Hitler's Official Programme RLE Responding to Fascism

Gottfried Feder

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415580816
• eBook ISBN: 9781136960994
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

In 1927 Hitler asked Gottfried Feder to formulate the official Programme of the German National Socialist Party. This English translation of the fifth German edition was first published in 1934.

IV
THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROGRAMME IN DETAIL

AS FORMULATED BY GOTTFRIED FEDER IN
DER DEUTSCHE STAAT

It will make for clarity, when enlisting new members, to make use of the Programme in the form which follows. The minor clauses are ranged under the more important headings, corresponding to the principles enunciated in the preceding chapter.

THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRAMME OF THE N.S.D.A.P

Our aim is—Germany’s re-birth in the German spirit to German liberty.

The means to this end are:

I. The political axiom: The German Reich is the home of the Germans.

(a) In foreign policy:

1. Formation of a closed national State, embracing all of German race.

2. Energetic representation of German interests abroad.

(b) In racial policy:

3. Dismissal of all Jews and non-Germans from all responsible positions in public life.

4. Prevention of immigration of Eastern Jews and other parasitic foreigners. Undesirable foreigners and Jews may be deported.

(c) In internal policy:

5. None but Germans who profess entire community with the culture and destiny of Germany may exercise the rights of a citizen of the State.

6. He who is not a German may live in the German State only as a guest and subject to the Alien Laws.

7. The rights of Germans shall have the preference over those of citizens of foreign nations.

II. Our economic principle: The duty of the State is to provide the necessaries of life and not to secure the highest possible rate of interest for capital.

8. National Socialism recognizes private property on principle and gives it the protection of the State.

9. The National welfare, however, demands that a limit shall be set to the amassing of wealth in the hands of individuals.

10. All Germans form a working community for the promotion of the general welfare and culture.

11. Within the limits of the obligation of every German to work, and the fundamental recognition of private property, every German is free to earn his living and to dispose of the results of his labour.

12. The healthy combination of all forms of business, small and large, in every domain of economic life, including agriculture, shall be encouraged.

13. All existing businesses which until now have been in the form of companies shall be nationalized.

14. Usury and profiteering and personal enrichment at the expense of and to the injury of the nation shall be punished with death.

15. Introduction of a year’s obligation to work (for the State), incumbent on every German.

III. Our financial principle: Finance shall exist for the benefit of the State; the financial magnates shall not form a State within the State. Hence our aim to abolish the thraldom of interest.

16. Relief of the State, and hence of the nation, from its indebtedness to the great financial houses which lend money on interest.

17. Nationalization of the Reichsbank and the issuing houses.

18. Provision of money for all great public objects (water-power, communications, etc.), not by means of loans, but by granting non-interest bearing State bonds or without using ready money.

19. Introduction of a fixed standard of currency on a secured basis.

20. Creation of a communal building and agricultural bank (currency reform) for granting non-interest bearing loans.

21. Fundamental remodelling of the system of taxation on social-economic principles. Relief of the consumer from the burden of indirect taxation, and of the producer from crippling taxation (fiscal reform and relief from taxation).

IV. Our social-political principle: The general welfare is the supreme law.

22. Development on a large scale of Old Age Insurance by nationalizing the system of annuities. Every necessitous member of the German State shall be assured of an adequate income on attaining a certain age, or, if permanently disabled, before that age.

23. Participation by all engaged in productive or value-creating enterprises in the revenues of the enterprise, all being jointly responsible for the fulfilment of the national economic obligations of the enterprise.

24. Seizure of all profits made out of the War and the Revolution not due to honest work, and of the fortunes of usurers and money-grabbers, and their application to the extension of social services.

25. Relief of the housing shortage by extensive fresh construction of dwelling-houses throughout the Reich by the means suggested in No. 20 (a new national building and agricultural bank).

V. Cultural policy: Our highest cultural aim is that all the sciences and fine arts shall flourish on the basis of a politically free, economically healthy State. The means of achieving this will be:

26. Training the young to become physically sound and intellectually free human beings, in accordance with the great traditions of German culture.

27. Complete liberty of creed and conscience.

28. Special protection for the Christian denominations.

29. Suppression and discouragement of dogmas which are opposed to the German moral sense and whose content is injurious to the State and the nation.

30. Suppression of all evil influences in the Press, in literature, on the stage, in the arts, and in the picture theatres.

31. Liberty of instruction in the German secondary schools; and the formation of a leading class of men of high character.

VI. Military affairs:

32. To make the nation efficient in defence by granting every free German the right to bear arms.

33. Abolition of mercenary troops.

34. Creation of a national Army for home defence under the command of a strictly disciplined corps of professional officers.

VII. Other reforms:

35. Press reform. Suppression of all printed matter which offends the dignity of the German people, Strict responsibility for all untruthful and intentionally distorted news.

36. Modification of the franchise so as to eliminate the demoralizing methods of electoral contests, and the irresponsibility (immunity) of those elected.

