[CTRL] [1a] Behemoth

[Kris Millegan]

 -Caveat Lector-

an excerpt from:
Behemoth - The Structure and Practice of National Socialism
Franz Neuman
Oxford University Press�1942
Tronto/New York/London
532 pps. - first edition/out-of-print
--[1a]--

IV

THE RACIAL PEOPLE, THE SOURCE OF CHARISMA

THE Leader's charismatic power has to derive from somewhere, from God or the
tribe. In National Socialist theory its source is in the racial people. Rare
is the National Socialist utterance that does not claim that all power is
derived from the people. We have seen that Carl Schmitt's 'tripartite'
political scheme aroused sharp criticism because it deviated on this point,
assigning an inferior, unpolitical part to the people.

1. NATION AND RACE

What, then, do the German National Socialists understand by the 'racial
people' and why do they stress its supremacy? Why do they so deliberately
avoid using the current term 'nation'?

Races exist, there is no denying it, and a race may be defined as a group of
individuals possessing in common certain traits transmitted by heredity,
which are sufficiently clear to mark off one group from others.[1] As we are
not concerned with anthropological problems, we can pass over the question
what these distinctions are and when they are sufficiently marked. Nor are we
interested in adopting any specific classification of races; we agree with
the large majority of anthropologists that there are no superior or inferior
races, and that there is no scientifically determinable connection between
racial and cultural attributes. 'The so-called racial explanation of
differences in human performance and achievement is either an ineptitude or a
fraud.'[2] We also agree that there are no pure races, that 'every civilized
group of which we have record has been a hybrid group, a fact which
effectively disposes of the theory that hybrid people are inferior to
purebred ones.'[3]

Scientific arguments contribute little to an understanding of German racism.
It is of little avail, for example, to attack racism by pointing out that the
term 'Aryan' does not denote a common bone structure or blood composition, or
any other physical or biological similarity, but merely a common linguistic
origin. Even the discoveries of National Socialist anthropology are not to
any great extent incorporated into the body of National Socialist philosophy,
which merely speaks of Aryan races or of Nordic and Germanic superiority.
Instead of refuting the racial theory, we shall try to understand its social,
political, and cultural significance. The attempt has already been made.
Scholars have drawn attention to the intimate connection between racism and
the persecution of minorities, that characterized the Inquisition, the
Albigensian crusade, and the campaign against the French Huguenots, and have
interpreted race persecution as a modern form of religious intolerance and
heresyhunting. On this basis, racism has been described as an ideology
designed to defend and justify 'unequal citizen rights.'[4] This theory is
certainly correct, but does it help us to understand why racism supersedes
nationalism and why Anti-Semitism, which is the German form of racism, is
accepted not merely as a device for persecution but as a genuine philosophy
of life pervading the whole National Socialist outlook? We shall be able to
solve the problem only by analyzing the functions of the various concepts
involved.

Race is an entirely biological phenomenon: the concept of 'the people'
contains an admixture of cultural elements. Common descent, common
geographical location, common customs, common language and religion-all play
a part in the making of a people, although the particular significance of the
various elements may vary according to the historical situation.[5] The
concept of a racial people, a term the Germans are fond of, is, however,
based primarily on biological traits; the cultural elements serve only to
distinguish various groups within one race.

In contrast, the nation is primarily a political concept. It involves the
idea of the state, without which the nation cannot be conceived. A people
becomes a nation if it possesses a consciousness of common political aims, if
it is capable of achieving and maintaining a unified political will. As
eminent a political leader as Disraeli rejected the very concept of the
people. 'The phrase "the people" is sheer nonsense. It is not a political
term. It is a phrase of natural history. A people is a species; a civilised
community is a nation. Now, a nation is a work of art and a work of time.'[6]

Nation and nationality are intrinsically connected with the state.[7] The
modern state, however, has not been created by the nation, but resulted from
the introduction of commodity production, which has preceded the appearance
of modern nations. When the product of labor is a commodity convertible into
money, this money can be used to build the state and to establish a
bureaucracy and standing army. The first modern states were the Italian
city-states, created not by national feeling and national striving but by
capitalists who hired soldiers and bureaucracies to build up a centralized
machine. In Italy, France, and Germany these states were even established by
foreigners with whose help the French kings, the Italian podeste, and the
German princes broke down the feudal opposition.[8] Seen in this light, the
early modem state was not only not national, but profoundly anti-national.
Its governments had no legitimacy. The political theory evolved during this
period, if it was not oppositional, was concerned solely with devising arcana
dominationis, techniques with which to establish and maintain the rule of the
absolutist dictators. Machiavelli's Prince is the prototype of them all.

In its decisive function, the nation is the ideological ground that justifies
a central coercive authority over the feudal, local, and ecclesiastical
powers. It serves as a mechanism for unifying the vast network of individual
and group interests�this in the period when the middle classes become
conscious of their own objectives and succeed in impressing them upon the
whole people.

The social-contract theory, as Hobbes had developed it, was inadequate to
satisfy the need for a unifying mechanism and ideology, and Rousseau quickly
detected its deficiencies. Hobbes had held that selfish interest could
somehow keep society together and that the state, as an aggregate of
individual wills, could exist even though no common aim pervaded its
individual members. In opposition to this doctrine, Rousseau declared that
society must be 'a moral, collective body.'[9] The transition from natural
society to political society, he said, must produce 'a very remarkable
change' in man 'by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct and
giving his actions the morality they formerly lacked.'[10] The right of the
stronger, so fundamental for Hobbes's and Spinoza's political doctrine, could
not provide a basis on which society might rest; such right, Rousseau
declares, is either superfluous or nonsensical.[11]

The nation creates common aims and common loyalties; it makes the general
will concrete and renders the state independent of divine sanction,
establishing exclusive links between the individual and his secular
community. The nation, moreover, gives every state a legitimate basis,
differing in this respect from the universalism of medieval doctrine.
Finally, it does away with the dynastic principle of legitimation that
identified the state with the ruler.

