Mein Kampf - the Official 1939 Edition (18 page)

The spectacled theorist would have given his life for his doctrine rather than for his people.

Because man has made laws he subsequently comes to think that he exists for the sake of the laws.

A great service rendered by the pan-German movement then was that it abolished all such nonsense, though the doctrinaire theorists and other fetish worshippers were shocked.

When the Habsburgs attempted to come to close quarters with the German element, by the employment of all the means of attack which they had at their command, the Pan-German Party hit out ruthlessly against the ‘illustrious’ dynasty. This Party was the first to probe into and expose the corrupt condition of the State; and in doing so they opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands. To have liberated the high ideal of love for one’s country from the embrace of this deplorable dynasty was one of the great services rendered by the Pan-German movement.

When that Party first made its appearance it secured a large following - indeed, the movement threatened to become almost an avalanche. But the first successes were not maintained. At the time I came to Vienna the pan-German Party had been eclipsed by the Christian-Socialist Party, which had come into power in the meantime. Indeed, the Pan-German Party had sunk to a level of almost complete insignificance.

The rise and decline of the Pan-German movement on the one hand and the marvellous progress of the Christian-Socialist Party on the other, became a classic object of study for me, and as such they played an important part in the development of my own views.

When I came to Vienna all my sympathies were exclusively with the Pan-German Movement.

I was just as much impressed by the fact that they had the courage to shout Heil Hohenzollern as I rejoiced at their determination to consider themselves an integral part of the German Empire, from which they were separated only provisionally. They never missed an opportunity to explain their attitude in public, which raised my enthusiasm and confidence. To avow one’s principles publicly on every problem that concerned Germanism, and never to make any compromises, seemed to me the only way of saving our people. What I could not understand was how this movement broke down so soon after such a magnificent start; and it was no less incomprehensible that the Christian-Socialists should gain such tremendous power within such a short time. They had just reached the pinnacle of their popularity.

When I began to compare those two movements Fate placed before me the best means of understanding the causes of this puzzling problem. The action of Fate in this case was hastened by my own straitened circumstances.

I shall begin my analysis with an account of the two men who must be regarded as the founders and leaders of the two movements. These were George von Schonerer and Dr. Karl Lueger.

As far as personality goes, both were far above the level and stature of the so-called parliamentary figures. They lived lives of immaculate and irreproachable probity amidst the miasma of all-round political corruption. Personally I first liked the Pan-German representative, Schonerer, and it was only afterwards and gradually that I felt an equal liking for the Christian-Socialist leader.

When I compared their respective abilities Schonerer seemed to me a better and more profound thinker on fundamental problems. He foresaw the inevitable downfall of the Austrian State more clearly and accurately than anyone else. If this warning in regard to the Habsburg Empire had been heeded in Germany the disastrous world war, which involved Germany against the whole of Europe, would never have taken place.

But though Schonerer succeeded in penetrating to the essentials of a problem he was very often much mistaken in his judgment of men.

And herein lay Dr. Lueger’s special talent. He had a rare gift of insight into human nature and he was very careful not to take men as something better than they were in reality. He based his plans on the practical possibilities which human life offered him, whereas Schonerer had only little discrimination in that respect. All ideas that this Pan-German had were right in the abstract, but he did not have the forcefulness or understanding necessary to put his ideas across to the broad masses. He was not able to formulate them so that they could be easily grasped by the masses, whose powers of comprehension are limited and will always remain so. Therefore all Schonerer’s knowledge was only the wisdom of a prophet and he never could succeed in having it put into practice.

This lack of insight into human nature led him to form a wrong estimate of the forces behind certain movements and the inherent strength of old institutions. Schonerer indeed realized that the problems he had to deal with were in the nature of a Weltanschhauung; but he did not understand that only the broad masses of a nation can make such convictions prevail, which are almost of a religious nature.

Unfortunately he understood only very imperfectly how feeble is the fighting spirit of the so-called bourgeoisie. That weakness is due to their business interests, which individuals are too much afraid of risking and which therefore deter them from taking action. And, generally speaking, a Weltanschhauung can have no prospect of success unless the broad masses declare themselves ready to act as its standard-bearers and to fight on its behalf wherever and to whatever extent that may be necessary.

This failure to understand the importance of the lower strata of the population resulted in a very inadequate concept of the social problem.

In all this Dr. Lueger was the opposite of Schonerer. His profound knowledge of human nature enabled him to form a correct estimate of the various social forces and it saved him from under-rating the power of existing institutions. And it was perhaps this very quality which enabled him to utilize those institutions as a means to serve the purposes of his policy.

He saw only too clearly that, in our epoch, the political fighting power of the upper classes is quite insignificant and not at all capable of fighting for a great new movement until the triumph of that movement be secured. Thus he devoted the greatest part of his political activity to the task of winning over those sections of the population whose existence was in danger and fostering the militant spirit in them rather than attempting to paralyse it. He was also quick to adopt all available means for winning the support of long-established institutions, so as to be able to derive the greatest possible advantage for his movement from those old sources of power.

Thus it was that, first of all, he chose as the social basis of his new Party that middle class which was threatened with extinction. In this way he secured a solid following which was willing to make great sacrifices and had good fighting stamina. His extremely wise attitude towards the Catholic Church rapidly won over the younger clergy in such large numbers that the old Clerical Party was forced to retire from the field of action or else, which was the wiser course, join the new Party, in the hope of gradually winning back one position after another.

