The Road to the Folk Economy and the European Greater Economy by Dr. Rath

Dr. Goebbels donation for the German armed forces

Werner Daitz

The Path to a Folk Economy, a Greater European Economy and a Just World Order

Part One The road to a national economy

Meinhold Vertragsgesellschaft Dresden

Preliminary remark of the editor

Certain repetitions, which the reader will come across in reading the individual essays and which would not be intentionally eradicated, are due to the fact that the author felt compelled to repeatedly present the fundamentals of a habitat theory in each of these individual wo rks, which arose from the various occasions, and which he endeavored to substantiate scientifically for the first time. The apparent disadvantage of the repetitions in the individual essays, however, has the advantage that each individual article represent s a self-contained whole and can therefore be used for educational purposes. This was a very decisive reason for publishing the essays in the present form.

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

The collection of the essays and speeches of Werner Daitz united in this work has a double purpose. First of all, it is a collection of documents by which it is to be shown that the fundamental law of the doctrine, according to which the German people was again correctly oriented in terms of the law of life , was also realized and also mentally shaped in the economic sphere by active fighters of the NSDAP, and not by the economic theorists or "experts" and specialists of the earlier economic and financial policy who "joined" later. These essays and speeches p rovide evidence that not only in agriculture, but also in trade, transport and finance, as well as in foreign trade, the decisive formulations for the realization of the reorganization of the German economy as a whole were created, propagated and also intellectually enforced by the party in the struggle against the "specialists and experts". The basic law of folkish life proclaimed by Adolf Hitler, which is the basic law of the National Socialist revolution, reads:

Freedom through self -defense. Help yourself and God will help you.

Thus, the economy of a people will only be managed properly and the highest possible yield of life for the individual and the people will only be secured if its existence is founded first and foremost on its own land and its own labor force. The struggle for the recovery of the natural freedom of food and raw materials and the ordering of the entire German economy according to this point of view are the realization of this basic law of völkisch life in the economic sphere, a s Werner Daitz has made fundamentally clear from the very beginning. But this collection of speeches and essays on völkische Wirtschaft and European 4

Großraumwirtschaft also serves another purpose. It is intended to show how, once again only through the NSDAP and its active champions, the forces of German foreign trade are no longer scattered all over the world, as was the case in the liberalist period of decay, but how German foreign trade is also being used - consciously for the first time - as an instrument for the strengthening and reorganization of Europe, so that Europe, too, can once again borrow in the first place from the economic possibilities of its own area and the own strength of its peoples. For the sake of historical truth and the preservati on of the purity of the idea, it is necessary to document this act of National Socialism as well.

Foreword to the second edition

The first edition of this book, published at the beginning of 1938, should show by documents how the ideology of a blockade -proof economy was consistently developed and emphasized by Werner Daitz since 1916 in the struggle against almost all previous economic views and since 1930 within the framework of the Reich leadership of the party. It has always been accompanied and supple mented by his idea of a European large -scale economy, a blockade -proof economy of the European family of nations. For this reason, as early as 1934, he proposed in a memorandum to found a "Society for a Greater European Economy" in order to provide the economic science of all European countries with a new ideological basis through its publications. This proposal was therefore made by him as early as 1934 in a pamphlet in order to give the economic science of all European countries a new ideological basis th rough its publications and to prove to the practical economy the higher commercial necessity of this European cooperation. This idea, too, was often opposed as "not real" and, as a result, could only be realized when, with the outbreak of the war in 1939, the indisputable necessity of European economic cooperation became clear even to the hitherto most incredulous "experts". The reorientation of the German economy to blockade resistance, which Senator Emil Possehl of Lübeck, General Keim and Werner Daitz had called for as early as 1912 and which had been rejected at the time, but which was then realized in the Reich's nutrition policy and in the Four-Year Plan after the assumption of power, was now put to the test. The war proved Weiner Daitz's thesis to be correct: no freedom of defense without economic freedom. The war, which was not only 5

waged against Germany but against the whole of Europe, forced to make Europe blockade-proof as well, i.e. the large -scale economy tirelessly demanded by the author was now recognized not only as the economic future of the European peoples in general, but also as an unavoidable necessity of war. Since, however, no instrument was available throughout Europe to ideologically substantiate the idea of economic cooperation by means of the necessary research work, the foundation of a "Gesellschaft für europäische Großraumwirtschaft" (Society for European Large -Scale Economy) intended by Werner Daitz in 1934 was now realized by his own efforts in the form of a registered association. It found the greatest understanding with the Reich authorities, which was expresse d in the fact that state secretaries and leading personalities joined the Führerring of the newly founded society, whose presidency was taken over by the founder himself. In the first part of the present work, the author presents the völkische economy as the living space economy of the people, and in the second part, the large-scale economy as the living space economy of the family of nations. In the newly added third part, he now proceeds to explore the totality of the laws of the living spaces of the peop le and the family of peoples and thus to show for the first time the laws of a natural large scale policy as a policy of living space in the sense of a new science, the Lebensraumlehre.

Dresden, January 1943 Central Research Institute for National Economic Ordination and Large -Scale Economy Dresden

Werner Daitz

Born in Lübeck on October 15, 1884, as the son of the merchant Helmuth Daitz, Werner Daitz grew up in an environment that had preserved and continues to preserve its characteristic Hanseatic outlook on life despite the increasingly widespread Jewish materialistic thinking in German cultural, intellectual and economic life. When he earned his diploma as an engineer-chemist in 1907 and in the following years, especially during the war years, as the plant manager of important chemical plants, he made new inventions, among them inventions that were important in terms of war technology and war economy, Werner Dai tz emphasized even then that economy and technology were not things in themsel ves, not means to make money exclusively, as was emphasized by the economic science of the time and the economically leading classes. For him, technology and the economy of a people were not ends in themselves, but tools and means of struggle for its self -assertion from its own strength and its own space in the struggle for life and in peaceful competition with other peoples. " The circumstances of the war proved the correctness of this realization and this thinking. The world war, which demanded the total use of all vital forces of the peoples involved in the war - thus also of the economic forces of each nation as one of its most important means of struggle atomized all the abstract theories, teachings and recipes of doctrinaire, liberal economists. Thei r monetary thinking had caused the German economy to adjust to the world economy, i.e. free trade and international division of labor, as well as to buy the foodstuffs and raw materials most vital for the preservation of the people wherever they could be o btained most cheaply, without regard to the security of supply. The way to these vital foodstuffs and raw materials was thus subject to any enemy cut -off. When, during the World War, the enemy powers consequently cut off these routes, it became apparent th at Germany had lost its economic independence and freedom as a result of the undesirable development of its economy, for which it was responsible. Economic freedom, however, is the prerequisite for military freedom and freedom of action in foreign policy. The loss of the world war and the effects of the Versailles Dictate probably showed even the most casual German that the pre -war striving for the "cheapest purchase price" was in reality a path to the "most expensive price. For the lost economic freedom, i .e. the lack of food and raw materials during the war years, was the main cause for the

unfortunate outcome of the war, along with the instinctive insecurity and the disunity in the intellectual leadership and attitude of the German people, caused by ideologies alien to the people. Based on his experiences during the first two years of the w ar, Werner Daitz wrote the essay "On the Restructuring of the National and World Economy" as early as February 1916, which was a passionate rejection of the prevailing liberalist economic doctrines, and in which it was predicted that the world war would me an the birth pangs of two world -transforming ideas from which a new world order would arise: a religious idea (the breakthrough of the völkisch idea in all spheres of life) and an economic idea (the völkisch reorganization of the internal and external econ omy of the peoples as a means of their self -assertion and self -determination according to the principle: "freedom through self -defense). This essay precedes the selection of articles and speeches as an introduction. At the beginning of 1931, Werner Dai tz was appointed Reich Commissioner of the newly founded Economic Policy Department of the Reich Leadership of the NSDAP, for the ten districts of northern and western Germany, and in the same year was appointed by the Führer to the Reich Economic Council of t he Reich Leadership of the NSDAP, which he had created and which consisted of only a few people. In the "National Socialist Economic Service", one of the first National Socialist economic correspondences, which Werner Dai tz published in Hamburg from the beginning of 1931, he created, in addition to his other numerous publications in the "Völkischer Beobachter" and other party newspapers, a platform from which he presented the view of a national, i.e. life oriented German economic management and communicated it to ever wider circles. After the seizure of power in 1933, in addition to his appointment to the Reichstag, he was given the representation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck in the Reich Council until its dissolution, as well as a special assignment in the Foreign Policy Office of the Reich Leadership of the NSDAP, founded by Reich Leader Alfred Rosenberg in February 1933. In consistent pursuit of the National Socialist economic ideas, Werner Dai tz now sewed himself for their practical realizatio n. Through numerous speeches, lectures and performances, he sought to clarify the reorganization of the German economy with the goal of gaining freedom from food and raw materials. Likewise, Werner Daitz also developed "limits and essence of the productive credit creation"1) theoretically in all 1 Part II, chap. IV, p. 6 9.

details already in the years before the assumption of power. He showed irrefutably how the production of a people, which is oriented in a life saving and life-strategically correct way, can be financed at any time by its own strength without any danger, and how further the necessary money and credit resources can be created at any time by its own strength also for the organic growth of the production. In this realization, and that only labor creates capital and only through life -strategic, i.e. food-oriented, increased production can an increase in life support be achieved, Werner Daitz also advocated the natural re -expansion of the inner-German credit volume, which had melted down due to inflation and deflation, with a corresponding reduction in interest rates. He was groundbreaking in his implementation of the first voluntary interest rate cut by the Public Credit Institutions in June 1933 1). In the field of foreign trade, he clearly developed and justified the main features of a new trade policy as early as 1932. Based on the realization that, in the final analysis, imports can only be paid for by exports, Werner Daitz called for the conclusion of bilateral and possibly tripartite tra de agreements with elastic quotas and the conclusion of related offsetting agreements as the basis of future German trade policy. Here, the idea of foreign trade, reoriented according to the natural principles of the exchange of goods, was opposed to the " world trade" that had gone out of joint. Werner Daitz also tested the first practical application of this new trade agreement idea in the trade agreement 2) concluded with his participation in Hungary, the first to be based on National Socialist principles. He was thus involved in the practical orientation of German trade policy toward Southeastern Europe, and thus in the first concretization of the Führer's continental European policy toward the East in the economic sphere. As a result, German trade policy is now being used not only to strengthen and supplement the German domestic economy and the German standard of living, but also to strengthen European domestic trade and thus to mobilize all the economic forces hitherto unused in Europe by redirecting Germ an trade, in part, away from overseas to these European areas. His slogan, proclaimed again and again, is: "Europe for the Europeans! European needs must first be met in Europe!" He thus transferred the idea of natural German self sufficiency and the self -determination based on it also to the European continent, in order to give it again the possibility to lead a natural life from its own space and the own strength of its peoples besid e and with the other continents.

1 Part II, chap. IV, page 89.

2 Part II, chap. II, page 41.

The essays and speeches of Werner Daitz are a single call to reorganize continental Europe according to the eternal life essence of its peoples and the essence of its space. They are a single reminder to renounce the artificial state, economic, cultural and social theories constructed from the intellect in the last centuries, which continental Europe had developed to justify its unnatural life led in this period. An unnatural life, which consisted in the fact that continental Europe did not live from its natural spatial wholeness, from Gibraltar to the Ural and from the North Cape to the island of Cyprus, in the first place, but more and more from foreign spaces, from the two Americas discovered since the year 1500, from the two India’s, from Australia and Africa; that Europe has lived not from the strength of its own peoples, oriented according to their different laws of life, but from the strength of foreign peoples in the newly discovered parts of the world, from whom, by virtue of its sword power, it took more than it gave them. Today, when the continents discovered by Europe have declared their political and economic independence and have set their will of self assertion against that of Europe, they are forcing continental Europe, too, to acknowledge again the supreme principle of all life: to live from its own space and the own strength of its peoples and to bring its will of self-assertion into harmony with that of the other continents. Not, as before, by force and conquest, but by a just exchange of services. The economic forms emerging in Germany today, just as the productivity almost doubled towards 1932, are only the consequence of a new völkisch orientation, precisely of the soldierly attitude in the economy demanded by the Führer, and not the product of any new theories or theoretical considerations. Adolf Hitler, as well as his real followers, who were bound to him by the power of the idea, knew that an uncompromising reorientation of the economy solely according to the Germ an life- and growth-essentiality had to entail, with natural consistency, a maximum of performance, of feudal power and development as well as of technical perfection of performance. However, this success, which is conditioned by life, cannot be calculated in advance with calculations of forces. One must believe in it! The collection of these essays has fulfilled its purpose, if it makes the basic idea of all fiefdom clear to the reader, that, as Werner Daitz formulates it: "only such forms of life are in t he long run life-stable and worthy of fiefdom, which in the first place are able to live out of their own strength and their own space". The rebirth of the European peoples can also take place only from the renewal of the faith of each people in its inhere nt life and growth essence, and the renewal and reorganization of Europe only through the renewed commitment to 10

the wholeness of its space and a neighborly cooperation of its peoples on the unalterable basis of mutual respect for their national sovereig nty. In these essays it was shown early on that the rebirth of Germany through National Socialism, the rebirth of Italy through Fascism and the rebirth of Turkey through Kemalism are not isolated political phenomena, but only the beginning of a life -law reorientation of the European peoples, and how this in turn is indissolubly connected with the restoration of the wholeness of the European area and the European family of peoples. It has thus been shown that the German rebirth and the much -maligned policy towards the East does not spring from human caprice, but is only the German fulfillment of a demand of destiny which today stands enormous and inescapable before all European peoples. Only those who will fulfill it by their own efforts will survive.

Berlin, February 1938

Dr. Alfred Mischke

Adolf Hitler at the Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg September 1938

". . . Overall, the German economy is being built up in such a way that it can stand on its own feet at any time, even completely independently of other countries. And this has been achieved. The thought of a blockade of Germany can already be buried as a completely ineffective weapon. The National Socialist state, with its characteristic energy, has drawn the consequence from the experience of the World War. And as before, we shall adhere to the principle that we would rather limit ourselves in one area or another, if necessary, than place ourselves in a position of dependence on foreign countries. Above all, at the head of our econo mic activity will always come the decision: The security of the nation comes before everything else. Its economic existence must therefore be ensured to the fullest extent materially on our basis of life and our own living space. For only then will the German Wehrmacht also be in a position at all times to take the freedom and interests of the Reich under its strong protection .... ”

Introduction

On the restructuring of the national and world economy

Essay by Werner Daitz in the Frank furt semimonthly "Das freie Wort". Volume 16 No. 15/16 November 1916

The present "world war means a revolution of the world history incomparably greater than that of the Napoleonic wars a hundred years ago, when the Corsican emperor became the bearer of the will of destiny and through the mouth of his cannons proclaimed the idea of the French revolution all over Europe. Napoleon not only violently shattered the surviving state absolutism of the European cultural nations, but at the same time also the a bsolutist economic constitution, the "mercantile system", the "Colbertism", which constricted the living economic organism of the peoples like a pauzer and had to be blown up. In the course of the nineteenth century, however, the economic liberalism inaugurated by the French Revolution and Napoleon turned into the most extreme individualism. The state -closed national economy was increasingly dissolved in favor of an international world economy. The process of national division of labor, which had hitherto d ivided the work of the national economy, was more and more extended to the principle of the world economy, and the national division of labor was striven to become the international one. Thus the national basis of the national economy was unhinged and the state as an economic unit was deprived of its basis. Capital became international and formed that international capitalism which was necessarily followed like its shadow by international socialism. This ideological world economic ideal, which sprang from t he overvoltage of economic liberalism, has become one of the main causes of the world war, if it is not the main one. But also from this world fire the blaze of the eternal -creative strikes; with mightier power than ever. The world holds itself in equilibr ium only through the opposites. The veil of blood and the voices of hatred and anger of the unleashed spirits of the earth still conceal the great thing 13

that wrestles free again from the bosom of the will of the world. Terrible are the birth pangs unde r which the history of mankind writhes to bring a new thing to light. Happy is he who is able to recognize it. He will be comforted. Triumphantly he sees the sun of the Eternal -Creative rising above the human bodies torn apart by bullets and murder machine s. The hour of birth of two world -important ideas has struck; a religious and an economic one. We will speak of the latter in the following. Every idea needs the external power, in order to penetrate itself. Our time is filled with the accumulation of powe r and the organization of the new economic idea: to transform autonomous capital, which has degenerated into an end in itself, into social capital. And that is social capital on a state basis. With tremendous blows the present hammers again into the brains of the peoples that only an economy which cannot be fatally hit by the enemy gives the first precondition, indeed only the possibility of a lasting victory of the weapons. The wave of economic liberalism that swept the world in the last century has left g aping holes in this fundamental principle of the state. In favor of a world free trade idol, capital, created by the labor of the people's community, was granted carte blanche to settle wherever it suited and to work under the flag that just promised it th e highest interest. This freedom of the capital was no more freedom, but state -economically regarded: Anarchy. We see its consequences today. The much -vaunted "world economic interdependence of peoples," the much -vaunted, the most delicious fruit of the economic development of the nineteenth century, has transformed war into the cruelest form that can exist for the whole of the people: economic war. This industrial and economic war has become possible only because each of the great continental peoples has s toked the lifelines of its national economy most defectively. The economies of the states of the Middle Ages and until the middle of the nineteenth century could be seriously threatened only when the enemy broke into the country by force of arms. Today, ho wever, we experience the paradox that Germany and her allies have their armies everywhere far into enemy territory and yet her national economy and existence are in great danger. Only the strongest economic power of modern times, the British Empire, is sti ll best able to keep its widely ramified economic system intact through naval domination. The burdens that England has to bear are great, very great, greater than any of the other nations; but make no mistake - the integrity of its economic system as a who le has been preserved. Its size decreased; the balance of payments today shows a liability of about four billion marks, instead of an asset of the same size in peacetime. These 14

are huge figures. The bloodletting is weakening Britain's economy and wealth. But its capital works, even if much of it flows abroad, and is not forced to celebrate as a result of cut off raw material supplies or export opportunities. The German economy, which is based more than any other on industrial-technical and agricultural -technical production, will suffocate in the end with infallible necessity if the circulation of raw materials and export goods is permanently prevented. The German economy has become a single gigantic large -scale enterprise which must work from and for the world market. It is the world refinery for raw economic goods; the qualitatively most developed industrial country on earth. That is why the new great economic idea, which will be the beginning of a new epoch - born out of the need of the hour - consciously begins to stir in Germany, too. The iron necessity sits at the wheel and forces the economy after that world -wide goal, which is attainable only to its view. In Germany, for the first time, the absurdity of the aimless, arbitrary activity of German capit al on the world market and in the domestic economy has been grasped with all clarity, the immense danger it threatens the general public. The need of the hour has set the stone rolling which, swelling into an avalanche, will transform the world economic structure: the process of transforming private capital into social capital; the conscious subordination of free capital to the national economy has begun. But along with the content, the form is also changing. The new tendency of the economy implies at the s ame time a completely external transformation of the world economy. To the sea, above and below the sea, will be armed in the future more than ever. The "free sea," which seemed to embody in the most perfect way the principle of free trade and the past lib eral economic epoch, today offers the most grateful and productive target for the military attack on the economy of the large industrialized countries and trading states. This world -historical example will not be forgotten. Thus, the militarily and economi cally strongest bloc of Central Europe feels compelled to lay its most important raw material supply and trade routes in such a way that it can always protect them with its land armies. The organization of the Central European economic bloc has begun; it w ill have to extend its rail lines if it wants to reach its goal, from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf. Only in this way will this economic federation no longer be fatally affected economically, granting to each of the states belonging to it a sufficient safeguarding of the supply roads and export routes1). The creation of this Central European economic association is a goal of the will, not a short term, highly remunerative business goal. Therefore, capital will have to 1) Stacking indispensable colonial raw m aterials can facilitate, but not obviate, the achievement of this economic goal.

be forced into this association - by the state, from the point of view of a national economy that is as closed as possible, which is the trump card again today. Make no mistake. The sea trade routes, which have been used until now, are burdened with the lower transportation costs and offer capital by far the greater opportunity to make high profits in short term transactions. And since capital was given unrestricted freedom , today's purely capitalist world economy has emerged from it, which was an end in itself. - The dawning economic epoch will thoroughly clean up this self-purpose of capital and lead it back into the bondage under state economic interests. A new kind of st ate socialism is dawning. Quite different from what each of us had dreamed or thought. Private initiative and private capital will not be paralyzed, but they will be regulated from a state-socialist point of view, in that capital will be concentrated in th e national economy and directed outward with a unified thrust. State and economy are again intimately fused by the world war. For the conduct of the war, the state not only claims almost the entire economic output, but also devours as bonds the major part of the entire working and fixed capital of the national economies. The state has become a bankrupt to an unprecedented extent and is becoming even more so. The creditworthiness of the national economy now depends on the creditworthiness of the state. And t he creditworthiness of the state depends on the state of the national economy. This fusion of interests, in turn, imperatively requires the closed trading state. Only in this economic form is such a community of interests possible. The modern form of the closed trading state is to be brought to the central powers by the Central European Economic Union. - For this reason, too, an economic union of the two great groups of powers, which today are hostile to each other, will become necessary after peace is conc luded, because the financial economy of the two groups of powers cannot be organized in any other way. Just think, Russia today pumps money into France, France borrows against documents from England, England pledges securities in America. Let us not even mention the bonds of Belgium, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, etc., etc., which also contribute to twisting the financial system of the Entente into an ever more inextricable tangle. In any case, however, one thing is certain, that the liquidation of the Entente business will be a rather protracted one, and that the impossibility of payment must and will be compensated for by the granting of economic advantages. Certain financial transactions will also prove necessary between the powers of the new Triple Alliance and its adherents. These, in turn, will require, after the conclusion of peace, operation according to common financial

and economic principles. Thus, the intertwining of the credit and financial relations of the two hostile power groups brought about by the war will prove to be a common gravitational center of these confederations of states even later on, forcing them to form economic alliances. This moment has been given far too little consideration so far. Likewise, in the first period after the war , it will only be possible to pay with war bonds without loss within a closed economic association, each of which includes the states which waged the world war on a joint account. With the phrase of international freedom of trade and capital, that of inter national socialism also collapses. The socialization of the state advances in the same measure as the state becomes a debtor of the national economy and the general public. The longer the war lasts, the greater and more permanent the dependence of the stat e on the national economy, and the more socially conscious it will have to become, because it will have to adapt itself all the more closely to the national economy. This is not the place, and above all it is not yet the time, to show in detail in what way the new state socialism will and must operate within the individual states of the economic associations. Those who know how to interpret the signs of the times will, if they only open their eyes, sense enough of the new spirit, whose work cannot be blurre d again. The same anonymous force that is shaping the external structure of the world economy with the force of destiny is at the same time organizing the internal rebuilding of the national economies by bringing about a new phase in the development of capitalism. This transformation of capitalism naturally necessitates a reconstruction of its previous counterforce, international socialism. It breaks this into national socialisms, whose slogan will be: the work over the phrase. Under this sign stands today also the crisis of German social democracy, which will finally secure for organized labor, the trade unions, the domination of the party dogmas.

I. Chapter

National Socialist Economic Knowledge

The Economic Philosophy and Economic Policy of National Socialism

Article in the fascist newspaper "Gior nals d'Italia" on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Italian fascism. Published in the German version in No. 32 of the "Nationalsozialistischer Wir tschaftsdienst," Hamburg, on Dec. 5, 1932.

If the German Reich is again and again called by foreign countries the "land of poets and thinkers" and again and again the wish is expressed that it may again take its old leading position in these disciplines of human intellectual life for the goo d of the whole world - then one should consequently also greet abroad Adolf Hitler and German National Socialism joyfully as the true renewer of the German soul and thus also of Germany itself. With the vision of a great poet and the all -conquering power of the speech of a great preacher, Adolf Hitler, in superhuman thirteen years of educational work, has snatched the broad masses of the German people from the swamp of international intellectualism, democracy and materialism, and has given them again a worl d outlook connected with the blood of their race and the native soil of their country. This educational work has already seized the whole people in all its strata and parties and reaches far beyond the numerical framework of the National Socialist Party, w hich even in today's "parliamentary" Germany as a political party comprises only one third of the parliament. Adolf Hitler has led the entire German people back to the most serious and deepest self -contemplation and thus to the sources of its true strength and fiefdom. If Germany is to be understood correctly abroad, it must always be borne in mind that it is not only geographically and in 18

terms of transport policy the "country of the middle" in Europe, but also in terms of its intellectual structure. For it is precisely because of this traffic situation and thus as a transit country of European migrations of peoples that it has also been strongly crossed racially. Thus, on the one hand, the German man has gained a great intellectual versatility and agi lity - that which the world finds most attractive in him - but at the same time, as a shadow side, he has acquired a strong instinctive insecurity, that which the world actually fears in him. For the German man, as a result of this spiritual and character inconsistency, is the counterpart, the pendant of his "cousin," the Englishman. The latter, because of his insular seclusion and thus little opportunity for racial intermixing, possesses a far less intellectual versatility, but an incomparably greater inst inctive certainty. In the Englishman the magnetic needle of this instinct points immovably northward and is in no way deflected from its direction by the remodeling of an excessively large intellectual iron casing, as it is in the German. This unswerving instinctive certainty of the Englishman explains the iron consistency, certainty of purpose and reliability of his policy (provided its basic direction is recognized by the outsider) - and the previous instinctive uncertainty of the German in foreign and do mestic policy as well as the unpredictability flowing from it, feared by foreign countries. To compensate for this intellectual versatility and insecurity of instinct, the German always looked for the command, the order, the leader; hence his inclination t o organization and militarism, as the external and necessary corrections and shaping of his inner self, which was not subdued by instinct. This external shaping in political and spiritual relation was given to him earlier by the much admired and feared educational work of the Prussian kings and Bismarck, as well as by the "organization" of German culture, science, technology and economy. It was lost since the beginning of this century under the influence of the internationally minded Jewry, which was gainin g more and more power in politics, economy and culture in Germany, and thus led to the German catastrophe, which, due to Germany's central position, inevitably had to become a European one and, with its ripple effects in the West and East, also touched America and Asia. To compensate for this intellectual versatility and insecurity of instinct, the German always looked for the command, the order, the leader; hence his inclination to organization, and militarism, as the external and necessary corrections and shaping of his inner self, which was not subdued by instinct. This external shaping in political and spiritual relation was given to him earlier by the much

admired and feared educational work of the Prussian kings and Bismarck, as well as by the "org anization" of German culture, science, technology and economy. It was lost since the beginning of this century under the influence of the internationally minded Jewry, which was gaining more and more power in politics, economy and culture in Germany, and t hus led to the German catastrophe, which, due to Germany's central position, inevitably had to become a European one and, with its ripple effects in the West and East, also touched America and Asia. Through and under Adolf Hitler the lost self -disciplining and organization of the German spirit in politics, culture, science and economy now arises anew. If these forms appear to the world again as "military" and as "iron organization", the world must realize that these forms are the necessary forms of life of the German people, without which its recovery is impossible, and which are by no means more dangerous for the environment than those of the English people. This re -disciplining and organization of the German people is the indispensable prerequisite for the re-consolidation of Europe and the entire Western world. From this external difference of the English and German character it is also explained why the German and the English treat one and the same thing so differently. The Englishman acts first and expla ins his action afterwards by a theory which is for the most part not very rich in thought. The German, on the other hand, first establishes the theory with the greatest thoroughness and then tries - often with little luck - to act accordingly. The German j ust goes via the detour of the disciplined intellect, the theory, and receives from this the orders of his action, while the Englishman receives them directly from the consistency of his instinct. A particularly clear example of what has just been said is how today Germany and England pursue the same economic policy. Since free, i.e. unbound, economy in the sense of the liberal -capitalist economic epoch of the last century could only be pursued as long as free, i.e. still unbound, spaces were available, Eng land - acting without reflection immediately drew the consequences from the disappearance of free space by the autarkization of the overseas countries: to unite its world empire into a uniform living, ruling and economic space. What the British Empire mu st give its colonies and dominions in terms of political freedom today, it takes away from them in terms of economic policy by combining them in a unified economic empire in terms of trade and transport policy, and thereby consolidates the overall structur e anew. It surrounds it with a preferential tariff ring, which, however, is at the same time the first

age ring set by the British Empire, which now preferably operates imperialistically only within the borders of its empire. The 40 million island Englishmen have recognized that they cannot rule more than 400 million people of other races with certainty. With this procedure, the development of a uniform living, ruling and economic area, England has thrown the stone into the water, which, now drawing its circles, must inevitably transform also the remaining part of the interstate economic and traffic relations. The previous ideology of a uniform "free" interstate trade and traffic area, the so -called "world economy," is being shattered and dissolved into individual economic areas. In this great process of liquidation and reconstruction of the previous "world economy" we stand today. The Englishman has practically and instinctively already grasped this transformation process, as mentioned, while the New -German, the National Socialist, has probably also intuitively and even earlier than the Englishman grasped this transformation process of the national and world economy, but in his different attitude towards the Englishman he first tries to grasp it only in the theory of the "space -bound economy", in order to act constructively and consequently out of it. The basis for this new German economic area, into which the main part of the vital German foreign trade will be shifted and bound in the future, is the newly to be built Hansa Canal, which connects the Rhine and the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial districts with the Baltic Sea via Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck - as well as a strong fleet in the Baltic Sea, which protects it safely. This new basis for German po licy in the East will extend the cheapest lines of communication from the German maritime cities in three ways: 1. across the Baltic Sea, 2. up the Elbe to Czechoslovakia, and 3. across the Danube to the Black Sea, thereby connecting the greater part of the foreign trade of the newly created belt of countries from Latvia to the Black Sea in transit and in close exchange with and through Germany. Thus, while the German foreign trade and transport interest is preferably directed to the north, east and also pa rtly to the southeast, it is complemented here in the southeast from the Danube area in clear demarcation and cooperation by the new Italian economic, living and dominion area, whose main interest is indeed directed to the Mediterranean and beyond to the s outh and west. The stream flowing through the Strait of Gibraltar from the fascist living space of the Mediterranean to the west will then meet and complement the stream flowing through the gates of the Belts and the Sound from the national-socialist Baltic region on the other side of the Atlantic, so that 21

a unification of the fascist and national -socialist living spaces will occur both in the east and in the west. Into this new living space of its own, the new National Socialist Germany, like Fascist It aly into its own, will now store the part of its economy necessary for the food and economic existence of the German people and secure it there with its army and fleet forces. - Thus, in the Fascist as well as in the National Socialist economic conception, there is a complete identity with what England is already in the process of doing: the formation of a sufficiently large dominion and living space for the Italian, the German and the English people, in which economy, traffic, trade, foreign policy and mil itary policy will again come into congruent agreement and form an organic unity. Each of the three peoples, therefore, uses its space -forming forces again uniformly for the formation of an organic living space appropriate to it and no longer disperses them haphazardly all over the world, as was the case in the past liberal-capitalist period, which consequently led to overlapping interests of the peoples all over the world and thus to constant foreign -political and warlike disturbances, and finally ended in the present general political and economic chaos. With this National Socialist construction of a new German living, ruling and economic space - in parallel and cooperation with the same efforts of fascism and the concentration efforts of the British Empire - a reconstruction of the inner -German economy is also taking place. Here, too, the spatiality of the economy forms the foundation. Whereas the earlier German domestic economy was oriented on the principle of the free market economy, it is now being converted by National Socialist economic doctrine to the satisfaction of needs. This means that it is a National Socialist economic principle that every nation must produce everything it needs for its economic existence on its own soil or within its own territo ry, and that it should enter into international trade and commerce only with additional work and demands. This systematic redistribution of German foreign trade from its hitherto haphazard distribution over the whole world, by concentrating it as far as possible in the new German living space and its conversion to the strengthening of the domestic market, is to be served by the quota system. The German foreign trade quotas are determined first by the needs of the German domestic market, second by the princi ple of fulfilling them as far as possible within the German dominion, and third by the foreign policy interest of preferential trade and traffic with friendly states, such as Italy, the Scandinavian countries, Holland, Finland, Hungary, and so on. 22

The German domestic economy is also a spatial one, because according to National Socialist economic doctrine it is divided into economic areas, each of which is handed over to an economic sector for self administration. This means that each branch of the econom y is to fulfill the economic space allotted to it within the German national economy with its own economic legislation and with its own initiative and freedom. Since National Socialism regards the national economy as an organic, living unit, it demands tha t the good of the individual must take precedence over the good of the whole, that the common good must therefore take precedence over self -interest, and that supply and demand may therefore be effective as regulators of national economic processes only in a manner subdued by the good of the general public, i.e. controlled by national legislation. In the present interstate trade and intercourse, which does not form an organic unity, consisting only of the mechanical equalization of the surpluses of the nati onal economies, the ethic of the merchant prevails. Here self-interest takes precedence over the common good, and supply and demand are rightly the exclusive regulators of interstate trade and intercourse. The National Socialist economic doctrine draws att ention for the first time to this fundamental difference between the ethics of interstate trade and traffic: self -interest before common interest, and the ethics of organically structured national economies: common interest before self-interest, and by thi s clarification ensures that the lower merchant ethics of interstate, mechanical balance does not in future again penetrate into the organic higher ethics, the production ethics of the national economies, and disintegrate them, as was the case under the rule of liberalism and Marxism. The National Socialist theory of money and credit is derived from this view of the national economy as an organic unit. It compares money with the circulation of blood, and credit with the circulation of juices in the human bo dy, and finds very similar regularities with regard to the quantity and speed of circulation of gold and credit in the body of the national economy. Only by observing these organic laws can a currency and economy be established that is as free of fluctuati ons as possible. National Socialist economic doctrine therefore demands state control not only of the monetary and credit system, but also the nationalization of the right to create credit, so that the quantity and velocity of circulation of money and cred it exist in the necessary order of magnitude. This must never be determined by the accidental existence of a larger or smaller supply of money or foreign exchange. Therefore, National Socialism will 23

detach the German currency from the so -called "gold co ver", but without arbitrarily changing the purchasing power of the mark itself upwards or downwards or introducing another currency. Gold and foreign exchange reserves will continue to be accumulated, but only for the purpose of balancing the German balanc e of payments in interstate transactions, never again for the purpose of controlling the circulation of money and credit within Germany. This new organization of money and credit will also bring about the "breaking of the bondage to interest", which consists in controlling the volume of money and credit by means of floating interest rates. In the National Socialist economic order, the interest rate will be reduced to the administrative cost rate or to a very small risk premium, and the necessary control will be effected by the well -known banking measures of controlled narrowing and expansion. Furthermore, National Socialism, out of its organic economic view, will nationalize the inner -German means of transportation, except for short distance traffic an d inland waterways. Of course, ocean shipping will remain completely unaffected by this nationalization, as it is an instrument of interstate traffic, i.e., outside the closed national economy. The production of electricity, gas and water will also be subj ect to state sovereignty in the future. All other production, on the other hand, will be reserved exclusively for private initiative and private enterprise, but, as mentioned above, will be subdivided into estates and grouped together. The same applies to domestic trade, except for the state regulation of the grain trade. Even within the quotas of foreign trade to be set by the Trade Office in the future, German foreign trade will be conducted by private enterprise. Thus National Socialism is carrying out the rebuilding of the German state and the German economy in all its parts on the basis of the principle of organic freedom as developed by its greatest philosopher, Kant, namely freedom inwardly and boundedness outwardly. In its seriality, it thus coincide s with the basic principle of creative life, and thus also, in the main, with the principles of the state and economic structure of fascism.

The Economic Program of National Socialism Radio speech given over the German shortwave transmitter to overseas countries in the night of December 1 to 2, 1 933. - Published as an essay in "Das Echo," among other publications. No. 1. January 1934

The National Socialism and its economic programmatic can be understood at all only if it is understood as a un ique great ideological movement and not as one of the usual political system changes at which the political fate of the peoples is rich. National Socialism as well as fascism and to some extent Kemalism - and what is still to come in other countries - they all have a spiritual root! They are the breakthrough of a great new ideological movement, which pierces the present liberalistic cultural layer, which the faith movements of the sixteenth century, the Reformation period, left behind and spread over the whole earth. This new ideological movement, under the impact of which the doomed liberalist cultural layer is shaking like the earth's crust during an earthquake, leaves no area of human life untouched in any of the peoples seized by it. The political, relig ious, cultural and economic life of every nation is being radically transformed in content and form. - As a living, ardent and bloody movement, National Socialism therefore does not possess a statically rigid economic dogmatism like the liberalist worldvie w. As a creative outflow of the inner logic of things, which breaks the exaggerated and everywhere brittle intellectual surface logic of the hitherto ruling world views - the economic view of National Socialism is also a dynamic one. That is why the Nation al Socialist movement does not have an actual economic program outside the well known twenty-five points. Many commentaries on the part of these twenty-five points concerning the new economic construction have been written, at different times and by differ ent authors. But none can claim dogmatic validity. Commentaries on economic matters are easily written in too rigid and static a manner. National Socialism in particular, which is dynamic by its very nature, rejects the all too engineeringly constructive of economic construction, which seeks to calculate the future with curves and drawings on the drawing board. Such constructions and calculations almost always end up with the confinement of living life in an intellectual

latticework and prison. The futu re, also the economic future of a people, cannot be constructed, but must grow! One can only guide and direct this natural process of growth! Thus, the National Socialism of Adolf Hitler and his sub -leaders - who are all dynamists and not statists - also only wants to guide and direct the new development of the German economy. The new economic forms are not the main thing and not the decisive thing for them, but the economic attitude which is to fulfill them. It goes without saying that the realization of this new economic spirit will also generate new economic forms. But the beginning should not be made with the artificial construction of new forms. That is why the corporative structure, which will be the final form of life and self -government of the German economy, is not being constructed first and artificially, but first of all a new economic attitude is being created through educational institutions, such as the labor service and the labor front. National Socialism, therefore, does not want to rule by ex ternal coercion, but by self-coercion! It is not a dictatorship, but a people's community. In its economic center, therefore, the free farmer, who is primarily responsible for the nutrition and preservation of the life substance of the people, will stand a gain. Consequently, agriculture and public health, which are the prerequisites of any national economy, must again receive special care. As a consequence of this realization, certain enclosures, certain fences, must again be erected around the national eco nomies, and not only around the German economy, to prevent capital, which is nomadic in the world economy, and its rulers, the world -economic nomads, from breaking into the national economies connected with the earth's soil with their herds of capital ever ywhere at will and, after they have grazed them, from moving on. For this reason, National Socialism takes agriculture out of the market economy and links it firmly to the soil again. The efforts for autonomy, which appear in the most different forms and gradations in the whole world today, are in the end only a fight of the native, the arable man against the world -economic nomadism, which has broken the necessary fences and enclosures of the national economies with its liberalistic ideologies of the free trade, world market price, most favored nation clause and the like and has devastated these. While the previous liberalistic economic view thus finally unleashed the struggle of all against all, because it gave the individual unrestricted freedom of economic activity, National Socialism wants to bring this freedom of the

individual, which has degenerated into anarchy and brought about today's chaos, back within its natural limits. It wants to replace the mechanical coexistence and antagonism of the liberal world and economic view by an organic togetherness, a voluntary cooperation in a national community under the leadership of the state. For national economy is not a soulless mechanism, but a living organism. It is only the enlarged human being. The refore, for National Socialism, the basis of the economy is not money, but man. The well-known basic formula of the National Socialist economic structure "common good before self interest" is therefore only the economic mirror image of the National Socialist basic ideas, the national community. Just as a national community can only exist if law rules in it instead of force, so an economic community, a real national economy, can only develop and exist if law rules in it instead of force! For this reason, Nat ional Socialism first of all pacified the social sphere by depriving the businessman of the violent means of lockouts and the worker of the violent means of strikes, and by having the few remaining disputes decided fairly and in the interest of the national community by the so -called trustees of labor. In the same way, the sphere of production and commerce is further pacified, and thus the just exchange of performance and consideration, which alone guarantees the maximum productivity of a national economy, i.e., the general prosperity, is guaranteed by the associations of merchants and producers supervised by the state. The latter are no longer allowed to fight each other in an unrestrained manner by means of prices which are harmful to the national economy, i.e. too high or too low, and by enlarging their plants beyond their needs. - This productive control of the national economy will, however, find its final solution only in the structure of the estates, the natural growth of which, however, still requires many years. In it, the economy will then manage itself with a maximum of freedom and personal initiative, and the state will, apart from the greatest goal -setting and guidance, only see to it that the natural limits of freedom and initiative are not again exceeded to the detriment of the people as a whole. It is in fact a basic principle of the National Socialist economic view that the previous reversal of the natural functions of the state and the economy should be corrected. Until now, the state has been doing business and the economy has been governing, instead of the other way around. Just as in this case, liberalist ideology has literally turned the world upside down in all other areas of human life and has arbitrarily and intellectually torn apart the natural, organic connections. National Socialism wants to put this world, which has been turned upside down, back on its feet again; it wants to bring to bear everywhere the simple, healthy, i.e. nature -loving human understanding. 27

For National Sociali sm is in reality only the philosophy and politics of common sense. By re -establishing everywhere the natural order of things in new forms, it is at the same time the most peaceful form of life imaginable for a people. Just as he sees everywhere within the state and the economy the substitution of force for speech, so he can only logically wish and want in trade and foreign affairs with other peoples that law, instead of arbitrariness, should be the supreme maxim everywhere. He therefore respects the honor, freedom and security of every other people as his own. He does not wish to attack any nation with unjust trade treaties or even with value and commodity dumping - but demands that Germany also not be attacked in this way from another side. For he is deeply convinced that, as in the internal economy, only a just exchange of performance and return guarantees a maximum of general prosperity as well as of freedom and peace, likewise also only a maximum of general world trade, world security and world peace will be achieved if a just exchange of goods, which is not distorted by dumping or other methods of violence, takes hold again between the peoples. When finally the foreign trade principles of National Socialism: "security first" and "fair play", are reintrodu ced. For only the free is peaceful, and peace nourishes, while unpeace consumes.

The renewal of business ethics A revaluation of all values

First lecture at the Lec ture and Discussion Conference, October 4-6, 1934, organized by the NSDAP Foreign Policy Office and National Socialist Legal Preservation League for all German professors and university teachers of economics and business administration. - Full reproduction of the lecture in the Berliner Börsenzeitung, No. 467, October 5, 1934.

