This chapter will be challenging for readers in the United States, who generally have a deeply ingrained aversion to the word socialism, but it should be all the more rewarding for those who can think beyond that.
National-Socialism in practice was not socialism in the same sense as Marxism-Leninism: the state did not take ownership of enterprises. The socialism of the Third Reich thus does not fit the current textbook definition of socialism. The state, however, did regulate the economy as needed for the benefit of the society as a whole and conducted extensive social programs.
The “Liberalism” discussed here is primarily 19th-century liberalism, the free-market ideology, from which, Maennel explains, Marxism has evolved. National-Socialism, as a true, folk-based socialism, opposes both Liberalism and its bastard child Marxism.
Chapter 5.
Liberalism or Socialism
Translated 2010 by Hadding Scott from the 16th (1940) edition of Politische Fibel by Hansjoerg Maennel.
Liberalism and Socialism are the two opposing worldviews in the question of the relationship between the individual human being and the community (the folk).
Liberalism is the worldview that the individual embodies the most important value, not the community (the folk), which is merely a sum of individuals. (Liberalism, from Latin liber = free.) Liberalism is also called “Individualism.”
Liberalism demands freedom of the individual against the collectivity. The individual human being should “develop” as unrestricted as possible. Legal barriers persist only where the entire people is at risk. “Everyone is his own neighbor.” Liberalism has its roots in Materialism and Egoism. Self-seeking (Selbstsucht), not self-discipline (Selbstzucht). Self-interest comes before the common interest. – The liberal human being therefore always thinks foremost about the economy. “Economy is destiny.” (Jew and post-war minister Rathenau). In the economy everyone should be as free as possible, i.e. develop unrestricted. The state is obliged not to intervene in the economy. It should play a subordinate role (“night-watchman state”). Everything should be allowed to run however it runs. Profit (Verdienst) stands in the foreground, not service (Dienst). Monetary success becomes decisive for the assessment of human beings. Therefore Liberalism always has the class-struggle as a consequence. – One demands a “clear path for the capable.” But it is not the capable and decent who prevail, rather the brutal and conscienceless. Liberalism led necessarily to Capitalism, to the exploitation of the productive. The Jew was triumphant! Therefore this pernicious doctrine also has been advocated especially by the Jew. Liberalism was always a tool of the “Chosen People.” The Jew dripped the Liberal poison deliberately into all peoples whom he wished to rule and exploit. Especially aligned with the Jews have been the English, who founded Liberalism and developed it the most. The most devastating manifestations of Liberalism are called – after the English industrial city – “Manchesterism.” In England Liberalism finally led to Plutocracy, i.e. the unbridled rule of some few wealthy men over one-fourth of the earth.
In the French Revolution of 1789 Liberalism prevailed (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). From this point onward it influenced the entire world, the entire 19th Century. In Germany it combined with the awakening sense of nationhood of the 1813 Wars of Liberation in the oxymoronic bourgeois “National-Liberalism.” But more and more the corrupting effect of Liberalism became apparent. With logical consistency one proclaimed free love, demanded the abolition of marriage and religion, abolition of the death penalty, and removal of all folk-protecting arrangements and regulations. The nation became more and more unable to focus all of its strength in one direction. Individualism led to factionalization into countless political parties. Liberalism allows every opinion to count; it advocates the “objectivity” which ultimately leads to indecision and lack of conviction (Gesinnungslosigkeit). – All ties to folkdom are gradually dissolved. The folk is regarded as merely accidental, the external sum of individuals. The Liberal does not know what to make of the concept “folk.” He thinks only economically, not nationalistically (völkisch-politisch). Aside from the individual, he recognizes only the fuzzy concept of”humanity.” The consequence (Folge) of this view is thus the International Idea. Marxism too is a child of Liberalism (cf. chapter ll.).
The ultimate logical consequence of Liberalism is Anarchy (Greek. = lack of government), i.e. the actualization of the principles: “Everyone can do and not do whatever he wants,” and, “Whatever pleases is permitted.” The false freedom of the individual leads to lack of restraint (Zügellosigkeit). The state is “abolished.” The result is finally a war of all against all, license, chaos, destruction, Bolshevism. From this fate our Leader has rescued the German people.
We National-Socialists advocate, over and against this pernicious doctrine, socialism.
Socialism is the view that the community (the folk) embodies the most important value; the individual is a member of the folk and has to support his folk. (Socialism, from Lat.sociare = to combine,to unite.)
Adolf Hitler: “ There is no freedom to sin at the expense of posterity and thus of the race.”
Socialism demands freedom for the folk. – The Socialist therefore always thinks foremost about the folk, not about the economy.
Purely economic thought rends the folk into many interest-groups; purely political thought unites the nation. National-Socialism therefore demands the precedence of politics over economics. The economy should serve folk and state, not the reverse.
