GERMANY TOMORROW
by
OTTO STRASSER
Translated from the German by
EDEN & CEDAR PAUL
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanised automaton.
SHELLEY, Queen Mob
JONATHAN CAPE
THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE
LONDON
FIRST PUBLISHED, JULY 1940
SECOND IMPRESSION, AUGUST 1940
THIRD IMPRESSION s OCTOBER 1940
JONATHAN CAPE LTD, 30 BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON
AND 9 1 WELLINGTON STREET WEST, TORONTO
:. No.
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CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 13
PREFACE 1 5
PART ONE
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY
POSSIBLE? 23
PART TWO
LIQUIDATION OF THE WAR 47
PEACE PROPOSALS OF TOMORROW'S GERMANY
CHAPTER ONE PEACE OR ARMISTICE? 49
1. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PEACE TREATY 49
2. ELEMENTS OF EUROPEAN PEACE 5!
3. DISINTEGRATION OF GERMANY? 53
CHAPTER TWO FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY 58
1. PARTITION OF PRUSSIA 58
2. FEDERATION OF THE PROVINCES 60
3. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 63
4. DEMOCRACY OF THE VOCATIONAL ESTATES 66
5. THE NEW SPIRIT 68
6. RENUNCIATION OF MILITARISM JQ
7. A WORD ON THE JEWISH PROBLEM 73
7
CONTENTS
CHAPTER THREE PROBLEMS OF THE PEACE CON-
FERENCE 79
1. PRELIMINARIES TO PEACE 79
2. THE GERMAN PARTNER 82
3. THE AUSTRIAN QUESTION 85
4. CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND SUDETENLAND 88
5. POLAND, DANZIG, THE CORRIDOR 9 1
6. THE BOLSHEVIK PROBLEM 94
7. IMPORTANCE OF THE WESTERN SLAVS TO
EUROPE 96
CHAPTER FOUR EUROPEAN FEDERATION 99
1 . A EUROPEAN CIVIL WAR 99
2. GUARANTEES OF SECURITY AND DISARMA-
MENT I O2
3. POLITICAL COLLABORATION 105
4. ECONOMIC COLLABORATION 107
5. CULTURAL COLLABORATION IO8
CHAPTER FIVE THE COLONIAL PROBLEM 1 10
HAPTER SIX WAR AIMS j i A
PART THREE
THE NEW ORDER 07
STRUCTURE OF GERMAN SOCIALISM
CHAPTER ONE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 1 1 9
1 . INTRODUCTORY j j q
2. RACE PEOPLE NATION I j g
3- RHYTHM OF HISTORY
4. MARXISM
8
CONTENTS
CHAPTER TWO GERMAN SOCIALISM I2Q
1. THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM 129
A. Capitalist Economic Policy 131
B. Capitalist Economic Law 133
C. Capitalist Economic Form 135
2. ECONOMIC POLICY OF GERMAN SOCIALISM 137
A. Autarchy 137
B. State Monopoly of Foreign Trade 139
C. A Currency Standard of Our Own 140
3. ECONOMIC LAW OF GERMAN SOCIALISM 142
A. Private Property? 142
B. c EntaiF 144
C. Repudiation of State Socialism 147
4. ECONOMIC FORM OF GERMAN SOCIALISM 150
5. AGRICULTURE 153
A. The Coming System 153
B. Management of the Transition 156
C. Great Landed Estates 158
6. INDUSTRY AND WHOLESALE TRADE l6o
A. The Factory Fellowship 162
B. Contrast to Capitalism and Marxism 165
C. Management of the Transition 166
7. HANDICRAFT AND RETAIL TRADE 169
A. The Guild (or Corporation) 1 70
B. Management of the Transition 172
8. COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES 173
9. PUBLIC ASSISTANCE 1 75
CHAPTER THREE THE GERMAN SOCIALIST STATE 178
1. MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE 178
2. THE FORM OF THE STATE l8l
3. ADMINISTRATION 1 82
9
CONTENTS
4. PROVINCIAL SUBDIVISION 185
5. THE ESTATES SYSTEM 1 89
A. Abolition of the Party System 189
B. Vocational Councils 192
C. Chambers of Estates 197
CHAPTER FOUR CULTURAL POLICY OF GERMAN
SOCIALISM 2 O2
I- CONSERVATIVE REALISM 2O2
2. RELIGION AND CHURCH 304
3. THE NEW SCHOOL 208
4. ARMY AND LABOUR SERVICES 212
5. GERMAN LAW, JUSTICE, AND RIGHT 213
6. ELITE AND IDEAL TYPE 215
APPENDIXES
I. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE
Aufbau 221
II. POSTFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE
Aufbau 223
III. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE
Aufbau 225
IV. POSTFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE
Aufbau 227
V. DANGER OF THE PARTITION OF GERMANY 2 2Q
VL MANIFESTO OF BLACK FRONT TO THE GERMAN
PEOPLE
10
BIOGRAPHICAL AND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
OTTO STRASSER, a Bavarian, was born on September 10,
1897. His brother, Gregor, five years older, was killed
by Goering's orders (Hitler accepted responsibility) in the
Blood Bath of June 30, 1934. Both brothers were Nazis
at a time when the National Socialists were really
socialists as well as nationalists, and they remained
socialists after Hitler had dropped this part of his creed.
That was the untoward fact that led to Gregorys murder.
Five years before this Otto had broken with Hitler; on
May 10, 1933, he left Germany to become a refugee in
Austria, subsequently in Czechoslovakia, Switzerland,
and France (where he now resides) .
Otto Strasser's ideas on German Socialism were
incorporated in a book Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus
published in 1931, second edition 1936. The bulk of it
appears in Part Three of the present volume, being
essential to the author's presentation of Germany
Tomorrow. Part One, c ls Revolution in Germany
Possible? 5 , and Part Two 'Liquidation of the War (Peace
Proposals of Tomorrow's Germany) 5 , were written at
the turn of the year, i.e. well after the outbreak of the
war, expressly for the present book. All three parts, and
the Appendix matter, speak for themselves, so nothing
more need be said about bibliography.
Otto Strasser played an active part in the previous
war, joining the Bavarian army as a volunteer on
August 2, 1914, rising from the ranks' to become a
ii
PRELIMINARY NOTE
lieutenant, decorated, and twice wounded. He took the
degree of Doctor of Law in 1921, and for a time held an
official post under the Weimar Republic. Then he was
appointed legal adviser to an industrial concern in
Berlin. For some years after this he was editor-in-chief
(during the gradual rise of the Nazis) of most of the
North German periodicals of the National Socialist
Party. After his breach with Hitler he founded the
Black Front, an anti-Hitler organization, which aims
also (and chiefly) at promoting 'German Socialism 5 .
It plays a considerable part in this book, and will
perhaps play a still more considerable part in Germany
Tomorrow, and in Europe the Day after Tomorrow.
Since in Germany Today assassination has a recognized
function in politics, it is not surprising that even as a
refugee Otto Strasser has had several 'narrow squeaks'.
But he still continues his reasoned (and bloodless)
campaign for promoting the downfall of the Hitler
System and the upbuilding of German Socialism a
campaign with which Germany Tomorrow has much to do.
The book is addressed, not only to Germans, but to all
'Good Europeans 3 .
EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL
London
May Dqy y
GERMANY TOMORROW
PREFACE
THIS war is the inevitable outcome of the Hitler System.
For the last ten years, and especially since Hitler seized
power, I have been indefatigably trying to demonstrate
as much in countless publications.
Regard for historical truth makes it essential to state
that Hitler's seizure of power was part of that Germano-
European development to which I have given the general
name of the 'German Revolution', by which I mean the
birth of a new order in politics, economics, and civiliza-
tion. Issuing from Germany, this will to a greater or less
extent transform the established European system even
as, at their respective times, did the English Revolution
and the French.
From this outlook we can understand the otherwise
inexplicable mistakes and shortcomings of the statesmen
of other lands, beginning with Dollfuss and Schuschnigg,
going on to Hodscha and Beck, next to Francois Poncet
and Nevile Henderson, and last of all to the men of the
'Peace of Munich 5 since had it not been for these
mistakes and shortcomings Adolf Hitler would never
have been able to carry out his work of destruction and
even so we have to recognize that such work of destruc-
tion has been and is the necessary prelude to the up-
building of the new order which is the meaning of this,
as of every revolution. Contemplation based upon a
study of the philosophy of history does much to lessen
the blame attaching to the German people for the Hitler
System and the war to which it has given rise. The
15
PREFACE
Germans may have to shoulder the greater share of
blame, but their share is only a part of the general load
which must be assigned In varying degrees to the policies
of other countries than Germany.
Important, however, than the assignment of
shares of blame to Hitler and his war (an
assignment justified and restricted by our historical
outlook), Is the no less inevitable certainty we derive
that Hitler and his war will be defeated.
And how?
Certainly If we regard, as I and my friends do, the
Hitler System (and for our purposes that includes the
civil war In Europe which the Hitler System has brought
about) as a necessary stage in the transition from a
decaying old order to an evolving new one, as the epoch
during which effete forms are being swept away why
then we shall have the joyful conviction that such an
epoch of destruction cannot possibly be lasting. It will
come to an end as soon as the old and the worm-eaten
have really been swept away, and as soon as the new and
the young that are everywhere germinating beneath the
surface of things come clearly to light.
From this outlook Hitler is really no more than the
testing 'hammer of God' with which men and things
are tapped to discover whether life persists in them,
whether they still have faith, will, strength, and the
power of renewal. Where these good qualities are
lacking, the hammer breaks the old forms to powder
even as. In scripture, the tree which bore no fruit was to
be ruthlessly cut down. But when fruit-bearing is still
possible, the will to and the power for renewal will
16
PREFACE
infallibly spring up after the hard testing of these blows;
under new forms,, but in the old spirit, the spirit of the
'Mothers 3 In Faust which dwells in the depths of our soul,
the soul of every human being, the soul of every nation,
the soul of the West. Revolutionary in form, conserva-
tive in substance, is the policy that derives from such a
method of contemplation.
Victory over Hitler and his system of destruction,
victory in this war over the powers of destruction, is no
less certain than were the coming of Hitler and this war;
and both spring from the necessity and the nature of the
c German Revolution 3 .
Three questions necessarily arise for consideration
after such an outlook has been defined, three questions
which must be answered before we can be sure that we
have more to guide us than mere faith in the future;
three questions which the non-German world above all
will put, in order to learn what lies behind this conten-
tion, and what the foreign world has to expect from our
c German Revolution 3 :
(1) Is a revolution at all possible in Germany?
(2) What would the ideas of such a c German Revolu-
tion' be as regards the liquidation of the war?
(3) What sort of aspect would the new order have in
Germany?
The importance of these questions, and the warrant
we have for putting them, are all the more palpable
because war prevails, so that men are summoned to
battle, wish to know and are entitled to know what they
are fighting for and why they are making sacrifices.
The aim of this book is to answer these three questions,
B I 7
PREFACE
to answer them as accurately as possible and with a full
sense of responsibility imposed on us by the deadly
earnestness of our time.
It arises from the circumstances of the case that the
answers to questions (i) and (2) must c date ? , must arise
out of the extant military situation; while nevertheless
they arise out of the spirit of the new order, which
forces itself into the light Independently of Hitler's
regime and Hitler's war.
Nothing can prove this more convincingly than the
fact that the plans for the new order in Germany were
drafted years before the Hitler System, and therefore
longer still before the war. They were drafted in their
main Iines 3 and constituted the written program of a
large and active political movement in the Reich.
As Douglas Reed shows in his instructive book Nemesis? \
these main lines formed the substantial content of the
so-called Hanover Program which was adopted in 1925
as the program of the North German group of the
National Socialists, and became the cause of my breach
with Hitler. After 1930 it was the official program of the
Black Front, and was published as such in 1931 in the
first edition of my own book Aufbau des deutschen
Sozialismus.
The most important chapters of that book comprise
Part Three of the present work, and show the latter to
be in no sense a degenerate form of concession to the
present war and its expected result,
To^ emphasize this I have deliberately left standing
certain sections that have grown obsolete during the
last ten years, sections which the reader can correct for
himself in the light of the new formulations in Part Two.
