are identical.

Fascism as an Integral Doctrine of Sociality Antithetical to the
Atomism of Liberal, Democratic, and Socialistic Theories

The true antithesis, not to this or that manifestation of the liberal-
democratic-socialistic conception of the state but to the concept itself, is to
be found in the doctrine of Fascism. For while the disagreement between
Liberalism and Democracy, and between Liberalism and Socialism lies in a
difference of method, as we have said, the rift between Socialism,
Democracy, and Liberalism on one side and Fascism on the other is caused
by a difference in concept. As a matter of fact, Fascism never raises the
question of methods, using in its political praxis now liberal ways, now
democratic means and at times even socialistic devices. This indifference to
method often exposes Fascism to the charge of incoherence on the part of
superficial observers, who do not see that what counts with us is the end

and that therefore even when we employ the same means we act with a
radically different spiritual attitude and strive for entirely different results.
The Fascist concept then of the nation, of the scope of the state, and of the
relations obtaining between society and its individual components, rejects
entirely the doctrine which I said proceeded from the theories of natural law
developed in the course of the XVI, XVII, and XVIII centuries and which
form the basis of the liberal, democratic, and socialistic ideology.
I shall not try here to expound this doctrine but shall limit myself to a
brief résumé of its fundamental concepts.
Man—the political animal—according to the definition of Aristotle, lives
and must live in society. A human being outside the pale of society is an
inconceivable thing—a non-man. Humankind in its entirety lives in social
groups that are still, today, very numerous and diverse, varying in
importance and organization from the tribes of Central Africa to the great
Western Empires. These various societies are fractions of the human species
each one of them endowed with a unified organization. And as there is no
unique organization of the human species, there is not "one" but there are
"several" human societies. Humanity therefore exists solely as a biological
concept not as a social one.
Each society on the other hand exists in the unity of both its biological
and its social contents. Socially considered it is a fraction of the human
species endowed with unity of organization for the attainment of the
peculiar ends of the species.
This definition brings out all the elements of the social phenomenon and
not merely those relating to the preservation and perpetuation of the
species. For man is not solely matter; and the ends of the human species, far
from being the materialistic ones we have in common with other animals,
are, rather, and predominantly, the spiritual finalities which are peculiar to
man and which every form of society strives to attain as well as its stage of
social development allows. Thus the organization of every social group is
more or less pervaded by the spiritual influxes of: unity of language, of
culture, of religion, of tradition, of customs, and in general of feeling and of
volition, which are as essential as the material elements: unity of economic
interests, of living conditions, and of territory. The definition given above

demonstrates another truth, which has been ignored by the political
doctrines that for the last four centuries have been the foundations of
political systems, viz., that the social concept has a biological aspect,
because social groups are fractions of the human species, each one
possessing a peculiar organization, a particular rank in the development of
civilization with certain needs and appropriate ends, in short, a life which is
really its own. If social groups are then fractions of the human species, they
must possess the same fundamental traits of the human species, which
means that they must be considered as a succession of generations and not
as a collection of individuals.
It is evident therefore that as the human species is not the total of the
living human beings of the world, so the various social groups which
compose it are not the sum of the several individuals which at a given
moment belong to it, but rather the infinite series of the past, present, and
future generations constituting it. And as the ends of the human species are
not those of the several individuals living at a certain moment, being
occasionally in direct opposition to them, so the ends of the various social
groups are not necessarily those of the individuals that belong to the groups
but may even possibly be in conflict with such ends, as one sees clearly
whenever the preservation and the development of the species demand the
sacrifice of the individual, to wit, in times of war.
Fascism replaces therefore the old atomistic and mechanical state theory
which was at the basis of the liberal and democratic doctrines with an
organic and historic concept. When I say organic I do not wish to convey
the impression that I consider society as an organism after the manner of the
so-called "organic theories of the state"; but rather to indicate that the social
groups as fractions of the species receive thereby a life and scope which
transcend the scope and life of the individuals identifying themselves with
the history and finalities of the uninterrupted series of generations. It is
irrelevant in this connection to determine whether social groups, considered
as fractions of the species, constitute organisms. The important thing is to
ascertain that this organic concept of the state gives to society a continuous
life over and beyond the existence of the several individuals.
The relations therefore between state and citizens are completely
reversed by the Fascist doctrine. Instead of the liberal-democratic formula,

"society for the individual," we have, "individuals for society" with this
difference however: that while the liberal doctrines eliminated society,
Fascism does not submerge the individual in the social group. It
subordinates him, but does not eliminate him; the individual as a part of his
generation ever remaining an element of society however transient and
insignificant he may be. Moreover the development of individuals in each
generation, when coordinated and harmonized, conditions the development
and prosperity of the entire social unit.
At this juncture the antithesis between the two theories must appear
complete and absolute. Liberalism, Democracy, and Socialism look upon
social groups as aggregates of living individuals; for Fascism they are the
recapitulating unity of the indefinite series of generations. For Liberalism,
society has no purposes other than those of the members living at a given
moment. For Fascism, society has historical and immanent ends of
preservation, expansion, improvement, quite distinct from those of the
individuals which at a given moment compose it; so distinct in fact that they
may even be in opposition. Hence the necessity, for which the older
doctrines make little allowance, of sacrifice, even up to the total immolation
of individuals, in behalf of society; hence the true explanation of war,
eternal law of mankind, interpreted by the liberal-democratic doctrines as a
degenerate absurdity or as a maddened monstrosity.
For Liberalism, society has no life distinct from the life of the
individuals, or as the phrase goes: solvitur in singularitates. For Fascism,
the life of society overlaps the existence of individuals and projects itself
into the succeeding generations through centuries and millennia. Individuals
come into being, grow, and die, followed by others, unceasingly; social
unity remains always identical to itself. For Liberalism, the individual is the
end and society the means; nor is it conceivable that the individual,
considered in the dignity of an ultimate finality, be lowered to mere
instrumentality. For Fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and
its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends.
The state therefore guards and protects the welfare and development of
individuals not for their exclusive interest, but because of the identity of the
needs of individuals with those of society as a whole. We can thus accept
and explain institutions and practices, which like the death penalty, are
condemned by Liberalism in the name of the preeminence of individualism.

The fundamental problem of society in the old doctrines is the question
of the rights of individuals. It may be the right to freedom as the Liberals
would have it; or the right to the government of the commonwealth as the
Democrats claim it, or the right to economic justice as the Socialists
contend; but in every case it is the right of individuals, or groups of
individuals (classes). Fascism on the other hand faces squarely the problem
of the right of the state and of the duty of individuals. Individual rights are
only recognized in so far as they are implied in the rights of the state. In this
preeminence of duty we find the highest ethical value of Fascism.

The Problems of Liberty, of Government, and of Social Justice in the
Political Doctrine of Fascism

This, however, does not mean that the problems raised by the other
schools are ignored by Fascism. It means simply that it faces them and
solves them differently, as, for example, the problem of liberty.
There is a Liberal theory of freedom, and there is a Fascist concept of
liberty. For we, too, maintain the necessity of safeguarding the conditions
that make for the free development of the individual; we, too, believe that
the oppression of individual personality can find no place in the modern
state. We do not, however, accept a bill of rights which tends to make the
individual superior to the state and to empower him to act in opposition to
society. Our concept of liberty is that the individual must be allowed to
develop his personality in behalf of the state, for these ephemeral and
infinitesimal elements of the complex and permanent life of society
determine by their normal growth the development of the state. But this
individual growth must be normal. A huge and disproportionate
development of the individual of classes, would prove as fatal to society as
abnormal growths are to living organisms. Freedom therefore is due to the
citizen and to classes on condition that they exercise it in the interest of
society as a whole and within the limits set by social exigencies, liberty
being, like any other individual right, a concession of the state. What I say
concerning civil liberties applies to economic freedom as well. Fascism
does not look upon the doctrine of economic liberty as an absolute dogma.
It does not refer economic problems to individual needs, to individual

interest, to individual solutions. On the contrary it considers the economic
development, and especially the production of wealth, as an eminently
social concern, wealth being for society an essential element of power and
prosperity. But Fascism maintains that in the ordinary run of events
economic liberty serves the social purposes best; that it is profitable to
entrust to individual initiative the task of economic development both as to
production and as to distribution; that in the economic world individual
ambition is the most effective means for obtaining the best social results
with the least effort. Therefore, on the question also of economic liberty the
Fascists differ fundamentally from the Liberals; the latter see in liberty a
principle, the the Fascists accept it as a method. By the Liberals, freedom is
recognized in the interest of the citizens; the Fascists grant it in the interest
of society. In other terms, Fascists make of the individual an economic
instrument for the advancement of society, an instrument which they use so
long as it functions and which they subordinate when no longer serviceable.
In this guise Fascism solves the eternal problem of economic freedom and
of state interference, considering both as mere methods which may or may
not be employed in accordance with the social needs of the moment.
What I have said concerning political and economic Liberalism applies
also to Democracy. The latter envisages fundamentally the problem of
sovereignty; Fascism does also, but in an entirely different manner.
Democracy vests sovereignty in the people, that is to say, in the mass of
human beings. Fascism discovers sovereignty to be inherent in society
when it is juridically organized as a state. Democracy therefore turns over
the government of the state to the multitude of living men that they may use
it to further their own interests; Fascism insists that the government be
entrusted to men capable of rising above their own private interests and of
realizing the aspirations of the social collectivity, considered in its unity and
in its relation to the past and future. Fascism therefore not only rejects the
dogma of popular sovereignty and substitutes for it that of state sovereignty,
but it also proclaims that the great mass of citizens is not a suitable
advocate of social interests for the reason that the capacity to ignore
individual private interests in favor of the higher demands of society and of
history is a very rare gift and the privilege of the chosen few. Natural
intelligence and cultural preparation are of great service in such tasks. Still
more valuable perhaps is the intuitiveness of rare great minds, their

traditionalism and their inherited qualities. This must not however be
construed to mean that the masses are not to be allowed to exercise any
influence on the life of the state. On the contrary, among peoples with a
great history and with noble traditions, even the lowest elements of society
possess an instinctive discernment of what is necessary for the welfare of
the race, which in moments of great historical crises reveals itself to be
almost infallible. It is therefore as wise to afford to this instinct the means
of declaring itself as it is judicious to entrust the normal control of the
commonwealth to a selected élite.
As for Socialism, the Fascist doctrine frankly recognizes that the problem
raised by it as to the relations between capital and labor is a very serious
one, perhaps the central one of modern life. What Fascism does not
countenance is the collectivistic solution proposed by the Socialists. The
chief defect of the socialistic method has been clearly demonstrated by the
experience of the last few years. It does not take into account human nature,
it is therefore outside of reality, in that it will not recognize that the most
powerful spring of human activities lies in individual self-interest and that
therefore the elimination from the economic field of this interest results in
complete paralysis. The suppression of private ownership of capital carries
with it the suppression of capital itself, for capital is formed by savings and
no one will want to save, but will rather consume all he makes if he knows
he cannot keep and hand down to his heirs the results of his labors. The
dispersion of capital means the end of production since capital, no matter
who owns it, is always an indispensable tool of production. Collective
organization of production is followed therefore by the paralysis of
production since, by eliminating from the productive mechanism the
incentive of individual interest, the product becomes rarer and more costly.
Socialism then, as experience has shown, leads to increase in consumption,
to the dispersion of capital and therefore to poverty. Of what avail is it,
then, to build a social machine which will more justly distribute wealth if
this very wealth is destroyed by the construction of this machine? Socialism
committed an irreparable error when it made of private property a matter of
justice while in truth it is a problem of social utility. The recognition of
individual property rights, then, is a part of the Fascist doctrine not because
of its individual bearing but because of its social utility.

We must reject, therefore, the socialistic solution but we cannot allow the
problem raised by the Socialists to remain unsolved, not only because
justice demands a solution but also because the persistence of this problem
in liberal and democratic régimes has been a menace to public order and to
the authority of the state. Unlimited and unrestrained class self-defense,
evinced by strikes and lockouts, by boycotts and sabotage, leads inevitably
to anarchy. The Fascist doctrine, enacting justice among the classes in
compliance with a fundamental necessity of modern life, does away with
class self-defense, which, like individual self-defense in the days of
barbarism, is a source of disorder and of civil war.
Having reduced the problem of these terms, only one solution is possible,
the realization of justice among the classes by and through the state.
Centuries ago the state, as the specific organ of justice, abolished personal
self-defense in individual controversies and substituted for it state justice.
The time has now come when class self-defense also must be replaced by
state justice. To facilitate the change Fascism has created its own
syndicalism. The suppression of class self-defense does not mean the
suppression of class defense which is an inalienable necessity of modern
economic life. Class organization is a fact which cannot be ignored but it
must be controlled, disciplined, and subordinated by the state. The
syndicate, instead of being, as formerly, an organ of extra-legal defense,
must be turned into an organ of legal defense which will become judicial
defense as soon as labor conflicts become a matter of judicial settlement.
Fascism therefore has transformed the syndicate, that old revolutionary
instrument of syndicalistic socialists, into an instrument of legal defense of
the classes both within and without the law courts. This solution may
encounter obstacles in its development; the obstacles of malevolence, of
suspicion of the untried, of erroneous calculation, etc., but it is destined to
triumph even though it must advance through progressive stages.

Historical Value of the Doctrine of Fascism

I might carry this analysis farther but what I have already said is
sufficient to show that the rise of a Fascist ideology already gives evidence
of an upheaval in the intellectual field as powerful as the change that was

brought about in the XVII and XVIII centuries by the rise and diffusion of
those doctrines of ius naturale which go under the name of "Philosophy of
the French Revolution." The philosophy of the French Revolution
formulated certain principles, the authority of which, unquestioned for a
century and a half, seemed so final that they were given the attribute of
immortality. The influence of these principles was so great that they
determined the formation of a new culture, of a new civilization. Likewise
the fervor of the ideas that go to make up the Fascist doctrine, now in its
inception but destined to spread rapidly, will determine the course of a new
culture and of a new conception of civil life. The deliverance of the
individual from the state carried out in the XVIII century will be followed
in the XX century by the rescue of the state from the individual. The period
of authority, of social obligations, of "hierarchical" subordination will
succeed the period of individualism, of state feebleness, of insubordination.
This innovating trend is not and cannot be a return to the Middle Ages. It
is a common but an erroneous belief that the movement, started by the
Reformation and heightened by the French Revolution, was directed against
mediaeval ideas and institutions. Rather than as a negation, this movement
should be looked upon as the development and fulfillment of the doctrines
and practices of the Middle Ages. Socially and politically considered the
Middle Ages wrought disintegration and anarchy; they were characterized
by the gradual weakening and ultimate extinction of the state, embodied in
the Roman Empire, driven first to the East, then back to France, thence to
Germany, a shadow of its former self; they were marked by the steady
advance of the forces of usurpation, destructive of the state and reciprocally
obnoxious; they bore the imprints of a triumphant particularism. Therefore
the individualistic and anti-social movement of the XVII and XVIII
centuries was not directed against the Middle Ages, but rather against the
restoration of the state by great national monarchies. If this movement
destroyed mediaeval institutions that had survived the Middle Ages and had
been grafted upon the new states, it was in consequence of the struggle
primarily waged against the state. The spirit of the movement was decidedly
mediaeval. The novelty consisted in the social surroundings in which it
operated and in its relation to new economic developments. The
individualism of the feudal lords, the particularism of the cities and of the

corporations had been replaced by the individualism and the particularism
of the bourgeoisie and of the popular classes.
The Fascist ideology cannot therefore look back to the Middle Ages, of
which it is a complete negation. The Middle Ages spell disintegration;
Fascism is nothing if not sociality. It is if anything the beginning of the end
of the Middle Ages prolonged four centuries beyond the end ordinarily set
for them and revived by the social democratic anarchy of the past thirty
years. If Fascism can be said to look back at all it is rather in the direction
of ancient Rome whose social and political traditions at the distance of
fifteen centuries are being revived by Fascist Italy.
I am fully aware that the value of Fascism, as an intellectual movement,
baffles the minds of many of its followers and supporters and is denied
outright by its enemies. There is no malice in this denial, as I see it, but
rather an incapacity to comprehend. The liberal-democratic-socialistic
ideology has so completely and for so long a time dominated Italian culture
that in the minds of the majority of people trained by it, it has assumed the
value of an absolute truth, almost the authority of a natural law. Every
faculty of self-criticism is suppressed in the minds and this suppression
entails an incapacity for understanding that time alone can change. It will be
advisable therefore to rely mainly upon the new generations and in general
upon persons whose culture is not already fixed. This difficulty to
comprehend on the part of those who have been thoroughly grounded by a
different preparation in the political and social sciences explains in part why
Fascism has not been wholly successful with the intellectual classes and
with mature minds, and why on the other hand it has been very successful
with young people, with women, in rural districts, and among men of action
unencumbered by a fixed and set social and political education. Fascism
moreover, as a cultural movement, is just now taking its first steps. As in
the case with all great movements, action regularly outstrips thought. It was
thus at the time of the Protestant Reformation and of the individualistic
reaction of the XVII and XVIII centuries. The English revolution occurred
when the doctrines of natural law were coming into being and the
theoretical development of the liberal and democratic theories followed the
French Revolution.

At this point it will not be very difficult to assign a fitting place in history
to this great trend of thought which is called Fascism and which, in spite of
the initial difficulties, already gives clear indication of the magnitude of its
developments.
The liberal-democratic speculation both in its origin and in the manner of
its development appears to be essentially a non-Italian formation. Its
connection with the Middle Ages already shows it to be foreign to the Latin
mind, the mediaeval disintegration being the result of the triumph of
Germanic individualism over the political mentality of the Romans. The
barbarians, boring from within and hacking from without, pulled down the
great political structure raised by Latin genius and put nothing in its place.
Anarchy lasted eight centuries during which time only one institution
survived and that a Roman one—the Catholic Church. But, as soon as the
laborious process of reconstruction was started with the constitution of the
great national states backed by the Roman Church the Protestant
Reformation set in followed by the individualistic currents of the XVII and
XVIII centuries, and the process of disintegration was started anew. This
anti-state tendency was the expression of the Germanic spirit and it
therefore became predominant among the Germanic peoples and wherever
Germanism had left a deep imprint even if afterward superficially covered
by a veneer of Latin culture. It is true that Marsilius from Padua is an Italian
writing for Ludwig the Bavarian, but the other writers who in the XIV
century appear as forerunners of the liberal doctrines are not Italians:
Occam and Wycliff are English; Oresme is French. Among the advocates of
individualism in the XVI century who prepared the way for the triumph of
the doctrines of natural law in the subsequent centuries, Hotman and
Languet are French, Buchanan is Scotch. Of the great authorities of natural
law, Grotius and Spinosa are Dutch; Locke is English; l'Abbé de St. Pierre,
Montesquieu, d'Argenson, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and the
encyclopaedists are French; Althusius, Pufendorf, Kant, Fichte are German.
Italy took no part in the rise and development of the doctrines of natural
law. Only in the XIX century did she evince a tardy interest in these
doctrines, just as she tardily contributed to them at the dose of the XVIII
century through the works of Beccaria and Filangeri.

