Mein Kampf

Volume 2, Chapter 4

Personality and the Conception of the Folkish State

The folkish National Socialist state sees its chief task in educating and preserving the
bearer of the state. It is not sufficient to encourage the racial elements as such, to
educate them and finally instruct them in the needs of practical life; the state must
also adjust its own organization to this task.

It would be lunacy to try to estimate the value of man according to his race, thus
declaring war on the Marxist idea that men are equal, unless we are determined to
draw the ultimate consequences. And the ultimate consequence of recognizing the
importance of blood — that is, of the racial foundation in general — is the
transference of this estimation to the individual person. In general, I must evaluate
peoples differently on the basis of the race they belong to, and the same applies to the
individual men within a national community. The realization that peoples are not
equal transfers itself to the individual man within a national community, in the sense
that men's minds cannot be equal, since here, too, the blood components, though
equal in their broad outlines, are, in particular cases, subject to thousands of the finest
differentiations.

The first consequence of this realization might at the same time be called the cruder
one: an attempt to promote in the most exemplary way those elements within the
national community

that have been recognized as especially valuable from the racial viewpoint and to
provide for their special increase.

This task is cruder because it can be recognized and solved almost mechanically. It is
more difficult to recognize among the whole people the minds that are most valuable
in the intellectual and ideal sense, and to gain for them that influence which not only
is the due of these superior minds, but which above all is beneficial to the nation.
This sifting according to capacity and ability cannot be undertaken mechanically; it is
a task which the struggle of daily life unceasingly performs.

A philosophy of life which endeavors to reject the democratic mass idea and give this
earth to the best people — that is, the highest humanity — must logically obey the
same aristocratic principle within this people and make sure that the leadership and
the highest influence in this people fall to the best minds. Thus, it builds, not upon
the idea of the majority but upon the idea of personality.
Anyone who believes today that a folkish National Socialist state must distinguish
itself from other states only in a purely mechanical sense, by a superior construction
of its economic life — that is, by a better balance between rich and poor, or giving
broad sections of the population more right to influence the economic process, or by
fairer wages by elimination of excessive wage differentials — has not gone beyond
the most superficial aspect of the matter and has not the faintest idea of what we call
a philosophy. All the things we have just mentioned offer not the slightest guaranty
of continued existence, far less of any claim to greatness. A people which did not go
beyond these really superficial reforms would not obtain the least guaranty of victory
in the general struggle of nations. A movement which finds the content of its mission
only in such a general leveling, assuredly just as it may be, will truly bring about no
great and profound, hence real, reform of existing conditions, since its entire activity
does not, in the last analysis, go beyond externals, and does not give the people that
inner armament which enables it, with almost inevitable certainty I might say, to
overcome in the end those weaknesses from which we suffer today.

To understand this more easily, it may be expedient to cast one more glance at the
real origins and causes of human cultural development.

The first step which outwardly and visibly removed man from the animal was that of
invention. Invention itself is originally based on the finding of stratagems and ruses,
the use of which facilitates the life struggle with other beings, and is sometimes the
actual prerequisite for its favorable course. These most primitive inventions do not
yet cause the personality to appear with sufficient distinctness, because, of course,
they enter the consciousness of the future, or rather the present, human observer only
as a mass phenomenon. Certain dodges and crafty measures which man, for example,
can observe in the animal catch his eye only as a summary fact, and he is no longer in
a position to establish or investigate their origin, but must simply content himself
with designating such phenomena as 'instinctive.'

But in our case this last word means nothing at all. For anyone who believes in a
higher development of living creatures must admit that every expression of their life
urge and life struggle must have had a beginning; that one subject must have started
it, and that subsequently such a phenomenon repeated itself more and more
frequently and spread more and more, until at last it virtually entered the
subconscious of all members of a given species, thus manifesting itself as an instinct.

This will be understood and believed more readily in the case of man. His first
intelligent measures in the struggle with other beasts assuredly originate in the
actions of individual, particularly able subjects. Here, too, the personality was once
unquestionably the cause of decisions and acts which later were taken over by all
humanity and regarded as perfectly self-evident. Just as any obvious military
principle, which today has become, as it were, the basis of all strategy, originally
owed its appearance to one absolutely distinct mind, and only in the course of many
perhaps even thousands of years, achieved universal validity and was taken entirely
for granted.