18
PREFACE
For It seemed and seems to me of outstanding importance
that the scheme for a new order in Germany came into
being independently of the Hitler system and the present
war, for it was and Is the program of a young, active
and growing political movement in the Reich. Not hatred
of Hitler, nor the sourness of a refugee, nor a dread of
military defeat, nor concessions to the western powers,
guided my pen when I helped to draft that program.
In 1930 none of those influences were at work to say
little of the fact that since then I have done my utmost
to hinder such considerations from modifying my
political thought and will.
This suffices to show that the plan for a new order in
Germany issued from the sources of the German nature
and of German history, and Is therefore deeply based
upon the national spirit, is essentially permanent
whereas dictatorship from without is nothing but a
makeshift which every national wind can puff away.
If, therefore, it should prove practicable to combine the
safety of Europe with the reconstruction of Germany,
then every true-hearted German nationalist must gladly
accept the outcome.
This book is intended to provide the foundations for
such a testing-time, penned by one who is convinced that
German national security and European collaboration,
far from being mutually exclusive, tend to favour one
another.
OTTO STRASSER
Penned in Exile
Easter 1940
PART ONE
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY
POSSIBLE?
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY
POSSIBLE?
THE revolutionary character of the general situation in
Germany is unquestionable. Indeed, the foundation of
the historical and political views that have guided the
thoughts and actions of myself and my friends is the fact
that revolution has been going on in Germany for the
last twenty years - a revolution of which the Hitler
System is but one phase, the phase of destruction.
The caption of this Part One of my book can, there-
fore, relate only to the tactical question whether revolu-
tion is possible within the framework of the German
Revolution at large, to the question whether the Hitler
System can be overthrown, thereby initiating the last
phase of the German Revolution. That phase will consist
of the establishment of a new order.
Since the question c Can the Hitler System be over-
thrown by an internal movement in Germany? 5 is thus
tactical, it follows that the answer must likewise be
mainly determined by tactical considerations. Such
events as Hitler's striking successes in Scandinavia and
the Balkans (successes indirectly due to his ally Stalin's
victory in Finland) have a great influence upon the most
immediate general outlooks, and are of decisive import-
ance as regards the factor of time.
Having made this proviso, which must constantly be
borne in mind, we discover that the following general
features will help us to answer the question under dis-
cussion:
23
GERMANY TOMORROW
(1) The prevailing atmosphere, by which I mean the
masses" widespread dissatisfaction with the present
regime a dissatisfaction for which (as usual) numerous,
and often conflicting, causes can be found.
(2) The existence of a minority of persons prepared to
take action, a minority willing and able at the appropriate
moment to transform passive discontent into political
action^ much as a spark occurs to discharge electrical
tensions that have accumulated beyond a certain
amount,
(3) A paralysis of will within the system, or, rather, a
paralysis of will among the active defenders of the system,
because their self-confidence has been undermined,
because their assurance of victory has waned, because
they have lost discipline and resolution. In other words,
for revolution to be possible a considerable number of
those who wield the forces of the dominant system
must have come to sympathize with the aims of the
revolutionists, or must at least have ceased active oppo-
sition to these aims.
If we proceed to enquire how far, in the Germany of
1940, these fundamental prerequisites of a revolution
exist, it can be unambiguously shown that the general
atmosphere discloses all the features which make revolu-
tion possible.
So widespread, so virulent is the discontent of the
German people with the dominant Hitler System (vary-
ing, of course, with the successes or failures of the system)
that the enumeration of proofs would almost be super-
fluous. All the same, I shall give a summary of them,
to avert the danger of that self-deception which makes
dispassionateness impossible.
24
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
Surely one of the most convincing proofs is the fact
that the Hitler System, after being in power for seven
years, must still rely upon the detestable terrorist methods
of the Gestapo and the concentration camps? Hereby
Goebbels 5 chatter about 'popular support 5 of the Nazi
regime is as flatly contradicted as by the ever more
extensive gagging of the press, the wireless, and any
other means by which the opinions of the German people
seek expression.
Precise investigations have shown that the number of
Germans who have pined for a longer or shorter time in
concentration camps, penitentiaries, and prisons during
the seven years of the Hitler regime totals more than
two millions. Official statistics show, then, that over
ten million Germans (if we add the dependents of the
victims) have been so actively antagonistic to Hitler as
to make personal acquaintance with his penal system.
Nay more, many, many thousands of Germans have been
put to death by their rulers, or, let us say bluntly, have
been murdered.
Today these facts should be all the more emphatically
proclaimed because they show, not only the profound
hatred of the German people for the Hitler System, but
also that an enormous part of the German people was
actively fighting that system at a time when the foreign
world was still associating with Hitler on friendly terms.
What this signifies is that the same enormous part of the
German people stands in the present 'European Civil
War 5 on the side of Europe against the dictatorship of
Hitler and Stalin, thus representing, not only a latent
revolutionary force, but also a direct military force
inasmuch as the majority of the two million Germans
25
GERMANY TOMORROW
who are or have been under the Hitlerian harrow are
Germans of military age.
Less manifest but not less effective than the open
antagonism of the victims past and present in Hitler's
concentration camps, penitentiaries, and prisons, is the
voiceless discontent of the millions of those who are
apathetic in political matters. Among these, who consist
In very large measure of women, it is not so much
political or philosophical considerations which bring
them into opposition with the system, as the experiences
of daily life. The luxury of the Hitler bosses, the increas-
ing bnitalization of youth, the fall in real wages, the rise
in prices (which largely takes the form of a deterioration
in quality), the more and more oppressive demands
enforced upon the manual workers and anyone else
willing to make sacrifices, the mendacity of propaganda,
the alarming effects of the reign of terror, religious perse-
cution, etc., were already operative before the war to
intensify discontent with the system among those who are
apathetic in politics and constitute something like 70%
of every nation. Hitler and Goebbels knew this just as
well as Himmler and Goering. But whereas the two
latter believed that the difficulty could be overcome by
tightening up the screw-press of the terror, the two former
were shrewd enough, in accordance with the old Roman
principle of 'bread and circuses 5 , to replace the lacking
bread (read 'butter') by an abundance of circuses (read
'spectacular successes').
This made it essential for Hitler to gain spectacular
national successes, and the statesmen of the West were
too dull-witted to perceive that every time Hitler made
a coup on or across the frontier - as by his military
26
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
occupation of the Rhineland, his march Into Austria,
his conquest of Sudetenland, his annexation of Bohemia
and Moravia, and his regaining of Memel this was
also a slap in the face for the opposition on the home
front, made possible only by foreign aid. Each national
success secured temporarily for Hitler the approval of the
apathetic masses, who considered it a proof of 'the
Leader's genius', and a reward to themselves for the
sacrifices they were making.
But since the outbreak of war this stimulus has lost its
savour, for the coming of war gave the lie to the piping of
Goebbels during the last few years, to the unceasing
declaration that 'the Leader will do it all without war'.
During the first six or eight weeks after the declaration,
the Germans were, In fact, panic-stricken. Then came
recovery, thanks to the prompt victories in Poland, and
the inertia of the western powers, especially as concerned
their airforces. Still, the recovery of morale has by no
means been complete, as would be shown speedily
enough were Berlin to be bombarded from the skies.
Even though the dread of open belligerency that
prevailed in Germany before the war has by now in
great measure been appeased, the widespread discontent
of the non-political masses has been greatly enhanced by
the direct and indirect consequences of the blockade.
Above all, women as thrifty housewives and as anxious
mothers have been gravely discomfited by the scarcity of
essential articles of diet, of footwear, and of clothing; and
the daily expenditure of time and strength requisite
for the attempt to satisfy these needs is both exhausting
and discouraging. The consolations offered them by the
obese Goering sound derisory, while dread of Himmler's
27
GERMANY TOMORROW
Gestapo will not prevent women's tongues from wagging
while they stand for hours in queues, any more than it
will prevent their whispering to one another about
secret sources of 'black 3 supplies.
But what gets to work most powerfully among the
Germans who are politically apathetic, what makes them
Hitler's most dangerous enemies, is their remembrance of
the last war. The increasing privations of 1917 and 1918
are the nightmares of the German women of 1939 and
1940, while the men meditate on the horrors of inflation,
which robbed them of wages, savings, and profits,
without a chance of defence. Neither proclamations nor
bullying nor promises counteract these memories, for
there was no lack of them twenty years ago, and little
good did they do. Nor are the boastful reports of victories
in Poland, of successes in the air, of the sinking of Allied
ships by German submarines, any more effective. Every
German who is over thirty knows full well that Luden-
dorff, likewise, conquered the whole of Poland, the
whole of Serbia, the whole of Rumania, and that then
Bulgaria and Turkey fought on Germany's side; every
German over thirty knows how daily, weekly, and
monthly the naval chiefs issued bulletins regarding the
successes of the German submarines successes that
outdid even the victorious bulletins of Raeder and Goering
and that the end of it all were the Forest of Gompiegne
and the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Memories of these
things (especially when they are vigorously exploited by
an active propaganda) gives a political stamp today to
the general discontent of the German people even when
that discontent is not really the outcome of political
causes.
28
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
Goebbels' declaration that 99 % of the German people
are backing Hitler cannot be more strikingly disproved
than by quoting the fact so incautiously divulged by the
same propagandist concerning the famous vote taken
among the inmates of Dachau concentration camp.
They numbered 1572. Of these 1554 voted for Hitler, 8
against, while 10 abstained. Here you have your 99 %
in favour of Hitler, but everyone knows what the 99 %
of Dachauers were really thinking and feeling.
To sum up, then, we can be confident that the general
atmosphere of dissatisfaction which is the first essential
for every revolution undoubtedly exists today in the Ger-
man people. The necessary stressing of the numerous,
and for the most part non-political, causes of this dis-
content does not weaken its significance, since we are
concerned only with a general atmosphere, and not with
a lucid manifestation of the popular will.
This underlines the importance of the second of the
three questions we set out to investigate in this con-
nexion. Does there exist in Germany today a minority
of persons willing and able to take action?
Of course we begin our answer by reminding ourselves
of those who were Hitler's political adversaries before he
seized power. Independents, majority socialists, demo-
crats, centrists, 'People's Party' men, and German
nationalists formed the patchwork front of those who
from the end of 1918 to the end of 1932 shared responsi-
bility for Germany's political life, and their representa-
tives who were disqualified by Hitler therefore form the
core of the German 'emigres in the narrower sense of the
term' (persons who, though they have not taken refuge
29
GERMANY TOMORROW
abroad, may be assumed on principle to be opposed just
as if they had fled) .
To the left and to the right of those who were dis-
qualified when Hitler seized power there were at that
time the opposition groups, consisting of those who fought
against Weimar just as they fought against Hitler the
Communists and the Black Front. The former were, or
are, supporters of an international-Marxist-revolution;
the latter were, or are, supporters of the German
Revolution, that is to say of a new order in the sense of
national freedom, social justice, and European collabora-
tion.
In addition to these political groups of persons who
oppose Hitler at home and abroad, there are the racial
and religious groups of Hitler's adversaries: notably the
Jews against whom Hitler and Streicher have preached a
crusade; and the Catholic and Protestant Churches
persecuted by Hitler and Rosenberg in so far as they
have not wholly or partially submitted. Of late, too,
there has been what we may call a quasi-economic
opposition, witnessed to by the flight of Edmund Stinnes
to London, and even of Fritz Thyssen (who was a mem-
ber of the Hitlerian Reichstag) to Switzerland.
^The mere enumeration of these groups indicates how
diversified are the trends, how varying the strength and
the Mnd, of this multifarious oppositional movement
against the Hitler System. Its extremely mixed com-
position is enough to show that no unified and vigorously
acting community could possibly be formed out of it
Speaking first of the 'dethroned Weimarians', their
pugnacity diminishes as you pass among them from left
to right. Even among the majority socialists there were
30
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
men of note, like Noske and Severing, who made peace
with the Hitler System 3 while many other prominent
members of this group became 'non-political 5 . Never-
theless it may be proclaimed that not only the party
chiefs Wels and Vogel who became emigres (taking
refuge first in Prague and then in Paris), but also the
steadfast old members of the party who stayed in Ger-
many, continued firm opposition to the Hitler System,
and that they could still rally many supporters from
among the German working class.