While therefore in other countries such as France, England, Germany,
and Holland, the general tradition in the social and political sciences
worked in behalf of anti-state individualism, and therefore of liberal and
democratic doctrines, Italy, on the other hand, clung to the powerful legacy
of its past in virtue of which she proclaims the rights of the state, the
preeminence of its authority, and the superiority of its ends. The very fact
that the Italian political doctrine in the Middle Ages linked itself with the
great political writers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle, who in a different
manner but with an equal firmness advocated a strong state and the
subordination of individuals to it, is a sufficient index of the orientation of
political philosophy in Italy. We all know how thorough and crushing the
authority of Aristotle was in the Middle Ages. But for Aristotle the spiritual
cement of the state is "virtue" not absolute virtue but political virtue, which
is social devotion. His state is made up solely of its citizens, the citizens
being either those who defend it with their arms or who govern it as
magistrates. All others who provide it with the materials and services it
needs are not citizens. They become such only in the corrupt forms of
certain democracies. Society is therefore divided into two classes, the free
men or citizens who give their time to noble and virtuous occupations and
who profess their subjection to the state, and the laborers and slaves who
work for the maintenance of the former. No man in this scheme is his own
master. The slaves belong to the freemen, and the freemen belong to the
state.
It was therefore natural that St. Thomas Aquinas the greatest political
writer of the Middle Ages should emphasize the necessity of unity in the
political field, the harm of plurality of rulers, the dangers and damaging
effects of demagogy. The good of the state, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is
unity. And who can procure unity more fittingly than he who is himself
one? Moreover the government must follow, as far as possible, the course
of nature and in nature power is always one. In the physical body only one
organ is dominant—the heart; in the spirit only one faculty has sway—
reason. Bees have one sole ruler; and the entire universe one sole sovereign
—God. Experience shows that the countries, which are ruled by many,
perish because of discord while those that are ruled over by one enjoy
peace, justice, and plenty. The States which are not ruled by one are
troubled by dissensions, and toil unceasingly. On the contrary the states

which are ruled over by one king enjoy peace, thrive in justice and are
gladdened by affluence.[2] The rule of the multitudes can not be sanctioned,
for where the crowd rules it oppresses the rich as would a tyrant.[3]
Italy in the Middle Ages presented a curious phenomenon: while in
practice the authority of the state was being dissolved into a multiplicity of
competing sovereignties, the theory of state unity and authority was kept
alive in the minds of thinkers by the memories of the Roman Imperial
tradition. It was this memory that supported for centuries the fiction of the
universal Roman Empire when in reality it existed no longer. Dante's De
Monarchia deduced the theory of this empire conceived as the unity of a
strong state. "Quod potest fieri per unum melius est per unum fieri quam
plura," he says in the XIV chapter of the first book, and further on,
considering the citizen as an instrument for the attainment of the ends of the
state, he concludes that the individual must sacrifice himself for his country.
"Si pars debet se exponere pro salute totius, cum homo siti pars quaedam
civitatis ... homo pro patria debet exponere se ipsum." (lib. II. 8).
The Roman tradition, which was one of practice but not of theories—for
Rome constructed the most solid state known to history with extraordinary
statesmanship but with hardly any political writings—influenced
considerably the founder of modern political science, Nicolo Machiavelli,
who was himself in truth not a creator of doctrines but a keen observer of
human nature who derived from the study of history practical maxims of
political import. He freed the science of politics from the formalism of the
scholastics and brought it close to concrete reality. His writings, an
inexhaustible mine of practical remarks and precious observations, reveal
dominant in him the state idea, no longer abstract but in the full historical
concreteness of the national unity of Italy. Machiavelli therefore is not only
the greatest of modern political writers, he is also the greatest of our
countrymen in full possession of a national Italian consciousness. To
liberate Italy, which was in his day "enslaved, torn and pillaged," and to
make her more powerful, he would use any means, for to his mind the
holiness of the end justified them completely. In this he was sharply
rebuked by foreigners who were not as hostile to his means as they were
fearful of the end which he propounded. He advocated therefore the
constitution of a strong Italian state, supported by the sacrifices and by the
blood of the citizens, not defended by mercenary troops; well-ordered

internally, aggressive and bent on expansion. "Weak republics," he said,
"have no determination and can never reach a decision." (Disc. I. c. 38).
"Weak states were ever dubious in choosing their course, and slow
deliberations are always harmful." (Disc. I. c. 10). And again: "Whoso
undertakes to govern a multitude either in a régime of liberty or in a
monarchy, without previously making sure of those who are hostile to the
new order of things builds a short-lived state." (Disc. I. c. 16). And further
on "the dictatorial authority helped and did not harm the Roman republic"
(Disc. I. c. 34), and "Kings and republics lacking in national troops both for
offense and defense should be ashamed of their existence." (Disc. I. c. 21).
And again: "Money not only does not protect you but rather it exposes you
to plundering assaults. Nor can there be a more false opinion than that
which says that money is the sinews of war. Not money but good soldiers
win battles." (Disc. I. II. c. 10). "The country must be defended with
ignominy or with glory and in either way it is nobly defended." (Disc. III. c.
41). "And with dash and boldness people often capture what they never
would have obtained by ordinary means." (Disc. III. c. 44). Machiavelli was
not only a great political authority, he taught the mastery of energy and will.
Fascism learns from him not only its doctrines but its action as well.
Different from Machiavelli's, in mental attitude, in cultural preparation,
and in manner of presentation, G.B. Vico must yet be connected with the
great Florentine from whom in a certain way he seems to proceed. In the
heyday of "natural law" Vico is decidedly opposed to ius naturale and in his
attacks against its advocates, Grotius, Seldenus and Pufendorf, he
systematically assails the abstract, rationalistic, and utilitarian principles of
the XVIII century. As Montemayor justly says:[4] "While the 'natural
jurists', basing justice and state on utility and interest and grounding human
certitude on reason, were striving to draft permanent codes and construct
the perfect state, Vico strongly asserted the social nature of man, the ethical
character of the juridical consciousness and its growth through the history
of humanity rather than in sacred history. Vico therefore maintains that
doctrines must begin with those subjects which take up and explain the
entire course of civilization. Experience and not ratiocination, history and
not reason must help human wisdom to understand the civil and political
regimes which were the result not of reason or philosophy, but rather of
common sense, or if you will of the social consciousness of man" and

farther on (pages 373-374), "to Vico we owe the conception of history in its
fullest sense as magistra vitae, the search after the humanity of history, the
principle which makes the truth progress with time, the discovery of the
political 'course' of nations. It is Vico who uttered the eulogy of the
patrician 'heroic hearts' of the 'patres patriae' first founders of states,
magnanimous defenders of the commonwealth and wise counsellors of
politics. To Vico we owe the criticism of democracies, the affirmation of
their brief existence, of their rapid disintegration at the hands of factions
and demagogues, of their lapse first into anarchy, then into monarchy, when
their degradation does not make them a prey of foreign oppressors. Vico
conceived of civil liberty as subjection to law, as just subordination, of the
private to the public interests, to the sway of the state. It was Vico who
sketched modern society as a world of nations each one guarding its own
imperium, fighting just and not inhuman wars. In Vico therefore we find the
condemnation of pacifism, the assertion that right is actualized by bodily
force, that without force, right is of no avail, and that therefore 'qui ab
iniuriis se tueri non potest servus est.'"
It is not difficult to discern the analogies between these affirmations and
the fundamental views and the spirit of Fascism. Nor should we marvel at
this similarity. Fascism, a strictly Italian phenomenon, has its roots in the
Risorgimento and the Risorgimento was influenced undoubtedly by Vico.
It would be inexact to affirm that the philosophy of Vico dominated the
Risorgimento. Too many elements of German, French, and English
civilizations had been added to our culture during the first half of the XIX
century to make this possible, so much so that perhaps Vico might have
remained unknown to the makers of Italian unity if another powerful mind
from Southern Italy, Vincenzo Cuoco, had not taken it upon himself to
expound the philosophy of Vico in those very days in which the intellectual
preparation of the Risorgimento was being carried on.
An adequate account of Cuoco's doctrines would carry me too far.
Montemayor, in the article quoted above, gives them considerable attention.
He quotes among other things Cuoco's arraignment of Democracy: "Italy
has fared badly at the hand of Democracy which has withered to their roots
the three sacred plants of liberty, unity, and independence. If we wish to see
these trees flourish again let us protect them in the future from Democracy."

The influence of Cuoco, an exile at Milan, exerted through his writings,
his newspaper articles, and Vichian propaganda, on the Italian patriots is
universally recognized. Among the regular readers of his Giornale Italiano
we find Monti and Foscolo. Clippings of his articles were treasured by
Mazzini and Manzoni, who often acted as his secretary, called him his
"master in politics." [5]
The influence of the Italian tradition summed up and handed down by
Cuoco was felt by Mazzini whose interpretation of the function of the
citizen as duty and mission is to be connected with Vico's doctrine rather
than with the philosophic and political doctrines of the French Revolution.
"Training for social duty," said Mazzini, "is essentially and logically
unitarian. Life for it is but a duty, a mission. The norm and definition of
such mission can only be found in a collective term superior to all the
individuals of the country—in the people, in the nation. If there is a
collective mission, a communion of duty ... it can only be represented in the
national unity." [6] And farther on: "The declaration of rights, which all
constitutions insist in copying slavishly from the French, express only those
of the period ... which considered the individual as the end and pointed out
only one half of the problem" and again, "assume the existence of one of
those crises that threaten the life of the nation, and demand the active
sacrifice of all its sons ... will you ask the citizens to face martyrdom in
virtue of their rights? You have taught men that society was solely
constituted to guarantee their rights and now you ask them to sacrifice one
and all, to suffer and die for the safety of the 'nation?'"[7]
In Mazzini's conception of the citizen as instrument for the attainment of
the nation's ends and therefore submissive to a higher mission, to the duty
of supreme sacrifice, we see the anticipation of one of the fundamental
points of the Fascist doctrine.
Unfortunately, the autonomy of the political thought of Italy, vigorously
established in the works of Vico, nobly reclaimed by Vincenzo Cuoco, kept
up during the struggles of the Risorgimento in spite of the many foreign
influences of that period, seemed to exhaust itself immediately after the
unification. Italian political thought which had been original in times of
servitude, became enslaved in the days of freedom.

A powerful innovating movement, issuing from the war and of which
Fascism is the purest expression, was to restore Italian thought in the sphere
of political doctrine to its own traditions which are the traditions of Rome.
This task of intellectual liberation, now slowly being accomplished, is no
less important than the political deliverance brought about by the Fascist
Revolution. It is a great task which continues and integrates the
Risorgimento; it is now bringing to an end, after the cessation of our
political servitude, the intellectual dependence of Italy.
Thanks to it, Italy again speaks to the world and the world listens to Italy.
It is a great task and a great deed and it demands great efforts. To carry it
through, we must, each one of us, free ourselves of the dross of ideas and
mental habits which two centuries of foreign intellectualistic tradition have
heaped upon us; we must not only take on a new culture but create for
ourselves a new soul. We must methodically and patiently contribute
something towards the organic and complete elaboration of our doctrine, at
the same time supporting it both at home and abroad with untiring devotion.
We ask this effort of renovation and collaboration of all Fascists, as well as
of all who feel themselves to be Italians. After the hour of sacrifice comes
the hour of unyielding efforts. To our work, then, fellow countrymen, for
the glory of Italy!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Translated from the Italian.

[2] "civitates quae non reguntur ab uno dissenionibus laborant et
absque pace fluctuant. E contrario civitates quae sub uno rege
reguntur pace gaudent, iustitia florent et affluentia rerum
laetantur." (De reg. princ. I. c. 2).

[3] "ideo manifustum est, quod multitudo est sicut tyrannuus,
quare operationes multitudinis sunt iniustae. ergo non expedit
multitudinem dominari." (Comm. In Polit. L. III. lectio VIII).

[4] Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto V. 351.

[5] Montemayor. Riv. Int. etc. p. 370.

[6] della unità italiana. Scritti, Vol. III.

[7] I sistemi e la democrazia. Scritti, Vol. VII.

THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF FASCISM
ToC

by

Giovanni Gentile

For the Italian nation the World War was the solution of a deep spiritual
crisis. They willed and fought it long before they felt and evaluated it. But
they willed, fought, felt and evaluated it in a certain spirit which Italy's
generals and statesmen exploited, but which also worked on them,
conditioning their policies and their action. The spirit in question was not
altogether clear and self-consistent. That it lacked unanimity was
particularly apparent just before and again just after the war when feelings
were not subject to war discipline. It was as though the Italian character
were crossed by two different currents which divided it into two
irreconcilable sections. One need think only of the days of Italian neutrality
and of the debates that raged between Interventionists and Neutralists. The
ease with which the most inconsistent ideas were pressed into service by
both parties showed that the issue was not between two opposing political

opinions, two conflicting concepts of history, but actually between two
different temperaments, two different souls.
For one kind of person the important point was to fight the war, either on
the side of Germany or against Germany: but in either event to fight the
war, without regard to specific advantages—to fight the war in order that at
last the Italian nation, created rather by favoring conditions than by the will
of its people to be a nation, might receive its test in blood, such a test as
only war can bring by uniting all citizens in a single thought, a single
passion, a single hope, emphasizing to each individual that all have
something in common, something transcending private interests.
This was the very thing that frightened the other kind of person, the
prudent man, the realist, who had a clear view of the mortal risks a young,
inexperienced, badly prepared nation would be running in such a war, and
who also saw—a most significant point—that, all things considered, a
bargaining neutrality would surely win the country tangible rewards, as
great as victorious participation itself.
The point at issue was just that: the Italian Neutralists stood for material
advantages, advantages tangible, ponderable, palpable; the Interventionists
stood for moral advantages, intangible, impalpable, imponderable—
imponderable at least on the scales used by their antagonists. On the eve of
the war these two Italian characters stood facing each other, scowling and
irreconcilable—the one on the aggressive, asserting itself ever more
forcefully through the various organs of public opinion; the other on the
defensive, offering resistance through the Parliament which in those days
still seemed to be the basic repository of State sovereignty. Civil conflict
seemed inevitable in Italy, and civil war was in fact averted only because
the King took advantage of one of his prerogatives and declared war against
the Central Powers.
This act of the King was the first decisive step toward the solution of the
crisis.

II

The crisis had ancient origins. Its roots sank deep into the inner spirit of
the Italian people.
What were the creative forces of the Risorgimento? The "Italian people,"
to which some historians are now tending to attribute an important if not a
decisive role in our struggle for national unity and independence, was
hardly on the scene at all. The active agency was always an idea become a
person—it was one or several determined wills which were fixed on
determined goals. There can be no question that the birth of modern Italy
was the work of the few. And it could not be otherwise. It is always the few
who represent the self-consciousness and the will of an epoch and
determine what its history shall be; for it is they who see the forces at their
disposal and through those forces actuate the one truly active and
productive force—their own will.
That will we find in the song of the poets and the ideas of the political
writers, who know how to use a language harmonious with a universal
sentiment or with a sentiment capable of becoming universal. In the case of
Italy, in all our bards, philosophers and leaders, from Alfieri to Foscolo,
from Leopardi to Manzoni, from Mazzini to Gioberti, we are able to pick up
the threads of a new fabric, which is a new kind of thought, a new kind of
soul, a new kind of Italy. This new Italy differed from the old Italy in
something that was very simple but yet was of the greatest importance: this
new Italy took life seriously, while the old one did not. People in every age
had dreamed of an Italy and talked of an Italy. The notion of Italy had been
sung in all kinds of music, propounded in all kinds of philosophy. But it
was always an Italy that existed in the brain of some scholar whose learning
was more or less divorced from reality. Now reality demands that
convictions be taken seriously, that ideas become actions. Accordingly it
was necessary that this Italy, which was an affair of brains only, become
also an affair of hearts, become, that is, something serious, something alive.
This, and no other, was the meaning of Mazzini's great slogan: "Thought
and Action." It was the essence of the great revolution which he preached
and which he accomplished by instilling his doctrine into the hearts of
others. Not many others—a small minority! But they were numerous
enough and powerful enough to raise the question where it could be
answered—in Italian public opinion (taken in conjunction with the political
situation prevailing in the rest of Europe). They were able to establish the

doctrine that life is not a game, but a mission; that, therefore, the individual
has a law and a purpose in obedience to which and in fulfillment of which
he alone attains his true value; that, accordingly, he must make sacrifices,
now of personal comfort, now of private interest, now of life itself.
No revolution ever possessed more markedly than did the Italian
Risorgimento this characteristic of ideality, of thought preceding action. Our
revolt was not concerned with the material needs of life, nor did it spring
from elementary and widely diffused sentiments breaking out in popular
uprisings and mass disturbances. The movements of 1847 and 1848 were
demonstrations, as we would say today, of "intellectuals"; they were efforts
toward a goal on the part of a minority of patriots who were standard
bearers of an ideal and were driving governments and peoples toward its
attainment. Idealism—understood as faith in the advent of an ideal reality,
as a manner of conceiving life not as fixed within the limits of existing fact,
but as incessant progress and transformation toward the level of a higher
law which controls men with the very force of the idea—was the sum and
substance of Mazzini's teaching; and it supplied the most conspicuous
characteristic of our great Italian revolution. In this sense all the patriots
who worked for the foundation of the new kingdom were Mazzinians—
Gioberti, Cavour, Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi. To be sure, our writers of
the first rank, such as Manzoni and Rosmini, had no historical connection
with Mazzini; but they had the same general tendency as Mazzini. Working
along diverging lines, they all came together on the essential point: that true
life is not the life which is, but also the life which ought to be. It was a
conviction essentially religious in character, essentially anti-materialistic.

