Party. He had a sacred conviction of the mission and future of his
own movement. As soon, however, as the superior strength and
stronger growth of the National Socialist Party became clear and
unquestionable to his mind, he gave up his work in the German
Socialist Party and called upon his followers to fall into line with
the National Socialist German Labour Party, which had come out
victorious from the mutual contest, and carry on the fight within
its ranks for the common cause. The decision was personally a
difficult one for him, but it showed a profound sense of honesty.
When that first period of the movement was over there remained
no further dispersion of forces: for their honest intentions had led
the men of that time to the same honourable, straightforward and
just conclusion. What we now call the 'patriotic disintegration'
owes its existence exclusively to the second of the two causes
which I have mentioned. Ambitious men who at first had no
ideas of their own, and still less any concept of aims to be
pursued, felt themselves 'called' exactly at that moment in which
the success of the National Socialist German Labour Party
became unquestionable.
Suddenly programmes appeared which were mere transcripts of
ours. Ideas were proclaimed which had been taken from us. Aims
were set up on behalf of which we had been fighting for several
years, and ways were mapped out which the National Socialists
had for a long time trodden. All kinds of means were resorted to
for the purpose of trying to convince the public that, although the
National Socialist German Labour Party had now been for a long
time in existence, it was found necessary to establish these new
parties. But all these phrases were just as insincere as the motives
behind them were ignoble.
In reality all this was grounded only on one dominant motive.
That motive was the personal ambition of the founders, who
wished to play a part in which their own pigmy talents could
contribute nothing original except the gross effrontery which
they displayed in appropriating the ideas of others, a mode of
conduct which in ordinary life is looked upon as thieving.
At that time there was not an idea or concept launched by other
people which these political kleptomaniacs did not seize upon at
once for the purpose of applying to their own base uses. Those
who did all this were the same people who subsequently, with
tears in their eyes, profoundly deplored the 'patriotic
disintegration' and spoke unceasingly about the 'necessity of
unity'. In doing this they nurtured the secret hope that they might
be able to cry down the others, who would tire of hearing these
loudmouthed accusations and would end up by abandoning all
claim to the ideas that had been stolen from them and would
abandon to the thieves not only the task of carrying these ideas
into effect but also the task of carrying on the movements of
which they themselves were the original founders.
When that did not succeed, and the new enterprises, thanks to the
paltry mentality of their promoters, did not show the favourable
results which had been promised beforehand, then they became
more modest in their pretences and were happy if they could land
themselves in one of the socalled 'cooperative unions'.
At that period everything which could not stand on its own feet
joined one of those cooperative unions, believing that eight lame
people hanging on to one another could force a gladiator to
surrender to them.
But if among all these cripples there was one who was sound of
limb he had to use all his strength to sustain the others and thus
he himself was practically paralysed.
We ought to look upon the question of joining these working
coalitions as a tactical problem, but, in coming to a decision, we
must never forget the following fundamental principle:
Through the formation of a working coalition associations which
are weak in themselves can never be made strong, whereas it can
and does happen not infrequently that a strong association loses
its strength by joining in a coalition with weaker ones. It is a
mistake to believe that a factor of strength will result from the
coalition of weak groups; because experience shows that under
all forms and all conditions the majority represents the duffers
and poltroons. Hence a multiplicity of associations, under a
directorate of many heads, elected by these same associations, is
abandoned to the control of poltroons and weaklings. Through
such a coalition the free play of forces is paralysed, the struggle
for the selection of the best is abolished and therewith the
necessary and final victory of the healthier and stronger is
impeded. Coalitions of that kind are inimical to the process of
natural development, because for the most part they hinder rather
than advance the solution of the problem which is being fought
for.
It may happen that, from considerations of a purely tactical kind,
the supreme command of a movement whose goal is set in the
future will enter into a coalition with such associations for the
treatment of special questions and may also stand on a common
platform with them, but this can be only for a short and limited
period. Such a coalition must not be permanent, if the movement
does not wish to renounce its liberating mission. Because if it
should become indissolubly tied up in such a combination it
would lose the capacity and the right to allow its own forces to
work freely in following out a natural development, so as to
overcome rivals and attain its own objective triumphantly.
It must never be forgotten that nothing really great in this world
has ever been achieved through coalitions, but that such
achievements have always been due to the triumph of the
individual. Successes achieved through coalitions, owing to the
very nature of their source, carry the germs of future
disintegration in them from the very start; so much so that they
have already forfeited what has been achieved. The great
revolutions which have taken place in human thought and have
veritably transformed the aspect of the world would have been
inconceivable and impossible to carry out except through titanic
struggles waged between individual natures, but never as the
enterprises of coalitions.
And, above all things, the People's State will never be created by
the desire for compromise inherent in a patriotic coalition, but
only by the iron will of a single movement which has
successfully come through in the struggle with all the others.
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