The centrist Catholics proved less reliable, and still
less reliable the bourgeois democrats. Almost all their
leaders made peace with Hitler, and even refugee politi-
cians like Briining, Wirth, and Koch took up an attitude
of reserve which (since they had considerable influence
in England and the U.S.) was indirectly favourable to
the Hitler System. Not until the anti-Christian policy
of the Hitlerians became more marked, was a stronger
opposition carried on from the Catholic side, but it never
became distinctively political.
The same considerations apply more markedly to the
'People's Party 5 and German nationalist opposition,
which was chiefly represented abroad by Treviranus, an
ex-minister of the Reich. (There is a creditable exception,
Dr. Rauschning, a German nationalist who was at one
time president of the Danzig Senate.)
This brief sketch of the opposition formed by the
various parties of the Weimar Republic makes it plain
that only the social democrats were capable of producing
a minority c able and willing to take action 5 against the
Hitler System; whereas the opposition formed by the
other groups (individual exceptions apart) could do no
GERMANY TOMORROW
more than intensify the general dissatisfaction; but was,
even so, of considerable importance, especially in the
religious sphere.
Fundamentally different, that is to say pugnacious,
are the two opposition groups that stood on the left and
right flanks of the old party opposition to the National
Socialists, namely the Communists and the Black Front,
In structure they were of a much more revolutionary
type than die old legalist or constitutional party appara-
tus, and furthermore by their struggles in the pre-Hitler
period had been better prepared for the new fighting
conditions of illegality.
There can be no doubt that down to the outbreak of
the war the Communists formed an opposition to the
Hitler System, an opposition that was not always very
adroit and consistent, but was absolutely uncompromis-
ing. If nevertheless they had no striking success, this is
partly because since 1920-1921 the German people had
inwardly outgrown the Communist peril; partly because
the dictatorship of the Browns did not encourage a
yearning for the dictatorship of the Reds, but rather
favoured a desire for democratic freedom and self-
government.
How much justification there was for the ingrained
prejudice of the German people against the Communists
was shown by the Hitler-Stalin pact, which gave outward
expression to the internal kinship between the two
systems.
With the formation of the Stalin-Hitler alliance the
Communists were done for in Germany, both in their
influence upon the German people and in the number of
their membership. Inasmuch as every Communist both
32
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
at home and abroad was transformed from an enemy of
Hitler Into an ally of Hitler, the German people (the
industrial workers not excepted) ceased to draw a dis-
tinction between Communist and Hitlerian.
Since then. Communism in Germany has no longer
been part of the opposition to Hitler, and this, perhaps,
Is the most satisfactory result of the Hitler-Stalin pact,
For just as in foreign policy the clear line of the European
struggle and still more of European reconstruction would
have been blurred if Bolshevik Russia had continued to
play a part in the democratic camp, so in home policy it
would have been a misfortune had Communism been
able to assert its claims as part of the German opposition
to Hitler.
As concerns the Black Front, of which I am the leader,
It has not only the tactical advantage of an organization
which was from the first designed for secret ( = 'black')
work, but has also the advantage from the outlook of
principle of having never taken part in the failures of
the Weimar period. Still more important was the fact
that it accurately foresaw and foretold the development
of the Hitler System, with the result that its early mem-
bers were strengthened in their convictions, and new
recruits were steadily gained. Sufficient proof of this is
given by the first January issue in 1937 of the Black
Front organ known as 'Die Deutsche Revolution 3 , of
whose contents a full translation will be found in the
Appendix to the present work (see below, p. 229). Since
then the members of the Black Front in the Reich have
been fortified by the evolution that has taken place in
the Interim. Of course this has not only increased their
confidence, but has also promoted their influence on the
c 33
GERMANY TOMORROW
surrounding strata of the population. The last notable
point is the unique position of the Black Front in relation
to the party and to the army a matter about which
there will be more to say in Part Two.
1 cannot conclude this discussion of 'the minority of
persons willing to take action 3 without considering the
position of the army, which has a special part to play in
the Hitler System. For a long time the hopes of foreign
adversaries of Hitler (bourgeois for the most part) were
concentrated upon the army, and they based these hopes
upon what happened on June 30, 1934.
But they overlooked what I had set forth five years ago
In my book Die deutsche Bartholomdusnacht [The German
Massacre of St. Bartholomew] that on this very day
Hitler had decided for what the generals wanted
namely for the war against the revolution. Subsequently
the union between Hitler and the generals became closer
and closer; Hitler complied with his allies' extravagant
demands for armaments, and in the end even agreed to
the pact with Russia they had unceasingly clamoured for,
asking no more in return than that they should be loyal
to his person and his system. When, on February 4,
1938, the remaining members of the general staff who
had independent characters (above all, Generals Fritsch
and Beck) were dismissed, this loyalty was ensured, and
the "Relchswehr Myth' had achieved its purpose.
It need hardly be said that this does not mean identity
of views and aims between Hitler and the general staff.
The grave internal and external dissensions between
army and party persist, over and above the inevitable
rivalry. Anyone acquainted with Prussian generals
know that their egoism exceeds their loyalty. They would
34
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
not dream of allowing themselves to be dragged down to
destruction with Hitler, and if Hitler's ruin were im-
minent they would seize any chance of saving themselves
by the sacrifice of the Chancellor and his paladins. But
this has nothing to do with opposition; it only means that
the generals are unprincipled.
Since Hitler's purge of the general staff to rid it of men
of character, there is, so far as concerns our search for a
minority of persons 'willing and able to take action 5 in
Germany, no dependence to be placed upon the leaders
of the armed forces of the Reich. But it Is otherwise as
regards the commissioned officers of medium grade,
especially In the army (for there Is less to be said about
the airforce and the navy). In these army circles not
only does the best tradition of the German officers' corps
remain active, but politically as well the ideas of the
'Schleicher School' still prevail a school in which
thousands of captains and majors were trained in youth.
Among them there is, on principle, strong opposition to
the Hitler System, while they cherish bitter memories of
the murder of their leaders Schleicher and Bredow. It
would be inexpedient to say much about this just now,
but there can be no doubt as to the facts. Whereas the
generals of the German army are an unprincipled lot,
and the subalterns are ambitious youngsters who are
politically apathetic or even devoted to Hitler the
majority of the staff officers are persons of blameless
character, and in political matters are convinced as well
as actively disposed opponents of the Hitler System.
To summarize the results of our search for c a minority
of persons willing and able to take action 3 against the
Hitler System, we have found that such a minority really
35
GERMANY TOMORROW
exists In the German nation, but still lacks unity of
organization and purpose. It comprises three groups, the
socialist group, the Black Front group, and the army
group. In a word, It represents the Leipart-Strasser-
Schleicher constellation which once before (in December
1932) was a deadly peril to Hitler. If it should prove
practicable to bring these three groups Into accord on
the lines of the Schleicher-Strasser-Leipart combination,
die anti-Hitler revolution would have a good chance of
success.
The last stage of our study of the fundamental pre-
requisites for a successful revolution against the Hitler
System brings us to more concrete elements, the active
defenders of that system; to the question whether a
paralysis of will is likely among them. Who are they,
these active defenders? In the narrower sense they are
the army, the S.S. (Storm Guards), and the S.A. (Storm
Troops), in the wider sense they are the whole National-
Socialist Party and its members.
As regards the army, the foregoing disquisition has
already solved a considerable part of our problem.
Within the army there are strong and influential forces
which are not merely untrustworthy from the outlook of
upholders of the system, but are convinced opponents,
and ready to take action. They will take action as soon
as they are convinced that Hitler has become a danger
to the national existence of Germany. A glance at the
three-year-old Black Front periodical (see Appendix)
will disclose the problem that faces every German officer
and every German ranker with a sense of national
responsibility the problem of, Hitler or Germany?
36
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
(Appendix, p. 232). There Is no decent ranker, there is
no decent officer, who would not answer 'Germany 3 if
he could only grasp the national necessity for a decision.
Himmler is well aware of this. The reports of thou-
sands of spies who act as orderlies in the officers 5 mess-
rooms have Informed him of the spirit that is afoot a
spirit he fights in all possible ways. Everyone in the
German army knows of the 'skirt' method he used so
successfully in the cases of Blomberg and Brauchitsch;
and also of the homosexual method he tried against
Fritsch but unavaillngly, so that later he was com-
pelled to have recourse to the time-honoured plan of
assassination.
Exceedingly symptomatic was the speech upon The
Home Front in Germany which he made to the officers'
corps in the summer of 1937, whose wording shows much
more plainly than does that of countless newspaper and
magazine articles by refugees both Himmler's dread of
the armed forces of the Reich and the Hitler System's
dread of an internal revolution.
For defence, Himmler relies upon the police, the
Gestapo, and especially upon the S.S., the Storm
Guards and their 'Death's-Head Battalions 3 . Let me
give a word-for-word extract from the aforesaid speech:
'Should war break out, I shall have the following tasks
to perform. In view of what I consider to be the duties
of the police, 15,000 men, or not more than 20,000 at the
outside, will be withdrawn for service with the colours.
The present total force of uniformed police is from 80,000
to 90,000. We have to remember that the great majority
of these uniformed police consists of men who are over
forty-five, or let us say over forty years of age, and there-
37
GERMANY TOMORROW
fore if I allow from 15,000 to 20,000 of the younger men
to go to the army, I shall be parting with the steel of my
police. In case of need I can replace them by calling
back to active police duties men over fifty-five or over sixty.
'This will only be practical if I can make sure of an
inner "stiffening" to be used for big and important
actions. It will consist of the "Death's-Head Battalions' 5 .
fi l shall be able to get along with my elderly policemen.
The civilians over forty-five years of age who will be
called up for auxiliary police service will, as has been
arranged, carry out the duties that used to be assigned
to the Landsturrn. They will be able to do sentry-go at
munition factories, railway-bridges, etc. always pro-
viding that I have some younger men as "stiffening".
These will be men between the ages of twenty-five and
thirty-five belonging to the "Death's-Head Battalions"
not older and not younger. I don't want very young
men, or men who are well up in years, for the "sabotage-
troops" and the "terror-troops" will consist of lively
young fellows with up-to-date weapons and I shall
never be able to fight them with elderly Lands turmers.
'The "DeathVHead Battalions" will be stationed in
every governmental district throughout Germany. They
will be disposed of as follows:
*i. No Battalion will be stationed in its own native dis-
trict. ^For instance, a Pomeranian Battalion will never
serve in Pomerania.
C 2. Each Battalion will be transferred to a new district
every three weeks.
C 3.^ No Battalion will be given street duty with its mem-
bers isolated. It would never do for a man wearing the
death's-head emblem to be stationed alone in the streets.
38
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
'4. This force will act ruthlessly. That is what it will
be for. 5
There can be no doubt that the Storm Guard Bat-
talions, living in barracks, will fulfil their chief's hopes
and will act ruthlessly towards their own nationals. But
there is likely to be a hitch here in the case of Storm
Guard Battalions not quartered in barracks. (This
applies to nearly four-fifths of the total force of 300,000
men, for not more than 80,000 are kept in barracks.)
They are simply working men, townsmen, and peasants
part of the people, and subject therefore to the popular
mood.
This applies even more to the S.A., the Storm Troops.
Numbering millions, they enjoy few of the advantages
granted to the S.S., the Storm Guards; they are not to
serve on the foreign front, but only on the 'home front 9 ;
this suffices to place them among the field-grey masses
and estranges them from the Brown Shirts let alone
that it increases the long-standing friction between the
S.S. (Storm Guards) and the S.A. (Storm Troops).
Even more decisive is the fact that comparatively few
of the Storm Troopers are among the 'profiteers 5 of the
system. On the contrary, they have for years been
deceived and betrayed especially since June 30, 1934.
Immediately after the alleged attempt on Hitler's life in
I 939> I g ot hold of a letter penned by one of the chiefs
of the Storm Troopers, which contains the following
passage (quoted verbatim) :
'Various recent happenings have pleased me very
much, although they have left a bitter taste in the mouth.
All the same, with regard to the candidate for death I
39
n E R M A N Y T O M O R R O W
hold Schiller's view, "The man must be helped". Un-
fortunately, like the rest of us in Germany, I am badly
off for news. My wireless apparatus doesn't work very
well, for It needs an overhaul; and as for the newspapers,
they lie so glibly that when one reads them, one hardly
knows whether one is standing on one's head or one's
heels. Nothing shows this better than all the hubbub
about the unfortunate Elser. What is true that is said
about him, and what false? Perhaps you can tell me, for
1 really don't know. Most of it, I expect, arises out of
Goebbels' imagination. I could tell you a lot of fine
things, were it not for technical difficulties.. But to come
to the main point, we shall have to work hard and bring
off our coup as soon as possible. We must approach the
goal quickly, for there will be little chance of establishing
a revolutionary Germany after a long war.'