It was during the French Revolution that the nation revealed itself as the
decisive political force. At that time, the subjective factor, national
consciousness, the will to political unity, turned into an objective
reality,[12] and one class, the bourgeoisie, constituted itself as the
nation, so that the nation became the property, so to speak, of that class.
Through the nation the bourgeoisie impressed its system of values on all of
the people.

The fusion of the theory of nationalism with the much older doctrine of
popular sovereignty had revolutionary implications,[13] permitting the
emergence of an essentially secular society with a universally accepted
system of values. The French Revolution illustrates the revolutionary impact
of the new concept. Abbe' Sieye's was the first to propound the view that the
third estate, the middle class, was the nation, because it was the sole
productive sector of society. The nation, in his view, was the aggregate of
those individuals who stand under a common law and are represented through
the same legislative assembly. The nation is sovereign, its existence its
complete justification, and its will the supreme law. The state is in its
service; state power is legitimate only through and by it. Such a conception,
directed against the aristocracy and the monarchy, was clearly revolutionary.
Its influence was so strong that even the counter-revolutionaries did not
deny the existence of the nation but tried painstakingly to turn it to the
advantage of the monarchy or of the alliance between the monarchy and the
aristocracy (de Maistre and Montlosier).[14]

The French Revolution determined the entire course of ideological discussion
among European states before Hitler's advent to power: the nation as an
entity composed of free and equal citizens, the Jacobin concept of the
nation. According to Ernest Renan, the nation is a plebiscite, daily renewed,
established by the free decision of free men.[15]

The sociological function of this new concept is self-explanatory. Large,
thickly populated economic regions emerged, unified by common currency,
tariffs, and transportation; annihilating, or at least weakening,
intermediate autonomous powers; and demanding a new allegiance. The French
revolutions of 1791, 1793, and 1848 all declared that the nation's
sovereignty is indivisible and inalienable. The new nation jealously guarded
its rights; deputies were elected in its name and not in that of any group or
class, and no one was allowed to come between the individual and the nation.
This was dramatically and drastically demonstrated in the Lex Le Chapelier
passed during the French Revolution, a law that forbade the organization of
unions. 'The individual,' Le Chapelier declared, 'owes allegiance solely and
exclusively to the state and to no one else.'

The concept of the nation, furthermore, serves to individualize a society by
marking it off from all others. This can occur only when societies confront
one another, each with specific traits that can be readily distinguished.
After the breakdown of medieval universalism, the dynastic principle offered
a basis for individualization. But when this principle broke down and was
succeeded by the liberalist state, no integrating or individualizing factor
was at hand. The liberalist state itself could perform this function. Its aim
was only negative: the protection of life, liberty, and property. States,
that is to say bureaucratic, police, and military machines, show more
similarities than differences. Consequently, the national concept had to fill
the gap left by the dynastic principle. It supplied the individualizing
factor in a world of competing states.

2. RACISM IN GERMANY

In contrast to France, the German development never stressed national
sovereignty. In fact, the concept of the nation never took hold in Germany.
It is true that Fichte, one of the forerunners of racial nationalism,[16]
formulated the idea of a German nation, but this concept referred to 'the
people' and stressed the racial and biological affinities produced by common
descent at the expense of the political affinities or the conscious, free
decision of equal citizens. Even Wilhelm von Humboldt, a great liberal,
denied the sovereignty of the nation,[17] while Heinrich von Treitschke
regarded the national principle as a mere 'abstraction,' a 'Napoleonic
phrase, Can empty figure.'[18]

The national idea usually goes hand in hand with the democratic principle and
popular sovereignty, and both were extremely distasteful to German theorists
and politicians. German disunity and the rivalries among the various states
and their princes may have had much to do with this distaste. In any case,
whenever German theorists and political figures did speak of the nation, they
divorced it from any Jacobin, democratic, or political implications, that is,
from any doctrine of popular sovereignty. A biological race theory replaced
the political theory of nationality. Long before Hitler, the political bond
among free men tended to give way to the natural bond among racial Germans.

There is another reason why the national idea did not play a decisive part in
imperial Germany. Emphasis on the sovereignty of the nation as such equalizes
all nations and constitutes a barrier against the assertion of national
superiority. If the nation rests on the free decision of free men, no nation
is superior to any other. National sovereignty handicaps imperialist
expansion. Indeed, whenever democratic states resort to such expansion, they
almost invariably abandon the national concept and glorify racial and
biological traits that allegedly make them superior to the conquered. The
doctrine of the white man's burden illustrates this point, and is true of the
United States. We need only cite the writings of Josiah Strong. 'It is
manifest,' he declared, 'that the Anglo-Saxon holds in his hands the
destinies of mankind, and it is evident that the United States is to become
the home of this race, the principal seat of its power . . . '[19] This
racial theory was as much a foundation for imperialist expansion as it was a
spurious solution of class antagonisms.

