CHAPTERÂ FIFTEEN The right of self-defense
After the arms were laid down in November 1918, a policy was initiated that, according to all human foresight, was to gradually lead to the complete subjugation of Germany. Historical examples demonstrate that peoples who laid down their arms without any major reasons for doing so later prefer to accept the greatest violence and humiliation rather than attempt to change their fate by resorting to force again.
The decline of Carthage is the terrible prototype of the slow agony of a people precipitated by itself to ruin.
The course of events since 1918 clearly proves that the hope cherished in Germany of being able to obtain the clemency of the victor by voluntarily submitting to him has had the most disastrous influence on the political judgment and behavior of the masses. This explains why the same seven-year period, from 1806 to 1813, which was sufficient to invigorate the completely annihilated Prussia of that time with new energy and fighting spirit, has not only been wasted for the Germany of today, but, on the contrary, has brought with it a growing national weakening: Seven years after the 1918 revolution, the Treaty of Locarno was signed.
The process of what happened was none other than that already mentioned: Once the shameful armistice was agreed upon, there was neither the energy nor the courage to suddenly resist the oppressive measures successively imposed on us by our adversaries. They were too intelligent to have demanded everything at once!
In Germany, disarmament and enslavement edicts followed one another, disabling us politically and extorting us economically, ultimately creating that state of mind that made the Dawes resolution seem happy and the Locarno Treaty a triumph for Germany.
By the winter of 1922-1923 at the latest, everyone should have been able to realize that France, even after the peace treaty, continued to pursue, with iron tenacity, the war objective it had set for itself from the outset. For surely no one will admit that France, in the most decisive struggle in its history, had sacrificed the precious blood of its people in four and a half years of war with the sole expectation of later receiving reparations for the damage caused. The reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine itself would not have been enough to justify the steadfastness of the French command if that struggle had not already sought to realize part of the truly great future program of French foreign policy, consisting of the dismemberment of Germany into a hodgepodge of small states. This was the goal for which chauvinist France fought, even if it is true that it placed its people in the hands of international Jewry.
This French war objective would have been feasible for the war itself if the fighting—as was initially believed in Paris—had taken place on German territory. Imagine for a moment that the bloody battles of the Great War had not taken place on the Somme, in Flanders, in Artois, in the vicinity of Warsaw, Nishnij, Novgorod, Kowno, Riga, and other places, but in Germany, in the Ruhr, Main, and Elbe basins, in the vicinity of Hanover, Leipzig, Nuremberg, etc., and you will have to admit that, under such circumstances, the devastation of Germany would have been possible. This is also the only reason that allows us to affirm that our comrades and brothers did not shed their blood entirely in vain.
It is true that in November 1918, disaster struck Germany with lightning speed; however, while the catastrophe was spreading throughout the homeland, the German armies were still encamped deep in enemy territory. France’s primary concern in those days was not the dissolution of Germany, but rather the question of how to successfully dislodge the German armies from the occupied territories of France and Belgium. Hence, at the end of the war, a primary task for the French government was to disarm these armies and ensure their rapid withdrawal to Germany. Then, secondarily, they could consider the essential objective of the war.
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Unlike France, for England, the war had actually ended victoriously, with the destruction of Germany’s colonial and commercial power and its subsequent demotion to the status of a second-class state. Not only did it have no interest in the total annihilation of the German nation, but, on the contrary, there was sufficient reason to desire the future existence of a rival to France in Europe. French policy should therefore have continued, through a “determined work of peace,” what the war had begun, and Clemenceau’s phrase that for him, “peace was nothing but the continuation of the war” became extremely relevant at that time.
Already in the winter of 1922-1923 it was clear what France was pursuing.
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In December 1922, the situation between France and Germany seemed to have become threateningly acute. France was attempting to implement new reckless extortions, and to do so, it needed guarantees. With the occupation of the Ruhr basin, France believed it would definitively break Germany’s morale and, at the same time, place us in such an economic situation that we would be forced to accept even the heaviest burdens.
With the occupation of the Ruhr, fate once again extended a hand to the German people to rise up; for what at first must have appeared to us as a tremendous calamity actually contained, in essence, an infinitely promising opportunity to end Germany’s suffering.
From the point of view of international politics, the occupation of the Ruhr marked the first estrangement between England and France. This mood prevailed not only within British diplomacy, which had agreed to, considered, and maintained the French alliance with the practical criteria of cold calculation, but also in vast sectors of the English people. This was particularly true in financial circles, where undisguised displeasure was shown by the new formidable increase in the power of the French.