I am sure that such a mood is the rule rather than the
exception among the Storm Troopers, and for years it
has seemed to me of the utmost importance to 'poison
the minds 5 of the Storm Troop leaders (here, likewise,
the middle grades rather than the men at the very top)
with the watchwords of the Black Front. During the
years 1 933- 1 938 our Huttenbriefe were sent by the million to
all sections of the Storm Troops and the National Socialist
Party. The specimen reprinted in the Appendix (p. 241)
gives an excellent example of our propagandist method.
Especially in the Party (where Gregor Strasser and
the protracted work of the Kampf-Verlag (Fighting
Publications) have not been forgotten) such activities
have been most fruitful, more particularly in the Labour
Front and among the Hitler Youth organizations.
What we must do now is make it clear to the abundant
40
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
profit-seekers within the party that Hitler's chances are
practically nil, so that they will best promote their own
interest if they take time by the forelock and adjust them-
selves to coming events. This sort of propaganda would
induce hundreds of thousands of members, especially
among the officialdom, to draw aloof from the regime;
and where we are dealing with the more stubborn it will
be well to use a stronger tone, and even to employ threats
of personal retaliation. With the average members of the
National Socialist Party the well-tried lures and deter-
rents of sweets and floggings will prove even more effec-
tive than they do with the generality of mankind.
Having shown that the three essential requisites for an
internal revolution do actually exist in Germany, I have
therewith reached a point still to be discussed the
tactical necessaries for such a revolution.
For simplicity, in expounding the tactical necessaries I
shall stick to the same classification used in considering
the general features of the revolutionary possibility.
As concerns the mood that prevails among the German
masses, we must use all possible means for diffusing
among them a sound knowledge of the world situation.
It is hard for a foreigner to conceive how vast a gulf
yawns between the world situation as it actually is, and
the world situation as it presents itself to the minds of
the German people. After seven years of Hitlerian dic-
tatorship and Goebbelsian propaganda, this impoverished
nation, exhausted and isolated both materially and
spiritually, has been deprived of the possibility of forming
a sound judgment of its own. The antecedents of the
outbreak of war, the violation of the Czechs, the atrocities
41
GERMANY TOMORROW
in Poland, the betrayal of Finland, the comparative
strength of Germany and the western powers these
things are all as unknown to the German people as are the
yielding disposition of France during the years 1933-1939
and the peaceful temper of Chamberlain's government.
The German people has absolutely no idea of the de-
testation with which the rest of the world contemplates
the Germany of Adolf Hitler, nor yet of the moral,
political, and economic isolation of the country, which
in 1940 is a hundredfold greater than it was in 1914.
The principal aid to peace will be anything that will
acquaint the Germans with these plain facts, with the
facts and nothing else. Not until the German people
knows the truth will its present dull dissatisfaction be
transformed into an active political will.
Here, too, what are spoken of as the 'War Aims' of
the western powers play a very important part. One of
Hitler's chief endeavours has been and is to inculcate the
legend that the western powers desire the 'annihilation of
Germany', and that consequently, were it merely for the
sake of self-preservation, Germans must rally round their
leaders that is to say round himself. 'We are all in the
same boat,' such is the leading theme of Goebbels 5 prop-
aganda at the present time; and herein he voices
nothing but his dread that the Germans may come to
realize how the precise opposite is true. Anyone who
wants to help himself and Germany must aid in downing
Hitler and flinging him overboard.
An intimate knowledge of my fellow-countrymen has
taught me that millions of them today are suffering
from a conflict between their moral duty and what they
still regard as a national duty. Directly the western
42
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
powers avow as their essential war aims the reversal -of
the violent deeds wrongfully committed by Hitler, but
declare that they have no desire to discriminate against
or destroy Germainy, that very moment there will be an
end to the cleavage in the minds of millions upon millions
of Germans, and they will tranquilly obey their con-
sciences against Hitler.
Of course we cannot expect them to undertake an
active campaign forthwith. It is idle to ask a fettered
prisoner to begin by overpowering his heavily armed
warder, and it is unfair to blame him as guilty because
he is powerless. What we can demand of the German
people, and what we forerunners among the champions
of the German Revolution do demand, is passive resis-
tance. But this comprehensive notion must be inculcated
in numberless separate preliminary writings, by those
able to avail themselves of all possible chances of dif-
fusing information.
We must not say (I am thinking of things that can
best be said by Germans) to the German aviator, 'Refuse
to obey orders 5 , for in that case as things are at present
he will simply be court-martialled and put to death.
What we should say is: 'Drop your bomb near what you
are aiming at, but don't register a hit. No one can prove
that you could have hit. In that way you will help to
overthrow Hitler and to save Germany. 5 We must not
say to the German worker, 'Down tools 5 , for he would
only be sent to a concentration camp. What we should
say is: 'Do your work slowly and badly, misunderstand
orders, waste material but make sure you will never
be found out. 3 To the clerks and officials we must say:
'Make a muddle of what you do; pretend to be stupid or
43
GERMANY TOMORROW
overworked; address letters, documents, parcels wrongly;
falsify lists and specifications; be tardy and disagreeable
in your relations with the public, cautious but stupid in
your relations with your superiors in a word, "throw
grit into the bearings whenever you have a chance; and
even though each man does only a little, the massed
effect will be stupendous.' To business and professional
men: c Be backward with the authorities, ask the revenue
officials question after question, humbug customers while
never forgetting to praise the Leader; remind them how
Goering said, "Guns are more important than butter 55 ,
delay the delivery of stamps on the ground that you are
overworked, make complaint after complaint; all this will
help to overthrow Hitler and therewith restore peace to
Germany and Europe. 3
I wrote simply, c We must say 3 . Who are 'we 5 , and how
can we say it?
We' are Germans who live free and can take up the
fight against Hitler. I have enumerated the various
groups of such persons. The outstanding personalities
among them, have a great moral and political responsi-
bility to their supporters, to the German people, and
to the world at large. It speaks ill for them that they
have not yet succeeded in forming a representative
assembly of the German adversaries of Hitler. An im-
pulse in the direction of establishing in foreign parts such
a centralized representative body of Germans would act
more quickly and effectively than anything else towards
aggregating into united hopes for the future the moods of
those malcontents who are scattered throughout the
Reich, and towards concentrating the efforts of various
44
IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY POSSIBLE?
groups In the minority that would gladly take action
against the Hitler System. Nor could anything be more
momentous than this in Its influence upon the foreign
world, whose cooperation will be indispensable to the
speedy outbreak of a revolution against Hitler.
Again, 'how can we say It? 3 Uninfluential refugees,
grudgingly tolerated as aliens, having no passports, no
wireless stations, no funds to spare for direct and indirect
propaganda, and persons to be numbered only by tens
of thousands how can we, actively disposed though we
are, geHn touch with the passive German masses, who
are millions upon millions?
Apart from this problem, It is obviously our duty to do
our utmost towards ending this war as soon as possible,
towards ending it before its full powers of destruction
have been wreaked. There can be no doubt that our only
way of helping here is to promote the internal revolution
against Hitler. The outcome of this preliminary investi-
gation paving been that such a revolution is possible,
surely it behoves us to use all available means in order
to bring it about? Such a question can only be answered
in the affirmative. Three years ago Himmler emphasized
the importance of The Home Front in Germany, and con-
cluded his address to the officers 3 corps with the words of
warning:
c An understanding that a completely new type of
organization Is essential must be universally diffused; so
must the idea of the home front in Germany, upon the
defence of which the very existence of the German nation
will depend if we ever have to bear the burdens of war. 3
It is time for the non-German world to understand
Himmler's cry of distress and turn it to account.
45
GERMANY TOMORROW
Our enquiry is finished. Its upshot has been that as far
as the objective requisites in Germany are concerned an
internal revolution against Hitler is possible, but that
there are indispensable subjective requisites as well.
To the foregoing disquisitions I must add one impor-
tant remark: the trigger will be pulled by a military
failure on Hitler's part.
For years in his foreign policy Hitler has scored
triumph after triumph; even in the present war the mili-
tary victories have, so far, all been Hitler's (in Poland)
with the result that up to now the word remains with him
should the question of negotiations arise. While this state
of affairs lasts, even the best propaganda and the most
skilful underground work can only pave the way,
generate doubt, undermine support, induce readiness to
secede or to resist.
Not until the nimbus of victory has faded on Hitler's
brow, not until his 'battle of the Marne' has convinced
every German patriot that the alternative 'Hitler or
Germany' has been presented, not until the military pre-
eminence of the western powers becomes as plain as their
moral superiority already is not until then will the ice
break that now encrusts the brains, the hearts, and the
arms of the Germans.
That day will come, and will be followed by the day
of the German Revolution which is enshrined as an
object of ardent desire within the hearts of the German
people.
Let us all be ready then, that our thoughts may be
great, our wills pure, and our deeds just for thereby
only will storm-tossed and tormented humanity be
enabled to reach the passionately desired goal of peace.
46
PART TWO
LIQUIDATION OF THE WAR
PEACE PROPOSALS OF TOMORROW'S
GERMANY
CHAPTER ONE
PEACE OR ARMISTICE?
I. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PEACE TREATY
No thoughtful person can fail to be aware that the
present war, generated by the very nature and by the will
of the Hitler System, will be decisive as to the future
political, economic, and cultural order of Europe.
Germany itself, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland
give a heartbreaking picture of what this 'order 5 will be
like should Hitler gain the victory.
What will that order be like should the Allies be
victorious? We have no picture of it, unless we adopt
the fatuous notion that it will be set up in utter forget-
fulness of the twenty-five years between 1914 and 1939,
that there will be re-established those pre-war conditions
whose impracticability could not be better demon-
strated than by the events of the two and a half decades
that have followed the outbreak of the last great war.
Anyone who is convinced, as I am, that all historical
happenings mean something, are the expression of a
living development, will regard such reactionary ideas
as incredible, and will pay no heed to them when dis-
cussing the political future.
If so, however, it becomes still more urgent to enquire
what will be the nature of the new order to be estab-
lished by the peace that will itself be the expression of
the coming order.
For here we impinge upon the first question to present
r 49
PEACE OR ARMISTICE?
Itself at the close of every war. Shall we really try to
make peace, true peace; or shall we be content with an
armistice which, while ending the present war., will bear
in its womb the embryo of a new one?
It is hard to raise such a question while war is still
being waged; for the mere question may readily arouse
dissensions within every belligerent power, and thus
reduce the energy requisite for carrying the war to a
successful conclusion. Since, however, experience teaches
that it is even harder, much harder, to settle such a
question properly when one side has gained a decisive
victory, for in these circumstances the heat of passion so
readily obscures the light of reason as well as the sense
of justice, it is really incumbent on us, while we go
on fighting, to prepare for peace, for the true peace that
will make the recurrence of our present woes impossible.
But is a true peace possible? Can there truly be 'peace
on earth 5 ? Sceptics will be inclined to answer much as
one who plays a leading part in this war answered me
when I put the question that forms the title of this
chapter: c Are you fighting for a peace, or only for an
armistice?' His reply was: 'What do you suppose?
Every peace is nothing more than an armistice. The
more difficult the peace, the longer will be the pause
before the next war.'
Since I consider that the teachings of history dictate
to us the laws of politics, I could not but agree, for the
question was too general in its terms.
But if the question be put more concretely, in the
form, c ls durable peace possible in Europe?' I should
answer, once more guided by the teachings of history,
with an emphatic c Yes'.
5
ELEMENTS OF EUROPEAN PEACE
2. ELEMENTS OF EUROPEAN PEACE
At bottom what are wars but the struggles of growth
among the nations? As soon as the peoples of a particular
family of peoples within a particular area have finished
growing, there cease between these peoples in this
particular area the crises that result from the way in
which growth has made them elbow one another,, just as
the cessation of feuds among the tribes and the clans
established peace In the national units we now call
Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, etc. The
end of the century-old struggle within these nations was
a sign of the ripening of the characters or the personali-
ties of these ripened nations, of the end of their 'becom-
ing' stage. This was the necessary antecedent of the
settlement that will finish the 'international' quarrels
within the family of European nations.