Still, racial theories have had no basic significance in shaping the ideology
of the English and American people. The rapid growth of such theories in
England and America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
served as an aid to the conquest of colonial, semi-colonial, or very weak
states, but their services were never required to organize the total power of
the nation for war. Not so in Germany. German expansion was and is directed
against powerful states. When Germany came forward as an active imperialist
force, it found the earth divided among the various military machines.
Redistribution, where it could not be achieved peaceably, required the force
of arms and an enormous outlay in blood and money. It required an ideology
that could justify the huge effort in the eyes of the people. The alleged
superiority of the German Nordic race performed this function.*[ *See pp.
184-218]

As a result, the belief in German racial supremacy is deeply embedded in the
history of German thought. Herder, the first outstanding philosopher of
history, wrote of 'a people, who, by their size and strength of body, their
enterprising, bold, and persevering spirit in war . . . have contributed more
than another race to the weal and woe of this quarter of the globe. It was
the Germans who defended Christianity against the incessant invasions of
Huns, Hungarians, Mongols, and Turks. By them, too, the greater part of
Europe was not only conquered, planted, and modelled, but covered and
protected.'[20] The same view is held by a large number of Germany's
historians, philosophers, and economists. Friedrich von Schlegel invoked
racial qualities to explain the superiority of the Germanic tribes over the
Romans.[21] Heinrich von Treitschke, the historian of the Bismarck period,
though he held a somewhat equivocal position on the race question,
interpreted history as a process characterized by the emergence and decay of
races,[22] and made a comparison between the racial attributes of the
Germans, and those of the Dutch, English, Russians, Italians, and Americans,
showing all non-Germans to be inferior in generosity, feeling for beauty, and
the 'simple fidelity' of nature. In brief, Treitschke made a catalogue of
German virtues, which is still the stock-in-trade of all German
propagandists. At the same time he fought against the racial Teutonic
philosophy of the student unions (Burschenschaften).[23] He idolized state
power, denied that it could ever be wrong, and asserted that the most healthy
and vigorous expression of that power was war.[24]

The influence of the so-called state or Katheder socialists upon the ultimate
development of National Socialist racism seems far more important. The
writings of Friedrich List and Adolph Wagner clearly show the factors that
contributed to the triumph of racial ideas. These men** were attempting to
counteract socialist theories of class struggle by repudiating liberal
political thought and by setting up a state capitalist scheme that would
'incorporate' the working classes and imbue the whole people with the spirit
of their racial superiority. The aim was to organize society for imperialist
adventures. Adolph Wagner recognized that Prussian efforts to annihilate the
political and industrial labor movement were insufficient and doomed to
failure. He also thought that the Western concept of Nation was dangerous for
Germany, since it implied giving the working classes equal rights, thereby
delivering to them the fate of the nation and of the state.[ ** See also pp.
195, 209.]

Friedrich List, the first articulate National Socialist�he was not just a
forerunner but a full-fledged National Socialist�urged the establishment of a
system of state capitalism. His National System of Political Economy[25]
outlined the plan, and his Memorandum on the Value and the Conditions of an
Alliance between Great Britain and Germany gave it further elaboration.[26]
The latter work clearly reveals the reasons underlying the acceptance of
racial theories and state capitalism.

The ruling section of the peoples of this earth has for some time been
segregating itself according to descent . . . One speaks of a German, a
Romanic, a Slavonic race in a political aspect. This distinction alone seems
destined to exercise great influence upon the practical politics of the
future. At the head of the three races stand England, France, and Russia . .
. There is hardly any doubt that the Germanic race has, by virtue of its
nature and character, been preferentially selected by Providence for the
solution of the great task-to lead the affairs of the world, to civilize the
wild barbaric countries, to populate those still uninhabited, for none of the
others has the capacity to emigrate en masse and to found more perfect
communities in foreign lands . . . and to keep free of the influences of
barbaric and semi-barbaric aborigines.

England, inhabited by a Germanic race and equipped with a mighty fleet and
vast empire, has the mission of reorganizing the world. But she can do so
only with Germany's aid. 'Alliance with Germany will remain the only true
means whereby England can make Asia and Africa serviceable for her future
greatness, alliance with Germany not as she is today but with Germany as she
ought to be and as she could become, with England's help.[27] England must
recognize, List declares, that Germany cannot become strong on the basis of
free trade. Free trade is a fit doctrine only for a nation that is already
powerful. Germany is disunited and weak, and only protective tariffs can
assure her political unity and economic power. Germany has to become so
strong that she is able to keep England's competitors, France and Russia, at
bay. Besides, as the past has amply demonstrated, Germany's industrial growth
is to the benefit of England, because England supplies the German market.

List was thus the first to develop the theory that Hitler brought to full
flower in Mein Kampf and that National Socialist foreign policy attempted to
realize during the years preceding the GermanRussian non-aggression pact of
1939: a redivision of the earth between Germany and England on the basis of
German racial doctrines of superiority.

Similar motives appear in the writings and political activity of Adolph
Wagner, leader of the academic socialists.[28] The fundamental problem he
sets himself is: how can Germany become powerful? It cannot be done, he
thinks, by accepting the British system of economics, that is, free trade and
free competition. Nor can Germany become great by accepting Marxist
socialism, which is a materialist doctrine that incites class warfare and
negates the right of property.[29] Wagner is willing to admit, however, that
there is a grain of truth in the Marxist critique of liberalism. The solution
lies in building German economy along the lines suggested by List.[30] The
economy must be subordinated to the community, and all egoistic interests
must be subordinated to the state. The community that acquires supremacy in
this way is racial, conceived on the model outlined by Herder and
Schlegel.[31] German culture, as created by the Germanic race, is superior to
all others. Wagner put his aggressive doctrine of racial imperialism to
practical use during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, when he bitterly
denounced France as a once powerful but now decadent state, which would
finally succumb because its Gallic race was biologically inferior to the
Germanic.[32] Germany cannot win the place she deserves if she adheres to the
principles of Manchester liberalism. The Verein fur Sozialpolitik (1872)
offered Wagner a powerful medium for denouncing liberalism and socialism
alike and for indoctrinating the academic world (and through it the civil
service) with his state-socialist idea. State regimentation, as he foresaw
and acclaimed it, would utilize and enhance the productive power of industry
and thereby weaken the industrial and political might of the proletariat.