The most important Socialist principle runs: common good before private good. (Program, Point 24). Certainly there is deserved private profit, but this must always be subordinate to the well-being of the entire folk (cf. also Program, Point 10). If everyone cares only for himself, then the folk goes to ruin, and every individual along with it. But if everyone devotes himself to the community, then the Folk thrives and along with it every individual also thrives as a member of the folk. (Example: enslavement of Germany through the Versailles Dictate. – National-Socialist folk community.)
The Liberal thinks only about the “I”; the Socialist on the other hand thinks about the “we.” The most unbridled freedom of Liberalism leads to the unfreedom of the nation and thus to the unfreedom of every individual. The voluntary self-subordination of every folk comrade leads to the freedom of the nation and thus also to the freedom of every individual. In the face of the interest of the folk, every private interest is meaningless.
“Wie groβ du für dich seist, vorm Ganzen bist du nichtig,
Doch als des Ganzen Glied bist du als kleinstes wichtig.”(“As great as you are to yourself, before the whole you are negligible,
But as the smallest part of the whole, you are important.”)— Friedrich Rueckert
The more each achieves for his people, the greater he is as a personality. The folk-bound personality is something completely different from the atomized “individuum” of Liberalism. True socialism is always simultaneously rank-order as well; it is always linked to Leadership (Fuehrertum). The term “Social-Democracy” is therefore a lie, a self-contradiction .
The democratic liberal conception runs: each one of the mutually equal human beings has, as an “individuum,” the right to freedom, to lack of obligation (Ungebundenheit). The socialist aristocratic conception on the other hand runs: Humans are unequal and bound by blood. The value of each one is proportionate to his achievement for the folk. (E.g. compare: the democratic Liberal sees the folk as a stack of bricks. Many equally large bricks lie interlaced with each other. The National-Socialist sees the folk as a house. The entire house has, as such, a higher value than every single stone; each one of the different-sized building stones has its importance in the house, but only as part of the house.)
Adolf Hitler: “Whoever loves his people shows it especially through the sacrifice that he is ready to make for it.”
Socialism is readiness to sacrifice. The struggle of the National-Socialist movement, especially the SA, was a unique great sacrifice for the nation. The highest sacrifice is to give up one’s life. An entire Storm-Regiment of SA comrades has made this mighty sacrifice, at the head Sturmfuehrer Horst Wessel. They all “march along in spirit in our ranks.” They are for us a silent reminder, a holy legacy , a serious obligation to show ourselves worthy of them. We honor our fallen SA comrades. The Liberal cannot comprehend that. The Communist Jew Toller said: “There is no stupider ideal than that of a hero.” This Jew cannot comprehend the fact that one surrenders one’s life for one’s people, because of course a dead man can no longer enjoy life. We National-Socialists say by contrast that it is indifferent whether the individual dies sooner or later, but that it is not indifferent whether the individual lives and dies honorably or dishonorably. What matters is not the lifespan of an individual insignificant folk comrade, rather the lifespan of the German people! “Germany must live even if we must die!” Socialism is thus always bound to the heroic Idea.
All productive folk comrades belong to the community of the German people. It was the crime of the Liberal bourgeoisie that they excluded the manual laborer from the folk community. Consequently the “Labor Question” arose.
Socialism is the demand for the acceptance of the manual laborer into the nation. The manual laborer was enslaved and despised. He should be respected and have equal rights. He was excluded from the benefits of the economy. He should again get “his due,” his just share of economic output. He has been made rootless, but now he is bonded with his fatherland. If the laborer again owns a piece of Germany, he will much sooner devote himself to Germany. (Example: the Peasant Liberation of Baron vom Stein and the Liberation Movement of 1813.)
Adolf Hitler: “The German national intellects secretly whispered to each other again and again the suspicion that we were fundamentally also only a variety of Marxism, perhaps even merely disguised Marxists or [international] Socialists. For to this day these heads have not grasped the difference between socialism and marxism.
Joseph Goebbels: “Socialism is entitlement. It gives not as a gift, but as an obligation.”
Only National-Socialism stands for true socialism. Marxism and bourgeois patriotism were the mortal enemies of every true socialism. Marxism and socialism are not, as lying reactionaries claimed, the same thing. Marxism is a betrayal of socialism. The Jew Karl Marx, in the service of Jewry, falsified socialism (cf. chapter 11).
National-Socialism likewise opposes the social-welfare rhetoric (soziale Phrase) of the liberal bourgeoisie.
“Social” (in this sense) is the attempt, motivated by pity or fear, to solve the Labor Question through alms. But the working class can never be integrated into the folk community by means of gifts, welfare-services, and charity. This integration cannot happen through a favor from above but only through a justified demand from below. We are not “social,” but Socialists! Welfare-services alone are not enough. The prerequisite for the solution of the Labor Question is a change of opinion in the whole people. The German Winter Aid Program (Winterhilfswerk) is not a handout for the needy; rather it is a mighty sacrifice by the entire nation for the poorest folk comrades, who are also for the most part Germany’s most loyal servants.
The German manual laborer has won his right through the National-Socialist Revolution. The homeland of Socialism is the Greater German Reich of Adolf Hitler!