Who can deny that all the nations of Europe, whether
large or small, have entered the ripening phase of
nationhood? Where can you find the Czech who wants
to become a German; the Pole who wants to become a
Russian; the Bulgarian who wants to become a Ruman-
ian; or the Groat who wants to become a Serb to say
nothing of the nations that ripened yet earlier? Now the
close of this ripening process necessarily involves our
putting an end to any sort of intra-European imperialism
thus ^making both possible and indispensable a col-
laboration on the basis of the unconditional recognition
of the freedom and independence of all the national 'per-
sonalities' which today comprise the European family.
Is not the remarkable lack of hatred in this war an
indirect proof that the European nations feel themselves
5 1
PEACE OR ARMISTICE?
to belong to one family? Is not the talk about war alms
that goes on simultaneously in the countries of all the
belligerents a sign that, despite the struggle that con-
tinues, they have a yearning for community? Even
Hitler and Goebbels feel impelled to declare that their
only war aim is 'defence of Germany's right to live 5 ; even
they have to hide their imperialist actions behind a cloud
of peaceful words, and to deck out the attack upon
Europe they are delivering in concert with Stalin as a
phase in the birth of Europe.
Have not the governments of the western powers also
officially declared their war aim to be 'no territorial con-
quests, but a guarantee of security'; and is not this
declaration a proof that those who take the lead in
Britain and France have deduced the consequences of
the completion of the ripening process among the nations
of Europe and are determined to build thereon the com-
ing peace?
But if this is so, we have no reason to fear that the
coming peace will be nothing more than an armistice,
and therefore it behoves us Germans to give the material
and ideal guarantees of the security to which all the
European nations are unconditionally entitled.
The central problem of the coming peace negotiations
may therefore be stated thus:
How shall we combine the right to live of the German
people who inhabit the centre of Europe, with other
Europeans' need for security and especially the need
of the nations that adjoin Germany, the nations whose
right to live is independent of what may happen to be
their size?
DISINTEGRATION OF GERMANY?
3. DISINTEGRATION OF GERMANY?
Our formulation of the central problem will command
almost unanimous assent,, but there will be differences
now that we come to the solution.
It would be foolish to deny that the demand for the
disintegration of Germany will automatically tend to be
voiced more loudly by the Allies the more the war
spreads and the longer It lasts.
Just because this Is so obvious, and for those who would
be guided only by feelings so justifiable a trend, I will
avoid trying to answer it on moral grounds. I shall con-
tent myself with a sober political rejoinder, which runs:
'True, the annihilation of an adversary will make it
quite certain that he will never want to fight you again,
and will therefore ensure a lasting peace 5 . The best ex-
ample that can be cited to illustrate this is the example of
the destruction of Carthage at the close of the third Punic
war. The Romans killed all the men and boys of
Carthage, sold the Punic women and girls into slavery,
and razed to the ground the buildings of the rival city;
and they symbolized the permanency of the destruction
by driving a plough over the desert where Carthage had
formerly stood. History tells us that there were no more
Punic wars.
If an adversary can be definitively destroyed, a vic-
torious power will naturally ask whether this will not be
the best way of guaranteeing the security of its own
people. Certainly I can find no moral arguments against
such^a course, though I am strongly convinced that under
the sign of the cross such arguments would carry far more
weight than they did in the days of pagan Rome. From
53
PEACE OR ARMISTICE?
the practical point of view. It was quite possible to kill
half of the remaining 100,000 to 120,000 inhabitants of
unhappy Carthage, and to sell the remaining half Into
slavery. But how could that be done with 70,000,000
Germans? Physical extirpation is simply out of the ques-
tion, even if It were to be considered the best way of
establishing peace in Europe.
I need not trouble to prove that no man living has so
crazy an idea as this when he contends that the dis-
integration of Germany might be the best possible way
of guaranteeing the peace he hopes to see established.
He does not dream of the bodily extermination of the
Germans, but of the destruction, or at any rate the
weakening of the political organization of the country
of the disintegration of the German State.
The disintegration (or partition) of Germany means
here that the left bank of the Rhine shall be annexed by
France, or shall become a puppet State under French
control; that East Prussia, with Danzig, the Corridor,
and parts of Silesia, shall become Polish; that Sudeten-
land shall go back to a restored Czechoslovakia; that
Austria shall be assigned to the Habsburgs (preferably to
be combined with Czechoslovakia and Hungary into a
'Danubian Federation 5 ); and that the remnants of Ger-
many shall become 'protectorates 5 , if possible under the
tutelage of the recalled princely houses: the aim of all
this being the permanent political impotence of the Ger-
man people, whose activities are to be restricted to
intellectual culture, industry, and agrarian production.
I shall not attempt to deny that this scheme may
appear most desirable to the French, who less than
seventy years ago suffered from the savage onslaught of
54
DISINTEGRATION OF GERMANY?
the Germans; or to assert that it would seem too cruel in
the eyes of the Czechoslovaks and the Poles, who have
been afflicted even more cruelly by the terrorist methods
of Hitler.
On the contrary, for years I myself and many other
German patriots have dreaded that this grotesque
scheme may some day be realized, and it is as German
nationalists inspired by such a dread that we have,, in
great measure, been prompted to carry on our campaign
against the Hitler System. Let me again refer the reader
to the illicit Black Front periodical which was circulated
by millions in the Reich at the beginning of 1937, and is
reproduced verbatim in the present work (See Appendix,
p. 229).
Once more I will answer with practical rather than
with moral arguments, by asking whether such a dis-
integration of Germany would create and stabilize peace.
I frankly recognize the possibility of such a disintegra-
tion of Germany, and I know that with a conquered
nation the victors can do what they please for a time.
But how long will it last?
A peace settlement which is not felt and thought to be
just by the conquered, will endure only so long as the
conquerors have, and use, force to sustain it.
First, then, would the German people feel and think
such a disintegration of Germany to be 'just? I do not
believe that any man or any woman can honestly say
fi Yes\ If there are persons who can believe that economic
security and possibilities for cultural development could
reconcile the Germans to political castration, then I am
convinced that such persons are labouring under a
profound delusion. Just because they have, as I say,
55
PEACE OR ARMISTICE?
'ripened 5 , all the nations in Europe the German nation
not excepted lay the utmost stress upon political free-
dom, which includes the possibility of independently
developing whatever form of national existence they may
prefer.
Perhaps after a crushing defeat, and after seven years 5
hunger and bodily chastisement, the German people
might accept such peace terms without demur, but as
soon as their palsy was over, as soon as the will-to-live
became active once more, the will-to-freedom, the will-
to-independence, and the will-to-equal-rights would also
return, and every German, young or old, would regard a
fight for German liberty and German unity as his supreme
aim.
Would this be wrong-headed? Is there a Frenchman,
an Englishman, a Pole, or a Czech who would act
differently in a similar situation?
Never will the Germans accommodate themselves to
the disintegration of Germany, to the tearing of their
country to tatters. If such peace terms are enforced,
those who enforce them will have to reckon upon the
permanent hostility of the Germans.
What this means is that the victors will have to remain
perpetually under arms to hold the Germans down nay
more, that they will have to pile up their own armaments
proportionally with the recovery of the German people
from the consequences of defeat.
It means, last not least, that the victors will have to
reckon with the fact that a nation of 70,000,000 living in
Central Europe will be ready, at any moment when there
is an uneasy international situation (a war in the Far
East, troubles in the Pacific, threats from Russia, or what
56
DISINTEGRATION OF GERMANY?
not), to join forces with the disturbers of the peace,
hoping under the shadow of this new menace to carry
on their own struggle for freedom.
These are not moral arguments, neither menaces nor
hopes they are facts, hard facts, reinforced by the
lessons of history and by the study of national psychology.
Some may try to dismiss them as trifling, but none can
deny their existence.
What could the disintegration of Germany signify,
really; but that such a liquidation 5 of the war would
eternalize the heavily armed and tense condition of
Europe? It would signify that the Germans would con-
centrate their energies on unsettling the settlement, and
that the other nations would have to concentrate theirs
on trying to maintain it.
Peace? That would not be peace, but an armistice
filled with hatred, an armistice whose duration would
be limited by the strain put upon the victors to keep
adequately armed a strain that would grow worse the
longer the armistice lasted.
57
CHAPTER TWO
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
I. PARTITION OF PRUSSIA
AT this stage it becomes necessary to insist that with the
rejection of the plan to disintegrate Germany there must
be associated practical proposals and guarantees from
Germany for the security of her neighbours. The other
nations of Europe, having been alarmed by Germany's
foreign policy of late, will make it their first and most
urgent demand that their governments shall fulfil what
has been their principal war aim and it is essential that
the German people should give the requisite pledges and
guarantees, having recognized that its own future in
Europe is dependent thereon.
Nor must any German statesman fail to understand
that German utterances and promises 5 even when signed,
sealed, and delivered, are now practically valueless on
the international exchange. Too often have German
governments, made up of no matter what persons, failed
to keep their pledges, broken their oaths, and treated
documents duly signed by them as no more than 'scraps
of paper'. No clear-sighted German publicist will take
it amiss if non-Germans now demand from Germans, not
words, but deeds.
The most decisive of such deeds will be the partition of
Prussia.
In view of the profuse outpouring of historical litera-
ture during the last great war, there is no need to adduce
58
PARTITION OF PRUSSIA
detailed justification of this demand. Suffice it to say that
as long ago as 1931 the Black Front endorsed the idea in
its first public statement of aims, entitled Aufbau des
deutschen Sozialismus [Structure of German Socialism],
penned by myself (see below, pp. 117 and foil.) ; and that
on September 20 of the same year, in No. 34 of its
central organ c Die Schwarze Front 5 (of which I was
editor), it gave an exact description with a map of
the proposed partition of Prussia, and of what was to be
the territorial distribution of the New Germany.
Consequently the German demand for the partition
of Prussia originated, not under the stresses of war, not
because of fear of military defeat, not as the outcome of
foreign or refugee influence but owing to the over-
whelming logic of a study of the political and religious
structure of Germany, its history, and its motive forces,
when contemplated by a European consciousness. I
regard it as of the utmost importance to insist on this
today.
No one well acquainted with the spirit of Germany
can overlook the fact that for centuries within the Ger-
man people there has been a mental and political struggle
between what I have called the Frederician (the Prus-
sian) and what I have called the Theresian (the Austrian)
sections. This may be compared with the struggle that
goes on in a child's mind between the paternal and the
maternal elements a struggle which, as character
develops ultimately leads to the formation of a (new)
unity. The concept 'German' contains, and transcends,
both the Frederician (Protestant) and the Theresian
(Catholic) elements, wherein is mirrored all the multi-
plicity of the tribal souls that have respectively contri-
59
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
buted to the over-riding concept * German 9 , without
having, so far, completely merged their identity in it.
Considered from an evolutionary standpoint, 'Prus-
sian 5 signifies the fateful domination of a partial element
over the whole, and is analogous to what is seen in
pathology when a cancer results from an excessive and
boundless proliferation of certain local cells, that master
(and destroy) the organism to which they belonged.
Politically, therefore, the development of Little Brand-
enburg into Great Prussia represents the growth of a
cancer threatening the life of the German body as a
whole, and it is a development which must be checked
at all costs if Germany, and Europe, are to be saved.
For it lies in the very nature of the doctrine 'might is
right 3 , a doctrine which forms the heart of the Prussian
mystery, that it should know no limits. That was why
Brandenburg grew into Prussia; Prussia into Great
Prussia, which struts as Germany in the belief that
Great Prussia will grow into the Continental Empire that
would like to strut as Europe.
We Germans must ourselves overcome Prussia, We
must overcome it territorially, economically, and spiritu-
ally; for only when we have done so will New Germany,
will New Europe, become possible.
2. FEDERATION OF THE PROVINCES
The fundamental principle of German organization is
the federative principle, based upon the German tribes
which have for ages been rooted in their respective terri-
tories, refusing to merge and willing only to federate.
The political structure of the millenniary German Reich
60
FEDERATION OF THE PROVINCES
has been based upon this federative segmentation, upon
the voluntary collaboration of all the tribes, upon the
organic union of its territories.