It was but a step from this racial imperialism to Anti-Semitism, which we
shall discuss later.

The great popularity of the racial doctrine dates from the publication of
Houston Stewart Chamberlain's dilettante concoction, the Foundations of the
Nineteenth Century,[33] which was an adaptation of Count Gobineau's Essay on
the Inequality of Human Races,[34] published in 1854. Gobineau's work
repudiated the French revolutions of 1789 and 1848 and all they stood for.
His doctrine was designed to combat political liberalism and the labor
movement, and the book in which he stated it was dedicated to the king of
Hanover, who had only recently abolished the liberal constitution by
unconstitutional means. Gobineau sought an ideological basis for a state form
that would exclude the proletariat from political rights and insure a stable
foundation for aristocratic rule, and that would also improve upon the French
counter-revolutionist theories of Bonald and de Maistre. Gobineau regards
aristocracy as racially conditioned. He develops a hierarchy of races in
which the Negro represents the lowest type and the white race the only
civilized, with the fair, blond, Germanic race holding a special position of
leadership. Again it is England, not Germany, that typifies the
characteristics of the Germanic race. A special Gobineau association was
established and did much to propagate the teachings of the master.[35]
Gobineau, however, was not concerned with justifying any kind of imperialism,
French, German, or English. His primary interest was to preserve, or rather
to restore, the privileges of an aristocracy whose political power had been
shattered by a series of revolutions and whose rule could no longer be
justified by tradition.

Gobineau's doctrine was re-workcd by Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his
father-in-law, Richard Wagner; in their hands it became a powerful instrument
for racial imperialism and Anti-Semitism. It would be wearisome to repeat
Chamberlain's arguments. In brief, he held that the Teutonic race comprises
those who genuinely shape 'the destinies of mankind, whether as builders of
the state or as discoverers of new thoughts and of original art . . . Our
whole civilization and culture of today is the work of one definite race of
men, the Teutonic.'[36] Chamberlain went far beyond Gobineau, criticized him,
in fact, for having accepted the creative function of mixed races. Pure
races, he held, would evolve through a long historic process that would
ultimately create a race of supermen.

Richard Wagner had met Gobineau in Rome in November 1876 and had been deeply
impressed by him,[37] becoming an ardent advocate of his theories. When
Chamberlain joined the Wagner circle and later married Wagner's daughter, his
father-in-law's enthusiasm for Gobineau was soon transferred to Chamberlain.
Letters that passed between him and his mother-in-law, Cosima Wagner,[38]
clearly show the evolution of the racial doctrine and the influence of
Gobineau's personality and thought upon the Wagner circle. Strangely enough,
Chamberlain refutes the idea that a pure race is superior to a hybrid one
(letter of 15 November 1893). He ascribes the opposite thesis to Gobineau and
even declares that 'the shadow of Gobineau's teaching would hang like a cloud
over some discussions [of Richard Wagner] in the tenth volume [of Wagner's
works].'[39] The correspondence, moreover, makes it increasingly clear that
the entire elaborate structure of the Foundations was sheer embellishment of
Chamberlain's Anti-Semitism, the central thesis of which was his assertion of
a Jewish conspiracy to defeat the Germanic races.[40] In a letter of 11
November 1902[41] he insists that 'the chapter on Semitism is for me the most
important one.' This idea of a Jewish conspiracy recurs over and over in the
discussions of the Wagner circle, especially in Richard Wagner's own
statements. Wagner held to the idea with amazing tenacity, in spite of the
fact that one of his most influential champions in the musical world was
Hermann Levi, the Jewish conductor of the Royal Munich Opera Company, who
devoted all his energies to Wagner's operas. Wagner, however, was always
suspicious of Levi, invariably imagining a Jewish conspiracy whenever
something went wrong in the performance of his works. This is especially
clear in the correspondence between him and King Louis II.[42]


3. ANTI-SEMITIC THEORIES

Racism, then, increasingly became unadulterated Anti-Semitism, so that as the
doctrine of German racial superiority developed, Anti-Semitic sentiment
developed with it. Here again scientific discussion of the truth of National
Socialist Anti-Semitic utterances would be futile, for Anti-Semitism has had
deep roots in German history. The whole history of German intellectual life
is shot through with Jew-baiting, and Anti-Semitic organizations played a
leading part even during the imperial period.

With the exception of Lessing, Goethe, Schelling, and Hegel, nearly all the
great poets and thinkers of Germany, even if they were not outspoken
Anti-Semites, often unconsciously betrayed Anti-Semitic sentiments that
contrasted sharply with the humanitarian philosophies they advocated.