Man complements this first invention by a second: he learns to place other objects
and also living creatures in the service of his own struggle for self-preservation; and
thus begins man's real inventive activity which today is generally visible. These
material inventions, starting with the use of stone as a weapon and leading to the
domestication of beasts, giving man artificial fire, and so on up to the manifold and
amazing inventions of our day, show the individual creator the more clearly, the
closer the various inventions lie to the present day, or the more significant and
incisive they are. At all events, we know that all the material inventions we see about
us are the result of the creative power and ability of the individual personality. And
all these inventions in the last analysis help to raise man more and more above the
level of the animal world and finally to remove him from it. Thus, fundamentally,
they serve the continuous process of higher human development. But the very same
thing which once, in the form of the simplest ruse, facilitated the struggle for
existence of the man hunting in the primeval forest, again contributes, in the shape of
the most brilliant scientific knowledge of the present era, to alleviate mankind's
struggle for existence and to forge its weapons for the struggles of the future. All
human thought and invention, in their ultimate effects, primarily serve man's struggle
for existence on this planet, even when the so-called practical use of an invention or a
discovery or a profound scientific insight into the essence of things is not visible at
the moment. All these things together, by contributing to raise man above the living
creatures surrounding him, strengthen him and secure his position, so that in every
respect he develops into the dominant being on this earth.

Thus, all inventions are the result of an individual's work. All these individuals,
whether intentionally or unintentionally, are more or less great benefactors of all
men. Their work subsequently gives millions, nay, billions of human creatures,
instruments with which to facilitate and carry out their life struggle.

If in the origin of our present material culture we always find individuals in the form
of inventors, complementing one another and one building upon another, we find the
same in the practice and execution of the things devised and discovered by the
inventors. For all productive processes in turn must in their origin be considered
equivalent to inventions, hence dependent on the individual. Even purely theoretical
intellectual work, which in particular cases is not measurable, yet is the premise for
all further material inventions, appears as the exclusive product of the individual
person. It is not the mass that invents and not the majority that organizes or thinks,
but in all things only and always the individual man, the person.

A human community appears well organized only if it facilitates the labors of these
creative forces in the most helpful way and applies them in a manner beneficial to all.
The most valuable thing about the invention itself, whether it lie in the material field
or in the world of ideas, is primarily the inventor as a personality. Therefore, to
employ him in a way benefiting the totality is the first and highest task in the
organization of a national community. Indeed, the organization itself must be a
realization of this principle. Thus, also, it is redeemed from the curse of mechanism
and becomes a living thing. It must itself be an embodiment of the endeavor to place
thinking individuals above the masses, thus subordinating the latter to the former.

Consequently, the organization must not only not prevent the emergence of thinking
individuals from the mass; on the contrary, it must in the highest degree make this
possible and easy by the nature of its own being. In this it must proceed from the
principle that the salvation of mankind has never lain in the masses, but in its creative
minds, which must therefore really be regarded as benefactors of the human race. To
assure them of the most decisive influence and facilitate their work is in the interest
of the totality. Assuredly this interest is not satisfied, and is not served by the
domination of the unintelligent or incompetent, in any case uninspired masses, but
solely by the leadership of those to whom Nature has given special gifts for this
purpose.

The selection of these minds, as said before, is primarily accomplished by the hard
struggle for existence. Many break and perish, thus showing that they are not
destined for the ultimate, and in the end only a few appear to be chosen. In the fields
of thought, artistic creation, even, in fact, of economic life, this purpose. They injure
collective achievement, and thus in reality injure individual achievement. For the
satisfaction of the members of a national body does not in the long run occur
exclusively through mere theoretical phrases, but by the goods of daily life that fall to
the individual and the ultimate resultant conviction that a national community in the
sum of its achievement guards the interests of individuals.

It is of no importance whether Marxism, on the basis of its mass theory, seems

capable of taking over and carrying on the economy existing at the moment.
Criticism with regard to the soundness or unsoundness of this principle is not settled
by the proof of its capacity to administer the existing order for the future, but
exclusively by the proof that it can itself create a higher culture. Marxism might a
thousand times take over the existing economy and make it continue to work under
its leadership, but even success in this activity would prove nothing in the face of the
fact that it would not be in a position, by applying its principle itself, to create the
same thing which today it takes over in a finished state.