This teaching of a great past was rendered inaudible
by the clamour of Prussian propaganda. Force replaced
voluntary collaboration. The various territories, instead
of being given a chance to develop as they respectively
wished, were compelled to c toe the Prussian line'.
The territorial subdivision of Prussia must precede the
federalization of Germany., whose territories (like the
Swiss cantons) are tribal settlements, historical and
economic units, which form voluntary collaborators in
the German Reich.
Put more concretely, this signifies the re-establishment
of the 'Landschaften' or provinces of Rhineland, Hesse,
Hanover, Thuringia, Saxony, Brandenburg, etc., in place
of what now constitutes Prussia; the re-establishment of
the provinces of Swabia, Franconia, Bavaria, etc., in
place of what now constitute Wurtemberg, Baden^
Hohenzollern, Bavaria in a word, the territorial sub-
division of Germany into about fifteen provinces repre-
senting political, cultural, tribal, and economic units.
These provinces, having on the average not more than
about five million inhabitants each, would enjoy rights
of local self-government rather more extensive than those
of the Swiss cantons. As do the cantons, each province
would control its own government and its own popular
assembly; and (this is most important) all its functionaries,
from president to postman, would be natives of that par-
ticular territory. The aim should even be to make sure
that the federal officials assigned to any province should
as far as possible be natives of that province.
61
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
The territorial disintegration of Prussia would thus be
supplemented by the destruction of the extant centralized
administrative apparatus which is one of the most power-
ful weapons of Prussian power politics. This would be
replaced by the federal administrative apparatus of the
respective provinces, which in its turn would be localized,
with the greatest possible amount of self-government and
democratic State-control.
The c German Reich 5 would thus veritably become a
league of substantially independent cantons, whose joint
instruments, the federal government and the popular
assembly, would be reinforced and controlled by the
body of provincial presidents. It may be taken as a
matter of course that Berlin would cease to be the capital
of the Reich. I myself think there is a good deal to be
said in favour of Ratisbon.
The details of the political structure of New Germany
will be considered in Part Three of this book.
Suffice it for the moment to insist that the destruction
of Prussia, the reconstitution of the provinces which
during the last century and a half have, one after another,
been 'gobbled up' by Prussia, the subdivision of Germany
into a league of federative provinces, are to be regarded
as indispensable preliminaries to the upbuilding of New
Germany.
It is heart-rending today to read an account of the
disputes between the Allied statesmen and those of Ger-
many that followed the surrender of November 1918.
An utter lack of psychological and historical knowledge
on the part of the former was supplemented by the
stupidity and weakness of the latter, with the result that
behind the mask of the Weimar Republic to begin
62
SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
with, and behind the mask of Hindenburg and Hitler
subsequently, the power of Prussia became firmly
re-established, to resume the lost game after the lapse of
twenty-one years.
If those who will be responsible for the peace that will
some day follow this war want to put an end to the game
for ever, they must remember that there is only one way
of doing so:
Not by the disintegration of Germany, but by the
partition of Prussia.
3. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
The demand for the 'partition of Prussia 5 would be
not more than half complied with if the term were to
mean only a territorial subdivision and the destruction
of the centralized administrative apparatus.
The roots of Prussian power are quite as much social,
economic, and psychological; and without the destruc-
tion of these roots it will avail little to divide the stalks
and pluck the leaves, or even to pick the fruit.
The social power of Prussia is based upon the squire-
archy, the power of the junkers. These, numbering
18,688, own 16.7 % of the land used in Prussia for agri-
culture and stock-raising. This is more than one-quarter
of the land so farmed, the rest being farmed by the small-
holders, the peasants who comprise 4,500,000. The
feudalist caste of the Prussian junkers, the big landowners,
form the pillars of the Prussian State, Prussian militarism,
and Prussian power politics.
Without the social and economic overthrow of the
junker caste, without depriving the Prussian junkers of
63
FEDERALXZATION OF GERMANY
their power, there can be no lasting partition of Prussia,
and therefore no New Germany.
Far be It from me (a conservative as well as a revolu-
tionist) to deny the strength, the value, and the signi-
ficance of this sustaining stratum for the origin and
existence of Prussia, and during a certain phase of
Germany no less. Every people needs a sustaining
stratum, and no one but an intellectual out of touch
with the actualities of life can fail to see the notable
part that has been played by the aristocracy as the
sustaining stratum of the nation.
But every sustaining stratum, every aristrocracy, must
comply with the demands of the time. The French
noblesse was slower to recognize this than the English
gentry had been, and that was why the French noblesse
fell before Danton's revolution, whereas the English
gentry survived Cromwell's revolution. The Prussian
junker caste does not understand the situation in the
least Neither in 1918 nor in 1933 did it hear the call of
the time, but hid as pusillanimously behind the mask
of Hitler as it had hidden behind the mask of Ebert,
caring only to keep its social and economic power and
seizing any chance for carrying on its reactionary policy.
If, therefore, we wish to make an end of Prussianism,
we must deal radically with these representatives of
political reaction.
This means that the great estates will have to be
divided up, and that monopolist industries must be
nationalized.
For side by side with the Old Prussian estate of
junkers or great landowners, there came Into existence
after the foundation of the Bismarckian Reich (which,
64
SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
under the device of the Weimar Republic, transformed
Itself more and more Into Great Prussia),, the New
Prussian estate of heavy industrials, represented towards
the last by Krupp and Thyssen, much as the junkers
were represented by Wangenheim and Oldenburg-
Januschau.
It Is possible, nay probable, that Influential circles In
England and France, having sympathy with the Prusso-
German social strata that will be hit hard by such
measures, will regard the plan as unduly revolutionary,
not to say c bolshevlk ? . The main argument here must
be a political one. The sympathizers must be shown that
unless we strike at the roots of the great landowners 5 and
heavy industrialists 5 power, It will be impossible to make
an end of Prussia and Prusso-German imperialism.
It will be necessary, however, to show that this
expropriation Is not to be effected without compensation,
nor yet in favour of the State or of any kind of State
socialism, but only in favour of self-governing economic
corporations in the industrial domain. (This matter,
likewise, will be more fully discussed In Part Three.)
My rejection on principle of any kind of bolshevlsm
(and of the Marxism on which it is based), together
with my Insistence on the maintenance of individual
rights, creative initiative, and the pursuit of economic gain,
must protect me against an erroneous interpretation of
my demand for the subdivision of great landed estates
and the nationalization of monopolist industry.
Whoever recognizes the truth of the saying 'Property
makes free 5 , whoever affirms the necessity for a sus-
taining stratum in any satisfactory social order must
look forward to the new order which will aim at the
E 65
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
deproletarianizatlon of the people, and at our liberation
from the social and economic monopolies under whose
harrow no sort of freedom is possible.
4. DEMOCRACY OF THE VOCATIONAL
ESTATES
The picture of the far-reaching structural transforma-
tion requisite to establish the New Germany (a transfor-
mation which would have taken place even without
this war because it would have come as the completion
of the revolutionary changes that have been going on
since 1918) would be unfinished did it not disclose the
fundamental democratization that is essential to intra-
European collaboration.
For Wilson in 1918, and Chamberlain and Daladier
in 1939, rightly insisted that the new condition of
Europe, which must be and would be the outcome of
the war, could only be lasting if it were based upon
democratic freedom and self-government.
But when we say this, we must not forget Germany's
experiences from 1918-1933 in the matter of what was
called formal democracy; nor the way in which the
western powers, under the pressure of the necessities
of war, have been compelled to make many changes in
the machinery of democratic government.
It must be added that in Germany since Hitler seized
power it has become impossible to grant equal rights in
any sense to the totalitarian parties of the Nazis or the
Bolsheviks; and, on the other hand, that under the
hitherto prevailing form of party democracy it would
be impossible to refuse them these equal rights; and,
66
DEMOCRACY OF VOCATIONAL ESTATES
finally, that the social and economic dethronement of
what have heretofore been the leading strata must
somehow be ensured under the future form of democracy
(read c popular government').
All these considerations join forces for the rejection
of party democracy in the New Germany, and for the
acceptance of the democracy of the vocational estates.
Those acquainted with the internal development of
Germany may be glad to discern here the old ideas of the
councils' system which in 1918-1919 the masses of the
people vainly urged the petty-bourgeois social demo-
cratic leaders to work for. (From the first at that time
the traditional forces of Prussian-Germany were power-
fully operative among the petty-bourgeois social demo-
cratic leaders.)
Today, when the party of Hitlerism and Bolshevism
numbers many millions, every keen observer of German
conditions will agree that nothing but the elimination of
all parties and the inauguration of a democracy of the
councils and the estates can create the new form of
democracy that is essential both for home and foreign
affairs.
Once more I am only dealing here in outline with a
matter that will be more fully discussed in Part Three of
my book; and the fact that the program was drafted
in the years 1930 and 1931 should convince my readers
that the proposals were based upon the then situation
of Germany, and have not arisen out of the actual
position of the belligerents.
The basic maxim of this new form of democracy runs:
self-government by the estates, and their direct control
of the political administration.
67
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
There are two routes along which this goal will be
reached: first by the construction of a comprehensive
organization of persons engaged in all vocations, in five
councils of manual workers, peasants, employees and
officials, manufacturers and traders, and members of the
liberal professions.
Secondly the people at large will secure its share of
power through joint chambers of estates which will be
set up in every district, every province, and last of all in
the Reich, to become a determinative factor in adminis-
tration and legislation.
This system of popular representation based upon
direct and indirect elections, representing in the councils
the economic interests and in the vocational estates the
political popular interests, seems to be the only way of
avoiding in Germany, not only any return of the reaction,
but also any revival of the Nazi and Bolshevik party
movements.
5. THE NEW SPIRIT
No political, social, and economic methods of organi-
zation would be of permanent value, unless this work
were crowned by the deliberate inauguration and
cultivation of a new spirit.
This spirit of the New Germany must and will be a
repudiation of the belief that might and force should
regulate the social life of mankind. There must and will
be a recognition, both in substance and in form, that
voluntary collaboration is to be the basis of human
society.
Force or voluntary collaboration? that is one of the
68
THE NEW SPIRIT
fundamental matters about which this war is being
fought. The answer can only be collaboration, both
national and international.
In Germany this new Spirit (which was as clearly
foreshadowed by Herder, as the spirit of William II and
Hitler was foreshadowed by Hegel) is most clearly
manifested by the passionate repudiation of the idols of
the totalitarian State, and by the whole-hearted accep-
tance of Christianity with its doctrines of the freedom
and dignity of the human soul.
In defiance of the Old Prussian prophets of State-
hegemony and the modern German advocates of race-
hegemony, the spirit of the West proclaims the fathership
of God and the sonship of man of all men and
Insists upon the dependence of all human institutions
(the State not excepted) upon the Law of God.
We fully recognize that the polarity Emperor-Pope,
State-Church, represents the very essence of Europe,
which cannot be removed, cannot be dispensed with,
without destroying the spirit and the soul of Europe.
Freedom of the spirit, of belief, of conscience, are the
foundations of Europe, and New Germany would cut
itself away from Europe should it fail to proclaim them
and to respect them.
No less Important as fundamentals of this European
spirit of the New Germany, are the Independence of the
press, of science, and of art, which must be free from
any sort of State interference or social monopolization.
Education and the school should have no other aims
than to promote the development of free personalities,
to foster the growth of frank and great souls. They will
best do this by ensuring the unrestricted development of
69
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
the divine soul, thanks to which each of us, after his
kind and according to his powers, can fulfil himself,
and thus sing the praises of the Creator who fashioned
his soul as it is and no otherwise.
The diversity of human beings, the differences among
them in quality and value, their varying powers and
their varying tones, are intrinsic. All that education
can achieve is to foster the beauty of the tones given out
by each soul, so that when sounding together they can
produce the harmony that will guarantee inward and
outward peace,
6. RENUNCIATION OF MILITARISM
Such an avowal of a new spirit would be an idle
declamation unless it had prompt political consequences.
For the New Germany, one of these decisive results
would be the renunciation of Prussian militarism both
on principle and as a form of organization.
Unquestionably in foreign parts the idea of Prussia
was embodied, not so much in the knowledge of any
philosophy she might proclaim, as in an experience of
what use she made of her highly developed militarism.
Her practice counted for more than her precept, were it
only because of the sinister consequences of her practice.