Martin Luther was the first outspoken and passionate Anti-Semite. Christians,
he warns, should not debate with Jews over the Articles of Faith. Better, he
declares, drive the Jews from Germany. His ironical remarks on how they
should be expelled sound much like those of Der Sturmer, Streicher's
Anti-Semitic sheet, in which advertisements appear offering the Jews one-way
tickets to Palestine. 'Country and streets,' Luther says, 'are open to them
so they might move to their country if they like. We shall give them gifts,
with pleasure, in order to get rid of them, because they are a heavy burden
like a plague, pestilence, misfortune in our country.' This statement is
followed by others expressing bitter hatred and resentment. When the Jews go,
they should be deprived of 'all their cash and jewels and silver and gold.'
'That into the hands of the young, strong Jews and Jewesses be placed flails,
axes, mattocks, trowels, distaffs, and spindles, and they are made to earn
their daily bread by the sweat of their noses as it is put upon the shoulders
of the children of Adam.' 'That their synagogues or schools be set on fire.'
'That their houses be broken up and destroyed . . . and they be put under a
roof or stable, like the gypsies . . . in misery and captivity as they
incessantly lament and complain to God about us.'[43]

The two special treatises in which these outbursts of fanatic hatred appear
typify the sentiments of a small section of the German middle classes
throughout modern German history and have formed the basis for Anti-Semitic
acts up to the time when National Socialism made them part of official policy.

Fichte was an avowed Anti-Semite, and his Anti-Semitic feelings took sharpest
form during the period in which he was developing his near-anarchist theory
of the state. It is important to realize that these Anti-Semitic statements
occur during the liberal period of his development. The connection was not
accidental, as we can recognize when we remember that in the period following
the French Revolution and the wars of liberation, it was the liberal movement
that took up and carried forward Anti-Semitism. Napoleon's rule had brought
legal emancipation to the Jews 'in Germany, and the fight against Napoleon
there became a struggle against all that his reforms had achieved. Under
liberal and patriotic slogans, mobs destroyed Jewish homes and synagogues,
and maltreatment of Jews became an almost daily occurrence.

Anti-Semitism has been a political force in Germany ever since the wars of
liberation. The Bismarck period made it a popular movement. The Jews were
blamed for the financial crisis that terminated the economic upswing of the
years following the War Of 1870. In 1873 Wilhelm Marr, a Hamburg journalist,
published a pamphlet called The Victory of Judaism over Germany,[44] which
incited violent Anti-Semitic hatred. In the same period, an aggressive
imperialism justified by racial arguments joined hands with the Anti-Semitic
wave.

The two last-mentioned trends merged when Adolph Wagner joined Court Chaplain
Stocker in the Christlich Soziale Arbeiterpartei, founded in 1878.[45] This
organization, whose original aim was to enlist the workers' support for the
imperialist program, soon became an out-and-out Anti-Semitic party that
carried on widespread propaganda and gained representation in the Reichstag.
A whole stream of Anti-Semitic writers marks the period: Eugen Duhring, the
famous critic of liberal capitalism whom Engels attacked in his Anti-Duhring;
Max Stirner, the anarchist; Hermann Ahlwardt, who incited pogroms and
succeeded in staging a ritual murder trial at Xanten, near Dusseldorf.
Ultimately, the movement entered into political alliance with the
Conservative party.

Although Anti-Semitism was nowhere so actively propagated as in Germany, it
failed to strike root in the population; the agitation became so vigorously
fanatic that it defeated itself. The workers' movement remained immune from
it, and Bebel, pre-war leader of the German Social-Democratic party, was
acclaimed when he denounced Anti-Semitism as the 'socialism of fools.' In
1885 the Conservatives dropped Anti-Semitism from their platform and severed
their connections with the Anti-Semitic party, causing its parliamentary
defeat.

Anti-Semitism was also the basic policy of the Pan-German Union, which raised
the demand for a greater German empire, especially for a Middle Europe under
German hegemony.*[ * On the Pan-German Union, see below, pp. 204-7.]

Three major themes recur in these Anti-Semitic writings. First, the
identification of capitalism with Judaism, especially in the writings of
Adolph Wagner. This thesis has been submitted to scientific investigation in
Werner Sombart's famous book, The Jews and Economic Life. The second thesis
is that the Jews are also the leaders of Marxist socialism. Both themes are
incessant in the National Socialist propaganda scheme and thoroughly pervade
Hider's autobiography.[46] The third and most potent theme combines the two
others: the leaders of world Jewry (the Elders of Zion) have organized a
Jewish world conspiracy for the destruction of 'Aryanism.' In the conspiracy,
some Jews have been singled out to lead world capitalism, others to conduct
the operations of the international socialists and bolsheviks. The evidence
for this conspiracy consists of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
the history of which is too well known to require discussion here.[47]


4. BLOOD PURIFICATION AND ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION

National Socialism is the first Anti-Semitic movement to advocate the
complete destruction of the Jews. But this purpose is only part of a wider
plan defined as 'the purification of German blood,' in which barbarism and a
few progressive features combine to form a repellent whole. Prophylactic
measures have been enacted to insure the propagation of Nordics in sufficient
number.[48] Marriage is permitted only after thorough medical and eugenic
examination. S.S. men must have special permits for marriage. Even more
important are the measures intended to prevent the propagation of physically
and biologically unfit persons: the castration of habitual criminals and the
sterilization of hereditary defectives. The term 'habitual criminal' refers
to persons over twenty-one years old who have been twice sentenced to prison
terms of six months each for sex crimes, or to persons sentenced for murder
or manslaughter committed to incite or satisfy sexual lust. The agency that
orders the castration is the criminal court.

The basic text of eugenic legislation is a statute 'to prevent hereditarily
diseased offspring' (issued 14 July 1933). It permits sterilization in cases
of (1) hereditary imbecility, (2) schizophrenia, (3) manic depression, (4)
hereditary epilepsy, (5) Huntington chorea, (6) hereditary blindness, (7)
hereditary deafness, (8) extreme physical malformation. The patient, the
medical officer, or the director of the institution in which the patient is
confined may apply to a special sterilization court (Erbgesundheitsgericht),
which is composed of a judge, a medical officer, and a medical practitioner.
Appeal from its decision may be taken to an appeals court
(Erbgesundheitsobergericht), which has a similar composition and whose
decision is final.[49]

The courts have given an exceedingly broad and brutal interpretation to the
sterilization statute.[50] If we are to believe the statements of Mr. William
Shirer in his articles in Life magazine,[51] Himmler, chief of the German
police and leader of the S.S., has ordered the execution of about 50,000
mental deficients during this war alone. Since Himmler is a most articulate
racial fanatic and is master of life and death in Germany, Shirer's report
has a prima facie probability.