III

This religious and idealistic manner of looking at life, so characteristic of
the Risorgimento, prevails even beyond the heroic age of the revolution and
the establishment of the Kingdom. It survives down through Ricasoli,
Lanza, Sella and Minghetti, down, that is, to the occupation of Rome and
the systemization of our national finances. The parliamentary overturn of
1876, indeed, marks not the end, but rather an interruption, on the road that
Italy had been following since the beginning of the century. The outlook

then changed, and not by the capriciousness or weakness of men, but by a
necessity of history which it would be idiotic in our day to deplore. At that
time the fall of the Right, which had ruled continuously between 1861 and
1876, seemed to most people the real conquest of freedom.
To be sure the Right cannot be accused of too great scruple in respecting
the liberties guaranteed by our Constitution; but the real truth was that the
Right conceived liberty in a sense directly opposite to the notions of the
Left. The Left moved from the individual to the State: the Right moved
from the State to the individual. The men of the left thought of "the people"
as merely the agglomerate of the citizens composing it. They therefore
made the individual the center and the point of departure of all the rights
and prerogatives which a régime of freedom was bound to respect.
The men of the Right, on the contrary, were firmly set in the notion that
no freedom can be conceived except within the State, that freedom can have
no important content apart from a solid régime of law indisputably
sovereign over the activities and the interests of individuals. For the Right
there could be no individual freedom not reconcilable with the authority of
the State. In their eyes the general interest was always paramount over
private interests. The law, therefore, should have absolute efficacy and
embrace the whole life of the people.
This conception of the Right was evidently sound; but it involved great
dangers when applied without regard to the motives which provoked it.
Unless we are careful, too much law leads to stasis and therefore to the
annihilation of the life which it is the State's function to regulate but which
the State cannot suppress. The State may easily become a form indifferent
to its content—something extraneous to the substance it would regulate. If
the law comes upon the individual from without, if the individual is not
absorbed in the life of the State, the individual feels the law and the State as
limitations on his activity, as chains which will eventually strangle him
unless he can break them down.
This was just the feeling of the men of '76. The country needed a breath
of air. Its moral, economic, and social forces demanded the right to develop
without interference from a law which took no account of them. This was
the historical reason for the overturn of that year; and with the transference

of power from Right to Left begins the period of growth and development
in our nation: economic growth in industry, commerce, railroads,
agriculture; intellectual growth in science, education. The nation had
received its form from above. It had now to struggle to its new level, giving
to a State which already had its constitution, its administrative and political
organization, its army and its finance, a living content of forces springing
from individual initiative prompted by interests which the Risorgimento,
absorbed in its great ideals, had either neglected or altogether disregarded.
The accomplishment of this constitutes the credit side of the balance
sheet of King Humbert I. It was the error of King Humbert's greatest
minister, Francesco Crispi, not to have understood his age. Crispi strove
vigorously to restore the authority and the prestige of the State as against an
individualism gone rampant, to reassert religious ideals as against
triumphant materialism. He fell, therefore, before the assaults of so-called
democracy.
Crispi was wrong. That was not the moment for re-hoisting the time-
honored banner of idealism. At that time there could be no talk of wars, of
national dignity, of competition with the Great Powers; no talk of setting
limits to personal liberties in the interests of the abstract entity called
"State." The word "God," which Crispi sometimes used, was singularly out
of place. It was a question rather of bringing the popular classes to
prosperity, self-consciousness, participation in political life. Campaigns
against illiteracy, all kinds of social legislation, the elimination of the clergy
from the public schools, which must be secular and anti-clerical! During
this period Freemasonry became solidly established in the bureaucracy, the
army, the judiciary. The central power of the State was weakened and made
subservient to the fleeting variations of popular will as reflected in a
suffrage absolved from all control from above. The growth of big industry
favored the rise of a socialism of Marxian stamp as a new kind of moral and
political education for our proletariat. The conception of humanity was not
indeed lost from view: but such moral restraints as were placed on the free
individual were all based on the feeling that each man must instinctively
seek his own well-being and defend it. This was the very conception which
Mazzini had fought in socialism, though he rightly saw that it was not
peculiar to socialism alone, but belonged to any political theory, whether

liberal, democratic, or anti-socialistic, which urges men toward the exaction
of rights rather than to the fulfillment of duties.
From 1876 till the Great War, accordingly, we had an Italy that was
materialistic and anti-Mazzinian, though an Italy far superior to the Italy of
and before Mazzini's time. All our culture, whether in the natural or the
moral sciences, in letters or in the arts, was dominated by a crude
positivism, which conceived of the reality in which we live as something
given, something ready-made, and which therefore limits and conditions
human activity quite apart from so-called arbitrary and illusory demands of
morality. Everybody wanted "facts," "positive facts." Everybody laughed at
"metaphysical dreams," at impalpable realities. The truth was there before
the eyes of men. They had only to open their eyes to see it. The Beautiful
itself could only be the mirror of the Truth present before us in Nature.
Patriotism, like all the other virtues based on a religious attitude of mind,
and which can be mentioned only when people have the courage to talk in
earnest, became a rhetorical theme on which it was rather bad taste to touch.
This period, which anyone born during the last half of the past century
can well remember, might be called the demo-socialistic phase of the
modern Italian State. It was the period which elaborated the
characteristically democratic attitude of mind on a basis of personal
freedom, and which resulted in the establishment of socialism as the
primary and controlling force in the State. It was a period of growth and of
prosperity during which the moral forces developed during the
Risorgimento were crowded into the background or off the stage.

IV

But toward the end of the Nineteenth Century and in the first years of the
Twentieth a vigorous spirit of reaction began to manifest itself in the young
men of Italy against the preceding generation's ideas in politics, literature,
science and philosophy. It was as though they were weary of the prosaic
bourgeois life which they had inherited from their fathers and were eager to
return to the lofty moral enthusiasms of their grandfathers. Rosmini and
Gioberti had been long forgotten. They were now exhumed, read, discussed.
As for Mazzini, an edition of his writings was financed by the State itself.

Vico, the great Vico, a formidable preacher of idealistic philosophy and a
great anti-Cartesian and anti-rationalist, became the object of a new cult.
Positivism began forthwith to be attacked by neo-idealism. Materialistic
approaches to the study of literature and art were refuted and discredited.
Within the Church itself modernism came to rouse the Italian clergy to the
need of a deeper and more modern culture. Even socialism was brought
under the philosophical probe and criticized like other doctrines for its
weaknesses and errors; and when, in France, George Sorel went beyond the
fallacies of the materialistic theories of the Marxist social-democracy to his
theory of syndicalism, our young Italian socialists turned to him. In Sorel's
ideas they saw two things: first, the end of a hypocritical "collaborationism"
which betrayed both proletariat and nation; and second, faith in a moral and
ideal reality for which it was the individual's duty to sacrifice himself, and
to defend which, even violence was justified. The anti-parliamentarian spirit
and the moral spirit of syndicalism brought Italian socialists back within the
Mazzinian orbit.
Of great importance, too, was nationalism, a new movement then just
coming to the fore. Our Italian nationalism was less literary and more
political in character than the similar movement in France, because with us
it was attached to the old historic Right which had a long political tradition.
The new nationalism differed from the old Right in the stress it laid on the
idea of "nation"; but it was at one with the Right in regarding the State as
the necessary premise to the individual rights and values. It was the special
achievement of nationalism to rekindle faith in the nation in Italian hearts,
to arouse the country against parliamentary socialism, and to lead an open
attack on Freemasonry, before which the Italian bourgeoisie was terrifiedly
prostrating itself. Syndicalists, nationalists, idealists succeeded, between
them, in bringing the great majority of Italian youth back to the spirit of
Mazzini.
Official, legal, parliamentary Italy, the Italy that was anti-Mazzinian and
anti-idealistic, stood against all this, finding its leader in a man of unfailing
political intuition, and master as well of the political mechanism of the
country, a man sceptical of all high-sounding words, impatient of
complicated concepts, ironical, cold, hard-headed, practical—what Mazzini
would have called a "shrewd materialist." In the persons, indeed, of Mazzini

and Giolitti, we may find a picture of the two aspects of pre-war Italy, of
that irreconcilable duality which paralyzed the vitality of the country and
which the Great War was to solve.

V

The effect of the war seemed at first to be quite in an opposite sense—to
mark the beginning of a general débâcle of the Italian State and of the
moral forces that must underlie any State. If entrance into the war had been
a triumph of ideal Italy over materialistic Italy, the advent of peace seemed
to give ample justification to the Neutralists who had represented the latter.
After the Armistice our Allies turned their backs upon us. Our victory
assumed all the aspects of a defeat. A defeatist psychology, as they say, took
possession of the Italian people and expressed itself in hatred of the war, of
those responsible for the war, even of our army which had won our war. An
anarchical spirit of dissolution rose against all authority. The ganglia of our
economic life seemed struck with mortal disease. Labor ran riot in strike
after strike. The very bureaucracy seemed to align itself against the State.
The measure of our spiritual dispersion was the return to power of Giolitti
—the execrated Neutralist—who for five years had been held up as the
exponent of an Italy which had died with the war.
But, curiously enough, it was under Giolitti that things suddenly changed
in aspect, that against the Giolittian State a new State arose. Our soldiers,
our genuine soldiers, men who had willed our war and fought it in full
consciousness of what they were doing, had the good fortune to find as their
leaders a man who could express in words things that were in all their
hearts and who could make those words audible above the tumult.
Mussolini had left Italian socialism in 1915 in order to be a more faithful
interpreter of "the Italian People" (the name he chose for his new paper). He
was one of those who saw the necessity of our war, one of those mainly
responsible for our entering the war. Already as a socialist he had fought
Freemasonry; and, drawing his inspiration from Sorel's syndicalism, he had
assailed the parliamentary corruption of Reformist Socialism with the
idealistic postulates of revolution and violence. Then, later, on leaving the
party and in defending the cause of intervention, he had come to oppose the
illusory fancies of proletarian internationalism with an assertion of the
infrangible integrity, not only moral but economic as well, of the national
organism, affirming therefore the sanctity of country for the working

classes as for other classes. Mussolini was a Mazzinian of that pure-blooded
breed which Mazzini seemed somehow always to find in the province of
Romagna. First by instinct, later by reflection, Mussolini had come to
despise the futility of the socialists who kept preaching a revolution which
they had neither the power nor the will to bring to pass even under the most
favorable circumstances. More keenly than anyone else he had come to feel
the necessity of a State which would be a State, of a law which would be
respected as law, of an authority capable of exacting obedience but at the
same time able to give indisputable evidence of its worthiness so to act. It
seemed incredible to Mussolini that a country capable of fighting and
winning such a war as Italy had fought and won should be thrown into
disorder and held at the mercy of a handful of faithless politicians.
When Mussolini founded his Fasci in Milan in March, 1919, the
movement toward dissolution and negation that featured the post-war
period in Italy had virtually ceased. The Fasci made their appeal to Italians
who, in spite of the disappointments of the peace, continued to believe in
the war, and who, in order to validate the victory which was the proof of the
war's value, were bent on recovering for Italy that control over her own
destinies which could come only through a restoration of discipline and a
reorganization of social and political forces. From the first, the Fascist Party
was not one of believers but of action. What it needed was not a platform of
principles, but an idea which would indicate a goal and a road by which the
goal could be reached.
The four years between 1919 and 1923 inclusive were characterized by
the development of the Fascist revolution through the action of "the
squads." The Fascist "squads" were really the force of a State not yet born
but on the way to being. In its first period, Fascist "squadrism" transgressed
the law of the old régime because it was determined to suppress that régime
as incompatible with the national State to which Fascism was aspiring. The
March on Rome was not the beginning, it was the end of that phase of the
revolution; because, with Mussolini's advent to power, Fascism entered the
sphere of legality. After October 28, 1922, Fascism was no longer at war
with the State; it was the State, looking about for the organization which
would realize Fascism as a concept of State. Fascism already had control of
all the instruments necessary for the upbuilding of a new State. The Italy of
Giolitti had been superceded, at least so far as militant politics were

concerned. Between Giolitti's Italy and the new Italy there flowed, as an
imaginative orator once said in the Chamber, "a torrent of blood" that would
prevent any return to the past. The century-old crisis had been solved. The
war at last had begun to bear fruit for Italy.

VI

Now to understand the distinctive essence of Fascism, nothing is more
instructive than a comparison of it with the point of view of Mazzini to
which I have so often referred.
Mazzini did have a political conception, but his politic was a sort of
integral politic, which cannot be so sharply distinguished from morals,
religion, and ideas of life as a whole, as to be considered apart from these
other fundamental interests of the human spirit. If one tries to separate what
is purely political from his religious beliefs, his ethical consciousness and
his metaphysical concepts, it becomes impossible to understand the vast
influence which his credo and his propaganda exerted. Unless we assume
the unity of the whole man, we arrive not at the clarification but at the
destruction of those ideas of his which proved so powerful.
In the definition of Fascism, the first point to grasp is the comprehensive,
or as Fascists say, the "totalitarian" scope of its doctrine, which concerns
itself not only with political organization and political tendency, but with
the whole will and thought and feeling of the nation.
There is a second and equally important point. Fascism is not a
philosophy. Much less is it a religion. It is not even a political theory which
may be stated in a series of formulae. The significance of Fascism is not to
be grasped in the special theses which it from time to time assumes. When
on occasion it has announced a program, a goal, a concept to be realized in
action, Fascism has not hesitated to abandon them when in practice these
were found to be inadequate or inconsistent with the principle of Fascism.
Fascism has never been willing to compromise its future. Mussolini has
boasted that he is a tempista, that his real pride is in "good timing." He
makes decisions and acts on them at the precise moment when all the
conditions and considerations which make them feasible and opportune are

properly matured. This is a way of saying that Fascism returns to the most
rigorous meaning of Mazzini's "Thought and Action," whereby the two
terms are so perfectly coincident that no thought has value which is not
already expressed in action. The real "views" of the Duce are those which
he formulates and executes at one and the same time.
Is Fascism therefore "anti-intellectual," as has been so often charged? It
is eminently anti-intellectual, eminently Mazzinian, that is, if by
intellectualism we mean the divorce of thought from action, of knowledge
from life, of brain from heart, of theory from practice. Fascism is hostile to
all Utopian systems which are destined never to face the test of reality. It is
hostile to all science and all philosophy which remain matters of mere fancy
or intelligence. It is not that Fascism denies value to culture, to the higher
intellectual pursuits by which thought is invigorated as a source of action.
Fascist anti-intellectualism holds in scorn a product peculiarly typical of the
educated classes in Italy: the leterato—the man who plays with knowledge
and with thought without any sense of responsibility for the practical world.
It is hostile not so much to culture as to bad culture, the culture which does
not educate, which does not make men, but rather creates pedants and
aesthetes, egotists in a word, men morally and politically indifferent. It has
no use, for instance, for the man who is "above the conflict" when his
country or its important interests are at stake.
By virtue of its repugnance for "intellectualism," Fascism prefers not to
waste time constructing abstract theories about itself. But when we say that
it is not a system or a doctrine we must not conclude that it is a blind praxis
or a purely instinctive method. If by system or philosophy we mean a living
thought, a principle of universal character daily revealing its inner fertility
and significance, then Fascism is a perfect system, with a solidly
established foundation and with a rigorous logic in its development; and all
who feel the truth and the vitality of the principle work day by day for its
development, now doing, now undoing, now going forward, now retracing
their steps, according as the things they do prove to be in harmony with the
principle or to deviate from it.
And we come finally to a third point.

The Fascist system is not a political system, but it has its center of gravity
in politics. Fascism came into being to meet serious problems of politics in
post-war Italy. And it presents itself as a political method. But in
confronting and solving political problems it is carried by its very nature,
that is to say by its method, to consider moral, religious, and philosophical
questions and to unfold and demonstrate the comprehensive totalitarian
character peculiar to it. It is only after we have grasped the political
character of the Fascist principle that we are able adequately to appreciate
the deeper concept of life which underlies that principle and from which the
principle springs. The political doctrine of Fascism is not the whole of
Fascism. It is rather its more prominent aspect and in general its most
interesting one.

VII

The politic of Fascism revolves wholly about the concept of the national
State; and accordingly it has points of contact with nationalist doctrines,
along with distinctions from the latter which it is important to bear in mind.
Both Fascism and nationalism regard the State as the foundation of all
rights and the source of all values in the individuals composing it. For the
one as for the other the State is not a consequence—it is a principle. But in
the case of nationalism, the relation which individualistic liberalism, and for
that matter socialism also, assumed between individual and State is
inverted. Since the State is a principle, the individual becomes a
consequence—he is something which finds an antecedent in the State: the
State limits him and determines his manner of existence, restricting his
freedom, binding him to a piece of ground whereon he was born, whereon
he must live and will die. In the case of Fascism, State and individual are
one and the same things, or rather, they are inseparable terms of a necessary
synthesis.
Nationalism, in fact, founds the State on the concept of nation, the nation
being an entity which transcends the will and the life of the individual
because it is conceived as objectively existing apart from the consciousness
of individuals, existing even if the individual does nothing to bring it into

being. For the nationalist, the nation exists not by virtue of the citizen's will,
but as datum, a fact, of nature.
For Fascism, on the contrary, the State is a wholly spiritual creation. It is
a national State, because, from the Fascist point of view, the nation itself is
a creation of the mind and is not a material presupposition, is not a datum of
nature. The nation, says the Fascist, is never really made; neither, therefore,
can the State attain an absolute form, since it is merely the nation in the
latter's concrete, political manifestation. For the Fascist, the State is always
in fieri. It is in our hands, wholly; whence our very serious responsibility
towards it.
But this State of the Fascists which is created by the consciousness and
the will of the citizen, and is not a force descending on the citizen from
above or from without, cannot have toward the mass of the population the
relationship which was presumed by nationalism.
Nationalism identified State with Nation, and made of the nation an
entity preëxisting, which needed not to be created but merely to be
recognized or known. The nationalists, therefore, required a ruling class of
an intellectual character, which was conscious of the nation and could
understand, appreciate and exalt it. The authority of the State, furthermore,
was not a product but a presupposition. It could not depend on the people—
rather the people depended on the State and on the State's authority as the
source of the life which they lived and apart from which they could not live.
The nationalistic State was, therefore, an aristocratic State, enforcing itself
upon the masses through the power conferred upon it by its origins.
The Fascist State, on the contrary, is a people's state, and, as such, the
democratic State par excellence. The relationship between State and citizen
(not this or that citizen, but all citizens) is accordingly so intimate that the
State exists only as, and in so far as, the citizen causes it to exist. Its
formation therefore is the formation of a consciousness of it in individuals,
in the masses. Hence the need of the Party, and of all the instruments of
propaganda and education which Fascism uses to make the thought and will
of the Duce the thought and will of the masses. Hence the enormous task
which Fascism sets itself in trying to bring the whole mass of the people,
beginning with the little children, inside the fold of the Party.

On the popular character of the Fascist State likewise depends its greatest
social and constitutional reform—the foundation of the Corporations of
Syndicates. In this reform Fascism took over from syndicalism the notion of
the moral and educational function of the syndicate. But the Corporations of
Syndicates were necessary in order to reduce the syndicates to State
discipline and make them an expression of the State's organism from
within. The Corporation of Syndicates are a device through which the
Fascist State goes looking for the individual in order to create itself through
the individual's will. But the individual it seeks is not the abstract political
individual whom the old liberalism took for granted. He is the only
individual who can ever be found, the individual who exists as a specialized
productive force, and who, by the fact of his specialization, is brought to
unite with other individuals of his same category and comes to belong with
them to the one great economic unit which is none other than the nation.
This great reform is already well under way. Toward it nationalism,
syndicalism, and even liberalism itself, were already tending in the past. For
even liberalism was beginning to criticize the older forms of political
representation, seeking some system of organic representation which would
correspond to the structural reality of the State.
The Fascist conception of liberty merits passing notice. The Duce of
Fascism once chose to discuss the theme of "Force or consent?"; and he
concluded that the two terms are inseparable, that the one implies the other
and cannot exist apart from the other; that, in other words, the authority of
the State and the freedom of the citizen constitute a continuous circle
wherein authority presupposes liberty and liberty authority. For freedom
can exist only within the State, and the State means authority. But the State
is not an entity hovering in the air over the heads of its citizens. It is one
with the personality of the citizen. Fascism, indeed, envisages the contrast
not as between liberty and authority, but as between a true, a concrete
liberty which exists, and an abstract, illusory liberty which cannot exist.
Liberalism broke the circle above referred to, setting the individual
against the State and liberty against authority. What the liberal desired was
liberty as against the State, a liberty which was a limitation of the State;
though the liberal had to resign himself, as the lesser of the evils, to a State
which was a limitation on liberty. The absurdities inherent in the liberal

concept of freedom were apparent to liberals themselves early in the
Nineteenth Century. It is no merit of Fascism to have again indicated them.
Fascism has its own solution of the paradox of liberty and authority. The
authority of the State is absolute. It does not compromise, it does not
bargain, it does not surrender any portion of its field to other moral or
religious principles which may interfere with the individual conscience. But
on the other hand, the State becomes a reality only in the consciousness of
its individuals. And the Fascist corporative State supplies a representative
system more sincere and more in touch with realities than any other
previously devised and is therefore freer than the old liberal State.

