 |
| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2015 |
 |
| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2015 |
The Zweites Buch ("Second Book"), published in English as unofficially Hitler's Secret Book (Das Geheime Buch), and then officially Hitler's Second Book, is an unedited transcript of Adolf Hitler's thoughts on foreign policy, written in 1928; it was written after 'Mein Kampf', and was not published in his lifetime.
The Zweites Buch was not published in 1928 because 'Mein Kampf' did not sell well at that time, and Hitler's publisher, Franz-Eher-Verlag, told Hitler that a second book would hinder sales even more.
Background
Hitler wrote his second book in the summer of 1928, when he was 39.
Five years before, his attempted coup - the 'Münchener Putsch' - had been put down ignominiously.
Though Hitler had escaped with a lenient prison sentence, the National Socialists would remain a fringe party for years to come.
There were also problems in Hitler's personal life.
He was embroiled in a sexually ambiguous relationship with his niece, Geli Raubal, which would end only when she committed suicide in his flat years later.
Whatever Hitler's role in her death, during the years before he began to enjoy the compensating stimulus of power, he struck his close associates as a lonely, morose bachelor.
In the general election on May 20, 1928, the National Socialists received fewer than one million votes, and took only 12 seats in the Reichstag, out of 401.
At the time, Social Democrat made damaging accusations that Hitler had received money from Mussolini, and that this had induced him to ignore Italian oppression of the German-speaking minority in the border province of South Tyrol.
Though the NSDAP claimed victory, the election revealed that their foreign policy, in particular, lacked coherence and popular appeal.
Hitler decided to put his thoughts on paper, and spent much of June and July dictating the manuscript that we now know as his "second book".
Background
Hitler wrote his second book in the summer of 1928, when he was 39.
Five years before, his attempted coup - the 'Münchener Putsch' - had been put down ignominiously.
Though Hitler had escaped with a lenient prison sentence, the National Socialists would remain a fringe party for years to come.
There were also problems in Hitler's personal life.
 |
| Geli Raubal |
Whatever Hitler's role in her death, during the years before he began to enjoy the compensating stimulus of power, he struck his close associates as a lonely, morose bachelor.
In the general election on May 20, 1928, the National Socialists received fewer than one million votes, and took only 12 seats in the Reichstag, out of 401.
At the time, Social Democrat made damaging accusations that Hitler had received money from Mussolini, and that this had induced him to ignore Italian oppression of the German-speaking minority in the border province of South Tyrol.
Though the NSDAP claimed victory, the election revealed that their foreign policy, in particular, lacked coherence and popular appeal.
Hitler decided to put his thoughts on paper, and spent much of June and July dictating the manuscript that we now know as his "second book".
Zweites Buch and Mein Kampf
There are a number of similarities and differences between 'Zweites Buch' and 'Mein Kampf'.
As in Mein Kampf, Hitler declared that the Jews were the eternal, and most dangerous opponents of the Aryan race.
As in 'Mein Kampf', Hitler outlined his 'Stufenplan' ("stage-by-stage plan").
Briefly, the 'Stufenplan' called for three stages.
In the first stage, there would be a massive military build-up, the overthrow of the "shackles" of the Treaty of Versailles, and the forming of alliances with Fascist Italy and the British Empire.
The second stage would be a series of fast, "lightning wars" in conjunction with Italy and Britain against France, and whichever of her allies in Eastern Europe - such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia - chose to stand by her.
The third stage would be a war to obliterate the "Judeo-Bolshevik" regime in the Soviet Union.
In contrast to 'Mein Kampf', in 'Zweites Buch' Hitler added a fourth stage to the Stufenplan.
He insinuated that in the far future a struggle for world domination might take place between the United States and a European alliance comprising a "new association of nations, consisting of individual states with high national value".
Zweites Buch also offers a different perspective on the U.S. than that outlined in 'Mein Kampf'.
In the latter, Hitler declared that Germany's most dangerous opponent on the international scene was the Soviet Union; in 'Zweites Buch', Hitler declared that for immediate purposes, the Soviet Union was still the most dangerous opponent, but that in the long-term, the most dangerous potential opponent was the U.S.
Lebensraum
In the first two chapters Hitler proclaimed the conquest of habitat as the main subject of the Nazi movement and gives it a far-reaching statement of reasons.
The starting point of his considerations is the "struggle for daily bread" as the basis of human society.
From this he developed his central idea of the correspondence between the population and the size of the habitat of a people.
If this is out of proportion, so is degeneration and a decline of a nation.
The struggle for adequate habitat he raises to a central principle of human history.
This fight can be fought only militarily for Hitler.
As alternatives to the struggle for living space, he sees birth control to reduce emigration to the population, the increase in food production, and exports to buy food.
All of these alternatives he rejects hereafter.
Birth control and emigration he rejects as a weakening of the people.
The increase of food production he declares insufficiently feasible.
Export is discarded, because it leads to increased struggle for markets with other nations, and therefore could only lead to the situation in which Germany stood in 1914
Foreign Policy
In the other chapters Hitler developed his thoughts on the future National Socialist foreign policy that would serve in the struggle for living space.
As in 'Mein Kampf', Hitler explains in the 'Second Book', that the Jews are the German peoples' eternal and most dangerous opponents, and tha this must be taken into consideration in considering future political plans.