The National Socialist population policy�part of which is discussed in the
chapter entitled The Grossdeutsche Reich�is, perhaps, the most revolting of
National Socialist policies. It is so completely devoid of Christian charity,
so little defensible by reason, so fully opposed to pity and compassion, that
it appears as a practice of men utterly pagan. It centers around the two
commandments issued by the National Socialist leaders: to the German women,
whether married or not, the commandment to produce children; to the S.S., the
commandment to kill those who are not fit to live. Produce as many children
as possible so that the earth can be ruled by the master race; kill the
unhealthy so that the masters need not be burdened by the care of the weak.

In this respect, National Socialism and bolshevism are utterly divergent. Not
the persecution of political opponents�which is practiced in both
countries�but the extermination of helpless individuals is the prerogative of
National Socialism.

The same spirit pervades the entire anti-Jewish legislation, which we can
here consider only in its broad outlines. The process of urbanization, which
had affected the whole population, was accentuated among the Jews, especially
during the Hitler regime. For years before the advent of Hitler, however, the
Jewish population had been on the decline because of the falling birthrate
among Jews, frequent mixed marriages, and many desertions from the Jewish
community.[52]

Jewish influence was unquestionably strong in the free professions and in big
cities. Outside the free professions, Jews were engaged mainly in trade and
transport, though their share in industry was not inconsiderable. In
agriculture they played a very small part, if any. Most of the department
stores were owned by Jews; Jews were also predominant in the metal trades
(57.3 per cent Jewish), though the influence of the free-metal trades had
declined rapidly as a result of the monopolist process mentioned in a
previous chapter. Jews controlled 18.7 per cent of all the banks and most of
the clothing industry. The economic significance of the banks was on the
wane, however, since financial capital had long been declining in favor of
industrial capital. [53]

In industry proper, Jewish influence was not very significant. Only one of
the electro-technical concerns can be said to have been Jewish. Of course,
there were Jewish members of boards of managers and of supervisory boards in
a few giant industrial enterprises. Where Jews held high positions in the
field of industrial management, however, they did so by virtue of their
efficiency and ability; otherwise they would not have been tolerated by the
industrial leadership, which was thoroughly Anti-Semitic. Paul Silverberg,
for example, was the organizer of the Rhenish lignite industry, and Oscar
Oliven was outstanding in the field of electrification. Most of the so-called
Jewish industrial leaders, however, had in fact severed their connection with
the Jewish community and, more often than not, were active and ardent
Catholics or Protestants and political reactionaries, who would gladly have
joined the National Socialist party had that party not been so overwhelmingly
Anti-Semitic.

The Anti-Semitic laws affect the position of Jews as citizens. The so-called
Nuremberg laws of 15 September 1935, which were promulgated to 'maintain the
purity of German blood,' prohibited marriages between Jews (including persons
having one Jewish grandparent) and German citizens of German 'or racially
similar blood.' Non-Aryans who had one or more Jewish grandparents were
permitted to marry among each other only with the consent of the federal
minister of the interior and the deputy leader. Marriages performed against
the law, as well as extra-marital sexual relations, were made punishable by
hard labor. Jews were not permitted to display official flags or to exhibit
their colors in any way. They could not employ any female servant of German
blood unless she was over forty-five years old.

These 'blood purification' laws are among the most infamous in the repertory
of National Socialism. They not only play into the hands of blackmailers but
they have completely shattered the last vestiges of legal protection
previously granted by the penal code. Though the statute clearly prohibits
only extra-marital cohabitation, and though Section 3 of the penal code
affirms the principle of territoriality, according to which only crimes
committed in German territory are punishable in Germany, the courts extended
the act far beyond the original wording and today race betrayal and race
defilement are punishable even if committed by Germans living outside
Germany.[54] The new interpretation was based upon Section 2 of the penal
code, as amended by act Of 28 June 1935, which provides that 'any person who
commits an act which the law declares to be punishable or which is deserving
of penalty according to the fundamental conceptions of a statute and sound
popular feeling, shall be punished. If no penal law exists that directly
covers the act, it shall be punished under that statute the fundamental
conception of which applies most nearly to the act.' Drastic as it is, this
section is clearly not applicable to the matter under discussion, and an old,
highly reputable professor of criminal law at once denounced the decisions
based upon this section.[55] He pointed out that the federal supreme court's
decision contained not a word of proof and that Section 2 did not permit it
to abandon the territorial principles upon which the very structure of the
penal code depended.

Increasing cruelty has been shown in the decisions dealing with extra-marital
sex relations between Jews and non-Jews. The federal supreme court, for
example, deemed it an aggravating rather than an extenuating circumstance
that an old Aryan living with a Jewish woman, whom he was prepared to marry,
continued the relation after the enactment of the 'blood purification' act.
Such behavior, the court declared, was expressive of 'a specially stubborn
rebellion against National Socialist legislation.'[56] The same rigor has
been applied in cases where the unmarried couple had a child for whom they
were fully providing. [57]

The complete abandonment of legality by the courts is even more clearly
revealed in their interpretation of the term of 'impermissible cohabitation.'
A large number of acts that in no way constitute sexual cohabitation have
been declared to be punishable,[58] and even an oral request to cohabit has
been construed and punished as 'attempted racial defilement.'[59] It is a
mystery how such decisions could be reconciled with the aim of the statute,
which according to a definition by the federal supreme court is 'to protect
the blood as a living organism circulating in the German people.'[60] The
decision has with equal cruelty been applied to racial defilements (committed
by Jews and non-Aryans) and to race betrayal (committed by Germans).

