CHAPTERÂ EIGHT The strong are stronger when they are alone
In the previous chapter, I mentioned the existence of a cooperative of German nationalist associations. Now I wish to briefly address this problem.
The term “worker cooperative” generally refers to a group of associations that, in order to facilitate each other’s work, submit to mutual obligations, electing a common board of directors with varying powers, and then carry out joint action. From this, it follows that these must be societies, associations, or parties whose purposes and procedures do not differ greatly from one another. There is a widespread belief that such a cooperative achieves an enormous increase in action power and automatically transforms the groups that comprise it, which are inherently weak and small, into a power.
This belief is wrong in most cases.
In my view, it is interesting and necessary for a better understanding of the issue to elucidate how societies, associations, etc., are formed. A person proclaims a truth, advocates the solution to a certain problem, sets forth a goal, and ultimately creates a movement destined to serve his purpose. This is how an association or party is founded, which, according to its respective program, is to lead to the elimination of existing anomalies or to determine a new state of affairs.
As soon as a movement of this kind has been initiated, it practically comes into possession of a certain right of priority.
It would be natural and understandable for all those pursuing the same goal to join such a movement, reforming it so as to better serve the common idea. That this is not the case can be attributed to two causes. I would like to describe the first as almost tragic, while the second has a miserable foundation and must be sought in the weakness of human nature.
The tragic cause lies in the fact that when it comes to fulfilling a specific task, people do not simply unite in a single group, even though, generally speaking, every great action in the world marks the fulfillment of a desire long latent in millions of hearts; a longing cherished by many in silence.
It is in the nature of great contemporary problems that thousands of individuals strive to solve them, many of whom consider themselves predestined, or that fate itself proposes various solutions to the selection process, so that in the end, in the free play of forces, the final victory tilts in favor of the strongest, that is, the fittest and most capable of solving the problem. However, the conviction that this particular person is the exclusive predestined one usually reaches the consciousness of others too late.
Thus, over the course of centuries, and often within the same era, different individuals emerge who create movements aimed at defending common goals, or at least those considered analogous by the masses.
The tragedy is that these men, without knowing each other, aspire to reach the same goal by completely different paths. Deeply convinced of their own mission, they feel obliged to follow their own paths.
But how can it be judged from the outside whether the chosen course is good or bad, if by not giving way to the free play of forces, the final decision is removed from the doctrinal judgment of men infatuated with their knowledge, leaving it to the irrefutable proof of visible success which, in the final analysis, will always confirm the convenience and usefulness of an action?
In history we see that, in the opinion of most, the two possibilities that could have been chosen to solve the German problem and whose main managers were Austria and Prussia – the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns – should have been merged into one from the beginning.
Following this criterion, one should have, given the united energies, indifferently trusted the convenience of either option. In that case, the path of the most representative party, which was Austria at the time, would have been chosen; but there is no doubt that the Austrian orientation would never have led to the creation of a German Reich.
The question of the founding of this Reich was not the fruit of a common will placed at the service of an equally common procedure, but rather the outcome of a conscious, and sometimes unconscious, struggle for political hegemony, a struggle from which Prussia ultimately emerged victorious. And whoever does not deny the truth, blinded by partisan politics, will have to recognize that the so-called wisdom of humanity would never have arrived at a decision as wise as that arrived at by the wisdom of life—that is, that the free play of forces willed to become reality. Indeed, who would have seriously believed, two hundred years ago, in the German countries, that Hohenzollern Prussia, and not the Habsburg kingdom, would one day become the creative and guiding nucleus of the new Reich? On the other hand, who today could ignore that destiny worked better in this way? And who would be capable of imagining a German Reich based on the principles of a corrupt and degenerate dynasty, like that of the Habsburgs?
No, natural development must have placed the best in its rightful place, certainly after a struggle of centuries.
So it was and so it will be forever.
It is therefore not a shame that, at first, different fighters set out in pursuit of the same goal. The most vigorous and diligent will then reveal themselves and be the victor.
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There is often a second reason why, in the life of nations, seemingly analogous movements try, by different paths, to achieve an apparently similar goal. This cause is not only tragic, but infinitely miserable. It lies in the unhappy mixture of emulation, envy, ambition, and a penchant for thieving—characteristics that unfortunately come together in certain individuals of humanity.
It will be enough for one person to take a new path for many lazy people to stop and think, sensing a good morsel at the end of the day. Now, once the new movement has been created and its program formulated, such people flock to it, claiming to pursue the same objective. But they are in no way guided by a sincere purpose in joining such a movement, and
recognize the priority of the latter, but rather limit themselves to stealing his program and then founding their own party on it.
Certainly, the founding of the whole series of so-called “nationalist” groups, parties, etc., that took place in the years 1918-19 was the result of a natural development and without any malicious intent on the part of its instigators. Already in 1920, the NSDAP and the DSP had been born, both inspired by the same purposes, but nevertheless independently of each other. Of course, Julius Streicher was initially deeply convinced of the mission and future of his movement; however, as soon as he came to clearly and undeniably recognize the vigor and growth of the NSDAP, which was greater than that of his own party, he suspended his activities and urged his coreligionists to join the victorious NSDAP movement and continue fighting from within those ranks for the common goal. This was an extremely correct decision, although a very serious one from a personal point of view.
Thus, no divisions arose during that early period of our movement. What we today characterize as “nationalist party division” owes its existence exclusively to the second of the causes I mentioned.
Suddenly, political programs plagiarized from ours emerged; principles taken from our entire set of ideas were proclaimed; objectives we had been fighting for years were specified, and finally, paths already trodden by the NSDAP were chosen.
Everything that was unable to stand on its own foundations ended up merging into worker cooperatives, probably based on the conviction that eight lame men, supporting each other, can make a gladiator.
It must never be forgotten that everything truly great in this world was not the work of coalitions, but the result of the triumphant action of a single individual. Great ideological revolutions of universal significance are imaginable and feasible only as titanic struggles of individual groups and never as undertakings born of coalitions.
Consequently, the National Socialist State will never be created by the conventional will of a “nationalist cooperative,” but only through the iron will of a single movement that knows how to impose itself above all others.