With full a wareness, I gave my first lecture the subtitle: Revaluation of All Values. For the essence of National Socialism is profoundly moral renewal in all fields of culture, law, politics, art and economics. Therefore, in the economy, too, a revaluation of all va lues is taking place, which received their character from the now completed liberalistic age. 28

We live in an unheard -of time. The biological substance of the Nordic race, scattered all over the globe, is in our days, "because the time is fulfilled", shaken again by the mutational shudders, the birth pangs of a ideological renewal. In all parts of the world the same basic question is being wrestled with: Replacement of the previous non -biological worldview by a biological one, replacement of an inorganic w orldview by an organic one. Everywhere in politics, art, philosophy, science and technology, thinking is moving from the physical and chemical to the biological. While technology at first exhausted itself in mechanical inventions, improving the plow, it la ter went into the chemical and produced artificial fertilizers, and now goes into the biological, breeding plants, animals and human beings. No country of the white race can escape this crisis. More or less, its future, ideological antIit5 is being reshaped by the events of our day. But the inside of every becoming can only be experienced, but not intellectually comprehended. Thus the growing and becoming of a blade of grass exceeds every possibility of intellectual comprehension and becomes comprehensible and obvious to the observer only when it has grown a piece, i.e. become. In the same way, the whole meaning of Adolf Hitler's National Socialism, which is a creative becoming, born out of the inner visions of nature, which are above all human reason, will be understood only when it has become historical, when its embers have coagulated. The only way to make National Socialism at all comprehensible, with some prospect, to foreigners and to intellectual observers who did not experience it, is therefore the at tempt to present it historically today and the attempt to outline its future forms of mind in state, law, culture, art and economy in anticipation. National Socialism is not a change of political system, as most outside observers have believed up to the pr esent day, but the German form of struggle of an ideological upheaval that will shape the face of the German people for the next thousand years. In great, rather regular periods, as a tree (the world ash tree) in certain intervals gives birth to new branch es from its trunk - the life substance of the Nordic race mutates according to the intellectually incomprehensible inner vision of nature, in ideological renewal. The intellectual crust of education and logic formed in the preceding period is suddenly brok en through in many places by the inner creative logic of things, just as volcanic eruptions from time to time break through the shrinking crust of the earth, which to those living on it seemed unshakable and founded for eternity. In National Socialism the great central eruption took place, which will cover the obsolete intellectual crust with a new glowing and fiery layer, with a new 29

worldview and cultural layer. The central volcano of National Socialism is in full activity today, and with its eruptions it is shaking the doomed educational stratum, so that in the other countries of the White Race, too, secondary volcanoes are opening up, which are inaugurating the renewal of their country. According to the views of intellectuality, these violent outbreaks of the ardent heart of nature are seen by the outsiders as an outbreak of the "barbaric" elemental forces, from which everything is running, saving and fleeing. Democracy and liberalism are just the last signs of tension of the world-view crust condemned to destruction, frozen in over intellectuality, which had now splintered at its own brittleness and had unleashed the fight of all against all. Everywhere in the states as well as in the intercourse of the states among themselves the organic togetherness was torn apart by the intellect and dissolved into a mechanical juxtaposition and finally against each other. The well -ordered cosmos of the medieval world view became the chaos of our days. Only a complete ideological upheaval, which dethrones the exaggerated intellectuality and with it the uncertainty of all things and puts in its place again the simple, healthy, i.e. nature -loving human understanding, will lead to a new creative order and with it to a new satisfaction of all things. But also from our history, the cultural history of the German people, the direction of the National Socialist revolution can already be seen very clearly today. When the sinking Rome, the Nordic racial nucleus, degenerating under the southern sun and through racial mixt ure, could no longer defend itself with the sword in its hand against the Nordic man, who was always pushing on anew, it formed, under the influence of the Near Eastern and Jewish intellectuality, those universalistic doctrines, that dogmatism and scholast icism, in whose nets the naive Nordic spirit and man were caught. His best manhood was thrown into the monasteries or destroyed in the crusades. The honor, freedom and independence of the Germanic principalities, dukedoms and kingdoms were bent under the supremacy of the universalistic papacy with the help of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It is always the case that in a people faltering in its creative powers of growth, the intellect no longer remains a serving tool of man, bent under intuitio n and instinct, as it should be by nature - but makes itself independent. He produces as then according to the laws of his own logic, which has nothing more to do with the inner, natural logic of things, artificial theories and constructions of state, law, art, economy and culture, which no longer promote and secure the creative forces of growth of the people. He no longer sees in each people a God-created unity with its own right to life; to him the peoples are no 30

longer indestructible figures of the s pirit, which may well unite in a voluntary alliance, but which cannot be fused into an indiscriminate mass in the crucible of an intellectually conceived concept of state or culture. Such universalistic-imperialistic doctrines are ultimately forces of division which can inhibit the organic growth of healthy peoples, and even destroy them if they are adopted by them. They detach the concept of freedom from its natural, organic bond to the whole of the people and make freedom and thus the actions of the indiv idual in one or more areas of his life activity independent of the national community. The concept of freedom thus becomes immoral in these areas, because it no longer serves to promote and secure the growth forces of the nation. These universalistic-imperialistic doctrines are thus, so to speak, intellectual acts of aggression, directed against the natural forces of growth and life of hereditarily healthy peoples. Thus the Roman world empire, which had become uncreative through racial mixture, sought to pr otect itself against being overgrown by the hereditarily healthy peoples of northern Europe through the intellectualistic poison of its universalistic teachings, its scholasticism and dogmatism. The eternal drama of the Nordic man, the seduction of the creative Faust by the Mephistophelian intellect takes its beginning here. The Gothic Bible of Ulfilas, the Lower Saxon poetry of Heliand are grandiose but doomed attempts of the Germanic spirit to escape the intellectual nets of Rome. Only when the North of L ower Saxony, in connection with the peoples of the Baltic circle, through the old German city Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, and based on the earlier struggles of Widukind and the colonizing achievement of Henry the Lion - strengthened to a cer tain economic, political and cultural independence - could be successfully made the first push for the liberation of the Nordic spirit from the spiritual fetters of Rome. The Holy Germanic Empire of the German Nation, based on the Baltic Sea and its spirit ual centers Lübeck and Marienburg, gave Luther the foundation on which he could begin the first part of the German Revolution. The Holy Germanic Empire of the German Nation thus rose up spiritually for the first time against the Holy Roman Empire of the Ge rman Nation. But also this grandiose revolt of the Nordic spirit against Rome, of the Nordic peoples of the Baltic circle against the spirit of certain peoples of the Mediterranean circle, stopped halfway. Luther and the German peasant war did not find eac h other. While the German peasant fought a bloody battle against the spiritual poison of Roman law, which uprooted him from his land and his customs, Luther tried to fight for the freedom of the Germanic church against the universalistic Roman idea. What h e succeeded in doing is well known. A 31

German dogmatics in place of the Roman one - a relative liberation of the Germanic church. An unintended but all the greater side effect of the Lutheran Reformation resulted from the complete liberation of the Nordic spirit in the fields of natural science and its practical application, technology. Natural science and technology were radically liberated from the entanglements of scholasticism and dogmatics of pure conceptual science and again elevated to the ran k of genuine natural sciences. Empirical experience was declared to be the only possible basis for the natural sciences and technology, thus reconnecting them with nature and the earth. The religious wars that followed the Reformation and the discovery of America and the sea route to India did the rest to prevent the liberation of the Nordic spirit from medieval scholasticism and dogmatics from extending to the fields of law, political science and economics. These remained until the present day as intellect ualistic conceptual sciences alien to the people. This fundamental difference in the development between natural sciences and technology on the one hand and law, political economy and economics on the other brought about the three hundred years of liberal capitalist epoch and in the last century the uprising of the iron slaves of technology, in front of whose ruins we stand today. State, national economy and law could not keep up with the steep development curve of natural sciences and technology and could not subordinate them to the discipline of the people. For every activity of the individual as well as every field of activity of a national community has to serve one supreme goal: the promotion and safeguarding of the growth and vital forces of its people . The individual and the national community can only fulfill this natural and thus moral supreme obligation if every field of intellectual activity remains subject to the supremacy of instinct and intuition. For only in these two, if one sees things from w ithin, i.e. biologically, is embodied the innermost essence of the growth and life forces of the nation and of the individual. The great movement of our time has thus set itself the world -historical task of completing the second part of the German revoluti on of German renewal by completely liberating the German spirit from a false intellectuality and thus bringing the German struggle for liberation, which has lasted for over a thousand years, to a victorious conclusion. Thus, at the same time, the first han d will be laid on the clearing up of the political, cultural and economic ruins left by the liberalistic epoch in the whole world. In the twenty months of its rule, National Socialism should already have proved that it is not a movement of romantics and th eoreticians, but a movement of empiricists of the greatest and hardest style - a movement which makes everything 32

that has become unnatural and artificial natural and simple again, which renews politics, law, culture, art and economy on the basis of sim ple and common sense, which is always in accordance with the inner logic of things. Therefore, as I said at the beginning of my lecture, the essence of National Socialism is profoundly moral renewal in all fields of life activity of the German people. They are all reconceived biologically, i.e. from within, as the changeable external forms of a national community bound inwardly by the same race, and they are newly shaped. All these forms and expressions of life of a people are therefore not things existing for themselves and in themselves, but always only its outer garment. National Socialism is therefore aware at all times that the National Socialist forms of the state, of law, of culture, of art and of the economy, which grow organically out of the new Ger man national community, are peculiar only to the German people and are suitable only for the German national community, that it is not possible to press into this garment, which is tailored to the German national body, a second people, or to forcefully put the same garment on other peoples. Consequently, the National Socialist worldview and thus its political, cultural and economic objectives are fundamentally anti -imperialist. Here it is clearly shown that precisely the idea of race and the reference to th e nation are the surest guarantee against imperialist desires, in contrast to certain universalistic state and economic doctrines which lay claim to general validity and believe that they can ignore the peoples as indestructible figures of the spirit with intellectual superficiality. To them, the economic or state form artificially constructed or devised on the drawing board or in a book is regarded as the primary, but the living people as the secondary, which one can stamp into these world -granting forms f or one's own good. And which, since they are independent of the living substance of the people, one considers possible to extend to a second or third people without damage to their life and growth forces. That is why National Socialism is not a matter whic h is constructed by social laws, but the other way round, it is National Socialism which produces social laws. National Socialism is neither a nationalistic socialism, nor a socialistic nationalism, nor a mixture of both. - As is well known, in recent time s, after National Socialism has become topical, certain scholars are attempting to grind it to a dusty fineness in the grinder of their terminology, in order to keep it ready and prescribe it in well-dosed quantities as a powder for all diseases of the eco nomic and social body in their pharmacy. That not a trace remains of the true spirit of National Socialism in this procedure, does not need to be said.

There is National through National

only one definition of National Socialism - my professors! Socialism is Volksgem einschaft! Only those who have gone the experience of the Volksgemeinschaft can be practical Socialists.

Just as every national community is bound to blood and soil, these eternal symbols of its spirit, so also every activity of the indivi dual and of the community, if it is to be meaningful and creative, is indissolubly bound to blood and soil. There is, therefore, no economy and no economic science as such which draws its principles from a vacuum, as conceptualism proclaimed for a while, b ut the national economy and its interpretation, the economic science, must grow vertically like the plant, like the folklore itself from the soil and remain connected with it. Economic science has the task of disciplining the economic activity of the individual and of the people epistemologically in such a way that it serves to secure and promote the growth and vital forces of the people. It has to show how everywhere in the field of economy, from the farm to the large-scale economy, the freedom of action o f the individual or of groups must remain bound in such a way that it allows free passage to the growth and life forces of the people or of the nations. From its biological standpoint, National Socialism answers the eternal philosophical basic question of freedom and constraint by saying that the actions of the individual and the community are only free and thus moral if they move in the direction of the vital and growth forces of the nation. That the moral economic activity of the individual or of economic groups should therefore always run parallel to the growth and vital forces of the nation and strengthen and secure them. That the morality of their action consists precisely in this relationship. For only free action is moral! Everything depends, therefor e, on the fact that the individual, through the experience of the national community, receives again the right attitude and thus the right direction of his action. For a man does not feel truly free and liberated from all slave labor by being surrounded by the best social welfare and care, but only when he instinctively feels and senses that the eternal stream of the growth and life forces of his people flows through his hands. That his will is also the will of his national community. Only then does the ind ividual become truly free and do his work, wherever his fate may have placed him, with love and devotion. Only in this way does the individual ennoble the work and is ennobled by it again. Only in this way is the mechanics of the laws of nature no longer felt as an external, hostile and brutal power which inexorably tightens us as slaves into the iron chain of all events, but here the great miracle occurs that the external pressure disappears and that the compulsion of 34

mechanical necessity appears only a s a consequence and outflow of one's own actions. From work performed in such a way then rises the postulate of equal social honor. For the work of the poorest day laborer and of the greatest statesman, if it is only done by both with full devotion and ful fillment of duty, is equally valid before the eyes of eternity and therefore also outwardly implies the same social honor. Out of this deepest experience, out of this inner enlightenment and rebirth, also flows the ultimately always infallibly correct acti on of our great leader Adolf Hitler. We said earlier that National Socialism, from its biological point of view, sees true freedom of action only in the direction of the vital and growth forces of the nation. That the freedom of action is only in the direc tion of the vertical construction and that it must therefore be tied off in the horizontal. That is why all National Socialist economic policy measures are vertical. For example, the market regulation is such a vertical measure. On the ground floor of the National Socialist economic structure, the peasant economy, it not only ensures the nation's freedom to feed itself, which is necessary for the development of its vital and growth forces, but in the same way it also ensures the equally necessary freedom of raw materials on the floor above, in the industrial economy. For the natural field of activity of the sons of the peasants who are born later is the industrial economy, which is organically linked to the ground floor and which, through its technical suppo rt and services, increases the yield of the soil in such a way that the members of the national community employed on the industrial floor can also be nourished from the same soil. To secure and strengthen the nation's growth and vital forces, therefore, n ot only freedom of food but also freedom of industrial raw materials is necessary. These must be secured by own production, stacking or securing of the supply routes in the same way by the market regulation as the food. This means that the second floor, fo reign trade, must also be regulated accordingly in terms of imports and exports. In the National Socialist economic structure, the organic market regulation, which is anchored on the ground floor, the peasant economy, must also reach vertically through the two other floors, the industrial and the foreign economy, if it really wants to economically secure and promote the vital and growth forces of the nation in all parts. It is impossible for a different policy to be pursued on the second floor or on the second floor than on the ground floor. This would destroy the organic coherence and the properly balanced relationship of the three floors to each other and thus the health of the overall economic structure. 35

Experience has shown that a people tainted or se duced by intellectualism falls into the tendency, on the upper floors of its economic structure, to enter into horizontal ties in the form of price associations for money and commodities, horizontal ties which at first may still be within the framework of their own national economy, but which, as their organic structure is loosened, tend more and more toward international "interconnectedness." Thus arose the well -known "internationals", as we have seen them in the golden, the Jewish, the Marxist, the Commun ist and others in all fields of economy and culture, which in the end attained such a preponderance that they detached the economic activity of the peoples from their organic ties to blood and soil, from the national community, and transformed it into the sector of an internationally conceived world economy. Through these horizontal ties, the life and growth forces of the individual peoples, running vertically, were then tied off. - The freedom of action of the individual, of whole economic groups and finally of the whole national economy was bent ninety degrees from the natural vertical direction by the intellect into the horizontal. The moral national economy, disciplined and bound in organic market regulation according to the forces of growth and life, th us became the immoral "free economy" of the past liberalist -capitalist epoch. Everything became commodity. Everything became for sale. Everything became floating. The unsteady nomadic economy took the place of the down -toearth peasant economy. The respect able attitude connected with the folklore and the sheepfold and the spoken price were replaced everywhere by the elaborate contract and the international "cheapest price". In place of natural law, intellectual force everywhere. Meaningless anarchy took the place of meaningful freedom. The honor of work became the flow of work, the playground of Marxism and capitalism. In sum: everywhere the principle of organic, Kantian freedom was turned into its opposite, that of intellectualistic freedom. While the princ iple of the creative, the organic freedom declares: natural boundedness outward, infinite freedom of action and self -responsibility inward - the principle of the intellectualistic, the uncreative freedom proclaims: unlimited internationality outward, but b oundedness by dogmas inward. In reality, however, the living life everywhere in law, state, culture, art, economy is imprisoned behind an intellectually conceived latticework, until one day the offended nature rises up and by revolutionary actions, as we experience them in National Socialism, breaks the artificial intellectual latticework and everywhere again natural law replaces intellectual coercion. After a period of exaggerated intellectuality, after a period of slave revolt of the intellect, it is then necessary to go back to 36

the simplest foundations of all events for the recovery and natural reorganization of things in everything. The ideological upheaval and the renewal of the mind and the morality connected with it will only then grant the great and at the same time so simple strategic ideas and plans which alone make a reorganization of things possible from the bottom up. And which then find their embodiment, shaking the whole globe, in the individual man, the born leaders. These people, derided a s romantics and fantasists by the world -view despisers, the tacticians and moderates of the ancien regime, are then the leaders into a new future. As a magnet slowly but surely draws the iron filings out of a heap of sand and arranges them meaningfully int o a field of force, so then the born leader draws all the creative forces out of the community of the people and gathers them around him as his disciples, as his sub -leaders, to whom he grants the highest reward that can become theirs by involving them in the leadership of the community of the people according to the dictates of his will and plan. For this conspiratorial community of creative people is not attracted by money and prosperity and external honors, but for them the only valuable thing is the exe rcise of their creative abilities in battle and danger and in the service of the people. They are the guardians of the Führer's teachings. Through their creative fire they keep his teaching flowing, so that it does not freeze into intellectuality too soon. For it was still the case that the forms and parables used by the great ones to illustrate their teaching were finally regarded and passed on by the little ones as the sole truth and thus turned into the opposite. Their eyes are too covered with earthly d ust to always be able to distinguish the spirit of the teachings and deeds of their great leaders from the symbols they have used. This is also the meaning and the task of the National Socialist Party as an order: to keep the teachings of our leader in ete rnal, living flow, so that they do not ossify in formulas and externals.

Organic structure of national and large -scale economy

Second lecture at the lecture and discussion conference of October 4 -6, 1934, organized by the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP and the National S ocialist Lawyers' Association for all German professors and university teachers of economics and business administration. - Full reproduction of the speech, among others, in the "Berliner Börsenzeitung," No. 469, October 6, 1934.

In my first lecture I endeavored to show that National Socialism is in its innermost essence a moral renewal of the entire German nation. And that one area of the German people's life activity after another, no matter whether it is politics, culture, ar t, law or economy, is seized by this moral renewal and transformed from within. So that the German nation today also looks back at the past with different eyes and forms its view of history on the basis of other evaluations than those that have been customary up to now. - I have further tried to show how this moral renewal has an effect in the economic -political sector in particular. And how only the ideological upheaval exposes again the few simple basic truths which were the eternal foundations of every n atural and therefore healthy economic structure and will be again in the future. These few eternal basic truths had been buried so deeply under the intellectualistic rubble of the 'past liberalistic epoch and had been so deeply forgotten that their uncover ing by National Socialism makes them appear at first sight almost as completely new truths. In reality, however, they were always present, namely hidden in the few, old peasant rules which have always been concerned with the control of economic life. But t o the intellectualistic arrogance and conceit, to the routinimism, to the specialists and tacticians of the liberalistic epoch, these peasant wisdoms were and still are far too simple and far too little complicated to be considered worthy of attention. And yet, the whole modern economic system (including the "banking system"), which appears so complicated only to the outside world, can be regulated with the very few basic truths stemming from ancient peasant wisdom. For just as the peasantry is the eternal basis of every national economy, its few simple economic principles are the basis of the entire national economy and apply just as much to the commercial economy and foreign trade as to agriculture. This is precisely the insurmountable strength of National Socialist economic theory, that it does not construct economic forms theoretically thought out and calculated on the drawing board, but that, on the contrary, it ruthlessly clears away the complicated, intellectualistic latticework of the past liberalisti c epoch, which was thoroughly and "expertly" thought out to the point of self -destruction, in order to give living life the opportunity to grow again. For the economy, too, like the plant, like the nation itself, must grow out of the soil. Its structure is natural only when it is vertical. The real national economy is in reality only the optical enlargement of the farm. Like the latter, it is divided into three spheres which are organically connected with each other. Just as on the individual farm only a ce rtain number of family members can cultivate the field belonging to them, so also in the real national 38

economy only a part of the national community can practically cultivate the soil. The remaining part of the family members of the farm as well as of the national community must turn to commercial work, i.e. small and large-scale trade, exchange and traffic. Through these commercial services, the intensity of cultivation and thus the productivity of the land is increased in such a way that these members of the family and the national community can also live from the yield of the same soil. The additional yields of the arable land achieved through commercial services are thus the natural field of activity for the sons of the peasants born after them and t heir basis of nutrition. From the point of view of the family and the national community, therefore, the peasant economy also bears the responsibility for the welfare of the commercial economy it generates, for the welfare of the members of the farm employ ed here and of the national community. The properly balanced relationship between the ground floor, agriculture, and its second floor, the domestic commercial economy, is decisive for the health of the overall economic structure. If, as a result of the healthy structure of the economy, the family on the farm grows, and with it the national community, it becomes necessary in time, when there is no more room for settlement, to add a second floor to the domestic economy: the external economy. A part of the descendants of the farm and members of the national community must look for a part of their existence in the fact that they transfer a part of their activity outside of the farm and/or the national economy. National economy. Thus, the healthy village communit y is created by comradely cooperation of several farms, and in the big picture, the large-scale economy by federal cooperation of several national economies. The services of these people working on the periphery of the farm and the people's commercial econ omy thus raise the standard of living and culture of individual farms and national economies. The sphere of external economy can temporarily contribute even more to the raising of the material and spiritual standard of the peasant and national economy than the other two, namely when it encounters still undeveloped space. At first, this space pays for the effort of technical and intensive work to a much higher degree, because it is still virgin soil or offers new possibilities for supplementation. This activity, which takes place on the periphery of the farm and the national economy, carries not only the possibility of an unimagined increase in the standard of living of the clan and national community, but also the danger of the destruction and fragmentation of its growth and life forces. For it must not be 39

overlooked that these people working on the third floor more easily slip away from the family and folk discipline anchored in the foundation. Under certain circumstances, their concept of freedom in the new free space becomes more and more detached from the bondage of the old national community, and their actions become more and more ego driven. One after another of the functions of the national economy, meaningfully linked and bound up in the growth and life forces of the nation, is loosened and degenerates into an end in itself. Service is replaced by merit. The economic officer is replaced by the freebooter. National economic capital formation becomes capitalism. In place of the "just price" bound to th e respectable attitude of the community, the international "cheapest price", which is an end in itself, steps. The nationally bound national economy becomes the sector of an imaginary world economy. Thus the morally in healthy market regulation bound national economy becomes the morally unbound, thus immoral "free economy". Thus the life and growth forces of a clan and a people can fragment in the free space and degenerate by wrong morality. This is not only a theoretical possibility, but unfortunately bitt er truth. The destruction of the first natural European economy of the Middle Ages by the discovery of America and the sea route to India and the epoch of the "free economy", which has now come to an end, has left a political, cultural and economic debris field of unheard -of dimensions in the whole world, which many generations will have to clear up and reorganize and on which National Socialism has laid the first hand. The discovery of new free spaces and their settlement (colonization), as well as interst ate activity in general, will only mean a strengthening of the growth and vital forces of the native economies if they do not escape their discipline and sphere of power. The inorganic colonial and undisciplined foreign trade policy was not a happiness for many European countries, but led to the destruction of the domestic disciplined economy, precisely by the infection from the foreign economy, from which then the germs of decomposition, called "free economy", penetrated. Starting from the ground floor, th e native peasant economy, a uniform, strict and national discipline - a market regulation not only of food, but also of the basic materials for the industrial economy - must be maintained through the floors of the industrial and foreign economy. A market r egulation which not only ensures a fair price for the members of the national community for the exchange of services among themselves, but which also includes a fair tariff for the nation as a whole: by guaranteeing its security and the strengthening of it s vital and growth forces. Every national community must discipline its economic management in such a way that it always has within its walls the iron ration of food and industrial raw 40

materials. For only the free can be peaceful. Only the freedom of fo od and raw materials allows each people not to regard that trade and foreign policy involvement as a threat to its existence, which must be countered by force of arms. The army and the fleet are the ultima ratio, which may be used only when the living and highest goods, the honor and freedom of the nation, are at stake. Only with such a control of the economy then again, as it is appropriate, the trade follows the flag, and not, as the liberalistic age demanded it, the flag follows the trade! The internatio nal merchant then becomes again the honorable Hanseatic merchant. The immortal Hanseatic League was not a merchant's affair, but a sacrificial and food community. A disciplining of long -distance trade of unheard -of boldness and greatness, which never lost the native ground under its feet and the connection with the national community. It contained within itself, as a spiritual driving force, the wanderlust and homesickness of the Nordic man. It was a designed order of foreign trade. For it must be said again and again with all clarity that German foreign trade had its greatest flowering at a time when not every merchant tried to do business for himself or on his own account, but when the spirit of common cooperative economic activity was completely in the fo reground and led to an unfolding of creative forces in all fields of culture, art and economy, behind which the liberalistic trading epoch completed today stands far behind. For the first continental European large -scale economy, from the year 1000 to the year 1600, which was a natural enlargement of genuine farm and national economy - enclosed the Holy Germanic Empire of the German Nation with its spiritual centers: Lübeck and Marienburg. While the Teutonic Knights kept watch from the Baltic Sea down to Transylvania and expanded the European living space to the east, the Hanseatic League, the German league of cities under Lübeck's leadership, brought up the agricultural surpluses from the southeastern region, It moved them along the old Hanseatic military a nd trade route from Rhineland-Westphalia to Lübeck and shipped them - mixed with products of German, Italian, Flemish and other trades - with its warships and merchant ships across the Baltic Sea into Russia. Via Russia, this circulation of goods, money an d traffic was closed by the exchange of smoked goods and other Nordic products in the Baltic Sea region and in Russia. This first continental European economy, whose main pillars were the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, was a spatially bound economy both internally and externally. The peoples and ethnic areas enclosed by it complemented each other in the best possible way. They adjusted their production to each other's needs, and it was strictly 41

observed that the principle of meeting demand wa s maintained and that no disorderly, random production or even overproduction took place. This first large-scale economy was also internally bound, insofar as each profession, each guild was assigned a certain sector as a field of work, which it fulfilled with its own freedom through self -administration, and which did not interfere with the living spaces of others. From this consciously inwardly and outwardly regulated and directed economy then grew the high Nordic culture and bloom of the Middle Ages, its prosperity and its art. As the highest witnesses of the spirit of those days: infinite inner freedom and self -responsibility in the natural outer bondage, the Gothic cathedrals and the splendid brick Gothic of the Baltic Sea region still rise up everywhere today. This well-ordered continental European economy, which excluded any catastrophic regulation, namely the liberalistic "free play of forces", in which production, absorption and the existence of every single honest working person were secured and for whose guardians the fair price and the honorable attitude were appointed, broke down, however, when in the West a new free, seemingly unlimited space - America - was discovered and the new sea route to India opened up. The old natural order, ties and legen ds were destroyed, and an unrestrained production, the so -called "free economy", unfolded. For three hundred years, new markets opened up to accommodate the wild, unregulated production - the unrestrained trade and the unrestrained activity of each individ ual to do whatever suited him. Since the world war, however, these free markets have closed in the Far West and Far East, and now there is an end to the free economy as well. The intellectualist ideology of a superior world economy, a kind of super economy, which had been distilled as the sublimest idea from the chaotic confusion of the so -called "free economy", also crumbled in the same way. Now, all over the world, we are faced with the fact that the world economy is once again returning to its natural fo undations, namely the national economy. The chaos of the disintegrated world economy is gradually rearranging itself into a well -ordered cosmos of national economies, and these, having regained and balanced their own stability, then re-enter into orderly r elations with one another. Thus, the natural, organic economic structure: In this way, the natural, organic economic structure - farm, national economy, large -scale economy - is restored and the natural balance between the ground floor and the two upper fl oors of the national economy is regained. An epoch of imperialist ideology is coming to an end. Everywhere the life and growth forces of the people again reach vertically through the three spheres of the economy and 42

discipline them in renewed order and morality. Everywhere the vertical bonds, according to the direction of the forces of growth, are restored and the horizontal bonds of intellectual destruction are destroyed. Private cartels and price associations, which are in reality private collectives, are replaced by vertical organic market regulation, not only in the agricultural sphere, but also in the industrial sphere, and thus in the import and export of both. This market regulation, which is necessary to safeguard and promote the growth and vital forces of the people, this framework consciously drawn by the political leadership of the people, which curtails the freedom of the economic man only where it endangers the freedom of the nation can be filled by the economy in full self -responsibility an d with its own energy only if it is divided into three clearly distinguished professional groups, according to their different functions in the service of the whole of the people. These three groups are: 1. Agriculture (Reichsnährstand). It has to ensure t he renewal of the blood and the freedom of food. 2. the commercial economy (handicraft, industry, trade, traffic, banking of the domestic economy). It has to secure the civilizational and technical interests of the people and the freedom of raw materials. 3. the external economy (foreign trade, maritime transport and the monetary and credit system of foreign trade). It shall promote and safeguard the external metabolism and living space of the national economy. Only this clear group formation makes possible a clear and uniform management of the overall economy and the spontaneous formation of the necessary forms of self -government of the economy. In the structure of each group separately and in the combination of all three, it corresponds to the National Soc ialist moral basic principle of the construction of the people: Freedom and self -responsibility in the natural bond. While groups 1 and 2, the non -commercial and the commercial internal economy, move within the national borders, are more or less firmly connected with the earth's crust, and can consequently administer themselves, the external economy operates outside the national borders and must, moreover, be extraordinarily elastic and mobile in its structure; consequently, it cannot be subordinated to the estates, but must be organized as a chamber. It is not a profession in its own right, but certain members of the nourishing classes and of trade and industry perform additional functions in it, namely foreign trade functions, 43

These self-governing reforms of the economy, as they are already being formed today by the Reichsnährstandgesetz and by the Gesetz zur Ordnung der gewerblichen Wirtschaft, will then not only be the appropriate instrument for the unified management of the economy by politics, but will at the same time also become the bearer of professional honor and the expert body for the formation of the "just price". They are vertical organizations which automatically entail a dissolution of all horizontal price associations for commodities, money and the like, the private collectives, those favorite children of liberalism. Only through them will the just price be restored positively, and with it the just exchange of services, which is already secured negatively by the prohibition of lockouts, stri kes and monopolistic price associations for money and commodities. It is only through them that the primacy of labor over capital and the primacy of the working man and of performance over immoral measures of violence are restored. Not only domestically is the just price, the just exchange of services proclaimed - but also in interstate trade and traffic National Socialism restores the just exchange of services as the only possible basis of a secured and increased foreign trade. Imports and exports must be measured by the same yardstick. The country supplying raw materials must receive such a price for its goods that it can, for example, buy as much German export goods in Germany as it receives from other countries for its supply of raw materials in the form of similar industrial goods. In its entire exchange of services with Germany, the foreign country must participate in a fair manner in the advantages and disadvantages of the German market, as is already done in an exemplary manner by the agricultural mar ket regulation agreements with foreign countries. The autonomous German market regulation has therefore not only to regulate the food freedom and the raw material freedom of the German national economy, but also the obligation, in order to come to a durabl e, extensive and meaningful foreign trade, which raises the standard of living and culture of the German people, to regulate the fair price also to the outside in import and export. The task of German foreign trade policy is to shape the German current acc ount balance in goods traffic and in transit services (shipping) in such a way that the balance of payments is at least balanced and, as far as possible, permits the repayment of debt obligations. Every trade agreement must be a sector of this national ext ernal balance. The task of the German monetary and credit system is then to ensure that, in cooperation with the foreign counterparties, the necessary monetary and credit resources are made available for the dynamic, liquid settlement of the compensation contracts. Only if sufficient liquid funds are available, the necessary freedom, self -responsibility, division of labor and energy of the 44

economy can be achieved within the trade -political constraints of compensation or trade agreements and a forced econ omy can be avoided. Since the interstate working capital (gold and money orders) hitherto available to the German economy and to most of its European counterparts has been lost because the movement of foreign exchange and gold has become separated from the movement of goods, has run into other channels (debt accumulation, gold hoarding) like the movement of goods, the movement of goods between Germany and most of its European counterparts is moving into the train -by-train mode. Their monetary mirror image a re the bilateral clearing agreements, in which monetary traffic is first of all forcibly disciplined after it has not mustered sufficient discipline of its own to be only a servant and carrier of the movement of goods. This naturally causes a strong shrink age of the compensatory traffic which is possible in itself. This can only be remedied and foreign trade expanded again if these bilateral offset agreements are sensibly supplemented over time by bilateral bridging credits. The fact that this bilateral tra de in goods and settlements must then be supplemented by triangular agreements and transactions, and that it can be expanded once again, needs no special mention. Here begins the higher mathematics of mercantilism and trade treaty policy, which, if skillfully handled, will enable Germany, on account of its geographical position and its manifold needs, to pave the way again for a new continental European economy. For, as we have already explained several times in the preceding, the logic of the National Soci alist organic economic structure runs in a straight line via the farm and the national economy to the large -scale economy. But a large -scale economy which leaves the freedom, honor and independence of each national economy untouched, but gives it the possi bility of combining with the other national economies of the large -scale area, for the common good, the surpluses which are dispensable for its own needs. In this way, a large scale economy would come into being which has grown vertically and has nothing in common with the artificial, purely intellectually conceived horizontal constructions which have been proposed several times for Europe in the liberalist epoch. Everyone knows them under the name of "United States of Europe", "European Customs Union", "Pa n-Europe" and the like. The National Socialist economic doctrine has nothing to do with them. Their aim is a genuine society of national economies complementing each other for the common good of their peoples - and thus re-establishing a new European com munity of work and culture with an elevated standard of living for all concerned. Europe for the Europeans! is their slogan. European needs must first be met in Europe! 45

The European internal trade must be strengthened first - a realization, which became today already common property regarding the internal economy of the farm and the internal market of the national economy, in order to arrive at a solid and meaningful foreign trade of these two economic aggregates. Consequently, the awareness must be awak ened in Europe through an appropriate trade policy and propaganda that the internal trade of the continental European area must first be strengthened by exhausting all possibilities of cultivation and combination and by tapping all earth reserves before th e economies of the continental European area enter into an exchange of goods with other areas. This trade policy is already being consistently pursued today by the other transoceanic economic areas that are emerging alongside Europe: the British Empire thr ough its Ottawa policy, the American Stupidity through the Monroe Doctrine, the Sino -Japanese Stupidity through the establishment of the protectorate of Japan over China. If, therefore, the old Europe does not want to be crushed between these transoceanic conglomerates, the new ashlars of a new world economic organization, and if Europe does not want to renounce its due economic influence, the future of the Russian -Siberian area, then the continental European peoples must move closer together again economic ally and, on the basis of comradely cooperation and complementarity, re -establish a continental European economic circuit in modern form, as it once existed at the time of the Hanseatic League. A new road to the East will then lead across the Baltic Sea, w hose guardians for the common good of Europe will be the peoples of the Baltic circle. For only the federalist state and economic views of the peoples of the Baltic Sea region, which are averse to any imperialism, can establish a new European community of freedom and culture, in which freedom, honor and independence of each people and each national economy form the immovable iron foundation.

German new economy

Second part from the lead essay for the 1934 Vedag yearbook. Vereinigte Dachpappen-Fabr iken AG. Ber lin W 35 .

According to the National Socialist view, economic forms are not things in themselves, but a consequence of the guidance of labor. Depending on 46

whether this guidance and direction is carried out by the common sense of man in touch with nature or by the pure intellect detached from nature, its forms will be different: creative and filled with true, inner freedom in the first case, and barren and u nfree (because gagged by dogmas) in the second case. Economy is nothing more than directed labor. Depending on its guidance according to natural or unnatural principles, the economy will be healthy or unhealthy, truly free or only apparently free, peaceful or unpeaceful. For only the free is peaceful! National Socialism is therefore much simpler, much clearer, than it still appears today in most intellectually poisoned and misguided minds. It is merely the reintroduction of common sense in all areas of huma n life and can therefore be readily seen by any uneducated mind. Its economic structure is therefore based on five simple principles: Whereas democracy and liberalism more and more everywhere put force in the place of law, National Socialism everywhere put s law in the place of force. For it is the master builder of a new order of things. But lasting order can only be built on law, never on force. The first economic principle, which at the same time also outlines the fundamental principle of the private econ omy and the national economy, is an ancient peasant rule, which, however, has been completely abandoned in the democratic era. It reads: Taxes must not exceed the tithe and interest must not exceed the half tithe, if they are not to be the consumers instead of the sustainers and multipliers of the substance. This simple rule of the peasantry, which has been correct for thousands of years and in every economic system, the simplest and the most complicated in the world, is the correct, i.e. natural, measure i n economic management. It wants to prevent that in the long run more liquid means are consumed than produced, so that thereby a working capital shrinkage is brought about, which finally leads then to complete illiquidity of the private-economical enterpris es and thus also of the entire national economy. This illiquidity then expresses itself in a high unemployment rate, which makes a mockery of the right of each individual to work and exposes him to the violence of an unnatural, intellectually misguided economic system. A maximum of production and consumption, i.e. of general prosperity, and prevention of unemployment can be achieved and maintained in a national economy only if the natural biological relationship between liquid (working) and solid (tangible) capital is preserved by means of

social regulation and is not handed over to the free play of forces, i.e. to unrestrained violence. From this also arises the second principle which proclaims social peace in the National Socialist state in place of th e democratic class war. The entrepreneur is no longer allowed to use force by lockout, just as the worker is no longer allowed to use force by strike. For the just balance of performance and consideration, which, like the first peasant rule, makes maximum production and consumption within the national economy possible in the first place and prevents unemployment, must not be distorted by any side through the use of force. In the democratic state, it was the case that soon the workers, soon the entrepreneurs , forced their business partners to give them more in return than they gave themselves. The The sword of force was thrown into the scales by one side and by the other, and thus the natural balance between performance and counter performance was arbitrarily disturbed. The National Socialist state does not permit this use of force in the social sphere any more than in other disputes of human life. It has been shown that the prohibition of strike and lockout, i.e., the appeal to the cudgel, has immediately led to such a pacification in the social sphere that at least 90 per cent of all former disputes have ceased of their own accord. The remaining 10 percent are now also decided not by force but by law. Here, too, National Socialism goes its own way, in that it does not establish a written law, but a living law, consisting of the thirteen trustees of labor, who are real and experienced National Socialists, who decide completely independently, only to the best of their knowledge and conscience, according to the o ld principle: men not measures. This second principle is logically followed by the third, which ensures peace in the sphere of production and trade, i.e. economic peace. Here, too, the use of force preached by the democratic and liberalist system is no longer permitted. Here, too, it is no longer permitted that performance and counter-performance be distorted by the use of force. The capitalist stronger is no longer allowed to wage unrestrained war on the capitalist weaker competitor through unrestrained expansion of production or price slashing. Because unnecessary enlargement of production plants, which serve only fighting purposes and not the natural satisfaction of demand, means misinvestment and thus dissipation of national wealth, just like too low and too high prices. Producers as well as traders are therefore united in associations which, under the supervision of the Reich Ministry of Economics, are not allowed 48

to set prices that are either too high or too low, that arbitrarily shift the fair relationship between performance and consideration between competitors or between individual groups and the national economy as a whole. Thus, in the sphere of production and consumption, National Socialism also establishes law instead of force and thus ensu res the pacification that guarantees a maximum of general prosperity over time. National Socialism thus acts here according to the age -old experience of common sense: that peace nourishes, but mischief consumes. This unalterable basis of internal economic construction and explanation of internal peace now finds its logical continuation and radiation also in the foreign trade policy and the foreign economy of the National Socialist state. Here, too, the whole endeavor of National Socialism is directed toward a new durable and natural pacification of interstate relations. It desires not only that in political negotiations the honor and freedom of each of the peoples involved in them should again be respected, but also that in interstate commerce and intercours e these principles should again come to rule, and thus at last put a stop to the use of force which has hitherto been tolerated in national intercourse by the liberalistic and democratic systems of economics and government. The general insecurity introduce d into all interstate relations in the last century by the unrestrained application of free -trade principles is to give way again to a new, clear, natural order of things, which will inevitably be followed by increased pacification. The two foreign trade p rinciples of National Socialism are nothing but a transformation, a reflection of the pacification principles of the domestic economy in interstate trade and traffic. They only want to restore the natural security and decency of each state in foreign econo mic traffic. Here the fourth principle of National Socialist economic construction, "safety first," finds its justification. It says that every country should organize its economy in such a way that it will secure for it, in any case, within its borders, t he freedom of food and the foundations of its commercial economy, so that in the event of any entanglements outside its borders, the existence of the people will not be endangered, that its economy will be a castle in which it cannot be starved. Thus a gre at factor of insecurity, resulting from the application of the democratic free trade principle of the "most favored nation" clause, the world market price and other intellectual nonsense, and which has hitherto been attempted to compensate only by ever -increasing armaments, will be eliminated once and for all. 49

The fifth principle of National Socialist economic construction, the second of foreign trade policy, also serves the same goal. It proclaims the reestablishment of "fair play." No country should se ll its products abroad more cheaply than it produces them itself, in order to maintain a fair relationship between performance and counter performance in interstate trade and commerce. It thus prohibits the use of force to coerce unfair advantages. What is currency dumping or commodity dumping but an attack by state means of power on the economy of other states? Thus, the two last principles of National Socialist economic construction also reflect the same genuine will for peace that we encountered in internal economic construction, and which wants to replace force with law everywhere, not only in internal, but also in interstate trade and traffic. Only the free can be peaceful. By striving to reestablish a natural order in all spheres of human life accordin g to the principles of common sense, National Socialism seeks to eliminate the general insecurity which democracy and free trade have introduced into all things and to pave the way for a new, true policy of peace, both internally and externally. The foundations of national economies, scattered all over the world by free trade, most-favored nations, and the hunt for the so -called "cheapest" price, have brought insecurity and strife into all things, and have transformed the so -called "cheap" price, by the out rageous burdens of armaments, into the most expensive that the peoples can pay. National Socialism rejects the rule of the "cheapest" price; it desires the restoration of the just price! Thus National Socialism today will again write over its gates leading to world trade exactly the same slogan that adorns the Lübeck Holsten Gate, which was once a gate of world trade and is now becomes so again: "Loncordia domi, loris pax."

Worldview and economy

Lecture given to the "German Academy" at the Kaiserhof in Berlin on October 31, 1935. - Published as a brochure by Verlag für Sozialpolitik, Wirtschaft und Statistik GmbH, Berlin SW 6 8. 50

The degeneration of the concept of freedom

It is the deep meaning of every genuine revolution that it ra ises anew and answers anew the question of freedom and bondage. For a genuine ideological revolution always takes place only when the concept of freedom has degenerated in the preceding epoch. But a degeneration of the concept of freedom is always the cons equence of the degeneration of the attitude of mind. Then, namely, when the intellect, hitherto held bound by instinct and intuition as a healthy, creative human mind, breaks these its natural fetters and now acts like a runaway slave. It emancipates itself, it makes itself independent and sets itself as an end in itself. That is, the originally healthy, instinctive human understanding becomes intellectualism. And with it now begins its destructive activity. For the intellect, detached from its natural ties and thus becoming uncreative, is the eternal adversary of the natural creative wholeness of life. The intellect rises up against the spirit. Similarly as a prism dissects the light ray into the colors of the spectrum and now makes all things appear in one-sided light - so also the instinctless intellect, which has become an end in itself, dissects the wholeness of life into a thousand special fields and departments. The living creative wholeness of life becomes a cartotheque, a pigeonhole, which is now fur ther and further subdivided and multiplied to the point of immenseness by industrious bureaucrats in all fields, in politics, economy, science, art and culture. Each of these fields and departments - and each specialist - thus loses its natural connection with the others. Then the famous "objectivity" in thinking, acting and researching and the specialism arise, which place their results unrelatedly in the vacuum. This line of development thus represents a striving for a supposed objectivity, which, however , led to the detachment from reality and from the lived life, bin to the purely thought, to the emptying of reality, to relativism, to the freedom from values and thus also to the ineffectiveness. Instead of "coined form, which develops livingly", a chaos of facts piled up to the mountain develops, which multiplies in frightening way, until this mountain slides one day and buries its producers under itself! Thus the natural freedom degenerated to the anarchy always ends in the chaos. There is just no absolu te freedom to the outside. The freedom of the individual always ends there, where it could limit the superior freedom of the community. The principle of the natural, the organic, the Kantian freedom says: Every thing has its natural limit and binding 51

outwardly - inwardly, however, it is boundless. In contrast, the principle of intellectualistic, unnatural freedom says exactly the opposite: boundedness inwardly by dogmas, but boundlessness, unrestricted internationality outwardly. Thus we have seen in our days that in Germany a new nation, a new state, a new economy have come into being without the humanities and the economic sciences having had any appreciable share in it, and the natural sciences, with the exception of heredity and race science, only a very modest one. The humanities stood beside the living life and led a special existence. Yes, one was even proud of this fact and saw in it not something burdensome for science, but on the contrary a good sign for its "objectivity" and the integrity of its scientific thinking.

The new spirit

Thus the new German national community, the new idea of the state, the new idea of economy and culture had to emerge outside the spheres of professional science. But it must be said for the sake of justice that it would also have been an unreasonable demand to demand from all these diligent, industrious, professional people, from all these specialists, whose task it is to split up, to analyze the wholeness, in order to be able to arrive at ever new factual material - to demand from these people the creation of a new national community and a new state and a new economy. For the life consciously and spectrally dissected by the intellect can always be reunited to a creative wholeness only by instinctive, i.e. artistic personalities and not by mere experts. So that the living wholeness arises again in the daylight of the consciousness, as it was before in the unconscious, before the disintegration by the intellect. For this reason only those people are gathered around our leader as his sub -leaders who are fighters for the restoration of the wholeness of German life, because consciously or unconsciously, as instinctive and creative personalities, they have always carried this wholeness of the German people within themselves. - And when today the scholars and economists come running from all sides and prove with the greatest accuracy that everything the Fuehrer or his followers say or write has long been there, that this politician said this years ago and that scientist this and the economist that - we reply to them: we do not doubt it at all, you are right. All these 52

things have perhaps already been said or written at some time. But only one small thing was always missing: namely the decisive deed. For at the beginning of all things is not the word, but the deed. Neither a state nor a people can be conquered and transformed from a desk or from the cathedra; but only through the creative deed, which consists in calling the intuitive inner knowledge of the people to the stru ggle for the restoration of the unity of their eternal life. This is the imperishable deed of the Fuehrer! For National Socialism is to be compared to the mother crystal, which is thrown by fate at its hour into a supersaturated salt solution, and now al l at once brings this salt solution to crystallization. Which triggers all latently existing possibilities which could not redeem themselves - and transforms the amorphous solution to the coined form.

The wholeness of life

The primary task of National So cialism is therefore not to increase external knowledge, the material of knowledge, or to invent new, more rational methods of operation in the economy or the like - but to give the material of knowledge and the economy a new direction, a new creative attitude, out of the inner, intuitive knowledge, from which an increased general productivity, i.e. a new promotion and safeguarding of the life and growth forces of our German people, will result all by itself. The National Socialist revolution, therefore, do es not serve the establishment of any artificial forms constructed by the intellect, but it is the natural reaction of the wholeness of the life of our people, which wants to reunite all things that have become unrelated through the intellect into a living wholeness - the national community. From here also the economic and scientific activity does not receive a new meaning, but its original eternal meaning again, namely to serve the wholeness of life. First of all the wholeness of our völkisch life - the Volksgemeinschaft and beyond that also the life of other Volkstümer, whose sovereignty and right to life is as sacred to us as our own. We National Socialists, at a time when in all parts of the world the old forms of life, ossified in intellectuality, are breaking down, believe in only one thing: in creative life and its invincibility, and in the fact that eternal life will always make new and better adapted forms grow in place of those which 53

have been eliminated. National Socialism therefore places all its forces at the service of living, eternal life . . . To serve life is its supreme slogan, and nowhere will it be tempted to spare cherished forms or habits if they stand in the way of the renewal of the creative life of our people in any field. Even today, nowhere in Germany is there any obstacle to the freedom of research and teaching, unless it violates the moral foundations and cohesion of the German people. In principle, all research in Germany is free. Everyone can research what he wants and how he wants. Only the evaluation of the results is reserved. For this, the völkische Bindung is the standard. Whereas in the past liberal -capitalist period the bond of the individual to a merely imagined, i.e. intellectualistic "International" claimed precedence, and the bond of the individual to his nation was regarded as completely secondary, we National Socialists demand the recognition of the primacy of the bond of the individual to his people. For we are deeply convinced that the völkisch community is every thing, but the individual is nothing. The leader says, "Your people is everything, you are nothing." While the liberalist -capitaIist period, conversely, says, "You are everything." For it is only from the life of the völkisch community that the individual receives life and existence. And therefore he is also obliged to the preservation of this völkisch community first. Now the intellect which proclaims the primacy of the international ties of the individual and thus places the individual right to life befor e the right to life of the völkisch community, inevitably destroys in all spheres of life the völkisch community of life and thus ultimately the foundations of the existence of the individual himself, bound to blood and soil. The natural, organic ties in a ll spheres of life were thus dissolved in favor of purely imagined constructions, mechanized, de -spiritualized, and everything was plunged into chaos, at the end of which there had to be the world war.

The idea of nationality

Therefore, no science today can pass by the all -dominating idea of nationalism proclaimed by Adolf Hitler. This rather guarantees a new unity, a new Universitas litterarum and a science which no longer leads a questionable special existence detached from life, but thinks and works bloodily out of the innermost core of folk life. Only what appears in the cone of light of the folk gains meaning for us. We do not see "mankind" 54

as a chaotic collection of individual human beings of all races and skin colors - which claims precedence ov er the organically grown Volkstümer - but as a dignified society of sovereign Volkstümer, each of which is proud of its peculiarity and independence. We do not see the essence of democracy in the unnatural, only imagined equality of all people - but in mutual respect and in the respect for the natural inequality of all people. Audi here we eliminate only that which the intellect, transcending the limits of its natural freedom, has corrupted as the adversary of life. Formal democracy is replaced by a natural democracy, the immutable basis of which is the sovereignty of each nation in its state, cultural and economic relations. In this respect, too, we want, as far as it lies with us, only to bring common sense back into things, i.e., into the state, economic and cultural relations of the peoples among themselves, so as to arrive at a more decent, peaceful and efficient cooperation of all peoples, such as was brought to us by the age of liberalism. Here, too, we now want to put things that have literally been t urned upside down, because on the intellect, back on their natural legs.