NATIONAL SOCIALISM
ToC

Basic Principles, Their Application
By The Nazi Party's Foreign Organization,
And The Use Of Germans Abroad
For Nazi Aims

Prepared in the Special Unit
Of the Division of European Affairs

by

Raymond E. Murphy
Francis B. Stevens

Howard Trivers
Joseph M. Roland

Elements Of Nazi Ideology

The line of thought which we have traced from Herder to the immediate
forerunners of the Nazi movement embodies an antidemocratic tradition
which National Socialism has utilized, reduced to simple but relentless
terms, and exploited in what is known as the National Socialist
Weltanschauung for the greater aggrandizement of Nazi Germany. The
complete agreement between the Nazi ideology and the previously
described political concepts of the past is revealed in the forthcoming
exposition of the main tenets of Naziism.

The Volk

Ernst Rudolf Huber, in his basic work Verfassungsrecht des
grossdeutschen Reiches (Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich)
(document 1, post p. 155), published in 1939, states:
The new constitution of the German Reich ... is
not a constitution in the formal sense such as was
typical of the nineteenth century. The new Reich
has no written constitutional declaration, but its
constitution exists in the unwritten basic political
order of the Reich. One recognizes it in the
spiritual powers which fill our people, in the real
authority in which our political life is grounded,
and in the basic laws regarding the structure of the
state which have been proclaimed so far. The
advantage of such an unwritten constitution over
the formal constitution is that the basic principles

do not become rigid but remain in a constant,
living movement. Not dead institutions but living
principles determine the nature of the new
constitutional order.[8]
In developing his thesis Huber points out that the National Socialist state
rests on three basic concepts, the Volk or people, the Führer, and the
movement or party. With reference to the first element, the Volk, he argues
that the democracies develop their concept of the people from the wrong
approach: They start with the concept of the state and its functions and
consider the people as being made up of all the elements which fall within
the borders or under the jurisdiction of the state. National Socialism, on the
other hand, starts with the concept of the people, which forms a political
unity, and builds the state upon this foundation.
There is no people without an objective unity, but
there is also none without a common
consciousness of unity. A people is determined by
a number of different factors: by racial derivation
and by the character of its land, by language and
other forms of life, by religion and history, but also
by the common consciousness of its solidarity and
by its common will to unity. For the concrete
concept of a people, as represented by the various
peoples of the earth, it is of decisive significance
which of these various factors they regard as
determinants for the nature of the people. The new
German Reich proceeds from the concept of the
political people, determined by the natural
characteristics and by the historical idea of a
closed community. The political people is formed
through the uniformity of its natural
characteristics. Race is the natural basis of the
people ... As a political people the natural
community becomes conscious of its solidarity and
strives to form itself, to develop itself, to defend
itself, to realize itself. "Nationalism" is essentially
this striving of a people which has become

conscious of itself toward self-direction and self-
realization, toward a deepening and renewing of its
natural qualities.
This consciousness of self, springing from the
consciousness of a historical idea, awakens in a
people its will to historical formation: the will to
action. The political people is no passive, sluggish
mass, no mere object for the efforts of the state at
government or protective welfare work ... The
great misconception of the democracies is that they
can see the active participation of the people only
in the form of plebiscites according to the principle
of majority. In a democracy the people does not act
as a unit but as a complex of unrelated individuals
who form themselves into parties ... The new
Reich is based on the principle that real action of a
self-determining people is only possible according
to the principle of leadership and following.[9]
According to Huber, geographical considerations play a large part in the
shaping of a people:
The people stands in a double relation, to its
lands; it settles and develops the land, but the land
also stamps and determines the people ... That a
certain territory belongs to a certain people is not
justified by state authority alone but it is also
determined objectively by its historical, political
position. Territory is not merely a field for the
exercise of state control but it determines the
nature of a people and thereby the historical
purpose of the state's activity. England's island
position, Italy's Mediterranean position, and
Germany's central position between east and west
are such historical conditions, which unchangeably
form the character of the people. [10]

But the new Germany is based upon a "unity and entirety of the people"
[11] which does not stop at geographical boundaries:

The German people forms a closed community
which recognizes no national borders. It is evident
that a people has not exhausted its possibilities
simply in the formation of a national state but that
it represents an independent community which
reaches beyond such limits. [12]
The State justifies itself only so far as is helps the people to develop itself
more fully. In the words of Hitler, quoted by Huber from Mein Kampf, "It is
a basic principle, therefore, that the state represents not an end but a means.
It is a condition for advanced human culture, but not the cause of it ... Its
purpose is in the maintenance and advancement of a community of human
beings with common physical and spiritual characteristics." [13]
Huber continues:
In the theory of the folk-Reich [völkisches Reich],
people and state are conceived as an inseparable
unity. The people is the prerequisite for the entire
political order; the state does not form the people
but the people moulds the state out of itself as the
form in which it achieves historical permanence....
[14]

The State is a function of the people, but it is not
therefore a subordinate, secondary machine which
can be used or laid aside at will. It is the form in
which the people attains to historical reality. It is
the bearer of the historical continuity of the people,
which remains the same in the center of its being
in spite of all changes, revolutions, and
transformations. [15]
A similar interpretation of the role of the Volk is expounded by Gottfried
Neesse in his Die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—Versuch
einer Rechtsdeutung (The National Socialist German Workers Party—An

Attempt at Legal Interpretation), published in 1935. From the National
Socialist viewpoint, according to Neesse, the state is regarded not as an
organism superior to the people but as an organization of the people: "In
contrast to an organism, an organization has no inherent legality; it is
dependent upon human will and has no definite mission of its own. It is a
form in which a living mass shapes itself into unity, but it has no life of its
own."[16] The people is the living organism which uses the organization of
the state as the form in which it can best fulfil its mission. The law which is
inherent in the people must be realized through the state.
But the central and basic concept of National Socialist political theory is
the concept of the people:
In contrast to the state, the people form a true
organism—a being which leads its own life and
follows its own laws, which possesses powers
peculiar to itself, and which develops its own
nature independent of all state forms.... This living
unity of the people has its cells in its individual
members, and just as in every body there are
certain cells to perform certain tasks, this is
likewise the case in the body of the people. The
individual is bound to his people not only
physically but mentally and spiritually and he is
influenced by these ties in all his manifestations.
[17]

The elements which go to make up a people are beyond human
comprehension, but the most important of them is a uniformity of blood,
resulting in "a similarity of nature which manifests itself in a common
language and a feeling of community and is further moulded by land and by
history."[18] "The unity of the people is increased by its common destiny
and its consciousness of a common mission."[19]
Liberalism gave rise to the concept of a "society-people"
(Gesellschaftsvolk) which consisted of a sum of individuals, each of whom
was supposed to have an inherent significance and to play his own
independent part in the political life of the nation. National Socialism, on

the other hand, has developed, the concept of the "community-people"
(Gemeinschaftsvolk) which functions as a uniform whole.[20]
The people, however, is never politically active
as a whole, but only through those who embody its
will. The true will of a people can never be
determined by a majority vote. It can only display
itself in men and in movements, and history will
decide whether these men or movements could
rightly claim to be the representatives of the
people's will.[21]
Every identification of the state with the people is
false from a legal and untenable from a political
standpoint ... The state is the law-forming
organization and the law serves the inner order of
the community; the people is the politically active
organism and politics serve the outward
maintenance of the community ... But law receives
its character from the people and politics must
reckon with the state as the first and most
important factor.[22]
The "nation" is the product of this interplay and balance between the state
and the people. The original and vital force of the people, through the
organization of the state, realizes itself fully in the unified communal life of
the nation:
The nation is the complete agreement between
organism and organization, the perfect formation
of a naturally grown being. ... Nationalism is
nothing more than the outwardly directed striving
to maintain this inner unity of people and state,
and socialism is the inwardly directed striving for
the same end.[23]
Dr. Herbert Scurla, Government Councilor and Reich's Minister for
Science, Education, and Folk Culture, in a pamphlet entitled Die

Grundgedanken des Nationalsozialismus und das Ausland (Basic Principles
of National Socialism With Special Reference to Foreign Countries), also
emphasizes the importance of the Volk in the National Socialist state. Dr.
Scurla points out that National Socialism does not view the nation in the
domocratic sense of a community to which the individual may voluntarily
adhere.
The central field of force of the National Socialist
consciousness is rather the folk, and this folk is in
no case mere individual aggregation, i.e.,
collectivity as sum of the individuals, but as a
unity with a peculiar two-sidedness, at the same
time "essential totality" (M.H. Boehm). The folk is
both a living creature and a spiritual configuration,
in which the individuals are included through
common racial conditioning, in blood and spirit. It
is that force which works on the individual directly
"from within or from the side like a common
degree of temperature" (Kjellén) and which
collects into the folk whatever according to blood
and spirit belongs to it. This folk, point of
departure and goal at the same time, is, in the
National Socialist world-view, not only the field of
force for political order, but as well the central
factor of the entire world-picture. Neither
individuals, as the epoch of enlightenment
envisaged, nor states, as in the system of the
dynastic and national state absolutism, nor classes,
as conceived by Marxism, are the ultimate realities
of the political order, but the peoples, who stand
over against one another with the unqualifiable
right to a separate existence as natural entities,
each with its own essential nature and form. [24]
Dr. Scurla claims that National Socialism and Fascism are the strivings of
the German and Italian people for final national unification along
essentially different national lines natural to each of them. "What took place
in Germany," he asserts, "was a political revolution of a total nature."[25]

"Under revolution," he states, "we understand rather the penetration of the
collective folk-mind [gesamtvölkischen Bewusstseins] into all regions of
German life."[26] And, he concludes:
National Socialism is no invented system of rules
for the political game, but the world-view of the
German people, which experiences itself as a
national and social community, and concedes
neither to the state nor the class nor the individual
any privileges which endanger the security of the
community's right to live. [27]
Some of the most striking expressions of the race concept are found in
Die Erziehung im dritten Reich (Education in the Third Reich), by Friedrich
Alfred Beck, which was published in 1936. It is worthy of note that the
tendency which may be observed in Huber (document I, post p. 155) and
Neesse to associate the ideas of Volk and race is very marked with Beck.
"All life, whether natural or spiritual, all historical progress, all state forms,
and all cultivation by education are in the last analysis based upon the racial
make-up of the people in question."[28] Race finds its expression in human
life through the phenomenon of the people:
Race and people belong together. National
Socialism has restored the concept of the people
from its modern shallowness and sees in the
people something different from and appreciably
greater than a chance social community of men, a
grouping of men who have the same external
interests. By people we understand an entire living
body which is racially uniform and which is held
together by common history, common fate, a
common mission, and common tasks. Through
such an interpretation the people takes on a
significance which is only attributed to it in times
of great historical importance and which makes it
the center, the content, and the goal of all human
work. Only that race still possesses vital energy
which can still bring its unity to expression in the

totality of the people. The people is the space in
which race can develop its strength. Race is the
vital law of arrangement which gives the people its
distinctive form. In the course of time the people
undergoes historical transformations, but race
prevents the loss of the people's own nature in the
course of these transformations. Without the
people the race has no life; without race the people
has no permanence ... Education, from the
standpoint of race and people, is the creation of a
form of life in which the racial unity will be
preserved through the totality of the people. [29]
Beck describes the politically spiritual National Socialist personality
which National Socialist education seeks to develop, in the following terms:
Socialism is the direction of personal life through
dependence on the community, consciousness of
the community, feeling for the community, and
action in the community; nationalism is the
elevation of individual life to a unique
(microcosmic) expression of the community in the
unity of the personality.[30]
National Socialist education must stress the heroic life and teach German
youth the importance of fulfilling their duty to the Volk.
Heroism is that force and that conviction which
consecrates its whole life to the service of an idea,
a faith, a task, or a duty even when it knows that
the destruction of its own life is certain ... German
life, according to the laws of its ideology, is heroic
life ... All German life, every person belonging to
the community of Germans must bear heroic
character within himself. Heroic life fulfils itself in
the daily work of the miner, the farmer, the clerk,
the statesman, and the serving self-sacrifice of the
mother. Wherever a life is devoted with an all-

embracing faith and with its full powers to the
service of some value, there is true heroism ...
Education to the heroic life is education to the
fulfilment of duty ... One must have experienced it
repeatedly that the inner fruition of a work in one's
own life has nothing to do with material or
economic considerations, that man keeps all of his
faculties alive through his obligation to his work
and his devotion to his duty, and that he uses them
in the service of an idea without any regard for
practical considerations, before one recognizes the
difference between this world of heroic self-
sacrifice and the liberalistic world of barter.
Because the younger generation has been brought
up in this heroic spirit it is no longer understood by
the representatives of the former era who judge the
values of life according to material advantage ...
German life is heroic life. Germany is not a mere
community of existence and of interests whose
only function is to insure the material and cultural
needs of its members, but it also represents an
elemental obligation on the part of the members.
The eternal Germany cannot be drawn in on the
map; it does not consist of the constitution or the
laws of the state. This Germany is the community
of those who are solemnly bound together and who
experience and realize these eternal national
values. This Germany is our eternal mission, our
most sacred law ... The developing personality
must be submerged in the living reality of the
people and the nation from earliest youth on, must
take an active and a suffering part in it.
Furthermore the heroic life demands a recognition
and experiencing of the highest value of life which
man must serve with all his powers. This value can
perhaps be recognized and presented theoretically
in the schools but it can only be directly

comprehended and personally experienced in the
community of the people. Therefore all education
must preserve this direct connection with the
community of the people and school education
must derive from it the form and substance of its
instruction.[31]
This nationalism, which is based upon the laws of life, has nothing in
common with the weak and presumptuous patriotism of the liberalistic
world; it is not a gift or a favor, not a possession or a privilege, but it is the
form of national life which we have won in hard battle and which suits our
Nordic-German racial and spiritual heritage. In the nationalistic personality
the powers and values which have been established in the socialistic
personality will be purposefully exerted for the perfection of the temporal
and eternal idea of life.[32]
The National Socialist idea of totality, therefore, and its manifestation in
life of the national community form the principal substance of education in
the Third Reich:
This idea of totality must be radically
distinguished from the liberalistic conception of
the mass. According to the liberalistic
interpretation the whole consists of a summation of
its parts. According to the National Socialist
organic conception the whole comes before the
parts; it does not arise from the parts but it is
already contained in the parts themselves; all parts
are microcosmic forms of the whole. This organic
conception of the whole is the deepest natural
justification of the basic political character of all
organic life. [33]
Education, Beck continues, must present this total unity as it is
manifested in the racial character of the people. Race is the most essential
factor in the natural and spiritual unity of a people, and it is also the main
factor which separates one people from another. The racial character of the

people must determine the substance of education; this substance must be
derived primarily from the life of the people.
Even in the specialized field of political science, Nazi education is
concerned not with the structure of the state but with the role of the
individual in the life of the people:
National Socialist political science concerns itself
not with education to citizenship but with
preparation for membership in the German
people.... Not the structure of the state but the
strength of a people determines the value and the
strength of an individual life. The state must be an
organization which corresponds to the laws of the
people's life and assists in their realization. [34]
Such indeed is the supreme goal of all National Socialist education: to
make each individual an expression of "the eternal German":
Whoever wishes fully to realize himself, whoever
wishes to experience and embody the eternal
German ideal within himself must lift his eyes
from everyday life and must listen to the beat of
his blood and his conscience ... He must be
capable of that superhuman greatness which is
ready to cast aside all temporal bonds in the battle
for German eternity ... National Socialist education
raises the eternal German character into the light
of our consciousness ... National Socialism is the
eternal law of our German life; the development of
the eternal German is the transcendental task of
National Socialist education.[35]

Racial Supremacy

The theory of the racial supremacy of the Nordic, i.e., the German, which
was developed by Wagner and Stewart Chamberlain reaches its culmination

in the writings of Alfred Rosenberg, the high priest of Nazi racial theory
and herald of the Herrenvolk (master race). Rosenberg developed his ideas
in the obscure phraseology of Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth
of the Twentieth Century) (document 3, post p. 174). "The 'meaning of
world history'," he wrote, "has radiated out from the north over the whole
world, borne by a blue-eyed blond race which in several great waves
determined the spiritual face of the world ... These wander-periods were the
legendary migration of the Atlantides across north Africa, the migration of
the Aryans into India and Persia; the migration of the Dorians,
Macedonians, Latins; the migration of the Germanic tribes; the colonization
of the world by the Germanic Occident."[36] He discusses at length Indian,
Persian, Greek, Roman, and European cultures; in each case, he concludes,
the culture is created by the ruling Nordic element and declines through the
racial decay of the Nordics resulting from their intermixture with inferior
races.
It has long been accepted, Rosenberg claims, that all the states of the
west and their creative values have been generated by Germans; and it
follows that if the Germanic blood were to vanish away completely in
Europe all western culture would also fall to ruin.
Rosenberg acclaims the new faith of the blood which is to replace the
non-German religion of Christianity. "A new faith is arising today: the myth
of the blood, the faith to defend with the blood the divine essence of man.
The faith, embodied in clearest knowledge, that the Nordic blood represents
that mysterium which has replaced and overcome the old sacraments."[37]
Rosenberg accepts the classic German view of the Volk, which he relates
closely to the concept of race. "The state is nowadays no longer an
independent idol, before which everything must bow down; the state is not
even an end but is only a means for the preservation of the folk ... Forms of
the state change, and laws of the state pass away; the folk remains. From
this alone follows that the nation is the first and last, that to which
everything else has to be subordinated."[38] "The new thought puts folk and
race higher than the state and its forms. It declares protection of the folk
more important than protection of a religious denomination, a class, the
monarchy, or the republic; it sees in treason against the folk a greater crime
than high treason against the state."[39]

The essence of Rosenberg's racial ideas was incorporated in point 4 of
the program of the Nazi Party, which reads as follows: "None but members
of the nation [Volk] may be citizens of the State. None but those of German
blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew,
therefore, may be a member of the nation."[40] After the Nazis came to
power, this concept was made the basis of the German citizenship law of
September 15, 1935.
Commenting upon point 4 of the Nazi program in his pamphlet, Nature,
Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP, Rosenberg wrote:
An indispensable differentiation must be made
sometime in the German Volk consciousness: The
right of nationality should not represent something
which is received in the cradle as a gift, but should
be regarded as a good which must be earned.
Although every German is a subject of the state,
the rights of nationality should only be received
when at the age of twenty or twenty-two he has
completed his education or his military service or
has finished the labor service which he owes to the
state and after having given evidence of honorable
conduct. The right to nationality, which must be
earned, must become an opportunity for every
German to strive for complete humanity and
achievement in the service of the Volk. This
consciousness, which must always be kept alive,
will cause him to regard this earned good quite
differently from the way it was regarded in the past
and today more than ever.
The prevailing concept of state nationality
completely ignores the idea of race. According to it
whoever has a German passport is a German,
whoever has Czech documents is a Czech,
although he may have not a single drop of Czech
blood in his veins ...

