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Background: This is a widely distributed Nazi pamphlet
from before 1933. The title, loosely translated, is "Those
Damned Nazis." At least several hundred thousand copies
were printed. It is a good summary of the basic lines of Nazi
propaganda just before Hitler's takeover in 1933. The booklet
included five cartoons by Mjölnir, Goebbels' cartoonist,
three of which I include here. Mjölnir also produced some
of the most familiar Nazi posters.
The Source: Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die
verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich:
Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932).
Those Damned Nazis
by Joseph Goebbels
Why Are We Nationalists?
We are nationalists because we see the nation
as the only way to bring all the forces of the nation together
to preserve and improve our existence and the conditions under
which we live.
The nation is the organic union of a people to protect
its life. To be national is to affirm this union in word and
deed. To be national has nothing to do with a form of government
or a symbol. It is an affirmation of things, not
forms. Forms can change, their content remains. If form
and content agree, then the nationalist affirms both. If they
conflict, the nationalist fights for the content and against
the form. One may not put the symbol above the content. If
that happens, the battle is on the wrong field and one's strength
is lost in formalism. The real aim of nationalism, the nation,
is lost.
That is how things are today in Germany. Nationalism
has turned into bourgeois patriotism and its defenders are battling
windmills. One says Germany and means the monarchy. Another
proclaims freedom and means Black-White-Red [The imperial colors]. Would our
situation today be any different if we replaced the republic
with a monarchy and flew the black-white-red flag? The colony
would have different wallpaper, but its nature, its content would
stay the same. Indeed, things would be even worse, for a facade
that conceals the facts dissipates the forces today fighting
against slavery.
Explanation: A tied-up Nazi watches
while a Jew reading the Berliner Tageblatt, which the
Nazis accused of being a Jewish paper, mistreats a Germany chained
to the Treaty of Versailles. The Jew is probably supposed to
be a journalist, since he is smearing Gemany with his pen. A
Black French colonial soldier and another figure (either a policeman
or a soldier) assist.
Bourgeois patriotism is the privilege of a class. It
is the real reason for its decline. When 30 million are for
something and 30 million are against it, things balance
out and nothing happens. That is how things are with us.
We are the world's Pariah not because we do not have the courage
to resist, rather because out entire national energy is wasted
in eternal and unproductive squabbling between the right and
the left. Our way only goes downward, and today one can already
predict when we will fall into the abyss.
Nationalism is more wide-reaching than internationalism.
It sees things as they are. Only he who respects himself can
respect others. If as a German nationalist I affirm
Germany, how can I hold it against a French nationalist
who affirms France? Only when these affirmations conflict
in vital ways will there be a power-political struggle.
Internationalism cannot undo this reality. Its attempts at proof
fail completely. And even when the facts seem to have some validity,
nature, blood, the will to life, and the struggle for existence
on this hard earth prove the falsity of fine theories.
The sin of bourgeois patriotism was to confound a certain
economic form with the national. It connected two things that
are entirely different. Forms of the economy, however
firm they may seem, are changeable. The national is eternal.
If I mix the eternal and the temporal, the eternal will necessarily
collapse when the temporal collapses. This was the real cause
for the collapse of liberal society. It was rooted not in
the eternal, but in the temporal, and when the temporal
declined it took the eternal down with it. Today it is only an
excuse for a system that brings growing economic misery. That
is the only reason why international Jewry organizes the
battle of the proletarian forces against both powers, the economy
and the nation, and defeat them.
From this understanding, the young nationalism draws its absolute
demand. The faith in the nation is a matter for everyone,
never a group, a class or an economic clique. The eternal must
be distinguished form the temporal. Maintaining a rotten economic
system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation
of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not
only can I, I must. Only the annihilation
of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth
of our people.
We are nationalists because as Germans, we love Germany.
Because we love Germany, we want to preserve it and fight against
those who would destroy it. If a Communist shouts "Down
with nationalism!", he means the hypocritical bourgeois
patriotism that sees the economy only as a system of slavery.
If we make clear to the man of the left that nationalism and
capitalism, that is the affirmation of the Fatherland and the
misuse of its resources, have nothing to do with each other,
indeed that they go together like fire and water, then even as
a socialist he will come to affirm the nation, which he will
want to conquer.