Soldier Socialism

Just as the German Wehrmacht threatens no one, but acts by its mere existence, namely protects the people and the living space outwardly, so the party acts by its very existence on the inner creative direction of the entire völkisch life. In both cases it is an action without action. For the Wehrmacht does not need to wage war in order to make its protection effective externally. The party does not need to unleash a civil and interest war, nor should it intervene in the course of state administration in order to make its spiritual leadership effective. In both cases, the goal: securing the völkisch life and growth forces internally and externally - is achieved through education for a soldierly attitude. For national community means: a community of defense on the outside and social harmony on the inside. One without the other is impossible. Both can be achieved solely through the soldierly attitude of the German people in each of its fields of activity, through soldierly socialism. That is why we also demand a soldierly attitude from the business community, both internally and externally. For if the leader of an economic enterprise controls it solely according to the highest possible return without regard for the economic independence of the nation - he must infallibly, also destroy the social peace within his enterprise. His 55

followers will inevitably adopt the same attitude - like master, like master! - and now, for their part, without regard to social peace and the existence of the enterprise, will strive by all means for the highest possible wage. For capitalism is always followed as its shadow by Marxism. Both grow out of the same root - the Jewish monetary think ing, which always finds admission into the Nordic economic thinking only when this has been disintegrated via the intellect. Thus, both destroy blood and soil, the biological foundations of their people, and thus their own existence, for the sake of a supp osedly higher monetary merit.

Soldiering attitude and Jewish money thinking

For the eternal curse of gold and money only becomes effective when money is elevated to an intrinsic quantity dominating the entire economic process instead of being merely a me ans for the exchange of services. The whole organically grown and meaningfully interlinked economic process is mechanized and thus uprooted. Everything is made "liquid" and object of the Jewish -international merchant spirit dominated by money thinking. Even the home and farm become objects of financial transactions, become the object of mortgages and legal transactions. The personal relationship to the soil, to the house and to the business enterprise is increasingly replaced and degenerates into impersonal merchantism doing business with shares, limited liability company shares and mortgages. The economic attitude of the down -to-earth man and his activity tied to his nationality are more and more replaced by a nomadic economic attitude tied to foreign blood . The soldierly attitude, in which service takes precedence over merit, and which thus protects the own living space of the people, stands in eternal contrast to Jewish monetary thinking, in which merit takes precedence over service, because it does not ha ve to protect its own living space. For Judaism can seize the living space of its host people only to the extent that the latter loses its defensive attitude through intellectualistic dissolution of the folk community of life and adoption of its monetary thinking. That is why the Nordic people will always put defense policy before money policy, while the Jewish merchantry must put money policy before defense policy. Woe, therefore, to the people who abandon the soldierly attitude in their economic managemen t and adopt defeatist economic 56

methods, who approach the economy to the closed defense front of the nation!

Iron ration, not autocracy

For the freedom of the German people depends not only on its military strength, but just as much on its economic ind ependence. For the German people, economic independence does not mean autarky, but the regaining of its freedom of food and raw materials, which it had lost through the intenectualist doctrine of free trade, and through the lack of which we lost the world war. National Socialist economic policy therefore demands in the first place that the iron ration of food for man and beast and the iron ration of industrial raw materials be produced in the country itself; only then are we protected from capitulation by t rade boycotts or blockades. Economic freedom, too, can be secured only by self -defense. Whatever serves to increase the vitality of our people by utilizing all internal economic possibilities, should be obtained through sensible and extensive foreign trade in comradely cooperation and supplementation through exchange with the other peoples. Therefore, the National Socialist economic criticism is not directed against the volume of pre -war foreign trade, but against its wrong structure and storage at that tim e. The wrong structure consisted in the fact that, without regard to the preservation of the German people's freedom of political action, commercial raw materials and foodstuffs were purchased in the world wherever they could be obtained most cheaply and w ith the greatest monetary benefit. The wrong storage consisted in the fact that Germany stored its foreign trade area in the area of interest and the sphere of power of other nations, so that this could be cut off from it at the decisive moment, which also happened. These mistakes are avoided by the new soldierly attitude of the German economy. Through labor slaughter and market regulation in the agricultural economy, and more and more in the industrial economy as well, domestic production of the iron ration of food and fodder and of industrial raw materials (the latter possibly through synthetic processes) is first ensured. If this self -production should also initially cause higher costs than its purchase from the cheapest foreign raw material areas, t his additional price must be borne. It is the insurance 57

premium against capitulation, which cannot be spared any more than the insurance premium against the risk of fire. Because the pre -war economy, out of its wrong thinking about money, tried to save this premium, it lost its entire capital through the capitulation of Germany at the end of the war. Thus, from a commercial point of view, these allegedly cheapest prices were in reality the most expensive prices ever paid by a nation for the purchase of its indispensable foodstuffs and raw materials from abroad. Moreover, German technology, organization and willingness to work will soon have compensated for the initially higher production price here and there, so that there can be no question of a reduced competitiveness of German production in the world for this reason. But be that as it may, no sacrifice is too great for freedom! For what is saved in money must otherwise one day be paid for in blood. What does expensive production costs mean anyway? But only that more labor must be expended to produce certain goods in Germany than in another country where the natural conditions are more favorable. The fulfillment of the military service of the economy also demands sacrifices for the national community, and in the end only sacrifices of labor, both from the manager and from his followers. But still the technical talent of the German people has been able to cancel out the extra work caused by the unfavorable conditions by the construction of iron slaves. Tha t is, the invention of new labor-saving machines and better labor - and raw material-saving methods of production and distribution. And so it will be in the future. The standard of living of the German people will never be lowered in the long run below that of other peoples by the fulfillment of the natural conscription of the economy, nor will the competitiveness of the German economy with other peoples be diminished. However, our economic leaders will have to get out of the habit of the mindless, money-minded methods of shifting the emphasis of German exports to the production of the cheapest uniform mass -produced goods. In other words, to conduct interstate competition on the platform of pure price and money wars instead of quality differences. For in orde r to produce these uniform mass goods at the same cost of production as the most primitive economies or those especially favored by nature, the "rice standard" would have to be introduced in Europe, however, and the German worker would have to be brought d own to the level of the Kuli. This, however, would at the same time destroy his natural, spiritual and technical superiority, which alone makes possible the manufacture of high-quality products and in which the superiority of the Nordic race over others becomes visible and effective. Other peoples and races can always 58

adopt and imitate the industrial methods only from the Nordic people and therefore remain technically inferior to him on the whole. For I have never found that creative spirit and creative disposition can be stolen. But everything depends on preserving them in order to maintain superiority. Therefore, the industrialization of smaller agricultural countries is not, as is often assumed, an obstacle to the increase of the interstate exchange o f goods. For it is only through the self -production of mass-produced industrial goods in these states that their clearing becomes free for the purchase of high -quality German industrial products, which can never be produced on the own narrower absorption base of these peoples and their lower technical capability. Up to now, the clearing of these agricultural states has been largely blocked by the purchase of cheap mass -produced goods, which, moreover, Germany cannot supply cheaply enough for the reasons des cribed above and which are therefore purchased from the countries of the "rice standard". German exports and raw material supplies can only be increased through the industrialization of the smaller agricultural states. If today economic leaders from one side or another try to make it clear, with a great expenditure of words and figures, that only an adequate military armament is the best capital investment, National Socialism counters this capitalist calculation with its fundamental ideological demand: that the economy must simply possess a defensive attitude, both internally and externally, in order to create the freedom of the people and to be able to exist at all in the totality of today's war.

The new foreign trade

By this soldierly attitude of the German economy toward the outside world by securing the most necessary economic independence, the foundation has at the same time been laid for a more extensive, more permanent, and above all more peaceful foreign trade than existed in the pre-war period. Commercial entanglements now no longer necessarily lead to the deployment of army and fleet, as they did under the aegis of haphazard "world economic entanglement," but the deployment of the Wehrmacht need now only occur when the highest and ultimate goods of the nation, its honor and freedom, are really at stake. This new economic structure also makes it possible for Germany to a greater extent than before to fulfill her obligation to continental Europe. For the inevitable emergence of large economic areas as an intermediate 59

stage of a new world -wide trade and traffic - as we see them emerging today in the British Empire, in the Japanese -Chinese bloc, in the Monroe Doctrine of North America, in the French Ottawa, in the seclusion of the Russian-Siberian area - puts continental Europe in an extremely straitened position. Because of the fact that for four hundred years it wasted its best vital and economic forces all over the world in the newly discovered countries which now close themselves off from conti nental Europe, the economic and vital force of its peoples is extremely weakened. It is often overlooked that not only Germany, but the whole of continental Europe is passive in its balance of trade and payments in relation to the rest of the world. If today seventy million German people in the heart of Europe turn from the West to the East and thus end the four hundred years of liberal capitalist economic epoch, then all continental Europe must turn from the West to the East, whether it wants to or not! Th us Germany has the obligation and the possibility to shift its foreign trade area, which it must reduce by closing the overseas West and the Far East there (South America makes an exception here), preferably to Northern and Southeastern Europe. Several bil lion marks, which Germany has spent annually to date on the purchase of goods from the Far West and the Far East, can and must in the future be gradually made available to strengthen German foreign trade with the countries of Southeastern and Northern Europe. This will open up to the peoples of North and South East Europe in Germany and through Germany, in mutual exchange, a new market far beyond the scope of those which sic lost by the collapse of the former world economy outside Europe. Yes, there is not only the possibility, but the certainty, that through this strengthening of the European internal trade, which again compensates for the passivity of the European trade and payment balance in the traffic with the other continents, also an increased trade t raffic of continental Europe with other large economic areas can again bless and an increased purchase of tropical products by the increased purchasing power of Germany and the other north and south European countries, so that also the entire world trade and traffic from Europe again experiences a new strong impetus. Only a strong European domestic trade can again be the carrier of an extensive, healthy world trade.

The new European working and cultural community

Only Germany, situated in the heart of Europe, with its great and varied needs, can bring about a new economic and cultural strengthening of the continent, securing Europe again for the Europeans, and making all cultivation and mining possibilities usable for European needs. Only in this way can a new European working and cultural community come into being, based on the complete sovereignty of all the peoples participating in it, politically, economically and culturally. For it is precisely Germany's soldierly attitude, Adolf Hitler's proclam ation of the Volkstumsgedanke as the foundation of the National Socialist world view, which is the sure guarantee that the sovereignty of foreign nations is inviolable for Germany in every respect. Germany, for ideological reasons as well as for practical political considerations, rejects every kind of imperialism, universalism and despotism, such as have arisen again and again for two millennia through the degeneration of the once dominant Nordic national substance under the southern sun and through the pe netration of the Jewish intellectual spirit, and such as have tried again and again to spread over Europe and are still trying to do so today. The monetary imperialism of certain Western countries, still born of intellectualistic monetary thinking, which l ends money to the peoples of Eastern Europe without increasing the foreign trade turnover with them in the same way, and thereby threatens their sovereignty, is one of the varieties of this spirit. Germany, therefore, in her trade policy, keeps away from all such monetary transactions which interfere with the sovereignty of foreign nations, and allows only mutual commodity exchange obligations to arise, commodity credits. Germany regards the suppression of foreign nations as the most stupid and reactionary policy there is. And only wishes that other peoples were of the same opinion. The additional living space that Germany is shifting from the West to the East in the form of its foreign trade area does not, therefore, mean a trade policy or even political im perialism, which is based on forcible border displacement, vis -à-vis Southeastern, Eastern and Northern Europe. Rather, its structure, described above, which protects German independence, is at the same time an equally strong protection for the independence of the peoples with whom Germany enters into foreign trade relations. It is only a peaceful contribution to the mutual elevation of the standard of living and culture of the continental European peoples far beyond the degree which can be given to each in dividual by his own clod. Thus the Volkstumsgedanke of Adolf Hitler establishes a new 61

continental European working and cultural community of sovereign peoples.

The Defensive Structure of the German Economy

Finally, a general overview of the defensible , i.e. life-law correct structure of the German economy. It is not an artificial construction, but results from the natural growth of the farm into a national economy, if the destructive interference of intellectualistic monetary thinking is prevented. For the farm already contains in its germ the entire national economy with all its thousand fold ramifications. The real national economy is, as it were, only an optical enlargement of the farm. For in reality every naturally grown national economy must remai n structurally similar to the defensible structure of the farm if it wants to preserve the economic independence of the people, to the farm that never separates plow and sword and never gives up its sovereignty even when cooperating with other farms. There fore, the national economy is also divided into the three natural occupational groups, which are already present on the farm and each of which has special tasks in the service of the whole people. For even on the farm only a part of the family members can cultivate the field, i.e. practice agriculture. The other part, the sons born after them, must, if new settlement space is not available, turn to the maintenance and improvement of the farming tools, in order to raise the intensity of the cultivation and t he yield of the soil, so that they can live from the same clod. In this way, the commercial internal economy is created through crafts, industry, trade, transport and the monetary system of the internal market. Now, if the family continues to grow on the f arm and in the national economy, and new settlement space is not available, a second floor, the external economy, must be built on top of the ground floor of the arable economy and the first floor of the commercial internal economy. Just as several farms e nter into meaningful exchange with each other without giving up their independence and thereby create new opportunities for work and life for their growing families - so also the national economies originally enter into meaningful, complementary exchange with each other without giving up their sovereignty. Thus, the foreign economy comes into being, which is divided into foreign trade, maritime traffic and the monetary and credit system of foreign trade. Thus, organically grown out of the farm, we have befo re us three natural 62

occupational groups, each of which has to fulfill special tasks in the service of the whole people, of the conscription of the economy, and which thereby preserve their structural equality with the defensive farm and close the völkische Wehrfront. These three groups are: 1. agriculture (Reichsnährstand). It has to ensure the renewal of the blood and the freedom of food by market regulation. 2. the commercial economy (crafts, industry, trade, transport, banking of the domestic ec onomy). It has to secure the civilizational and technical interests of the people and the freedom of raw materials through market regulation. 3. the foreign economy (foreign trade, maritime transport and the monetary and credit system of foreign trade). It shall promote and safeguard the external metabolism and living space of the national economy.

This clear group formation also enables a clear and uniform formation of the necessary self -governing bodies and self -responsible bodies of the economy. The structure of each group corresponds to the National Socialist moral principle of nation -building: freedom and self responsibility in the natural völkisch bond. These self-governing and self -responsible bodies of the economy, the first of which has already bee n completed by the "Reich Food Law" for agriculture, and the second of which is likewise almost ready for completion by the Reich Chamber of Commerce, and which still have to be supplemented by a law for the organization of foreign trade - are then not only the three natural self -governing bodies of the economy, but at the same time also the suitable instrument for their unified leadership by the policy of the Führer. And they are also the bearers of professional honor and the expert body for the formation of the "just price," i.e., the economically correct price that secures the nation's economic independence externally and social peace internally. They are therefore vertical organizations that grow like plants from the ground and allow the life and growth forces of the German people to pass through. They are therefore in contrast to the intellectualist -horizontal organizations of the liberalist-capitalist era, which cut off the always vertically directed life and growth forces of the German people.

Rebirth of natural freedom

The concept of freedom is thus brought back from the level of the mechanical to the level of the organic by this soldierly reorientation of the German mindset. Nowhere is the personal freedom and energy of the individual to be curta iled, with one exception, namely where it endangers the superior freedom of the totality and its national cohesion. This purely natural conception of the economy shatters the purely intellectualistic economic theories of the last hundred and fifty years, which broke the economy out of the natural defense front of the nation and gave it an unsoldierly defeatist attitude, through which the discord in the world was increased. The freedom and independence of the economy can also be secured only through self-defense. Heroic spirit stands up again against merchant spirit. Therefore, we declare that the nationhood must go before the economy and that the flag must go before the monetary thinking. The intuitive wisdom of the people, however, feels in the proclamation of these principles the renewal of its innermost, eternal life and growth, the rebirth of all irrational forces. Thus the leader of the eternal Germany, Adolf Hitler, shows those who formerly called him the greatest fantasist and most unrealistic man, wit h every day anew that he is the greatest real politician in every field, because he tackles and renews all things from the ideological side and thus restores to them their eternal meaning. Life from wholeness is therefore our slogan. National socialism is soldier socialism. One for all and all for one!

Ethnic attitude of the economy Economic policy as part of cultural policy

Lecture given at the German World Economic Society in Berlin on February 22 , 1935. 64

Economy and worldview cannot be separated from each other. Economy is not only a matter of doing business. It is not only a matter of doing business, but an indissoluble component of the entire vital forces of the nation. Economic activity in all areas must therefore follow the same guidelines that are uniformly imposed on all vital forces by the nation's will to live and grow. This uniform biological goal of all life activities of a nation is embodied in its cultural policy. Therefore, economic policy is also a part of the nation's overall cultura l policy and cannot be separated from it. If the economy does not recognize this and detaches itself from this overall discipline, this unified ethic of the people, then it will inevitably lose its natural attitude and thus, in the end, its professional ho nor. It must never be forgotten, therefore, that the professional honor of the economist is inseparably linked with his service to this unified goal of the nation. Thus, there is no such thing as the economy's own greed, and there is no such thing as the e conomy's own morality. It is a practical world outlook. Its moral action must have the same goal as the other actions of the people in politics, art, economy and technology, namely the strengthening and securing of the life and growth forces of the nation. This is also the deep biological meaning of the word: common good comes before self-interest. Only if you, ladies and gentlemen, place your economic activity in the service of securing and strengthening the vital and growth forces of the nation, will you really become a member of the new national community which Adolf Hitler's National Socialism demands as the prerequisite for the renewal of the German people. In order to really understand this demand, which is addressed to you today, from the bottom up, i t is necessary that I first of all clarify according to which guidelines the economy has actually been managed in the past century and a half, both in the agricultural and in the commercial sector. England set the tone in these last century and a half not only in men's fashions but also in economic fashions and methods. As long as England undisputedly ruled all the seas with its fleet, it proclaimed, under the influence of the teachings of A. Smith, Cobden and Ricardo, as the highest economic wisdom: the pr inciple of free trade, the principle of free economy. In addition, the international division of labor was elevated to the ideal of all economic activity. To buy in the world where it was cheapest and to sell where this could be done with the greatest private penury was proclaimed as the natural professional morality of the 65

merchant. In this way, however, economic activity was torn out of its natural, organic connection with the other activities of the people. The national economies were thus gradually t ransformed into sectors of an international division of labor, for which the only guiding principle of their labor and economic policy was maximum monetary earnings. England could allow itself this method of economic activity, maximum capital accumulation by exploiting all the possibilities of the world, with impunity before the world war, because it controlled the seas and thus all the supply routes without restriction. No one could stop England's supply from this international division of labor, which allowed it a maximum of capital growth. For all other peoples, however, this integration into the international division of labor and the principle of free trade meant a more or less severe weakening of their political freedom of action. For as a result of th is and the fact that the peoples shifted the foundations of their economies more and more outside their sphere of power and linked them into the international division of labor, they became more or less dependent on the goodwill of England. We experienced the consequences of this economic method, which Germany had followed without hesitation for the last hundred years, firsthand during the World War. We owe the loss of the war in large part to it. Our armies were standing at bay before our borders, and the fleet covered our coasts. But before the war, the German economy, interwoven into the international division of labor, had slowly but surely taken the foundations of our national economy, the freedom of food and raw materials, out of the German sphere of p ower. It had become the object of foreign trade. We were unable to produce the iron ration of food, fodder and industrial raw materials within our sphere of power, which protected us from capitulation. The demoralization of the people began here. Under the influence of the heresy of an international division of labor, a free economy and a world economy superior to the national economies, the German merchant thus ethically detached his attitude more and more from the overall attitude of the nation. His striv ing became a special striving for the achievement of a maximum private economic nugget. He wanted to see his performance fully compensated in money. In this way, he naively believed that he was best serving the nation. The fact that this maximum private ec onomic benefit no longer corresponded to the tasks of a true national economy, which has not only to form capital, but in the first place to look after the security and strengthening of the growth and life forces of the nation with economic means, was not seen.

However, it must be said justly also that at present nobody gave any other instruction to the merchant. Thus, along with his attitude, his professional honor became more and more distant from that of the old Prussian officer, civil servant, scien tist and artist, to all of whom service was more important than merit. Their performance never found its full equivalent in money. They sacrificed a part of their performance to the general public and were then rewarded for this sacrifice in increased honor and prestige. The economy was reassured by the fact that Germany had a strong army and a strong fleet: enough had been done for the security and strengthening of the nation. The merchant had nothing to do with that. Thus, little by little, the respectabl e merchant became more and more an international trader. The industrialist, too, no longer worked for a need he knew, but more and more for an impersonal market and international trade. Also the production was subjected thus more and more to the trade. The whole economic activity was uprooted and ultimately became an object of trade. Even the house and the farm became objects of financial transactions, became the object of mortgages and legal transactions. The personal relationship to the land, the house an d the business was more and more dissolved and degenerated into impersonal merchantism, doing business with shares, limited liability company shares and mortgages. The attitude of the man of the soil and blood and his activities were more and more replaced by a nomadic economic attitude, no longer bound to the native soil but to foreign blood. Thus, this uprooted and homeless "money economy" of the cultural peoples, dominated by foreign blood and ideologies, was drifting towards a gigantic catastrophe. We e xperienced it in the world war. Germany and its allies, who were involved in the international division of labor and thus lost their own freedom of food and raw materials, ultimately failed because of this. England and her allies cut off vital supplies to the Central Powers and our comrades in arms. Thus, for the sake of maximum monetary gain, the nation's freedom of action had been sold. Instead of restricting the freedom of the merchant where he endangered the freedom of the nation, one tried to recapture the fundamentals of the national economy, which had slipped out of their sphere of influence, by strengthening the army and the fleet in all nations just before the world war. Thus, through this wrong economic management, the probability of military and p olitical clashes was inevitably increased and ever new trouble spots were created. In commercial terms, too, these seemingly cheapest prices paid for the people's needs, covering them wherever in the world they could be obtained most cheaply at the time, w ere in fact 67

the most expensive prices. Because they tried to save the insurance premium against capitulation to trade boycott and blockade. It is indisputable that the iron ration of food for man and beast and the iron ration of industrial raw material s, which every nation needs to maintain its political freedom of action - which is what makes it free and peaceful in the first place - and which it must therefore produce within its sphere of power - initially costs more than their procurement from the ch eapest foreign countries. Nothing is given for free in life. The freedom and honor of the individual as well as of the nations must be bought and fought for again and again by sacrifices. - But this point of view was, as I said, completely lost under the i nfluence of the free trade doctrine and the Jewish international merchant spirit that had found its way into it, which were dominated only by monetary thinking. - Only for England, as I have already explained, this method was undoubtedly useful at the time , because here the conditions were fundamentally different. Only for England the "free economy" and the international division of labor granted a maximum of money earnings, without endangering the security of the British world empire. But when, after the war, England, contrary to her calculations, was suddenly confronted with three strong foreign fleets, she, following her common sense and instinct, without making much of a speech or putting forward profound theories, threw overboard the principle of free t rade, which had hitherto been proclaimed as an incontrovertible truth, and with it the principle of the international division of labor and of the "free economy", and confined it to her empire, the extent and division of labor of which she could safely swe eten with her naval and military power. Free trade was opposed by the new British discipline: the Ottawa policy! The remaining parts of the world were left to themselves, and these now have no choice but to follow again the changed English economic fashion and method and to transform themselves again into real national economies or to merge anew into large -scale economies, as far as this is possible. And, indeed, we see today four other large -scale economies besides the British Empire already in the process of formation. There is first America, which proclaims the Monroe Doctrine, the American Ottawa. There is the Chinese-Japanese bloc in the making, proclaiming the slogan: Asia to the Asians! There is the self -contained Russian -Siberian area, and finally there is France and its colonies, which are trying to form a French Ottawa. - To what extent a division of labor can be carried out in each of these large economic areas remains to be seen. If, therefore, Europe does not want to be crushed between these tran soceanic conglomerates and does not want to relinquish its rightful economic influence on the Russian 68

Siberian area, it must unite to form a new European working and cultural community, a European Ottawa. The National Socialist economic doctrine is in no way opposed to this; on the contrary, it leads in a straight line via the farm and the national economy to the large -scale economy. But a large-scale economy, which leaves the freedom and honor and independence of each national economy involved in it un touched, but gives it the possibility, with the surpluses dispensable for its own needs, to combine with the other national economies of the large -scale area for the common good. In this way a metropolitan economy would come into being which has grown vert ically and has nothing in common with the artificial, purely intellectually conceived horizontal constructions as they have been proposed several times for Europe in the liberalist epoch. Everyone knows them under the name of "United States of Europe", "European Customs Union", "Pan -Europe" and the like. The National Socialist economic doctrine has nothing to do with them. Its aim is a genuine society of national economies which complement each other for the common good of their peoples and thus re -establish a new European community of work and culture with an elevated standard of living for all concerned. Europe for the Europeans! is their slogan. The European need must be covered first in Europe! European internal trade must first be strengthened - not only by exhausting all possibilities of cultivation and combination, but also by exploiting all mineral resources, before the economies of the continental European area enter into an exchange of goods with other areas. Via the Baltic Sea and the Danube, two w aterways will again lead to the East, which will one day find their meaningful connection in the West through the Danube -Main-Rhine and Hansa Canal, and in the East via Lake Ladoga, the Dniester and the Black Sea. In this way, the old continental European economic, commercial and traffic circuit will be re -established, which will guarantee the participating nations a large degree of independence from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. And, conversely, it allows Germany and Central Europe to declare themsel ves little interested in the economic circuits based on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In this way, a new natural organization of the political and economic interests of the great European powers seems possible. The continental European economic circu it will nowhere overlap with those controlled by London, Paris and Rome. This is because the British Empire is oriented

towards the West and the Far East. Also the great economic area: France and its colonies, nowhere overlaps with the continental Eur opean one, and likewise not the Italian one, if the latter is limited to its natural territory, the Mediterranean and Africa. In any case, however, Great Britain is again far ahead of the other peoples in the instinctive and logical construction of its lar ge economic area. After this external and internal coercion, Germany, like the other national economies which do not have a large economic area at their immediate disposal, has no choice but to reorganize their economy anew and from scratch into a genuine national economy, in order to create the preconditions for a European large economy. Germany, if she is to regain and maintain her freedom of political action, her national honor and economic independence, must build up her economy in such a way that it is a castle for her against trade blockade or boycott. The minimum of food for man and beast and industrial raw materials necessary for this purpose must again be produced by Germany herself within her sphere of power. This can only be achieved through sensi ble market regulation and foreign trade. Foreign trade must not be allowed to interfere with the self production necessary to preserve political freedom of action, and must be stored in such a way that as little as possible needs to be cut even in the event of trade policy entanglements, although this could be done without endangering national security. For this, however, a new national discipline is the prerequisite also for the merchant. A discipline, a turning away from monetary thinking, which will agai n integrate him and his work with the other activities of the nation as a whole into the front line of defense of the nation, united with it into a new community in a new overall attitude: unity within, unity without. According to the English slogan, which is the foundation of the British world empire. Right or wrong - my fatherland. This change in economic attitude and organization, which was vital for the German people, was not seen by the democratic Marxist layer that washed up at the top of the governme nt after the collapse of Germany. On the contrary, it tried to re -integrate Germany into a "world economy" that no longer existed, that was only alive in its imagination, and that had long since been abandoned by England. In reality, however, this meant a complete economic defencelessness of the German people. Only Adolf Hitler, immediately after the war, recognized with unheard -of intuitive certainty the insanity of re -establishing a so -called "free economy" not tied to the people and fought it fanatically . For our Fuehrer and his fellow fighters it was a foregone conclusion that the new disciplining of the German economy, its new rooting and anchoring in German soil and 70

German nationality, its incorporation into the military community was one of the mo st indispensable prerequisites for the renewal of the German nationality in general. It was not any theoretical economic construction that our Führer sought to replace the previous "free economy", which in reality had been an imperialism of the worst kind, because it subjugated the honor, freedom and independence of the national economies of all peoples to an imaginary superordinate world economy - but precisely with the strongest rejection of all theories, all artificial or planned economic constructions, Adolf Hitler wanted to rebuild the national economy from its simplest original foundations. from its simplest original foundations, i.e. to let it grow again. That is why he hurled his antithesis at the "free economy" that had collapsed in ideological over-pitching and monetary thinking: Germany will be a peasant empire or it will not be! Only a few people have understood the unheard-of accuracy of this statement of our leader, who thereby characterized the deepest essence of every real national economy, no t only the German one. Because in reality every real national economy must be structurally similar to the structure of the farm. For the farm is the original cell from which, in truth, every national economy and, beyond that, every large -scale economy grows. The discipline of the farm must be the discipline of the national economy, and it must also be the discipline of foreign trade. At first, this thesis sounds so paradoxical, so completely opposed to previous economic thinking, that it was rejected with a shake of the head before the seizure of power, and even today its full depth has only been clearly recognized in a few minds. And yet this view is the simplest and most natural in the world. For the essence of every genuine revolution consists in restoring to its natural origins a world which has been conceived only externally and intellectually, and which has thus become inwardly hollow, untrue and unnatural, and from there also to rebuild it intellectually. As genuine revolutionaries, therefore, Adolf Hitler and his fellow fighters are also dynamists and not statists. They do not think, I have already said it often, of putting artificially on the drawing board contrived constructions and plans into the world, neither in the field of politics, art, culture, nor in the economy. On the contrary, the life and growth forces of the German people, which were imprisoned behind the intellectualistic latticework of a liberalistic-capitalistic period, want to free them again from all unnatural formations and give them again the opportunity to grow. However, not to an unregulated and aimless growth, but under the careful and guiding hand of the gardener: the individual law of life. 71

This conscious educational work of National Socialism is a direct, conscious and straightforward continuation of the growth in nature, just as the ethics of National Socialism, the attitude it preaches, are drawn solely from the law of biology, from the spirit of nature, from the spirit of the life and growth forces of the German p eople. This is the biological sense of the word: common good before self -interest. Thus it can only be understood that the National Socialism of Adolf Hitler is not an external political change of government, but the German form of that great ideological u pheaval which is taking place today in all parts of the world, which everywhere aims at the replacement of the chemical physical world view by a biological one, and which is reshaping from within all forms of state, culture, art and economy of every nation . This cannot be emphasized often enough. And that just this reshaping from within, this renewal of the growth and life forces of the German people, their new disciplining, is the sharpest enemy of all artificial constructions and theories, brings everywhe re again the healthy, nature -loving human understanding into things, and natural, healthy and growth -capable life forms will then form again everywhere by themselves! This view is itself a piece of creative nature, is the opposite of the view of the statists, the theoreticians, the intellectualists and materialists. They say: change the environment, and the spirit changes! They come up with some logically justified forms and then proclaim them as the only ones that can bring salvation, and then they want to press and stamp the living life into them. In the economic field, the constructions of liberalism, Marxism, communism and planned and forced economy are of this kind. They are the unnatural opposite of the natural new life development of the folk forces t hrough National Socialism. Here I would like to make one more intermediate remark: Never have members of the Reich leadership of the party or even our Führer himself described an absolute autarky of the German people as desirable. Absolute autarky does not exist at all among civilized peoples. This purely theoretical construction has been imputed to the party over and over again by liberalism. For the liberalist, as a result of his wrong attitude of mind, moves only in extremes. Economically seen, he knows either only unrestrained "free economy" or absolutely bound, i.e. compulsory economy. He cannot imagine anything else and therefore believes that if the previous "free economy" is rejected by National Socialism, now inevitably the compulsory economy inward ly and outwardly, i.e. autarky, must take its place. That is why the liberalist very often turns into a forced economist overnight, when he is stuck with the free economy. That is also why the Bolshevik economic system, the 72

coercive economy, is the ine vitable counterpart of the liberalist "free economy." Both are children of the same spirit, only with reversed signs. National Socialism is well aware that the standard of living of the German people, if it were based only on its own food and raw materials , would be so low that it would no longer be possible to maintain today's top performances, with which alone the German people would improve its standard of living as it is today and as it should be further improved. Only through a meaningful exchange of s ervices from national economy to national economy can the standard of living of the German people be raised in the long run above the standard of living that can be granted to them by their own narrow soil and by technology. This sensible economic system of freedom from food and raw materials, on the one hand, and foreign trade, which complements but does not destroy them, on the other, is called by National Socialism "völkisch ausgerichtete Wirtschaft. In order now to understand the renewed sense of econom y, and thus the word of the Fuehrer: Germany will be a peasant empire or it will not be, as it is conditioned externally by the collapse of the former liberalist imperialist world economy and internally by the organic new construction of the German nationa l economy, it is necessary to take another brief look at the new German economic structure. Every genuine national economy must, like the plant, like the nation itself, grow out of the soil, but remain indissolubly connected with it. Its structure is natur al only if it is vertical. For the real national economy is in reality completely structurally identical with the farm. It is, so to speak, only the optical enlargement of the farm. And it cannot be otherwise, because the farm is the original cell of the w hole national economic body, if one sees it as a unit. It is therefore impossible that in the national economic organism as a whole a different discipline can prevail as in its individual parts. This is no different in the human body. And if it is the case , the body is sick. That is why the national economy, like the farm, is divided into three clearly separated circles of work, which are nevertheless indissolubly organically connected with each other. Just as on the individual farm only a certain number of family members can cultivate the field belonging to them, so also in the real national economy only a part of the national community can practically work the soil. The remaining part of the family members of the farm as well as of the people must turn to commercial activity, i.e. small and large -scale trade, exchange and traffic. Through these commercial services, the intensity of cultivation and thus the productivity of the land will be 73

increased in such a way that these members of the family and the n ational community will also be able to live from the yield of the same soil. The additional yields of the arable land achieved through commercial services are therefore the natural field of activity of the sons of the hereditary farmers who are born after them and their basis of nutrition. Thus, from the point of view of the family and the national community, the peasant economy, the hereditary farm, also bears the responsibility for the welfare of the commercial economy it generates, for the welfare of the members of the farm and the national community who are occupied here. The properly balanced relationship between the ground floor, agriculture, and the second floor, the national economy, i.e. the domestic commercial economy, is decisive for the health of the overall economic structure. If now the family grows on the farm, and with it the people, then it becomes necessary with the time, if own settlement area is no longer available, to sow a second floor on the commercial domestic economy: the foreign econ omy. Some of the offspring of the farm and members of the national community must thus seek part of their livelihood by transferring part of their activity outside the farm or the national economy at home. Thus, seen on a small scale, the village community is created by comradely cooperation of several farms and, seen on a large scale, the large-scale economy is created by comradely cooperation of several national economies. The services of these on the periphery of the farm and the commercial economy of th e people's economy thus raise the standard of living and culture of the individual farms and economies. This external economic activity can temporarily contribute even more to the raising of the material and spiritual standard of the peasant and national economy than the other two, namely when it encounters still undeveloped space. At first, this space pays for the effort of technical and intensive work to a much higher degree, because it is still virgin soil or offers new possibilities for supplementation. This activity, which takes place on the outermost periphery of the farm and the national economy, carries with it not only the possibility of a considerable increase in the standard of living of the clan and national community, but also the increased danger of the destruction and fragmentation of its forces of growth and life, its biological goal. For it must not be overlooked that these people working on the second floor of the national economy more easily slip away from the family and national discipline anchored in the foundation. Under certain circumstances, their concept of freedom in the 74

new free space detaches itself more and more from the natural bondage of the old national community, and their actions become more and more ego-centered. One after another of the functions of the national economy, meaningfully linked and bound up in the growth and life forces of the nation, is loosened and degenerates into an end in itself. Service is replaced by merit. The economic officer is replaced by the freebo oter. National economic capital formation becomes capitalism. In place of the "just price" bound to the respectable attitude of the community, the international "cheapest price", which is an end in itself, steps. The nationally bound national economy becom es the sector of an imagined world economy. Thus the morally in healthy market regulation bound national economy becomes the morally unbound, thus immoral "free economy". Thus the life and growth forces of a clan and a people can fragment in the free space and degenerate by wrong morality. This is not only a theoretical possibility, but unfortunately bitter truth. The destruction of the first natural European economy of the Middle Ages by the discovery of America and the sea route to India and the epoch of the "free economy", which has now come to an end, has left a political, cultural and economic debris field of unheard -of dimensions in the whole world, which many generations will have to clear up and reorganize. Indeed, the discovery of new free spaces an d their colonization (colonization), as well as interstate activity in general, means strengthening the growth and vital forces of the native economies only if they do not escape their discipline and sphere of power. The disorganized colonial and the undis ciplined foreign trade policy were for many European countries no. They have led to the destruction of the domestic disciplined economy by the infection from the foreign economy, from which the germs of decomposition called "free economy", "free play of forces" and "world economy" have penetrated. Starting from the ground floor of the native peasant economy, a uniform, strict and national discipline - a market regulation not only of foodstuffs, but also of the basic materials for the industrial economy - must be maintained through the two floors above, the industrial and the foreign economy. A market regulation which not only secures a just price for the members of the national community for the exchange of services among themselves, but which also includes a just tariff for the nation as a whole, guaranteeing it security and the strengthening of its vital and growth forces. It must close, not open, the front of national defense. Every national community must therefore discipline its economic management in such a way that it always has within its walls the iron ration of food and industrial raw materials. For only the free can be peaceful! Only the 75

freedom of food and raw materials allows every nation not to regard every trade and foreign policy involvement as a threat to its existence, which must be countered by force of arms. Army and fleet are the "ultima ratio", which may be used only if it concerns the living and highest goods, the honor and liberty of the nation. Only when the economy is controlled in this way does trade again follow the flag, as it should, and not, as the liberalist age demanded, the flag follow the trade. The international merchant then again becomes the honorable merchant. The old Hanseatic League, too, was not a merchant's affair, but a community of sacrifice and work, a disciplining of trade of unheard-of boldness and greatness, which never lost its native ground under its feet and its connection with the national community. It contained within itself, as a spiritual driving force, the wanderlust and homesickness of the Nordic man. It was a designed order of foreign trade. For it must be said again and again with all clarity that German foreign trade had its greatest flowering at a time when not every merchant tried to do business fo r himself or on his own account, but when the spirit of common cooperative economic activity, of a common attitude, was completely in the foreground and led to an unfolding of creative forces in all fields of culture, art and economy, behind which the libe ralistic trading epoch completed today stands far behind. For the first continental European large -scale economy from the year 1000 to the year 1600, which was a natural enlargement of genuine farm and national economy, enclosed for the first time a holy G ermanic empire of the German nation. Its spiritual centers were Lübeck and Marienburg, and its base was not the Mediterranean but the Baltic Sea. While the Teutonic Knights kept watch from the Baltic Sea down to Transylvania and expanded the European livin g space to the east, the Hanseatic League, the German association of cities under Lübeck's leadership, brought up the agricultural surpluses from the Danube and southeast regions, moved them along the old Hanseatic military and trade route from Rhineland Westphalia to Lübeck and shipped them - mixed with products of German, Italian, Flemish and other trades - with their warships and merchant ships across the Baltic Sea into Russia. Via Russia, this circulation of goods, money and traffic was closed by the e xchange of smoked goods and other Nordic products in the Baltic Sea region and in Russia. This first continental European economy, whose main pillars were the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, was a space -bound economy both internally and external ly. The peoples and ethnic areas enclosed by the Hanseatic League complemented each other in the best possible way. They adjusted their production to each other's needs, and it was strictly 76

observed that the principle of meeting demand was maintained a nd did not lead to disorderly production or even overproduction. This first large scale economy was also disciplined internally, in that each profession, each guild was assigned a specific sector as a field of work, which it fulfilled with its own freedom and self-responsibility, and which did not interfere with the living spaces of others. From this consciously inwardly and outwardly regulated and steered economy grew then the high Nordic culture and bloom of the Middle Ages, its prosperity and 6one art. A s the highest witnesses of the spirit of these days: inner freedom and self responsibility in the natural external and therefore national bondage, the Gothic cathedrals and the magnificent brick Gothic of the Lower Saxon and Baltic Sea region still rise up everywhere today. * As much as economic goals played a role in all of this, it was far removed from purely private economic thinking. For the German merchant, as he asserted himself since 1150 according to plan as a founder of cities and organizer in the Baltic Sea area, the word "ubi bene ibi patria" did not apply, but he carried his patria, his German patria, into the Baltic Sea. If today the southern Baltic coast is German, from Lübeck to Memel, and if further places, like Riga and Reval, still show Ger man features, this is the merit of the merchant from the Lower Rhine and Lower Saxony, who did not rest until he himself had created those German cities, which then, however, became the most important bases of his economic work. Not the spirit of the merch ant, but also not the unrealistic denial of the economic foundations of human existence and human culture, but the powerful synthesis of the German colonizer and the daring merchant, that gives the beginnings of Hanseatic history its face, and explains why it did not become an economic association indifferent to the people, but rather the federation of the cities of the German Hanseatic League. It was quite consciously an economic association based on blood. It is because of this link between the economy an d the blood that the Hanseatic merchant became the most respected and influential representative of his people abroad over the centuries. All this would not have been possible if the Baltic cities had been founded only by Germans, but had not been filled up again and again with people from Old Germany, preferably from Rhineland-Westphalia. . ."

* Taken from a lecture by Professor Dr. Rörig, Berlin, given at the second Nordic Thing in Bremen in 19 34, published by Anglo -Saxon Publishing Ho use.

One does not detach the economy from the people, that was the one lesson of Hanseatic history; but one certainly does not detach it from politics. One appreciates the economy, but one does not overestimate it. One knew only too well that a healthy economy is possib le only with a healthy political development. It was not because the Hanseatic League was an economic association that it was able to play its honorable role in German history, but because it was an economic association with its own inherent, outstanding, masterful political leadership. In any case: it was a genuine Hanseatic virtue to subordinate private enterprise to the whole, to burden the leading men of the economy with genuine responsibility to the whole. At this crucial point it becomes apparent how wrong it would be to claim Hanseatic history as evidence of materialistic sentiments or views of history; in their good times, what we understand today by the phrase: common good comes before self interest, was a matter of course for them."

You can see from these remarks how necessary it is to rewrite not only German history and cultural history, but also German economic history. Here, too, light and shadow must be redistributed. The eye that has been changed by the National Socialist renewal also sees Ger man economic history in a different light today. This just described well -ordered continental European large -scale economy, which excluded any catastrophe regulation, namely the liberalistic "free play of forces", in which production, sales' and the existence of every single honest working man were secured, and to whose guardians the fair price and the honorable attitude were appointed, broke, however, when in the West a new free, seemingly unlimited space - America - was discovered and the new sea route to India opened up.'' The old natural orders, bonds and statutes were destroyed, and an unrestrained production, the so -called "free economy," unfolded. For three hundred years, new markets opened up to accommodate wild, unregulated production, unrestrained trade, and the unrestrained activity of each individual to do whatever suited him. Since the world war, however, these free markets have closed in the Far West and Far East, and now there is an end to the "free economy" as well. The intellectualist ideolog y of a superior world economy, a kind of super economy, which had been distilled as the sublimest idea from the chaotic confusion of the so -called "free economy", also burst in the same way. I have already shown at the beginning of my lecture how England 78

developed this "free economy" under the influence of the teachings of A. Smith, Cobden and Ricardo to the system of international division of labor and free trade, because this system served its present political and economic purposes in the best way - just as long as Great Britain's fleet undisputedly ruled the seas. The free trade system was therefore not a new economic theory, but a theory of power politics. This became evident as soon as its basis, the undisputed naval supremacy of England, was gone and therefore, as already mentioned, after the end of the World War it was faced with three other strong fleets: the American, the Japanese and the French. At the same moment, practical England turned its back on the free trade system and with it on the do ctrine of the "free economy", which had been provisionally put into a system, while our die -hards still mourn this vanished phantom. There are no economic systems at all, but only power-political shaping of the economy. Thus the impetus for the rebuilding of the national and world economy came both from within and from without. All over the world, therefore, we are faced with the fact that even foreign trade relations everywhere must return to their natural foundations, namely to the real national economies. So today, quite logically, under Adolf Hitler's leadership, the natural organic economic structure is growing again out of this collapse: Farm national economy - large-scale economy. This original economic doctrine also restores the natural balance bet ween the ground floor, the peasant economy, and the two upper floors, the commercial domestic economy and the foreign economy. An epoch of imperialist ideology thus comes to an end. Everywhere the life and growth forces of the people again reach vertically through the three working circles of the economy and discipline them in renewed order and morality. Everywhere, the vertical ties that allow the forces of growth to pass through and support them are re established, and the previous horizontal ties that in hibited and stifled the forces of growth are abolished. In the place of private -sector cartels and price associations, which are in fact private collectives, vertical organic market regulation is taking place not only in the agricultural sphere but gradually also in the industrial sphere and thus also in foreign trade. The price determined only by the private sector is being replaced by the price determined correctly by the national economy, not only in agriculture but also in the industrial economy. This i s the purpose of market regulation in agriculture and, in the future, also in industry. This market regulation, necessary to secure and promote the growth and vital forces of the people, this framework consciously drawn by the political leadership of the p eople, which curtails the freedom of the economic man 79

only where it endangers the freedom of the nation, can be filled by the economy in full self -responsibility and with its own energy only if it is divided into the three natural occupational groups, a s they already exist on your farm, and each of which has special tasks in the service of the whole of the people. These three groups are: 1. agriculture, 2. industrial economy, 3. foreign economy. This clear grouping also allows a clear and uniform formati on of the necessary forms of self -government of the economy. The structure of each group corresponds to the basic National Socialist moral principle of nation-building: freedom and self -responsibility in the natural folkish bond. These forms of economic se lf-government, the first of which has already been completed by the "Reich Food Law" for agriculture, and the second of which is in the process of being formed by the "Law on the Organic Structure of the Economy" for industry, and which will perhaps have t o be supplemented by a law on the organization of foreign trade, are then not only the appropriate instrument for the uniform management of the economy by the Führer's policy, but will at the same time also be the bearer of professional honor and the exper t body for the formation of the "just price," i.e., the right price for the national economy. i.e. economically correct price. They are vertical organizations which must more and more entail the dissolution of all horizontal price associations for goods, money and the like, of the private collectives which, along with unrestrained competition, have hitherto been the favorite children of economic liberalism. Only through them will the just price and thus the just exchange of services be restored in a positiv e way, which is already secured in a negative way through the prohibition of lockouts, strikes and monopolistic price associations for money and goods. Only through it will the primacy of labor over capital and the primacy of the working man and of performance over immoral measures of violence be re -established. I hope to have made it clear through my remarks that National Socialism, as a genuine ideological movement, raises anew the great basic motif of all ideologies, the question of freedom and bondage, and brings it to a renewed natural solution. Nowhere is the personal freedom and energy of the individual to be curtailed, with one exception, namely, where it restricts the freedom of the people. Genuine national community means: unity within, unity witho ut. One without the other is impossible. That is why Adolf Hitler used the term Volksgemeinschaft as the simplest and most natural expression for National Socialism. The cultivation of true national community let’s all these virtues: Loyalty, honor, freedo m and 80

self-responsibility, sprout naturally and of their own accord from their soil. Out of the natural national community the individual man, if he consciously feels and classifies himself as a member of the whole, is educated to a new attitude in his life and in all his activities. And not only in the fields of politics, art and culture, but also in the economy. For all these expressions of life are a unity and cannot be separated from one another. A new overall attitude of the German people, a new way of life, is thus in the making. This new discipline and education of the German people, which today still has to take place mainly through columns and formations, that is, through external discipline, will be replaced more and more in the course of the succession of generations by internal discipline, by self -discipline. For National Socialism knows perfectly well that everything built on external discipline is perishable, but everything built on inner discipline, on self discipline, is imperishable. But t he German people, through the misguidance of strata which in the past centuries have separated themselves more and more from the living community of the people through class, class or educational conceit, have been so out of control, both inwardly and outwardly, that it first needs again a strict external discipline, an external command over columns and formations, so that National Socialism can even begin its great work of education. This education consists in a conscious strengthening (by means of racial cultivation and ever stronger participation in leadership) of that racial core of the German people which is distinctly German and Nordic, i.e. instinctive, and thus receives the command from within itself. Only through such strengthening of the German -Nordic racial nucleus, extending over successions of generations, will the German people gradually develop again from within itself, from the origins of its being, a new natural self -discipline, a new overall attitude, a new way of life in all fields. And onl y then, when its largest and leading part has again become instinctive, when it again receives the orders from within itself, from its intuition, will it again be able to dispense more with the external command. But never of the soldierly attitude ( unity inwardly, unity outwardly), for this is demanded by the geographical position of the German people in Europe at all times. This soldierly attitude, which the supreme law of life and growth of the nation demands of every individual; consists in the sacrific e which he has to make to the community in his work. So also the farmer, the craftsman, the industrialist and the merchant, by voluntarily bowing under this 81

supreme law of the community, have to sacrifice a part of their performance. Just as the officer , the civil servant, the artist, and the inventor do not receive a hundred per cent of their services in money, neither can the economic man expect, when he places his work in the service of the whole, to be compensated one hundred per cent with money for his performance. For the part of his performance which he sacrifices, however, he will then be repaid with increased social prestige and honor, just as the officer, the artist and the civil servant. For his attitude is now again the same attitude as that o f the other fiefdoms of the nation. The economic man, with his activity, has again moved into the closed front of the life and growth forces of the nation. His activity has risen from the level of the purely civilizing to the sphere of the cultural attitude. Economic policy becomes cultural policy again. What does this sacrifice of the economic man consist of, concretely speaking? What does this soldierly attitude consist of? It consists in the fact that the farmer secures the freedom of food by renouncing the greatest possible benefit. It consists in the fact that the tradesman, the craftsman, the industrialist secures the freedom of raw materials under sacrifice. And it consists in the fact that the merchant and the worker in this sense renounce a maximum wage for their work in the exchange of goods and in the production of goods. The economic man is thus to secure freedom of action for the nation externally, and internally, by standing as a captain before his followers or as a soldier before his employer, to secure social peace under the slogan: All for one and one for all. They know from their own experience that the company is only worth something if the captain is worth something. And that, conversely, if the captain is a whole man and he is ruthlessly c ommitted to his followers, every single one of his soldiers will go through fire for him. The relationship of the manager to his followers and of the economist to the whole people will then not revolve around maximum monetary earnings and wages, but once a gain around the highest moral values of the nation. In this renewed attitude, the spirit of sacrifice of past generations in art, economy, science and urban planning will come alive again. Only from its genuine national community and its heroic attitude ca n it be understood that in Lübeck and in Nuremberg, in Danzig and in Cologne, as in all other strongholds of our past, purely representative buildings were erected which did not serve any economic purpose. These town halls, these 82

cathedrals, the monasteries and abbeys and their magnificent works of art were not created by the endowments of individuals, but by the sacrifice of the nameless community. They are the imperishable cultural monuments of a first German community to which, as a result of i ts inner unity and attitude, sacrifice no longer appeared as a sacrifice, but as the highest safeguard of the community's life and growth forces and thus of its children and children's children. Not sacrifice, but love, pride and loyalty was the service of our ancestors to the community, and thus they found the deepest inner meaning of every cultural and creative work. The renewal of the German people through National Socialism will reawaken these eternal forces of the past and of the German people and enab le them to sacrifice and serve anew. For all the governmental measures in all fields, as decreed by our Fuehrer, gain their living meaning only when they also meet with a readiness of will and sacrifice on the part of each of them. To all of them, to the G erman merchant, the German worker, the German farmer, the German industrialist and tradesman, the call of the eternal Germany goes out through the mouth of our Fuehrer: Help and cooperate out of innermost conviction in the new construction of a new German community of life and culture. All for one and one for all. Everything for Germany.