A systematic effort was made to create a legal Ghetto, and many enactments
and court decisions have pared away the political rights of Jews and
non-Aryans. The decree of 17 August 1938 and the executive order of the
federal minister of the interior Of 23 August 1938 concerned Jewish first
names. Every Jew, unless he had a name which was listed as permissible, was
compelled to add 'Israel' or 'Sarah.' Jews born after the enactment of the
law could be given only such names as were provided for in the minister's
ruling. Names like David, Abraham, Jacob, Daniel, Gabriel, Judith, Eve, and
Ruth, all of which have historical or religious significance, were not listed
and were therefore forbidden to Jews; the names permitted were spelled in the
Yiddish manner so as to stamp them as foreign and ridiculous in the eyes of
Germans. Unintentional or negligent violation of the ruling was made
punishable by fine or imprisonment up to one month. On 5 October 1938, a
decree imposed special Jewish stamps on passports issued to Jews. An earlier
ruling (23 July 1938) compelled Jews to apply for special identification
papers, which they were to carry on their persons at all times and which they
had to attach to applications they made to an official or party agency.

Expulsion of the Jews from the German commonwealth began with the nationality
act of 15 September 1935, which made a distinction between 'state subjects'
(Staatsangehorige) and citizens (Reichsburger). State subjects were those who
belonged to the protective association of the German Reich; and citizens were
those 'of German or racially similar blood who by their behavior demonstrate
that they are willing and able faithfully to serve the German people and the
Reich.' Citizenship was to be acquired by means of a citizen's charter, and
only citizens possessed political rights. An executive decree of 14 November
1935 made without charter every national of German or racially similar blood
a citizen, provided he possessed the right to vote or was granted citizenship
by the federal minister of the interior. The same citizenship act expelled
all the remaining Jewish civil servants.

This step was the last in a series of legislative measures aiming to expel
non-Aryans from the civil services, free professions, and all cultural
fields. The opening piece was an act promulgated 7 April 1933, for the
purpose of 'restoring the civil services,' according to which only those Jews
who were war veterans, or whose parents or sons had been killed in the First
World War, or who had already been employed in the service in August 1914
could remain at their posts. By the end of 1938, however, Jews were
completely eliminated from the civil services and free professions, and the
destruction of the economic position of the Jews was ready to begin in full
force. The occasion for this next step was the murder of vom Rath, counsellor
at the German Embassy in Paris. The assault on the economic position of the
Jews coincided, significantly enough, with the purge of 'inefficient'
personnel from retail and handicraft business: that is to say, with the
repudiation by National Socialism of its pledge to protect the old middle
classes. It is virtually certain that the vom Rath murder was merely a
pretext and that the economic persecution of the Jews was a mere diversion
intended to conceal the assault on the middle classes as a whole.

5. ARYANIZATION OF JEWISH PROPERTY

The elimination of Jews from economic life was carried out in three forms:
contractually, illegally, and by statute. 'Legal' elimination took the form
of forced sales, especially of small Jewish businesses, thus satisfying the
appetites of National Socialist officials and small Aryan competitors. One of
the methods used was that of handing over the Jew's share of a business to
his Aryan partner-the National Socialist district leader often put pressure
on the Aryan partner to get rid of his Jewish associate.[61] Jews were
increasingly denied the protection of German labor legislation.[62] The
practices, which have little economic significance, merit attention only in a
study of the methods of National Socialist persecution and their socalled
'purity in business.' On 8 May 1935 the Frankfurter Zeitung was forced to
admit that far from benefiting the German middle classes, Aryanization
chiefly served the interests of the giant enterprises, which used the
opportunity to 'round off and extend' their holdings by buying out Jewish
owners. Small concerns had neither the capital nor the equipment required to
take over Jewish concerns. Thus Aryanization became a powerful stimulant to
capital concentration and monopoly, a development we shall discuss below.*[ *
See pp. 275, 289-90.]

Monopolist growth by way of Aryanization was particularly marked in the
banking field. Between 1932 and 1939 the number of private banks decreased
from 1350 to 520.[63] Aryanization not only assisted the interests of
powerful banking institutions; it also became a means for industry to acquire
banks of its own and extend its activities in the banking field.[64] For
example, the powerful banking firm of S. Hirschland of Essen, which had
played such a considerable part in the industrial development of the Ruhr
basin and which had given financial support and aid to Thyssen, was Aryanized
by a group controlled by Thyssen and Flick. (The same process probably
contributed to Thyssen's downfall, since it made his most powerful rival a
part-owner in a bank that had formerly served Thyssen's interests.)

We lack the space to tell the whole story of the Aryanization of Jewish
business. Wherever powerful Jewish firms could not be swallowed by competing
Aryan enterprises, they were taken over by banks, as was the Schocken
department store, a family enterprise that is now a joint stock corporation
owned by banks; or the machine shops and wagon factory of Orenstein and
Koppel. Aryanization strengthened 'predatory' capital at the expense of
'productive' capital. It also harmed retail business as a whole. For example,
a number of Jewish factories, among them the three largest shoe factories,
all of which had retail outlets of their own, were consolidated, and the hold
of the monopolists over the retailers and the entire field was thereby
strengthened. The huge increase of power and profits that Aryanization
brought to the big banks and big business was further enhanced when Austria,
the Sudetenland, the protectorates, and France were acquired.