37. Formation of special Chambers for trades and professions.

38. Judicial reform as regards:

the Land Laws—(recognition on principle of the rights of property in land; the owner may not borrow from private sources on the security of the land; the State to have the right of pre-emption, especially in the case of foreigners and Jews; the State to be empowered to administer estates in the event of bad management on the part of the owner). Civil Law—(greatly increased protection for personal honour and health, as opposed to the one-sided legal protection of the rights of property, which predominates at the present day).

39. Constitutional Reform.

The form of State most suited to the German character is sovereign control concentrated in a supreme head. Whether this central power shall be wielded by an elected monarch or a president must be left to the decision of the nation.

Federal character of the Reick

The constitution of the German nation, consisting as it does of a number of countries closely bound together by race and history, makes it necessary that each of the States shall enjoy the most comprehensive independence in internal affairs.

It is the function of the Reich to represent the German nation abroad, and to provide for passports and customs, also for the Army and Navy.

There are three main obstacles to carrying out this national Programme of National Socialism: Marxism, the Parliamentary system, and finance, which is superior to both.

1. Our anti-Marxist campaign is directed against the disruptive doctrine of the Jew, Karl Marx— against the doctrine of the class-war which splits up the nation—against the doctrine of the abolition of private property, which makes business impossible, and against the purely economic and materialistic view of history.

2. Our campaign against Parliament is directed against the irresponsibility of the so-called representatives of the people, who—enjoying immunity— can never be actually called to account for the results of their decisions; also against all the evils which arise out of the system (moral corruption, nepotism, venality), and the worst consequence of all—a Government which is dependent on such a Parliament.

3. Our campaign against Mammon, which ranks above the other two, is directed against the world-embracing power of finance, i.e. the perpetual exploitation of our nation by the great lending houses.

It is also a tremendous struggle against the soul-killing, materialistic spirit of greed and rapacity, with all its disruptive accompaniments, in all sections of our public, commercial, and cultural life.

The main battle is one between two world-philosophies, represented by two essentially different intellectual structures—the active and creative spirit and the labile, acquisitive spirit. The creative spirit, rooted to earth, yet overcoming the world in super-sensual experience, finds its chief representative in the Aryan man; the acquisitive, rootless, commercial, materialistic spirit, aiming solely at worldly success, finds its chief representatives among the Jews.

National Socialism, like Antisemitism, regards the materialistic Jewish spirit as the chief cause of evil; it knows, however, that this greatest struggle in history must not stop short at merely negative Antisemitic demands; which is why the whole political and economic programme of National Socialism goes far beyond the theoretical or negative Antisemitic campaign, for it offers a creative and constructive picture, showing how the National Socialist State of labour and achievement must appear when completed.

Once this high aim is achieved the National Socialist Party will dissolve automatically; for National Socialism will then have become the way of life of the whole German nation. The N.S.D.A.P. is above all not a Parliamentary Party in the ordinary sense of the word, but is that section of the nation which is confident and sure of the future, which has gathered round strong and determined leaders to deliver Germany from shame and impotence abroad and from demoralization at home_, and to make her once again strong and respected abroad, and morally and economically healthy at home.

The German Reich is the home of the Germans

Every word of this constitutional axiom is like the cut of a whip, when we consider the miserable state of things today.

The “German Reich”—where is there a German Reich today? Can the colony of Germany lay claim to the honourable name of a self-governing State? No! Not even the most complacent pundits of constitutional law could describe a country such as Germany is now as one in full enjoyment of its rights of sovereignty.

The five most important sovereign rights of a State are: sovereignty over its territory, over its army, over its finances, over its internal administration and communications, and lastly over its justice.

It is enough to put the matter thus to any layman, without further explanation of a nation’s rights under International Law, and compare it with Germany’s position today, and it becomes clear that it is impossible to maintain that a sovereign “German Reich” any longer exists.

Our territorial sovereignty is a mockery, for whenever France chooses she can occupy German soil without asking leave and without suffering opposition. Czechs, Poles, Danes can venture on any inroad into German territory without let or hindrance. The “accursed old régime” put a very different interpretation on the slightest infringement of frontiers. A military inroad into German territory then implied a “state of war.”

To protect its territorial sovereignty a nation needs an armed force capable of repelling any inroad upon the territory of the State, and therefore on the lives and happiness of its nationals. A free State cannot permit a foreign Power to scrutinize its actions, or to have the right of deciding the strength, equipment, armaments, and garrisons of its Army; if it does it certainly is not “sovereign”; it cannot command its means of power; it has given up control of its military forces. Germany has done this by giving in to the enemy Commissions for Disarmament and Control.

Germany had already suffered this humiliation by accepting the Armistice conditions, and had lost her sovereign international rights.

Nevertheless, she might have retained some part of her internal sovereignty; but as soon as the military control was destroyed the financial magnates seized the opportunity for the limitless exploitation of German labour.

First of all the muddy torrent of Revolution burst forth over Germany; then th...

Table of contents

• PUBLISHER’S NOTE
• PREFACE
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• I OFFICIAL PARTY MANIFESTO
• II THE 25 POINTS
• III THE BASIC IDEAS
• IV THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROGRAMME IN DETAIL
• V WHAT WE DO NOT DESIRE
• VI CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX THE N.S.D.A.P. AND PROPERTY IN AGRICULTURAL LAND
• THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROGRAMME IN DETAIL