Volkish Economy is Defensive Economy Essay in the magazine "Deutsche Technik, Betrieb und Wehr," M ay issue 1936.

Defensible attitude is the immovable basis of all individual and national being. The people as well as the individual receive their existence from God's hand alone and not from any human "collective security". The preservation of this autonomous right to exist of the individual and the "people is therefor e the prerequisite of all additional collective security. Freedom and honor can therefore always be preserved in the first place only by self-defense. Only he who helps himself is helped by the gods. Therefore, a national attitude does not only mean a defensive heroic attitude in the state -, art- and culture-political fiefdoms of a people, but also in the space of its economic thinking and acting. For freedom and honor of national life are indivisible. 83

Only when this creative wholeness of national life is weakened by biological degeneration or overlapping with forms of thought alien to the species, does the intellect, hitherto bound to the intuition and instinct of the racial substance, begin to free itself from these natural bonds and break down the defensible wholeness of national life into sub -areas and specialisms which become increasingly unfruitful for the whole. Life becomes a matter of pigeonholing, and each individual area begins to lead a special existence and to develop its "own laws". Then the condition occurs which we have known in the past liberal -capitalist epoch, which must end in national death, in racial chaos and Bolshevism. Adolf Hitler's heroic struggle is therefore ultimately abou t bending the degenerated intellect in all areas of German life back under the rule of the irrational, the eternal life and growth forces of our people and to lead it back into its natural bond through the purposeful regeneration of our national substance. For only this bond and the restoration of a unified, defensible attitude of all life and growth forces gives our nationhood the possibility of new growth and new self -assertion. Therefore, a defensible shaping of the German living space and a defensible orientation of the spiritual attitude in all fields, including that of the economy, is the prerequisite for any new growth of German life. This unity cannot be conveyed by the invocation of the "ratio", by the establishment of new intellectualistic theories and doctrines, but only by the invocation of the "irratio" of the eternal life and growth forces of our people themselves. By calling for a new heroic attitude of the German spirit and for a defensive shaping of its living space. Thus, through Adolf Hitle r, the false, defenseless freedom doctrines of an earlier time have already been eliminated in state, legal and cultural policy and a new defensible attitude has been put in their place. The same has to happen in the field of economic policy. The economic intellectualism - capitalism - which makes the German people defenseless, and the social intellectualism - Marxism - which makes them defenseless, cannot be eliminated by friendly coaxing, but only by radical overpowering on the part of the irrational forc es. Therefore, it is not possible to renew the economy by establishing new economic theories and economic doctrines constructed from the intellect, new principles and tenets, but only by educating people to a new defensive attitude, that is, by proclaiming a new economic outlook. Only in this way will it be possible to transform the economic activity of a people, which has degenerated into "self -legislation" and materialism, into a genuine

national economy again and to bring its attitude back into harmo ny with the same soldierly attitude in the other spheres of life. So that the same vital and spiritual forces flow through it again and it is again integrated into the biological unity of the whole people. Real national economy is therefore always defensiv e economy. It is not an isolated matter of marks and pennies, but a spiritual matter. Not highest economic efficiency and highest wages at any price is its highest goal - as capitalism and Marxism proclaimed, but the fulfillment of the economic conscriptio n: the safeguarding of the life and growth forces of the German people and its living space by economic means. Only after the fulfillment of this military duty - namely the securing of the freedom of raw materials and the freedom of food, which together constitute the economic freedom - the highest economic efficiency in the choice of production and trade methods is an indispensable requirement. Only after the military service has been fulfilled does the economic pledge begin, i.e. the selection of the most rational methods of production and trade. The economic attitude of the two twin brothers capitalism and Marxism - which is defeatist in the national sense, consisted precisely in the fact that the highest economic efficiency per se, the so-called economic duty - without regard to the security of the nation - was placed before the military duty of the economy. During the liberalist era, people seriously believed that they had fulfilled their "patriotic duty" to the state by achieving the greatest possible surplus with the help of the most rational production and trade methods imaginable. From this surplus, the state could then raise taxes on a large scale for the army, the fleet and the air force, which, according to the liberalist economic order, had to s ecure the state alone. It was forgotten, however, that the Wehrmacht could not fulfill the task of the external protection of living space and nationhood if the current supply for the Wehrmacht and the people from the domestic economy was not secured. In the end, this is how we lost the world war. One cannot buy oneself out of the conscription of the economy by paying taxes. Freedom cannot be bought. Economic freedom can also only be secured through self -defense. And without economic freedom, there can be no freedom of defense! For only if the "iron ration of food for man and cattle and the iron ration of industrial raw materials, which a people before capitulation shots - in case of boycott or siege - is won in the country itself, the Wehrmacht is secured b y such a soldierly attitude of

the economy in the back, so that it can now really carry out the external shooting of the living space of the people. Such "control of the economy perhaps makes production and trade more expensive here and there at the be ginning. So it demands sacrifices of additional work. Because the purchase of some goods from any part of the world is often cheaper than the self -production in the own country. But these sacrifices have to be made. For what is saved here in money must otherwise one day be paid for in blood. The preservation of freedom and honor always demands sacrifices. Even the economy, if it wants to be a genuine national economy, can never avoid these sacrifices for freedom and honor. For it is not, after all, an isola ted matter of marks and pennies. A mechanism for making money - but a part of the living life and growth forces of the people, whose wholeness and integrity it has to promote and secure by economic means. Moreover, we can have confidence in German inventiv eness, German technology and German work that the materials produced by synthesis, by artificial means, will in time become so cheap that they can compete with the natural raw materials of foreign countries. The development is still going on in this way. F or technology is a product of the Nordic spirit. Its deepest meaning is to compensate by labor -saving methods, machines and apparatuses for the extra work imposed on us Nordic people by unfavorable soil conditions and unfavorable climate compared to other peoples of the world. Only in this way can we gain the leisure necessary for cultural activity, which other peoples are granted by nature through easier extraction of their raw materials and foodstuffs. This renewal of the spiritual attitude in the economi c activity of the German people is therefore possible only by proclaiming a new, völkischwehr-like economic outlook, and not by setting up new economic doctrines and maxims. This new economic view puts defense policy before monetary policy and breaks up al l economic theories established in the last hundred and fifty years which, conversely, put monetary policy before defense policy and which were the result of an unpopular and thus defenseless attitude. How can economic freedom, without which freedom of defense is not possible, now be won in practice? This can only be done by comprehensive market regulation. The market regulation is the self defense, is the tax organ, which secures the extraction of the iron ration of food and commercial raw materials for hu mans and cattle. It is already largely implemented in the agricultural sector by the self -governing and self-responsible bodies of the Reichsnährstand. It will also be implemented in the industrial sector by the self -governing and self 86

responsible body of the industrial domestic economy - the Reich Chamber of Commerce - for the purpose of securing the freedom of raw materials even more than before. Finally, a third body of self -government and self administration - a Reich Chamber of Foreign Trade - will in time become necessary for securing the import requirements that go beyond the freedom of food and raw materials. For everything that is desired for a nation in terms of goods, over and above the securing of economic freedom, can be brought in through t he greatest possible foreign trade. Only through large -scale foreign trade can the standard of living of the German people be raised above the narrow level afforded to them by their own narrow soil. Thus, the German people must use their own soil primarily to secure their economic freedom, and foreign trade to secure their high standard of living. As a complement to a reorganized domestic economy, foreign trade must also be reorganized and directed in such a way that it serves the vital and growth forces of the German people and its partners in exchange. For foreign trade, too, can no longer be conducted in the liberalist manner of peddling, buying here today, there tomorrow, depending on where it is cheapest. Thus, in time, German foreign trade will have to come to clear agreements and ever closer cooperation, especially with the economies of the southeastern region and the North and Baltic Sea areas. Only on a comradely basis, guaranteeing mutual sovereignty through trade and monetary treaties, can peaceful cooperation be established among the peoples of the European continent. In this meaningful division and self management of agriculture, trade and foreign trade, the national economy returns to the natural order of life as it is given in the farm as the original cell of all genuine national economy. The individual farm is always defensible. Plow and sword are not separated from each other. If the family expands beyond the food range of the individual farm and if new settlement space is not available, an exc hange of agricultural and commercial services between the farms takes place, but the individual farm is never endangered in its independence. The individual farm therefore never gives up its independence even in cooperation and exchange with other farms. I t serves no other purpose than that: to promote and create the life and growth forces of the clan living on it, to give it the unshakable material basis for its self -assertion and growth. But what is true for the farm is also true for the national economy, which is already in its germ with all its ramifications in the farm. Both have therefore, if they are healthy, to carry out in the same way the basic measure of the defense. A people's personality, just like an individual personality, is not given freedom by collective security from above. Only 87

he who defends himself on this earth remains free. This defense, however, must extend to all areas, including the economy. For without economic freedom there is no political freedom and no freedom of a people to defend itself. Thus, a national economy is always a defensive economy! The reunification of agrarian, industrial and external economy into a living, managed, biological unity, not based on external command, but ultimately on internal breeding.

The Folk Sense of the Second Four-Year Plan

Essay in the journal "Metallwirtschaft". Issue 42 October 1936.

A real political and cultural independence of the German people without economic independence is impossible. Since the defense of its honor and its freedom is the supreme law of Adolf Hitler's new People's State, the economy must also be managed in such a way that Germany need never capitulate to foreign impositions because of a lack of food or raw materials. For a national attitude is a defensive attitude: f reedom through self-defense in all areas of national life! None can be exempted from it; neither the state -political nor the cultural -political, nor the economic-political. None is unique. None of them can be separated from the others in its spiritual and ethical attitude. The irrational, living unity of national life is indivisible, as are its supreme values: honor, freedom, loyalty and sacrifice. - Therefore, the subsistence minimum of food for man and cattle and of industrial raw materials, which we need in peace and war, must be produced or secured within our country itself - no matter what the cost. For no price is too high for honor and freedom. Only those additional needs which do not call into question the economic freedom of the German people, but w hich are necessary for maintaining and raising their present standard of living, can be the subject of foreign trade. Since economic freedom consists of freedom of food and freedom of raw materials, two four -year plans for the economy were announced by the Führer. In the first, food freedom was to be achieved and unemployment was to be eliminated. And in the second four -year plan, freedom of raw materials was to be achieved and foreign trade was to be organized. The first four-year plan was fully successful . How unemployment was 88

overcome not by distributing labor, by some ingenious "labor or capital steering," but by increasing production according to the principle: labor creates capital - is known to all. And just as a new National Socialist labor community was established at the same time through the Labor Front and the "Trustees of Labor" as a living expression of the all -encompassing Volksgemeinschaft. A new work order based on a national attitude and not on the striving for maximum wages or profit wit hout regard to the safeguarding and promotion of the vitality and growth of the company and the national economy, but on national honor and achievement. In which, therefore, money is not the supreme regulative, but the irrational eternal national values: h onor, freedom, loyalty and willingness to make sacrifices. In which everyone is equally honored and respected, if only he does his work with all his heart and to the best of his ability. The capitalist principle that money means honor and that the social q uestion is a question of wages was abandoned. Thus, in the first Four -Year Plan, a work order was also established which embodies the new völkisch -wehr attitude in this German sphere of life, which thus clears the way again for the folkish forces of growth , i.e., for a new genuine increase in output and surplus economy. The other part of the first Four -Year Plan dealt, as mentioned, with the reorganization of agriculture. A cultivation plan was drawn up and implemented in the production battle, which provid ed for such a quantity and variety of foodstuffs for man and cattle and agricultural raw materials from German soil that German food freedom is thus assured. As announced by the Reichsbauernführer, the self -responsible and selfgoverning body of German agr iculture, the Reichsnährstand, which is entrusted with the implementation of this cultivation plan and the market regulation, has fully succeeded in "winning" food freedom for the German people with the first four -year plan. On average, 85% of the normal annual demand, i.e. the "demand" corresponding to the present high standard of living of the German people, is already being obtained in the country. And this was possible in spite of the fact that the agricultural area of the German Reich has been reduced by about 15% compared to 1913, and the number of people in the 13% smaller German fatherland is today again the same as in the larger Germany of 1913. If we also take into account the increase in today's standard of living compared to 1913, we can say that the new German agricultural policy in the first Four -Year Plan has actually succeeded in raising production and making it so diverse that today we can feed the German people 100% from our own soil on 15% smaller nut -growing area to the standard of living of 1913. 89

This achievement was only possible because in the field of agriculture, too, the eternal national ethos took the place of the mercantile attitude. Just as the German Labor Front and the "Law for the Order of National Work," which in reality are the German self -responsible and self governing body of social honor, carried out this change of attitude in the organization of work. The agricultural production plan alone was not enough; production, exchange and consumption had to be regulated according to a different law, as had hitherto been done in the liberalist economy. In place of the "free play of forces" and the free movement of money and goods, professional honor and the just price, which nowhere touched the organic freedom of producer, trader a nd consumer, were put. So here again the living values: honor and freedom, as control of the economic process instead of a dead money automatism. The instrument of the Reichsnährstand, the agricultural market regulation, is the embodiment of this change of mind, which makes it so that it is no longer the people for the agricultural economy, but the agricultural economy for the people. Thus, the first Four -Year Plan, which gave the German people a defensible attitude in the fields of agricultural and labor p olicy, and thus restored its völkische honor and völkische freedom in these fields, could only be carried out because these fields recalled their eternal völkische origins and freed themselves from intellectualistic, Jewish monetary thinking. The source of the increase in output and of a new healthy surplus economy in the first Four -Year Plan and the reestablishment of völkisch honor and freedom was therefore not some ingenious financial plan, but the uncovering of the eternal life and growth forces of the German people also in this area by our leader Adolf Hitler. - But also during the implementation of this first economic four -year plan it became apparent again that especially among the experts, the specialists and routiniers, the "greats" of the past libe ral-capitalist system, this change of attitude from a mercantile to a heroic, from a defenseless to a defensible economic management - met with the greatest incomprehension. So here again the same experience as with the structural change in the political and cultural-political area, where the guilds, the professional politicians and scholars showed the least understanding for the National Socialist upheaval. And this is ultimately quite understandable. For the völkische attitude is not born of reason, of i ntellect, but always arises only from the irrational, eternal life and faith forces of the people. That is why the leader was never understood by the "wise", but always by the "simple minded", those who were strong of heart. - The peasantry and the simple, uneducated worker were therefore the first to be penetrated by this new 90

attitude of mind and thus became the bearers of the first Four -Year Plan. In the second Four -Year Plan, the previous statics of the industrial economy, the liberalist conceit of sp ecialists and experts, the monetary thinking will be dissolved by the dynamics of the movement, and here, too, will be transformed into a national one. It is to be hoped that the managers of industrial and foreign trade enterprises will take an example from the change of attitude in the agricultural sector, in order to gain intellectual aids and supports for the understanding of the new spiritual attitude which must enter the industrial economy. As in the agricultural sector, the fight for German raw materi al freedom requires not only the establishment of a production plan, but also a market regulation for the most important raw materials. A market regulation that must be "supported" by an inner understanding and an inner readiness if it is to fulfill its purpose of processing the initially perhaps more expensive synthetic materials or lower -percentage German ores in an appropriate manner instead of foreign goods. It must be understood that the industrial economy, like foreign trade, serves not only material purposes, the attainment of the cheapest or highest prices, but must in the first place secure the honor and freedom of the people. It must be understood that even if certain raw materials produced synthetically at home will initially cost more than their purchase from the cheapest foreign countries, in the end neither our "competitiveness" on the world market nor the domestic German economy will suffer. The Fuehrer expressed this in an unsurpassable manner in his proclamation at Nuremberg. The continuing structural changes and fluctuations in foreign exchange rates in world trade and commerce, which will continue for many decades to come and will not diminish one iota from the structure of the pre -war economy, mean that today there are almost no longer an y world market prices in the former sense and no more automatically regulated imports and exports. Since there will be neither world market prices nor a uniform supply of raw materials now and in the coming decades, is it not much more economical to mainta in and possibly increase the volume of German production with self -produced synthetic raw materials or ores extracted from German soil (even if they are somewhat more expensive or lower in percentage) - instead of limiting the German production volume and waiting until the necessary raw materials occasionally arrive from abroad, even if they should then happen to be cheaper? There is probably only one answer to this question. Every experienced technician and businessman knows that the continuity of producti on and the expansion of the production volume are the most important factors in reducing prices. And that the synthetic raw materials, processing and 91

manufacturing methods produced by German technology and science will approach the cheapest world market prices of natural raw materials in a much shorter time than is currently believed, given the experience we have had for decades with synthetic materials such as artificial indigo, nitrogen and others, is not in doubt for a moment. In any case, the German synthetic materials or low -percentage ores will have reached the cheapest world market price before a new stable order of interstate trade and traffic is re -established. It probably needs no further explanation for the insightful that only in this way the largest part of the German raw material freedom can be fought for. Production planning and market regulation, which should not be exercised by private -sector cartels but, if possible, by the groups of the Reich Chamber of Commerce in a self -responsible and self-governing manner, would have the same effect on the industrial economy as the Reich Food Council has had on the agricultural sector. For the Reich Chamber of Commerce basically has to perform the same functions in the industrial economy - to regulate the market and to carry out the production plan - as the Reich Food Board in the agricultural economy. Both are the natural self -governing and self -responsible bodies born of the new völkischwehr attitude, which, each in its own economic field, have to defend the freedom of raw materials and the freedom of food and thus the political freedom of action and the honor of the whole people. In both, honor and voluntarism - that is, the heroic, rather than the mercantile ethos - prevail as supreme. That such economic management is not autarkic and not imperialistic is readily apparent. It is not self -sufficient because it ensures only the subsistence level of food and raw materials through self -production, which protects Germany from foreign impositions before th e capitulation. The remaining part of the German demand, which secures the height of the today's standard of living and its future further increase, should and must be brought in also by the exchange with other peoples. And this share will probably be so l arge that in time it will double Germany's present foreign trade again. But even at this level it will never again call into question German honor and independence. - But this völkisch-wehr attitude of the German economy is at the same time the most peaceful. For since the German people finds its economic freedom in itself, it need not now throw the weight of its armed forces into the shell if lack of understanding or ill will more or less block its additional needs. Only the free can be peaceful. The econo mically unfree never is. The enforcement of such a völkischwehr attitude in the commercial sector entails two further consequences: First, the German transport economy 92

will have to be permeated by the same völkischwehr attitude even more than before and, accordingly, will have to carry out a far -reaching retariffing and traffic redistribution which undercuts the völkischwehr attitude in the agricultural and commercial sectors. For the transport industry, the aggregation of all German means of transpo rt, is an integral part of the overall economy. Its close cooperation with the Reich Chamber of Commerce shows this already organizationally. The second implication of the second Four -Year Plan, which is the result of the national attitude in the industria l economy, is that foreign trade must now also be more tightly grouped in a foreign trade plan. In this plan, not only the quantity and variety of imports and exports will have to be regulated in broad outlines, but also the direction in which imports and exports are to be stored as far as possible. This, too, will perhaps best be done by a third body of self -government and responsibility, yet to be created, in which the foreign trade process will also be handled and directed from the point of view of natio nal freedom and honor. For the production plans in the agricultural and industrial sectors and the mental attitude and technique of their execution inevitably result in a corresponding foreign trade plan and the same mental attitude in it in its technical execution. Thus the second Four -Year Plan represents the penetration of the industrial sector and foreign trade with a völkisch -wehr spirit - a parallel piece to the first Four -Year Plan, in which the agricultural economy and the labor order were animated by the same spirit. After four years, the same success will be achieved here as the Fuehrer achieved in the first Four-Year Plan. Here, too, the miracle of a genuine increase in efficiency and increased economic viability will again become apparent, which, through the deeds of the Fuehrer, will again permeate all areas of the German people and give them the highest standard of living and culture in their history.

Chapter II

Vikingism and economy

Vikingism - in basic element of Nordic racial sou l

Essay in the "Lübecker General -Anzeige" of June 20, 1936, on the occasion of the Third Reich Conference of the Nordic S ociety.

Under the same sky, by the same sea, and from the same blood, the peoples of the North and Baltic Seas have grown. The same space and the same blood are always the common ground for the same spirit. For this does not come from somewhere in a vacuum, but th e same kind of people and the same upbringing are their natural bond. The Norwegians, the Swedes, the Danes, the English, the Dutch, the Finns, the inhabitants of Iceland - we are all united by the same sky and the same sea. What they all have in common is the spirit of Vikingism: wanderlust and homesickness - the indissoluble bond with the homeland and the indomitable urge to go far away. That is why the Nordic man lives by all the watercourses and seas of the world, and only here. Only because sea and land in their connection correspond to the double polarity of his being. This spatial law of the Nordic soul is the real originator of all discovery and invention, which lures the Nordic spirit away to a never -ending chain of voyages of discovery into the outer and the inner world. The Nordic man carries the law of his landscape within himself. This distinguishes him elementarily from all other race carriers. The unbroken Nordic soul knows the secret that his metaphysical urge to master space, if it is not to be an aimless stumbling around in space and time - must have a fortress, a castle as its starting position: Home court, hearth and family. It is true that the process of development of the Nordic man has divided us into Englishmen, Dutchmen, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, 94

Finns, Germans.'' But under the surface always pulsates the same blood and the deep understanding of one for the other, even if one does not want to admit it publicly and outwardly. For the process of development, the mechanics of which the great English philosopher Herbert Spencer has described to us in a classic way, consists not only of ever new separations, but at the same time also of ever new unifications of the separated and differentiated, of differentiation and integr ation. The spiritual unity, the Nordic soul is always preserved. This is how things are between us peoples of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. But one does not need to wander so far into the philosophical realms. Already in every family we see the same th ing, that in spite of all inner connectedness every member of the family anxiously strives to maintain and develop his own life in relation to the others. Yes, it is said that often brothers can disagree most outwardly. But again and again one experiences the miracle that in spite of all inner separation and distinction within the family, it appears to the environment as a unity again. And so it is also with us Nordic peoples of the North and Baltic Sea area. We are only single branches on the same tree. Al l differences in culture, state and economic forms are only of an external nature. In all of us sings the same blood and the same melody of life. And precisely for this reason it is so beautiful, because it becomes polyphonic in the different forms of life of the Nordic peoples. The spiritual attitude common to the peoples of the North and Baltic Seas is Vikingism. The clearing of the clod in the own country or over sea, the expansion of the mental world by discoveries in the areas of the science and techno logy by the Nordic peoples - they originate from the same spirit. They all together are first Vikingism. It corresponds to its nature to discover the distant. That is why it was impossible for us to discover the Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians and the other worlds, and not for them to discover us. As a Viking, one does not let oneself be discovered, one discovers oneself! And so also today the Nordic man, the Viking, as always keeps a lookout for new spiritual worlds, after his spatial voyages of discove ry have been limited. Germany, which was hit most by the misery of the time, lusts as the first to new spiritual Viking journey. Its people are educated again to a new board community: one for all and all for one. This is the deep meaning of National Socialism. For without such a shipboard community, voyages of discovery are impossible. The leader of the new Germany is pointing the bow of his Viking ship toward new, hitherto undiscovered spaces of state, cultural, economic and artistic policy. - It is only natural that the 95

departure of a Viking ship should cause unrest, criticism and longing among those who have remained at home and among the neighbors. This is how it used to be when the sea kings went on Viking voyages. But when they then, after a happ y return, displayed and distributed the fruits of their voyage of discovery, not only their own clan gained from it, but also the neighbor. And so it will be again today. The fruits of the mighty spiritual Viking voyage which Germany is undertaking into ne w, undiscovered realms of the spirit, to which it is uniting its crew through National Socialism in a genuine community of life and on board - will not only benefit Germany and bring new forms of life, but will also open up new paths of spirit and life again for our Nordic blood relatives. Their nationality and their own life will not be weakened but strengthened by the spiritual heritage uncovered by National Socialism. Their state, cultural and economic sovereignty will, I hope, unfold to ever more glorio us bloom all around the North and Baltic Seas. For the world mission of the North and Baltic Sea District is never exhausted. A large part of the world draws on its spiritual and national radiance in all areas. It is impossible to imagine it without the collapse of the whole. The relationship between the peoples of the North and Baltic Seas and Germany has always been based on mutual give and take, on radiation and counter-radiation. Even today it is still the case that almost every great poet or artist of the North, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland - only through the resonance that he found and finds in the German habitat, the way was opened for his spiritual seed from the native narrowness over the whole world. Even the highest peak of Nordic p oetry, Shakespeare, found his way to his English homeland only through Germany. Germany and the other countries of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are like a chord from which one cannot remove a note without tearing the whole thing apart in a discordant w ay - like a violin that can only sound as long as the strings and the body of the violin remain connected with each other in effect and counter -effect.

Nordic seafaring spirit and imperialist merchantism

Lecture to the German World Scientific Society in Berlin on November 29, 1935.

It is only through seafaring that a great power becomes a world power and remains so only as long as it retains genuine seafaring spirit unadulterated. But foreign trade policy and seafaring cannot be separated from each other either. For the maritime spirit and the commercial spirit of the Nordic peoples have always been a living unity. Woe, therefore, to the trade policy of a people that separates itself from the genuine seafaring spirit. It becomes de -spiritualized, mechanized and degenerates into the spirit of money and credit traders. And woe to seafaring itself, whose spiritual driving forces are no longer the wanderlust and homesickness of the Nordic man, whose helmsman has become "financial capita lism," and whose guiding star has become the highest possible return at any price. With the "Ballinization" of German large-scale shipping before the war, the transformation of genuine German maritime spirit became visible, and its entanglement by the money and credit trader Jakob Goldschmidt in the post -war period its spiritual and thus also its economic end. The attitude of the great Hanseatic merchant, seafarer and settler Adolf Woermann, who explained to his complaining ship partners: "We are not there to distribute dividends, but to sail" - and the attitude of Jewish money trader spirit, which degraded the German large -scale shipping to the object of "lucrative financial constructions", illuminate in a flash the eternal contrast between Nordic seafarer and sea trader spirit and Jewish money and credit trader spirit. During the years of struggle as economic representative of the party's Reich leadership, and also after the seizure of power, I have repeatedly pointed out in many meetings and publications t hat we are facing a fundamental change in the methods of foreign trade policy, not only in Germany but in the whole world. And that this change in the methods of trade policy ultimately amounts to and must amount to a rebirth of the spiritual attitude of t he Hanseatic League. For the temporal forms of domestic economy, foreign trade and seafaring do not come from somewhere in a vacuum, but are always the expression of a certain spiritual attitude of the peoples. - We now have behind us a four-hundred-year period, a wave on the ocean of the history 97

of the Nordic peoples, which in our days rolled over in its liberalist capitalist crest and is now heading for new shores. In this period, the Nordic attitude of the Hanseatic trade and maritime policy, which fr om the year 1000 to the year 1500 was the expression of the creative attitude to life of the peoples of the North -Baltic region, was disintegrated by the fact that more and more imperialistic ideologies of certain peoples of the Mediterranean region and Je wish monetary thinking, originating from the same geographical areas, gained the upper hand in it. Under the delusion of free trade doctrine, international division of labor and finally an independent world economy superior to the national economies, economic management and seafaring of the peoples were degraded to a most unspiritual matter. The lively work of art of Hanseatic planning of foreign trade and navigation, which was supported by national lines of force and grew out of the spiritual roots of Nord ic Vikingism, degenerated at first into a clumsy materialistic policy of freebooting and violence, supported by greed for gold and money, which plundered and oppressed foreign lands and peoples. For the fundamental difference between the Nordic-ethnic determined Hanseatic trade policy and the later Jewish Mediterranean determined liberalist -capitalist trade and colonial policy is the following: the Hanseatic League never laid claim to foreign people and foreign soil. The Hanseatic League established autonom ous foreign offices as the main pillars in the West, North and East, in Bruges, London, Bergen and Novgorod. Through the miracle of its city foundations in the Baltic and Low German regions, it created further bases for its shipping and trade planning, whi ch encompassed the entire north. The Hanseatic League did conclude trade agreements with the surrounding peoples via these continents and bases, and, what is particularly characteristic, also currency agreements, in order not to allow any fraudulent shifti ng of debt relationships to occur. But nowhere did the Hanseatic League touch their national, cultural and state sovereignty. Disputes usually arose only when these peoples, awakened and strengthened by the Hanseatic League to a national life of their own, attempted to shake off trade connections which only became troublesome to them in the course of time as a result of their own national strengthening and demanded a change in accordance with the natural transformation of conditions. But in most cases, the instinctive political wisdom of Hanseatic "council messengers", which had become proverbial, accommodated the inevitable changes and always elastically adapted the Hanseatic foreign trade system to living life. Trade sanctions and wars were always only the exceptions to the rule, and only then did they take the place of wise negotiation, when absolute obstinacy, 98

obtuseness or ill will led the way. That the history of the Hanseatic League appears through the glasses of liberalist historians as a history o f wars and trade-political sanctions does not speak against the Hanseatic League, but against the complete lack of understanding of these historians. Only two historians of the Hanseatic League truly worthy of the name are known: Dietrich Schaefer and then , above all, Prof. Dr. Fritz Rörig, who is among us today and has recently joined the Berlin University. It is to him, above all, that we owe the recognition and establishment of the Hanseatic League as a long -distance trade association based on a national foundation and cooperative collaboration. And I hope that his latest work, which is currently in progress, will provide further valuable details on Hanseatic long -distance trade policy and economic planning. It has become necessary, as I have always and a lways emphasized, to rewrite not only history and German cultural history, but also economic history. For the eye transformed by National Socialism sees all things anew as parts of an overall völkisch view. Only certain Jewish peoples had the right to cove r the countries in the Far West and East, which they had rediscovered after the Vikings, after Piening and Potthorst, with a purely materialistic and imperialistic trade and colonial policy, a foreign trade planning, which was based on the claim of ownersh ip, on "foreign" people and foreign soil. In other words, in its intellectual attitude, it was the exact opposite of the Hanseatic trade and shipping policy and its meaningful support of the German Nordic settlement policy. I have already explained that t he Hanseatic trade and shipping policy instinctively did not lay claim to foreign people and foreign soil anywhere. Consequently, trade contracts rarely consisted of contracts for the supply of goods or other contracts for the mutual exchange of services. At the same time, the trade contracts were supplemented by currency contracts in wise recognition of the economic interrelationships and the intuitive rectitude of the Hanseatic League's intellectual attitude. The overall policy was organically structured and therefore economically sound. Credit, mostly given in kind, served to bridge the exchanges. The great credit power of the Hanseatic merchant enabled him to fertilize the exchange of goods through advance performance. A good example of this is provided by the Norwegian fishery, which the Hanseatic League incorporated into its trading network in the 14th century, as it had done earlier with the Schonen fishery. In order to carry out sea fishing, the 99

Norwegian farmer was dependent on outside help. This assistance, however, was not provided by the Hanseatic League in the form of money, or even means of production, so that, for example, the old Norwegian type of ship, the traditional fishing gear, etc. remained in place, and not even the preparation of fis h was improved by the provision of salt in advance during the summer, as would have been more appropriate from a purely economic point of view. Nothing was to be changed in traditional Norwegian fishing methods. What was nationally rooted remained. Ethnic value took precedence over economic benefit. The advance payment made by the Hanseatic League consisted only of an advance in kind, i.e. mainly in foodstuffs, i.e. a consumption credit for the upkeep of the Norwegian fishermen sailing north. It was immedia tely converted into money and fixed in legally binding bonds, the so -called Nordfahrerrollen, but could never be paid in money, but had to be repaid during the market period of the following year by handing over the required quantities of fish. As long as a fisherman had not repaid his debt to the Hanseatic entrepreneur in this way, he was forbidden to sell his fish to other companies. If, despite this, one year's catch was not enough to cover the merchandise debt, the remaining sum was carried forward to a new account. Then the fisherman remained bound to one and the same hanseatic company, and he formed with his boats, so to speak, after the manner of the publishing system, a partial enterprise of the hanseatic enterprises. Even if the Norwegian fisherman was brought into a certain dependence on the Hanseatic merchant by this credit system, it remains that it was a natural and organic one. For only in this way did the fisherman have an opportunity for economic and social advancement. For it was only through the granting of credit in kind that he was able to operate his fishing business permanently on a large scale and thus gradually become an independent entrepreneur. And it is important to note that the Hanseatic merchant in his heyday never abused his mono poly position to put pressure on prices, but always kept the price of the fish to be bought in line with the price of the grain he imported. At the fish market in Bergen, fish prices were therefore always aligned with grain prices from the continent, and t his fixed price ratio, to which the Hanseatic merchant adhered voluntarily, albeit for economically compelling reasons, ensured that business was conducted free of speculative and currency fluctuations. Thus, in Hanseatic times, credit was not an instrumen t to exploit the economically weak, but only to set in motion and keep in motion the economic exchange between the exchanging parts. This exchange process under the granting of credit was therefore based on a 100

fair exchange of services, in that the credit had to be repaid in goods and not in money, and was always secured by the linking of the fish prices to the grain prices. Between the quantities of grain imported by the merchants and the quantities of fish exported by them, therefore, there was always a just relationship of performance, which left no room for the science of fraud, the speculation of money. It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century, due to the gradual doubling of grain prices on the continent, that a significant shift occu rred in the ratio of the nominally constant fish prices to the increased grain prices. At that time, however, the decline of the Hanseatic League through degeneration into monetary thinking had already begun, and the relatively lower fish prices made it easier for the well-funded Dutch to oust the Hanseatic merchants from their economic supremacy in the Baltic Sea in the first half of the seventeenth century. Only as long as the Hanseatic economic system was firmly established as an organic whole, i.e., bas ed on a fair exchange of services, was the exchange of goods, e.g., fish for grain, kept in equilibrium with the help of credit, which had no inherent lawfulness. The deviation from the fair exchange of services in the international exchange through the em ergence of monetary thinking, which is based on the false assumption of an inherent law of exchange, contributed to the decline of the Hanseatic League. This is not different in the economic life of the peoples today than at the time of the Hanseatic Leagu e! The high priests and scribes of the "modern" money thinking are always the gravediggers of healthy economy. If we disregard this phenomenon of decay, it follows from what has been said that through the Hanseatic League, for the first time in history, no t only the sword but also trade policy was brought to the fore as a means of pursuing political goals. In the heyday of the Hanseatic League, the sword was not regularly used as a weapon, but served mainly as a means of filling up old Germanic settlement areas, and then also as a means of guiding the peoples through the Nordic-German spirit. The Hanseatic League was far removed from imperialist aspirations. It worked solely through leadership, which by example and performance induced others to voluntary all egiance and orientation to the common good. Thus, the Hanseatic economic area was expanded not by external coercion, not by force, not by domination, but by the voluntary incorporation of sovereign nations and independent states in trade relations. By this Hanseatic leadership other peoples of the North Baltic area were not weakened in their folklore and independent life, but strengthened, not only economically, but also by radiation and counter -radiation in their cultural life and state independence. Also today, it is still the case that almost every great poet 101

or artist of the North: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark or Iceland only through the resonance that he found and finds in the German, but especially in the Upper German living space, the way wa s opened for his spiritual seed from the native narrowness over the whole world. Germany and the other countries of the North -Baltic Sea region are like a chord from which no note can be removed without tearing the whole to pieces - like a violin that can only sound as long as strings and violin body remain connected with each other in effect and counter -effect. On the other hand, the trade policy of the Hanseatic League, conducted in the Nordic sense, never forgot that the source of its strength lay in Ger man blood and German soil. It was born out of the German people and always remained connected with them. Social harmony on the inside and defense on the outside was its guiding star and the equipped Hanseatic cog its symbol, true to the old Lübeck saying a t the Holsten Gate, the world gate of the Middle Ages to the East: "Harmony within - peace without. Thus, even at sea, it met the requirements of a national economy that did not separate the plow from the sword, even on its home soil, and thus maintained a peaceful attitude in its entire structure. If one wants to reduce the legal attitude of the post -Hanseatic, the liberalistic capitalistic period to a simple and at the same time comprehensive formula, one can say: in the liberalistic -capitalistic period, i.e. the period predominantly determined by the Mediterranean spirit, the international ties of the individual were granted a privilege over his natural ties to his community of life and people. In favor of an attachment to one of the purely imagined imper ialist Internationals (such as the Golden, the Red, the Black International), born only of the intellect, in favor of a so -called, self-sufficient "world economy" and "humanity", his ties to his natural community of life, from which he receives life and th e possibility of existence in the first place - were dissolved and destroyed. Foreign Jewish money and credit merchant spirit and Jewish -Marxist pure intellectuality triumphed and had to bring about the general chaos, at the end of which stood the world wa r. Even today the intellectualistic threat, the slave revolt of the intellect, which has escaped from its natural fetters of intuition and instinct, i.e. from its national ties, still exists everywhere on a gigantic scale and does its work in the world onl y as the blind force of destruction. Against him now everywhere the offended nature rises and forces the runaway slave, the intellect, back into its natural bonds. Everywhere the prerogative of the attachment of the individual to his community of life and people is proclaimed again. Adolf Hitler is their spokesman. He says: Your people is everything, you are nothing. And thus he restores the natural state of things. And that is why our leader is 102

invincible: because the natural laws are fencing for him. Thus, not only in Germany, but little by little in all parts of the world, the common creative sense of man reaches the leadership again. And only with the permission of his national community may the individual bind himself internationally beyond his nati onal community. Everywhere, international ties are once again given the secondary place they deserve. (From here also the interstate pools, cartels and trusts, dominated by purely international thinking, will undergo a fundamental transformation). From the primary right - the safeguarding and promotion - of the nation, the new construction of state, culture, art and economy now takes place. And from exactly this same position also a reorganization of the inter ethnic and inter-state relations in all fields takes place and with it a revaluation of all previous valuations of the liberalistic -capitalistic period. No people and no place in the world can escape this reevaluation of all things from the standpoint of völkisch thought. The German metaphysics, this h appening in the German Volkstumsraum, is National Socialism. Other peoples will establish their own metaphysics. - The new German foreign trade and maritime policy, too, can and will be determined only by the National Socialist attitude of the new Germany. In a figurative sense, the spiritual attitude of the Hanseatic long -distance trade policy will again become the attitude of the new foreign trade policy. Its main elements will be mainly cultivation and takeover contracts and their advance payment by brid ging loans. And since a uniform gold world currency which stabilizes itself at the expense of the national economy, as was striven for in the liberalist -capitalist period, is no longer feasible under the new mentality, the greatest possible stability of th e internal currencies of the peoples sought by the new economic management must be secured externally by currency contracts. In this context, the nationalization of the hitherto internationally oriented monetary and credit circuits will be secured only by elastic handling of the currency contracts. It will at the same time entail a renunciation of all money imperialist methods of trade. An "interweaving of credit" with other peoples will take place only to the extent that the different rhythms of the exchange of goods and services require a volume of credit mutually given by the various economies in order to transform foreign trade, which would otherwise be interrupted, into a flowing one. For only a sufficiently large volume of credit, secured by currency contracts and granted to each other as a bridging loan, can 103

guarantee a maximum of exchange of services and at the same time create the space in which the division of labor of exporter and importer, of expertise and efficiency of private energy ca n unfold again. Money or credit lending as an end in itself, i.e. money and credit trade, without a corresponding increase in the exchange of services, will be perceived as a reactionary and imperialistic remnant of a past epoch and will be eliminated. The colonial policy of the liberalist -capitalist period will also acquire a new attitude from this new spirit. The model of the Hanseatic League: to establish economic bases for the mutual promotion of trade relations between peoples and to form the area thus opened up into a natural, organic unity through trade and currency treaties, is reviving. Only from this point of view is it possible to understand the new English commercial policy initiated at Ottawa, which signifies a turn toward the Nordic idea of leadership. For the British Empire is becoming more and more a British League of Nations under English leadership, held together by a uniform trade and monetary policy, which, in the measure of its strengthening, instinctively and elastically - politically accommodates the independent life of the Empire's various nations ever further. Foreign policy is always the art of seafaring, domestic policy the art of the right distribution of burdens in the moving ship. Volksgemeinschaft is t Bordgemeinschaft!

The Germanic Virtues as the Laws of Life of the German People

Essay in the Lübeck yearbook "Der Wagen" 1938. Published December 1937.