That is our real task as National Socialists. We were the
first to recognize the connections, and the first to begin the
struggle. Because we are socialists we have felt the deepest
blessings of the nation, and because we are nationalists we want
to promote socialist justice in a new Germany.
A young Fatherland will rise when the socialist front is firm.
Socialism will become reality when the Fatherland is free.
Why Are We Socialists?
We are socialists because we see in socialism,
that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain
our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and
renew our German state.
Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working
class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation
in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably
bound to breaking the present slavery and the regaining of German
freedom. Socialism therefore is not merely a matter of
the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the
German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy.
Socialism gains its true form only through a total combat brotherhood
with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism.
Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory,
a castle in the sky, a book. With it it is everything, the
future, freedom, the Fatherland!
The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism's
nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies
to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism
was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and
the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its
national existence. An understanding of both these facts leads
us to a new sense of socialism, which sees its nature as nationalistic,
state-building, liberating and constructive.
The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its
place will come the class of productive workers, the working
class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning
to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and
bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part
of the national organism. The battle began in the economic
realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely
a matter of pay, not only a matter of the number of hours worked
in a day--though we may never forget that these are an essential,
perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform--but
it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible
class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force
in the future politics of the Fatherland. The bourgeois
does not want to recognize the strength of the working class.
Marxism has forced it into a straitjacket that will ruin it.
While the working class gradually disintegrates in the
Marxist front, bleeding itself dry, the bourgeois and
Marxism have agreed on the general lines of capitalism,
and see their task now to protect and defend it in various ways,
often concealed.
We are socialists because we see the social question
as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence
of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or
insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a
living standard that corresponds to what he produces.
We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating
him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him,
but for the whole nation. The question is larger than
the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state
consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since
the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able
to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for.
It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It
is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at
the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers'
state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our
national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming
socialist national state.
Explanation: "The thinking worker
comes to Hitler," the caption says. A Communist and a Socialist
are accusing each other of betraying the working class.
Socialism is possible only in a state that is united domestically
and free internationally. The bourgeois and Marxism are responsible
for failing to reach both goals, domestic unity and international
freedom. No matter how national and social these two forces present
themselves, they are the sworn enemies of a socialist national
state.
We must therefore break both groups politically. The
lines of German socialism are sharp, and our path is clear.
We are against the political bourgeois, and for genuine
nationalism!
We are against Marxism, but for true socialism!
We are for the first German national state of a socialist
nature!
We are for the National Socialist German Workers Party!
Why a Workers' Party?
Work is not mankind's curse, but his blessing.
A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him
great and aware, raises him above all other creatures. It is
in the deepest sense creative, productive and culture-producing.
Without labor, no food. Without food, no life.
The idea that the dirtier one's hands get, the more degrading
the work, is a Jewish, not a German idea. As in every
other area, the German first asks how, then what.
It is less a question of the position I fill, and more a question
of how well I do the duty that God has given me.
We call ourselves a workers' party because we want
to rescue the word work from its current definition and
give it back its original meaning. Anyone who creates value
is a creator, that is, a worker. We refuse to distinguish
kinds of work. Our only standard is whether the work
serves the whole, or at least does not harm it, or if it is harmful.
Work is service. If it works against the general welfare,
then it is treason against the Fatherland.
Marxist nonsense claimed to free labor, yet it degraded
the work of its members and saw it as a curse and disgrace. It
can hardly be our goal to abolish labor, rather to give new
meaning and content. The worker in a capitalist state--and
that is his deepest misfortune--is no longer a living human
being, a creator, a maker.
He has become a machine. A number, a cog
in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated
from what he produces. Labor is for him only a way to survive,
not a path to higher blessings, not a joy, not something
in which to take pride, or satisfaction, or encouragement, or
a way to build character.
We are a workers' party because we see in the coming
battle between finance and labor the beginning and the
end of the structure of the Twentieth Century. We are on the
side of labor and against finance. Money is the
measuring rod of liberalism, work and accomplishment that
of the socialist state. The liberal asks: What
are you? The socialist asks: Who are you? Worlds
lie between.
We do not want to make everyone the same. Nor
do we want levels in the population, high and low, above and
below. The aristocracy of the coming state will be determined
not by possessions or money, but only on the quality
of one's accomplishments. One earns merit through
service. Men are distinguished by the results of their
labor. That is the sure sign of the character and value of a
person. The value of labor under socialism will be determined
by its value to the state, to the whole community. Labor means
creating value, not haggling over things. The soldier
is a worker when he bears the sword to protect the national
economy. The statesman too is a worker when he gives the
nation a form and a will that leads it to produce what it needs
for life and freedom.
