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  Every further increase of these yields, however, would not be applied to the benefit of the increment to our population, but instead would be completely spent in satisfying the increase of the general living requirements of individuals. A model living standard is created here which is primarily determined by a knowledge of conditions and of life in the American Union. Just as the living requirements of rural communities rise as a result of the slow awareness and the influence of life in the big cities, so do the living requirements of entire nations rise under the influence of the life of better situated and richer nations. Not seldom a people’s living standard, which thirty years before would have appeared as a maximum, is regarded as inadequate simply for the reason that in the meanwhile knowledge has been acquired about the living standard of another Folk. Just as in general, man, even in the lowest circles, takes for granted appointments which eighty years before were unheard of luxuries even for the upper classes. The more space is bridged through modern technology, and especially communication, and nations are brought closer together, the more intensive their mutual relations become, the more also will living conditions reciprocally leave their mark on each other and seek to approximate one another. It is an erroneous opinion that in the long run one can hold a Folk of a definite cultural capacity and also of a real cultural importance to an otherwise generally valid living standard by an appeal to perceptible facts or even to ideals. The broad masses especially will show no understanding of this.

  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 othe
r 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.

  If it is believed that we can renounce this in Germany, our Folk’s sustenance will be wrecked.

  As soon, however, as a Folk in general once impregnates its life with the thought that it can find its daily subsistence through peaceful economic activity alone, the less will it think of a violent solution in case this attempt should fail; on the contrary, it will then all the more try to take the easiest path to overcome the miscarriage of the economy without thereby having to risk its blood. As a matter of fact, Germany already finds herself in the middle of this situation. Emigration and birth control are the medicines recommended for our nation’s salvation by the representatives of pacifistic economic policy and the Marxist view of the State.

  The result of following these counsels, especially for Germany, will be of the most fateful importance. Germany is racially composed of so many unequal constituent elements that a permanent emigration perforce will remove from our Nation people who have the greatest capacity for resistance, who are the boldest and most determined.

  These, above all, like the Vikings of yore, will also today be the bearers of Nordic blood. This slow diminution of the Nordic element leads to a lowering of our general race value and thus to a weakening of our technical, cultural, and also civic political productive forces. Hence, the consequences of this weakening will be especially grievous for the future, because there now appears as a dynamic actor in world history a new State, which, as a truly European colony, has for centuries received the best Nordic forces of Europe by way of emigration; aided by the community of their original blood, these have built a new, fresh community of the highest racial value. It is no accident that the American Union is the State in which at the present time most inventions are being made by far, some of which are of an incredible boldness. Americans, as a young, racially select Folk, confront Old Europe, which has continually lost much of its best blood through war and emigration. Just as little as one can equate the accomplishment of one thousand degenerate Levantines in Europe, say in Crete, with the accomplishment of one thousand racially still more valuable Germans or Englishmen, so can one just as little equate the accomplishment of one thousand racially questionable Europeans to the capacity of one thousand racially highly valuable Americans. Only a conscious Folkish race policy would be able to save European nations from losing the law of action to America, in consequence of the inferior value of European Folks vis-à-

  vis the American Folk. If in place of this, however, the German Folk, along with a bastardisation systematically conducted by Jews with inferior human material and a lowering of its racial value as such caused thereby, also lets its best bloodbearers be taken away by a continuation of emigration in hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of individual specimens, it will slowly sink to the level of an equally inferior race, and hence to that of an incompetent and valueless Folk. The danger is especially great since, because of the complete indifference on our side, the American Union itself, inspired by the teachings of its own ethnologists, has established special standards for immigration. By making entry to American soil dependent on definite racial prerequisites on the one hand, as well as on the definite physical health of the individual as such, bleeding Europe of its best people has, indeed, perforce been legally regulated. This is something which our whole so called national bourgeois world and all its economic politicians either do not see, or, at least, will not hear of because it is unpleasant to them, and because it is much cheaper to pass over these things with a couple of general national phrases.