French on the continent. Indeed, viewed from a political-military perspective, France assumed a position in Europe that not even Germany itself had previously held, and economically, it also acquired foundations that assigned it a position little less than privileged alongside its position as a powerful political competitor. The most important iron and coal mines in Europe were in the hands of a nation that, unlike Germany, had until then looked after its own vital interests with determination and dynamism and which in the war demonstrated to the entire world the security offered by its army. With the occupation of the Ruhr coal region, France snatched from England all the success it had obtained from the war, and the master of victory was no longer shrewd English diplomacy, but Marshal Foch and the France he embodied.
In Italy, too, the unfavorable mood that had prevailed there since the end of the war turned into outright hatred. A great historical moment arose when yesterday’s allies could become tomorrow’s enemies. And if this didn’t happen and the Allies didn’t come to blows, as in the Second Balkan War, it was solely due to the fact that Germany had not an Enver Pascha but a Wilhelm Cuno as Reich Chancellor.
Not only in the realm of foreign policy, but also in domestic policy, the French occupation of the Ruhr presented Germany with a great opportunity for the future. A considerable segment of our people, who, under the constant influence of the lies of their own press, still saw France as the champion of progress and freedom, must have been suddenly cured of such madness. The spring of 1923 had the same significance as 1914, when, with the declaration of war, the dreams of international solidarity vanished from the minds of our workers, forcing them to return to the real world of the struggle for existence, where one being lives at the expense of another and where the extermination of the weakest means the life of the strongest.
It was not a question of preventing the occupation of the Ruhr by military measures. Only a madman could have advised such a thing. But, under the impression of the outrage France was committing and while it was being perpetrated, it was possible and necessary to secure—without taking into account the Treaty of Versailles, which the French themselves had torn to pieces—those military resources that would later have served to support the position of
Our delegates, for there was no doubt that one day soon, the fate of that territory occupied by France would be decided at the table of some international conference. Nor should it be forgotten that even the most skilled negotiators can count on little success unless they bear the strength of their people as their shield.
Wasn’t it a complete calamity to have to watch the eternal comedy of the international conferences that, since 1918, usually preceded the imposition of the respective dictates? And what about that degrading spectacle offered to the entire world: we were invited, as if by irony, to take a seat at the conference table, only to be presented with resolutions and programs agreed upon in advance, which, admittedly, could be discussed, but no modifications were allowed?
If, in the spring of 1923, the occupation of the Ruhr had been used as a reason to reestablish our armed forces, it would have been necessary to first arm the nation with moral weapons, increasing its willpower and, at the same time, eliminating the destroyers of national energies.
Just as in 1918 we had to pay bloodily for the mistake of not having crushed the head of the Marxist viper once and for all in 1914 and 1915, so too now we had to take revenge in the most terrible way for the fact that in the spring of 1923 we let the opportunity pass unseen to definitively put an end to the work of the Marxist traitors to the fatherland and executioners of the people.
Only bourgeois elements could have conceived that Marxism had changed and that the wicked revolutionary leaders of 1918—those who, in order to better climb to various political positions, coldly trampled on the honor of two million men who had fallen for the fatherland—were willing in 1923 to serve the national cause. What an incredible and truly absurd idea to expect that yesterday’s traitors could suddenly become champions of the German libertarian struggle! They were far from thinking like that! Betrayal of the fatherland is for a Marxist what greed for carrion is for a hyena.
The destinies of peoples are not handled with gloves, and that is why in 1923 brutal energy had to be exerted to exterminate the vipers that were poisoning our national organism.
How often I strove in those days to convince, at least in so-called national circles, of the significance of the moment; I always insisted on cooperation with the National Socialist movement, giving it the opportunity to settle accounts with Marxism; but I was preaching in the wilderness. Everyone, even the head of the Reichswehr, knew everything better than I did, only to find themselves, in the end, facing the most humiliating capitulation known to the times.
Even then, I realized that the German bourgeoisie had reached the end of its mission and was no longer destined to play any further role.
At that time—I confess frankly—I felt profound admiration for the man from the south, beyond the Alps, who, possessed by a burning love for his people, did not make common cause with Italy’s internal enemies, but rather strove to destroy them by all means. What will place Mussolini among the great men of history is his unwavering resolve not to tolerate Marxism in Italy and to save his country by destroying internationalism.
How tiny our current pseudo-statesmen in Germany appear in comparison!
Given the attitude adopted by the bourgeoisie and the high regard in which Marxism was held, the idea of ​​any active resistance in 1923 was utopian. Wanting to confront France, with the mortal enemy in one’s own ranks, was, of course, madness. A Germany freed from this fatal enemy of its existence and future would have been capable of energies that no one in the world could have stifled. The day Marxism is annulled in Germany, its chains will be broken forever. Never—throughout our history—have we been defeated by our adversaries, but eternally by our own vices and by enemies sheltered within ourselves.