A furrowed brow is as much a sign of labor as
a powerful fist. A white collar worker should not be ashamed
to claim with pride that of which the manual laborer boasts:
labor. The relations between these two groups determine
their mutual fate. Neither can survive without the other, for
both are members of an organism that they must together
maintain if they are to defend and expand their right to exist.
We call ourselves a workers' party because we want
to free labor from the chains of capitalism and Marxism.
In battling for Germany's future, we freely admit to it, and
accept the odium from the liberal bourgeois that results. We
know that we will succeed in bringing new blessings out of
their curses.
God gave the nations territory to grow grain. The seed becomes
grain and the grain becomes bread. The middleman of it all is
labor.
He who despises labor but accepts its benefits is a hypocrite.
That is the deepest meaning of our movement: it gives things
back their original significance, unconcerned that today they
may be in danger of sinking into the swamp of a collapsing worldview.
He who creates value works, and is a worker. A movement
that wants to free labor is a workers' party.
Therefore we National Socialists call ourselves a worker's
party.
When our victorious flags fly before us, we sing:
- "We are the army of the Swastika,
- Raise high the red flags!
- We want to clear the way to freedom
- For German Labor!"
Why Do We Oppose
the Jews?
We oppose the Jews because we are defending the freedom
of the German people. The Jew is the cause and
beneficiary of our slavery He has misused the social misery
of the broad masses to deepen the dreadful split between the
right and left of our people, to divide Germany into two halves
thereby concealing the true reason for the loss of the Great
War and falsifying the nature of the revolution.
Explanation: The caption says "Awakening
Germany. You're through! We see behind all your masks."
In the cartoon, Jews are concealed as a Christian, a German citizen,
a nationalist Jew and a harmless passer by.
The Jew has no interest in solving the German question. He
cannot have such an interest. He depends on it remaining
unsolved. If the German people formed a united community
and won back its freedom, there would be no place any longer
for the Jew. His hand is strongest when a people lives in domestic
and international slavery, not when it is free, industrious,
self-aware and determined. The Jew had caused our problems,
and lives from them.
That is why we oppose the Jew as nationalists and as
socialists. He has ruined our race, corrupted
our morals, hollowed out our customs and broken our strength.
We owe it to him that we today are the Pariah of the world. He
was the leper among as long as we were German. When we forgot
our German nature, he triumphed over us and our future.
The Jew is the plastic demon of decomposition. Where
he finds filth and decay, he surfaces and begins his butcher's
work among the nations. He hides behind a mask and presents himself
as a friend to his victims, and before they know it he has broken
their neck.
The Jew is uncreative. He produces nothing, he only
haggles with products. With rags, clothing, pictures,
jewels, grain, stocks, cures, peoples and states. He has somehow
stolen everything he deals in. When he attacks a state
he is a revolutionary. As soon as he holds power,
he preaches peace and order so that he can devour his
conquests in comfort.
What does anti-Semitism have to do with socialism?
I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have
to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with
labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering,
stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists
we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews
the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's
goods.
What does anti-Semitism have to do with nationalism?
I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have
to do with nationalism? Nationalism has to do with
blood and race. The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the
purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race. As nationalists
we oppose the Jews because we see the Hebrews as the eternal
enemy of our national honor and of our national freedom.
But the Jew after all is also a human being.
Certainly, none of us doubts that. We only doubt that he is a
decent human being. He does not get along with us. He
lives by other laws than we do. The fact that he is a human
being is not sufficient reason for us to allow him to subject
us in inhumane ways. He may be a human being--but what
kind of a human being is he! If someone slaps your mother
in the face, do you say: "Thank you! He is after all
a human being!" That is not a human being, it is a monster.
Yet how much worse has the Jew done to our mother Germany,
and is still doing today!
There are also white Jews. True, there are scoundrels
among us, even though they are Germans, who act in immoral ways
against their own racial and blood comrades. But why do we call
them white Jews? You use the term to describe something
inferior and contemptible. Just as we do. Why do you ask us why
we oppose the Jews when you without knowing it are one
too?