In this connexion we must on no account forget to
allow for two decisive facts: first of all that, as a famous
historian has said, the nineteenth century was pre-
eminently the age of imperialism, and therefore mani-
fested a distinctive political structure that was by no
means confined to Prussianized Germany; secondly that
militarism had become a strange epidemic phenome-
70
RENUNCIATION OF MILITARISM
non, an epidemic malady of the now unbelieving souls
of European human beings.
No less notable a man than Masaryk, a great statesman
and philosopher (whose pupil I may take this oppor-
tunity of again declaring myself to be) recognized this
phenomenon, and described it as follows:
'Modem militarism, especially Prussian militarism, is,
considered scientifically and philosophically, a system
of objectification a panic flight on the part of morbid
subjectivity and suicidal mania . . . When Sombart, in
the Hegelian manner, extolled German militarism, and
bragged about fighting in the trenches beside Faust and
Zarathustra, he did not realize how he was condemning
German and European civilization as drenched with
blood. What else is the war-making of modern civilized
human beings than a panic flight from the anxieties that
arise in the c ego 5 of the superman. That is why, as
regards bellicosity, the intellectuals are as bad as, or
worse than, the agriculturists and the urban workers.
. . . Modern man suffers from a morbid suicidal impulse,
from the fatigue and the anxiety that result from his
spiritual and moral isolation. Militarism represents the
superman's attempt to escape from this malady, which
it really aggravates. In the nation of thinkers and
philosophers there is the largest percentage of suicides;
that nation has the most highly developed militarism,
and it was mainly responsible for the world war. 3
Masaryk had good reasons for emphasizing this
characteristic feature of contemporary Europe; and he
pointed out as the crowning 'sin' of Prussia that there
the spiritual malady of modern Europeans had been
promoted into an ideal and a system.
71
FEDERAL I ZATION OF GERMANY
The German people, more subject than any other to
this spiritual malady and suffering from it In its worst
form, taking to heart Clemenceau's profound remark that
the Germans' chief danger is their being In love with
death, must do their utmost to seek a cure.
A radical and lasting cure can only come from a
religious revival, can only come from their giving a new
significance to life by Internal freedom and devotion to
Christianity,
Prussian militarism must be overcome; In the spiritual
field by a new ideal of life, and in the practical field by
a new military organization.
In the last section I mentioned the philosophical aims
of education and the school. To these must be added
the practical aim of drafting and exercising a new ideal
of life. The hysterical heroism which has been adopted
as the ideal of life in Hitlerian Germany, must be
shown to be what it is, must be condemned and rejected
as deceptive, as a swindle, as a denial of the truth of
life.
The joy of life, the Song of Songs whose strophes must
be unfailingly sung to an impoverished, proletarianized,
mechanized, and nihilistic mankind, will be the best
prophylactic of the epidemic disease of suicidal impulse
and militarism. When people have grasped the fact that
schools of cookery are much more important than schools
of politics, and that the amount of laughter which can
be heard is the best indication of the quality of their
political and economic institutions, the spirit of mili-
tarism will have been definitively overcome.
But in practice It will most promptly be overcome by a
change In the prevailing military system.
72
A WORD ON THE JEWISH PROBLEM
In accordance with my conviction of the diversity of
human beings and of their right to self-determination,
I hereby declare myself absolutely opposed to universal
military service.
In the first program of the Black Front we de-
manded that army duty in Germany should be a volun-
tary affair; and this, not least, because thereby would be
facilitated the new joint military system of a general
European army such as a European Federation will
need.
But if (and this will be one of the main topics of dis-
cussion at the coming Peace Conference) such a joint
military system cannot yet be established by the United
States of Europe, there will remain for our model the
Swiss militia system, which maintains universal service,
but wherein the origin of any form of militarism is
rendered impracticable by the most carefully devised
democratic safeguards.
Between the two possibilities, between a small pro-
fessional army under European control and a militia
army after the Swiss model, the New Germany will have
to choose as the basis of its future military organization
of course in cooperation with the Peace Conference.
Neither scheme would leave any scope for Prussian
, militarism.
7. A WORD ON THE JEWISH PROBLEM
Theoretical and practical considerations make it
expedient to add a few words about the problem which,
since the rise of the Hitler System, has become a world-
wide problem, and one whose settlement will be an
73
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
urgent topic at the Peace Conference. I refer to the
Jewish problem.
In various parts of my Deutsche Revolution and in
numerous articles in the international press I have
expressed the utmost disapproval of the shameless and
inhuman anti-Jewish campaign that has characterized
the Hitler System; and I may also mention that as early
as 19283 in a party periodical, I protested editorially
against antisemitism of the Streicher brand, voicing the
war-cry, 'Antisemitism is dead. Long live the idea of
the People! 5
This advocacy of the idea of the People logically
implied the disavowal of any valuation of peoples or
nations as good or bad, as better or worse, since they
all have equal rights, equal needs, and equal duties, in
accordance with the will of the Creator, who gave each
of them its own kind, its own nature, and its own tasks.
This profound respect for organic life, and the fact that
it is necessary for us and incumbent on us to recognize
and maintain human dignity, imply that it will be an
unconditional part of the social and political organiza-
tion of New Germany to maintain the equal rights of all
human beings.
Yet this fundamental principle of equality must not be
considered to invalidate the organic law that the peoples
and nations are fundamentally different, with the result
that they urgently need differences in their social and
political institutions a fact which every government
is bound to take into account.
In practical politics, therefore, there arises the problem
of national minorities, whose relations to the national
majorities in any area may present difficulties not local
74
A WORD ON THE JEWISH PROBLEM
merely (as in Germany, for instance), but pertaining to
Europe as a whole. Speaking generally it may be said
that a comprehensive and just solution will only be
possible within the framework of the European Federa-
tion,, where the simultaneous interests of almost all the
European peoples, whether as States or as national
minorities, will ensure that whatever legal arrangements
are made will be universally regarded as just, and will
therefore be faithfully adhered to.
But since this desirable joint solution will need time
to achieve. New Germany will have meanwhile to set
to work by herself to solve the problem of national
minorities (and therewith the Jewish problem) in that
modern spirit which will pay due regard both to the
organic laws of ethnical differences and to the moral
laws according to which all human beings have equal
rights. Politically considered there are three alternative
solutions:
(1) Persons of different racial origin from the majority
may be described as foreigners.
(2) Groups of persons of various racial stamps may be
deemed to constitute national minorities.
(3) Persons belonging to different stocks may be in-
corporated into the main body of the nation by assimila-
tion.
All three methods are equally possible and equally
honourable, with the urgent proviso that every adult
person of another stock than that of the majority must
himself or herself have full right to decide which method
to adopt.
As a matter of principle, there is no difference between
the general treatment of the problem of national
75
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
minorities and the treatment of the Jewish problem. If
the latter is separately considered here, this is because
the peculiar way in which the question has presented
itself makes separate consideration expedient.
I recommend the above tripartite approach to the
matter as regards the Jews, because the formulation is
not the outcome of any fine-spun theory, but is grounded
upon the actual circumstances which must form the
basis of any new settlement of the Jewish problem.
(1) The category of foreigners emerges from the fact
that of late years there has been a widespread develop-
ment of the movement known as Zionism, which should
be supported by all 'nation-conscious' persons and
peoples as a genuine endeavour for the renovation of
Judaism.
(2) The category of national minorities corresponds to
the political fact that European Jewry has been domiciled
in Europe for many centuries, and in each country
rightly regards itself as belonging to that country,
though it does not wish to forsake its own national
religion and its own national peculiarities.
(3) The category of assimilation is nevertheless (despite
Hitler and his materialistic racial theory) a datum of
the position of the Jews in Germany and the rest of
Europe, in conformity with the accepted humanist
doctrine that every human being is entitled to liberty
and self-determination a, doctrine which New
Germany will unhesitatingly accept. Although we do
not deny our biological subordination to blood, race,
and nationality, we must emphatically proclaim that
the human spirit is privileged and competent to over-
come this subordination, and, as knowledge and choice
76
A WORD ON THE JEWISH PROBLEM
may decide, to adopt the present and future views upon
these matters.
It is likely enough that the preponderant majority of
German Jews will prefer to belong to the Jewish
commonwealth. Among these there will doubtless be
many who in former days were antagonistic to Zionism,
and perhaps even now are by no means wholly recon-
ciled to it, but will lose their scruples when they become
aware that as Jews, as members of the Jewish common-
wealth, they can still remain united to Germany while
preserving a Jewish stamp inasmuch as the Jewish
national group will be incorporated into New Germany.
This very fact,, their permanent incorporation into
Germany, will distinguish them from the Jews, say, of
Palestine or Poland not in substance, but in many of
the forms of life.
Of course this incorporation into Germany is funda-
mentally diverse from the complete assimilation that
will occur in the case of those belonging to the third
category. These latter will have to abandon Judaism
as a national religion, and will have to give this and other
guarantees of their determination to become Germans
in every respect. (Consider here the demands which
every modern State tends more and more to make of
alien elements that are to be incorporated and fully
assimilated.)
Of decisive importance as regards this question of
the political treatment of minorities (including the Jews)
is it that there should be established a State Department
of National Minorities whose head must be a member of
the government, and would automatically become the
representative of the national minorities of his country
77
FEDERALIZATION OF GERMANY
in the League of Nations (and in due course in the
European Federation) . Inasmuch as he would naturally
be chosen from the largest national minority, this
minister of State would in Germany obviously be of
Jewish blood a fact which would indicate the sound-
ness of the proposed solution, and would have an
excellent effect both at home and abroad.
CHAPTER THREE
PROBLEMS OF THE PEACE
CONFERENCE
I. PRELIMINARIES TO PEACE
THE previous sections have been concerned with questions
that will become urgent when the war is over, and the
way in which these questions are answered will be
decisive as to the kind and the duration of the peace that
will ensue. They are questions that will primarily have
to be solved by the Germans themselves. Their con-
nexion with the present war lies mainly in this, that the
war was in great measure launched by Hitler and his
henchmen in order to frustrate the solution of these
intra-Gerrnan and economic problems.
But the world-public at large will not be so much
exercised about intra-German problems as about
problems that have to do with the relations between
Germany and her neighbours. These latter are
problems that have been raised by the war, and their
discussion, before all, will be the topic of the peace
negotiations.
Immediately, therefore, we reach the crux of the
matter. Will the blunders of Versailles be avoided, or
will they not?
The brilliant French historian, Jacques Bainville,
whose work on the Treaty of Versailles [Les consequences
politiques de la paix y Paris, 1920] is today valued as a
79
PROBLEMS OF PEACE CONFERENCE
prophecy that has been fulfilled, joins the German
critics of the peace conditions of 1919 though for other
reasons than the Germans. Whereas the Germans
consider Versailles to have been unduly harsh, Bainville
deems it too lenient and both parties seem to have
been justified by the results.
The fact was that the most urgent problems were
then very little understood, so that those who had to
solve them were not ready for their task. Old and new
outlooks, superficial and profound discussions, sound and
unsound methods, were grotesquely Intermingled, with
the unfortunate consequence that, far from reinforcing
one another, they cancelled one another out.
The Peace of Versailles, like those dictated at Brest-
Litovsk and Bucharest, was a nineteenth-century and
not a twentieth-century peace. But the peace that
follows the present war must give a new visage to
twentieth-century Europe.
Without for a moment ignoring the material demands
for general security which Germany will have to satisfy
in order to atone for her complicity in Hitler's outburst
of violence (an atonement whose effects will be more
lasting, the more thorough and the more enduring the
German repudiation of the Hitler System), the coming
peace must be designed with an eye to the future of
Europe, to averting the evils that stand in the way of the
true pacification and the trusty collaboration of the
peoples of our continent.
This peace must embody:
(1) The principle of liberty, of independence, of self-
determination for all nations, large or small
(2) The principle that right, not might, shall prevail
80
PRELIMINARIES TO PEACE
in ail nations,, both in their domestic and in their foreign
affairs.
(3) The principle of joint security, joint wellbeing,
and joint culture.
These same principles must likewise secure expression
in the preliminaries to the peace., and in the methods by
which it is approached.
On the German side an essential will be that the
Germans must repudiate on principle Hitler's unwar-
rantable use of force, and the conditions that have
resulted therefrom. Without such repudiation there can
be neither armistice nor peace.