All life is struggle. Peace is also struggle, namely competition with other means'. The struggle remains, only its forms change. Absolute peace would mean standstill. But nature knows no standstill, but always only progress or regression, everything in it is movement. Standstill is only something apparent, a lifeless and untrue construction of our intellect, like peace or like a po int. In reality, a point is unimaginable, standstill is already the beginning of regression or death. That's why a nation that, by arbitrarily limiting the number of its children, believes it can pass a

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standstill, a point in its biological growth, wi ll at that moment already take the first step towards its downfall. Because all life is struggle, therefore the providence has put into the cradle of every nation at its birth a certain law of life, certain rules of struggle, according to which alone it ca n exist the struggle for life. Every people can therefore only grow and prosper and be secured in its living space if it lives unbreakably according to its autonomous, its divine law of life. What now appears from the outside - i.e. scientifically seen - as natural, as biological law of life, is, seen from the inside, from the law of action, the natural moral law. So that from the beginning the autonomous deed is also done consciously life -legally correctly according to the will of Providence, one must know how this autonomous life -legality is reflected in its self-conscious acting, thinking and doing. And it is now apparent, and I would like to express this here for the first time as a new discovery, that the God-given life-legality of every people becomes conscious of itself in its national virtues, its ideals, its eternal life -values. Every people must therefore form its life -legality in a national educational ideal, which permeates all areas of its national life, and teach and preach it as a moral law. - The law of life and the moral law must be one and the same. And only when a people succeeds in uniting a law of life in an educational ideal that unites all and above all, does it arrange itself all by itself into a fighting organism that is defensible out wardly and socially detrimental inwardly. Thus the purpose intended by nature is achieved, not only to secure the body of the people in its life stock, in its substance, but to let it grow and prosper in the competition with other people's organisms. For a tree can exist in the competition with other trees only if it gathers its life and growth forces in the trunk with iron self-control and discipline and stretches them up to the sky, into the infinity of space, there, where new light, air and living space is to be won. If he would not do this, but leave the development of his life and growth forces to themselves, they would creep along the earth as bushes. Thus every people must also combine its life and growth forces in a life strategic way, and this happe ns in its ideals, in its virtues, in a völkisch educational ideal, in order to win light, air and living space in the competition with others. Through such a völkisch educational ideal, through faith in the all -conquering and all matter, all knowledge and ability ordering power of the völkisch ideals or virtues, which are identical with the life -legality of the nation, its "eternal" life is also secured for it. For through this unbreakable faith a people is brought into 105

a creative order of life and thereby, despite its temporal form, becomes identical in its moral attitude with eternal life; it is, after all, now only a part of it. Just as an oak cannot take over the law of life and growth of a fir or spruce, and vice versa, without both organisms de stroying themselves, so a people cannot take over the law of life, the ideals, the virtues of another without being inhibited in its law of life and growth. How different the natural laws of life and thus the ideals and virtues of the peoples can be - an instructive example of this is the present great division of two peoples in East Asia who are legally different in life: the Japanese and the Chinese. The Japanese people, welded together in many thousands of years of history by blood and soil, i.e. space and race, to form an irrational folk force field of the greatest strength: a community of faith and attitude, possesses a life -legality which is completely different, indeed almost opposite, to that of the Chinese people. The Chinese people, too, in many th ousands of years of history, have joined together through space and race to form a folk force field, a fighting folk body, which in its vitality, in overcoming all the obstacles of life, is certainly as strong as the Japanese. Thus, two vital laws, the Chi nese and the Japanese, are struggling today in East Asia for a new balance, which may be of the greatest political importance for the history and destiny of Europe and the whole globe. Now, however, the Japanese virtues are set on attack, on expansion. The y find their conscious expression in the samurai ideal, the ideal of Japanese chivalry. The teachings of the bushido and the samurai are therefore the Japanese, national ideal of education, are the self -consciousness of the Japanese law of life. They organ ize the Japanese people into a powerful, creative organism, defending itself against the outside world and filled with social harmony within. For the Japanese people, who have become aware of their creative order of life, this order of their people is ther efore also religion. For in this creative order his temporal life is connected with the eternal, i.e. the eternal creative power of all things. In this way, the Japanese's nationality becomes his religion, and he knows that he can live, grow and prosper on ly if he lives unwaveringly according to his eternal life values and ideals, his virtues for their own sake. The same applies to the law of life of the Chinese people. Only this is of a completely different nature. In contrast to the Japanese, the Chinese ideals are based on intensity, on inwardness. Therefore, the Chinese have never waged wars of aggression in their history, but they have overcome and dissolved every opponent who penetrated the sphere of power of 106

their life-legality, their ideals. They have never attacked other peoples, but only infiltrated them, encircled them and absorbed them so completely that not even a trace of them remained. They have digested every enemy that has invaded them. Their national, their life -law virtues that enable them to do this are: Politeness, Modesty, Probity and Serenity. Their popular educational ideal is the "wise man" who seeks to overcome the world, i.e. all opposition, not actively as a "knight" but passively as a "sage." - If the Chinese today were to try to imitate the Japanese ideals of attack and encroachment, they would infallibly perish. Just as the Japanese would perish if they adopted the Chinese ideals and life values. They would suffer a rupture in their law of life. That is why the Japanese today are also wary of invading the sphere of power of Chinese ideals, of mixing their land and blood with the Chinese, and of adopting the teachings of Confucius and Lao -tzu in the Chinese interpretation. For in the same moment they would be overwhelmed by the Chinese people. They will therefore confine themselves not to conquering parts or the whole of China and annexing it to their national borders, but to dividing and leading the Chinese people, numerically the largest in the world, filled with tremendous vit ality, administratively, regionally. In this way a Japanese -Chinese cooperation can develop in Oslasia, which means the sharpest defense against the Russian -Siberian area, against Central Asia and the Bolshevism dominating it, but which also amounts to the displacement of the overriding influence of certain other peoples, who, according to the opinion of the Japanese, have no business in China and have driven the Japanese out of their natural market: China, so that they are forced to flood the rest of the w orld with their goods, in addition with a "dumping", which they pay with their public health and therefore cannot maintain in the long run - at the most until they have opened up China again. The life laws of the Japanese and Chinese peoples can thus, with out mixing, find their way to a new productive cooperation, which would be of the greatest importance for history. Precisely because Japan holds the shield of its intact life -legality protectively before China, before East Asia, it will only give the Chine se people again the possibility to complete their rebirth, their spiritual rearmament, behind this shield, undisturbed by the doctrine of the "New Life", in order to be immune from the Bolshevik decomposition one day from regained vitality, from their own strength. Since Chiangkaik's doctrine of the "New Life" has not yet been able to penetrate China sufficiently and strengthen its vitality again, it would probably become a prey of Bolshevism today without Japan's help. Whether Japan will 107

perhaps allow itself to be compensated for this with trade advantages on the whole Chinese market, with preferential treatment in the field of raw material supply (Manchukuo) and settlement, i.e. a Japanese -Chinese "Ottawa" - in which the previous non -Japanese advisors will be replaced by Japanese ones - in order to also give its life and growth forces new scope, is not the subject of this essay. Neither is the question whether the present conflict and reorganization of the laws of life of Japan and China would not have taken place without bloodshed if third powers, above all Bolshevism, had not intervened. The Germanic law of life, which is decisive for the German nationhood, now finds its conscious expression in the eternal Germanic ideals and life values: bravery, loy alty, willingness to make sacrifices and honor. Only if every German recognizes these ideals as binding for himself and consciously lives and thinks according to them, can and will the German people arrange itself into a community of sentiments, a new comm unity of faith and thus into a maneuverable body of the people, which is defensible outwardly and socially-impactful inwardly. This Germanic community of thought, created and preached again and again by Adolf Hitler, is in reality the spiritual rearmament, the supporting foundation of the Volksgemeinschaft of the Third Reich and its organizing principle - its eternal soul. Germany will only be as strong as each individual is brave, faithful, willing to sacrifice and honorable in his thoughts and actions. Only if each individual recognizes these ideals as the supreme guiding star, as the supreme regulative of all his special knowledge and skills, if each individual lives up to these virtues for their own sake, without asking what comes next, will the German n ation organize itself into a national organism which is correctly oriented according to the laws of life, which is creative and therefore invincible in peaceful or warlike competition with other national organisms. National Socialism is therefore not only an ideological movement, but in reality it also clears the way again for a moral renewal of the German people on the basis of its natural law of life. It reaches deeper than any previous political or ideological movement. In German history it can really on ly be compared to the Lutheran Reformation. Only that it does not stop halfway like the latter. Luther had tried to revive the Germanic, which at that time had joined with the faith of an insignificant small sect at the Mediterranean, had given it wings an d had raised it to the rank of a world religion. For in the millennium before Luther, Mediterranean ideology and imperialism had gradually weakened the Germanic Christianity of Heliand, which wanted to lead and strengthen the life and growth forces, the fo lk forces, in their 108

Nordic folk core, the idea of leadership, and transformed it into the opposite, so that Roman universalism of faith threatened to destroy all folk forces through its imperialistic claims to power. The Lutheran Reformation, which wan ted to tear apart the web of theological doctrines and religious dogmas in which Germanic Christianity and its idea of leadership had been entangled, in order to make room again for the living creative forces and the law of life and order of life of the Ge rmanic peoples, could not prevail, however, because the Lutheran movement did not succeed in completely seizing political power in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The political forces of the first empire remained in the service of the Roman uni versalism of faith, law and state. Thus also the Lutheran Reformation had to peter out and solidify in its present "confessions". The eternal Germanic values and ideals of life could not reassert themselves as the supreme commandment of the German order of life, but remained mixed with all kinds of ideals of foreign Jewish and Mediterranean peoples, as well as with bloodless ethical systems and theories, which had been conceived by theological intellectualists. This break in the moral attitude of the German people then brought about the downfall not only of the first, but also of the second empire. Foreign creeds, i.e. the belief in alien orders of life, destroyed the natural unity and fighting power of the German national force field, of the German communit y of faith and mind. National Socialism has now put itself in complete possession of political power from the outset, so that from this side the moral renewal of the German people cannot be hindered again. The National Socialist people's order and people's control is not, like the first and second Reich, in the service of any denomination. Unhindered by state powers, the German people can now, for the first time in a thousand years, align itself correctly in all areas of life, so that the eternal Germanic i deals of bravery, loyalty, sacrifice and honor once again become the supreme guiding stars of German foreign and domestic policy, of defense, cultural and economic policy, and also in the religious sphere. Thus, today the German people renews its faith in the power of the Germanic ideals, the Germanic law of life, which overcomes all resistances, all worries and hardships of its life struggle, and thus arranges its knowledge, ability and will in all areas of life in such a way that a maneuverable, mentally and materially unified body of the people is created. For only the faith in the same ideals, which is common to all, is the indestructible foundation of a people, which can withstand all the storms of the world. Faith which is based on inner knowledge of t he life-legality of the German nation means that such faith cannot lack the blessing of God in the form of a new, undreamed -of achievement and vitality in all areas of its national existence, but that it 109

comes about as a self -evident consequence. - Life which is right according to the laws of life is inevitably always accompanied by the highest technical perfection and the highest productivity. This is the basis of the "miracle" that faith "moves mountains". That the faith in the national ideals as the highest reality is more powerful than all knowledge and all paper calculations and theories in the field of state, econom y, cultural policy or religion. So today we have to check and possibly philosophize with a hammer, whether in all rooms of our natio nal life the Germanic ideals are taught and revered as the highest moral reality, or whether under all kinds of camouflage other life values and ideals have crept in, which damage the life value, the fighting power of our national body. Therefore, the new Germany must finally establish a uniform educational ideal for the German man from the cradle to the grave, which we already feel today in the "soldierly" (not military). England, which is three hundred years ahead of us in its development as a nation, bec ause there, due to its insularity, ecclesiastical universalism could not develop its disintegrating activity to the same extent as in Germany, which is situated in the heart of Europe, England has already concretized the Germanic virtues in its all-unifying gentlemanly ideal in English and according to its insularity. On the ground of this uniformity of sentiment and instinct the powerful island England and its immense world empire grew up. "Right or wrong my country" is just as binding and self -evident for the "house of Lords" as it is for the Labour Party. The unsurpassable maneuverability of the English people's body in the struggle for life is based on this unified leadership of the English people by a unified educational ideal. England lives by instin ct, and not by intellect. That is why England can swing from free trade to Ottawa, from League of Nations policy to natural, overnight, without a word or giving theoretical justifications. Security through self defense. England and Japan are thus two of th e most authoritarian peoples of this earth in their popular order and popular governance, because they instinctively live up to their law of life. The Englishman is in reality much more uniform than the German, much less individualistic than he; the Englishman wears only one uniform: the gentleman's uniform. We still wear several. Nietzsche's attempt to oppose the universalistic educational ideal of more or less Roman Christianity with another universalistic one, the "superman," had to fail precisely becaus e of this universalism of his counter-ideal. The "superman" was something imagined, nothing biologically founded and grown. Nietzsche did not know yet that every people must form its völkisch educational ideal according to its life 110

legality for biological reasons: from its special blood and soil, from its space and its race. Nietzsche wanted to cas t out the devil with Beelzebub. Just as National Socialism in itself does not proclaim a particular religion, so it also clears the way for a Germanic reorga nization of things in the religious sphere which is correct according to the laws of life. By making every religious and ecclesiastical universalism, which arrogates to itself a priestly supremacy over the German people according to international, i.e. un-German, points of view, impossible within the National Socialist order of life and state, but every other practice of religion, "as far as it does not offend against the moral sense of the Germanic race", the German law of life, the Germanic ideals, will s ucceed of their own accord in asserting themselves again in the religious sphere, since no political coercion will prevent them from doing so from now on. Thus one day the Germanic ideals will again take the lead in Christianity, i.e. in the religious sphere, and transform it according to the German law of life. The Lutheran Reformation will then be completed and again shine as an example to the other Nordic -Germanic peoples on their own paths. Then, finally, the Holy Germanic Empire of the German Nation wi ll have come into being, which will hold its spiritual shield against Bolshevism in front of Eastern Europe, against Asia, as on the other side, in East Asia, Japan in front of China.

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Chapter III

Seed from Low German region

The Nordic Character of the Third Reich and Low Germany Task

Essay in the ""Lübekische Blätter n" of June 21, 1936, on the occasion of the third Reichstagung of the Nordic Society.

In the future it will be the noblest task of the "Nordic Society", whose third Reichstagung will take place this week in Lübeck, to make the German people of the Third Reich clearly aware that this Reich has finally left the circle of ideas and the world of forms of the Mediterranean, which completely dominated the first Reich and still largely dominated the second, but that the nationalization taking place in the Third Reich gives the German people a thoroughly Nordic character again. - It has been repeatedly said that the new Reich is not a continuation of the first and the second, but in many respects a completely new one. But this fundamental change in the attitude of the German people has not yet penetrated into the consciousness of the majority of our people, even though the structural change is felt everywhere. It is the purpose of National Socialist education and enlightenment, and above all the task of the "Nordic Society", to give eyes to this development, so that the Nordic ethnic character growing out of Germany's becoming a nation can be clearly seen. That its birth and shaping, that the Nordic formation of German being is not only formed dully, unconsciously, but in the daylight of consciousness experiences its shaping and cultural completion. This work of the "Nordic Society" - to give the German people the clear consciousness of its Nordic attitude in all areas of life and to reintegrate it culturally and politically into the system of the peoples of the North Baltic region, which oscillates around the common axis of Nordic leadership - can only be carried out if ab ove all the blood and soil of the Low German region are mobilized for this great task. 112

It is certainly one of the most wonderful coincidences in German destiny that the Führer created the movement and the Reich precisely out of the Upper German region. That he designated and elevated Munich to the "capital of the movement" and Nuremberg to the "city of the Reich Party Rallies". Thus the Fuehrer has consciously and for all times now iron clamped the Upper German area and the Upper German tribes and oblig ed them to inseparable unity with the Lower German area and people. For the Upper German area was always the most endangered in its affiliation with the whole of Germany, because it was most overlaid by the Mediterranean world of ideas and forms in its Nor dic racial core due to its geopolitical position. The "Main - line" was a constant reminder and warning. Just think if Luther had translated the Bible not into High German, but into Low German - the whole of southern Germany would probably have been lost. I t was only this political linking of the South with the North through the birth of the National Socialist movement and the Third Reich in the Upper German area that now made its splintering impossible for all times and made possible the nationalization of all German tribes - their merging into a biologically unified German -Nordic national personality. The force field of the Danube, which is the only German river flowing towards the south, was thus abolished and spiritually incorporated into the force field of the other German rivers, whose flow points uniformly towards the north. There is a deep symbolism in this. For how are things from a cultural -biological and historical point of view? The culture and history of a people are, in the final analysis, always only the interaction of its racial core in a spiritual and artistic relationship with the environment and the spirit of the times. The first empire, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, had an imperial character. It was in its spiritual attitude, without prejudice to the great Germanic kings and their work, a component of the Mediterranean circle and its, the total form in all areas of life emphasizing mental attitude. It unified from the outside by a supra -state about 159 German individual states - but was not able to unify from within the German tribes to one people. State came before people. And his attitude to life therefore clung to the state as a thought of domination. Also the second empire, whose feeling of life was also in the main still a state feeling, the patriotism, and whose internal cohesion was secured above all by the Prussian army and the black -white-red empire colors, broke up with its Mediterranean ideas and thoughts in the world war, and ultimately in the struggle with the curren tly strongest Nordic leading state, England (which is not ruled by the parliament or the crown 113

in the state sense, but is ultimately led by common sense), and into whose leadership space, the "British Commenwealth", the "British League of Nations", the second empire had invaded with its leaderless trade policy. - For the Nordic leadership, which is based on voluntary submission and subordination, i.e. on self -breeding, is in the end always stronger than the earlier Mediterranean imperialism, which was b ased on external breeding, on subjugation and dictatorship. Through the experience of the spiritual fusion of the German tribes in the World War and the deed of Adolf Hitler born of it, Germany has now for the first time been unified from within and the mu ltitude of German tribes has also been fused politically into one people, into one national personality. The Third Reich, Hitler's Reich, therefore bears a thoroughly völkisch character. Its feudal feeling is no longer the idea of rule of the first Reich, which is linked to the secondary form of government, and the patriotism of the second Reich, but the living life feeling of the people's community. It explains the totality of the people, and not, like the Mediterranean, the totality of the state, of the p aragraph law, of the denomination, and so on. It thus places the living people and its unity above any of its formal expressions in state, cultural or economic life. It emphasizes against the formal justice of the Mediterranean the essential justice of the peoples of the North Baltic Sea. Against the idea of domination: divide et impera, divide and rule, the idea of Nordic leadership: unite and lead. It is therefore based on voluntary subordination and self -restraint, i.e. 90 percent on internal command. It is defensive, but not warlike! This creative polarity, this different - not contrary - attitude of mind of the peoples of the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea is based on the difference of the biological substance. For in the Mediterranean the forming racial nucleus is largely completed in its inner growth by mixture and climatic influences and must now base its existence on the formation of the most rational, clear and hard forms possible, while the peoples of the North Baltic have not yet penetrated t o their own forms in all areas of life. The task of the "Nordic Society" mentioned earlier, to make the nascent German people aware of its Nordic character and its Nordic attitude, must now be supplemented by the Low German movement. This comes from far away. For in all great periods of German history, resistance to the alienation of the German -Nordic character by Mediterranean forms has always been particularly lively and effective in the Low German region. In Widukind, in Henry the Lion, in the empire of the Hanseatic League and 114

the Reformation, the Low German region rebelled against the Mediterranean region for the last time in great historical events. Since that time, the conflict in Europe between Nordic leadership and Mediterranean dictatorship seems to have been at rest. The tension, however, remained latent and was not visible to the superficial eye, which in the last four hundred years was blinded by the liberalist epoch, which sprang from an exploitation of the newly discovered parts of the world by the imperialist colonial policy, released from the Mediterranean, and spreading its apparent wealth over the whole world. This epoch has now reached its end, and now the two cultural areas of the Mediterranean and the North -East Sea are beginning t o develop again, in Fascism and National Socialism, the spiritual attitudes appropriate to their biological and popular substance. Between National Socialism and Fascism, two different types of popular order and popular control, the creative field of tensi on of continental Europe is now forming again. And in this creative field of tension, the Low German area is now also beginning to play its old historical role again. The forces of its blood and soil will only give National Socialist Germany the iron tough ness and tenacity which have always distinguished the people of this region and which are now only gradually coming to fruition in the nationalization of all German tribes. Here in Lower Germany there are still immense sources of strength and immense reservoirs of power for the Third Reich, which have only just been tapped, for in Lower Germany the National Socialist movement has only been gaining a foothold since 1927/28, and all the most active forces of the Lower German region, which in the last four hun dred years have been able to pour out into the newly discovered parts of the world through their Vikingism, are today being held back in this region and will strengthen its dynamism in the Third Reich more and more. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the spiritual focal points of the Low German area and its forces serving the nationalization of Germany, which are still fragmented today in thousands of local history and folklore associations, be brought together and properly integrated into the National Socialist movement and thus into the German nationalization. In Soest, in Lübeck and in Elbing or Königsberg, therefore, focal points and intersections of the Low German movement must be created. This Low German movement, which was stirred up by National Socialism, now wants to make the forces of its blood and soil, 115

which are peculiar to the Low German people, available to the German nation as a whole. For the Low German restlessness and movement is not an intellectualistic movement that can be t aught and made at universities and in cosmopolitan cities, but rather springs from the creative depths of Low German-Nordic peoplehood and today seeks places where it can become aware of itself, in order to then consciously find its way into our overall Ge rman peoplehood, as the Upper German region has already succeeded in doing. Thus the work of the "Nordic Society" must in time be supplemented by the Low German movement, so that it can fulfill its special task within the German nation as a whole of being the natural bridge to the Dutch, Flemings, English and Scandinavians who are related to us by blood. For the two-thousand-year process of the birth of Germanic -Nordic ethnic personalities has been completed today. The Swiss, the Germans, the Dutch, the English, the Danes, the Swedes and the Norwegians have emerged, as it were, as folk planets from the originally homogeneous Nordic folk substance which lay around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and now oscillate around the common center: the spiritual atti tude of Nordic leadership. The two -thousand-year period of separation is now followed by the period of unification. The period of becoming aware of the common spiritual attitude rooted in the realization and awareness of the same Nordic blood and soil. Thi s Germanic-Nordic cultural revolution, which began about the year 500 and came to a standstill around 1500 for four hundred years and is now renewing itself, will not be able to do without the Low German area and the Low German man as a natural mediator to the other peoples of the North -Baltic area.

Lübeck's German task Essay in the Lübeck yearbook "der Wagen", January 1936. Lübeck and Nuremberg were born as twins, so to speak. Old Nuremberg in 1025 and Old Lübeck like Munich in 1045 (Henry the Lion, Bava ria's and Lower Saxony's greatest duke, was their creator). Both cities had to arise in polar complementation, because here lay the two focal points of the German spirit. For between Nuremberg and Lübeck stretched until 1600 the elliptical field of power a nd radiation of German being, the spiritual carrier of old Europe. And in this polar tension, the creative dichotomy of German life has always been revealed. For this reason, both cities met the same fate. Lübeck's and Nuremberg's fiefdoms ran parallel and will 116

continue to do so in the future, thanks to Germany's nationalization through the deed of the Fuehrer, who turned Germany back to the East and thus to its European task. Never again, therefore, will the creative dichotomy of German nature become a dichotomy, as it did in the last four hundred years of German weakness, in the period of pernicious Western policy and free -trading "world economy" which alienated Germany from its European task and scattered its best vital forces all over the world. In a time when Jewish -Mediterranean law and Jewish Mediterranean faith penetrated the old empire without resistance, so that it fragmented into petty states and confessionalism, in a time when the Nordic noble yeomanry was beaten into fetters and the German nation-building was interrupted for four hundred years. In the old empire, Nuremberg was the focal point and rallying point of all the intellectual forces and powers of the Upper German region: from the Rhine to the Black Sea. Lübeck for the Lower German are a: from Flanders to Novgorod. The old German imperial power was rooted in the Upper German area; it chose Nuremberg as the symbol of its glory and cultural creativity. The world -conquering power and cultural strength of the German seafaring peasants and Vi kings, on the other hand, was rooted in the Lower German, Hanseatic area; they chose Lübeck as the head of the "Dude Hanseatic League". Lübeck was called the "Nuremberg of the North". The Rhenish League of Cities under Nuremberg's leadership came into being at the same time as the League of Wendish Cities, the original cell of the Hanseatic League, under Lübeck's leadership. With plow and sword, the Danube region, the European southeast, was reopened from Nuremberg; from Lübeck, the Baltic region, the Europ ean northeast. Starting from the settlement of the Teutonic Knights with the Church of St. James in Nuremberg, across the Danube, Oder, Vistula, Memel to Lake Peipus, and from there across the Baltic Sea to the Teutonic Knights' House in Lübeck, the arc of German strength and cultural will stretched. Both royal cities bear the German royal eagle and the old German white red royal colors in their coats of arms to this day. Thus Nuremberg became the cultural and economic political tuning fork for the Upper German area in the old empire. The deep musicality, the variety and loveliness and the whole wealth of German art and arts and crafts made Nuremberg besides generous economic planning in the whole Upper German area and far beyond to vibrate and sound. The Upper German area stood in a firm vibrational relationship to Nuremberg. In the same way, Lübeck was the tuning fork of the Lower German area. Under 117

gray skies and drifting clouds, on the shores of gray seas, it created the hard, austere, self -contained and yet heaven -storming community of the brick Gothic and, in generous trade planning, spanned the realms of the north and west far beyond. Thus, around Nuremberg and Lübeck, the first European economic and cultural cycle closed from the Black Sea via t he Danube, Main, Rhine to Westphalia and the Netherlands, from there further via the North and Baltic Seas, Lake Peipus and Dniester to the Black Sea again. Henry the Lion - Bavaria's and Lower Saxony's great duke - the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Kn ights entered this area in a threefold relay, in order to fill up again with German blood the area which had become empty of German people and beings during the migration of peoples. Thus Lübeck and Nuremberg became the intellectual and cultural cornerston es of the first German colonization of the East. Enclosed in this continental European economic and cultural cycle, the first empire blossomed. The birth of the new Germany, through Adolf Hitler's proclamation of the Volkstumsgedanke and the new state -political dynamics triggered by it, will infallibly give rise to a new continental European working and cultural community. It will find its unshakable basis in the respected sovereignty of each nation, in its state, cultural and economic independence, and wil l thus differ from medieval and liberal Europe, in both of which the God -given vital forces of each nation were not permitted to create for themselves different forms of state, culture and economy suited to their peculiarities. In which the divine sovereig nty of the individual personalities of the peoples was raped by imperial ideas of state and universalistic faith, brought in from outside and only imagined, which claimed primacy - and whose birthplace was always the Asia Minor shores of the Mediterranean. For the spirit of the peoples of the North, and Baltic Sea circle stood always in the sharpest opposition to these imperial ideologies of the Mediterranean circle, so that the history of Europe for fifteen hundred years was in the main a fight between the imperialistic, universalistic and despotic spirit and the spirit of the peoples of the North Baltic Sea circle based on Nordic, i.e. natural democracy, on natural diversity - a five, ten hundred years' fight between domination and leadership! Thus, in a quite natural way, the mindset of the Third Reich at the same time also renews the old significance of the two focal points: Nuremberg and Lübeck. Nuremberg again becomes the representative of the strongest political power of the Third Reich; it was elevated by the Führer personally to the "City of the Reich Party Rallies". Lübeck just as naturally becomes again the representative of the Nordic thought: it became the city of the Reich congresses of Nordic spirit. 118

Lübeck again became the Nuremberg of the North. And thus at the same time the old natural polarity of German nature is restored and both cities are assigned their old tasks again. And it could not be otherwise. For the main lines of a new continental European working and cultural community, based on comradely cooperation and complementarity, with full respect for the sovereignty of each of the nation’s participating in it, will by and large run again along the lines of the old Hanseatic tracks, i.e. from the Black Sea via the Danube to the Baltic. This means from the Black Sea via the Danube (Nuremberg, Munich, Regensburg, Augsburg), the Main, the Rhine, Rhineland -Westphalia, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, the Baltic Sea, and closing first via Poland, and later perhaps once again via Lake Ladoga, the Dni eper, and the Black Sea. A traffic and water cycle which is dominated solely by the Central European peoples participating in this cycle and which can be disturbed neither from the Mediterranean nor from the Atlantic, and which, conversely, also allows the peoples participating in this renewed cycle to declare a widespread lack of interest in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Of course, this turning away from the overseas West does not mean a break with the West. And never can return the state of Europe that existed before the discovery of America and the sea route to India and the Far East. But Europe is becoming Europe again. It will attain self -contemplation, a natural life from its own strength and its own space, and thus again self -assertion against the other continents, in which it wasted its best forces for four hundred years and which today are turning against this old Europe. But if today seventy million German people in the heart of Europe turn uniformly from the West to the East, then gradually all c ontinental Europe must turn in the same direction; whether it likes it or not. The cultural and economic sense of this eastward turn of Germany now finds its visible expression in the fact that Germany is shifting its indispensable, additional living space , namely its foreign trade space, largely away from the overseas West to the East, i.e. to Eastern Europe. This will open up to the peoples of southern to northeastern Europe, both in Germany itself and in their exchanges with one another via Germany, an enormous new market not only for economic but also for cultural goods, which will bring about an undreamed -of intensification of the European economy and promotion of European cultural life - and thus a strengthening of the entire vital forces of Europe. It is therefore not only a substitute for the exchange possibilities with the overseas peoples irrevocably lost to the European peoples by the structural change of the former free-trade "world economy", but at the same time a conscious strengthening of the i ndependent life of the peoples of the European 119

continent. Several billion Reichsmarks annually, for which Germany has so far purchased goods from the West and the Far East, will in the future serve to increase the purchasing power of the Eastern Europe an countries, and thus to promote their economic, governmental and cultural independence. Germany will again become aware of its great European task and obligation: to strengthen the national, cultural, economic and state -political independent life of the peoples of Europe. Europe for the Europeans! European needs must first be met in Europe! European internal trade must first be strengthened! Everything that Europe's soil can offer in terms of natural resources and cultivation possibilities must be mobiliz ed first, before continental Europe turns its purchasing power to other continents and large -scale economies! The restoration of the natural cultural, power and economic -political sovereignty of Europe demands imperiously this attitude. For not only Germany, but continental Europe as a whole has become passive in its economic, power and cultural -political balance vis -à-vis the rest of the world through the senseless waste and dispersion of its forces all over the world. Lübeck and Nuremberg, as bridgeheads of a European economic and cultural cycle newly emerging over Germany in the northeast and southeast, are thus awakening to new life. Great construction plans are already ripening in the Upper German area, in Nuremberg, Munich, Augsburg, Regensburg, Ulm. H ere, too, as always, Adolf Hitler has given the impetus and drawn up the first plans in his intuitive feeling for and contemplation of things to come. The Lower German area now has the duty to fulfill the same task, echoing in the same sense. Therefore, Lü beck not only has the task of again becoming Germany's bridgehead to the Baltic region in terms of economic and transportation policy, but must also once again become a cultural rallying point for the entire Low German region in Nordic music, Nordic theate r, in painting, literature and sculpture, and above all in Low German urban planning. The breakthrough of the National Socialist idea and the resulting fundamental transformation of German politics, economy and art give Lübeck back its old task and obligat ion, which it has to fulfill in the Low German area, in the North Baltic region for the whole of the people. A similar division of labor will develop between Lübeck and Hamburg with regard to their tasks in the Low German region and their duties to the who le, as already exists between Nuremberg and Munich as the "City of the Reich Party Rallies" and as the "City of the Movement". The new spirit of Germany will also give back to the German cities their old cultural high sense, which they had completely lost in the capitalistic-liberalistic epoch of the 120

last four hundred years. The spirit of these old cities, which were once blossoms on the tree of German nationality and with their cultural seed fertilized again and again the German and foreign national so il - until the liberal-capitalistic time distorted it, so that the cities became eaters of the best German nationality forces. That is why cities like Nuremberg and Lübeck, which once exemplified the true German spirit, are most likely to find their way back to the former attitude. As the new Germany turns its face from the West to the East, the entire substance of German life is also being restructured. For four hundred years the German national substance had piled up in the West and made the East bloodles s and spiritless, so that Asia could penetrate the empty spaces in a national and spiritual way. Now the German life substance floods back slowly, and a new economic and traffic structure arises. Today we can already see in Central Germany, in Saxony, arou nd the Elbe and in Thuringia, a new strong economic area emerging, which will be at least equal to Rhineland -Westphalia, and which will have to seek its balance via the mouth of the Elbe at the Baltic Sea - the Elbe-Trave Canal - and thus via Lübeck with t he Baltic and above all with the newly emerging economic area of East Prussia. This enormous structural change of the German national and economic substance is a process which will last for generations, and which the reform of the Reich will also take into account by establishing an administrative structure which is as elastic as possible. A rigidly static division into districts, based on the present state of affairs, would easily become inwardly untrue because of the as yet incomplete shift of the living substance. Form is always only coagulated life. Times of revolution have to take care that the life freed from dead forms is not imprisoned again too soon behind new intellectual prison bars. The fact that Lübeck is once again being integrated in a promine nt position in the new continental European economic and traffic cycle, and that the Baltic Sea is once again becoming more important than the Mediterranean for the new construction of Europe, must above all lead to a distribution of tasks among the three Hanseatic cities, Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen, while wisely taking into account the interests of the other Baltic ports. For these old maritime trading and transport cities form the axis around which German foreign trade once revolved from the East to the West and today again from the West to the East, and are therefore exposed to the greatest strain. Hamburg and Lübeck in particular must and will therefore, in order not to break under this burden and responsibility, come to a clear division of labor over th e North and Baltic Sea traffic. Both cities, which have to solve the heavy task of 121

carrying the shortest land connection between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, must and will come together more than ever for joint work. In this way, with the rebirth of Germany, the rebirth of Lübeck as a vital organ in the cultural and economic cycle that has belonged to it since time immemorial is also taking place. As part of a national community, which alone can be the bearer of German freedom and thus of the Germa n future. For national community in the sense of the National Socialist idea means: social harmony within and military community outside. Germany is only as strong as it is united.

Lübeck, the city of the imperial meetings of the Nordic Society Essay in "Pressedienst Nord," June 9, 1937 Published by the Nordic Society.

It is the destiny and task of every flower and fruit to be first of all a consumer. Consumers of a part of the best forces and juices of their life trunk. But the beauty of blossom and f ruit and the seed they produce are their eternal justification. For blossom and fruit not only take, but give even more when they are healthy. Does this not also apply to the cities? They, too, are certainly first and foremost consumers of folklore. They d o not live and grow out of their own population surplus, but draw to themselves again and again a large part of the best folk forces and juices of the flat country and their environment. Seemingly destroying it, but nevertheless resurrecting it in art, tec hnology and science, which are now scattered again as seed and seed over the whole country, over the community. As a donation and thanks for the blood sacrifice offered by it. Seed and seed which retroactively increase and strengthen in the community the life forces of the people remaining outside the city to a greater extent than valuable forces were consumed by it in the city. But only then can the cities justify this sacrifice, can they increase and strengthen the life of the community in art, culture and science, if they preserve the species -specific character of their people, its eternal soul, in spite of urbanization and preserve in urbanization the eternal style of their people. If, therefore, they remain masters of the autochthonous or alien subhumanity likewise attracted by the city. Did not Adolf Hitler also want to say this when he wrote: "Germany will be a peasant empire - or it will not be." Did he not mean to express that it must retain its Nordic noble peasant character in spite of the cities ? And that therefore the 122

German cities must be reorganized in this style and spirit? The old German cities were always living entities of Germanic leadership. The Nordic and thus German national community always builds its power structures, internally as well as externally, on the voluntariness of the led. Thus, it always takes into account the life law of "inner distance" freedom - without which the Nordic, the German man cannot live, grow and prosper. This is the lifestyle of German community, Germ an cities. Is not the resettlement, according to Adolf Hitler's will, of the chaotic stone deserts that had arisen in the liberalistic period of Germany, which proudly called themselves "big cities", and the reorganization of their urban core in attitude a nd form, the beginning of the turning away from "urbanization", which Hans F. K. Günther also demands in an irrefutable and incomparable way for the rebirth of Germanic nationality? Everything that Günther says about urbanization is absolutely correct, nam ely when the cities are dominated by the un -spirit of racial chaos and degenerate in attitude and form through it. Such cities are only poisonous flowers and rotten fruits, which decompose the people on which they grow. Not only the Germanic, but also ever y other genuine folklore. The declining Rome, dominated by racial chaos, is a world -historical example. Rome was the powerhouse of the Mediterranean world as long as it preserved its original character in custom, state and religion. Only when the racial ch aos gained the upper hand in Rome, when the subhuman service of the Roman Empire gathered in the city of Rome and usurped the rule, old custom changed into Roman paragraphism, Nordic conditioned people state into late Roman state people thought and the life piety into Jewish -dogmatic Christianity. These poisonous blossoms and rotten fruits of Rome not only decomposed the great Roman world empire, but also poisoned the North far beyond the Alps. And did not likewise the population, gathered without a common inner attitude and nature in the "German" big cities of the last hundred years, destroy the basic aristocratic character of the German people, so that Bolshevism, the evil spirit of racial chaos, could unfurl its flag over Germany? - Everything that Hans F . K. Günther has to say against the urbanization of Germany is devastating to the rapidly grown stone deserts of the last hundred years. On the soil of this urbanization only civilization grew, i.e. technology and economy that had become an end in itself, artistry that pretended to be art and science that was self sufficient, but no blossom and no seed for the strengthening of the life and growth forces of the people as a whole, of the eternal Germany. These new German cities no longer had a trace in common with the splendid centers of art and life of medieval cities. These were either 123

overgrown by the new age or, fortunately for them, they fell out of the stream of great traffic and sank into a Sleeping Beauty slumber. Now these old cities first awaken to new life (and the youngest ones try to remake themselves from their often old city centers). It is therefore no coincidence that the Führer elevated Nuremberg to the status of city of the Reich Party Rallies. The unheard -of power of intuition, the somnambulistic certainty with which the greatest artist and most beloved person of the new Germany reshaped people and empire - were also at his side when he elevated the spiritual Nuremberg, the unbroken truly German attitude of this old royal city to the role model of the German cities. Today everyone knows it: only in Nuremberg are the Reich Party Rallies possible. Only here does the German -Nordic attitude of the old and the new Germany resonate in unswerving unison and form the German man anew. And it is a similar thing around Lübeck. Lübeck;, the successor of Haithabu, the German Viking city in the Low German area. In Lübeck, the spirit of German Vikingism as the Hanseatic spirit became for the first time one of the great driving forces of German history an d found its expression in the colonization of the East - the spirit of German Vikingism, which still today plows the oceans of the world and reaches far beyond the spatial narrowness of our country. And beyond that, it conquers ever new spiritual zones and distances for German life in art, science and technology. This power of Nordic Vikingism in the German people found its first sky-rocketing expression in Lübeck. That is why this city with its unheard-of brick art, with its unforgettable heroic gesture, s haped the face of the entire Baltic Sea region. From Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Stettin, Elbing, Königsberg, Libau, Reval, Riga, Dorpat, Novgorod, Stockliolm, Wisby, Malmö, Gotenburg, Copenhagen, Oslo and Bergen deep into the Mark and also westwar d to the Flemish North Sea coast, the Nordic cities received their attitude and form. In addition, in equal measure, Lübische law, Lübische trade and traffic planning and art connected these areas into a Nordic community. For when Lübeck's royal buildings grew up, the Germans, the Dutch, the English, the Norwegians, the Danes and the Swedes were only at the beginning of their ethnic and state separation. The birth of Nordic national personalities out of the relatively uniform Nordic people around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, divided mainly into clans and tribes, was only in the process of formation. And so this most important city of the North Baltic region, this city of German-Nordic Vikingism, attracted not only the best forces from the immediate surroundings, from the Low German region, but also from Flanders and England, from Denmark, from Sweden and Norway. Thus 124

Lübeck was born from the blood sacrifice of the whole Nordic world and has in turn repaid this whole Nordic world, all the peoples of the Low German and Baltic regions, a thousandfold in its seed: in art, culture, economy and technology, their sacrifice of the best folk forces. Therefore, no other German city is so intertwined with the main roots of Nordic folklore as this city. And so it was something quite natural that just as Nuremberg was resurrected in the Third Reich as the city of the Reich Party Rallies as a symbol of the political and cultural power of the Third Reich - Lübeck was also resurrected as a living symbol of German Vik ingism. For Vikingism is a primal component of the German soul, just as it is a primal component, a vital component of all Nordic peoples; it unites them all. In it the creative and thus combative restlessness of the Nordic racial soul is revealed. Therefo re the Nordic man will and must always be a conqueror, always be a leader on the seas of this earth or in the infinite realms of the spirit. He always directs the prow of his sea dragons and sea wolves to the discovery of new coasts. He cannot live without the sea. Because the sea was never something separating for him, but always only connecting. It connected him with the homeland clod and the infinity and gave only his political and spiritual reach space. It is therefore no coincidence that more than four -fifths of the world's shipping is operated by the Nordic, the Germanic peoples. And if it were possible to make a similar list of the scientific development and the technical inventions of the world, to determine the spiritual voyages of discovery of Nord ic mankind,-there, too, the Nordic peoples would account for no less a share. The law of life of development demands that a period of differentiation, of separation, is always followed by one of integration, of combination. And so we experience today tha t after a period of almost a thousand years, in which the Germans, the Dutch, the English, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Danes and the Swiss have separated from the unified mother substance of Nordic peoplehood, these peoples are today again whether they want to or not - urged out of the inner laws, out of their law of life, to a new cooperation. The intellect, the external knowledge, which always lags behind the things, and which is also only there to explain the autonomous creative processes later, to describe and to put down in books - moves indeed still in the period of the divorce and the conflict of the Nordic peoples. The only intellectual spokesmen have been at all times the worst reactionaries. But the inner knowledge about the unity of their life-legality, their blood and their mental attitude already 125

begins to stir everywhere under the apparent knowledge of our days, and so the Nordic world recalls from this inner knowledge about their natural togetherness also one of the old focal points o f their common power field: Lübeck. Lübeck, this red wonder city of the North, is therefore the most dignified spiritual space in which the unity of Nordic blood, Nordic attitudes and Nordic virtues, despite their different ethnic embodiments, can be preached and strengthened again. Only in this way could the imperial conferences of the Nordic Society in Lübeck gain a significance far beyond the city and the empire. And in the future their work will have an ever deeper effect, because they were not set in s ome arbitrarily chosen city, but in that of the Vikingism made of stone. And when this year's Reichstagung is held under the sign of traffic, when the first experts of Germany and the other states of the Baltic Sea region talk about the consolidation, impr ovement and standardization of traffic over and around the Baltic Sea - this is not a purely technical or economic matter - but for those who have eyes to see, behind the things Vikingism rises as a common spiritual attitude and strives towards new and yet actually again old goals!

Seed from Low German region Essay in the book "Deutsche Saat in fremder Erde". Published by the Verlags - und Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH. Berlin W 35. 1936.

Nordic waste The deepest human wisdom leads to the realization: Everything is seed. And the highest moral demand to the individual as well as to the peoples is: Sow, waste yourself! Because what comes up from every seed, whether much or little, whether it flourishes well or badly - does not stand in human hand and peop le power. That decides alone the creative omnipotence, which works in all happening. It often lets millions of germs perish, so that a few live. It is not bound in space and time. For it there is neither life nor death, neither beginning nor end. All thing s are in it glcichräumig and simultaneously, without beginning and end. Only the human mind dissects the living wholeness of all things into these poor measures. And only because the measures of the divine unity, of the eternal life, are other than human m easures, the conceited human mind points at them with fingers: See, how bunglingly, how "unrationally" nature works! 126

Creative men and creative peoples, however, can only create and think like nature itself, sow and waste themselves in this way, because they are living parts of the eternal creative power of all things. But this waste must never go so far as to break the individual or the national personality. That is why nature has placed not only the wanderlust but also the homesickness in the breast of the Teuton, so that his wastefulness does not become senseless. So that homesickness is an eternal reminder to him of the blood and soil of his homeland, the eternal roots of his strength, from which he must never completely separate himself. From this realization also the waste, the unheard -of seed, receives its eternal sense and nonsense, which the Nordic man of the Baltic and the North Sea scattered in infinite abundance at all times but the whole globe. Here, on the shores of the North Sea and the Balt ic Sea, the eternal source of Nordic streams of peoples, which first poured eastward over southeastern Europe, Iran up to India, jumps. On their shores, the incomprehensibly splendid Nordic cultures and empires of Asia Minor, Iran and India came into being . At their two branches into the Mediterranean then Hellas and Rome blossomed. And who later, turning westward from the Low German area, conquered England by sea and from there North America, the Far East and Australia. They subjugated Africa and both poles of the earth. Incomprehensible and "uneconomical" by human standards is this seed, which threw ever new waves of peoples from the North Baltic over the globe. Here flows the eternal source of blood and spiritual renewal. And from here also today Europe w ill be renewed again and through Europe the feeling of the world. Therefore, the area from Flanders to Reval is of irreplaceable importance for the National Socialist renewal of Germany and for the spiritual reorganization of Europe. It is certainly not th e intention here to speak of a regional policy as a tendency to isolation. For the strength of the new Reich lies precisely in the fact that it is governed centrally in terms of power politics, but decentrally in terms of cultural politics. We therefore re fuse to consider the Low German cultural and living space more valuable than any other German area. But we know that in the natural polyphony of the German tribes and voices Low German has always played the basic chord. We know that the Low German tribal group, formed together by Lower Saxony, Frisians, Baltic Germans and Lower Franconians, will again be the basis of the new Germany. For here on the North Sea and the Baltic Sea lie the eternal roots of the Germanic-Nordic, the Germanic spirit. Here, in all great periods of German history, the last resistance and advance against the invading spirit of the Mediterranean is concentrated. Nordic leadership 127

against front Asiatic despotism and Mediterranean imperialism. Of course, our consideration of the more than two thousand years of tension between the forces of influence of the North Sea area and the South Sea area does not take a petty view of the denial of any essential formative forces of the German past that originated in the Mediterranean. But we know that the Germanic spiritual revolution of our days - National Socialism - is the beginning of a new German -Nordic cultural uprising, certainly fertilized by tradition, but no longer affected in its essence. And that for its realization it needs the intact elemental force of the North, so that it can erect a new indigenous Nordic cultural edifice with a corresponding change of forms that have become historical. Inevitably, therefore, this millennia -old confrontation of Nordic and Mediterranean spirit, which determines the fate of Europe, also forms the background of our presentation. Within a narrow temporal and spatial framework, from the year 1000 to the year 1600, it is primarily the seed that was carried from the Low German area with plow and sword and by the equipped Hanseatic cogs to the north and east that is to be shown. It finds its historical expression in the first great northeastern settlement of Henry I, Henry the Lion, the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, whose architectural witnesses are still visible to everyone today in the magnificent brick Gothic community of the North and Baltic Sea region. Immortal witnesses of the first German national community, indissolubly connected with blood and soil, heralds of the first Holy Germanic Empi re of the German Nation with its spiritual centers: Lübeck and Marienburg. But also this narrowly limited task requires for its understanding a short look at the prehistory, at prehistoric blood and prehistoric soil of the Low German area. For our biological thinking knows today how indissolubly connected the prehistory of our people is with the actual history, i.e. with the beginning of the written tradition. And we know furthermore how wrong the phrase coined with certain intention in the nineteenth centu ry and known to all of us is: "Ex Oriente lux". That rather the light of true spirit comes from the north, that the spreading of culture has already taken its way from west to east in young Paleolithic times. Historical consideration must therefore lay its roots in prehistoric times. Unfortunately, it is much too little known that the Low German area at the North Sea and the Baltic Sea was a closed unit in the prehistoric as well as in the early times of our history, which always formed the core of the large Nordic cultural circle. The soil findings show that already the cultures of the Bronze Age of Lower Germany were carried uniformly by the Germanic peoples, who developed from the fusion of the original 128

population, the carriers of the giant stone grav e culture of the north, with the Nordic single grave people of the younger Stone Age (3500 -2000 B.C.). Thus, the Germanic peoples grew out of the mixture of the Faelic and Nordic creative people. Divided into numerous tribes, this people, called Germanic, was already before the middle of the second millennium B.C. in the areas west and southwest of the Baltic Sea, i.e. in Jutland, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg and Lower Saxony. Through the waves of peoples released from this Nordic cultural circle, the well-known advanced civilizations of most of the ancient peoples came into being, whose fates we must experience admonishingly as those of our blood relatives. For it is always a Nordic ruling class which drives the foreign people to cultural high bloom by sacrificing its own Nordic blood. With the expenditure of his forces for the production of these cultures with foreign blood, on foreign soil and under foreign sun, however, the fighting and creative power of the Nordic man is exhaus ted each time, because the constant influx of Nordic blood from the old homeland is missing, and then in his fall he also takes with him what he has created. "How high the culture -creative potential of the Teutons already around ' 2000 v. Chr. was, prove t he numerous finds in Scandinavia and the moors of Jutland. How strong the thrust and vitality of this people was in general, proves the history with the Germanic people movements since ewa 1200 B.C. up to the today's day with that unheard -of and unique expansion of the Germanic nationality borders over whole Europe and far beyond. Empires were founded, which came and went again. In the East, the rule of the Goths up to the shores of the Black Sea, which succumbed only under the onslaught of the Huns, but wh ich found its continuation in the Ostrogothic Empire in Italy (493 -552) under Theoderic, who broke up the Roman Empire, which had degenerated in racial chaos. Tolosan and Toledan Empire (419 -711),-Vandal Empire around Carthage (429 to 534), Burgundian Empi re around Saöne and Rhone and Lombard Empire in Upper Italy are no less worthy names testifying to the prodigal creativity of Germanic tribes. They all poured Nordic blood into foreign people, but without being able to use the harvest for the old Nordic homeland. For language and folklore could be preserved only temporarily under the influence of foreign blood and foreign sun, so that today we have to draw with compelling necessity the conclusion from the lesson which history gave us: German man, realize th at the Germanic cradle did not stand under the bright blue sky of the South, but rather under the dark groves of the North. And only when the longing for the south and the wanderlust of Germanic man are bound by homesickness and remain 129

indissolubly connected with the old northern homeland, only when the spirit of the northern sea has finally freed itself from the alien spiritual forms of the southern sea, only then will we be able to solve the task which the great leader of all Germans and his moveme nt are setting us again today: The rebirth of Germany and Europe out of the spirit of Nordic leadership.