  To this lowering, imposed by Nature, of the general value of our Folk by forced emigration in consequence of our economic policy, is added birth control as a second disadvantage. I have already set forth the consequences of the fight against the child. They lie in a reduction of the count of individuals brought to life, so that a further selection cannot take place. On the contrary, people take pains that all who are once born are kept alive under any circumstances. Since, however, ability, energy, and so on, are not necessarily connected with the first born, but instead become visible in each case only in the course of the struggle for existence, the possibility of a weeding out and a selection according to such criteria is removed. Nations become impoverished in talents and energies. Again, this is especially bad in nations in which the dissimilarity of basic racial elements extends even into families. For then, according to the Mendelian Law Of Division, a separation takes place in every family which can partly be attributed to one racial side, partly to the other. If, however, these racial values vary in their importance for a Folk, then even the value of the children of one family already will be dissimilar on racial grounds. Since the firstborn in no way must grow according to the racially valuable sides of both parents, it lies in the interest of a nation that later life at least search out the more racially valuable from among the total number of children, through the struggle for existence, and preserve them for the nation and, conversely, put the nation in the possession of the accomplishments of these racially valuable individuals. But if man himself prevents the procreation of a greater number of children and limits himself to the firstborn or at least to the secondborn, he will nevertheless want to preserve especially these inferior racial elements of the nation, even if these do not possess the most valuable characteristics. Thus he artificially hinders nature’s process of selection, he prevents it, and thereby helps to impoverish a nation of powerful personalities. He destroys the peak value of a Folk.

  The German Folk which, as such, does not have that average value, as for example the English, will be especially dependent on personality values. The extraordinary extremes that we can observe everywhere in our Folk are only the after effects of our disruption, determined by blood, into superior and inferior racial elements.

  In general, the Englishman will have a better average. Perhaps he will never arrive at the harmful depths of our Folk, but also never at its heights of brilliance. Therefore, his life will move along a more average line and be filled with a greater steadiness. In contrast, German life in everything is infinitely unstable and restless and acquires its importance only by its extraordinarily high achievements, through which we make amends for the disquieting aspects of our Nation. Once, however, the personal bearers of these high achievements are removed through an artificial system, these very achievements cease. Then our Folk moves toward a permanent pauperisation of personality values, and thereby to a lowering of its whole cultural and spiritual importance.

  If this condition should continue for just several hundred years, our German Folk would be, at the least, so weakened in its general importance that it would no longer be able to raise any kind of claim to be called a F
olk of world consequence. In any case, it will no longer be in a position to keep pace with the deeds of the considerably younger, healthier American Folk. Then, because of a great number of causes, we ourselves will experience what not a few old cultural Folks prove in their historical development. Through their vices, and in consequence of their thoughtlessness, the Nordic bloodbearer was slowly eliminated as the most racially valuable element of the bearers of culture and founders of States, and thereby they left behind a human hodgepodge of such slight intrinsic importance that the law of action was wrested from their hands to pass over to other younger and healthier Folks.

  All of south eastern Europe, especially the still older cultures of Asia Minor and Persia, as well as those of the Mesopotamian lowlands, provide classroom examples of the course of this process.

  Thus, just as here history was slowly shaped by the racially more valuable Folks of the Occident, the danger likewise arises that the importance of racially inferior Europe slowly is leading to a new determination of the world’s fate by the Folk of the North American continent.

  That this danger threatens all Europe has, after all, already been perceived by some today. Only few of them wish to understand what it means for Germany. Our Folk, if it lives with the same political thoughtlessness in the future as in the past, will have to renounce its claim to world importance once and for all. Racially, it will increasingly atrophy until it finally sinks to degenerate, animallike feed bags lacking as well the memory of past greatness. As a State in the future order of World States, they will at best be like that which Switzerland and Holland have been in Europe up to now.