Anti-Semitism is not Christian. That means that it
is Christian to allow the Jews to go on as they are, stripping
the skin from our bodies and mocking us. To be a Christian
means to love one's neighbor as oneself! My neighbor is my racial
and blood brother. If I love him I have to hate his enemies.
He who thinks German must despise the Jews. The one requires
the other.
Christ himself saw that love did not always work. When
he found the moneychangers in the Temple, he did not say: "Children,
love one another!" He took up a whip and drove them out.
We oppose the Jews because we affirm the German people.
The Jew is our greatest misfortune.
It is not true that we have Jews for breakfast.
It is true that slowly but surely, he is stealing all that
we have.
Things would be different if we behaved as Germans.
Revolutionary Demands
We do not enter parliament to use parliamentary methods.
We know that the fate of peoples is determined by personalities,
never by parliamentary majorities. The essence of parliamentary
democracy is the majority, which destroys personal responsibility
and glorifies the masses. A few dozen rogues and
crooks run things behind the scenes. Aristocracy depends
on accomplishment, the rule of the most able, and the
subordination of the less capable to the will of the leadership.
Any form of government--no matter how democratic or aristocratic
it may outwardly appear--rests on compulsion. The difference
is only whether the compulsion is a blessing or a curse for the
community.
What we demand is new, decisive and radical, revolutionary
in the truest sense of the word. That has nothing to do with
rioting and barricades. It may be that that happens here or there.
But it is is not an inherent part of the process. Revolutions
are spiritual acts. They appear first in people, then
in politics and the economy. New people form new structures.
The transformation we want is first of all spiritual;
that will necessarily change the way things are.
This revolutionary act is beginning to be visible in us. The
result is a new type of person visible to the knowing eye: the
National Socialist. Consistent with his spiritual
attitude, the National Socialist makes uncompromising demands
in politics. There is no if and when for him, only
an either--or.
He demands:
The return of German honor. Without honor, one has no right
to life. A nation that has pawned its honor has pawned
its bread. Honor is the foundation of any people's
community. Losing our honor is the true cause of the loss
of our freedom.
In place of a slave colony, we want a restored German
national state. The state is not an end in itself
for us, rather a means to an end. The true end is the
race, the sum of all the living, creative forces of the
people. The structure that today calls itself the German republic
is not a way to maintain our racial inheritance. It has become
an end in itself with no real connection to the people
and their needs. We want to abolish the slave colony and
replace it with a people's state in freedom.
Want work and bread for every productive national and blood
comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment.
That means more pay for German workers! That will stop
the senseless fighting in which we engage today.
First provide housing and food for the people, then
pay reparations! No Democrat, no Republican, has the right
to complain about this demand, for it was first raised by a banner
carrier of November Germany [the Weimar
Republic, beginning in November 1918]. We only want
to make the slogan a reality.
Provide essentials first! First we must meet the critical
needs of the people, then we can produce luxury goods. Provide
work for those willing to work! Give the farmers land!
The German foreign policy that today sells what we have at below-market
rates must be completely transformed and must focus radically
on the German need for space, drawing the necessary power-political
conclusions.
Peace among productive workers! Each should do his
duty for the good of the whole community. The state
then has the responsibility of protecting the individual,
guaranteeing him the fruits of his labor. The people's community
must not be a mere phrase, but a revolutionary achievement following
from the radical carrying out of the basic life needs of the
working class.
A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against
exploitation, freedom for the workers! The elimination of
all economic-capitalist influences on national policy.
A solution to the Jewish question! We call for the
systematic elimination of foreign racial elements from public
life in every area. There must be a sanitary separation between
Germans and non-Germans on racial grounds exclusively, not
on nationality or even religious belief.
Down with democratic parliamentarianism! Establish
a parliament based on occupations which determines production.
Policies will be determined by a political body
that earns is place by the laws of strength and selection.
The return of loyalty and faith in economic life. The
complete reversal of the injustice that has robbed millions
of Germans of their possessions.
The right of personality before that of the mob. Germans
always will have preference before foreigners and Jews.
A battle against the destructive poison of international
Jewish culture! A strengthening of German forces and German customs.
The elimination of corrupt Semitic principles and racial decay.
The death penalty for crimes against the people! The gallows
for profiteers and usurers!
An uncompromising program implemented by men
who will implement it passionately. No slogans, only living energy.
That is what we demand!
[Page copyright © 1999 by Randall
Bytwerk]
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