The German material on which the contents of this book are based does not
supply documentary proof of illegal seizures, although the testimony of
refugees offers ample evidence that the practices were widespread. We do,
however, find a great deal in the documents pertaining to legislative
expropriations. In Germany, there are a number of professions the practice of
which requires a license. A number of lawyers and administrative tribunals
held that the Jew per se was not unreliable and that for this reason the
administrative agency could not refuse a license to a Jew solely because of
his race." Consequently, the factory code, in which most of the provisions on
this point appeared, was amended by a statute of 6 July 1938, so as to make
Jews ineligible for licenses in a number of trades (watchmen, information and
inquiry agents, real-estate agents, real-estate administrators,
loan-commission agents, marriage agents, guides, etc.). From this statute
German lawyers now deduce that the principle of freedom of trade no longer
applies to the Jew.

Legislative and administrative acts endeavor everywhere to make the
concealment of a Jewish business impossible. Any merchant may request an
injunction against any Jewish firm that even allows the impression that it is
Aryan,[66] and every Aryan has the right to warn a customer against buying
from a Jewish competitor if such warning is in the interests of the
public.[67] Slowly and reluctantly, the courts have granted Aryans the right
to withdraw from long-term contracts with Jews.[68]

Complete legislative exclusion of Jews from economic life was initiated by a
decree of 26 April 1938, which compelled Jews to 'register and evaluate their
total domestic and foreign properties' and (by executive decree of the same
date) forbade them to acquire by purchase or lease any industrial, agrarian,
or forestry enterprise; at the same time, Jews were prohibited from
establishing any new business without permit. The fact that an inventory of
Jewish property was ordered as early as April 1938 again makes it extremely
unlikely that the expropriating legislation of November of that year was
simply a retaliatory measure against vom Rath's murder or a response to the
'spontaneous anger of the enraged populace.' It was rather part of a
long-nurtured plan. The discontent among small businessmen because of their
elimination from business had to be diverted.

A decree of 12 November 1938, enacted about a week after vom Rath's death,
forbade Jews to carry on retail, handicraft, or mail-order business, or to
sell their goods at fairs and markets. It eliminated Jews from plant
management (1 January 1939) and authorized employers to dismiss more
important Jewish employees; it also authorized co-operatives to expell all
their Jewish members. The executive decree of 23 November took great pains to
insure that compulsory liquidation of Jewish business would not profit the
Jewish owners. Goods could not be sold out to consumers, but had to be handed
over to the group in industry or trade for safekeeping. Such goods had to be
appraised by officially appointed persons, and liquidators for the business
were often appointed.

This enactment, which struck only at retail and handicraft businesses, was
supplemented by another, dated 3 December 1938, which affected every Jewish
industrial and trade enterprise that could be put up for compulsory
liquidation or sale. Trustees could be appointed for such enterprises so that
the owner lost all authority to dispose of his enterprise or any part of it.
The decree also authorized the government to order any Jew to sell his
agricultural or forest land holdings and real estate within a period to be
designated. It forbade Jews to acquire such holdings, by purchase or auction.
Jews could not dispose of their holdings without special consent; they could
not mortgage them. The last provision was so broadly interpreted that in the
end Jews had no security whatever for their claims. For example, a Jewish
beneficiary of a will could not secure his claim to an estate by placing a
mortgage on it.[69]

The Jews were further denied protection by being excluded from the benefits
of a decree regulating the maturity of old mortgages (22 December 1938),
although the wording of the decree did not discriminate against them.[70]
Trustees appointed to liquidate or sell Jewish businesses completely replaced
the owner, so that he was not even permitted to delete his firm from the
commercial register. (The name of the firm often enjoyed wide repute and thus
constituted a considerable asset.)[71] The same decree compelled Jews to
deposit all stocks and bonds with a recognized bank. These could not be
disposed of without special permission of the federal minister of economics.
Gold, platinum, silver, jewels, and similar possessions had to be surrendered
to special purchasing agencies established by the Reich (executive decree Of
21 February 1939). The basis of appraisal was fixed by the government.

The vom Rath murder was made the occasion for a special assessment of
1,000,000,000 marks to be paid by all Jews of German nationality whose
property exceeded 5,000 marks. The levy was to be raised by a tax of 20 per
cent on all property belonging to such Jews, and was made payable in four
equal instalments[sic] running to 15 August 1939 (decree of 12 November 1938
and executive decree Of 21 November 1938). As a further reprisal, a special
decree (12 November 1938) compelled the Jews to pay costs for all damages to
Jewish businesses and houses resulting from the riots of 8, 9, and 10
November 1938, staged by the National Socialist party. The tax and the other
laws were of course linked to one another. The liquidation of Jewish
business, real estate, stocks, and bonds was hastened by the need to pay the
levy; the value of Jewish holdings was depreciated and many holdings were
wiped out.

Even the anti-Jewish economic legislation cannot be reviewed in detail here.
Taxation exemptions enjoyed by charitable organizations were not extended to
Jews, and laws intended to alleviate the debtor's burden were made
inapplicable to them. Tax exemptions allowed to people with children were
suspended if the children were Jewish (citizen tax law Of 31 October 1938).
Jewish tenants do not enjoy any protection against notice from the landlord
(30 April 1939). Thus, segregation, political enslavement, economic
extinction, and the cultural ghetto go hand in hand.

--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris

DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing!  These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically  by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om