Of this Marxism has furnished practical proof. Not only that it has nowhere been able
to found and create a culture by itself; actually it has not been able to continue the
existing ones in accordance with its principles, but after a brief time has been forced
to return to the ideas embodied in the personality principle, in the form of
concessions; — even in its own organization it cannot dispense with these principles.
The folkish philosophy is basically distinguished from the Marxist philosophy by the
fact that it not only recognizes the value of race, but with it the importance of the
personality, which it therefore makes one of the pillars of its entire edifice. These are
the factors which sustain its view of life.

If the National Socialist movement did not understand the fundamental importance of
this basic realization, but instead were merely to perform superficial patchwork on
the present-day state, or even adopt the mass standpoint as its own — then it would
really constitute nothing but a party in competition with the Marxists; in that case, it
would not possess the right to call itself a philosophy of life. If the social program of
the movement consisted only in pushing aside the personality and replacing it by the
masses, National Socialism itself would be corroded by the poison of Marxism, as is
the case with our bourgeois parties.

The folkish state must care for the welfare of its citizens by recognizing in all and
everything the importance of the value of personality, thus in all fields preparing the
way for that highest measure of productive performance which grants to the
individual the highest measure of participation.

And accordingly, the folkish state must free all leadership and especially the highest
— that is, the political leadership — entirely from the parliamentary principle of
majority rule — in other words, mass rule — and instead absolutely guarantee the
right of the personality.

From this the following realization results:

The best state constitution and state form is that which, with the most unquestioned
certainty, raises the best minds in the national community to leading position and
leading influence

But as, in economic life, the able men cannot be appointed from above, but must
struggle through for themselves, and just as here the endless schooling, ranging from
the smallest business to the largest enterprise, occurs spontaneously, with life alone
giving the examinations, obviously political minds cannot be 'discovered.'
Extraordinary geniuses permit of no consideration for normal mankind.

From the smallest community cell to the highest leadership of the entire Reich, the
state must have the personality principle anchored in its organization.

There must be no majority decisions, but only responsible persons, and the word '
council' must be restored to its original meaning. Surely every man will have advisers
by his side, but the decision will be made by one man.
The principle which made the Prussian army in its time into the most wonderful
instrument of the German people must some day, in a transferred sense, become the
principle of the construction of our whole state conception: authority of every leader
downward and responsibility upward.

Even then it will not be possible to dispense with those corporations which today we
designate as parliaments. But their councilors will then actually give counsel;
responsibility, however? can and may be borne only by one man, and therefore only
he alone may possess the authority and right to command.

Parliaments as such are necessary, because in them, above all, personalities to which
special responsible tasks can later be entrusted have an opportunity gradually to rise
up.

This gives the following picture:

The folkish state, from the township up to the Reich leadership? has no representative
body which decides anything by the majority, but only advisory bodies which stand
at the side of the elected leader, receiving their share of work from him, and in turn if
necessary assuming unlimited responsibility in certain fields, just as on a larger scale
the leader or chairman of the various corporations himself possesses.

As a matter of principle, the folkish state does not tolerate asking advice or opinions
in special matters — say, of an economic nature — men who, on the basis of their
education and activity, can understand nothing of the subject. It, therefore, divides its
representative bodies from the start into political and professional chambers.

In order to guarantee a profitable cooperation between the two a special senate of the
élite always stands over them.

In no chamber and in no senate does a vote ever take place. They are working
institutions and not voting machines. The individual member has an advisory, but
never a determining voice. The latter is the exclusive privilege of the responsible
chairman.

This principle — absolute responsibility unconditionally combined with absolute will

— will gradually breed an elite of leaders such as today, in this era of irresponsible
parliamentarianism, is utterly inconceivable.

Thus, the political form of the nation will be brought into agreement with that law to
which it owes its greatness in the cultural and economic field.

As regards the possibility of putting these ideas into practice, I beg you not to forget
that the parliamentary principle of democratic majority rule has by no means always
dominated mankind, but on the contrary is to be found only in brief periods. of
history, which are always epochs of the decay of peoples and: states.

But it should not be believed that such a transformation can, be accomplished by

purely theoretical measures from above, since logically it may not even stop at the
state constitution, but must. permeate all other legislation, and indeed all civil life.
Such a. fundamental change can and will only take place through a movement which
is itself constructed in the spirit of these ideas and hence bears the future state within
itself.

Hence the National Socialist movement should today adapt. itself entirely to these
ideas and carry them to practical fruition within its own organization, so that some
day it may not only show the state these same guiding principles, but can also place
the completed body of its own state at its disposal.