October 1923 Interview with Adolf Hitler by George Sylvester Viereck in The American Monthly
We might have called ourselves the Liberty Party. We chose to call ourselves National Socialists. We are not Internationalists. Our Socialism is national. We demand the fulfillment of the just demands of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.
Asked to elucidate his program further, he said: We believe in the ancient adage of "a healthy mind in a healthy body." The body politic must be sound if the soul is to be healthy. This is no less true of the individual. Moral and physical health are synonymous. The slums are responsible for nine-tenths, alcohol for one-tenth of all human depravity. No healthy man is a Marxist, for being healthy, he recognizes the value of personality.
We contend against the forces of disease and degeneration. Bavaria is comparatively healthy,, because it is not completely industrialized. All Germany, including Bavaria, is condemned to intensive industrialism by the smallness of our territory. If we wish to save Germany, we must see to it that our farmers remain faithful to the land. To do so, they must have room to breathe and room to work. We must regain our colonies and we must expand eastward. There was a time when we could have shared the world with England. Now, we can stretch our cramped limbs only towards the East. The Baltic is necessarily a German lake.... However we cannot expand commercially or territorially, we cannot regain what we have lost, until we find ourselves. We are in the position of a man whose house has burned down. He must have a roof over his head before he can indulge in more ambitious plans. We have succeeded in creating at least an emergency shelter to keep out the rain. We were not prepared for hailstorms. However, misfortunes hailed down upon us. Germany has been living in a veritable blizzard of national, moral, and economic catastrophes. Two years of democracy have lost us Silesia, the Rhine and the Ruhr.
Our demoralized party system is a symptom of our disease. What can the present government do? Nothing. It has no permanent support anywhere. Parliamentary majorities fluctuate with the mood of the moment. Parliamentary government is the spawn of hell. It opens the gate to Bolshevism. Bolshevism, Hitler emphatically continued, is our greatest menace. Kill Bolshevism in Germany and you restore seventy million people to power. France owes her [present] strength not to her armies, but to the forces of Bolshevism in our midst. The Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St. Germain are kept alive by Bolshevism in Germany. The Peace Treaty and Bolshevism are two heads of one monster. We must decapitate both....
Our German workers, Hitler said, have two souls. One is German, the other is Marxian. We must arouse the German soul. We must root out the taint of Marxism. Marxism and Germanism, like German and Jew, are antipodes. Here Hitler outlined his case against the Jews.... The Jew, Hitler asserts, is destructive by nature. Unable to lead a national existence of his own, his presence in the modern state provides the ferment of decomposition.
[Asked, "What would you do with the Jew?", Hitler said], We would disfranchise him. [Even if he is born in Germany, because] birth in itself is no sufficient qualification for citizenship. Citizenship depends upon a clear recognition of the duties implied in its rights. The Jews are not German. They are an alien people in our midst, and manifest themselves as such....
The fact that a man is decent is no reason why we should not eliminate him. Our hand grenades [in the war] made no discrimination between decent Englishmen and others. Decent Jews will realize that it is necessary for us to protect the integrity of our race. I look upon the Jews, Hitler continued, as you look upon the Japanese. Both are an alien race. Both are an ancient people. Both have an ancient culture. Nevertheless, you [in the USA] do not admit the Japanese to citizenship. Yet, the Japanese, unlike the Jews, are not a destructive force. They have ruined no state. They are not carriers of Bolshevism.... They constitute no problem.
Mixed breeds lack vitality. We would forbid mixed marriages hereafter. We would treat the off-spring of mixed marriages according to their desert. If they were patriots, we would accept them, although we would not encourage intermarriage with them. The issue that confronts us is one between Jew and Aryan. The mixed breed dies; it is a valueless product. Rome fell, when it ceased to keep its race pure. In literature, in the movies, in science, the influence of the Jew is destructive. We are like a consumptive, who does not realize that he is doomed unless he expels the microbes from his lungs. Nations, like individuals, are apt to dance most wildly when they are nearest the abyss. Hence, I say, we need violent correctives, strong medicine, maybe amputation.
Now, more than ever, we must differentiate between elements that make for weakness and elements that make for strength. Incidentally, no deed of violence against Jews is on record in Bavaria. Not even the windows of a single Jew were smashed by my followers. No one, not even the Jews, can deny our honesty of purpose. We wish to purge ourselves from the Jews not because they are Jews, but because they are a disturbing influence. We wish to reserve citizenship and a voice in the council of our nation only to those who are of pure German blood.
Our slogan is "Germany for the Germans." Foreigners, whether Jews or not, will be permitted to live in Germany only by sufferance....
1923 interview with Viereck, edited and reprinted in Liberty, July 1932)
Adolf Hitler drained his cup as if it contained not tea, but the lifeblood of Bolshevism.
"Bolshevism," the chief of the Brown Shirts, the Fascists of Germany, continued, gazing at me balefully, "is our greatest menace. Kill Bolshevism in Germany and you restore 70 million people to power. France owes her strength not to her armies but to the forces of Bolshevism and dissension in our midst.