The repudiation of Hitler's unwarrantable use offeree
will imply the immediate evacuation by German troops
of all the non-German areas they may have occupied,
and a pledge to pay compensation for any damage they
may have done.
This re-establishment of right as against might will
not be a part of the peace, but a preliminary to peace,
and a main constituent of the agreement for an armistice.
The peace itself, if it is to deserve that name, must not
be the upshot of a dictatorship, but of comprehensive
negotiations, not only between Germany and her
adversaries, for the neutrals great and small must par-
ticipate in them, probably choosing the United States
and Italy as their representatives. A sort of Vienna
Congress will have to debate and adjust the interests
and wishes of the peoples of Europe, and elaborate a
harmony, bearing ever in mind the great commonwealth
of Europe and the salvation of the West.
81
PROBLEMS OF PEACE CONFERENCE
2. THE GERMAN PARTNER
It becomes necessary here to consider a question
which also involves matters of principle. Who will
represent Germany at this Peace Conference?
Those who have read my book thus far will see
plainly enough that it cannot be an envoy from a masked
or modified Hitlerian government, nor yet from a
'government of generals', but must be someone des-
patched by the government of the German Revolution.
For a successful revolution against Hitler before the
military collapse of Germany will not only be the decisive
contribution of the German people to the cause of peace,
but also the requisite proof of the genuineness and
durability of a change in the political structure of the
country.
Upon this will not only depend (for the most part)
the readiness of the Allies to make a just peace; for
nothing else can guarantee that the world has not to do
with an act of despair on the part of the German people,
or with an attempt at camouflage on the part of the
Prussian militarist stratum, but that Germany is honestly
animated by the constructive will to upbuild a New
Germany and make a voluntary contribution to a New
Europe.
If we do our best to ascertain what are the forces
and the personalities that can be expected to make the
German Revolution, and afterwards to represent
Germany at the Peace Conference, we shall be glad to
find that within Germany they are far stronger and more
unified than is obvious or than people outside Germany
suppose.
82
THE GERMAN PARTNER
This depends mainly upon the fact that the political
medley of those who comprise the mass of German
refugees in foreign parts does not constitute a proper
reflexion of the internal situation of Germany, or of
what is taking place there.
The fact that thousands of human beings have fled
from a region devastated by earthquake does not create
any sort of spiritual unity among them. That is why to
refugees, to those who were constituents of a political
order that has been overthrown, there clings an odour
of Goblenz [a rendezvous of emigres during the French
Revolution a century and a half ago]; why they always
seem to be persons 'who have learned nothing and
forgotten nothing'.
A few only of the German emigres, who in mind at
least have remained youthful, have had energy for self-
knowledge, have been able to go on learning, so that
they have been able to place themselves at the front of
the coming German Revolution. Not all of them are
working outside the frontiers of the Reich. Nor are they
merely to be regarded as the vanquished of yesterday.
They are the revolutionaries of tomorrow. They have
fought, and continue fighting, not only against yesterday
(the Weimar Republic), but against today (the Hitler
System) .
If, bearing these facts in mind, we study the forces
of the German Revolution, we encounter a front which
manifested itself several years ago in Germany, being
then named after its most noted leaders the Schleicher-
Strasser-Leipart Front.
Some of the high officers of the armed forces, consisting
of bchleicher (the 'socialist general 3 ) and his intimates
83
PROBLEMS OF PEACE CONFERENCE
had, animated by a close acquaintance with the dangers
of the situation, broken with the junkers (when the
Eastern Aid scandal became notorious) and with the
great capitalists (Hugenberg and Thyssen), and made
successful advances to the revolutionary socialist youth,
whose spiritual leader was Holler van den Brack and
whose chief organizer was Gregor Strasser. Together
they sought and found a way to the anti-bolshevik but
socialist workers who, led by Leipart, had ready in the
trade unions the foundation stones for a new future.
To the old powers of Prussianized Germany this
alliance of modern officers with the revolutionary youth
and the solid elements of the working-class seemed so
desperately dangerous that they were resolved at all
hazards to smash it; and Hindenburg, the Prussian, with
his whipper-in Oldenburg-Januschau, the junker, re-
placed the revolutionary group of Schleicher, Strasser,
and Leipart by the reactionary group of Papen, Hitler,
and Hugenberg - with the foreseen (and desired) result
that instead of an immediate internal revolution there
came, in due course, a war across the frontiers.
But the forces of the German Revolution which then,
in the end of 1932, could still be strangled (largely
because of the irresolution and muddle-headedness of its
leaders), have grown stronger, not weaker, during the
seven years of Hitler's rule.
I know (from direct acquaintance and active par-
ticipation) that the Front of these identical forces has
ripened and become more lucid, and that out of it will
proceed the German revolutionary government that will
overthrow Hitler and create the New Germany.
Its task at the Peace Conference will be far from easy,
8 4
THE AUSTRIAN QUESTION
and one to which there Is a solitary parallel In history
Talleyrand's task at the Congress of Vienna. Talley-
rand., having betrayed Napoleon but being a great
French patriot, saved his country at Vienna, where they
believed him when he assured them that Napoleon was
not France nor France Napoleon,, though for fourteen
years Napoleon had compromised France even as for
seven years Hitler has compromised Germany.
New Germany hopes that the "Geneva Congress of
1941' will have as much Insight into the actual state of
European affairs as the Vienna Congress had In 1814;
but that Geneva will excel Vienna doubly in courage to
dig down the problem to its very roots; and in a will
directed ahead towards the rebirth and the future of the
West.
3. THE AUSTRIAN QUESTION
One of the first and chief matters to be discussed at
the Peace Congress will be the Austrian question.
1 know well how complicated it is, too thickly set
with thorns - with a thousand hopes and fears, wishes
and grudges, expressed and unexpressed for any sort
of simple and easily acceptable solution to be possible.
On the other hand, I must have made so abundantly
clear my invincible persuasion of the inalienable right of
individuals and nations to self-determination, that I am
sure no reader will expect me to believe any valid reasons
could be adduced against the exercise of that right in
this particular case.
New Germany will therefore proclaim the right of
the Austrian people to decide its own future by means
85
PROBLEMS OF PEACE CONFERENCE
of an absolutely free and uncontrolled popular vote or
plebiscite.
As a matter of course this involves the cancellation of
the results of Hitler's conquest, i.e. that only men and
women who were Austrian citizens before the German
invasion will be entitled to vote. In like manner, the
popular decision, at a time and in conditions to be pre-
scribed by the Peace Conference, will have to be taken
under international supervision and control, and not
under the auspices of any government that may be in
power there at the time of the plebiscite.
Finally (and this is in my view an essential feature of
all such popular decisions) it is better to avoid having a
simple alternative, and to have as large as possible a
plurality of questions submitted for consideration.
It seems to me that as regards Austria there are three
practicable issues:
(1) Joining the Germanic Federation.
(2) Independence of the Red-White-and-Red
Schuschnigg Austria.
(3) Re-establishment of the Black-and-Yellow Habs-
burg-Austria, either as a personal union with
Hungary, or as a Danubian Federation con-
sisting of Austria, Hungary, and Czecho-
slovakia.
I shall venture no prophecy as to what would be the
outcome of such a plebiscite, and shall content myself
with affirming that in any case New Germany would
abide by the plebiscitary decision of its Austrian
brethren.
Joining the Germanic Federation must on no account
be confounded with the 'Anschluss 5 to Hitlerian
86
THE AUSTRIAN QUESTION
Germany, or with the 'Anschluss 3 to the Weimar
Republic of which there was talk at one time. As
previously explained, New Germany will be federal in
structure throughout, will be a league of autonomous
provinces, and from its size and population Austria
would have a considerable say in the Federation. I have
said that it must be a firmly established principle of the
federal constitution that all officials in a province must
be natives of that province, so that in Austria only
Austrians would rule and function, in Bavaria only
Bavarians, in Rhineland only Rhinelanders. Thus a
strong safeguard of the federal structure would be the
direct interest of the local intelligentsia in their own
locality.
A Red-White-and-Red Austria would seem thereby
to be outclassed in respect of the chief points in its
program. Besides, the experiment of St. Germain has
shown very clearly the weaknesses of such a scheme
though we must remember that the problem of a larger
economic area could be solved within the framework of
the European Federation. A decisive matter here, how-
ever, will be the question of the time-lag, for the Austrian
problem will demand prompt solution, whereas in the
most favourable circumstances there is likely to be con-
siderable delay in getting the European Federation into
working order.
The re-establishment of Habsburg Austria, whether
in the direct form of an Austria-Hungarian double
monarchy or in the indirect form of a Danubian Federa-
tion, presents itself almost as a matter of course, and
would find many supporters among the western powers.
In conformity with my principle that the Austrians
87
PROBLEMS OF PEACE CONFERENCE
(like any other people) should enjoy the right of self-
determination and be left to settle their own affairs, I
must point out that the re-establishment of the Habsburg
realm is primarily a concern of the Austrian, Hun-
garian, Czech, and Slovak peoples. Secondly, the
demands of Jugoslavia, Rumania, Poland, and Italy for
security would run counter to any such re-establishment,
and these countries might be expected in this matter to
have a more lasting pull at the Peace Conference than
would the Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks
in respect of their right to self-determination. Anyone
who recalls the terms of the oath which had to be taken
by the wearer of the crown of St. Stephen, will feel that
there might be some justification for uneasiness on the
part of the neighbours of a re-established double
monarchy.
In whatever way the Austrian problem might be
formulated, and no matter what solution might seem
most accordant to the feelings and interests of those
concerned, it remains indubitable that the decisive
matter must be the right of self-determination of the
people of the country, with due regard to its neighbours 3
sense of the requirements for their safety.
4. CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND SUDETENLAND
This basic principle will guide us, not only as regards
the settlement of the Austrian question, but also as
regards the no less important problem of Czecho-
slovakia and Sudetenland.
Early in this chapter, on page 81, I declared that an
essential preliminary to peace negotiations must be an
88
CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND SUDETENLAND
evacuation by the German troops of all the non-German
areas they may have occupied, and a pledge to pay
compensation for any damage they may have done.
This applies unconditionally to all regions which prior
to 1938 formed part of Czechoslovakia.
It would be unwarrantable for New Germany to
appeal to the Munich Agreement of September 1938
on the ground that it was Voluntarily' signed by the
Czechoslovak government,, for the signature was really
extorted by threats and by force, and the agreement
brought nearly a million Czechs under foreign (i.e.
German) rule.
But no settlement can be sound if it deprives the
Sudetenland Germans of their right to self-determina-
tion.
Here the application of the principle will need special
safeguards if we are to avoid fresh injustices and the risk
of further disturbances.
So much intermingled are Germans and Czechs in
Sudetenland, that there a vote by districts rather than a
general counting of heads will be expedient. Nor must
the existence of 'national enclaves 5 be made a pretext for
arbitrary treatment of surrounding majorities of the rival
stock. There may have to be local migrations, or some
favoured treatment of minorities. The matter is touched
upon in the section on the Jewish problem (p. 73 and
foil).
Since we have expressly recognized, and must un-
failingly continue to recognize, that when a people's
right to self-determination is being fulfilled, due regard
must always be paid to its neighbours 3 sense of the
requirements for their safety, the definitive solution of the
PROBLEMS OF PEACE CONFERENCE
Sudetenland problem will mainly depend upon how far
the Czechoslovaks feel that their security will be guaran-
teed by New Germany. Upon the extent of this sense of
security will depend the importance that the future
Czechoslovakia will attach to a strategic frontier on the
German side of their country.
This will, in its turn,, be largely decided by the general
solution of the Czechoslovak problem, by the boun-
daries of the country and its internal construction.
Primarily these are matters for the Czechs and Slovaks
themselves; secondly, especially as regards the question
of boundaries, they are matters for the Peace Congress.
As far as New Germany is concerned,, that country will
certainly consider a large and healthy Czechoslovakia to
be a most important pillar of Central European order,
and also as a welcome partner in furthering German
economic life and in keeping Germany in friendly touch
with the Western Slavs.
The Czechs, thanks to the conspicuously European
trend of their minds, the admirably democratic organiza-
tion of their government, and their highly developed
science and economic system, seem the predestined in-
structors of the Ruthenians and Ukrainians, a
