Adolf Hitler - Hitler’s Second Book

This then offers the possibility of regulating mutual relations in a permanent way, either in the sense of an intended resistance against the known operation of such a power, or a reasonable awareness of it, or also in the sense of an understanding, since, perhaps, one’s own interests can be achieved along a common path.

This stability in foreign policy can be established with a whole series of European States. For long periods of her existence, Russia exhibited definite foreign policy aims which dominated her whole activity. In the course of the centuries, France has always represented the same foreign policy aims regardless who embodied political power in Paris at the moment. We may speak of England not only as a State with a traditional diplomacy, but above all as a State with a foreign policy idea become a tradition. With Germany, such an idea could be discerned only periodically in the Prussian State. We see Prussia fulfil her German mission in the short period of the Bismarckian statecraft, but thereafter any foreign policy aim staked out far in advance came to an end. The new German Reich, especially after Bismarck’s retirement, no longer had such an aim since the slogan of preserving peace, that is, of maintaining a given situation, does not possess any kind of stable content or character. Just as any passive slogan is doomed in reality to be the plaything of an aggressive will. Only he who himself wants to act can also determine his action according to his will. Hence the Triple Entente, which wanted to act, also had all the advantages which lie in the self determination of action, whereas the Triple Alliance through its contemplative tendency to preserve world peace was at a disadvantage to the same degree. Thus the timing and opening of a war was established by nations with a definite foreign policy aim, whereas, conversely, the Triple Alliance powers were surprised by it at an hour that was everything but favourable. If we in Germany ourselves had had even the slightest bellicose intention, it would have been possible through a number of measures, which could have been carried out without effort, to have given another face to the start of the War. But Germany never had a definite foreign policy aim in view, she never thought of any kind of aggressive steps for the realisation of this aim, and consequently events caught her by surprise.

From Austria-Hungary we could hope for no other foreign policy aim as such, save that of wriggling through the hazards of European politics, so that the rotten State structure as much as possible nowhere bumps into anything, in order thus to conceal from the world the real inner character of this monstrous corpse of a State.

The German national bourgeoisie, which alone is under discussion here — since international Marxism as such has no other aim but Germany’s destruction — even today has learned nothing from the past. Even today it does not feel the necessity of setting for the nation a foreign policy aim that may be regarded as satisfactory, and thereby give our foreign policy endeavours a certain stability for a more or less long time. For only if such a possible foreign policy goal appears fundamentally staked out can we discuss in detail the possibilities that can lead to success. Only then does politics enter the stage of the art of the possible. As long, however, as this whole political life is not dominated by any leading idea, individual actions will not have the character of utilising all possibilities for the achievement of a certain success as such. Instead, they are but individual stations along the way of an aimless and planless muddling through from today to tomorrow. Above all is lost that certain persistence which the execution of great aims always requires; that is: one will try this today and that tomorrow, and the day after one will have this foreign policy possibility in view, and suddenly pay homage to a wholly opposite intention — insofar, that is, as this visible confusion as confusion is not actually in keeping with the wish of that power which rules Germany today, and in truth does not wish for a resurgence of our Folk ever.

Only international Jewry can possess a lively interest in a German foreign policy which by its continual, seemingly irrational, sudden transitions, lacks that clear plan, and which, as its only justification, at best asserts: Indeed, we too naturally don’t know what should be done, but we do something precisely because something must be done. Yes, not seldom can we actually hear that these men are so little convinced of the inner sense of their foreign policy actions that, as highest motivation, they can only inquire whether somebody else may know a better one. This is the foundation on which the statecraft of a Gustav Stresemann rests.

In contrast, precisely today more than ever is it necessary for the German Folk to set itself a foreign policy goal which meets its real inner needs and, conversely, guarantees an unconditional stability to its foreign policy activity for the humanly predictable proximate period of time. For only if our Folk fundamentally determines and persistently fights for its interests in such a way, can it hope to induce this or that State whose interests are not opposed to ours, now at last established, and which indeed may even be parallel, to enter into a closer union with Germany. For the idea of wanting to solve our Folk’s distress through the League Of Nations is exactly as unjustified as it was to let the German question be decided by the Frankfurt Federal Parliament.

The satisfied nations dominate the League Of Nations. Indeed, it is their instrument. To a large measure they have no interest in allowing a change in the territorial distribution of the globe, unless it again appeals to their interests. And while they talk about the rights of small nations, in reality it is only the interests of the largest they have in view.

If Germany again wants to achieve a real freedom so that, under its blessing, she can give the German Folk its daily bread, she must take the measures thereto outside the Parliament Of The League Of Nations in Geneva. But then, for the lack of sufficient strength, it will be necessary that she find allies who can believe that they may also serve their own interests by going along with Germany. Such a situation, however, will never arise if Germany’s real foreign policy aim has not become fully clear to these nations. And, above all, Germany by herself will never acquire the strength and inner force for that persistence necessary, alas, to sweep away the obstacles of world history. For then one will never learn how to have patience in particulars, and also to renounce them if necessary, in order finally to be able to achieve the vitally necessary aim on a large scale. For even among allies, relations will never be completely frictionless. Disturbances of reciprocal relations can arise over and over again to assume threateningly dangerous forms if the strength to overcome these petty unpleasantnesses and obstacles does not lie in the very dimensions of the foreign policy aim ultimately staked out. Here the French national leadership of the pre War decades may serve as an exemplary model. How it lightly passed over small matters, indeed, even remained silent before the most bitter events, so as not to lose the possibility of organising a war of revenge against Germany, in such contrast to our eternally bawling hurrah! — patriots, and, consequently, their frequent barking at the moon.

The staking out of a clear foreign policy aim appears as important, furthermore, for the reason that, otherwise, the representatives of other interests among one’s own Folk will always find it possible to confuse public opinion, and to make, and in part even provoke, petty incidents into a cause for the radical change of opinion on foreign policy. Thus, out of the petty disputes which result from conditions themselves or which are artificially fabricated, France will again and again try to bring about ill feeling, indeed estrangement, among nations which, by the whole nature of their real vital interests, would be dependent upon each other, and which perforce would have to take a stand against France in concert. Such attempts, however, will be successful only if in consequence of the lack of an unshakeable political aim, one’s own political actions do not possess a true stability, and above all, because persistence in the preparation of measures serviceable to the fulfilment of one’s own political aim is also lacking.