Adolf Hitler on The State, part 2 – Nature and Purpose

THIS POST CONTAINS EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER TWO OF VOLUME TWO of Thomas Dalton's translation of Mein Kampf, pages 47-69, presenting the essence of Hitler's rationale for his belief that preserving the original racial “purity” of the folk as much as humanly possible was vitally necessary to preserve the “culture-creating” element in Aryan civilization. Let's keep in mind that this was written in 1924-25 when Hitler was 35 years old and serving a prison term of 5 years. He did not know whether his now-outlawed movement would survive, or that he would be released after 8 months for good behavior. (See here for series introduction.)

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2.3 - It's the first obligation of any new movement based on a folkish worldview to put forth a clear and logical doctrine of the nature and purpose of the State.

The fundamental principle is that the State is not an end in itself, but the means to an end. It's the pre-condition of a higher form of human civilization, but it's not the cause. This cause is found exclusively in the existence of a culture-creating race. … if the Aryan culture-bearer died out, no culture would exist that corresponds to the spiritual level of the highest peoples today. […]

The State per se may well exist unchanged for hundreds of years, though the cultural faculties and the general life of the people—which is shaped by these faculties—may have suffered profound changes because the State didn't prevent a racial mixture from taking place. … Thus the indispensable precondition for the existence of a superior humanity is not the State but the nation, which alone possess the essential ability.

It's therefore outrageously unjust to speak of the pre-Christian Germans as 'cultureless,' as barbarians. They never have been that. But the severity of the prevailing climate of their northern homeland hampered development of their creative faculties. If they had come to the fairer climate of the south without any culture whatsoever, and if they had acquired the necessary tools from inferior nations, then the dormant cultural faculty would have blossomed radiantly—as happened in the case of the Greeks, for example. The Laplander would not have become creators of a culture if they were transplanted to the south, nor would the Eskimo. No, this glorious creative faculty was only bestowed on the Aryan; it becomes active or lies dormant depending on whether there are favorable circumstances or whether adverse Nature prevents it.

2.4 - We National Socialists, who are fighting for a new worldview, must never base our stand on the famous 'accepted facts'—and false ones at that. If we did, we would never be the protagonists of a new and great idea, but rather would become slaves of the present lie. We must make a clear-cut distinction between the State as a vessel and race as its contents. … What they want to impose upon us as a State today is usually nothing but a monstrosity—the product of a profound human error that brings with it untold suffering. [His use of “slaves” here sheds light on his later description in Table Talk of the Russian peasant as a “born slave.” He meant they were not creators of new ideas, but acceptors of the status quo. -cy]

2.5 – On these principles, we National Socialists base our standards for evaluating a State. ... A State may be considered as exemplary if it adequately serves not only the vital needs of the nationality it represents but if it actually ensures the preservation of this same nationality by its very existence—no matter the general cultural significance of this state formation in the eyes of the rest of the world. … [A] state may be called bad if, despite a high cultural level, it undermines the racial composition of the bearers of that culture.

2.6 – [W]e must first clearly understand which kind of people [the German State] should contain and what purpose it should serve. …The blood-poisoning of our national body, especially since the Thirty Years' War, has degraded not only our blood but also our soul. ...[T]he various racial elements continue to exist side by side, with the result that—especially in times of crisis, when the herd usually sticks together—the Germans disperse in all directions. … Aside the Nordic type we find the East European; aside the Easterners there is the Dinaric; the Westerner intermingles with both—with cross-breeds among them all.

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Even today our nation still suffers from this lack of inner unity; but the cause of our past and present misfortunes may turn out to be a future blessing for us … it was fortunate that at least a part of our best blood was thus kept pure and escaped racial degeneration. A complete assimilation of all our racial elements would certainly have brought about a homogeneous national organism; but, as has been proven in every case of racial mixture, it would have been less capable of creating a civilization than the highest of its original elements (he means the Nordic -cy).

2.7 - As a State, the German Reich must include all Germans. Its task is not only to assemble and preserve our most valuable racial elements, but to lead them slowly and surely to a dominant position.

2.8 – Thus a condition of stagnation is replaced by a period of struggle. And here, as in every other sphere, the proverb holds good that 'he who rests—rusts.' Furthermore, victory always lies with he who attacks. … For the weakminded, the State and its authority is nothing but an end in itself; while for us, it's only an effective weapon in the service of the great and eternal struggle for existence. […]

Against us is the endless army of those who are lazy-minded and indifferent rather than evil, as well as those whose self-interest lead them to uphold the present situation.

2.9 – Nature generally takes certain corrective measures with respect to racial purity. … The products of cross-beeding suffer bitterly, especially the third, fourth, and fifth generations. … their lack of blood-unity also means a lack of unified will-power and vigorous vital energies. At all critical moments … the racially-mixed person becomes confused and takes half-measures. […] For instance, if an individual member of a race were to mix with someone of a lower race, the first result would be a lowering of the racial level, and furthermore the descendants of this cross-breeding would be weaker than those who remained racially unmixed. [Example of lower resistance: in the U.S. all non-white persons demonstrate less natural resistance to the Covid-19 virus across the board, yet it is blamed on “racism,” for political reasons, rather than differences (inequalities) inherent among the races. -cy]

[In] the course of thousands of years … a new people would be developed that possessed a certain herd resistance, but its intellectual and cultural significance would be markedly inferor to that of the first cross-breeds. [The Greeks are an example -cy] … The herd solidarity of this new national body, even though developed over thousands of years, would still be no match in the struggle with an equally unified, but spirtually and culturally superior race. [...]

Among those people with a strong racial instinct … [when] this compulsion [to mix] ceases …Then the mongrels will recede quite naturally into the background, and that part of the race that has remained intact will tend to mate with its own kind, thus halting further mixture. […]

[I]t's the task of the Germanic states in particular to bring a halt to this bastardization.

Our contemporary generation of weaklings will naturally decry such a policy, and whine and complain about it as an assault on the most sacred of human rights. No, there's only one right that is sacrosanct: that the purity of the blood should be preserved, thus preserving the best types of human beings and rendering possible a nobler development of humanity itself.

We can easily see this decline due to race-mixing playing out today in American and European cities. The evidence is growing daily that proves Adolf Hitler right.