In 'Mein Kampf', Hitler mentioned the US only occasionally, and even then with contempt.
They were, to him, as a "racially degenerate" society that will continue to see its demise.
By contrast, Hitler describes, in this second book, the United States as a dynamic, "racially successful" society that has eugenics, racial segregation practices and an exemplary immigration policy at the expense of "inferior" immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Why this change occurred in Hitler's attitude between 1924-1928, is unknown.
Historians have noted that Hitler was notoriously poorly informed about the world outside of Germany, and at times the writing of 'Mein Kampf' probably knew little about the United States.
Hitler's knowledge of America came essentially from the Western novels of Karl May, which he had avidly read from boyhood.
This seems to have changed to 1928; Hitler, undoubtedly had heard of prosperity and industrialization in the United States, as well as by the Immigration Act of 1924, the racial segregation, and the fact that several states had the forced sterilization concept passed on mentally ill and retarded people.
Hitler stated his admiration for such measures, as well as his wish that Germany should adopt similar policies on a larger scale.
Hitler stated that the National Socialist foreign policy was to be based on 'Lebensraum' for the German people: The National Socialist Movement would always let its foreign policy be determined by the necessity to secure, for the Volk, the space necessary for the life of the Volk.
It knows no Germanising or Teutonising, as in the case of the national bourgeoisie, but only the spread of its own .
It will never see in the subjugated, so called Germanised, Czechs or Poles a national, let alone Völkisch, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of the Volk.
International Relations
Of all Germany's potential enemies, Hitler ranked the U.S. as the most dangerous.
By contrast, Hitler saw the UK as a fellow "Aryan" power that, in exchange for Germany's renunciation of naval and colonial ambitions, would ally itself with Germany.
France, in Hitler's opinion, was rapidly "Negroizing" itself.
In regard to the Soviet Union, Hitler dismissed the Russian people as being Slavic Untermenschen ("sub-humans"), incapable of intelligent thought.
Hitler consequently believed that the Russian people were ruled over by what he regarded as a gang of bloodthirsty but inept Jewish revolutionaries.
The majority of Americans were in Hitler's view "Aryans", albeit Aryans ruled by a Jewish plutocracy.
It was this combination of "Aryan" might, coupled with a more competent "Jewish rule" which made the U.S. so dangerous.
United Kingdom
In 'Zweites Buch', Hitler called for an Anglo-German alliance based on political expediency as well as the notion that the two Germanic powers were natural allies.
Hitler correctly argued that the alleged British striving for a 'balance of power', leading to an Anglo-German alliance, would not conflict with his goal of Germany being the dominant continental power because it was wrong to believe that "England fought every hegemonic power immediately", but rather was prepared to accept dominant states whose aims were "obviously and purely continental in nature".
Hitler went on to write that "Of course no one in Britain will conclude an alliance for the good of Germany, but only in the furtherance of British interests."
Nonetheless, because Hitler believed that there was an ongoing struggle between the "Jewish invasion" and the "old British tradition" for the control of Britain, Hitler believed the chances for Anglo-German alliance to be good, provided the "Jewish invasion" was resisted successfully.
Hitler hedged somewhat, however, by claiming that:
International Relations
Of all Germany's potential enemies, Hitler ranked the U.S. as the most dangerous.
By contrast, Hitler saw the UK as a fellow "Aryan" power that, in exchange for Germany's renunciation of naval and colonial ambitions, would ally itself with Germany.
France, in Hitler's opinion, was rapidly "Negroizing" itself.
In regard to the Soviet Union, Hitler dismissed the Russian people as being Slavic Untermenschen ("sub-humans"), incapable of intelligent thought.
Hitler consequently believed that the Russian people were ruled over by what he regarded as a gang of bloodthirsty but inept Jewish revolutionaries.
The majority of Americans were in Hitler's view "Aryans", albeit Aryans ruled by a Jewish plutocracy.
It was this combination of "Aryan" might, coupled with a more competent "Jewish rule" which made the U.S. so dangerous.
United Kingdom
In 'Zweites Buch', Hitler called for an Anglo-German alliance based on political expediency as well as the notion that the two Germanic powers were natural allies.
Hitler correctly argued that the alleged British striving for a 'balance of power', leading to an Anglo-German alliance, would not conflict with his goal of Germany being the dominant continental power because it was wrong to believe that "England fought every hegemonic power immediately", but rather was prepared to accept dominant states whose aims were "obviously and purely continental in nature".
Hitler went on to write that "Of course no one in Britain will conclude an alliance for the good of Germany, but only in the furtherance of British interests."
Nonetheless, because Hitler believed that there was an ongoing struggle between the "Jewish invasion" and the "old British tradition" for the control of Britain, Hitler believed the chances for Anglo-German alliance to be good, provided the "Jewish invasion" was resisted successfully.
Hitler hedged somewhat, however, by claiming that:
"the instincts of Anglo-Saxondom are still so sharp and alive that one cannot speak of a complete victory of Jewry, but rather, in part the latter is still forced to adjust its interests to those of the English. If the Jew were to triumph in England, English interests would recede into the background.... [But] if the Briton triumphs then a shift of England's attitude vis-à-vis Germany can still take place."
No comments:
Post a Comment