Nordic bond Thus prehistory shows us that from the Low German area Nordic seed was carried out into foreign peoples, whereby by loss of the blood connections the Nordic hereditary property succumbed to foreign influence in many cases. But not only the prehistory, but also the later centuries, which have already moved into the historical brightness, substantiate the importance of the Low German area as t he eternal birthplace and starting point of the Nordic -German spirit. If we look back to the first post -Christian centuries with this direction of vision, we find as a result: German seed was scattered senselessly in lavish wealth on foreign soil in the so uth and west of Europe and far beyond. Meaningful only in so far as the fruit of this sowing showed itself in the temporary cultural blossoming of the so -called Middle Ages, which reached its highest development in all those countries where Germanic peoples became permanently settled. But the loss of huge amounts of Nordic folk power for the Low German area was greater. It had to have all the more effect, because in the East, for the sake of this doubtful gain in the West, even large parts of the old heartl and on the shores of the Baltic Sea were depopulated. The native soil between the Elbe and the Vistula was no longer cultivated, because the Germanic peoples wasted their seed, their national strength on foreign soil. Herein lies the tragedy of the great p eriod of Germanic peoples' movement. For the space east of the Elbe, which had become free through the migration of the East Germanic tribes, was invaded by the masses of Slavic peoples, who now scattered widely on the old East Germanic soil from the Dniep er and Volga to the Regnitz, Saale and Elbe. In this way, Eastern Serbia, Bohemia, Moravia and Western Hungary were lost to the Nordic -Germanic people. To replenish the old Germanic living space east of the Elbe with German blood and to cultivate it with G erman seeds was the first historical task and the noblest duty of the remaining heartland. A task, however, that could never be solved as long as the strong hand of a nationally bound central power was missing. Instead, it was only ever temporarily solved when a determined eastern policy linked the East with the West. Thus, 130

fortunes changed back and forth. What we have experienced in this region between the Elbe and the Vistula in the following period up to the recent present is a flooding back and fort h of the masses of peoples, the advancing and retreating of Slavic and German peoples in an uninterrupted chain of bitter battles, beginning with Charles the Frank, who in 798 led the first thrust across the Elbe against the warlike Wilzes and founded the Sorbian Mark between the Elbe, the Saale and the Oder. The first German king who purposefully stood up for the consolidation of the German nationality towards the East was the Lower Saxon Henry I (919 to 936), from whom our history in the actual sense take s its starting point. He pushed back the Slavic wave of peoples that had broken in as far as the Oder River and built the Brandenburg and Meissen Marches as a border wall. German peasants moved back into their old lands. And above all these marks, the red and white colors, the red eagle in the white cloth, flew as the emblem of the original German royalty, which also later embodied the Germanic-German royal sovereignty in the colors of the Hanseatic League, in Nuremberg and in Lübeck, as well as in the Germ an border marks advanced to the south and west: in Tyrol, in Carinthia, in Brandenburg and in Burgundy. Only then, when the German king believed he had to elevate himself to the Roman emperor, did the single -headed red eagle also change into the double -headed, double-tongued black eagle. However, what was achieved by Henry I was lost again with the death of Otto ü (983), and again the Elbe became the border of nations for almost a century and a half. Only under the duke of Lower Saxony and Bavaria, Henry the Lion (1129-1195), the ethnic rebel against the Roman universalist Staufen Frederick I (1121 -1190), did the struggle of Germanism with Slavism enter a new phase in Lower Germany. For he alone pursued an eastern policy of world -historical significance, reconquered the old settlement land in the east for the German peasant and citizen, the knight and merchant. Thus the stream of German tribes poured from the motherland in a steady course back to the East, which now runs stronger, now weaker through the whole of German history and reaches its climax in the Middle Ages from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. Soon the Guelphs were followed in their heroic struggle by the Germanic Order's Wends of the same direction and the German Hanseatic League's trade jou rneys around the North and East Seas. Thus, the Eastern settlement, the Teutonic Knights and the German Hanseatic League attempted to solve the historical task that was set for the German people in the Low German area at that time in a threefold advance. Together, they accomplished the greatest deed of the German Middle 131

Ages by replenishing the old Germanic soil east of the Elbe with German blood and German nationality. A deed, which is to be valued all the higher, as it is not a work of the alien, Rom an emperorship, but a work of the entire German people: of peasants, citizens, knights and clergy of German blood. Thus, the final and deepest significance of this great national deed of the medieval German people is that, in contrast to the ultra montes o riented policy of the Hohenstaufen emperors, it created the possibility for the German North, under the natural combination of plow and sword, to consolidate itself in the space determined by its nationality and thus to develop out of its own essential law into an organic state built on the basis of Germanic leadership. Thus, here in the German north, out of the spirit of Germanic leadership, the basis of a holy Germanic empire of the German nation arose, which did not remain limited to this area through its own fault. And it was from here that the German seed was shipped with the Hanseatic cogs to the Russian East and to the Germanic lands of the North, beyond the Baltic and the North Sea. And the soil, saturated with Nordic blood, became fertile. The seed sprouted and strengthened the Germanic peoples of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and England in their own life. It strengthened the own nationality and the national self confidence of these peoples who are racially connected to us. With this, however, the primal-Nordic homeland, Lower Germany and Scandinavia, was once again united into a large cultural circle in the spirit of Germanic leadership. But also through the Hanseatic ways of Upper Germany, along the Danube region, the German seed had an effect deep into the Balkans and promoted the independent life of foreign peoples here as well. For in contrast to the Asia Minor -Mediterranean attitude of mind, which puts form above content, the coagulated above the living life, and always seeks to tame chaos from withou t, and which is therefore always imperialistic and universalistic, the essence of Germanic leadership is that it always tames chaos from within, through voluntary subordination and submission to the higher power, and which is therefore always anti imperialistic, anti-universalistic and anti -despotic. Germanic leadership therefore never touches the God -given sovereignty of foreign peoples in any area of its expression of life. Neither in their state, cultural nor economic districts. The old motto of the Medi terranean mentality: "divide et impera"- divide and rule - which, together with the Roman legions, Roman law, Jewish monetary thinking and other imperialist intellectual powers, penetrated the Nordic cultural area from the Mediterranean - which fragmented Germany into 132

impotent small states, detached the German peasant from his land, destroyed the economic planning of the Hanseatic League b ased on the needs of the people - stands opposite the Nordic motto: "Some and lead!" In it, the Nordic bond is embod ied.

Cultural charisma of the Hanseatic League Within the narrow framework of this work, we cannot trace together all three forces that led to the reclamation of the German East and to the strengthening of the Nordic blood in the entire North Baltic regio n, but must limit ourselves primarily to the work of the German Hanseatic League. Only in the essence and meaning of the Hanseatic League do we want to show the German seed, which blossomed on home soil, which beyond that, with all the fullness of its radi ations into the northern and eastern world of Europe, had an organizing effect and led in particular to the awakening of the Nordic empires on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic. And we do not want to limit ourselves to the trade -political side, but also give room to the cultural -political consideration, because the Nordic man is never content with the matter alone, but regards even his trade and economic policy as an indissoluble part of the wholeness of his national life. For the Nordic attitude o f mind does not permit the stream of creative becoming, when it emerges from the unconscious into the lucid, to be dissected by the intellect and to remain frayed like a ray of light through the prism. Nordic spirit and National Socialism is life from wholeness. And what the liberalistic epoch and the intellect dissected and disintegrated, it recombines into the conscious wholeness of life. We must claim Rhineland -Westphalia as the mother and the eternal blood donor of the old Hanseatic League. From here, s ince the beginning of the twelfth century, Rhenish -Westphalian long-distance merchants moved across to England and Gotland and joined together in cooperative associations to protect their trading rights. For the merchant of the Middle Ages was shotless and without rights in foreign lands. The English, who united as merchants of the same nationality and the same language in the guildhall, correctly named them with the old Germanic word "Hanse" (Ur-Germanic Hanse = community, band, actually armed band, cohors). It was from there that the German merchants' association, which developed around the middle of the fourteenth century in the Lower and Upper German regions into the community of German cities - the Dudean Hanseatic League - received its name. Soothed to Rhineland-Westphalia and the Upper German area, the migration of German merchants went mainly to the East, the soil was fed with German folklore in a steady 133

stream of blood from the Lower Rhine to Riga and Reval, and German seeds were scattered over t he North and Baltic Seas. Even before 1150, German merchants from time -honored cities such as Cologne, Soest, Dortmund, Osnabrück and Münster moved eastward via Haithabu to the sea, Viking-style, to exchange their Rhenish and French wines and Flanders and English cloth preferably for Russian fur and wax, honey and Swedish ores. They already recognized the importance and the economic possibilities of this area, in which they advanced to the East, completely on their own and on the shot of their own swords. T he situation became more secure only when a purposeful eastern policy took hold, which resulted in systematic settlement and founding of cities in the sparsely populated east by the surplus forces in the German west. Especially from the industrially early developed Flanders countryside (weaving mills in Ghent, Ijperen and Bruges, as the world market of the occidental peoples soon after 1200, speak for the flourishing industry) came the settlers, who, even if they belonged in part politically to France, brou ght German language and German folklore as a living preserved heritage. Even then, the old Flemish emigrant song resounded from the eternal Germanic need for space: Naer Oostland willen wy ryden, Naer Oostland willen wy mee, All over those green heaths, Frisch over die heiden! Daer isser en hettere stee. Thus, in the twelfth century, in addition to the Viking campaigns of the long-distance traders, the great settler campaigns of the peasants also began, which strove to reach beyond the Elbe, used and prom oted by the clear and far-sighted view of Henry the Lion. To him, the duke of Lower Saxony and Bavaria, Lübeck, the "head of our all" (caput et principium omnium nostrum) - as Lübeck is called in a letter of the Frisian merchants from the year 1280 - owes its new foundation in 1158 as the "Bardowiek advanced to the coast" with Westphalian people as the basis of its population. Lübeck, like the Viking city of Hailhabu on the Schlei before it, quickly flourished thanks to its incomparable location at the cent er of the west-eastern long-distance traffic on the northern edge of Europe and the shortest land connection between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, so that Lübeck was recognized by all Hanseatic cities as a suburb and upper court as early as 1293 and th us became the head of the Hanseatic 134

League. Thus, the city of Travest was created by nature as a bulwark and gateway of the Nordic-German spirit to the East. From here, before the end of the twelfth century, German settlers and merchants had already mo ved over to Gotland, where they founded the proud Wisby, a settlement like Lübeck of pure German character. Its gigantic ruins and towering spires are still silent witnesses of past power. From Gotland, German trade, conspiring with Lübeck law, radiated de ep into the Russian East, to the Düna, to Sweden and Finland. And from here, the Baltic region was opened up, and Lübeck in particular rendered tremendous services in gaining access to it. This was quickly followed by the founding of Riga and Dorpat in the east, and Novgorod on Lake Ilmen as the easternmost settlement. This large Hanseatic economic area was purposefully secured at its southern edge by the long chain of German city foundations in the wide area from Wismar to Memel. Under Iübian influence and Lübian law, these towns grew up, in which a true national community, built on a living community spirit, was formed by the same, ever -renewing flow of blood from the Lower Rhine. This blood stream was particularly stimulated by the fact that Low German an d Rhenish-Westphalian farmers' and craftsmen's sons found sufficient food for themselves and their families in the eastern region and consequently emigrated there from the more densely populated west. At that time, Lübeck had a significance as a port for emigrants that can be compared to that of Hamburg or Bremen in the nineteenth century. It was particularly important, however, that the leading class also followed. Again and again, younger members of the leading merchant families were sent from the Lower R hine to the Baltic region to continue the founding of towns. Partly they joined here by marriage with the already earlier immigrated families. In Cologne, Dortmund or Soest, in Lübeck or Rostock, in Riga or Reval, in Bergen and Stockholm, the names of the same councilor families can be found everywhere, and their bearers single -mindedly pursued a great policy directed by the Hanseatic spirit. Thus, through marriage and migration in the wide area from the Lower Rhine to Reval, a living, blood community was achieved in all strata of the population. It opened up and secured the eastern area to be filled up according to plan by founding cities. Cities that grew organically out of their nationality and became what they still are today: Witnesses of German will an d ability, witnesses of the eternal Germany. From Novgorod in the east, the circle was then closed to the west in a logical, trade-related development through the expansion of firm 135

positions throughout the system. Its cornerstones became, in the north and in the east, the Hanseatic contors of Bergen ("Deutsche Brüdke") and Novgorod (St. Peterhof) and, in the west, Bruges and London (Stahlhof). These four main kontors occupied entire city districts. They were radiation centers of German seed in the Nordi c area. This now provided a secure basis for exchanging the raw materials of western Russia for western European manufactured goods. A basis that was never replaced by the homeland. The German merchant, out of medieval community spirit, always carried his German homeland wherever he settled in the Baltic Sea region. Only in this way could it come about that even today Memelland and Baltenland show purely German features. The Hanseatic League was thus not only a daring and enterprising merchant, who purposefully created important bases for his economic power, but at the same time also a German settler and German cultural bearer in the East, which was to be repopulated. By continuous supply of new German blood from the inexhaustible energy center Lower Saxony and RhinelandWestphalia it was ensured that the culture carrier did not become the culture fertilizer. The Hanseatic League deliberately kept its distance from Judaism. Thus the Lübeck chronicler notes in 1499: "Tho Lübeck syn kene juden, man bedarf erer ok nicht", from which it follows that even then Jews were "undesirable". Thus, from the very beginning, the Hanseatic League carried the nobility of genuine merchant spirit out into the world on its far -flung voyages. And it was not by chance that both in the Lübeck Ratskeller and above the portal of the Haus Seefahrt in Bremen the old saying looks admonishingly at the viewer: Navigare necesse est, vivere non est necesse. For the Hansen, life without seafaring was worthless, he strove out with his cogs, and outside, through the stony language of his buildings, he bore powerful witness to the greatness of the German spirit and the radiance of the German national character. They created the economic and cultural upswing and the blossoming of the North and Baltic Sea areas and the Danube region. Thanks to the repopulation of the East Elbian lands, the Hanseatic merchant grew enormously in height, similar to his Upper German tribal brother, who in the wake of imperial politics and the Crusades attained power and wealth and thus became the creator of immense German art treasures. We recall only briefly the Fuggers and Welsers in Augsburg, the cloths in Nuremberg, which became world companies, as well as the cities of Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Strasbourg and Basel, which with the flowering of the German bourgeoisie and with the flourishing of German craftsmanship became centers of art and education and thus of the German spirit. They radiated 136

far to the east, south and west: Schongauer's engravings traveled to England, Spain and Italy, and Nuremberg art was in great demand in the east. Peter Vischer's gravestones traveled as far as Poland, and even Krakow received its cultural imprint through a German upper class. Thus, while Nuremberg, Ulm and Augsburg radiated German seeds as far as the Mediterranean countries and the southeastern region by land, the same happened in the North and Baltic Sea regions through the advance of German spirit by sea. For with the cog, the Hanseatic merchant carried not only material goods but also the goods of the spirit. The maritime trade routes thus also became the advance routes of art and culture. The export of art and arts and crafts along the water's edge became particularly important, with Lübeck occupying a privileged position . For in Lübeck, especially in the fifteenth century, not only North German art prevailed in the widest circle, but Lübeck's sculpture and painting had an effect far beyond into the Nordic countries, beyond the Baltic Sea. Defiant and proud, austere and ma sculine, the brick buildings of the German northeast stretched up to the sky: cathedrals and castles, civic buildings and gates and towers. They are all expressions of a simple, intrinsic art, which, with the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Order, spread to the Baltic, Finland and the Scandinavian countries. Just think of the pinnacle of late Gothic art: St. Jürgen the Dragonslayer in Stockholm's Nikolai Church from Bernt Notke's workshop in Lübeck and the All Saints' Altar, which Klaus Berg built in the collegiate church of Odense on Funen. It is always the Nordic -German spirit that lavished itself sensuously on the Baltic region. It opened up the soil and made it receptive to the seeds that German people sowed in the soil of a common people. A seed which, out of common Nordic blood, then drove its own sovereign cultures to a glorious flowering, and which will therefore one day also produce a Nordic community of sovereign peoples in the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions. Thus Nuremberg for the Upper Ge rman area and Lübeck for the Lower German area were the two complementary poles of German being, which powerfully radiated their lines of force into the areas belonging to them. In their polarity they encompassed the immense diversity of the German spirit. They also expressed this polar togetherness externally through their coats of arms and their status as free imperial cities. Both had the red eagle and the white -red colors in their coats of arms and flags. (In Lübeck, too, the red royal eagle became blac k only later, while Nuremberg has preserved it in old faithfulness). Lübeck was often called the "Nuremberg of the North". And even today, in the empire of Adolf Hitler, who is renewing Germany out of its 137

elemental forces, both cities are regaining their position as focal points of German essence for the German future. How could it be otherwise! Nuremberg as the city of the Reich Party Rallies and Lübeck as the city of "Nordic thought" symbolically and visibly from afar embody the return to the origins of German essence.

Spiritual attitude of the Hanseatic League As an association of 164 cities, of which Lübeck was the suburb, and whose supporting pillars abroad were formed by the four large offices in Bruges, London, Bergen and Novgorod, it was in th e nature of the Hanseatic League that its gaze was directed outward, far beyond the borders of the empire. World economic traits, measured by the conditions of the time, are unmistakable. Inwardly related to the distant Vikings, the Hanseatic people also s trove to reach out from the narrow confines of their homeland, never forgetting their German ways. In contrast to the Vikings, however, they did not disperse their national and economic forces over the world, but kept them firmly together in a closed area bound by the same legal, commercial and monetary principles. Seeds in the noblest sense of the word were therefore what they scattered on foreign soil. Of course, the Hanseatic League, as an economic and political association, was primarily concerned with safeguarding and promoting the economic interests of its members abroad. If, however, it had only been profit-oriented in its endeavors, if it had only thought of the accumulation of material wealth, it would never have been able to play the role in histor y which is now apparent to the changed eye and which consisted in the awakening and strengthening of the independent life of the other peoples of the North Baltic region. Indeed, in its best days, the Hanseatic League, even in the pursuit of its business aims, always kept clear of money -grubbing hucksterism. It always showed national dignity and national consciousness. The power and money of the individual belonged not to him, but to the whole, which the most capable and efficient in the deeds of the Hansea tic cities had to serve as councillors in the highest position of honor, but also with the highest responsibility. Often they had to fulfill important diplomatic missions abroad, and through the combative attitude of the successful young councilors the cal mness of the older ones was formed into a determined but detached overall attitude, so that the policy of the council, always carried by a unified will and inspired by a sense of 138

responsibility for the whole, showed perseverance and adaptability, but also iron thrust in a happy, almost exemplary mixture. The most honorable testimony to this manly, combative, yet supple Hanseatic statesmanship was given by John Rüssel, the leader of the English delegation, who in 1474 spoke the famous words to the strong leader of the Lübeck mayor Hinrich Castorp: "He would rather negotiate with all the princes of the world than with Hanseatic council envoys! Thus, the Hanseatic League was much more than an economic association striving only for the acquisition of money: it was the first large -scale economy of the Germanic people, which radiated eastward into the old Germanic settlement area, and which, after the early Hanseatic period from 1150 to 1350, owed its later economic supremacy in the peripheral regions of the No rth Sea and the Baltic Sea only to the fact that it had already from its earliest beginnings, in the eleventh century, pursued national-cultural goals of the greatest magnitude. And this always in close blood ties with the homeland and as an organic member of the great medieval eastern settlement movement. Therein lies their greatest significance for Germany. For the work of the knights, monks and peasants would have remained unfinished if the Hanseatic League had not led the way economically and politicall y, as it were, as a flank shot in the Baltic. It was royal merchants, not merchants of money and credit, who recognized that the great economic opportunities in the East could only be fully exploited if German trade, serving the whole, could appear in the Baltic region not only as an economic leader, but also in the same way in terms of power politics. This realization caused that the Hanseatic League in the course of the east settlement of its own accord put the superior German plow to the side of the seaworthy cog. Aiming and self -defensive, the cog found emphatic firing by the Hanseatic orlog ship. Thanks to this soldierly attitude in its management and in correct recognition of the power political requirements, the Hanseatic League, as already shown, fou nded German cities of harmonious medieval character, filled with a lively community spirit, in the wide Baltic region from Lübeck to Riga and Reval. Even there, where the German city had to be founded under foreign political sovereignty in foreign territor y and under full preservation of the sovereignty of foreign people. Thus the Hanseatic merchant did not lose his German homeland in a foreign land, but carried it with him and preserved it outside as a most precious possession. In this way, the Hanseatic League succeeded in uniting German blood with the new soil so firmly that the seeds could sprout in the most fruitful way not only for the German homeland but also for the foreign nation. As men of action, 139

the Hanses were far removed from groundless dre ams of peace. They soberly drew lessons from history, and despite their preference for negotiations, in which they were masters, their attitude always remained combative. They despised hucksterism as well as philistinism. If wars were unavoidable, they wer e well prepared and 'then waged with ruthless energy. The leaders and their men took up the sword with great enthusiasm, and they were prepared to defend their leading position in the Baltic and the North Sea with weapons in their hands. Thus the plow was united with the sword on land and with the cog at sea. In case of failure, the leader was called to account by the council. Even the beheading of those found guilty was not shied away from in extreme cases. For the leading position and the high standing th at the Hanseatic council held in the cities vis -à-vis the guilds and guilds could only be maintained by successful leadership and performance. The leadership that grew out of the Nordic folk order through performance was embodied here in exemplary fashion. As a result of their pronounced national attitude, the Hanses only resorted to the bloody and always costly means of war as a last resort. An old Lübeck council saying goes, "The (war) ensign is easily tied to the pole, but it is hard to bring it down aga in with honor." Diplomatic negotiations, which were masterfully understood, were preferred, and trade policy was used as the most common weapon. Economic warfare, blockade, and import bans were the main trade policy levers. In peacetime, however, trade pol icy was aimed only at securing and building economic power through the acquisition of trade rights. In doing so, the trade treaties were always supplemented by currency treaties in wise recognition of the economic interrelationships. For the Hanseatic "wor ld economy" of that time was sensibly built up on countries of different and species-specific structure. This life -conditioned diversity of the national structure was consciously protected by the Hanseatic trade policy - in contrast to the liberalistic -capitalistic world economic policy of the last century, which ended in chaos. The Hanseatic trade policy, which was built on a national attitude, i.e. on the immovable basis of the Nordic national order and Nordic leadership, is therefore a historical model f or the future foreign economy of the peoples, which will again be freed from the imperialist colonial and Jewish money -trading spirit, and which will rise anew on the basis of nationally disciplined and sovereign national economies.

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Hanseatic economic policy The credit, mostly given in kind, served to bridge the exchange transactions. The great credit power of the Hanseatic merchant enabled him to fertilize the exchange of goods through advance performance. A good example of this is the Norwegian fish ery, which the Hanseatic League incorporated into its trading network in the fourteenth century, as it had done earlier with the Schonen fishery. To carry out sea fishing, the Norwegian farmer was dependent on outside help. This assistance was not provided by the Hanseatic League in the form of money or means of production, so that, for example, the old Norwegian type of ship, the traditional fishing gear, etc. remained in place, and not even the preparation of fish was improved by the provision of salt in advance in the summer, as would have been more appropriate from a purely economic point of view. Nothing was to be changed in the traditional Norwegian fishing methods by external intervention. What was nationally rooted remained. Ethnic value took precede nce over economic necessity. The advance payment made by the Hansen consisted only of an advance in kind, i.e. mainly in foodstuffs, i.e. a consumer credit for the upkeep of the Norwegian fishermen traveling north. It was immediately converted into money and fixed in legally binding bonds, the so -called Nordfahrerrollen, but could never be paid in money, but had to be repaid during the market period of the following year by handing over the required quantities of fish. As long as a fisherman had not repaid his debt to his Hanseatic entrepreneur in this way, he was forbidden to sell his fish to others. If, despite this, one year's catch was not enough to cover the debt, the remaining amount was carried forward to a new account. Then the fisherman remained bo und to one and the same hanseatic house, and he formed with his boats, so to speak, after the manner of the publishing system, a partial enterprise of the hanseatic undertakings. Even if the Nordic fisherman was brought into a certain dependence on the Hanseatic merchant by this credit system, it remains that it was a mutual and thus a natural and organic one. For only in this way did the fisherman have an opportunity for economic and social advancement. Only through the granting of credit in kind was he able to operate his fishing business permanently on a large scale and thus gradually become an independent entrepreneur. The prerequisite for this was that the Hanseatic merchant, as it happened in the heyday, never abused his monopoly position for price pressure, but always kept the price of the fish to be bought in line with the prices of the grain he imported. At the fish market in Bergen, fish prices were therefore always aligned with 141

grain prices from the continent, and this fixed price ratio, to which the Hanseatic merchant adhered voluntarily, out of his inner attitude, ensured that business proceeded free of spooky and currency fluctuations. Thus, in Hanseatic times, credit was not a tool for exploiting the economically weak, but was intended o nly to set in motion and keep going the economic exchange between the exchanging parts. This exchange process under the granting of credit was thus based on a fair exchange of services in that the credit had to be repaid in goods and not in money, and was always exchange rate -secured by the linking of fish prices to grain prices. It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century, because of the gradual doubling of grain prices on the continent, that a significant shift occurred in the relationship of the nominally constant fish prices to the increased grain prices. This doubling of grain prices was caused by the gradual flooding (inflation) of Europe from the Mediterranean with the gold and silver stolen by the "conquistadors" from the newly discovered countries, which increased Europe's means of payment without a corresponding increase in the turnover of goods. Thus began the decline of the Hanseatic trade policy based on equitable exchange of services and Nordic leadership. The penetration of Jewish mone tary thinking thus made it easier for the apparently more financially powerful Dutch, as a result of the relatively lower fish prices, to oust the Hanseatic merchants from their economic supremacy in the Baltic Sea in the first half of the seventeenth cent ury. Only as long as the Hanseatic economic system was firmly established as an organic whole, i.e., based on a fair exchange of services and respect for the sovereignty of foreign nations, was the exchange of goods, e.g., fish for grain, kept in balance w ith the help of credit, which had no inherent lawfulness. The deviation from the fair exchange of goods and services in barter transactions by the advance of Jewish-Mediterranean monetary thinking, rooted in the erroneous assumption of an inherent lawfulne ss of the medium of exchange, contributed to the decline of the Hanseatic League. This is not different in the economic life of the peoples today than at the time of the Hanseatic League! The high priests and scribes of the "modern" money thinking are always the gravediggers of healthy economy. Capitalism is thinking in money instead of in goods. Through the Hanseatic League for the first time in history not only the sword, but also trade policy was put into the service of foreign policy. In the heyday of t he Hanseatic League it was not regularly used as a weapon, but it served mainly as a means to fill up old Germanic settlement areas, but also to lead the peoples in a Nordic 142

German spirit. The Hanseatic League was far removed from imperialist aspirations. It worked solely through leadership, which by example and performance induced others to voluntary allegiance and alignment. Thus, the Hanseatic economic area was expanded not by external coercion, not by force, not by domination, but by leadership and voluntary incorporation in trade relations of sovereign nations and independent states. Through this Hanseatic leadership, other peoples of the North Baltic region were not weakened in their nationality and independent life, but strengthened, not only eco nomically, but also through radiation and counter-radiation in their cultural life and state independence. Even today, it is still the case that almost every great thinker or artist of the North - of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark or Iceland - found and finds the way for his spiritual seed from the narrow confines of his homeland across the whole world only through the resonance he found in the German, but especially in the Upper German living space. Germany and the other countries of the North Baltic Sea region are like a chord on which one cannot remove a note without tearing the whole thing apart in a discordant way - like a violin that can only sound as long as strings and violin body remain connected with each other in effect and counter-effect. On the other hand, the trade policy of the Hanseatic League, conducted in the Nordic sense, never forgot that the source of its strength lay in German blood and German sod. It was born out of the German people and always remained connected with them. Its guidin g star was social harmony inwardly and fortitude outwardly, true to the old Lübeck saying at the Holstentor, the world gate of the Middle Ages to the East: Concordia domi - foris pax" (harmony within - peace without). It therefore corresponded to the requi rements of a nationally bound economy: freedom and peace through self -defense! If, despite this, the Hanseatic League fell into a fatal decline in the sixteenth century, it was only due to the action of special causes, some of which we have already describ ed. This decline of the Hanseatic League took the form of a gradual crumbling away. It began in the fifteenth century with the detachment of the Mark towns by Elector Frederick II and intensified in the same century with the decline of the Order's power in the East after the Battle of Tannenberg (1410). As early as 1494, the Novgorod Kontor had to be closed. In the sixteenth century there was also the growth of Dutch independence in the West, which caused the splintering of the Frisian -Geldish towns. The mi gration of the herring, which in the thirteenth century had moved from the Pomeranian to the 143

Szenian and Norwegian coasts, further to the Dutch coast, also contributed to the shift of economic power to the west. The decisive factor, however, was that on the one hand the position of the German cities was increasingly restricted by the growing power of the princes and territorial lords, and the self -confident German citizen of the Middle Ages was increasingly forced into the role of a narrow -minded, urba n philistine and authoritarian subject. And that on the other side in the West powerfully forged nation -states were growing up, against which the German Hanseatic League, already undermined from within, was no longer able to do anything. For creative power and the will to power are always the decisive forces in every nation. Thus, because of the lack of national unification of the German people, the source of power of the native soil and the native blood was no longer sufficient for the Hanseatic League to prevail against foreign national will represented by a unified central power. Until then, the political independence of the Hanseatic League had been an advantage for its development, because it could direct its policy exclusively according to the interests of the community and not according to dynastic considerations. For in every small German state there was no powerful central authority that could have purposefully exercised all -German functions and bridged the ever -widening gap between town and country. This, together with the changed mental attitude of the North Sea district due to the intrusion of Mediterranean imperialist foreign trade methods, thus conditioned the demise of the Hanseatic League. By the seventeenth century it was complete: in 1629 Lüb eck, Hamburg, and Bremen were entrusted with the management of Hanseatic affairs. Forty years later, the last Hanseatic Congress was held, with only six cities participating. And another fifteen years later, in 1684, the Hanseatic League ceased to exist without a formal resolution to dissolve it. Furthermore, the move westward as a result of the discovery of America and the sea route to India and the resulting shift of world trade to the Atlantic Ocean contributed to the demise of the Hanseatic League. Even if in the sixteenth century trade with America was not yet profitable, the greed for the gold of the newly discovered countries brought about a change of heart in the trade and economic policies of all European countries. Monetary thinking took the place of just exchange of services. Economic piracy replaced seafaring peasantry. Imperialist colonial policy replaced Hanseatic foreign trade management. Thus it happened that the Hanseatic League could not exploit the great opportunities offered by the Low Ge rman area from Flanders via Lübeck 144

to Reval, despite its economic leadership in about four centuries. Valuable German seed had been wasted again because of the incomprehension of the homeland. Even the Nordic empires, fertilized by the Hanseatic League , could not use their charisma for a common rebuilding of continental Europe. Gustav Adolf's triumphal march was abruptly interrupted. Instead, driven by adventurousness, a four hundred-year waste of Nordic spirit began westward across the newly opened ocean to North and South America, to Africa and Australia, to India and the Far East. This westward move was aggravated in the nineteenth century by the technical improvements in shipbuilding brought about by Nordic spirit. It led to an unheard -of colonizing activity which, with the exception of England, meant a renewed waste of Nordic spirit for the Nordic peoples.

Nordic leadership The hallmark of the still unadulterated Hanseatic trade policy in its heyday, as we have seen, was that the bond to the blood a nd soil of one's own people was not abandoned and no room was given to monetary thinking, and that in full awareness of this bond the opening up of other countries took place in the same spirit. Nowhere was the sovereignty of other nations touched. Nowhere was the immutable foundation of Nordic trade policy - the fair exchange of services - disregarded. This was leadership based on merit alone. Thus, other peoples of the Nordic area were gradually developed in terms of trade policy, without being touched in their peoples' own lives or their state sovereignty. Such leadership is deeply rooted in the nature of Germanic leadership. For the opposite of leadership is domination. Leadership in the sense of Germanic national order voluntarily arranges people and pe oples into a closed force field solely through superior performance and example. So only by inner compulsion, by self -compulsion, like the magnet its force field. In contrast to this, western democracy and the former universalism of the Mediterranean regio n try to hand over chaos from the outside. Domination takes the place of leadership. Intellectually constructed theory takes precedence over living fiefdom. Everywhere, imagined form is placed above living content. Everywhere the wholeness of creative life is intellectually dissected and frayed and dissolved into functions that freeze into ends in themselves. Man is subordinated to a superordinate will by a compulsion coming from outside, by force and not voluntarily. 145

All these systems built on force in Europe ( the golden, the, red, the black, thus in the end all Jewish "internationals") took their beginning in the east of the Mediterranean. All the states built on the idea of Nordic leadership, on the other hand, started from the North -East Sea area. They perished because they exhausted themselves in the leadership. This was the case with the Hanseatic League. The same was repeated with the unheard-of overseas settlement of the past centuries, whose carriers were Nordic people of the North -Baltic Sea area. This settlement of the world in the West, apart from an immense loss of the best Nordic blood, which was greater than the loss in the Germanic migrations, again had the consequence that the Nordic man interrupted the Eastern settlement imposed on him b y fate, so that finally Asiatic despotism under Jewish leadership in the form of Bolshevism could again gain space in Eastern Europe and advance into the heartlands of Nordic humanity. At the same moment, however, when the West, through the overthrow of all the power relations of the world, automatically closes itself again to the Nordic waste, the same fate raises Adolf Hitler and his movement on the shield to free Europe again from the Asiatic spirit and to widen the living space of the Nordic man again in the old ways under the employment of the new Germany created by him. For the first time, through Adolf Hitler and National Socialism, the eternal Low German task is declared to be the all -German task and its solution is placed in the center of the new European construction in the spirit of Nordic leadership, as the Fuehrer taught us: "We cling to our own nationality with boundless love and loyalty. But we also respect the national rights of other peoples out of this same spirit. Therefore, we do not kno w the concept of Germanizing. The mentality of the last century, which believed that it might be possible to make Germans out of Poles or Frenchmen, is as foreign to us as we are passionately opposed to the opposite attempt. We see the European nations aro und us as given facts. The French, the Poles and the other peoples are our neighboring peoples, and we know that no historically conceivable process could change this reality." The trade policy of the last centuries was also born from the spirit of the westward turn directed to waste Nordic seeds. The Nordic man turns away from the great cultural circle centered around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and begins to trade indiscriminately and irregularly with all the world. The defensible national attitude o f the economy is blown up and the economy is thus deprived of its most noble task: to be the defender and promoter of the blood and soil of its nation by economic means. The sovereign national economies were destroyed for the sake of an imaginary and "self -legislated" world economy, degraded to sectors of 146

an international labor power. The foundations of the "world economic building" were thus destroyed for the sake of the roof. Economic politically, all things were literally turned on the intellect and thus upside down. Money and commodity were loosened not only from their popular bond, but also from their bond to each other. The chief priests and scribes of the economy in the past decay period, whom we still see at work everywhere with their conceit and arrogance, proclaimed with Talmudic sophistry the "inherent lawfulness" of both money and commodity movement and thus plunged everything into economic chaos. Thus the wholeness of the living life was dissolved into partial functions degenerating to an end in itself and condemned to death. Only England, on the whole, made an exception. Here, the blood ties with the homeland were not lost, nor was the necessity of securing foreign positions by the sword overlooked. This is the reason why England is still practicing its Vikingism in its world trade, which it took over from the Dutch in the eighteenth century, unbroken. In the spirit of genuine Germanic leadership, England leads instinctively and purposefully by performance and example. Only in this way was he able to build up the British Empire, the greatest political and commercial work of art history has ever seen, and to carry it through all perils, even through the catastrophe of the Great War, unscathed. A world empire in which a Nordic ruling class of seventy million people holds the leadership over 420 million other-racial people for their own benefit. In summary, it can be said: While the Hanseatic League, in accordance with the Nordic idea of leadership, never claimed ownership of foreign people and foreign soil never owned colonies - the trade policy of the post -Hanseatic period, initially completely dominated by the Jewish spirit of the Mediterranean, raped foreign people and foreign soil. Ruthlessly, the newly discovered overseas peoples and stat es were destroyed, robbed of their gold and this was thrown into the European economic cycle, without at the same time increasing foreign trade with the plundered states. Thus in this case again the eternal curse of gold and money became effective, which r ests hidden in it and is always awakened when it is torn out of the organic production process as a serving link by wrong monetary thinking and is transformed into an independent imperialist means of power, into capitalism. Thus, the creative Hanseatic for eign trade policy, aimed at strengthening foreign nationality, was transformed into an imperialist colonial policy, destroying foreign nationality. - However, due to the new advance of Nordic leadership out of Europe, this colonial policy of the 147

liberalist-capitalist period will also undergo a transformation. The model of the Hanseatic League: to establish economic bases for the mutual promotion of the trade relations of the peoples and to form the space thus opened up into a natural, organic unity thro ugh trade and currency treaties, is reviving. Only from this point of view is it possible to understand the new English trade policy initiated in Ottawa, which means an ever stronger turning to the Nordic idea of leadership. For the British Empire is becoming more and more a British confederation of nations under English leadership, held together by a uniform trade and monetary policy which, in proportion to the strengthening of the various nationalities of the Empire, instinctively and elastically accommod ates them ever further with the help of politics. Foreign policy is the art of seafaring, domestic policy the art of the right distribution of burdens in a moving ship. What will be the success of the Nordic seed from the Baltic and North Sea regions in North America is uncertain today. After the United States has stopped the Nordic blood stream from the old homeland by its immigration legislation, Nordic mankind in North America alone will now have to deal with the foreign blood from Africa, from Judaism a nd from other eastern regions of Europe, Asia and the Mediterranean. This inner, ethnic and social tension of the North American continent will rise all the higher, the more the economic policy will have to change from its former expansive method to an int ensive one, now that the North American has taken possession of his whole continent. It is different in Germany. After the closing of the West, our eternal historical task stands before us again: to fill the old German area again with Nordic spirit and thu s to complete the deed which was begun again by Henry the Lion, by the Teutonic Order and the German Hanseatic League after the migration of the peoples, but which was interrupted again by the past period of several hundred years of Western policy. The turning away from the West and the renewed German turning to the East does not mean imperialism, but only the rebuilding of Europe on the basis of the inviolable sovereignty of each genuine nation and the Nordic leadership. The spiritual preparation for this can only begin from Germany, for Germany alone can continue to build on historical foundations. It is also important that France is too distracted by its colonial policy and Italy by its Mediterranean policy to be able to devote themselves to the rebuildin g of Eastern Europe in the first place. Likewise, the geographical location of these states, situated on the periphery of Western and Southern Europe, hinders their work on the 148

construction of Northern and Eastern Europe, which can only be done on an anti-imperialist basis. Only Germany, situated not only geographically but also in terms of transport policy in the heart of Europe, is able to solve this task. Only Germany, that dumb bastard of seventy million people, firmly established by National Socialism, with a productive capacity, a demand and a technically developed economic apparatus such as no other nation on earth possesses - which is not only situated in the center of Europe, but is. Its economic needs alone, which Germany today places at the di sposal of the European continent after turning away from the Western policy, will make possible an undreamed -of opening up and strengthening of the countries of the Southeast and Baltic regions, if this is done according to the Hanseatic model: not by lend ing money, but by increased exchange of goods, by increased utilization of all possibilities of cultivation (oil fruits, fodder, fiber, etc. ) and by increasing the mineral resources (copper, manganese, tin, nickel, etc.) which Germany and the rest of Europe, following Germany's example, have so far obtained from the overseas West and the Far East. It is therefore in Germany's hands to increase the purchasing power of the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea region by directing their direct and indi rect demand to Germany, thus enabling them to buy high -quality German industrial goods, which they cannot produce on the basis of their narrower industrial and raw material base and their different capabilities, in order to raise their standard of living. Only through such an economic and cultural strengthening of Europe, which can only be developed from its own sources of strength and the restoration of the wholeness of its space from Gibraltar to the Urals and from the North Cape to the island of Cyprus, will it regain the strength it needs in order not to be crushed by the transoceanic and transcontinental conglomerates created from its own blood and spirit after the outrageous waste of strength of the last four centuries. Germany will regain Europe for the Europeans and with it Europe's due position among the continents of the world. The great goal which Germany has to pursue is thus unalterably fixed. It consists in voluntarily reconnecting foreign peoples in the European East in the spirit of genuine No rdic leadership, i.e. with full respect for their national, state, economic and cultural sovereignty, with the German living space to form a new European community of life and work. This new European life and economic cycle will only enable the European continent, on a basis of comradeship and natural economic and cultural 149

complementarity, to play its part in the peaceful rebuilding of the world. For, just as social harmony within each people also means peace in its external actions through the recovery of the natural strength and unity of its people, so also for the European continent only the harmony of its peoples means unity and thus peace towards the outside world. True to the example of the Hanseatic League, the new spiritual attitude must begin with trade policy, and the European trade treaties must be supplemented by monetary treaties which first of all restore the basic principle of a fair exchange of services for Europe and thus effectively support foreign policy from the economic side. Today our people are economically and culturally beset by the same problem as at the time of the Hanseatic League: the problem of the continental European economic and cultural cycle, the establishment of a European Ottawa. Where the work was interrupted four hund red years ago, we have to bless again today. This high goal is worth consuming the best forces. They will again sow German seeds in foreign soil, but not in senseless waste, nor in the barren spirit of Mediterranean imperialism and universalism, but in blo od-like attachment to the homeland and by voluntary union of the individual parts into an ordered force field. Then we will replace the empty and today everywhere fragile formal democracy of the West by genuine Nordic leadership, and a new organic order of Europe will arise, which alone can form the basis for the peaceful further development of its peoples. This new attitude of Europe will be creative. It will bring every nation to the highest development of its abilities according to its innate law of life and growth. For the birth of national personalities, the rebellion of living national dynamics against dead intellectualistic statics is the great world revolutionary process of our time, which will replace the mechanical world view everywhere by a biolog ical one. It is not limited to the rebirth of Germany by National Socialism or in Italy by Fascism and in Turkey by Kemalism, but repeats itself in other peoples after its own blessing. Everywhere, self -confident, original people's personalities will emerg e, who, for cultural reasons, will refuse in the future to continue to obtain from the department store of Western formal democracy the ready -made state, economic and cultural garments with which today the majority of peoples who have not yet awakened to s elf-confidence and thus to their own culture - believe they must clothe themselves according to one and the same model. They will rather develop out of their own nationality and law of species the forms of state, law, economy, culture, art, which are appropriate to their nature - from within, like the crab its shell and the tree its bark as a secondary process. Only the Volkstumsgedanke and the 150

spirit of Nordic leadership are still today capable of seeing this world historical change of mind, which dem ands a new tolerance towards the diversity of the life forms of the peoples, in order to make room again for the eternal life in the peoples as eternal forms of the spirit. For therein lies the great mission of Adolf Hitler and his movement, the new Germany, resolved: to serve with all its actions the living life in freedom. We National Socialists are believers in life, which again and again melts down in its eternal womb forms that have become lifeless in their time, coagulated life, so that forms better a dapted and again pulsating with living life can grow anew from them. Death is only change of form. Death is only a function of life, a part of the eternal life of all things. It belongs to life like the shadow to the light.

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The road to a national economy Selected speeches and essays by Werner Daitz

Part II Germany and the European Economy

Verkag of Deutsche Technik GmbH Munich Commission publishing and complete delivery Holle & Co. / Verlag / Berlin

First chapter

European Greater Economy

The old urban Hanseatic League and the continental European economic cycle Speech given at the Reichstagung of the Nor dic S ociety in June 1934. Published as an essay in issue 2 (1934) of "Ausfuhr ist not / Wirtschaftlichsoziale Weltfragen," edited by Dr. Ernst Schultze, P rofessor of Economics and World Economics at the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, D irector of the Institute of World Economics.