In that momentous hour of 1923, heaven chose to send the German people a “providential” man: Mr. Cuno! He was not, strictly speaking, a statesman or politician by profession, and naturally even less so by birth, but rather a business expert. A real curse for Germany, because that businessman also viewed politics as an economic enterprise and acted accordingly.
“France occupied the Ruhr. And what was there? Coal. So France occupied the Ruhr for the coal?” Well, then, nothing.
more rational for Mr. Cuno than resorting to a strike as a means of preventing the French from obtaining coal, which – in Mr. Cuno’s opinion – would surely lead to the Ruhr being unoccupied one day, given the unprofitability of the enterprise.
To provoke the strike, Marxist agitators were naturally required, since it was the workers who had to initiate the strike in the first place. It was therefore necessary to form a united front between the worker (who in the mind of the bourgeois statesman type is always synonymous with the Marxist) and all other Germans. The Marxists responded ipso facto to the call, for the simple reason that just as Cuno needed the Marxist agitators to form his “united front,” so Cuno’s money was no less necessary for the latter. Both could be satisfied.
Cuno obtained his “front” made up of national charlatans and anti-national speculators, and for their part, international traffickers, thanks to public funds, could serve their ultimate objective, that is, to destroy the national economy, this time at the expense of the State itself.
It was a brilliant idea to want to save a nation through a paid strike!
If Mr. Cuno, instead of inciting a general strike subsidized by the government to form a united front, had demanded two more hours of work per day from each German, the fraud that was that famous “united front” would have ended on the third day. People are not liberated by inaction, but through sacrifice!
Certainly, this so-called “passive resistance” couldn’t have lasted long, for only a man completely ignorant of the subject of war could have imagined that, using childish means, it would be possible to dislodge an occupying army. And the evacuation of the Ruhr would have been the only thing capable of justifying a procedure that cost thousands and contributed substantially to the total destruction of the national currency.
It was only natural that the French could settle comfortably and with a certain peace of mind, seeing the German resistance using such means. They knew that as soon as this passive resistance in the Ruhr became truly dangerous for France, the occupying troops would, with admirable ease and in less than eight days, put a bloody end to all this childish game.
The formation of the united front was a classic fact, which forced us National Socialists to tenaciously oppose such a purpose.
national call. During those months, I was frequently attacked by elements whose national sentiment was nothing more than a mixture of stupidity and pretense. They were people who shouted at others only because they had the opportunity to reveal their “patriotism” without any danger. I considered that miserable united front to be one of the most laughable political demonstrations, and history proved me right.
At the very moment when the trade union organizations had filled their coffers with money from the Cuno government, and when the passive resistance that, until then, had relied on strikes had to turn to active action, the Marxist hyenas suddenly escaped from the national flock they had always been. For his part, Mr. Cuno quietly returned to his shipping activities, while Germany recorded in its annals one more bitter experience and one less great hope.
When the shameful failure of the Ruhr occurred, after the sacrifice of thousands in material goods and the lives of thousands of young Germans who had the naiveté to give credit to the Reich leaders, the capitulation took place in such a depressing manner for Germany, the country’s indignation exploded against such a betrayal of our unfortunate people. The conviction then emerged with crystal clarity in millions of minds that only a radical transformation of the entire prevailing political system would be capable of saving Germany.
That state that violated all the precepts of loyalty and faith, that flouted the rights of its citizens, that defrauded the sacrifices of millions of its most faithful children, and that, finally, also robbed millions more of their last penny, could deserve nothing but the hatred of its subjects. And this feeling of hatred against the corrupters of the people and the fatherland will one day erupt. Here I must repeat the final sentence of my last statement before the Leipzig courts during the great trial of the spring of 1924: “The judges of this state can calmly condemn us for our actions; but, History, which is the embodiment of a higher truth and a better law, will one day smilingly break this sentence, to absolve us all of guilt and sin.”
But that same History will also summon before its tribunal those who, ruling the world today, trample on laws and rights, precipitate
Our people are in ruin and, in addition, in the midst of the country’s misfortune, they place their personal interests above those of the community.
I omit to recount in this book the events that preceded November 8, 1923, and the resulting consequences. I deliberately do not do so, because nothing constructive can be expected from it for the future. In the face of the infinite common misfortune that afflicts our homeland, I do not wish now to offend, and perhaps alienate, those who, in the future, will have to form the great united front of loyal-hearted Germans against the common front of the enemies of our people. I know well that the time will come when even those who were against us yesterday will reverently remember those who, as National Socialists, paid the dear tribute of their blood for the German people. Among them, I also wish to mention the man who, as one of the best, dedicated his life in poetry, in ideas, and ultimately in action, to the resurgence of their people and ours:
DIETRICH ECKART
