Now was the time to deal with them summarily without the slightest consideration for any screams and complaints that might arise. In August, 1914, the whole Jewish jabber about international solidarity had vanished at one stroke from the heads of the German working class, and in its stead, only a few weeks later, American shrapnel began to pour down the blessings of brotherhood on the helmets of our march columns. It would have been the duty of a serious government, now that the German worker had found his way back to his nation, to exterminate mercilessly the agitators who were misleading the nation. If the best men were dying at the front, the least we could do was to wipe out the vermin.

Instead of this, His Majesty the Raiser himself stretched out his hand to the old criminals, thus sparing the treacherous murderers of the nation and giving them a chance to retrieve themselves.

So nova the viper could continue his work, more cautiously than before, but all the more dangerously. While the honest ones were dreaming of peace within their borders,l the perjuring criminals were organizing the revolution.

That such terrible half­measures should then be decided upon made me more and more dissatisfied at heart; but at that time I would not have thought it possible that the end of it all would be so frightful.

What, then, should have been done? The leaders of the whole movement should at once have been put behind bars, brought to trial, and thus taken off the nation’s neck. All the implements of military power should have been ruthlessly used for the extermination of this pestilence. The parties should have been dissolved, the Reichstag brought to its senses, with bayonets if necessary, but, best of all, dissolved at once. Just as the Republic today can dissolve parties, this method should have been used at that time, with more reason. For the life and death of a whole nation was at stake!

One question came to the fore, however: can spiritual ideas be exterminated by the sword? Can ‘philosophies’ be combated by the use of brute force?

Even at that time I pondered this question more than once: If we ponder analogous cases, particularly on a religious basis, which can be found in history, the following fundamental principle emerges:

Conceptions and ideas, as well as movements with a definite spiritual foundation, regardless whether the latter is false or true, can, after a certain point in their development, only be broken with technical instruments of power if these physical weapons are at the same time the support of a new kindling thought, idea, or philosophy.

The application of force alone, without the impetus of a basic spiritual idea as a starting point, can never lead to the destruction of an idea and its dissemination, except in the form of a complete extermination of even the very last exponent of the idea and the destruction of the last tradition. This, however, usually means the disappearance of such a state from the sphere of political importance, often for an indefinite time and some­times forever; for experience shows that such a blood sacrifice strikes the best part of the people, since every persecution which occurs without a spiritual basis seems morally unjustified and whips up precisely the more valuable parts of a people in protest, which results in an adoption of the spiritual content of the unjustly persecuted movement. In many this occurs simply through a feeling of opposition against the attempt to bludgeon down an idea by brute force.

As a result, the number of inward supporters grows in proportion as the persecution increases. Consequently, the complete annihilation of the new doctrine can be carried out only through a process of extermination so great and constantly increasing that in the end all the truly valuable blood is drawn out of the people or state in question. The consequence is that, though a so­called ‘inner’ purge can now take place, it will only be at the cost of total impotence. Such a method will always prove vain in advance if the doctrine to be combated has overstepped a certain small circle.

Consequently, here, too, as in all growth, the first period of childhood is most readily susceptible to the possibility of extermination, while with the mounting years the power of resistance increases and only with the weakness of approaching old age cedes again to new youth, though in another form and for different reasons.

Indeed, nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine and its organizational expression, by force without spiritual foundation, are doomed to failure, and not seldom end with the exact opposite of the desired result for the following reason:

The very first requirement for a mode of struggle with the weapons of naked force is and remains persistence. In other words: only the continuous and steady application of the methods for repressing a doctrine, etc., makes it possible for a plan to succeed. But as soon as force wavers and alternates with forbearance, not only will the doctrine to be repressed recover again and again, but it will also be in a position to draw new benefit from every persecution, since, after such a wave of pressure has ebbed away, indignation over the suffering induced leads new supporters to the old doctrine, while the old ones will cling to it with greater defiance and deeper hatred than before, and even schismatic heretics, once the danger has subsided, will attempt to return to their old viewpoint. Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook. It emanates from the momentary energy and brutal determination of an individual, and is therefore subject to the change of personalities and to their nature and strength.

Added to this there is something else:

Any philosophy, whether of a religious or political nature­ and sometimes the dividing line is hard to determine­fights less for the negative destruction of the opposing ideology than for the positive promotion of its own. Hence its struggle is less defensive than offensive. It therefore has the advantage even in determining the goal, since this goal represents the victory of its own idea, while, conversely, it is hard to determine when the negative aim of the destruction of a hostile doctrine may be regarded as achieved and assured. For this reason alone, the philosophy’s offensive will be more systematic and also more powerful than the defensive against a philosophy, since here, too, as always, the attack and not the defense makes the decision. The fight against a spiritual power with methods of violence remains defensive, however, until the sword becomes the support, the herald and disseminator, of a new spiritual doctrine.