"The Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St Germain are kept alive by Bolshevism in Germany. The Peace Treaty and Bolshevism are two heads of one monster. We must decapitate both."
I met Hitler not in his headquarters, the Brown House in Munich, but in a private home - the dwelling of a former admiral of the German Navy. We discussed the fate of Germany over the teacups.
"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"
"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.
"We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."
Hitler himself is not a purely Germanic type. His dark hair betrays some alpine ancestor. For years he refused to be photographed. That was part of his strategy - to be known only to his friends so that, in the hour of crisis, he could appear here, there, and everywhere without detection. Today he could no longer pass unrecognized through the obscurest hamlet in Germany. His appearance contrasts strangely with the aggressiveness of his opinions. No milder mannered reformer ever scuttled ship of state or cut political throat.
"What," I continued my cross-examination, "are the fundamental planks of your platform?"
"We believe in a healthy mind in a healthy body. The body politic must be sound if the soul is to be healthy. Moral and physical health are synonymous." "Mussolini," I interjected, "said the same to me." Hitler beamed.
"The slums," he added, "are responsible for nine-tenths, alcohol for one-tenth, of all human depravity. No healthy man is a Marxian. Healthy men recognize the value of personality. We contend against the forces of disaster and degeneration. Bavaria is comparatively healthy because it is not completely industrialized. However, all Germany, including Bavaria, is condemned to intensive industrialism by the smallness of our territory. If we wish to save Germany we must see to it that our farmers remain faithful to the land. To do so, they must have room to breathe and room to work."
"Where will you find the room to work?"
"We must retain our colonies and we must expand eastward. There was a time when we could have shared world dominion with England. Now we can stretch our cramped limbs only toward the east. The Baltic is necessarily a German lake."
"Is it not," I asked, "possible for Germany to reconquer the world economically without extending her territory?"
Hitler shook his head earnestly.
"Economic imperialism, like military imperialism, depends upon power. There can be no world trade on a large scale without world power. Our people have not learned to think in terms of world power and world trade. However, Germany cannot extend commercially or territorially until she regains what she has lost and until she finds herself.
"We are in the position of a man whose house has been burned down. He must have a roof over his head before he can indulge in more ambitious plans. We had succeeded in creating an emergency shelter that keeps out the rain. We were not prepared for hailstones. However, misfortunes hailed down upon us. Germany has been living in a veritable blizzard of national, moral, and economic catastrophes.
"Our demoralized party system is a symptom of our disaster. Parliamentary majorities fluctuate with the mood of the moment. Parliamentary government unbars the gate to Bolshevism."
"Unlike some German militarists, you do not favor an alliance with Soviet Russia?"
Hitler evaded a direct reply to this question. He evaded it again recently when Liberty asked him to reply to Trotsky's statement that his assumption of power in Germany would involve a life-and-death struggle between Europe, led by Germany, and Soviet Russia.
"It may not suit Hitler to attack Bolshevism in Russia. He may even look upon an alliance with Bolshevism as his last card, if he is in danger of losing the game. If, he intimated on one occasion, capitalism refuses to recognize that the National Socialists are the last bulwark of private property, if capital impedes their struggle, Germany may be compelled to throw herself into the enticing arms of the siren Soviet Russia. But he is determined not to permit Bolshevism to take root in Germany."
He responded warily in the past to the advances of Chancellor Bruening and others who wished to form a united political front. It is unlikely that now, in view of the steady increase in the vote of the National Socialists, Hitler will be in the mood to compromise on any essential principle with other parties.
"The political combinations upon which a united front depend," Hitler remarked to me, "are too unstable. They render almost impossible a clearly defined policy. I see everywhere the zigzag course of compromise and concession. Our constructive forces are checked by the tyranny of numbers. We make the mistake of applying arithmetic and the mechanics of the economic world to the living state. We are threatened by ever increasing numbers and ever diminishing ideals. Mere numbers are unimportant."
"But suppose France retaliates against you by once more invading your soil? She invaded the Ruhr once before. She may invade it again."
"It does not matter," Hitler, thoroughly aroused, retorted, "how many square miles the enemy may occupy if the national spirit is aroused. Ten million free Germans, ready to perish so that their country may live, are more potent than 50 million whose will power is paralyzed and whose race consciousness is infected by aliens.
"We want a greater Germany uniting all German tribes. But our salvation can start in the smallest corner. Even if we had only 10 acres of land and were determined to defend them with our lives, the 10 acres would become the focus of regeneration. Our workers have two souls: one is German, the other is Marxian. We must arouse the German soul. We must uproot the canker of Marxism. Marxism and Germanism are antitheses.
"In my scheme of the German state, there will be no room for the alien, no use for the wastrel, for the usurer or speculator, or anyone incapable of productive work."
The cords on Hitler's forehead stood out threateningly. His voice filled theroom. There was a noise at the door. His followers, who always remain within call, like a bodyguard, reminded the leader of his duty to address a meeting.
Hitler gulped down his tea and rose.