National Socialism also sees in the nature of the
structure and leadership of the state an outflowing
of a definite character in the Volk. If one permits a
wholly foreign race—subject to other impulses—
to participate therein, the purity of the organic
expression is falsified and the existence of the Volk
is crippled....
This whole concept of the state [parliamentary
democracy] is replaced by National Socialism with
a basically different concept. National Socialism
recognizes that, although the individual racial
strains in German-speaking territory differ, they
nevertheless belong to closely related races, and
that many mixtures among the members of these
different branches have produced new and vital
strains, among them the complex but still German
man, but that a mixture with the Jewish enemy
race, which in its whole spiritual and physical
structure is basically different and antagonistic and
has strong resemblances to the peoples of the Near
East, can only result in bastardization.[41]
True to the tradition of German imperialism, Rosenberg does not confine
his ideas of racial supremacy to the Germans in the Reich alone. He even
extends them to the United States, where he envisages the day when the
awakening German element will realize its destiny in this country. In Der
Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, for example, he writes, "After throwing off
the worn-out idea upon which it was founded ... i.e., after the destruction of
the idea represented by New York, the United States of North America has
the great task ... of setting out with youthful energy to put into force the new
racial-state idea which a few awakened Americans have already foreseen."
[42]

This idea was developed at length by the German geopolitician, Colin
Ross. In his book Unser Amerika (Our America) (document 4, post p. 178),
published in 1936, Ross develops the thesis that the German element in the
United States has contributed all that is best in American life and

civilization and urges it to become conscious of its racial heritage and to
prepare for the day when it may take over complete control of the country.
Reference was made in the preceding section to Beck's Education in the
Third Reich. On the subject of racial supremacy Beck points out that certain
new branches of learning have been introduced into the National Socialist
schools and certain old ones have been given a new emphasis. The most
important of these are the science of race and the cultivation of race
(Rassenkunde und Rassenpflege), which teach the pupil to recognize and
develop those racial powers which alone make possible the fullest self-
realization in the national community. An awakening of a true racial
consciousness in the people should lead to a "qualitative and quantitative"
racial refinement of the German people by inducing a procreative process of
selection which would reduce the strains of foreign blood in the national
body. "German racial consciousness must have pride in the Nordic race as
its first condition. It must be a feeling of the highest personal pride to
belong to the Nordic race and to have the possibility and the obligation to
work within the German community for the advancement of the Nordic
race."[43] Beck points out that pupils must be made to realize "that the
downfall of the Nordic race would mean the collapse of the national
tradition, the disintegration of the living community and the destruction of
the individual."[44]
Under the influence of war developments, which have given the Nazis a
chance to apply their racial theories in occupied territories, their spokesmen
have become increasingly open with regard to the political implications of
the folk concept. In an article on "The Structure and Order of the Reich,"
published late in 1941, Ernst Rudolf Huber wrote, "this folk principle has
found its full confirmation for the first time in the events of this war, in
which the unity of the folk has been realized to an extent undreamed of
through the return to the homeland of territories which had been torn from it
and the resettlement of German folk-groups. Thus the awakening of
Germandom to become a political folk has had a twofold result: the unity of
the folk-community has risen superior to differences of birth or wealth, of
class, rank, or denomination; and the unity of Germandom above all state
boundaries has been consciously experienced in the European living-space
[Siedlungsraum]."[45]

The Führer Principle

The second pillar of the Nazi state is the Führer, the infallible leader, to
whom his followers owe absolute obedience. The Führer principle
envisages government of the state by a hierarchy of leaders, each of whom
owes unconditional allegiance to his immediate superior and at the same
time is the absolute leader in his own particular sphere of jurisdiction.
One of the best expositions of the Nazi concept of the Führer principle is
given by Huber in his Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich
(document 1, post p. 155):
The Führer-Reich of the [German] people is
founded on the recognition that the true will of the
people cannot be disclosed through parliamentary
votes and plebiscites but that the will of the people
in its pure and uncorrupted form can only be
expressed through the Führer. Thus a distinction
must be drawn between the supposed will of the
people in a parliamentary democracy, which
merely reflects the conflict of the various social
interests, and the true will of the people in the
Führer-state, in which the collective will of the real
political unit is manifested ...
The Führer is the bearer of the people's will; he is
independent of all groups, associations, and
interests, but he is bound by laws which are
inherent in the nature of his people. In this twofold
condition: independence of all factional interests
but unconditional dependence on the people, is
reflected the true nature of the Führer principle.
Thus the Führer has nothing in common with the
functionary, the agent, or the exponent who
exercises a mandate delegated to him and who is
bound to the will of those who appoint him. The
Führer is no "representative" of a particular group

whose wishes he must carry out. He is no "organ"
of the state in the sense of a mere executive agent.
He is rather himself the bearer of the collective
will of the people. In his will the will of the people
is realized. He transforms the mere feelings of the
people into a conscious will ... Thus it is possible
for him, in the name of the true will of the people
which he serves, to go against the subjective
opinions and convictions of single individuals
within the people if these are not in accord with
the objective destiny of the people ... He shapes
the collective will of the people within himself and
he embodies the political unity and entirety of the
people in opposition to individual interests ...
But the Führer, even as the bearer of the people's
will, is not arbitrary and free of all responsibility.
His will is not the subjective, individual will of a
single man, but the collective national will is
embodied within him in all its objective, historical
greatness ... Such a collective will is not a fiction,
as is the collective will of the democracies, but it is
a political reality which finds its expression in the
Führer. The people's collective will has its
foundation in the political idea which is given to a
people. It is present in the people, but the Führer
raises it to consciousness and discloses it ...
In the Führer are manifested also the natural laws
inherent in the people: It is he who makes them
into a code governing all national activity. In
disclosing these natural laws he sets up the great
ends which are to be attained and draws up the
plans for the utilization of all national powers in
the achievement of the common goals. Through his
planning and directing he gives the national life its
true purpose and value. This directing and
planning activity is especially manifested in the

lawgiving power which lies in the Führer's hand.
The great change in significance which the law has
undergone is characterized therein that it no longer
sets up the limits of social life, as in liberalistic
times, but that it drafts the plans and the aims of
the nation's actions ...
The Führer principle rests upon unlimited
authority but not upon mere outward force. It has
often been said, but it must constantly be repeated,
that the Führer principle has nothing in common
with arbitrary bureaucracy and represents no
system of brutal force, but that it can only be
maintained by mutual loyalty which must find its
expression in a free relation. The Führer-order
depends upon the responsibility of the following,
just as it counts on the responsibility and loyalty of
the Führer to his mission and to his following ...
There is no greater responsibility than that upon
which the Führer principle is
grounded.[46]
The nature of the plebiscites which are held from time to time in a
National Socialist state, Huber points out, cannot be understood from a
democratic standpoint. Their purpose is not to give the people an
opportunity to decide some issue but rather to express their unity behind a
decision which the Führer, in his capacity as the bearer of the people's will,
has already made:
That the will of the people is embodied in the
Führer does not exclude the possibility that the
Führer can summon all members of the people to a
plebiscite on a certain question. In this "asking of
the people" the Führer does not, of course,
surrender his decisive power to the voters. The
purpose of the plebiscite is not to let the people act
in the Führer's place or to replace the Führer's
decision with the result of the plebiscite. Its

purpose is rather to give the whole people an
opportunity to demonstrate and proclaim its
support of an aim announced by the Führer. It is
intended to solidify the unity and agreement
between the objective people's will embodied in
the Führer and the living, subjective conviction of
the people as it exists in the individual members ...
This approval of the Führer's decision is even more
clear and effective if the plebiscite is concerned
with an aim which has already been realized rather
than with a mere intention. [47]
Huber states that the Reichstag elections in the Third Reich have the
same character as the plebiscites. The list of delegates is made up by the
Führer and its approval by the people represents an expression of renewed
and continued faith in him. The Reichstag no longer has any governing or
lawgiving powers but acts merely as a sounding board for the Führer:
It would be impossible for a law to be introduced
and acted upon in the Reichstag which had not
originated with the Führer or, at least, received his
approval. The procedure is similar to that of the
plebiscite: The lawgiving power does not rest in
the Reichstag; it merely proclaims through its
decision its agreement with the will of the Führer,
who is the lawgiver of the German people. [48]
Huber also shows how the position of the Führer developed from the
Nazi Party movement:
The office of the Führer developed out of the
National Socialist movement. It was originally not
a state office; this fact can never be disregarded if
one is to understand the present legal and political
position of the Führer. The office of the Führer
first took root in the structure of the Reich when
the Führer took over the powers of the Chancelor,
and then when he assumed the position of the

Chief of State. But his primary significance is
always as leader of the movement; he has absorbed
within himself the two highest offices of the
political leadership of the Reich and has created
thereby the new office of "Führer of the people and
the Reich." That is not a superficial grouping
together of various offices, functions, and powers
... It is not a union of offices but a unity of office.
The Führer does not unite the old offices of
Chancelor and President side by side within
himself, but he fills a new, unified office. [49]
The Führer unites in himself all the sovereign
authority of the Reich; all public authority in the
state as well as in the movement is derived from
the authority of the Führer. We must speak not of
the state's authority but of the Führer's authority if
we wish to designate the character of the political
authority within the Reich correctly. The state does
not hold political authority as an impersonal unit
but receives it from the Führer as the executor of
the national will. The authority of the Führer is
complete and all-embracing; it unites in itself all
the means of political direction; it extends into all
fields of national life; it embraces the entire
people, which is bound to the Führer in loyalty and
obedience. The authority of the Führer is not
limited by checks and controls, by special
autonomous bodies or individual rights, but it is
free and independent, all-inclusive and unlimited.
It is not, however, self-seeking or arbitrary and its
ties are within itself. It is derived from the people;
that is, it is entrusted to the Führer by the people. It
exists for the people and has its justification in the
people; it is free of all outward ties because it is in
its innermost nature firmly bound up with the fate,

the welfare, the mission, and the honor of the
people.[50]
Neesse, in his The National Socialist German Workers Party—An
Attempt at Legal Interpretation, emphasizes the importance of complete
control by the party leadership over all branches of the government. He says
there must be no division of power in the Nazi state to interfere with the
leader's freedom of action. Thus the Führer becomes the administrative
head, the lawgiver, and the highest authority of justice in one person. This
does not mean that he stands above the law. "The Führer may be outwardly
independent, but inwardly he obeys the same laws as those he leads."[51]
The leadership (Führung) in the Nazi state is not to be compared with the
government or administration in a democracy:
Führung is not, like government, the highest
organ of the state, which has grown out of the
order of the state, but it receives its legitimation,
its call, and its mission from the people ...[52]
The people cannot as a rule announce its will by
means of majority votes but only through its
embodiment in one man, or in a few men. The
principle of the identity of the ruler and those who
are ruled, of the government and those who are
governed has been very forcibly represented as the
principle of democracy. But this identity ...
becomes mechanistic and superficial if one seeks
to establish it in the theory that the people are at
once the governors and the governed ... A true
organic identity is only possible when the great
mass of the people recognizes its embodiment in
one man and feels itself to be one nature with him
... Most of the people will never exercise their
governing powers but only wish to be governed
justly and well ... National Socialist Führung sees
no value in trying to please a majority of the
people, but its every action is dictated by service to

the welfare of the people, even though a majority
would not approve it. The mission of the Führung
is received from the people, but the fulfilment of
this mission and the exercise of power are free and
must be free, for however surely and forcefully a
healthy people may be able to make decisions in
the larger issues of its destiny, its decisions in all
smaller matters are confused and uncertain. For
this reason, Führung must be free in the
performance of its task ... The Führer does not
stand for himself alone and can be understood not
of himself, but only from the idea of a work to be
accomplished ... Both the Führer and his following
are subject to the idea which they serve; both are
of the same substance, the same spirit, and the
same blood. The despot knows only subjects
whom he uses or, at best, for whom he cares. But
the first consideration of the Führer is not his own
advantage nor even, at bottom, the welfare of the
people, but only service to the mission, the idea,
and the purpose to which Führer and following
alike are consecrated.[53]
The supreme position of Adolf Hitler as Führer of the Reich, which
Huber and Neesse emphasize in the preceding quotations, is also stressed in
the statements of high Nazi officials. For example, Dr. Frick, the German
Minister of the Interior, in an article entitled "Germany as a Unitary State,"
which is included in a book called Germany Speaks, published in London in
1938, states:
The unity of the party and the state finds its
highest realization in the person of the Leader and
Chancelor who ... combines the offices of
President and Chancelor. He is the leader of the
National Socialist Party, the political head of the
state and the supreme commander of the defense
forces.[54]

It is interesting to note that, notwithstanding the generally recognized
view as expressed in the preceding citations that the authority of the Führer
is supreme, Hitler found it necessary in April 1942 to ask the Reichstag to
confirm his power to be able at any time, if necessary, to urge any German
to fulfil his obligations by all means which appear to the Führer appropriate
in the interests of the successful prosecution of the war.[55] (The text of the
resolution adopted by the Reichstag is included as document 5, post p. 183.)
Great emphasis is placed by the Nazi leaders on the infallibility of the
Führer and the duty of obedience of the German people. In a speech on June
12, 1935, for instance, Robert Ley, director of the party organization, said,
"Germany must obey like a well-trained soldier: the Führer, Adolf Hitler, is
always right." Developing the same idea, Ley wrote in an article in the
Angriff on April 9, 1942 (document 6, post p. 184): "Right is what serves
my people; wrong is what damages it. I am born a German and have,
therefore, only one holy mission: work for my people and take care of it."
And with reference to the position of Hitler, Ley wrote:
The National Socialist Party is Hitler, and Hitler
is the party. The National Socialists believe in
Hitler, who embodies their will. Therefore our
conscience is clearly and exactly defined. Only
what Adolf Hitler, our Führer, commands, allows,
or does not allow is our conscience. We have no
understanding for him who hides behind an
anonymous conscience, behind God, whom
everybody conceives according to his own wishes.
These ideas of the Führer's infallibility and the duty of obedience are so
fundamental in fact that they are incorporated as the first two
commandments for party members. These are set forth in the
Organisationsbuch der NSDAP (Nazi Party Organization Book) for 1940,
page 7 (document 7, post p. 186). The first commandment is "The Führer is
always right!" and the second is "Never go against discipline!"
In view of the importance attached to the Führer principle by the Nazis, it
is only natural that youth should be intensively indoctrinated with this idea.
Neesse points out that one of the most important tasks of the party is the

formation of a "select group" or elite which will form the leaders of the
future:
A party such as the NSDAP, which is responsible
to history for the future of the German Reich,
cannot content itself with the hope for future
leaders but must create a strain of strong and true
personalities which should offer the constantly
renewed possibility of replacing leaders whenever
it is necessary. [56]
Beck, in his work Education in the Third Reich, also insists that a respect
for the Führer principle be inculcated in youth:
The educational value of the Hitler Youth is to be
found in this community spirit which cannot be
taught but can only be experienced ... But this
cultivation of the community spirit through the
experience of the community must, in order to
avoid any conception of individual equality which
is inconsistent with the German view of life, be
based upon inward and outward recognition of the
Führer principle ... In the Hitler Youth, the young
German should learn by experience that there are
no theoretical equal rights of the individual but
only a natural and unconditional subordination to
leadership. [57]
German writers often pretend that the Führer principle does not
necessarily result in the establishment of a dictatorship but that it permits
the embodiment of the will of the people in its leaders and the realization of
the popular will much more efficiently than is possible in democratic states.
Such an argument, for example, is presented by Dr. Paul Ritterbusch in
Demokratie und Diktatur (Democracy and Dictatorship), published in
1939. Professor Ritterbusch claims that Communism leads to a dictatorial
system but that the Nazi movement is much closer to the ideals of true
democracy. The real nature of National Socialism, however, cannot be
understood from the standpoint of the "pluralistic-party state." It does not

represent a dictatorship of one party and a suppression of all others but
rather an expression of the will and the character of the whole national
community in and through one great party which has resolved all internal
discords and oppositions within itself. The Führer of this great movement is
at once the leader and the expression of the national will. Freed from the
enervating effects of internal strife, the movement under the guiding hand
of the Führer can bring the whole of the national community to its fullest
expression and highest development.
The highest authority, however, Hitler himself, has left no doubt as to the
nature of Nazi Party leaders. In a speech delivered at the Sportpalast in
Berlin on April 8, 1933, he said:
When our opponents say: "It is easy for you: you
are a dictator"—We answer them, "No, gentlemen,
you are wrong; there is no single dictator, but ten
thousand, each in his own place." And even the
highest authority in the hierarchy has itself only
one wish, never to transgress against the supreme
authority to which it, too, is responsible. We have
in our movement developed this loyalty in
following the leader, this blind obedience of which
all the others know nothing and which gave to us
the power to surmount everything.[58]
As has been indicated above, the Führer principle applies not only to the
Führer of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, but to all the subordinate leaders of the
party and the government apparatus. With respect to this aspect of the
Führer principle, Huber (document 1, post p. 155), says:
The ranks of the public services are regarded as
forces organized on the living principle of
leadership and following: The authority of
command exercised in the labor service, the
military service, and the civil service is Führer-
authority ... It has been said of the military and
civil services that true leadership is not represented
in their organization on the principles of command

and obedience. In reality there can be no political
leadership which does not have recourse to
command and force as the means for the
accomplishment of its ends. Command and force
do not, of course, constitute the true nature of
leadership, but as a means they are indispensable
elements of every fully developed Führer-order.[59]
The Führer principle is officially recognized by the party, and the party
interpretation thereof is set forth in the Party Organization Book (document
7 and charts 1 and 1-A, post pp. 186, 488, 489).
There are also included herein, as charts 2 and 2-A and 3 and 3-A (post
pp. 490, 491, 492, 493), photostatic copies and translations of two charts
from Der nationalsozialistische Staat (The National Socialist State) by Dr.
Walther Gehl, published in 1935. These charts clearly show the
concentration of authority in the Führer and the subordinate relation of the
minor leaders in both the state and the party.