Thus, in summing up, we can establish the following:

Any attempt to combat a philosophy with methods of violence will fail in the end, unless the fight takes the form of attack for a new spiritual attitude. Only in the struggle between two philosophies can the weapon of brutal force, persistently and ruthlessly applied lead to a decision for the side it supports.

This remained the reason for the failure of the struggle against Marxism.

This was why Bismarck’s Socialist legislation finally failed and had to fail, in spite of everything. Lacking was the platform of a new philosophy for whose rise the fight could have been waged. For only the proverbial wisdom of high government officials will succeed in believing that drivel about so­called ‘state authority’ or ‘law and order’ could form a suitable basis for the spiritual impetus of a life­and­death struggle.

Since a real spiritual basis for this struggle was lacking, Bismarck had to entrust the execution of his Socialist legislation to the judgment and desires of that institution which itself was a product of Marxist thinking. By entrusting the fate of his war on the Marxists to the well­wishing of bourgeois democracy, the Iron Chancellor set the wolf to mind the sheep.

All this was only the necessary consequence of the absence of a basic new anti­Marxist philosophy endowed with a stormy will to conquer.

Hence the sole result of Bismarck’s struggle was a grave disillusionment.

Were conditions different during the World War or at its beginning? Unfortunately not.

The more I occupied myself with the idea of a necessary change in the government’s attitude toward Social Democracy as the momentary embodiment of Marxism, the more I recognized the lack of a serviceable substitute for this doctrine. What would be given the masses if, just supposing, Social Democracy had been broken? There was not one movement in existence which could have been expected to succeed in drawing into its sphere of influence the great multitudes of workers grown more or less leaderless. It is senseless and more than stupid to believe that the international fanatic who had left the class party would now at once join a bourgeois party, in other words, a new class organization. For, unpleasant as it may seem to various organizations, it cannot be denied that bourgeois politicians largely take class division quite for granted as long as it does not begin to work out to their political disadvantage.

The denial of this fact only proves the effrontery, and also the stupidity, of the liars.

Altogether, care should be taken not to regard the masses as stupider than they are. In political matters feeling often decides more correctly than reason. The opinion that the stupid international attitude of the masses is sufficient proof of the unsoundness of the masses’ sentiments can be thoroughly confuted by the simple reminder that pacifist democracy is no less insane, and that its exponents originate almost exclusively in the bourgeois camp. As long as millions of the bourgeoisie still piously worship their Jewish democratic press every morning, it very ill becomes these gentlemen to make jokes about the stupidity of the ‘comrade’ who, in the last analysis, only swallows down the same garbage, though in a different form. In both cases the manufacturer is one and the same Jew.

Good care should be taken not to deny things that just happen to be true. The fact that the class question is by no means exclusively a matter of ideal problems, as, particularly before the elections, some people would like to pretend, cannot be denied. The class arrogance of a large part of our people, and to an even greater extent, the underestimation of the manual worker, are phenomena which do not exist only in the imagination of the moonstruck.

Quite aside from this, however, it shows the small capacity for thought of our so­called ‘intelligentsia’ when, particularly in these circles, it is not understood that a state of affairs which could not prevent the growth of a plague, such as Marxism happens to be, will certainly not be able to recover what has been lost. The ‘bourgeois’ parties, as they designate themselves, will never be able to attach the ‘proletarian’ masses to their camp, for here two worlds oppose each other, in part naturally and in part artificially divided, whose mutual relation 1 can only be struggle. The younger will be victorious­and this is Marxism.

Indeed, a struggle against Social Democracy in the year 1914 was conceivable, but how long this condition would be maintained, in view of the absence of any substitute, remained doubtful.

Here there was a great gap.

I was of this opinion long before the War, and for this reason could not make up my mind to join one of the existing parties. In the course of events of the World War, I was reinforced in this opinion by the obvious impossibility of taking up a ruthless struggle against Social Democracy, owing to this very lack of a movement which would have had to be more than a

‘parliamentary’ party.

With my closer comrades I often expressed myself openly on this point.

And now the first ideas came to me of later engaging in political activity.

Precisely this was what caused me often to assure the small circle of my friends that after the War, I meant to be a speaker in addition to my profession.

I believe that I was very serious about this.