But it would be a serious injustice to the man if we were to regard this as his essential characteristic. For he possessed the qualities of an able tactician, and had the true genius of a great reformer; but all these were limited by his exact perception of the possibilities at hand and also of his own capabilities.

The aims which this really eminent man decided to pursue were intensely practical. He wished to conquer Vienna, the heart of the Monarchy. It was from Vienna that the last pulses of life beat through the diseased and worn-out body of the decrepit Empire. If the heart could be made healthier the others parts of the body were bound to revive. That idea was correct in principle; but the time within which it could be applied in practice was strictly limited. And that was the man’s weak point.

His achievements as Burgomaster of the City of Vienna are immortal, in the best sense of the word. But all that could not save the Monarchy. It came too late.

His rival, Schonerer, saw this more clearly. What Dr. Lueger undertook to put into practice turned out marvellously successful. But the results which he expected to follow these achievements did not come. Schonerer did not attain the ends he had proposed to himself; but his fears were realized, alas, in a terrible fashion. Thus both these men failed to attain their further objectives. Lueger could not save Austria and Schonerer could not prevent the downfall of the German people in Austria.

To study the causes of failure in the case of these two parties is to learn a lesson that is highly instructive for our own epoch. This is specially useful for my friends, because in many points the circumstances of our own day are similar to those of that time. Therefore such a lesson may help us to guard against the mistakes which brought one of those movements to an end and rendered the other barren of results.

In my opinion, the wreck of the Pan-German Movement in Austria must be attributed to three causes.

The first of these consisted in the fact that the leaders did not have a clear concept of the importance of the social problem, particularly for a new movement which had an essentially revolutionary character. Schonerer and his followers directed their attention principally to the bourgeois classes. For that reason their movement was bound to turn out mediocre and tame. The German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper circles, is pacifist even to the point of complete self-abnegation - though the individual may not be aware of this -wherever the internal affairs of the nation or State are concerned. In good times, which in this case means times of good government, such a psychological attitude makes this social layer extraordinarily valuable to the State. But when there is a bad government, such a quality has a destructive effect. In order to assure the possibility of carrying through a really strenuous struggle, the Pan-German Movement should have devoted its efforts to winning over the masses. The failure to do this left the movement from the very beginning without the elementary impulse which such a wave needs if it is not to ebb within a short while.

In failing to see the truth of this principle clearly at the very outset of the movement and in neglecting to put it into practice the new Party made an initial mistake which could not possibly be rectified afterwards. For the numerous moderate bourgeois elements admitted into the movements increasingly determined its internal orientation and thus forestalled all further prospects of gaining any appreciable support among the masses of the people. Under such conditions such a movement could not get beyond mere discussion and criticism. Quasi-religious faith and the spirit of sacrifice were not to be found in the movement any more. Their place was taken by the effort towards ‘positive’ collaboration, which in this case meant the acknowledgment of the existing state of affairs, gradually whittling away the rough corners of the questions in dispute, and ending up with the making of a dishonourable peace.

Such was the fate of the Pan-German Movement, because at the start the leaders did not realize that the most important condition of success was that they should recruit their following from the broad masses of the people. The Movement thus became bourgeois and respectable and radical only in moderation.

From this failure resulted the second cause of its rapid decline.

The position of the Germans in Austria was already desperate when Pan-Germanism arose. Year after year Parliament was being used more and more as an instrument for the gradual extinction of the German-Austrian population. The only hope for any eleventh-hour effort to save it lay in the overthrow of the parliamentary system; but there was very little prospect of this happening. Therewith the Pan-German Movement was confronted with a question of primary importance.

To overthrow the Parliament, should the Pan-Germanists have entered it ‘to undermine it from within’, as the current phrase was? Or should they have assailed the institution as such from the outside?

They entered the Parliament and came out defeated. But they had found themselves obliged to enter.

For in order to wage an effective war against such a power from the outside, indomitable courage and a ready spirit of sacrifice were necessary weapons. In such cases the bull must be seized by the horns. Furious drives may bring the assailant to the ground again and again; but if he has a stout heart he will stand up, even though some bones may be broken, and only after a long and tough struggle will he achieve his triumph. New champions are attracted to a cause by the appeal of great sacrifices made for its sake, until that indomitable spirit is finally crowned with success.

For such a result, however, the children of the people from the great masses are necessary. They alone have the requisite determination and tenacity to fight a sanguinary issue through to the end. But the Pan-German Movement did not have these broad masses as its champions, and so no other means of solution could be tried out except that of entering Parliamcnt.

It would be a mistake to think that this decision resulted from a long series of internal hesitations of a moral kind, or that it was the outcome of careful calculation. No. They did not even think of another solution. Those who participated in this blunder were actuated by general considerations and vague notions as to what would be the significance and effect of taking part in such a special way in that institution which they had condemned on principle. In general they hoped that they would thus have the means of expounding their cause to the great masses of the people, because they would be able to speak before ‘the forum of the whole nation’. Also, it seemed reasonable to believe that by attacking the evil in the root they would be more effective than if the attack came from outside. They believed that, if protected by the immunity of Parliament, the position of the individual protagonists would be strengthened and that thus the force of their attacks would be enhanced.