The Party: Leadership by an Elite Class
1. Functions of the Party

The third pillar of the Nazi state, the link between Volk and Führer, is the
Nazi Party. According to Nazi ideology, all authority within the nation is
derived ultimately from the people, but it is the party through which the
people expresses itself. In Rechtseinrichtungen und Rechtsaufgaben der
Bewegung (Legal Organization and Legal Functions of the Movement)
(document 8, post p. 204), published in 1939, Otto Gauweiler states:
The will of the German people finds its
expression in the party as the political organization
of the people. It represents the political conception,
the political conscience, and the political will. It is
the expression and the organ of the people's
creative will to life. It comprises a select part of
the German people for "only the best Germans

should be party members" ... The inner
organization of the party must therefore bring the
national life which is concentrated within itself to
manifestation and development in all the fields of
national endeavor in which the party is
represented. [60]
Gauweiler defines the relationship of the party to the state in the
following terms:
The party stands above and beside the state as the
wielder of an authority derived from the people
with its own sovereign powers and its own sphere
of sovereignty ... The legal position of the party is
therefore that of a completely sovereign authority
whose legal supremacy and self-sufficiency rest
upon the original independent political authority
which the Führer and the movement have attained
as a result of their historical achievements.[61]
Neesse states that "It will be the task of National Socialism to lead back
the German people to an organic structure which proceeds from a
recognition of the differences in the characters and possibilities of human
beings without permitting this recognition to lead to a cleavage of the
people into two camps."[62] This task is the responsibility of the party.
Although it has become the only political party in Germany, the party does
not desire to identify itself with the state. It does not wish to dominate the
state or to serve it. It works beside it and cooperates with it. In this respect,
Nazi Germany is distinguished from the other one-party states of Europe:
"In the one-party state of Russia, the party rules over the state; in the one-
party state of Italy, the party serves the state; but in the one-party state of
Germany, the party neither serves the state nor rules over it directly but
works and struggles together with it for the community of the people."[63]
Neesse contends that the party derives its legal basis from the law inherent
in the living organism of the German Volk:
The inner law of the NSDAP is none other than
the inner law of the German people. The party

arises from the people; it has formed an
organization which crystallizes about itself the
feelings of the people, which seemed buried, and
the strength of the people, which seemed lost.[64]
Neesse states that the party has two great tasks—to insure the continuity
of national leadership and to preserve the unity of the Volk:
The first main task of the party, which is in
keeping with its organic nature, is to protect the
National Socialist idea and to constantly renew it
by drawing from the depths of the German soul, to
keep it pure and clear, and to pass it on thus to
coming generations: this is predominantly a matter
of education of the people.
The second great task, which is in keeping with
its organizational nature, is to form the people and
the state into the unity of the nation and to create
for the German national community forms which
are ever new and suited to its vital development:
this is predominantly a matter of state formation.
These two tasks, one of which deals with
substance and the other with function, belong
together. It is as impossible to separate them as it is
to split up the party into organism and
organization, form and content.[65]
Huber (document 1, post p. 155) describes the tasks of the party in
similar terms. He states that the party is charged with the "education of the
people to a political people" through the awakening of the political
consciousness of each individual; the inculcation of a "uniform political
philosophy," that is, the teaching of Nazi principles; "the selection of
leaders," including the choice and training of especially promising boys to
be the Führers of the future; and the shaping of the "political will of the
people" in accordance with the Führer's aims.[66]

The educational tasks of the party are stressed by Beck, who develops the
idea that the Volk can be divided into three main groups, "a supporting, a
leading, and a creative class."[67] It is the duty of the leading class, that is,
the party, from which the creative class of leaders is drawn, to provide for
the education of the supporting class.
Every member of the body of the people must
belong to the politically supporting class, that is,
each one who bears within himself the basic racial,
spiritual, and mental values of the people ... Here
no sort of leading or creative activity is demanded
but only a recognition of the leading and creative
will ... Only those are called to leadership in
political life who have recognized the community-
bound law of all human life in purest clarity and in
the all-embracing extent of its validity and who
will place all the powers of their personal lives
with the help of a politically moral character in the
service of the formation of community life ... From
the politically leading class arise the politically
creative personalities. These are the mysterious
elemental forces which are beyond all explanation
by human reason and which through their action
and by means of the living idea within them give
to the community of the people an expression
which is fresh, young, and eternal. Here is the
fulfilment of the highest and purest political
humanity ... The education of the socialist
personality is essentially the forming of the
politically supporting class within the German
people and the encouragement of those political
tendencies which make a man a political leader. To
educate to political creativeness is just as
impossible as to educate to genius. Education can
only furnish the spiritual atmosphere, can only
prepare the spiritual living-space for the politically
creative personality by forming a uniform political

consciousness in the socialistic personality, and in
the development of politically creative
personalities it can at the most give special
attention to those values of character and spirit
which are of decisive importance for the
development of this personality.[68]
Goebbels in The Nature and Form of National Socialism (document 2,
post p. 170) emphasizes the responsibility of the party for the leadership of
the state:
The party must always continue to represent the
hierarchy of National Socialist leadership. This
minority must always insist upon its prerogative to
control the state. It must keep the way open for the
German youth which wishes to take its place in
this hierarchy. In reality the hierarchy has fewer
rights than duties! It is responsible for the
leadership of the state and it solemnly relieves the
people of this responsibility. It has the duty to
control the state in the best interests and to the
general welfare of the nation.[69]
Dr. Frick, German Minister of the Interior, in his chapter in Germany
Speaks indicates the exclusive position of the party in the Third Reich:
National Socialist Germany, however, is not
merely a unitary state: it is also a unitary nation
and its governance is based on the principle of
leadership ...
In National Socialist Germany, leadership is in
the hands of an organized community, the National
Socialist Party; and as the latter represents the will
of the nation, the policy adopted by it in harmony
with the vital interests of the nation is at the same
time the policy adopted by the country ... The
National Socialist Party is the only political party

in Germany and therefore the true representative of
the people...[70]
To Dr. Ley, the party is identical with the Führer. As he wrote in the
Angriff on April 9, 1942 (document 6, post p. 184), "The National Socialist
Party is Hitler, and Hitler is the party."
The role of the party in legislation, in political matters, and in the
appointment of Government officials is indicated by the Führer's decree of
May 29, 1941,[71] as amplified by the order of January 16, 1942, concerning
its execution.[72] (Document 9, post p. 212). This order provides that all
legislative proposals and proposed laws and decrees, as well as any
proposed changes therein, must pass through and receive the approval of
the Party Chancelry.

2. Party Membership

Details concerning the qualifications and duties of party members are
contained in the Party Organization Book for 1940 (document 7, post p.
186).
Membership is finally confirmed by the issuance
of a membership card or a membership book.
Anyone who becomes a party member does not
merely join an organization but he becomes a
soldier in the German freedom movement and that
means much more than just paying his dues and
attending the members' meetings. He obligates
himself to subordinate his own ego and to place
everything he has in the service of the people's
cause. Only he who is capable of doing this should
become a party member. A selection must be made
in accordance with this idea.
Readiness to fight, readiness to sacrifice, and
strength of character are the requirements for a
good National Socialist. Small blemishes, such as

a false step which someone has made in his youth,
should be overlooked; the contribution in the
struggle for Germany should alone be decisive.
The healthy will naturally prevail over the bad if
the will to health finds sufficient support in
leadership and achievement. Admission to the
party should not be controlled by the old bourgeois
point of view. The party must always represent the
elite of the people. [73]
German blood is one of the prerequisites for party membership. The
Party Organization Book for 1940 (document 7, post p. 186) also states,
"Only those racial comrades who possess German citizenship are eligible
for admission."[74]
Party members shall not exceed ten per cent of the German population of
the region. "The ideal proportion of the number of party members to the
number of racial comrades is set at ten per cent. This proportion is to apply
also to the individual Province [Gau]."[75]

3. Pledges and Symbols of Allegiance

Party members take an oath of loyalty to the Führer in the following
terms: "I pledge allegiance to my Führer, Adolf Hitler. I promise at all times
to respect and obey him and the leaders whom he appoints over me."[76]

(a) The Hitler Salute

A pledge of allegiance to the Führer is also implied in the Nazi salute,
which is usually accompanied by the greeting, "Heil Hitler." The phrase mit
deutschen Gruss, which is commonly used as a closing salutation in letters,
is another form of the Hitler greeting. Knaurs Konversations-Lexikon
(Knaur's Conversational Dictionary), published in Berlin in 1934, contains
the following definition:

German greeting, Hitler greeting: by raising the
right arm; used by the old Germans with the spear
as a greeting of arms [Waffengruss]. Communal
greeting of the National Socialists; introduced into
general use in 1933.
That this greeting was used by the Nazis as early as 1923 is demonstrated
by a photograph which appeared in Das Buch der NSDAP, Werden, Kampf
and Ziel der NSDAP (The Book of the NSDAP, Growth, Struggle, and Goal
of the NSDAP) by Walter M. Espe (Berlin, 1934), illustration 34 (document
10, post p. 214).
In the same book (page 23 in the supplement entitled "Die NSDAP") the
following distinction is made between the usual Nazi greeting and the
Storm Troopers' salute:
While the German greeting consists merely in
raising the right hand in any desired manner and
represents rather a general comradely greeting, the
SA salute is executed, in accordance with the
specifications of the SA service regulations, by
placing the left hand on the belt and raising the
extended right arm.
The SA salute is to be given to all higher ranking
leaders of the SA and the SS and of the veterans'
organization which has been incorporated into the
SA, as well as to the Army and the national and
security police forces.
The comradely German greeting is to be
exchanged between all equally ranking members
of the SA and the SS and members of a
corresponding rank in the Army, the police, the
veterans' organization, the German air-sport
league, the Hitler Youth, the railway guards, and
the whole membership of the party so far as they
are distinguishable by regulation uniforms.

(b) The Swastika

Early in its history the Nazi Party adopted the swastika banner as its
official emblem.[77] It was designed by Hitler himself, who wrote in Mein
Kampf:
I myself after countless attempts had laid down a
final form: a flag with a background of red cloth,
having a white circle, and, in its center, a black
swastika....
As National Socialists we see our program in our
flag. In the red we see the social idea of the
movement, in the white the nationalistic idea, and
in the swastika the fight for the victory of Aryan
man and at the same time for the victory of the
idea of creative work, which in itself always was
and always will be anti-Semitic.[78]
The swastika banner came into general use after January 30, 1933 as a
symbol of allegiance to the Hitler regime, but not until two years later was
it made the German national flag by the Reich flag law of September 15,
1935.[79] Another law, decreed on April 7, 1937,[80] specified that:
The insignia which the NSDAP, its formations,
and associated organizations use for their officers,
their structure, their organization, and their
symbols may not be used by other associations
either alone or with embellishments.
It is interesting to note that party regulations forbid members to use
passport photographs in which they appear in party uniform or wearing
party insignia and that party members are forbidden to discuss foreign
policy with foreigners unless they are officially designated by the Führer to
do so. The pertinent regulations read:
Pass Photos on Identification Cards

Members of the NSDAP must not use pass photos
which show the holder of any identification card in
a uniform of the party or of any of its formations.
It is also forbidden to use as pass photos pictures
which show the person wearing a party button.

Conversations With Foreigners

It is forbidden to all party members to engage in
discussions of foreign policy with foreigners. Only
such persons as have been designated by the
Führer are entitled to do so.[81]

The Totalitarian State

The Weimar Constitution, although never formally abrogated by the
Nazis, was rendered totally ineffectual by two basic laws, promulgated
within two months after the seizure of power by the party. The first of these
was the "Decree of the Reich's President for the Protection of the People
and State" (document 11-I, post p. 215), issued February 28, 1933, the day
after the Reichstag was burned down. It suspended "until further notice"[82]
articles of the Weimar Constitution guaranteeing essential democratic rights
of the individual. Thus, according to article I of this decree, "restrictions on
personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including
freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association,
and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic
communications, and warrants for house-searches, orders for confiscations
as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal
limits otherwise prescribed."[83] The abrogation by the Nazis of these
fundamental rights of democracy has never been repealed or amended. In
fact, this decree represents the presupposition and confirmation of the
police sway established throughout Germany by the Nazis.[84]
The second basic law, known as the "Enabling Act," the "Law To
Remove the Distress of People and State," of March 24, 1933 (document

11-II, post p. 217), swept away parliamentary government entirely. By
abrogating the pertinent articles of the Weimar Constitution, it enabled the
Nazi Cabinet under Hitler's chancelorship to appropriate money and
legislate without any responsibility to the Reichstag or any obligation to
respect the Constitution.
The dissolution of democracy in Germany was sealed by the unification
of the authoritarian Nazi Party with the German state. Soon after the party
came to power in 1933, steps were taken to effect and secure this unity. The
process is described by Huber (document 1, post p. 155) as follows:
On July 14, 1933 was issued the law against the
formation of new parties which raised the NSDAP
to the only political party in Germany [document
11-III] ... The overthrow of the old party-state was
accompanied by the construction of the new
movement-state [Bewegungsstaat]. Out of a
political fighting organization the NSDAP grew to
a community capable of carrying the state and the
nation. This process was accomplished step by step
in the first months after the National Socialist
seizure of power. The assumption of the office of
Chancelor by the Führer of the movement formed
the basis for this development. Various party
leaders were appointed as Reichsminister; the
governors of the provinces were national leaders or
Gauleiter of the party, such as General von Epp;
the Prussian government officials are as a rule
Gauleiter of the party; the Prussian police chiefs
are mostly high-ranking SA leaders. By this
system of a union of the personnel of the party and
state offices the unity of party and state was
achieved.[85]
The culmination of this development was reached in the "Law To
Safeguard the Unity of Party and State," of December 1, 1933 (document
11-IV, post p. 221), which proclaimed the NSDAP "the bearer of the
German state-idea and indissolubly joined to the state." In order to

guarantee the complete cooperation of the party and SA with the public
officials, the Führer's Deputy and the Chief of Staff of the SA were made
members of the Cabinet.
With regard to the relation between the party and the state, Neesse writes:
The NSDAP is not a structure which stands under
direct state control, to which single tasks of public
administration are entrusted by the state, but it
holds and maintains is claim to totality as the
"bearer of the German state-idea" in all fields
relating to the community—regardless of how
various single functions are divided between the
organization of the party and the organization of
the state.[86]
To maintain cooperation between the party and state organizations, the
highest state offices are given to the men holding the corresponding party
offices. Gauweiler (document 8, post p. 204) attributes to the party supreme
leadership in all phases of national life. Thus the state becomes merely an
administrative machine which the party has set up in accordance with and
for the accomplishment of its aims:
As the responsible bearer and shaper of the
destiny of the whole German nation the party has
created an entirely new state, for that which sought
to foist itself upon her as a state was simply the
product of a deep human confusion. The state of
the past and its political ideal had never satisfied
the longing of the German people. The National
Socialist movement already carried its state within
itself at the time of its early struggles. It was able
to place the completely formed body of its own
state at the disposal of the state which it had taken
over.[87]
The official party interpretation of the relation between party and state, as
set forth in the Party Organization Book for 1940, appears in the Appendix
as document 7 (post p. 186).

Goebbels in his lecture on The Nature and Form of National Socialism
(document 2, post p. 170) stressed the importance of Gleichschaltung or the
penetration of Nazi ideology into all fields of national life. This to his mind
must be the result of the National Socialist revolution. The same aims,
ideals, and standards must be applied to economics and to politics, to
cultural and social development, to education and religion, and to foreign
and domestic relations.
The result of this concept of the totalitarian state has been the
compulsory regimentation of all phases of German life to conform to the
pattern established by the party. The totalitarian state does not recognize
personal liberties for the individual. The legal position of the individual
citizen in the Third Reich is clearly set forth by Huber (document 1, post p.
155):
Not until the nationalistic political philosophy
had become dominant could the liberalistic idea of
basic rights be really overcome. The concept of
personal liberties of the individual as opposed to
the authority of the state had to disappear; it is not
to be reconciled with the principle of the
nationalistic Reich. There are no personal liberties
of the individual which fall outside of the realm of
the state and which must be respected by the state.
The member of the people, organically connected
with the whole community, has replaced the
isolated individual; he is included in the totality of
the political people and is drawn into the collective
action. There can no longer be any question of a
private sphere, free of state influence, which is
sacred and untouchable before the political unity.
The constitution of the nationalistic Reich is
therefore not based upon a system of inborn and
inalienable rights of the individual.[88]
In place of these rights the constitution of the Third Reich guarantees to
the individual his place in the community of the people:

The legal position of the individual member of
the people forms an entirely new concept which is
indispensable for the construction of a nationalistic
order. The legal position of the individual is
always related to the community and conditioned
by duty. It is developed not for the sake of the
individual but for the community, which can only
be filled with life, power, and purpose when a
suitable field of action is insured for the individual
member. Without a concrete determination of the
individual's legal position there can be no real
community.
This legal position represents the organic fixation
of the individual in the living order. Rights and
obligations arise from the application of this legal
position to specific individual relationships ... But
all rights must be regarded as duty-bound rights.
Their exercise is always dependent upon the
fulfilment by the individual of those duties to
which all rights are subordinate ...[89]
The concept of private property in the totalitarian state is also at variance
with the democratic concept of private property. In the Third Reich the
holder of property is considered merely as a manager responsible to the
Volk for the use of the property in the common interest. Huber sets forth the
Nazi view in the following words:
"Private property" as conceived under the
liberalistic economic order was a reversal of the
true concept of property. This "private property"
represented the right of the individual to manage
and to speculate with inherited or acquired
property as he pleased, without regard for the
general interests ... German socialism had to
overcome this "private," that is, unrestrained and
irresponsible view of property. All property is
common property. The owner is bound by the

people and the Reich to the responsible
management of his goods. His legal position is
only justified when he satisfies this responsibility
to the community.[90]
Pursuant to this view of the nature of ownership, property may be
confiscated whenever the state decides that public management would be in
the interests of the community, or if the owner is found guilty of
irresponsible management, in which case no compensation is paid him.
Reference has been made to the appointment of party members to
important state offices. Gauweiler (document 8, post p. 204) points out that
the party insured the infusion of the entire structure of the state with its
ideology through the civil-service law (Beamtengesetz) of January 26, 1937,
[91]
which provides that a person appointed to a civil-service position must
be "filled with National Socialist views, since only thus can he be an
executor of the will of the state which is carried by the NSDAP. It demands
of him that he be ready at all times to exert himself unreservedly in behalf
of the National Socialist state and that he be aware of the fact that the
NSDAP, as the mouthpiece of the people's will, is the vital force behind the
concept of the German state."[92]
The infiltration of party members into the civil service has now
proceeded to such a point that early in 1942 Pfundtner, the Secretary of
State in the German Ministry of the Interior, could write in the periodical
Akademie für deutsches Recht:
The German civil servant must furthermore be a
National Socialist to the marrow of his bones and
must be a member of the party or of one of its
formations. The state will primarily see to it that
the Young Guard of the movement is directed
toward a civil-service career and also that the civil
servant takes an active part in the party so that the
political idea and service of the state become
closely welded.[93]

Footnotes To First Section

[8] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939), pp. 54-55.

[9] Ibid., pp. 153-155.

[10] Ibid., pp. 156-157.

[11] Ibid., p. 157.

[12] Ibid., p. 158.

[13] Ibid., p. 163.

[14] Ibid., p. 164.

[15] Ibid., pp. 165-166.

[16] Neesse, Die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
—Versuch einer Rechtsdeutung (Stuttgart, 1935), p. 44.

[17] Ibid., p. 51.

[18] Ibid., p. 54.

[19] Ibid., p. 58.

[20] Ibid., pp. 54-56.

[21] Ibid., p. 59.

[22] Ibid., pp. 60-61.

[23] Ibid., pp. 65-66.

[24] Scurla, Die Grundgedanken des Nationalsozialismus und das
Ausland (Berlin, 1938), pp. 10-11.

[25] Ibid., p. 9.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid., p. 13.

[28] Beck, Die Erziehung im dritten Reich (Dortmund and
Breslau, 1936), p. 20.

[29] Ibid., pp. 20-21.

[30] Ibid., p. 35.

[31] Ibid., pp. 52-55.

[32] Ibid., p. 46.

[33] Ibid., p. 57.

[34] Ibid., p. 118.

[35] Ibid., p. 140.

[36] Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich,
1935), p. 28 (1st ed. 1930).

[37] Ibid., p. 114.

[38] Ibid., p. 479.

[39] Ibid., p. 542.

[40] Gottfried Feder, The Programme of the Party of Hitler
(translated by E.T.S. Dugdale: Munich, 1932), p. 18.

[41] Rosenberg, Wesen, Grundsätze und Ziele der NSDAP
(Munich, 1933), pp. 16-18 (1st ed. 1922).

[42] Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 673.

[43] Beck, op. cit., p. 110.

[44] Ibid., p. 110.

[45] Huber, "Aufbau und Gefüge des Reiches," published in the
book Idee und Ordnung des Reiches (ed. by Huber: Hamburg,
Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1941), p. 12.

[46] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939), pp. 194-198.

[47] Ibid., pp. 199-200.

[48] Ibid., pp. 207-208.

[49] Ibid., pp. 213-214.

[50] Ibid., p. 230.

[51] Neesse, op. cit., p. 146.

[52] Ibid., p. 143.

[53] Ibid., pp. 144-147.

[54] Germany Speaks (containing articles by twenty-one leading
members of the Nazi Party and the German Government: London,
1938), p. 31.