1. Revival of a proud tradition

If I have taken the floor as a son of the old, glorious city of Lübeck and on the occasion of the first Imperial Conference of the Nordic Society in Lübeck at this historic site, it was done in gratitude and reverence for the great leader of our movement. It is thanks to him that the great Hanseatic idea, which for four centuries seemed to have been buried forever, has been reborn in new strength. For its re -embodiment in a new spirit and new form is the continental European economic cycle, the continental European large-scale economy. In Lübeck, the politics of the medieval world were once co -determined, the first continental European large -scale economy. Here the lots were cast by the envoys of the states of Western, Northern and Eastern Europe and the council messeng ers of the German Hanseatic cities on the economic design and. Economic planning of a large part of the European peoples. And when I speak today as a National Socialist about the new construction of the continental European large -scale economy, there is a deep historical logic in it. One is reminded of Nietzsche's mystical doctrine of the eternal return and of the course of the great world year. For the great herald of Adolf Hitler's Weltanschauung, our Pg. Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, was able a few week s ago - without any foreign policy point - to proclaim the re -embodiment and the renewal of the spirit of the Teutonic Knights in the attitude and organization of our National Socialist movement in Marienburg, which was ruffled by the flaps of history; and today I may speak about the spirit and form of the newly emerging continental European economic cycle - at the same historical site where the first one, the old Städtehanse, took its beginning. It is a misconception created by un -German historiography that the old Hanseatic League was founded as a purely economic association and was dominated by merchant spirit and profit -seeking. 154

Genuine skill on a grand scale in all fields stands at the beginning of the Hanseatic development. True Nordic Viking spiri t. The dichotomy, the double polarity of his nature: irresistible urge and longing for faraway places, and at the same time an insurmountable inclination for the land and the homeland: wanderlust and homesickness are the foundations of all true colonizatio n. The nomad, on the other hand, roams the world, leaving behind him destroyed camps and villages. He is at home everywhere and nowhere. The Nordic man, on the other hand, is driven into the distance. But the longing and loyalty to the homeland ties him again and again to the ground and lets him found then a new homeland, if he cannot return to the old. Thus the Vikings drive their dragon ships over all seas and return to the old homeland, or found a new one in the distance, if the old homeland soil does no t leave them any more space. The Chinese subdivides his arable land in infinite multiplicity, therefore the crowd on the clod becomes ever narrower. The Nordic man, on the other hand, does not subdivide his soil. The law of the hereditary farm, the foundation of the National Socialist peasant economy, expresses this thought once again and thus demands from the sons born after it commercial or other activity, the establishment of new homes outside the hereditary farm or the old homeland. Therefore the Nordic man lives at all watercourses and seas of the world and also only here. Only because sea and land in their connection correspond to the double polarity of his being.

I. Vikingism as an intellectual concept

The Nordic man is a seafaring peasant, a Viking. Across the North Sea they once came on their nimble ships, haunted the coasts, went up the rivers, to the interior of the country. Appeared at the same time before Hamburg and Paris. Crossed the Baltic Sea and founded the Varangian Empire in Russia in 862. Entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar and founded the Sicilian Norman State. Conquered England from northern France in 1066. But even the vast ocean did not frighten them. They settled in Iceland and Greenland, and already around the year 1000, half a millennium before Columbus, they entered the American mainland. - What a tremendous, heaven -storming spirit is revealed in these few dates ! - It was not for the sake of vain glory that they defied and conquered the 155

seas in their frail craft. It was their nature that drove them and drove them on and on. An indomitable urge towards the distant, the still unknown, the inner and outer necessity to discover and colonize new lands. A combative, bold, daredevil seafaring spirit, m ixed with an equally strong, infinite longing for the old homeland and for one's own clod: wanderlust and homesickness. Vikingism is a spiritual concept, is attitude, is the most genuine Nordic style. As a Viking, one does not let oneself be discovered. On e discovers oneself. It was not possible otherwise than that we discovered the Indians, that we discovered the Negroes, that we discovered the other worlds and not vice versa. - This Nordic blood has permeated all the peoples of Europe - only the degrees are different.

2. The large-scale economy of the German Hanseatic League

But back to the German Hanseatic League, the first continental European large-scale economy, which was established in the years 1000 to 1500. While the emperors of the First Empire, the so-called Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, oriented their foreign policy ultra montes and wasted the best German blood and goods in streams on the other side of the Alps in Italy, the north of Lower Saxony purposefully and with iron consistency built the first large -scale continental European economy. While the Teutonic Knights expanded their positions from the Baltic Sea down to Transylvania, the Hanseatic League took the agricultural surpluses from the southeastern region, moved them along th e old Hanseatic army and trade route from Rhineland -Westphalia to Lübeck, and shipped them - mixed with products of German, Italian, Flemish, French and other trades - with their warships and merchant ships across the Baltic Sea into Russia. Via Russia, th is circulation of goods, money and traffic was closed by the exchange of smoked goods and other Nordic products in the Baltic Sea region and in Russia. This first continental European economy, whose main pillars were the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, was a demand -covering economy both internally and externally. They adjusted their production to each other's needs, and strict attention was paid to maintaining the principle of demand satisfaction and to avoiding disorderly, random production or e ven overproduction. Inwardly, too, this first large -scale economy was bound 156

by need, insofar as each profession, each guild was assigned a certain sector as a field of work, which it filled with inner freedom and self government, and which did not inte rfere with the living spaces of others. From this consciously inwardly and outwardly regulated and steered economy grew then with the high culture and bloom of the Middle Ages, its prosperity and its art. As the highest witnesses of the spirit of those days - infinite inner freedom in the natural outer bondage - the buildings of the magnificent brick Gothic of the Baltic Sea region still rise up everywhere today: witnesses of a holy Germanic empire of the German nation.

II. The Dismantling of the Organized Continental European Large-Scale Economy by the "Free Economy

This well-ordered continental European large -scale economy, which excluded any catastrophe regulation, in which production, sales and the existence of each individual honestly working person w ere secured, and to whose guardians the just price and the honorable attitude were appointed, broke, however, when in the West a new free, seemingly unlimited space - America - was discovered and the new sea route to India opened up. - The old natural orde r, bonds and statutes were destroyed, and an unrestrained production, the so -called "free economy", unfolded. For four hundred years, new markets kept opening up to accommodate wild, unregulated production - unrestrained trade and the unrestrained activity of each individual to do whatever suited him. Free economy has free spaces as an inevitable prerequisite. Since the world war, however, these free markets have closed in the Far West and Far East, and now there is also an end to the free economy. The ideology of a superior world economy, a kind of super -economy, which had been distilled as the last idea from the chaotic mess of the so -called free economy, burst in the same way. The last German emperor also fell victim to this imperialist ideology, which de mands that in its favor the individual national economies should give up their natural independence, freedom and honor, and with him the Second Empire - just as once the emperors of the First Empire perished from the imperialist ideology of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

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III The Restoration of the Cosmos of National Economies

Now, all over the world, we are faced with the fact that the world economy is once again returning to its natural foundations, namely the national economies. The chaos of the disintegrated world economy gradually reorganizes itself into a well -ordered cosmos of national economies, and these, after they have regained their own stability and equilibrated, then enter anew into orderly relations with each other. We call this formation of groups large -scale economies. Today, such groupings are already clearly emerging in the world economic space: the American Bloc and the British Empire. The Sino -Japanese bloc and the continental European economy are in the process of fo rmation. Russia, which lies between the latter two, is today still an undifferentiated and undecided mass whose final fate we do not know: whether it will tend to complement the continental European or the Japanese -Chinese area. The regained stability of the individual national economies is now based on the irrefutable realization proclaimed by National Socialism that agriculture is the basis of all economy. That it is therefore economy of the first degree. The industrial economy, on the other hand, is an economy of the second degree, because it can develop only in the surpluses of agriculture and grows out of them. And that, finally, the world economy is only the economy of the third degree, because it is merely the interstate trade and intercourse with th e surpluses of the agricultural and commercial economies of the peoples united into national economies. And also the second principle of National Socialist economic thinking: that only the free can be peaceful, gains general validity today in the construct ion of the individual economies of the world. - At the time of liberalism, one believed to have done enough for the defense, the freedom and the strengthening of the nation, if one maintained an army as large as possible and a fleet as strong as possible. The economy, on the other hand, was left to the merchant. And the latter did as he was wise, that is, by means of the "cheapest" price, he moved the foundations of the national economies outside the military and naval power area. Grain was purchased wherev er it was cheapest in the world, and the same was done with the other bases of the national economy: industrial raw materials, so that in the end none of them had the necessary iron rations in its knapsack, which allowed it not to consider every hindrance of foreign trade as a threat to its existence and to protect it by force of arms. 158

In order to recapture and secure the basis of the national economy, which was disappearing from its military sphere of power, the army and the fleet were enlarged instead of limiting the freedom of the merchant where he endangered the security of the nation. Thus arose the ever more enlarged armaments, which at last led to a catastrophe, since everyone finally felt threatened by everyone. It is therefore to be hoped and expected that through the new consolidation of the national economies in the National Socialist sense, innumerable areas of friction, which were given by the liberalistic economic method, will disappear, and that armaments will be limited to the minimum indi spensable for the defensibility of a nation. And still a third National Socialist economic principle is on the march into the world today, the old saying: Honest lasts longest. It says that only a fair price, i.e. a fair exchange of services, which is not distorted by violent measures of any kind, enables a maximum of production, consumption and general prosperity. For this reason, strikes and lockouts were forbidden in Germany's internal economic structure, as were monopolistic prices that distorted the ju st exchange of services. However, it is just as much a distortion of the fair exchange of services between two national economies when currency dumping measures, export premiums and the like are used. In interstate trade and transport, too, a fair and cons olidated exchange of services can only be restored if all such distortions are abandoned. For this reason, Germany must not only proclaim a fair price for the intra -German exchange of services, but must also regulate the payment of imports and exports unif ormly according to the intra -German scale; for only if imported goods are paid for according to the German index can foreigners buy German export goods without artificial price reductions. Only the national economies rebuilt according to these three basic principles will be able to reconnect and complement each other comradely without giving up their freedom, independence and honor. The continental European large -scale economy and economic planning in the process of formation will be built on these principles or it will not be. The future continental European economy is therefore not an imperialist entity, but a cooperative collaboration of free economies for the common good. It is therefore necessary that the individual economies of the European continent a djust to each other's needs in order to complement each other. That no more surpluses are produced in an unregulated form for an unlimitedly absorbing world market, which no longer exists, but first for European needs. A European economic planning on a ver y large

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scale is possible and actually already in the process of formation: Europe for the Europeans! The European need must be covered first in Europe.

IV. The plight of the European continent

What the insight of the individual statesman or economist has not yet brought about is brought about by the general need of the European continent; for not only Germany, but the whole of Europe is passive in relation to the rest of the world, and it can on ly make up for this passivity when it again strengthens its own power of consumption and production. The same is true for the European economy as a whole as for each individual national economy. The great task, then, is to relaunch the European economic cycle, which has increasingly come to a standstill over the past four hundred years, to bring the southeastern area into connection with the northeastern area and the Baltic basin in particular, and - if once possible - to close both of them one day via Russ ia. The plans proposed by the Party's Foreign Policy Office, some of which are already being implemented, for the cultivation of oilseeds such as soybeans, linseed, castor beans and peanuts in the Southeast region, are supplemented by the suggestion that the countries of the Baltic Sea region should, above all, develop their existing stockpiles of non -ferrous metals, etc., and make them available for European needs. European demand must first be met in Europe. This thesis cannot be repeated often enough. - It will also be necessary one day to shift a large part of the oil demand from America and other parts of the world to the southeast region of Europe. In any case, as soon as the Baltic region does not work only with the world market in a disorderly way, as it has done up to now, but consciously shifts to European needs in the first place, a very high importance will again fall to it, so that its peoples, after liberation from the false doctrine of a superior world economy, can form the firm foundation for the reconstruction of continental Europe. The Americans, too, who see the Russian -Siberian region as the only area of activity for the future, have recently turned their interest to the Baltic Sea region in order to find a basis for their economic activit ies in RussiaSiberia, since the way from the West is blocked by the Japanese barrier, which is becoming more and more insurmountable. Especially in view of the American interest in Russia -Siberia, it will be all the more necessary that a close and firm co hesion of the peoples around the Baltic Sea basin takes place, so that the continental European peoples will be given due 160

influence in a possible economic -political reorganization of the Russian Siberian area.

The Crisis Resilience of a Continental -European Greater Economy

In the future, a new major world trade route will once again lead east through the Sund and Belte. For five hundred years, from 1050 to 1550, the Baltic Sea was, as already mentioned, the most important sea of continental Europe; th e face of Europe was during this time unchanged turned towards the East. For the next four hundred years until our days it then turned towards the west. Unrestrained, unbridled, without organic connection with the native soil, the power of the Nordic peopl e was wasted in the free space and the markets of the West! The one pole of the Nordic nature, the indomitable urge into the wide, could unfold without restraint, was no longer a means to the end of the organic expansion of the living space of Nordic peopl e, but became an end in itself. Vikingism became buccaneering. - Now the face of continental Europe is slowly turning again in its natural direction of vision: toward the East. The understanding with the agricultural economies of the Baltic peoples according to the principles of National Socialist trade policy, which has been started by German agriculture with good success, will and must be followed by an understanding and market regulation of the industrial economy of Germany and the peoples of the Baltic region. As soon as there is a clear understanding that not only the individual national economies but also continental Europe must first stand on their own and help themselves by their own efforts, it will not be difficult to bring about a rapprochement of the export and import desires and the mutual satisfaction of the needs of the peoples of the Baltic Sea area. Foreign trade among these peoples will not decrease either, but, on the contrary, will become more extensive and, in addition, far more stable and crisis-proof. It is only a question of changing the direction of vision and reintroducing the principles of common sense in economic policy as well. Already today, the Baltic Sea traffic accounts for more than 12% of the total world trade. This alone sho ws how important the Baltic Sea has become as a crossroads of world trade and transport, how much more important the "Baltic Circle" is becoming than the "Mediterranean

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Circle". And how necessary, therefore, is a close community of interests of these peoples, which must be bridged by mutual needs and comradely cooperation, in order to bring this new world trade route under our own control as gatekeepers. Thus the great historical task arises for all of us, with the help of a natural economic and trade treaty policy, to purposefully rebuild the continental European economy and to meaningfully connect both the Southeast region and the Mediterranean region with the Baltic Sea basin, and then to set the whole in organic balance with the West, the British Em pire and the American bloc.

VI Germany's European Task

Germany, located in the center of the European continent, is by nature the appointed transporter of goods, the clearing house for the continental European exchange of goods and services." The German merchant must therefore, to a much greater extent than before, once again deal with higher mathematics instead of the multiplication tables of merchanting: namely, transit trade. Only through this additional service can Germany activate its foreign trade a nd balance of payments in the long run. Triangular and transit trade, to which Germany is predestined by its location and the diversity of its needs and export possibilities, enables it with greater certainty than any other activity to activate its balance of payments and trade. This is because simple reciprocal trade is increasingly pushing for the best possible balancing of the partners' payment and trade balances. However, the ever -increasing importance of Baltic Sea trade and traffic also requires a cle ar division of labor among the German seaports. The Baltic Sea ports must regain their organic function: To be carriers of Baltic Sea trade and traffic. The given hinterland of the North Sea ports are Rhineland -Westphalia and the Danube and Southeast regio ns, and their directions of view are the West and the Far East and South, in order to organically direct and divide the trade and traffic in import and export directed there. Hamburg and Bremen are the given shopping centers, the bridge to the Danube and southeast area. The Baltic cities, on the other hand, are the base of the entire Baltic trade and traffic. Their reactivation is a national necessity; only in this way will they be able to fulfill the great task of filling eastern Germany with people again. - During the period of the drive to the West, the East of Germany has been increasingly depopulated and the West has 162

been massed with people and commerce. It is now absolutely necessary to fill and massage the East again not only with arable populati on, but also with down -to-earth industry and commerce, through generous and organic relocation of traffic and industry. - Lübeck in the traffic center situated in the vertex between Rhineland -Westphalia and East Prussia will again play an outstanding r ole in this renewed economic traffic of the East in the future. Lübeck, the old head of the Hanseatic League, lying in the sheltered corner of the Baltic Sea, together with the other ports, will again become a link between the West and the East, between th e Southeast region and the Baltic Sea basin.

VII The Relationship with France

Let me say a few words about the role of France in the reconstruction of the continental European economy: It is well known that France, due to its economic structure and geogr aphical location, cannot play a particularly outstanding role in the continental European circulation of goods and traffic. For this reason, France has always been more of a money exporter than a goods exporter. | It is just that France has so far mostly u sed its monetary surpluses to set up artificial political constructions that inhibited the economic cycles in Europe instead of promoting them. The success was then regularly that France lost its money. For money can be put to advantage, i.e., at a profit and with the prospect of getting it back, only into a going concern. In an operation that has come to a standstill or is inhibited, one is sure to lose it. For example, France has not experienced any pleasure in its recent political construction, the Littl e Entente, in terms of economic policy. On the contrary, it will again lose the money lent to it - unless it allows these countries to abandon inexpedient ties that stand in the way of their repositioning and natural insertion into the Danube region. The t ime of artificial political constructions is over. The peoples and economies of continental Europe, dependent on each other to meet their mutual needs, demand a cooperation of comradeship which respects the freedom, honor and independence of each people an d each economy, and which requires the elimination of impractical ties which stand in the way. If France knows how to interpret the signs of the new times, it will recognize the great advantage which beckons to it today, and which consists in France taking over the financing of the European economic cycle and finally making a clear division of labor with Germany, so that one country, namely France, according to its economic structure and geographical position, becomes 163

the main financier of the continen tal European economy and Germany, according to its economic structure and geographical position, becomes the transporter of goods for the same entity. This cooperation and natural complement of Germany and France to and in the European future is the historical task which is demanded today. Whether it is recognized will determine to a great extent the coming destiny.

VIII. The Rebirth of Europe

If Europe does not want to be crushed between the transoceanic conglomerates, the British Empire, the American an d the ChineseJapanese blocs, if this old Europe wants to experience a rebirth and a new future - then the old Hanseatic thought must arise again in a new spirit and in a new form. The economic and cultural policy of our great leader shows here the only po ssible way: fundamental rejection of every imperialist thought. Voluntary cooperation for the common good, with respect for the freedom, honor and independence of each people and each national economy. However, harmony and comradely cooperation within the country also mean peace towards the outside world. Thus National Socialism renews the slogan that is written on the old Holsten Gate in Lübeck, the eastern gate of the medieval world:

concordia domi - foris pax Unity within - peace without.

It will also be the motto of the new European metropolitan economy. In this sense, the reconnection of the old Hanseatic Holsten Gate to the living traffic is also a process of high symbolic significance and compelling historical logic. And so the idea of a new great continental European cultural and working community on the basis of immutable natural democracy grows quite naturally out of the new spiritual structure of Hitler's Germany.

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National Socialism, Fascism and Southeastern Europe

Essay in the "Völkische r Beobachter" of 10.0 3.1934.

The NSDAP has repeatedly declared that National Socialism is not a commodity for export and that any National Socialist propaganda outside the borders of the German Reich is strictly forbidden. It is true that the Nordic man, the Nordic blood, are the main carriers of the world-historical and cultural change of our days. But even the peoples in which the proportion of Nordic blood is only small or does not possess the leadership - cannot escape this revolutionary event; just as little as great volcanic eruptions affect not only the nearest surroundings, but over whole continents. Just as from time to time the earth's crust, which solidifies and shrinks due to cooling, cracks at its own brittleness - and gives the fiery-fluid of its interior again the way for new creation -, likewise the ideological crust of the leading cultural peoples cracks from time to time, when it has become alienated from life, i.e. has solidified and shrunk in pure intellectuality. According to the primary , eternally inscrutable reasons of mutation, new ideological forms then break forth spontaneously from the living substance, the creative blood of the race, which revolutionarily reshape every area of human life: politics, culture, economy and church, and bring them back into a new creative, life -like order. Today's ideological upheaval also announced itself more than half a century ago in intellectual foreshocks: in Nietzsche and others. In the monstrous events of the world war, this cultural layer, which was frozen in intellectuality, fragmented. Out of its fissures emerged in revolutionary outbreaks, first in Turkey Kemalism, then in Italy Fascism, and now in the great central breakthrough National Socialism. Each of these breakthroughs sent a tidal wave over the world and aroused the horror of the intellectualists of all countries, who are, after all, the most essential part of the outdated and doomed ideological crust. Every nation will produce its own new forms of life according to the proportion of its creative blood and the particular peculiarity of its hereditary mass. Therefore, it is impossible to transfer the German form of life, National Socialism, to other peoples. Reichsdeutscher National Socialism can and will therefore never fall for imperiali st ideas. It will never, for example, recommend National Socialist ways of life directly or indirectly to any peoples of the Danube region. We are sure that

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Mussolini and Fascism will never think of imposing Italy's own Fascist form on other peoples a s worthy of imitation. National Socialism, which is in its innermost essence völkisch, can therefore never be imperialistic. For the principle of the völkisch declares comradeship, cooperation and complementarity internally and externally, respects the fre edom of other people's personalities and economies, their particular law of life, just as it respects its own. In contrast, the Jewish mentality, because dominated by pure intellectual principles, is always imperialistic. Thus, temporarily, there was a dan ger for Fascism that, out of its Italian ethnic bondage and justification, it would acquire, through Jewish intermediaries and politics, an international character which its great creator certainly did not want to give it. The weakness of the old declining Rome consisted in its unrestrained imperialism, the world -historical greatness of today's fascist Rome in its purposeful delimitation. The economic-political reorganization of the peoples of the Danube region and the Balkans, as well as their natural conn ection to the emerging continental European economy, can only take place if all political obstacles to the reintroduction of the natural circulation of goods and cultural assets are removed. Thus, the inexpedient political tightening of the Little Entente has so far successfully prevented the Southeast region from being re -engaged as the natural basis of the Central European economy. This economic -political necessity is therefore constantly tugging at the existence of the Little Entente. Italy's sphere of economic influence in the Danube region and the Balkans can therefore only be stabilized and properly positioned in the interests of Italy and all of Europe if a prior understanding is reached between Italy, Germany and the peoples of the southeastern regio n in accordance with the new principles of national foreign trade policy. It is unthinkable that, in the absence of a prior understanding, two autonomous, self -determining economies of irresponsible intermediaries should end up fighting each other by liberalistic means against their will. The strategic position of Europe in the world today is the following. Due to the independence of the continents discovered and settled since 1500 - the two Americas, the two India’s, Australia and Africa - continental Europe is put under concentric pressure from the West, South and East, which did not exist before. Continental Europe must protect itself against this all-round pressure from the newly discovered continents by setting its will to assert itself against that of the other continents with the 166

slogan: Europe for the Europeans. In this context, England has the task of shielding Europe with its empire against the pressure of the overseas continents. Italy has the task, which only Italy is able to solve because of its special ethnic structure, to shield Europe against the pressure of Africa by the new fascist empire. Germany, on the other hand, has the task, after the disappearance of Bolshevism, of shielding Europe against Central Asia with an "Eastern European Ott awa", a Central and Eastern European working community of the peoples of this area, which would have to extend to the Urals. Clear delimitation of the spheres of interest of these three main peoples of Europe, who must stand back to back in order to defend the old greatness of Europe in a new world, is one condition. The other is that all three peoples also consciously secure for themselves leadership in their spheres of life through race protection legislation. In Germany, this has already happened through the legislation that is being developed. Italy will have to follow shortly, if it wants to lead its Mediterranean and African empire permanently. The same applies to England, which, because of its ethnic attitude, is already unconsciously and practically pursuing a racial policy, but which will also have to progress in time to a conscious racial protection legislation.

Germany, Turkey and the European Destiny Essay in the Festschrift of the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in Germany on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. June 19 38.

It cannot be denied that with the beginning of our century we have entered a new phase of world history, which is fundamentally different from the preceding four centuries. The unique process of the discovery of America and th e sea route to India, the opening up and settlement of three, actually four new continents, allowed the peoples of continental Europe, which as a spatial -political unit extends from Spain to the Urals, from the North Cape to the Asia Minor peninsula, inclu ding the latter, to live to a large extent not from their own strength, but from the exploitation of the newly opened up parts of the world: North and South America, Australia, Africa and both India. Only a life from its life -legality and life-wholeness, however, guarantees each people a maximum of the development of all its life and growth forces and thus its life -success in all areas. But often only the pressure 167

of the environment forces the peoples to such a more or less strong life from their life-legality, in order to be able to resist exactly this pressure of the environment. Necessity teaches to pray, i.e. to work and to fight. As a result of the fact that in the last four centuries two thirds of the world opened up anew to the peoples of Europe, the pressure on their previous living space decreased as never before, so that in the last four centuries a falsification, a flattening of their way of life occurred among almost all European peoples, and with it false thoughts of order, i.e. false state and economic theories. That is to say, false theories of state and economy, false doctrines in the cultural -political and religious fields, which no longer corresponded to their natural laws of life, but were more or less intellectual constructions. Howeve r, the inferiority of the peoples' life performance and productivity was compensated during this period by the easy exploitation of the newly discovered lands. Thus, during this period, Europe did not live from its own living space and a maximum living performance of its peoples, but from an additional living space, which it opened up overseas, and from the living power of other peoples, thus not from its own power and security, but from foreign power, i.e. collective security. Now this last four -hundred-year period has come to an end. The new continents that have entered history have become independent in political and economic terms or have become integral parts of the colonial and leadership domains of some marginal European peoples in the west and south of the continent: England, Belgium, Holland, France, Portugal and, more recently, Italy. Thus a period in which everything was fluid, mobile, dynamic, has been replaced by a new period in which political and economic conditions have become rigidly static. Europe, in its spatial-political unity, from the Pyrenean peninsula to the Urals, from the North Cape to the Asia Minor peninsula, is now under the concentric pressure of these conditions, which have become rigid -static, in the world of the new continents declaring their political and economic autonomy. The world is thus divided today not only politically but also economically. This structure, which has become rigid and static, can from now on only be changed by the increase or the decrease of the power dev elopment of the individual continents and its peoples. The world war was therefore not the cause but the consequence of an event that arose from the stagnation of the last European migration of peoples, that to overseas, and the resulting political and eco nomic structural change of the world at the turn of the century. The new living space developed by Europe overseas was from that time on no longer willing to be unconditionally exploited by Europe and to absorb the surplus of its peoples. (On the 168

contrary, a lively return migration from overseas to Europe has already begun in the last decades; especially to Germany, England and Scandinavia. In 1936, for example, in Germany 14993 persons, mainly Jews, emigrated overseas, but 47525 returned! - To island England about 9000, to Hungary more than 20000 returned!). In any case - overseas was filled, and a further steadfast west policy and with it west migration of the continental European peoples, which led quite particularly also to a damming pressure on England, had to end because of lack of elasticity with a break, with a catastrophe. Where human guilt then triggered this catastrophe is secondary from the point of view of the overall fate. In any case, the European peoples failed to turn back to the Eas t in time, because in the period of four hundred years of Western and overseas policy, the peoples had voluntarily given up a large part of their natural Eastern European space. Over the Urals, Asia seeped in more and more and deprived the peoples of Easte rn Europe between the Urals, the Black Sea and the Vistula of a truly fruitful cooperation with the peoples of Western Europe through a barren, imperial universalism, tsarism. But Western Europe could do without the intimate cooperation with this area and its development, which the Hanseatic League, Henry the Lion, the Teutonic Knights had so successfully begun, because, as already mentioned, it had opened up large, new living spaces overseas as a substitute. If the migration of the surplus population to ov erseas had not taken place, but had been naturally settled in Eastern Europe, as at the time of the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights, there would be about 150 million more Central Europeans in Eastern Europe today, and tsarism and Bolshevism would never have been able to gain a foothold there. The European collapse after the war, however, aggravated the situation in the Eastern European region to an immense extent. The Central Asian desert and the corresponding mental attitude of its peoples now completely took possession of Eastern Europe. This spiritual desert, the ideology of Bolshevism, threatened to devastate all of Europe. But the countries of Europe most affected and oppressed by the European collapse and the declaration of autonomy of the fo reign continents: Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, first began to defend themselves against the Bolshevik devastation of Europe, the invasion of Central Asian spiritual attitude. The rebirth of Germany from its vitality in National Socialism, the rebirth of Italy in Fascism and the rebirth of the Turkish people from its vitality in Kemalism are the most prominent resistance movements of the new Europe. Together with Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, they blocked the way to Western Europe for Bolshevism and drove it back across their borders to the East in the first pushback. 169

The rebirth of the continental European peoples from their life -legalism, National Socialism, Kemalism and Fascism -is thus directly and inevitably linked to a reorganization of Europe. Europe must be re -established in its spatial-political wholeness, so that it can live again as a self -asserting unity from its own living space and from the own strength of its peoples, after it has lost its overseas one fo r the most part and the daughter parts have risen today against the mother Europe with their autonomy claims. Now Europe must become Europe again: Europe for the Europeans! All false doctrines in the state, economic, cultural and religious spheres, which are not in accordance with the laws of life of the European peoples and which have hindered their vitality and productivity, must disappear, in order to make room again for a life based on the laws of life peculiar to each people, a national life according to national ideals. A large part of the Eastern and Central European peoples, from Finland to Turkey, have in any case understood this necessity, this demand which destiny makes upon them. Germany, Turkey and Italy have already initiated, to the greatest extent possible, a reorganization of their political, economic, cultural and religious conditions in accordance with the laws of life. They have thus returned to a "wise" life, to a life out of their wholeness of life, and have thus achieved an unimagined a scent in the technical perfection of their achievement and a maximum productivity in all spheres of life, such as cannot be achieved by any state, economic or other theories constructed from the intellect, by any "learned" life, by book and professorial erudition - and as it can never be calculated in advance on paper. can be calculated on paper. All three peoples have gone back to the roots of their strength and regenerated themselves from them, because in Kemalism, National Socialism and Fascism it is a q uestion of a genuine, natural rebirth from within and not of an artificial, only external change of their ways of life. That is why a great leader was called to them by Providence, who would give eyes and tongue to this divinely creative process of rebirth rolling out of itself, so that it would become visible and comprehensible to the masses of their peoples. Adolf Hitler, Mussolini and Kemal Atatürk are therefore, on the basis of their divine calling, more than kings and emperors to their peoples, they are their leaders. It is therefore no wonder that after the seizure of power by National Socialism, the new leaders of Germany showed a deeper understanding for Kemalism and thus for the new Turkey. This interest was also reciprocated by the Ghazi and the Tu rkish people, and in -depth negotiations on deepening economic and cultural cooperation between Turkey and Germany took place immediately after Nazism seized power in Germany. The unison in the new spiritual attitude of both peoples, 170

their national orde r of life, offered the best prerequisite for this, but also the economically complementary areas, their agricultural products and mineral resources. Kemal Atatürk's first Five -Year Plan, which envisaged the extensive industrialization of Turkey as a necess ary consequence of his national reconstruction program, and Adolf Hitler's first Four -Year Plan already offered extensive opportunities for contact and complementarity. In order to lead also in economic regard a life from own strength, it was necessary to exhaust all possibilities, which offered the Turkish people and its area, and not to be prevented by ridiculous paper economic theories, like an "international work division into agricultural and industrial peoples", "free trade" and the like. Here, Kemal Atatürk started a life out of the wholeness of the Turkish people and space and broke all opposing doctrines, just as the Ghazi had started it in the religious life of Turkey. For the Islamic theocracy, a universalistic ideology, had so far held down the great folk and creative forces of the Turkish people in all fields and forced them into an unnatural order of life, state and space. Only the liberation from this theocratic system and all its outward cult and dress regulations, whose strict elimination oft en did not seem completely understandable to the other West and North European peoples at first, was however the necessary condition for a reorganization also of the economic forces of Turkey. That the truly religious life did not suffer from this, but on the contrary was newly liberated and strengthened, precisely by the elimination of formulas and fetters that had become outwardly and inexpedient, should only be noted in passing. Kemal Atatürk's economic construction, as in all other areas, was based on t he first fundamental law of life: that only a life of one's own strength and one's own space is worth living and can exist in the struggle for life. This genuinely national economic management took shape in the industrialization program and the intensifica tion of agriculture. Of course, it went against the outdated trade theories of the intellectualists and "democrats" all over the world; and also at the International Economic Conference in London, which met from May to October 1934 and at which the economi c "heads" from all over the world met to discuss how to build up the world again from the roof instead of from its foundations, the peoples' economies, a general howl arose against the natural and rational reconstruction program, especially the industrialization program of New Turkey. It testifies to a great insight of Kemal Atatürk also into the creative construction of the Turkish economy when he ordered that the self -production of all those mass goods should be started in Turkey for which the necessary r aw materials were available 171

in Turkey itself. - Kemal Atatürk assumed that the Turkish people, with a population of sixteen and a half million, would provide a sufficiently broad and economic consumer base for the self -production of cheap textiles, paper, porcelain, cement and iron goods and the like. If, in the past, the Turkish economy exhausted its exchange possibilities by purchasing these cheap mass -produced goods from abroad, there would be no possibility left for it to purchase high -quality industrial products which it cannot produce itself because of its too narrow population and economic base, but which are indispensable for raising its standard of living. For natural reasons, the pyramid of performance that can be built on the Turkish populati on base cannot come anywhere near the top performance in manufactured goods that, for example, the German industrial economy can easily achieve on a population base four to five times as broad. With such an economic policy of the new Turkey, however, it wa s precisely a country like Germany that was served, whose natural export should consist as little as possible in raw materials and semi -finished products, but in finished goods, its industrial excellence (i.e., noble work), in which it is unsurpassed and t he export of which alone means a real increase in its own standard of living as well as that of the receiving peoples. - The fact that during the liberalist period Germany pursued an unhealthy economic policy in this respect as well, and that just the othe r way around as many raw materials and semi -finished products as possible were exported in the fiercest competition with other countries of lower standard of living, which had to be paid for with the most severe inhibition of the increase in the standard o f living of its German industrial workforce and devastating pressure on the prices of German agriculture, is a matter of its own. In any case, with the assumption of power by National Socialism, this wrong economic policy of Germany was also broken and exp orts were shifted more and more to the highly qualified German industrial products in order to finance the import of raw materials or to import products in ever increasing quantities which could only be produced from the special character of foreign nation ality and foreign soil and thus in turn enriched and elevated German life. For it is the principle of every national, i.e. first and foremost living from one's own strength and legally oriented economic management, to seek the basis of the people's existen ce in their own economic activity and in their own area. Only what goes beyond the possibilities of the own

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people's power and the own space should be the subject of a meaningful exchange. Here the new Turkey follows the same line as the new Germany. And it was therefore no wonder that an ever greater expansion of the German-Turkish exchange of goods has begun in the last five years. In 1937, this exchange was not only several times greater than that of 1932/1933, but, at 209 million Reichsmark, it was the most extensive exchange of goods that had ever taken place between the new Turkey and Germany. - If the Turkish Republic today not only begins to make itself independent of the purchase of foreign coal, foreign oil and foreign iron through its own pro duction from its national deposits, but also approaches the development of its rich manganese, copper, chromium, antimony, zinc, lead and mercury deposits with its own capital, then this is also a development that the new Germany can only welcome. Even if the exploitation may be somewhat slower than with borrowed or foreign capital, the development of these ore deposits with its own financial resources offers the certainty that the new Turkey will not have to bow to foreign political or economic influences, but will be able to develop its economic, political, cultural and military forces according to its own needs and bring them to maximum performance and development. Such an economic management of the new Turkey will therefore also turn by itself into the t racks of a new strengthening of the continental European cooperation. If the political forces and necessities of the European continent are allowed to develop according to their own natural laws and are not distorted and raped by universalistic world econo mic dogmas and theories, a new meaningful and productive cooperation of all continental European peoples will emerge of its own accord under the pressure of the fate that today weighs upon continental Europe and its peoples, which will give Europe a living meaning again and raise it to a new powerful unity of life among the other continents. The feeling and the obligation of neighborly and comradely solidarity has become a reality again in Europe today and is becoming more and more so. The new Turkey is an integral, inconceivable part of the new continental Europe. For this same reason, the National Socialist foreign trade policy has adopted a particularly close cooperation with the peoples of the southeast region and the Baltic Sea area. Not for the sake of any imperialistic or political intentions, but to serve and obey the natural law necessities of a reorganization of the European economic, cultural and spatial forces of its peoples. The development of all the possibilities which the German area and the G erman spirit offer by opening up its mineral resources, improving its agricultural production 173

and obtaining new materials, which not only make possible the independence of the German economy from foreign continents (e.g. in fuels, dyes, rubber, camphor , wool, etc.), but also, beyond this, give the peoples of Eastern Europe, from the North Cape to Cyprus, the possibility, in exchange with Germany and among themselves, of strengthening the continental cooperation of Europe vis -à-vis the other continents, lies along this line. The new German materials will become an important factor in strengthening the sovereignty of Europe. For if one considers that even today Germany is active on the European continent in its foreign trade with m ore than one billion Reic hsmark and passive in its trade with the other continents with six hundred million Reichsmark, how great may be the foreign trade passivity of the other European countries vis-à-vis the other continents - with the exception of England, Holland, Belgium, Fr ance and Portugal, which at present can still make this passivity, which stems from an unnatural life, disappear through "compensatory" measures in their colonial empires: By giving the colonial peoples less than they take from them. -From the point of vie w of the strengthening of continental Europe, its self -assertion against the other continents, it is therefore indispensable that the Central and Eastern European foreign trade as a whole should at least be brought back into balance with the other continen ts. The fact that the new Turkey is realizing more and more its European destiny and importance seems to me to result from Turkey's recent, even closer integration into the Balkan alliance, its stronger ties with Greece for the control of the Dardanelles, and its ever-increasing foreign trade with the continental European countries outside the Soviet Union. This, too, is a development which again springs solely from the natural and healthy sense of the new Turkish nation and from the brilliant insight of it s great leader. In this way the new Turkey grows more and more as an exemplary and valuable member of the continental European family of nations, it gains from this new spiritual attitude an ever greater influence on the reorganization of Europe and thus retroactively creates again the precondition for an ever greater possibility of development for the proud, brave and creative Turkish people. We want to hope that the foreign trade between Germany and Turkey will strengthen more and more from the point of v iew of these great ideas. Because the German people with its seventy -five million people situated in the heart of Europe, with its enormous economic power and its high standard of living is now once the gravitational center of a natural reorganization of E urope. Germany has not forced itself into this role.

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But nature has assigned it this role, which imposes more duties on it than rights and gives it more work than enjoyment of life. Germany therefore hopes and expects understanding from the other Euro pean nations for this difficult task. Its völkische attitude, unbreakably anchored in National Socialism, permits it no other guidance of its domestic and foreign policy than that of comradely cooperation with other peoples, respecting the mutual sovereignty of peoples in all spheres of life as the highest law. For the new Germany knows from its own innermost conviction that only a völkisch way of life and order of life among itself and the other peoples, free from all imperialism and all rape in the politi cal, economic, cultural or religious spheres, can release again only a maximum of the vital forces of the European peoples, which will then unite all by themselves into a European Ottawa. Only this achievement of the European peoples, built on their own vö lkisch life order and on völkisch sovereignty, can again bring about a new happier, richer and more peaceful future for Europe: a life of its own strength, built not on the state, religious and economic doctrines, on a barren, sophisticated formal democrac y, but on a genuine natural democracy, on a European community of peoples based on the living and sovereign strength of its peoples.

Large-scale economy Essay in the "Handwör terbuch der Betriebswirtschaft". 2nd edition 1938. Edited by Prof. Nicklisch.

The emergence of large economic areas has a twofold root. Partly it is political forces that are in the foreground and form and support a large economic area, i.e. forces of nationality, of race. In part, they are forces emanating from the natural unity of an area and its content of mineral resources, cultivation possibilities and their distribution. Thus, the dynamic forces of the race and the static forces of the space, in various degrees, play the decisive role in the formation and existence of large scale economic areas. Large economic areas, no matter whether they are determined in the first place by political forces or by neighborly complementarity and cooperation, are natural and necessary intermediate structures in a healthy economic cooperation of p eoples. For if "world economy" is understood, in contrast to liberalism, as the 175

most intensive, lasting and extensive cooperation possible between independent national economies, then such a world economy must be built up on large economic areas which, as it were, form its cornerstones and supporting pillars. Such an interstate, world -wide trade and traffic, which is supported by intermediate links, the cell structure, of large economic areas, is a much more reliable and stable structure than an interstate trade and traffic, which is directly based on a multiplicity of independent national economies, not to mention the world economy of a liberalistic character, as we experienced it before the world war, which was based on a far -reaching dissolution even of the independence of the national economies. The large economic areas therefore increase the stability of the economic traffic of the peoples and prevent that fluctuations, which can occur by political or natural catastrophes somewhere in the world, imme diately affect the whole interstate trade and traffic of the world in its whole extension. For the rest, it is the basic law of all life that only those forms of life are worthy of life and stable, which are able to live from their own strength and their own space. True freedom and development can therefore only be gained from self -defense. It is therefore the highest ethical basic law of all life: Freedom by self -defense, only who helps himself, God helps. This applies not only to plants, animals, people a nd nations, but also to the origin and existence of certain spatial units and the peoples living in these spaces. Continental Europe can therefore assert itself among the other continents as an economic and cultural -political unit only if it can live on the strength of its peoples and its space alone in an emergency. Therefore, continental Europe as a spatial -political unit must extend from Gibraltar to the Urals and from the North Cape to the island of Cyprus. Only in this area are all the possibilities of agricultural products and earth treasures available, which, with the help of a highly developed technology, enable the peoples of this area to live by their own strength, if they cooperate appropriately. However, such a maximum life performance of the peo ples and their areas can only come about if each people can orient itself according to its own innate law of life and growth. If all the work, all the special knowledge and skills of the individual members of a nation are uniformly directed by the law of l ife, i.e. the national ideals of this nation. Since the laws of life of the individual peoples are just as different and differ from each other as, for example, the laws of life and growth of the various species of trees, it is incompatible with the desire d maximum performance if forms of state, economic forms, cultural forms or religious forms are constructed by intellectual means, i.e. "creeds" which are 176

supposed to fit all peoples. Just as all people cannot put on the same work clothes of the same s hape and size if they are not to be hindered in their work performance, just as it is not possible to give the peoples a "confession" that fits all. Nor is it possible to supply peoples with an off the-peg national, working, festive and religious garment s uitable for all without inflicting on them the most serious loss of their vitality and vital achievement arising from their very nature of life. Each people must therefore create for itself its own state, economic, cultural and religious forms of life corr esponding to its innate laws of life. Nothing is more pernicious, therefore, than to set up economic theories and doctrines which are to apply to all peoples. Such universally valid doctrines, based on an alleged inherent lawfulness of economic processes, have therefore always led to an underperformance and finally to a complete dissolution of the economic activity of peoples. The greatest world -historical example is the collapse of the liberalistic, the so-called "world economy" of the pre -war period. The greatest example in the history of the world is the collapse of the liberal, so -called "world economy" of the pre -war period, the origin of which will be discussed later. The last clearly pronounced large -scale economy in European history was the continental European economic and cultural cycle led by the German Hanseatic League and established by it in connection with Henry the Lion and the Teutonic Knights from the year 1200 to about 1600. Since the state -political forces of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation did not stand behind this European large -scale economy, but it was ultimately supported only by the relatively weak political forces of the Hanseatic League, it was, moreover, largely based on friendly and natural complementarity of t he peoples of the European area. The core area of the Hanseatic League was the area enclosed by the Black Sea, the Danube -Main-Rhine, Flanders, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, Novgorod and the Black Sea. Also the peoples outside this circle stood in lively interaction with the peoples preferably enclosed by this line, which were subject to a particularly intimate economic and cultural exchange. This first European economy was based on a just exchange of services, i.e. on a folk market regulation, which direc ted money and goods from the point of view of the different laws of life and necessities of the peoples and their areas. Since there were no uniform state, economic and cultural theories raping the different laws of life of the European peoples, with the e xception of an inhibition of a religious confession supposedly suitable for all peoples, the peoples of Europe strengthened and flourished in an unexpected way. The whole high 177

culture of the Middle Ages had its root in this first European large -scale economy. It was through contact with it that the Norwegians, the Danes, the Swedes, the Dutch, the Swiss were born as distinct national personalities. This large-scale European economy disintegrated with the discovery of America and the sea route to India. The two Americas and the two Indies, Australia, and even Africa first opened up to Europe's population surplus, which until then had flowed off to the Eastern European region, where it strengthened the population pressure against Asia. Now began a 400 years lasting migration to overseas, which cost Europe at least 150 million now living people. Europe thus gave up a part of its natural space, allowed Asia to seep into the European East region in terms of people and ideology, and opened up additional space overseas in return. It has now lived for four hundred years not only from the exploitation of these spaces, but also from the exploitation of the peoples living there, forced into colonial allegiance and underpaid. Europe, therefore, for the last four hund red years has to a large extent carried on an unjust exchange of services to overseas and has lived to a great extent out of foreign space and foreign people's power, thus violating the supreme law of all life. In order to justify this comfortable life acc ording to the West, which was not based on the law of life, and which believed it could do without the hard life in the East, the defense of its own space and the constant confrontation with Asia - theories constructed from the intellect were invented, such as democracy, free trade, international division of labor, Marxism, capitalism and the like. This unnatural life drew two consequences: in the East of Europe, as already mentioned, Asia infiltrated more and more volkishly and ideologically via the Urals. The all-destroying Jewish -Asian ideology of Bolshevism, constructed from the intellect, has today in the last consequence infested Eastern Europe and its peoples, i.e. the Russian area, like a desert and eliminated it from the former European working and cultural community. As the last consequence of the orientation towards the West, this unnatural life of the European peoples, also resulted in the permanently unviable construction of the liberal world economy. An economic method which does not recognize a ny national ties and necessities of life, but which wanted to follow an international division of labor and the principle of free trade in the "self -legislated" free play of economic forces. So here, too, in the West as in the East, an all-destroying econo mic ideology which could only end with a collapse and then did end. 178

The political and economic declaration of independence of the foreign continents, which became definitive after the world war, now forces Europe, too, to acknowledge again its spatial -political unity and the autonomy of its peoples. This structural change of the world, the demand of the foreign continents to deal with Europe only in a just exchange of services, now shows all at once the trade -political passivity of continental Europe towards overseas, which was formerly concealed by the unjust exchange of services, and forces Europe to mobilize all its economic forces and economic possibilities and to unite them in a cooperation and furthermore to restore its space in its natural wholene ss. The rebirth of the European peoples, i.e. the reorganization of their life substance according to their native law of life, as we have already seen in National Socialism, Fascism and Kemalism in three peoples, as well as the economic mobilization of th e Southeast and Baltic regions through German trade policy are the beginning of the fulfillment of this fateful demand. The new European cooperation, based on the völkisch thought, the völkisch order of life as the primary cause of all forms of state, econ omy, culture and religion, has also broken the ideological hegemony of France of the last hundred and fifty years, which wanted to keep Europe on the primacy of the idea of the state in an unnatural order, as it only once temporarily resulted from the conq uest of the Overseas West and the Overseas East alimentation. This reorganization of Europe on the basis of the völkisch idea thus overcomes not only the ideological desert in the West, but also that in the East with the simultaneous establishment of a new European working and cultural community, along the lines of the old German Hanseatic League, which will be based on the life -law peculiarity of its peoples as an unbreakable foundation and will present itself economically as a new European metropolitan economy. In the same way as the formation of a continental European Ottawa is taking place, one sees the greater economy of the British Empire, the British Ottawa, rising out of the collapse of the liberalist world economy. Furthermore, the basic lines of a JapaneseChinese Ottawa, a Japanese -Chinese large-scale economy, as well as the large-scale economic area of a Pan -America can already be seen more and more clearly on the horizon. Other already existing large -scale economies are the French colonial empire and the Italian empire, which are mainly based on political forces. It is therefore evident that a new world trade and commerce is already emerging, based on large economic areas, which in turn have as their supporting foundations independent economies th at have joined together to form working communities. 179

The large-scale economies thus appear as necessary links in a new, indispensable order of the world economy, which will give it greater stability in the future. Even if one or another of the large -scale economies should collapse for whatever reason, the whole world economy will not be able to collapse again.

