Adolf Hitler - Hitler’s Second Book

They feel the hardship; either they grumble against those who in their opinion are responsible — something which is dangerous at least in democratic States, since thereby they provide the reservoir for all attempts at revolutionary upheavals — or through their own measures they try to bring about a rectification as they understand it and as it arises from their own insight. The fight against the child begins. They want to lead a life like others, and cannot. What is more natural than that the responsibility is put on large families, in which no joy is taken any more, and which are limited as much as possible as a burdensome evil.

Hence it is false to believe that the German Folk in the future could acquire an increase in number by an increase of its domestic agricultural production. In the most favourable of cases, the upshot is only a satisfaction of the increased living requirements as such. But since the increase of these living requirements is dependent on the living standard of other nations which, however, stand in a much more favourable relation of population to land, they, in the future, too will be far ahead in their living equipment. Consequently this stimulus will never die out, and one day either a discrepancy will arise between the living standard of these Folks and those poorly provided with land, or the latter will be forced, or believe themselves forced, to reduce their number even further.

The German Folk’s prospects are hopeless. Neither the present living space, nor that achieved by a restoration of the borders of 1914, will allow us to lead a life analogous to that of the American Folk. If we want this, either our Folk’s territory must be considerably enlarged, or the German economy will again have to embark on paths already known to us since the pre War period. Power is necessary in both cases. Specifically, first of all, in the sense of a restoration of our Folk’s inner strength, and then in a military mounting of this strength.

Presentday National Germany, which sees the fulfilment of the national task in its limited border policy, cannot deceive herself that the problem of the nation’s sustenance will in any way be solved thereby. For even the utmost success of this policy of the restoration of the borders of 1914 would bring only a renewal of the economic situation of the year 1914. In other words, the question of sustenance which then, as now, was completely unsolved, will imperiously force us onto the tracks of world economy and world export. As a matter of fact, the German bourgeoisie, and the so called national leagues with it, also think only in economic political terms. Production, export and import are the catchwords with which they juggle and from which they hope for the Nation’s salvation in the future. It is hoped to raise the export capacity through an increase of production, and thereby be able to provide adequately for import needs. Only it is completely forgotten that for Germany this whole problem, as has already been stressed, is not at all a problem of increasing production, but rather a question of sales possibility; and that the export difficulties would not at all be obviated by a reduction of German production costs as, again, our bourgeois sly dogs presume. Because, inasmuch as this, in itself, is only partly possible in consequence of our limited domestic market, making German export commodities able to compete by lowering production costs — for instance, through the dismantling of our social legislation, and the duties and burdens resulting therefrom — it will only bring us thither, where we had landed on August 4th, 1914.

It really is part of the whole incredible bourgeois national naivete to presume that England would or ever could tolerate a German competition dangerous to her. Yet, these are the very same people who well know, and who always stress, that Germany did not want a war in 1914, but that instead she was literally pushed into it. And that it was England who, out of sheer competitive envy, gathered together former enemies and let loose against Germany. Today, however, these incorrigible economic dreamers imagine that England, after having risked the whole existence of her world empire in the monstrous four and one half year World War, and in which she remained the victor, will now view German competition differently than at that time. As if for England this whole question were a sporting matter. No. For decades before the War, England had tried to break the threatening German economic competition, the growing German maritime trade, and so on, with economic countermeasures. Only when they were forced to understand that this would not succeed, and when on the contrary Germany, by building her Navy, showed that she was actually determined to carry out her economic warfare to the extent of the peaceful conquest of the world, did England as a last resort invoke violence. And now, after she has remained the victor, they think they can play the game all over again; whereas, on top of all this, Germany today is not at all in a position to throw any kind of power factor into the scales, thanks indeed to her domestic and foreign policy.

The attempt to restore our Folk’s sustenance and to be able to maintain it by the increase of our production and by reducing the costs of the same, ultimately will fail for the reason that we cannot undertake the final consequence of this struggle because of the lack of military power. Thus the end would be a collapse of the German Folk’s sustenance and of all these hopes along with it. Entirely aside from the fact, too, that now even the American Union is emerging in all fields as the sharpest competitor to all European nations fighting as export nations for the world’s markets. The size and the wealth of her domestic market permits production figures and thereby production equipment which so reduce manufacturing costs that, despite enormous wages, it no longer seems possible to undercut her prices. Here the development of the automobile industry may be considered as a warning example. Not only because we Germans, for instance, despite our laughable wages, are not in a position, even only to a degree, to export successfully against American competition, but we must also look on as American cars spread alarmingly even to our own country. This is possible only because the size of her domestic market, her wealth in purchasing power and also in raw materials, guarantees the American automobile industry domestic sales figures which alone make possible manufacturing methods which in Europe would be impossible in consequence of the lack of these domestic sales potentials. The consequence of this is the enormous export possibilities of the American automobile industry. Thus here it is a question of the general motorising of the world that is a matter of incommensurable importance for the future. For the replacement of human and animal power by motors is only at the beginning of its development, whose end cannot at all be foreseen today. At any rate, for the American Union, the modern automobile industry is on the whole at the forefront of all other industries.

Thus in many other areas, our continent will increasingly appear as an economic factor, in an aggressive form, and thereby help to sharpen the struggle for the sales market. From an examination of all factors, especially in view of the limitation of our own raw materials and the ensuing threatening dependence on other countries, Germany’s future perforce appears very gloomy and sad.

But even if Germany were to master all her increasing economic difficulties, she would still be in the same spot as she had already been on August 4th, 1914. The ultimate decision as to the outcome of the struggle for the world market will lie in power, and not in economics.

It has been our curse, however, that even in peacetime a great part of the national bourgeoisie, precisely, was permeated by the idea that power could be renounced through an economic policy. Today, its chief representatives are also to be sought in those more or less pacifistic circles who, as the adversaries and enemies of all heroic, Folkish virtues, would be glad to see a Statepreserving, indeed even a Stateforming, strength in economics. But the more a Folk accepts the belief that it can maintain its life only through peaceful economic activity, the more will its very economy be surrendered to collapse. For, ultimately, economics, as a purely secondary matter in national life, is linked to the primary existence of a strong State. The sword had to stand before the plough, and an Army before economics.