[55] Reichsgesetzblatt (1942), p. 247. (All citations to the
Reichsgesetzblatt refer to part I thereof.)

[56] Neesse, op. cit., p. 150.

[57] Beck, op. cit., p. 131.

[58] My New Order, p. 159.

[59] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939), p. 410.

[60] Gauweiler, Rechtseinrichtungen und Rechtsaufgaben der
Bewegung (Munich, 1939), p. 2.

[61] Ibid., p. 9.

[62] Neesse, op. cit,, p. 71.

[63] Ibid., p. 119.

[64] Ibid., p. 126.

[65] Ibid., pp. 139-140.

[66] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939), pp. 293-296.

[67] Beck, op. cit., p. 37.

[68] Ibid., pp. 37-38.

[69] Goebbels, op. cit., p. 19.

[70] Germany Speaks, pp. 30-31.

[71] Reichsgesetzblatt (1941), p. 295.

[72] Ibid., (1942), p. 35.

[73] Organisationsbuch der NSDAP (ed. by the National
Organizational Director of the NSDAP: Munich, 1940), p. 5.

[74] Ibid., p. 6b.

[75] Ibid., p. 6d.

[76] Ibid.

[77] The German pocket reference book for current events
(Taschen-Brockhaus zum Zeitgeschehen: Leipzig, 1942) states
that the swastika banner was designed by Hitler for the NSDAP in
1919.

[78] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich, Verlag Frank Eher,
G.m.b.H., 1933 [copyright 1925]), pp. 556-557.

[79] Reichsgesetzblatt (1935), p. 1145.

[80] Ibid. (1937), p. 442.

[81] Organisationsbuch der NSDAP (Munich, 1940), p. 8.

[82] Reichsgesetzblatt (1933), p. 83.

[83] Ibid.

[84] In his book Die deutsche Polizei (The German Police)
(Darmstadt, L.C. Wittich Verlag, 1941), p. 24, the prominent Nazi
police official, Dr. Werner Best, wrote that this law "is to be
regarded not as a 'police law'—that is, as the regulation of police
functions and activities—but as the expression of the new
conception of the state as it has been transformed by the National
Socialist revolution, from which the new 'police' concept is
derived." Also, this law was for the police "the confirmation that
the work already begun was in agreement with the law giving will
of the Supreme Leadership of the Reich."

[85] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939) p. 288.

[86] Neesse, op. cit., p. 131.

[87] Gauweiler, op. cit., p. 3.

[88] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939), p. 361.

[89] Ibid., pp. 365-366.

[90] Ibid., pp. 372-373.

[91] Reichsgesetzblatt (1937), pp. 39-70.

[92] Gauweiler, op. cit., p. 156.

[93] Reported in a bulletin of the official German news agency,
DNB, Apr. 14, 1942.

Nazi Aims And Methods
Political Aims

The political aims of National Socialism have been written so clearly in
history in the past 10 years that it does not appear necessary to discuss them
at length here.
The detailed program of the Nazi Party consists of the 25 points which
were adopted on February 24, 1920 at a party mass meeting in Munich.
(The 25-point program appears in the Appendix as document 12, post p.
222.) The points of particular interest in this study are the first four, which
are set forth below:
1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a
Great Germany on the basis of the right of the self-
determination enjoyed by nations.

2. We demand equality of rights for the German
People in its dealings with other nations, and
abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St.
Germain.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the
nourishment of our people and for settling our
superfluous population.
4. None but members of the nation may be
citizens of the State. None but those of German
blood, whatever their creed, may be members of
the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of
the nation.[94]

1. Internal Objectives

A statement of the internal objectives of National Socialism is made by
Gauweiler in his Legal Organization and Legal Functions of the Movement
(document 8, post p. 204). The laws of the Reich must seek to establish and
promote the five basic values recognized by Nazi ideology:
1. Race: The legal protection of the race, which
has created a new concept of nationality
[Volkszugehörigkeit], is consciously put in first
place, for the most significant historical principle
which has been established by the victory of
National Socialism is that of the necessity for
keeping race and blood pure. All human mistakes
and errors can be corrected except one: "the error
regarding the importance of maintaining the basic
values of a nation."
The purpose of this legal protection of the basic
value of race must be the prevention for all time of
a further mixture of German blood with foreign
blood, as well as the prevention of continued

procreation of racially unworthy and undesirable
members of the people.
2. Soil [Boden]: The living-space and the basis
for the food supply of the German people are its
territory and soil. The farmer is the first and
deepest representative of the people since he
nourishes the people from the fertility of the earth
and he maintains the nation through the fertility of
his own family. Here National Socialism had to
accomplish two great legal ends: the
reestablishment and the protection of the farmer
class and the securing of its land for the farmer
family.
3. Work: The nation's work as a basic national
value is grounded on the leading concept of "work
of the hands and of the head" within and for the
community of the people and the elevation of work
to the only criterion for the value of an individual
within the community. In place of the idea of class
warfare, National Socialism had to establish the
national community legally; in place of the
defamation of work and its degradation to an
object of barter, National Socialism had to raise it
to an ethical duty and the right to work had to
become the most clearly defined personal right of
the individual. The concept of the honor of work
had to be established as the basic concept of the
national honor.
4. The Reich: With the securing of the three basic
values of race, soil, and work arises the National
Socialist Reich.
The infusion of foreign cultural and legal
influences in Germany was a consequence of the
weakening of the central authority of the German

Reich since the Middle Ages. The creation and
insuring of a strong central authority in contrast to
the disorganized, federalistic system of the Weimar
Republic became one of the principal lines of
National Socialist legal policy. In consequence of
the National Socialist revolution, the Reich took
on the legal form of a totalitarian state and
received a supreme and completely authoritative
lawgiver in the person of the Führer. The principle
of a division of power could no longer maintain
itself: The formulation, the interpretation, and the
execution of the law are all performed by the
Führer himself or under his authority.
5. Honor: The fifth great value of the nation is its
honor. The honor of the people, the Reich, the
party, the Führer, and the individual citizen are all
regarded as goods to be protected by law. The
basis of national honor is loyalty. National
Socialist criminal law is therefore essentially
organized as a system of punishment for breaches
of faith. Every crime and offense against the
community is a breach of faith which must result
in loss of honor.[95]

2. Foreign Policy

The close connection between the internal political program of the
National Socialist movement, as expressed in the foregoing paragraphs, and
its foreign policy was indicated by Hitler when he wrote in Mein Kampf
(document 13-I, post p. 226):
As National Socialists we can further set forth the
following principle with regard to the nature of the
foreign policy of a folk-state:

It is the task of the foreign policy of a folk-state to
secure the existence on this planet of the race
which is encompassed by the state and at the same
time to establish a healthy, viable, natural relation
between the number and growth of the folk on the
one hand and the size and quality of its soil and
territory on the other hand.[96]
And in the same work he states:
Yes, we can only learn from the past that we must
undertake the setting of aims for our political
activity in two directions: Soil and territory as the
goal of our foreign policy, and a new,
philosophically firm and uniform foundation as the
goal of our domestic political activity.[97]
The political objectives of National Socialism, then, by definition of
Hitler himself, are the internal unification of the German people and
external expansion.
While the Nazis have never concealed the first of these objectives, the
second was the subject for a great deal of dissimulation up to the outbreak
of the present war. Typical of the false front which the Nazis presented to
the outside world with reference to their foreign policy objectives are the
statements made by Dr. Scurla in Basic Principles of National Socialism
With Special Reference to Foreign Countries. Dr. Scurla quotes Hitler's
speech of May 17, 1933 in which he said, "We see the European nations
around us as given facts. French, Poles, etc., are our neighbor peoples, and
we know that no conceivable historic occurrence could change this reality,"
[98] and comments:

This folk principle, which has grown out of the
National Socialist ideology, implies the
recognition of the independence and the equal
rights of each people. We do not see how anyone
can discern in this a "pan-Germanic" and
imperialistic threat against our neighbors. This

principle does not admit the difference between
"great powers" and "minor states," between
majority peoples and minorities. It means at the
same time a clear rejection of any imperialism
which aims at the subjugation of foreign peoples
or the denationalization of alien populations. It
demands the unqualified acknowledgment of the
right to live of every folk, and of every folk-group,
which is forced to live as a foreign group in
another state. The western European national state
together with its parliamentary democracy was not
able to do justice to the natural and living entities,
the peoples, in their struggle for existence.[99]
Farther on in the same work Scurla states:
Out of its fundamental ideologic view, however,
Germany rejects every form of imperialism, even
that of peaceful penetration. It is unable to concede
to any people the authority to develop ideas and
ways of living, to which then another people has to
subordinate itself, even if some other order is
suited to its essential nature ... It does not at all,
however, consider the German order obligatory for
other peoples. National Socialism, as has been said
a hundred times, is exclusively the sum total of the
German world-view.[100]
Similar assurances by Nazi leaders were frequently made in order to
induce a sense of security in neighboring countries. Hitler, for example, in a
proclamation opening the party congress at Nuremberg on September 11,
1935 said:
National Socialism has no aggressive intentions
against any European nation. On the contrary, we
are convinced that the nations of Europe must
continue their characteristic national existence, as

created by tradition, history and economy; if not,
Europe as a whole will be destroyed.[101]
But such assurances, which were intended exclusively for foreign
consumption, were refuted by the basic policy laid down in Mein Kampf,
which has been persistently pursued throughout the 10 years of the Nazi
regime and has been realized to the extent that Germany now dominates
and is in control of most of the European continent. In Mein Kampf
(document 13-I, post p. 226) Hitler wrote:
Our task, the mission of the National Socialist
movement, however, is to lead our folk to such
political insight that it will see its future goal
fulfilled not in the intoxicating impression of a new
Alexandrian campaign but rather in the
industrious work of the German plow, which waits
only to be given land by the sword.[102]
Hitler suggests a future foreign policy for Germany which would assure
Lebensraum and domination of the European continent. In Mein Kampf he
states:
But the political testament of the German nation
for its outwardly directed activity should and must
always have the following import:
Never tolerate the establishment of two
continental powers in Europe. See an attack
against Germany in every attempt to organize a
second military power on the German borders,
even if it is only in the form of the establishment of
a state which is a potential military power, and see
therein not only the right but also the duty to
prevent the formation of such a state with all
means, even to the use of force, or if it has already
been established, to destroy it again. See to it that
the strength of our folk has its foundations not in
colonies but in the soil of the European homeland.
Never regard the foundations of the Reich as

secure, if it is not able to give every off-shoot of
our folk its own bit of soil and territory for
centuries to come. Never forget that the most
sacred right in the world is the right to the soil
which a man wishes to till himself, and the most
sacred sacrifice is the blood which he spills for
this soil.[103]
It is impossible to adduce from the writings of Hitler, or other Nazi
leaders direct statements indicating that they aspire to the domination of the
entire world. Such expressions, however, may be inferred not only from the
direction of German foreign policy and the effusions of the geopoliticians
but also from the following statement made by Hitler in Mein Kampf
(document 13-I, post p. 226):
... If the German folk, in its historical
development, had possessed that herdlike unity
which other peoples have enjoyed, the German
Reich would today be mistress of the globe. World
history would have taken another course, and no
one can tell whether in this way that might not
have been attained which so many deluded
pacifists are hoping today to wheedle by moaning
and whining: a peace supported not by the palm
branches of tearful pacifistic female mourners but
founded by the victorious sword of a master race
[Herrenvolk] which places the world in the service
of a higher culture.[104]
Like Hitler, Rosenberg envisaged the extension of Nazi power far beyond
the borders of Germany. In his Nature, Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP
he stated, "But National Socialism also believes that, far beyond Germany's
borders, its principles and its ideology ... will lead the way in the
unavoidable struggles for power in the other countries of Europe and
America."[105]

Propaganda
1. Professed Peaceful Intentions as a Cloak for Imperialistic Designs

The falsity of Nazi propaganda has been demonstrated repeatedly during
the past decade. That its keynote was set by Hitler himself becomes evident
upon an examination of his statements on foreign policy over a period of
years. Not only has his policy been marked by a series of shifts and turns,
so that the policy of one year was frequently canceled by the policy of the
next, but a comparison of his words with his subsequent deeds makes it
evident that he deliberately sought to lull other countries into a feeling of
security until he was ready to move against them. On May 17, 1933 he
asserted:
No fresh European war is capable of putting
something better in the place of unsatisfactory
conditions which exist to-day ... The outbreak of
such madness without end would lead to the
collapse of existing social order in Europe ... The
German Government are convinced that to-day
there can be only one great task, and that is to
assure the peace of the world ... The German
Government wish to settle all difficult questions
with other Governments by peaceful methods.
They know that any military action in Europe,
even if completely successful, would, in view of
the sacrifice, bear no relation to the profit to be
obtained ...
Germany will tread no other path than that laid
down by the Treaties. The German Government
will discuss all political and economic questions
only within the framework of, and through, the
Treaties.
The German people have no thought of invading
any country.[106] (Document 14, post pp. 282-233.)
And on March 7, 1936 he stated:

After three years I believe that I can regard the
struggle for German equality as concluded to-day.
I believe, moreover, that thereby the first and
foremost reason for our withdrawal from European
collective collaboration has ceased to exist. We
have no territorial demands to make in Europe.
[107] (Document 14, post p. 237.)

Moreover, he did not shrink from giving specific assurances of
Germany's peaceful intentions toward his subsequent victims:
There are Germans and Poles in Europe, and they
ought to live together in agreement. The Poles
cannot think, of Europe without the Germans and
the Germans cannot think of Europe without the
Poles. (Oct. 24, 1933)
Germans and Poles must reconcile themselves as
to the fact of each others' existence. It has seemed
to me necessary to demonstrate by an example that
it is possible for two nations to talk over their
differences without giving the task to a third or a
fourth ...
The assertion that the German Reich plans to
coerce the Austrian State is absurd and cannot be
substantiated or proved ... The assertion of the
Austrian Government that from the side of the
Reich an attack would be undertaken or planned I
must emphatically reject ... The German Reich is
always ready to hold out a hand for a real
understanding, with full respect for the free will of
Austrian Germans ... (Jan. 13, 1934)
The lie goes forth again that Germany to-morrow
or the day after will fall upon Austria or Czecho-
Slovakia. I ask myself always: Who can these
elements be who will have no peace, who incite
continually, who must so distrust, and want no

understanding? Who are they? I know they are not
the millions who, if these inciters had their way,
would have to take up arms. (May 1, 1936)
Germany and Poland are two nations, and these
nations will live, and neither of them will be able
to do away with the other. I recognized all of this,
and we all must recognize that a people of
33,000,000 will always strive for an outlet to the
sea ... We have assured all our immediate
neighbors of the integrity of their territory as far
as Germany is concerned. That is no hollow
phrase; it is our sacred will ...
(Sept. 26, 1938)[108]
(Document 14, post pp. 233, 234, 238, 240-241.)
Yugoslavia is a State that has increasingly
attracted the attention of our people since the war.
The high regard that the German soldiers then felt
for this brave people has since been deepened and
developed into genuine friendship. Our economic
relations with this country are undergoing constant
development and expansion, just as is the case
with the friendly countries of Bulgaria, Greece,
Rumania, Turkey, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the
Baltic States. (Jan. 30, 1939)[109]
In Hitler's Reichstag speech of April 28, 1939, in which he replied to
President Roosevelt's telegraphic message inviting him and Mussolini to
pledge themselves not to attack 31 countries mentioned by name, he stated:
... All states bordering on Germany have received
much more binding assurances, and above all
suggestions, than Mr. Roosevelt asked from me in
his curious telegram ...
The German Government is nevertheless
prepared to give each of the States named an

assurance of the kind desired by Mr. Roosevelt on
the condition of absolute reciprocity, provided that
the State wishes it and itself addresses to Germany
a request for such an assurance together with
appropriate proposals.[110]
And on September 1, 1939, with reference to the recently concluded pact
between Germany and Russia, he said:
You know that Russia and Germany are governed
by two different doctrines. There was only one
question that had to be cleared up. Germany has no
intention of exporting its doctrine. Given the fact
that Soviet Russia has no intention of exporting its
doctrine to Germany, I no longer see any reason
why we should still oppose one another. On both
sides we are clear on that. Any struggle between
our people would only be of advantage to others.
We have, therefore, resolved to conclude a pact
which rules out forever any use of violence
between us.[111]
Additional assurances of this nature are quoted in a series of extracts
from Hitler's speeches, dating from February 10, 1933 to September 1,
1939, which was printed in the London Times of September 26, 1939
(document 14, post p. 232).

2. Internal Propaganda

Within Germany the notorious propaganda machine of Dr. Goebbels,
together with a systematic terrorization of oppositionist elements, has been
the principle support of the rise and triumph of the Nazi movement. In his
Legal Organization and Legal Functions of the Movement (document 8,
post p. 204), Gauweiler gives an idea of the permeation of all phases of
national life with a propaganda designed to make Nazi "legal principles"
acceptable to the masses. He makes it clear that all of the Nazi propaganda
machinery is in the service of this program; political lecturers, the press, the

radio, and the films all play a part in helping the people to understand and
appreciate the new legal code. The schools and Hitler Youth groups provide
instruction for all young people in the fundamentals of National Socialist
law, and pupils in those schools which train the carefully selected future
leaders are given an especially strong dose of Nazi legal theory and
practice.
In order to appeal to the broadest audience, Nazi propaganda has always
sought to present all questions in the simplest possible terms. Goebbels
himself, in his Nature and Form of National Socialism (document 2, post p.
170), wrote as follows:
National Socialism has simplified the thinking of
the German people and led it back to its original
primitive formulas. It has presented the
complicated processes of political and economic
life in their simplest terms. This was done with the
well-considered intention of leading the broad
masses of the people once again to take part in
political life. In order to find understanding among
the masses, we consciously practiced a popular
[volksgebundene] propaganda. We have taken
complexes of facts which were formerly accessible
only to a few specialists and experts, carried them
to the streets, and hammered them into the brain of
the little man. All things were presented so simply
that even the most primitive mind could grasp
them. We refused to work with unclear or
insubstantial concepts but we gave all things a
clearly defined sense. Here lay the secret of our
success.[112]
The character and quality of Nazi propaganda was fully presaged in Mein
Kampf. Here Hitler paid a striking tribute to the power of lies, commenting
on—
the very correct principle that the size of the lie
always involves a certain factor of credibility,

since the great mass of a people will be more
spoiled in the innermost depths of its heart, rather
than consciously and deliberately bad.
Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity
of its mind it is more readily captivated by a big lie
than by a small one, since it itself often uses small
lies but would be, nevertheless, too ashamed to
make use of big lies. Such an untruth will not even
occur to it, and it will not even believe that others
are capable of the enormous insolence of the most
vile distortions. Why, even when enlightened, it
will still vacillate and be in doubt about the matter
and will nevertheless accept as true at least some
cause or other. Consequently, even from the most
impudent lie something will always stick ...[113]
A number of other passages display Hitler's low opinion of the
intellectual capacities and critical faculties of the masses:
All propaganda has to appeal to the people and its
intellectual level has to be set in accordance with
the receptive capacities of the most-limited
persons among those to whom it intends to address
itself. The larger the mass of men to be reached,
the lower its purely intellectual level will have to
be set.[114]
The receptive capacity of the great masses is very
restricted, its understanding small. On the other
hand, however, its forgetfulness is great. On
account of these facts all effective propaganda
must restrict itself to very few points and impress
these by slogans, until even the last person is able
to bring to mind what is meant by such a word.[115]
The task of propaganda is, for instance, not to
evaluate diverse rights but to emphasize
exclusively the single right of that which it is

representing. It does not have to investigate
objectively the truth, so far as this is favorable to
the others, in order then to present it to the masses
in strict honesty, but rather to serve its own side
ceaselessly.[116]
If one's own propaganda even once accords just
the shimmer of right to the other side, then the
basis is therewith laid for doubt regarding one's
own cause. The masses are not able to distinguish
where the error of the other side ends and the error
of one's own side begins.[117]
But all talent in presentation of propaganda will
lead to no success if a fundamental principle is not
always strictly followed. Propaganda has to restrict
itself to a few matters and to repeat these eternally.
Persistence is here, as with so many other things in
the world, the first and most important
presupposition for success.[118]
In view of their slowness of mind, they [the
masses] require always, however, a certain period
before they are ready even to take cognizance of a
matter, and only after a thousandfold repetition of
the most simple concept will they finally retain it.
[119]

In all cases in which there is a question of the
fulfilment of apparently impossible demands or
tasks, the entire attention of a people must be
concentrated only on this one question, in such a
way as if being or non-being actually depends on
its solution ...
...The great mass of the people can never see the
entire way before them, without tiring and
doubting the task.[120]

In general the art of all truly great popular leaders
at all times consists primarily in not scattering the
attention of a people but rather in concentrating it
always on one single opponent. The more unified
this use of the fighting will of a people, the greater
will be the magnetic attractive force of a
movement and the more powerful the force of its
push. It is a part of the genius of a great leader to
make even quite different opponents appear as if
they belonged only to one category, because the
recognition of different enemies leads weak and
unsure persons only too readily to begin doubting
their own cause.
When the vacillating masses see themselves
fighting against too many enemies, objectivity at
once sets in and raises the question whether really
all the others are wrong and only one's own people
or one's own movement is right.[121] (Document
13-II, post pp. 229-231.)
It has been the aim of Nazi propaganda, then, to unite the masses of the
people in hatred of certain enemies, designated by such conveniently broad
and simple terms as "Jews," "democrats," "plutocrats," "bolshevists," or
"Anglo-Saxons," which so far as possible were to be identified with one
another in the public mind. The Germans were represented to themselves,
on the other hand, as a racial folk of industrious workers. It then became
possible to plunge the people into a war on a wave of emotional hatred
against those nations which were pictured as combining to keep Germany
from attaining her rightful place in the sun.
The important role which propaganda would have to play in the coming
war was fully recognized by Ewald Banse, an ardent Nazi military theorist
of the geopolitical school and professor of military science at Brunswick
Military College. In his book Raum und Volk im Weltkrieg (Space and
People in the World War) which appeared in 1932 (an English translation by
Alan Harris was published under the title Germany Prepares for War (New
York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1934)), he stated:

Preparation for future wars must not stop at the
creation, equipment and training of an efficient
army, but must go on to train the minds of the
whole people for the war and must employ all the
resources of science to master the conditions
governing the war itself and the possibility of
endurance. In 1914 we had a first-class army, but
our scientific mobilization was bad, and the
mobilization of men's minds a thing undreamed of.
The unveiling of war memorials, parades of war
veterans, flag-waggings, fiery speeches and guard-
mounting are not of themselves enough to prepare
a nation's mind for the dangers that threaten.
Conviction is always more lasting than
enthusiasm.
... Such teaching is necessary at a time and in a
world in which countries are no longer represented
by monarchs or a small aristocracy or by a
specialist army, but in which the whole nation,
from the commander-in-chief to the man in the
ranks, from the loftiest thought to the simplest
wish, from corn to coal, from the treasury vaults to
the last trouser-button, must be permeated through
and through with the idea of national defense, if it
is to preserve its national identity and political
independence. The science of national defense is
not the same as military science; it does not teach
generals how to win battles or company
commanders how to train recruits. Its lessons are
addressed first and foremost to the whole people. It
seeks to train the popular mind to heroism and war
and to implant in it an understanding of the nature
and prerequisite conditions of modern warfare. It
teaches us about countries and peoples, especially
our own country and its neighbors, their territories
and economic capacity, their communications and

their mentality—all for the purpose of creating the
best possible conditions for waging future wars in
defense of the national existence.[122]

Infiltration Tactics

The Nazis, while entirely without scruple in the pursuit of their
objectives, endeavor whenever possible to give their actions the cloak of
legality. This procedure was followed in Germany to enable them to gain
control of the Government of the Reich and in their foreign policy up to
September 1, 1939. It has been a cardinal principle of the Nazis to avoid the
use of force whenever their objectives may be attained in another manner
and they have assiduously studied their enemies in an effort to discover the
weak points in their structure which will enable the Nazis to accomplish
their downfall. The preceding pages have demonstrated that the Nazis have
contributed practically nothing that is original to German political thought.
By the use of unscrupulous, deceitful, and uninhibited tactics, however,
they have been able to realize many of the objectives which had previously
existed only in theory.
The Weimar Constitution provided the Nazis with a convenient basis for
the establishment of the totalitarian state. They made no effort to conceal
their intention of taking advantage of the weaknesses of the Weimar
Republic in order to attain power. On April 30, 1928 Dr. Goebbels wrote in
his paper Der Angriff:
We enter Parliament in order to supply ourselves,
in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons.
We become members of the Reichstag in order to
paralyze the Weimar sentiment with its own
assistance. If democracy is so stupid as to give us
free tickets and salaries for this bear's work, that is
its affair ...[123]
And later in the same article:

We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals.
We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the
flock, so we come.[124]
Hitler expressed the same idea on September 1, 1933, when, looking
back upon the struggle for political power in Germany, he wrote:
This watchword of democratic freedom led only
to insecurity, indiscipline, and at length to the
downfall and destruction of all authority. Our
opponents' objection that we, too, once made use
of these rights, will not hold water; for we made
use of an unreasonable right, which was part and
parcel of an unreasonable system, in order to
overthrow the unreason of this system.[125]
Discussing the rise to power of the Nazis, Huber (document 1, post p.
155) wrote in 1939:
The parliamentary battle of the NSDAP had the
single purpose of destroying the parliamentary
system from within through its own methods. It
was necessary above all to make formal use of the
possibilities of the party-state system but to refuse
real cooperation and thereby to render the
parliamentary system, which is by nature
dependent upon the responsible cooperation of the
opposition, incapable of action.[126]
As its parliamentary strength increased, the party was able to achieve
these aims:
It was in a position to make the formation of any
positive majority in the Reichstag impossible....
Thus the NSDAP was able through its strong
position to make the Reichstag powerless as a
lawgiving and government-forming body.[127]

The same principle was followed by Germany in weakening and
undermining the governments of countries which it had chosen for its
victims. While it was Hitler's policy to concentrate on only one objective at
a time, German agents were busy throughout the world in ferreting out the
natural political, social, and economic cleavages in various countries and in
broadening them in order to create internal confusion and uncertainty.
Foreign political leaders of Fascist or authoritarian persuasion were
encouraged and often liberally subsidized from Nazi funds. Control was
covertly obtained over influential newspapers and periodicals and their
editorial policies shaped in such a way as to further Nazi ends. In the
countries Germany sought to overpower, all the highly developed organs of
Nazi propaganda were utilized to confuse and divide public opinion, to
discredit national leaders and institutions, and to induce an unjustified
feeling of confidence in the false assertions of Nazi leaders disclaiming any
aggressive intentions.
One of the most important features introduced by the Nazis into German
foreign policy was the appreciation of the value of Germans living abroad
and their organization as implements of the Reich for the attainment of
objectives in the field of foreign policy. This idea was applied by the Nazis
to all the large colonies of Germans which are scattered throughout the
world. The potential usefulness of these colonies was early recognized by
the men in Hitler's immediate entourage, several of whom were so-called
Auslandsdeutsche who had spent many years of their life abroad and were
familiar with foreign conditions and with the position and influence of
German groups in foreign countries. Of particular importance in this group
were Rudolf Hess, the Führer's Deputy, who was primarily responsible for
elaborating the policy which utilized the services of Germans abroad, and
Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, the leader of the Foreign Organization, who was
responsible for winning over these Germans to Naziism and for their
organization in groups which would serve the purposes of the Third Reich.

Footnotes:

[94] Feder, op. cit., p. 18.

[95] Gauweiler, op. cit., pp. 149-151.

[96] Mein Kampf, pp. 727-728.

[97] Ibid., pp. 735-736.

[98] Scurla, op. cit., p. 21.

[99] Ibid., pp. 21-22.

[100] Ibid., p. 23.

[101] Der Parteitag der Freiheit (official record of the 1935 party
congress at Nuremberg: Munich, 1935), p. 27.

[102] Mein Kampf, p. 743.

[103] Ibid., pp. 754-755.

[104] Ibid., pp. 437-438.

[105] Rosenberg, Wesen, Grundsätze und Ziele der NSDAP, p. 48.

[106] London Times, Sept. 26, 1939, p. 9.

[107] Ibid.

[108] Ibid.

[109] My New Order, p. 592.

[110] Ibid., pp. 669-671.

[111] Ibid., p. 687.

[112] Goebbels, op. cit., p. 6.

[113] Mein Kampf, p. 252.

[114] Ibid., p. 197.

[115] Ibid., p. 198.

[116] Ibid., p. 200.

[117] Ibid., pp. 200-201.

[118] Ibid., p. 202.

[119] Ibid., p. 203.

[120] Ibid., p. 273.

[121] Ibid., p. 129.

[122] Banse, Germany Prepares for War (New York, 1934), pp.
348-349.

[123] Goebbels, Der Angriff: Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit
(Munich, 1936), p. 71.

[124] Ibid., p. 73.

[125] My New Order, pp. 195-196.

[126] Huber, Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939), p. 31.

[127] Ibid., p. 32.

NATIONAL-SOCIALISM AND MEDICINE
ToC

Address by Dr. F. Hamburger to German Medical Profession.
Translated (in part) from Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 1939, No. 6.

Medical men must beware of pride, a pride which is certainly wide-
spread and which leads to the disparagement of the practical doctor and
medical layman, and then further to the disparagement of the craft of nature
healers. The practical doctor and the nature healer on the one hand tend
towards an understandable disparagement of medical science and analysis
and, on the other hand, tend towards superficiality. The superficiality of the
opponents of science is, however, as unhappy an affair as the pride of the
so-called scientists, but the one group should not demean the other. This
would lead to successful cooperation to the advantage of the sick and health
of the community.
Academic medicine and nature healers generally have one thing in
common, that they underestimate the significance of automatism and
suggestion. In this regard there is an absence in both camps of the necessary
criticism and clarity. Successes are noted with specific methods without any
confirmation as to whether or not suggestion and faith alone have not
produced the improvement in the patient.
National-Socialism is the true instrument for the achievement of the
health of our people. National-Socialism is concerned with the great
significance of inherited traits and with the insight into the working of
spiritual forces upon the body, with the study of the power of custom and,
along with this, of the significance of education and nurture. (Hamburger
here complains about the luxurious arrangement for dealing with the
mentally ill in contradistinction to the neglect of Folk-health. This he
attributes to the era of liberalism with its stress upon the single individual.
He here also attacks the Socialism of Social Democracy and its conception
of a Community of Equal Men. This is a false Socialism.)
So we scientists and doctors simply and soberly affirm the principle of
strength of faith and the nationalist socialist principle of Positive
Christianity which does not prevent us from the inspired consideration of
natural and divinely willed phenomena. We doctors must never forget the
fact that the soul rules the body.

Soul forces are the most important. The spirit builds the body. Strength
springs from joy. Efficiency is achieved despite care, fear, and uncertainty
—We speak here of thymogenetic automatism or the automatism of
harmony ("thymogenetische automatismus oder stimmungsautomatismus").
The autonomous nervous system achieves, under the influence of joy, the
expansion of the blood vessels in skin and muscle.... The muscular activity
incited by joy means the use of calories and stimulation of appetite.
Muscular contraction pulls and draws at the bones, ligaments are tensed,
breathing deepend, appetite increased ... A child influenced by the daily
exercise of joy develops physically strong and powerful. ... The Soul care
(Seele Sorge) of the practical doctor is his most significant daily task
alongside of prescriptions and manipulative dexterity.
Soul-care in the medical sense is a concern for the wishes, hopes and
fears of the patient, the considered participation in his fate. Such a
relationship leads to the all-important and generally recognized trust in the
doctor. This faith, in all cases, leads to the improvement, often even to the
elimination of symptoms, of the disease. Here we have clearly before us the
great significance of thymogenetic automatism.
Academic physicians should not dismiss this because we do not know its
biochemical aspects. (We must beware of regarding something as
unacceptable because it is not measurable in exact terms, he warns.) We see
its practical results, and, therefore, thymogenetic automatism must stand in
the first rank as of overwhelming significance. Thus, also, the principle,
strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude) stands firmly as an inescapable
natural law.
We see the practical country doctor spreading courage and confidence.
For years too few doctors have seen clearly that gymnastic tourism and
sport do more for health than all doctors taken together. And now we face
the fact that a single man, a non-medical man (Hitler) through his great
qualities, has opened up new avenues of health for the eighty million folk of
Germany.
In the majority of cases things so happen that the doctor must act before
making a diagnosis, since only the mis-educated patients, the one-sided
intellectual patient, wishes in the very first place to know the diagnosis. But

the unspoilt and properly ordered type of person wishes only to be relieved
of his pain. For him the diagnosis is an interesting side issue but not the
principle thing. We can thus also understand why we always meet the desire
for a diagnosis placed first by the over-intellectualized Jewish patient. But
that is not the case with most Aryan patients. They, from the first, come to
meet the doctor with more trust. They do not entertain as many after-
thoughts. And I cannot help but remark that after-thoughts are hardly
conducive to right results.
(After a discussion of the sterilization of the unfit and of inheritable
diseases he turns to the subject of child bearing.)
It has been estimated that every couple should have four children if the
nation's population is to be maintained. But we meet already the facile and
complacent expression of young married people, "Now we have our four
children and so have fulfilled our obligations"—What superficiality! Today
we must demand a much higher moral attitude from the wife than
previously. Earlier it was taken for granted that a woman would bear a child
every one or two years. But today in this time of manifold amenities of life,
at a time when women is not denied access to these joys it is understandable
that she is eager to participate in them. Add to this that the knowledge of
birth control is general today. Despite all this women must be encouraged to
give birth during twenty years of married life to eight or ten and even more
children, and to renounce the above-mentioned joys of life. She must decide
as a mother of children to lead a life full of sacrifices, devotion, and
unselfishness. It is only when these ethical demands are fulfilled by a large
number of worthy wives of good stock that the future of the German nation
will be assured.
Doctors are leaders of the Folk more than they know ... They are now
quite officially fuehrer of the people, called to the leadership of its health.
To fulfill this task they must be free of the profit motive. They must be quite
free from that attitude of spirit which is rightly designated as Jewish, the
concern for business and self-provision.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ToC

Arendt, Hannah—The Origins of Totalitarianism, N.Y., 1951.
Pt. III is especially directed to a discussion of the
principles and consequences of fascism. The
author gives an effective account of what "total
domination" signifies in a reign of terror. Detailed
bibliography.
Bodrero, Emilio—"Fascism" in Dictatorship on Its Trial, ed. by Otto
Forst de Battaglia, London, 1930.
A brief, but significant, statement by a former
Rector of the University of Padua and a Secretary
of State to Mussolini.
Borgese, G.A.—Goliath, The March of Fascism, N.Y., 1938.
Well written from the point of view of an Italian
humanist.
Brady, Robert A.—The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism, London,
1937.
An extremely thorough and documented
discussion of the economy of National Socialist
Germany, its institutions and its business practices.
See also: Brady's Business as a System of Power;
chapters on Germany, Italy and Japan. N.Y., 1943.
Childs, H.L. and Dodd, W.E.—The Nazi Primer, N.Y., 1938.

A translation of the "Official Handbook for
Schooling the Hitler Youth." In simple form
including illustrations, it is an excellent indication
of the guiding principles of the German
educational system.
Dennis, Lawrence—The Coming American Fascism, N.Y., 1936.
The Dynamics of War and Revolution, N.Y., 1940.
Two books by the only fascist theorist in
America.
Fraenkel, Ernest—The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of
Dictatorship, N.Y., 1941.
By distinguishing between the "Prerogative
State" and the "Normative State," the author gives
an effective account of the attempt of the Nazis to
acknowledge an indispensable, if minimal, legal
order, which was, comparatively speaking,
independent of the extra-legal realm of violence.
Hartshorne, E.Y.—The German Universities and National Socialism,
Cambridge, 1937.
A carefully documented account of what
happened in the various branches and departments
of German universities under the Nazis.
Hitler, Adolph—My Battle, N.Y., 1939.
Hitler's own vitriolic account of his attempt to
rise to power.
Lasswell, Harold D.—"The Garrison State," American Journal of
Sociology, Chicago, Vol. XLVI, 1940-41, pp. 455-468.
A brief but incisive discussion of the structure of
fascism.

Lilge, Frederic—The Abuse of Learning: The Failure of the German
University, N.Y., 1948.
A philosophical history of higher education in
Germany, concluding with its fascist evolution.
Matteotti, Giacomo—The Fascist Exposed: A Year of Fascist
Domination, London, 1924.
A factual account by a liberal, who, until
murdered, was a member of the Italian Senate.
Minio-Paluello, L.—Education in Fascist Italy, N.Y., 1946.
A detailed discussion of fascist education,
including an historical introduction to pre-fascist
education.
Neumann, Franz—Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National
Socialism, N.Y., 1942.
Probably the most comprehensive and definitive
statement in English of the functioning of National
Socialism. It concentrates especially on the
political and economic aspects of Nazism.
Pinthus, Kurt—"Culture Under Nazi Germany," The American Scholar,
Vol. IX, N.Y., 1940, pp. 483-498.
A valuable treatment of the inner character of the
arts and letters and of what happened to their
publics under the Nazis.
Sabine, G.H.—A History of Political Theory, N.Y., 1950.
A brief chapter on "Fascism" gives an excellent
balanced account of its fundamentals.
Salvemini, Gaetano—The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, N.Y., 1927.
Under the Axe of Fascism, N.Y., 1936.

An eminent Italian historian writes vividly and
perceptively on Italian Fascism.
Schneider, Herbert W.—Making the Fascist State, N.Y., 1928.
An early, but well considered, account of the rise
of Italian fascism.
Silone, Ignazio—Fontamara, Verona, 1951.
The best novel on Italian fascism.
Spender, Stephen—European Witness, N.Y., 1946.
Note especially the analysis of Goebbel's novel,
Michael.
Trevor-Roper, H.R.—The Last Days of Hitler, N.Y., 1946.
An intimate portrayal of Hitler and his entourage
from the time of the beginning of the collapse of
the Nazi armies. Especially good on the rift
between the politicians and the military.

READINGS ON FASCISM AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM

The catastrophe and holocaust brought about by the two powerful
movements of fascism and national socialism will mark human life always.
Now, as we feel our hatred for them, we find it difficult to understand how
they could have been so powerful, how they could have appealed so
strongly to millions of people of a modern age.
And the documents whereby we could understand these philosophies
have been lost—except as they are now gathered here in one convenient
volume.

To understand our own times, it is necessary to understand these
movements. And to understand them, we must read the basic philosophical
and political documents which show the force of the ideas which moved a
world to the brink of disaster.

The First Swallow Paperbooks:

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