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Second chapter

New foreign trade policy

The "New Plan”

Basic information on National Socialist foreign trade and transport policy Essay in the "Nationalsozialistischer Wirtschaftsdienst," Hamburg, No. 8, June 18, 1932.

National Socialist economic doctrine has always described the inorganic, i.e. free market economy, as a nonsense of tra de policy and as lying on an ethical plane, which in its effects had to lead to the collapse of organically structured economies and their higher morality. For this reason, we have also always rejected the general most -favored-nation policy. There is no sy stem of foreign trade which, is equally suitable for intercourse with all states. Precisely today, in the midst of the process of liquidation of the previous so -called "world economy" - for nothing else does the present world crisis mean - it is necessary to go back to the foundations of reasonable trade policy. These principles: healthy foreign trade and transport policy, i.e. organically linked with the national economy, have been completely lost in the last epoch, which was under the rule of the wrong co nception of the so -called "world economy". All the trade, payment and production balances of the national economies involved in interstate trade and intercourse have become so hopelessly confused and entangled with each other as a result of the non observance of organic foreign trade policy, i.e., free market economy, war debts and tribute payments, that a solution of this Gordian knot is no longer possible even by the cleverest mind and the most extensive world economic conferences, but can only be cut thr ough with the sharp sword of general liquidation. There is no other way to re -establish appropriate conditions than by the elimination of the previous, completely mistaken system, which bore the proud name "world economy" and which was presented by the mos t superficial intellectualism as the superior organism to which the national economies had to subordinate themselves or even to serve. The belief in the phantom of an "international division of labor", which was presented to the honest inhabitants of the n ational economies by intellectually corrupted or seduced professors of economics and by traders who are at home everywhere and nowhere, is today paid for with the misery and distress of untold millions in all countries. Our National Socialist economic doctrine clearly states: there is no world economy, but only interstate trade and traffic. This is not an organism, but a mechanism, 182

the mechanical equalization, the clearing of the production surpluses of the national economies. Never has the so -called "world economy" produced anything. It is therefore not a productive element, but only a distribution system, totally dependent on the state of the national economies. The national economies are the primary, the producers of all goods. According to them alo ne must interstate trade and traffic, the secondary. The national economies alone have the claim to the title "economy," i.e., to be organically structured, creative beings. They alone are organisms. Their production process takes place according to organi c rules. The mechanical, brutal balancing by supply and demand is subordinated to a higher point of view, i.e. it is corrected and dampened by a central authority, namely the legislation, which represents the interest of the whole of the people and thus, f rom this superior point of view, puts a rein on today's unrestraint of the liberalistic "private" economist. National economy is not a mechanical coexistence, but an organic coexistence, a unity with a soul, a formed thing, which by its legislation secures the preservation of this form. Every productive, i.e. creative national economy is therefore built on the law of organic freedom, which reads: "Boundedness outwardly, freedom through self -government inwardly" and its ethics: "Common good before self -interest". Interstate trade and intercourse (the elapsed "world economy"), on the other hand, is merely a mechanical juxtaposition, a mechanical equalization, an uncreative system of distribution which produces no goods at all, but only exchanges them. In it th ere is no central authority and no legislation watching over the whole. How miserably the League of Nations and its supplement, the "Bank for International Payments", have failed, needs no further word. There is no world politics and therefore no world economy, but only world trade and traffic. In it supply and demand prevail, the individual interest absolute, and the ethics prevailing here is consequently the exact opposite of the ethical foundation of every national economy, namely "self -interest before common interest," and its ideal of freedom is the inversion of the organic, namely: "freedom outward and bondage by force inward." It should therefore be clear to everyone who has seen through the deceptive veil of the "world economy" that if one penetrates into the higher organic of the national economy with the lower merchant mechanics and ethics: "self -interest before common good" of interstate trade, this infallibly disintegrates. That therefore a recovery of the national economies can never be brought about from the side of the world trade and traffic, as this is supposed to be made us believe again and again by the interstate traders and 183

economists and professors running on the fool's rope of the intellect, but that the necessary reorganization of t he world trade and traffic can and must come again only through the national economies, as the primary, producing, and therefore moving on a higher ethical level. So today, every economy is reflecting on its own laws. Every national economy today, out of t he instinct for self -preservation, must mercilessly draw up its balance sheet, its profit and loss account vis -à-vis interstate trade and traffic. It must reflect on the prerequisite of its existence, on organic production, and reorient itself internally a nd externally. To this end, every national economy must regain within itself its center of gravity, which has been erroneously shifted to interstate trade and traffic. This means that every state, in order to consolidate its existence, will not only develo p and strengthen its domestic economy to the greatest possible extent, but will at the same time serve to build up a new, healthy interstate trade and traffic. Only on the basis of strong domestic economies can a crisis -proof and catastrophe -free world trade and traffic be re -established. This means, above all, that each nation must relocate its food base within its own territory. What cannot be produced within the political borders of a national economy in the way of food and vital raw materials must, howe ver, be obtainable at any time within its domain, i.e. as far as its naval and military power extends. That is to say, every national economy, and especially the German economy, must, after the experience of the last war, form its own living and economic a rea protected by its armed forces, with which it then enters anew into interstate trade and intercourse. Foreign policy must therefore be able to determine the scope and direction of foreign trade again and to take over its protection in every way. Foreign policy thus again has the effect of shaping space, and trade again follows the flag. The reversal of this proposition, that the flag must follow the trade, which arose from a merchant's mind, thus comes to an end. And another principle will have to be taken into account by the German economy in the most serious way in the future, namely, that the volume of its foreign trade must always be in proportion to the volume of its domestic production and its domestic trade. Only in this way can the independence of the German economy and the greatest possible resistance to crises be preserved. It is conceivable, however, that the volume of Germany's own domestic economy may be supplemented and enlarged to a certain extent and without danger by a particularly clos e exchange with those states which lie within the future area of protection of the German military forces. 184

It does not seem impossible, therefore, that after the consolidation of the German domestic economy, taking into account the entire future German protective space, German foreign trade and commerce, especially through its additional intermediary activity, can again assume a similar scope as it possessed before the war. Never again, however, will foreign trade and commerce built on National Socialis t principles be able to endanger the German people in their agricultural and raw material self-sufficiency and plunge them into political and economic dependence and unemployment. The organic structure and the strong domestic market will always be able to absorb crises coming from outside and to compensate them by national self -help. The practical principles of action (the "New Plan") which must be followed at first will consist in concluding a special trade treaty with each country, based on the principle that whatever foreign imported goods are purchased can and must be paid for only with German exported goods. German foreign trade will therefore have to be completely reoriented not only in terms of the type of goods but also in terms of the direction in which they are exported and purchased, and will enter into exchange relations only with those countries which are basically willing to accept German export goods to the same extent. - While, for example, the German foreign trade balance with the British Emp ire is, on the whole, roughly balanced, it is largely passive toward North America. This will have to be remedied by refusing to import North American goods, or North America will have to decide to accept German exports to the same extent. Alternatively, p urchases will have to be made through other countries that are more willing to accept German exports. It is conceivable that these quotas, which will be fixed with each country and which need not be and will not be rigid at all, may also be combined in certain respects in time, so that foreign trade by means of quota certificates will be quite free, only the state will in each case direct and determine the direction and size of the quotas according to the state interest superior to the individual. There is no other way at all to a new order of interstate trade and traffic, since not only the German, but also the foreign exchange balances of the other states imperatively demand this way of clearing goods. (National Socialism is nothing else at all than consci ous support and promotion of the self-healing process of nature, which has set in today with unheard of force after an age of exaggerated wrong intellectual economic methods. National Socialism is nothing else than the good doctor who recognized and procla imed the disease early and now strives to spare his 185

people unnecessary suffering and to shorten the time of suffering by means of correct treatment, while the eternalists with their wrong methods of treatment and obsolete medicines are putting the Germ an people in the highest danger of their lives). As we have already repeatedly emphasized, we therefore consider the path of goods clearing taken by the Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck circles to be correct in principle, but completely wrong as a local phenomen on. Quota management and merchandise clearing can only be carried out nationally and economically as a whole. Their other measures also generally coincide with our intentions. It is essential, however, that National Socialism will demand that in all cases German goods must be carried only by German ships, and that the exchange goods of the inland states of our economic area, which are affiliated with us in transit trade, be carried by German tonnage. In all other respects, too, we shall advocate the prohibi tion of German coastal navigation by all those flags which deny German ships coastal navigation in their countries. We will continue to help the German merchant flag by all means to obtain the necessary space for movement and living within the area that wi ll always remain between the contingent traffic, so that it can bring in additional earnings through its service and thus further activate our balance of trade. German shipping will be more than ever the most valuable means of achieving this, and one that we will take special care of. But it must reckon with the fact that the former order of things, on which it had built its liner service, is sinking under its feet today and will never return. The quantity, direction and nature of the export and import good s of every national economy change precisely as a result of the liquidation process of the so-called "world economy" and the restructuring of all national economies. These structural changes inevitably entail the disintegration of the present maritime tran sport network. Relatively speaking, the passenger liner service will be the least affected by this transformation, while the freight liner service will be subject to the greatest change. The linking of German shipping with the German foreign and transit tr ade, which is regulated by quotas, will give rise to a new type of shipping service, a middle ground between the existing freight line service and tramp shipping. The German shipping organization must therefore be loosened up and made flexible to the great est possible extent, in order to be able to adapt quickly and easily to the constantly changing situation. It must also regain the leadership it had before the war in the 186

Baltic Sea. The means by which the National Socialist state and economic leadership will come to its aid must be left for later discussion. These statements show most clearly that National Socialism considers nothing more unsuitable for nationalization and bureaucratization than foreign trade and maritime traffic, which must be guarant eed its mobility within the framework of overall policy. All in all: the National Socialist contingent economy is clearly different from the surviving liberalist and collectivist economic forms. It gives each individual the freedom of private initiative an d self-management within the framework laws issued by the state leadership. It is an impossibility or a lie when the eternalists repeatedly claim that the National Socialist economic doctrine leads to collectivist forms of economy. Nothing shows more clearly the untenability of this stratum's claim to leadership, that they are incapable of recognizing the new forms of life and economy, and that they are only able to think in terms of liberalist or collectivist economic forms and to orient themselves only in this sinking world.

On the establishment of a trade office (foreign trade chamber) Essay in the "Nationalsozialistischer Wirtschaftsdienst," Hamburg. No. 9 of 25.6.1932.

Even the free trader who walks through today's economic events with the narrowest of blinders cannot overlook the fact that the so -called "world economy", which up to now has been based on the principle of free trade, is subject to an inexorably unwinding process of liquidation and is initially splitting up into autonomous, i. e. self-determining, economic areas. This is a fact which, like all great events, like all births, is linked with suffering, but which also carries a new future. The only question for debate today is how to confront this iron fact, which is linked to the s uffering and misfortune of many tens of millions of people. Whether one understands it as the outflow of a temporary insanity attack of humans or as an own legislated large nature happening, which the foolishness, lack of insight and lack of foresight of t he human understanding, in particular its official economics professors, of a better teaches, namely after the principle: who does not want to hear, must feel. It is understandable that the civil 187

servant professors of economics and especially the certa in, purely intellectualistic-dogmatic class, for which a particularly typical example is Professor Bonn, find this instruction by the fact highly unsympathetic. And further it is psychologically understandable that these mostly quite complacent rulers try to disguise the instruction given to them by the facts as far as possible with irony, mockery and little jokes before their devout audience in order to preserve their position. Especially the Jewish intellectuality, whose home was the free -trading world economy, feels touched by the new complex of facts in the most unpleasant way and tries mm by means of intellectual camouflage to obfuscate the events to the other contemporaries in order to prepare a new receptive position. The golden calf, the former world economy, is now gone, and its priests must look for other gods, in order to be able to shear their believers also in the future. But to the matter itself. - Since the only intellectually founded construction, a world economy based on free trade, has prove d to be not viable but a dead, exaggerated mechanism, in which all payment, trade and production balances of the individual national economies have become inextricably entangled and knotted, today every national economy inevitably recalls the real content which was the basis of the ideology of the world economy. The so -called world economy consists in reality only of interstate trade and traffic, i.e. the exchange of the production surpluses of the individual national economies. There is no trace of its own production. World trade and traffic had to serve this surplus exchange of the national economy and not, as the past world economic ideology tried to pretend, as a higher, superior and independent being to determine quantity and kind of the products of eac h national economy. The national economies are the primary and world trade and traffic the secondary, and not vice versa. There is only one way out of this intellectualistic distortion of the natural facts, in which especially the Jewish merchants played a leading role, namely this: that each national economy of its own accord and according to its own needs rebuilds world trade and traffic and at the same time liquidates its previous participation in the dead entity of the world economy as quickly as possib le. Today we are in the middle of this process. The fact that the civil servant professors of economics, such as Mr. Bonn, will only recognize this process when it is completed, is quite in accordance with their previous practice of illuminating things lat er with hindsight. The politicians and economists of each nation are therefore left to their own devices today and must try to penetrate things from their own understanding and to pierce the veil of words that has 188

settled over the restructuring process of the national economies and of interstate trade and traffic. First of all, everyone does as he is wise. Not only the world war, but also its present "world economic" aftermath hammer again into the brain of every individual and every national economy that only a national economy whose foundations and whose most important lifelines can be protected by its own land and naval forces, and lie within its own economic sphere of power even in times of peace, offer the protection against war and other catastroph ic danger necessary for the national whole. "Safety first" applies not only against warlike events, but also against catastrophic events of interstate commerce and traffic. These simple, healthy and clear considerations, which should be self -evident, but which have completely disappeared from the memory of political and economic leaders in the last century, explain the "novelty" of today's events and the perplexity in which today's generation is confronted with these self -evident facts. This explains all th e various self-help measures that are smiled at or tolerated by the civil servant professors of economics as temporary emergency measures and are not understood at all by the present leadership of the state. For the task of the state leadership in the Nati onal Socialist sense should be precisely to recognize these things with foresight and to facilitate their birth and to guide this self -help process of nature into orderly channels. Thus we National Socialists today face the self -help measure of the commodity clearing societies. They have correctly recognized that the basis of world trade and traffic is not the movement of money but the movement of goods, and that the basis for a new foreign trade and traffic policy must be created by reorganizing the produc tion of goods according to the principle of safety first in every national economy and the resulting reorganized movement of goods in interstate traffic. However, these commodity clearing societies are only initial building blocks and, in their isolation, are wholly unsuited to form the foundation of a new foreign trade and traffic by themselves. They can only fulfill their intended purpose if they receive understanding leadership and guidance from the state and if commodity clearing is extended to the enti re German foreign trade and traffic. Only in this way can the requirements of the foreign exchange balance be truly safeguarded and an inorganic and improper structure prevented. The principle of commodity clearing companies is, as we wish to emphasize once again, correct in and of itself, but wrong in its local handling; therefore, their consolidation in a German trade office is 189

necessary, which will guide and shape this principle, which is correct in itself, into orderly channels. But only a trade off ice (foreign trade chamber), which acts as a parallel organization to the self -governing body of agriculture (Reichsnährstand) and the self -governing body of domestic trade (Reichswirtschaftskammer) as a self -governing body of German foreign trade, can pro perly direct German foreign trade and, in conjunction with the Reichsbank, manage foreign exchange in accordance with the national economy, i.e., the needs of the German nation as a whole. In this way, interstate monetary transactions can again be subordinated to the exchange of goods as a servant and be made to function reasonably. Ten out of a hundred can only ever be brought about by ordinances and legal regulations. Ninety out of a hundred, however, can only ever come about through one's own attitude an d freedom. This applies to all areas of life. For this reason, self -governing bodies for agriculture, domestic and foreign trade will be indispensable in National Socialist economic management, in which all the specialized knowledge and skills of those working in the economy will be employed from their own attitude and will, in order to help the overall management of the economy by the state leadership to complete, one hundred percent success.

Foreign Trade Policy and Eastern Europe Policy Essay in the "Na tionalsozialistischer Wirtschaftsdienst," Hamburg. No. 23 of 3.10.1932.

In Ivar Kreuger's farewell letter to his confidant Littorin are the words:. I have made such a mess that there is nothing left to say about my progress...". These words could also be placed as a final sentence at the end of the economic chapter of the last eighty years, which proudly called itself "world economy". The monstrous confusion of payment, trade and production balances of all countries, which the dead world economy left behind, can, just like Ivar Kreuger's estate, only be cut through with the sword of liquidation, but never disentangled by conferences. It is in this process of liquidation of the world economy that we stand today. It inevitably entails the system of quotas in foreign trade propagated by National Socialism from the very beginning. The most 190

favored-nation law, to which Germany still pays homage in its trade treaties, along with tribute and debt payments, has caused this insoluble mess. But just as tribute a nd debt payments will inevitably come to an end, so will MFN as a trade treaty principle. The sooner this is recognized and exploited by German trade policy, the better for us. Only the quota system will allow us to restructure our foreign trade in a meani ngful way and to ensure the import of the most indispensable raw materials. The realization that the foundation of exchange relations between any two states must always be a balance of goods or services has been lost. The fact that, as a matter of principl e, one may only receive from a country as much as it is willing to receive back in exchange for goods and services, and that the fundamental safeguarding of these exchange quotas must be the basis of all trade treaty policy, has been lost under the rule of the confusion that presents itself as the world economy. There is, after all, the possibility of temporarily offsetting monetary underbalances purely arithmetically with surpluses generated in trade with other countries. This is what happened and eventual ly became the very purpose of the world economy. The monetary balance degenerated into an end in itself and thus became nonsense. It would never have become so if the state had kept the management of the economy and foreign trade firmly in its hands and ha d preserved the basis of national economic exchange in interstate traffic. In this way, however, the economy was left in charge and the balance was left to the so -called "free play of forces", which led to the famous "economic interdependence", which with its monetary veil obscured and ultimately undermined the real foundation of interstate relations. Today, out of the instinct of self -preservation, the national economy of each country is shaking off this international disease promoted by the Jewish money t raders and their economic professors sitting in all universities, by all economic "leaders" and bank directors. The impossible confusion of foreign policy, defense policy and trade policy of each nation is striving today again for order and for the most co ngruent use possible in its proper sphere of life. We see this reorganization taking place in the English Empire. What the English mother country has recently had to give its colonies and dominions in terms of political freedom in accordance with their gro wing independence within the British Empire, it is at the same time taking away from them in terms of trade policy by enclosing the entire world empire in a customs ring. This equidirectional spatial orientation of trade and transport policy is supplemente d by defense policy, which is capable of covering the entire area of the British Empire with its naval and land forces. 191

This process in the West, the formation of a unified British living, economic and ruling space, forces Central, Eastern and Northern Europe to act in the same way if it does not want to be pulverized between the emerging huge economic blocs of the British Empire, North America and Japan and China. Germany now has the historic task of building up this eastern European living space. How can this be done? The National Socialist policy towards the East shows the way. It cannot be shown in all details within the framework of this short essay. For this purpose, however, a clear and friendly confrontation with the British Empire and also with North America, which is advancing its main path of expansion to northern Russia via Scandinavia and the Baltic, is first of all necessary in terms of foreign policy and defense. Under no circumstances can Germany refrain from expanding its naval forces in such a way that it can use them at any time to block the Sound, the Belts and the Northeast Sea Canal, the gateways to its future living and economic area, the Eastern region. A strong fleet in the Baltic Sea, exhausting all the possibilities of the Versailles Dictate as a safeguard, as well as the cheapest water freights to the East, radiating with the help of the Hansa Canal to be built over the Baltic Sea, up the Elbe and over the future Rhine -Main-Danube Canal as far as the Black Sea, create a new trans port-political deployment area with the face toward the East. This will first of all make possible the economic activation of the entire belt of states from Latvia to the Black Sea, individual parts of which, as has already been proven, do not possess sufficient economic-political self-strength to be able to stand on their own feet permanently without economic leaning. These peoples, and this must never be forgotten to them, form a protective wall behind which the Central European area can observe the decom position of Soviet Russia which will one day necessarily occur. However, it is necessary for each nation that its own economic space, i.e. everything it needs to maintain its economic and political independence, lies within its political borders. The stren gthening of the internal market is therefore the fundamental principle of every national economy: the satisfaction of needs, as well as national security, therefore equally demand a systematic restructuring of German foreign trade relations. Properly understood autarky means nothing else for a nation than to build up its state and economy into a strong fortress in which it is secure, as was not the case for Germany in the World War as a result of the wrong construction of the German economy, whose main life blood was everywhere interwoven with the so -called "world economy" and could not be protected by our naval land forces. The congruence of economic 192

and defense policy, which is necessary for every nation, must be re established for Germany as well. We have briefly indicated the necessities of defense and transport policy. In terms of trade policy, they must be supplemented by a systematic restructuring of German foreign trade from the West to the East. With the help of the contingent economy, it is poss ible to systematically shift most of Germany's vital foreign trade to the European continent. The extent to which things are already regrouping by themselves, i.e. in accompaniment of today's disintegration of the unified world economic area into individua l areas, is shown more and more clearly by the German foreign trade statistics of recent years. The passivity of Germany's trade balance with overseas countries is constantly growing, while its activity with Europe is increasing in relative terms. This is, in national economic terms, a highly dangerous state of affairs which categorically demands change.' A very considerable part of this undesirable import surplus from overseas countries, which are not willing to accept German export goods for payment to th e same extent, could be reduced or diverted to European countries, preferably those of the North, East and Southeast, which are buyers of German industrial goods. What is needed is a systematic analysis of the German trade balance and a planned restructuring in the sense of the Eastern Europe policy, a new, European economic planning. The following table shows the extent to which the various overseas countries are involved in the disastrous import surpluses in the first half of 1932:

1. From the USA 2. From the British Empire a) Canada b) Rest of British America c) British India incl. Ceylon, Malaya d) British Africa e) Australia and New Zealand 3. Dutch India 4. China 5. South American States

Mill. RM. 170,9 7,5 26,3 35,3 43,2 57,5 35,8 41,9 123,8

The United States of North America, for example, which constantly wishes to receive substantial interest payments from us and payments due outside the standstill agreement, reacted not with a passive trade 193

balance vis-à-vis Germany, as common sense would have us believe, but with an export surplus to Germany of 170.9 million in the first half of 1932! So instead of a passive trade balance, an active one. This i s an impossible state of affairs. The same applies to the British Empire. For the sake of these import surpluses from countries which should normally have a passive trade balance with us - we are forced, on the other hand, to inflict on our nearest neighbo rs and friends, the Nordic countries: Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark, a considerable passivity in their trade balances with us. Germany's net export surplus to the aforementioned four Nordic countries in 1930 amounted to 1.1 billion Reichsmark 1 And in 1931, despite the shrinkage of purchasing power, etc., and other disruptions caused by the fall of the pound and the krona, also still amounted to about 800 million Reichsmark . So, our closest friends within the eastern space, our future living space, must suffer heavy blood loss to us in terms of economic policy, so that we allow less friendly peoples in foreign living spaces to have an active trade balance towards us. This is a completely senseless and untenable state of affairs from the point of view o f foreign policy, which could only have arisen because foreign policy and trade policy went completely different ways, or rather because we have had no state leadership at all for decades and left foreign trade policy to the so -called "economic leaders". That our Scandinavian friends also feel this state of affairs to be an unacceptable one more and more strongly and are pressing for a remedy became particularly clear on the occasion of the meeting of the German Society for the World Economy in Lübeck this summer, in which the foreign ministers of the Scandinavian countries demanded that Germany think of a remedy as to how a better balanced mutual exchange relationship could be stabilized. In other words, a demand which completely contradicted the very princ iples of the hitherto free world economy and thus of the meeting, which was precisely seeking a means and an end to restore the famous "free play of forces," i.e., to drive even further the complete disorganization of all interstate trade and transport relations. Here, too, the facts, i.e. the inevitable regrouping of the interstate trade and traffic relations of the peoples according to certain spaces proved to be more powerful than the previous liberal -capitalist thinking, which is to blame for today's wo rld economic chaos, which is not inferior to that caused by Ivar Kreuger in his field.

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National Socialist foreign trade principles Lecture given to representatives of the Hungar ian government and business community in Budapest on May 2 8, 1933, at the conclusion of the first trade agreement based on National Socialist principles.

The several friendly invitations that have reached me recently have brought me to you today. I have accepted this call all the more gladl y because Hungary and Germany have always been connected by traditional friendship and Germany has had the opportunity to receive renewed proofs of the friendly attitude of the chivalrous Hungarian people just in the past fourteen years. While the former r egime in Germany perhaps did not always find the right attitude - the right understanding - for the attitude and for the life needs of the Hungarian people, after the takeover of power by the NSDAP, a fundamental change occurred in Germany also in this respect. The last great Reichstag speech of our leader Adolf Hitler should have made it unequivocally clear to all foreign countries that Germany, now that it has finally regained its inner freedom, is now also in a position to appreciate and respect the free dom of all other peoples. Today Germany no longer places her hopes in any ideological international, but intends to build her relations, also in trade policy, on the free friendship of people to people and a just economic balance of interests between them. Therefore, what could be more obvious than to turn first of all to the Hungarian people, who expressed the wish to get to know the economic-political views of the NSDAP, and of today's Germany from an authoritarian mouth. This frank invitation will be followed by a frank answer; for the new Germany, just as she goes her way openly and straight at home, will also go an open and clear way in her foreign trade relations. For only by a frank disentanglement and clarification of the interests which today are en tangled in an inextricable tangle can a real pacification of the world take place. In his last speech to the Reichstag, our Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler pointed out this path as the only possible one for the pacification of the world, for which he strives as only someone can. Therefore, not only in political, but also in trade policy, Germany recognizes the same freedom which it claims for itself, also in its adversaries. If I am to present to you today the foreign trade principles of the NSDAP, I must first of all dispel the misunderstandings which have been spread abroad about Germany's so called autarky efforts;' seldom has so much nonsense and ambiguity been 195

spread as about the very word autarky. Germany understands by autarky1) the first vital right of every people and every nation to shape its economy in such a way that it is a castle for it, in which it cannot be starved out or parched in the event of trade, monetary or even warlike entanglements. From this picture the extent of autarky is self-evident. It is clear that in such a castle no luxuriant life can be led and that the body belt must be strapped tightly. But the independence of the livelihood must be guaranteed in any case. And further, the second principle of the National Socia list foreign trade policy is derived directly from this picture, which I would like to call safety first, namely, that all further needs which in normal times allow the Leibriemen to be loosened and the cultural and bodily needs and comforts of the people to be cared for, i.e., that these needs be met as far as possible from the living space which is secured by durable political alliances and friendships and which also appears to be accessible in the event of entanglements. Self sufficiency, therefore, does not mean the closing of frontiers from the point of view of economic policy, but only the separation of the needs of the people from the point of view of military policy; that, as far as possible, only that which can be dispensed with in case of need shou ld be obtained beyond frontiers, and that appropriate stocks should be laid up of those goods which can in any case be obtained only beyond frontiers, but which belong to the iron stock of the national economy. In addition to these three principles, which necessarily follow from the economic approach to interstate trade and transport and which, as mentioned above, can be summarized under the heading of safety first, this economic approach also teaches a fourth principle, namely that of fair play. This means that no country should sell its products more cheaply in foreign trade than it produces them domestically. This unfair international competition, which has become rampant especially in the last decade and a half after the end of the war, finds its cause i n the generally wrong attitude of economic thinking. In the last decades before the outbreak of the war, under the influence of liberalist -financialcapitalist and free -trading thinking, people had become more and more accustomed to seeing the so -called world economy as the primary - the superior - to which national economies had to subordinate themselves.

1 In ord er to mak e p rop agan d a a gain s t th e Na ti on al So cia li s t e con o my, e sp ec ial ly th e in t ern a tio n al J e w i sh l o an ca p it al h ad t ri ed to d i scr ed it th e n e w G e r m an e con o mi c goa l a s "au ta rk ic ". T o c ou n t er th i s, W . Dait z in th i s l e ctu r e ga v e th e wo rd " au ta rky " th e me an in g of "e con o mi c au ton o my, " wh i ch wa s an d i s th e r ea l go al o f th e n e w ec on o mi c sy st e m.

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In reality, however, the term world economy is a pure ide ology. Because with the word economy always the concept of producing is connected. But never has grown in the so -called world economy even one blade of grass! It has always consisted only of the interstate trade and traffic, with the goods produced only by the national economies. Consequently, the so-called world economy is not a unity, not an organism, but a mechanism, a mechanical coexistence. Consequently, even in the world economy, that is, in interstate trade and intercourse, the spirit of the whole can never be violated, because a whole does not exist. Therefore, in the world economy, supply and demand rules as the exclusive regulator, i.e. ethically speaking: Self -interest before common good. In the national economy, on the other hand, it is the other way around. The national economy is a unit, a whole. Here, through central legislation and authority, the spirit of the whole is placed before the individual. Supply and demand therefore prevail in the national economy only in a subdued manner as a regula tor, subdued by the good of the whole. In ethical terms, this means that in the national economy, the common good takes precedence over self -interest. This is the ethics of the producer. In the last decades, as already mentioned, the ethics of interstate trade and traffic, of international merchantism, countered it more and more sharply and with the right of primacy, with the maxim: self-interest before public interest. And since this maxim gained validity everywhere in the national economies by means of a wrongly adjusted economic theory, this lower ethics of international merchantism gradually disintegrated the association of national economies and made their foundations an object of international trade. Everything thereby became commodity-everything beca me floating. And thus all things became uncertain. From this has arisen this almost inextricable tangle of foreign trade and balance of payments, debt and currency difficulties, which can only be restored to order or led to an orderly liquidation if the national economies as the eternal producers of all goods and their ethics are again given precedence over that of interstate trade and traffic. Only in this way can an orderly world economy come into being again, if it is composed of public-spirited national economies as its foundation. Only with their surpluses and with their top performances the national economies should then enter into exchange with each other. And here, too, only according to the four principles which we characterized earlier under the two aspects of safety first and fair play. Only in this way will a world economy emerge again which is infinitely more consolidated than the present one, because it will be built on the natural logic of things and not on a deceptive ideology. The world trade and intercourse which will 197

thus begin will by no means be a lesser one than the present one, but on the contrary a greater one, because it will be erected on the principle of justice and of the real reconciliation of the interests of the peoples. Such a world trade and traffic, which respects the freedom of each individual people and makes itself the servant of the economic interests of the peoples, instead of proclaiming itself their master, as the false ideology of the last decades has done - such a truly creative new construction of the world economy will at the same time also contribute infinitely to the pacification of the world. No amount of armaments will be able to remove the present insecurity in the world economy brought in by false principles of trade. Only the clear recognition of the national economy as the imperishable foundation of all interstate trade and intercourse, and the logical clarification and frank disclosure of all interstate interests resulting therefrom, will bring the world e conomic peace which all long for, and which was also called for in the speech of the German Reich Chancellor. With the disintegration of the ideology of a uniform superordinate world economy, the ideology of a uniform world economic area has now also disintegrated. Everywhere we see therefore today the beginnings of large-scale economies, which strive with fateful force for their formation and completion and cannot be inhibited by any power -political influences. The natural logic of things has still triumph ed over shortsighted intellectual aims. We National Socialists want nothing else than to promote this natural course of events and to shorten and ease the process of suffering of the national and world economy, which even today is tormented by incompetent doctors with outdated medical and economic dogmatics. We want to reduce the unhappiness and suffering in the world with our clear knowledge of things. Since doing good begins at home, Germany considers it its most important duty, imposed on it by its cent ral position in continental Europe, to first do everything in its power to initiate the most intensive exchange of goods possible with those countries with which it has natural economic ties, under the unalterable aspects of safety first and fair play. The re is no such natural affinity with the self -sufficient large-scale economies which have already reached considerable perfection, such as the British Empire, France and its colonies, North and South America, as must now be consciously stabilized between Ge rmany and the states of the Southeast Danube region and the Northeast region. In order to secure future and lasting sales for the Southeast region, it is necessary to systematically link it not only with Germany but also, through Germany,

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with the Northeast region on the basis of the most accurate study of trade balances. Through this reorganization, the trade volume of all the national economies of the entire region, which has contracted to such a great extent, can be expanded again in an undreamed -of way. The intensive internal clearing of goods and foreign exchange within the overall area makes possible an additional expansion of production and trade of the economies, which serves the common good of the participating economies without endangering the ir national character and stability and without harming the other economies of the area. On the contrary, these economies will gain considerable advantage from the fact that the possibilities of combination between Germany and the economies of the southeas t and northeast can at the same time form the basis for a stronger purchase of tropical and other overseas products which cannot be exploited by the individual isolated Central European economies struggling with trade and foreign exchange difficulties. Germany would thus be enabled to provide assistance in transit trade to both the Southeast and Northeast regions. In order to take the first step in this reorganization of Central European economic relations, and out of the realization that the Southeast area is the commercial foundation of the Northeast area as well, National Socialist Germany, and not only the industrial circles but just as much the agricultural circles in conjunction with the Ministry of Economics, decided to anchor its agricultural import needs and transit as far as possible in the Southeast area, taking full account of Germany's agricultural autarky aspirations, as I have already outlined. It should not go unmentioned that this reorientation of economic will and intention also entails a re organization of the German and Central European transport network, in particular its tariffs. It then seems quite possible that, for example, the subsidy needs of the northeast region for grain in Hungary and the other countries in the Danube region can be met. Furthermore, the conclusion of cultivation contracts for oil crops, which Germany now buys from overseas, seems quite possible and highly desirable. But I do not want to get lost in further details here. In any case, the new German government has tak en account of this reorientation of German foreign trade policy by having its official delegate, Privy Councillor Waldeck, resume economic negotiations with accelerated speed. The fact that the present negotiations cannot yet lead to a completely satisfact ory result is due to the following reasons: You know how it looks today, everywhere in agriculture. The NSDAP is based on the principle that the recovery of the peasantry is the 199

prerequisite for the national economy in general. In execution of this plan, the government of the Reich has taken a series of measures in recent weeks which it is to be hoped will have an effect in this sense in the not too distant future. In addition, we are on the eve of the World Economic Conference. As soon as it is clea r whether and what tangible results will emerge from it, the time will have come for us to sit down together on an accelerated basis for a fundamental reorganization of our trade relations. It needs no special mention that the mechanical principle of the most-favored -nation clause can no longer be reconciled with the principles of a natural organic foreign trade policy which I have just described, and that this has increasingly proved to be one of the most serious obstacles to trade, based precisely on the erroneous assumption that national economies are governed by the same laws as interstate trade and transport relations. Even those countries which today are still in a position to refrain from quotas in foreign trade policy will shortly be forced to do so by the state of their balances of payments. For the basis of all trade is the commodity and not the monetary peak compensation. This infallibly falls into disarray as soon as the balance of trade is permanently ignored, as has happened under the rule of th e now abandoned ideology of free trade and the world economic division of labor. Another characteristic sign of how the false so -called global economic interdependence is loosening everywhere is the separation of currencies in all countries, the so -called departure from the gold standard. The monetary circuits, like the other interests of the individual economies, are breaking away from their unnatural international ties and becoming nationalized. In the future, they will communicate with each other only through foreign exchange and gold reserves, without, however, granting them decisive influence on the internal volume of money and credit, as has been the case up to now. Every national economy needs a certain volume of money and credit of its own in order t o be able to perform its work, just as every human body needs a certain volume of blood and juices in order to be able to perform its work and life functions. The measure for this can never be given to it from the outside, but is subject to biological inhe rent law. It is exactly the same with the money and credit cycles of the individual national economies. These, too, must be determined exclusively by their own organic regularity and must not be dependent on the accidentally existing larger or smaller stoc ks of gold or foreign exchange, which merely have the character of additional interstate working capital.

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In conclusion, I would like to point out once again that National Socialism, just as consistently and energetically as it is accustomed to act wi thin the Reich, will also approach the task of ordering foreign trade policy in accordance with its principles, as soon as the time for this is given, which I would like to wish in the interests not only <in Germany> but also of all other peoples, especial ly Hungary. I also have the definite hope that this time will soon come. Germany, in the interest of general pacification and the general safeguarding of conditions, wishes that each country should order its economy in the same way as it is willing to orde r its own internal and external economy, in order to contribute by its consolidation and clarity of structure to the safeguarding of the general welfare of the world.

New foreign trade policy Essay in the "Diplomatenzeitung", issue 80, 28.2.1934.

National Socialist foreign trade policy is the faithful mirror image of National Socialist domestic economic policy. Both are under the same guiding star: public interest before self -interest. Both have the same goal: strengthening and securing the nation. It is therefore inconceivable that foreign trade policy can be conducted according to different principles than domestic economic policy. The latter secures: 1. in its agricultural part, the food freedom of the people and the renewal of their blood through hereditary farm legislation, hereditary health care and market regulation for agricultural products. 2. in its commercial part (crafts, industry, commerce, transport and the associated monetary and credit system), the technical, civilizational, soc ial and the concerns serving economic peace through the "Law on the Order of National Work," and by separating the commercial economy from the previous capitalist market economy for the time being through the setting of minimum prices, associations of merc hants and producers and the numerus clausus. It is true that the decapitalization of the sphere of commercial production, trade and transport is still in its infancy, and its 201

implementation, in contrast to the regulation in the agricultural sphere, will take some time. The reasons for this lie in the complexity of the matter and, above all, in the fact that this is the stronghold of liberalist thinking. In any case, both in the sphere of agriculture and in the sphere of the domestic economy, the liberal istic disorder is being replaced by an organic order, and thus law is being substituted for force. The exchange of services in the domestic economy will again be just everywhere. It may no longer be distorted by the use of force: strike, lockout, monopolis tic or capitalistic measures, as the liberalist worldview allowed. The just price replaces the market price everywhere. The economic value of each good in place of its market value. Through the introduction of the just price, through hereditary health care and socialist labor order, the just, undistorted exchange of services and thus a maximum of productivity and general prosperity in the domestic economy are thus secured everywhere. Thus the internal metabolism of the national economy is brought back to su ch a basis that it guarantees the security and growth of the nation. Honor, freedom, comradeship and achievement take the place of money, price, discord and conceit. According to these principles of its spiritual, national and economic renewal, Germany now also wishes to establish its foreign policy and trade relations with other nations. For this reason, I have repeatedly proclaimed the two basic principles of safety first and fair play as the new immutable principles of Germany's foreign trade policy, and I have also demanded them of my opponents on the other side. For only if foreign trade is managed in such a way, not only for Germany but for every nation, that it increases the security of every national economy and refrains from distorting the exchange of goods and services between nations through value dumping or commodity dumping, can a new pacification of the trade and foreign policy situation occur and a maximum of commodity exchange and thus of world prosperity be achieved again. Because today the f oreign trade policy of the rest of the world is conducted according to the opposite principles, there is today everywhere discord and a minimum of world trade and traffic and thus of the general world prosperity. All conditions have become unstable because after the capitalist -liberalist disorder of things in every nation the merchant was allowed to do with the economy as he thought good. It was assumed that the strengthening and security of each nation would be achieved by maintaining as strong an army and as large a fleet as possible. Since the merchant was not supervised and no limits were set to the 202

freedom of his trade, he valued means of production and goods of production not according to their national economic value, but only according to their m arket value, which fluctuated according to supply and demand, and thus turned everything into commodities. Everything thus became floating, and the foundations of national economies were shifted outside the military and maritime sphere of power of the peop les. The resulting insecurity was then tried to be compensated by increased armaments - but without success. Here, by natural necessity, the same unpeacefulness occurs in the intercourse of the peoples among themselves, as the unpeacefulness within each pe ople became greater and greater, because here, too, by the principle of liberalistic -capitalistic "freedom" everything became a commodity and everything became purchasable: Labor power, land, etc. The social war and the economic war of all against all with in each nation thus finds its faithful mirror image in the foreign trade and foreign political intercourse of all peoples. Just as Germany has guaranteed a new organization of internal peace, new growth and new security of the nation by its fundamental ren unciation of the liberal -capitalist world view, so naturally a new security, a new growth and a new pacification of the foreign trade and the foreign -political intercourse of the peoples can only occur when these also decisively turn away from the liberal -capitalist world view. Signs of this are already appearing in all parts of the world. In Italy and Turkey, as in Germany, they have already taken on a firmer form. This structural change of Germany, brought about by the victory of the National Socialist wo rldview, has also produced a completely new spirit. The spirit of the Third Reich is fundamentally different from that of the First and Second. The spirit of the First Reich was a universalistic and thus imperialistic one. The Holy Roman Empire of the Germ an Nation wanted to found the Kingdom of God on earth. It took its legitimacy from a theocratic idea and thus wanted to subjugate everything to this idea by force territorially. It was the secular parallel of the papacy, which was superior to all nations. The Second Reich: the Bismarck Empire, which was erected after the final breakup of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, had hegemonic tendencies according to its internal structure. Prussia led the empire hegemonically, and this spirit then also ha d an external effect. For a nation's foreign policy and external relations can only ever correspond to its internal structure. They are always only the reflection of its inner being. The Second Reich, the Bismarck Empire, broke down as a result of these internal hegemonic tendencies. 203

The Third Reich, Hitler's Reich, on the other hand, means something completely new. It is not universalistic -imperialistic. It is not hegemonic, but it is völkisch. The völkisch as a basic principle of a nation declares comradeship internally and externally, declares respect for honor, freedom, achievement and security of one's own people, as for any other. The völkische structure knows not only rights, but also equally great duties. Germany grants to every other country the same rights that it claims for itself. It wants the same freedom for every country that it has for itself, and it wants a fair exchange of services, undistorted by violent or fraudulent measures, such as value dumping and dumping of goods, i.e. cheaper sale than their production value, and rejects all financial capitalist maneuvers. It wants for each people the same security in the restocking in foreign trade that it claims for itself, and does not wish to make anyone dependent on it. - The commercial t reaties should and must be concluded in a spirit quite different from that which has hitherto prevailed, where one tried as far as possible to overreach or dupe the other and regarded this as fairness and commercial prowess. Germany desires comradely compl ementarity without touching the national and economic security of its treaty counterparts. When, therefore, Germany sets her sights on the great European task of organizing the continental European economy as her next trade policy objective, of expanding a nd skilfully combining the exchange of goods, initially in continental Europe, through Germany's geographical position as an intermediary, her intention is merely to promote the fair exchange of services, to expand the volume of foreign trade as far as pos sible, initially on the European continent, and to achieve comradely cooperation and complementarity, without, however, making even one of the peoples involved in the continental European exchange dependent on herself or others and thus endangering her nat ional security. Germany today, according to its whole internal structure and its whole attitude of mind, cannot act in any other way. In this spirit of a new comradeship, Germany can and must do the decisive thing for the construction of a continental Euro pean metropolitan economy, which is as indispensable for the new consolidation of the world economy as the ever clearer elaboration of the British Empire, the American bloc and the Chinese -Japanese economic empire. Only on consolidated metropolitan economi es, which in turn as cells of consolidated national economies have as their prerequisite a national structure, can a new world economy - whose foreign trade is greater than the liberal-capitalist one, and more secure and peaceful than the latter rise again. A maximum of world trade and world prosperity as well as 204

world peace can only be achieved by a change of world view in all places. And this is on the march. For what is going on today is a great ideological upheaval, such as occurs perhaps only onc e every five hundred years, and thus gives all vital peoples a new chance for a new upswing and a new flowering.

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Third chapter

Transport policy

Transformations of the world traffic Lecture given at the 1 st Transport Economics Conference on the occasion of the Leipzig Autumn Fair on 28.8.1935. - Published as an essay in the journal "Verkehrstechnische Woche", issue 37 of 1 1.9.1935.

Napoleon I once said, "Two powers rule the world, the sword and the spirit. In the end, however, the spirit will always defeat the sword." - This is a saying that is imperishable like life itself. It places eternal life, the spirit of all things, above every form of its expression and appearance. For every form is transient and doomed to perish when creative life departs from it. The sword or any form of human power, be it the intellect, be it the forms of the economy, the state, culture, art or religion - if they turn against the living life and thus sin - then they will always be overpowered and eradicated by these eternal lords of all things at some time. This self-knowledge of creative life: to be master of all its manifestations - and the belief in the invincibility of life flowing from this realizati on, is also the essence of the National Socialist movement. At a time when in all parts of the world the old forms of life, frozen in intellectuality, are breaking down, National Socialism believes in only one thing: in creative life and in its invincibili ty, and in the fact that eternal life will again and again cause new and better adapted forms to grow in place of those which have been eliminated. He therefore puts all his forces at the service of the living, the eternal life.... To serve life is his sup reme watchword, and nowhere will he be tempted to spare cherished traditions or habits if they stand in the way of the renewal of creative life in any field. We National Socialists are therefore dynamists and not statists and technicians. Nowhere are we te mpted to put form before content. Nowhere do we begin our reforms by first introducing an imaginary form or a form devised on the drawing board in any field of governance, economy, culture or art, but we first renew the content in every sphere of national life. The renewal of the content always precedes the formation of the new form. - Thus our National Socialist movement is a part of creative nature itself, and therefore our great leader also acts like it, solely according to its dimensions and according t o its logic. For the intellectualist, for those who are attached to the mechanics of the past epoch, this is the reason for the incomprehensibility, the irrationality of 207

the National Socialist movement - which places the spirit above every form. It first renews the spirit, the content, in order to let the new forms of life grow out of this inner renewal. Therefore, my fellow Germans and my friends from abroad, you will fi nd that every real National Socialist sees all things differently and treats every task that is set before him differently than the routiniers and the technicians of a past epoch see them and treat them. These are in fact in the majority people who have pa ssed their technician exams, and often with the best grades, in the mastery of the mechanics of life forms which today are doomed. Therefore, even these often very capable people can only help us a little. For today we are facing a total rebuilding of the world. A renewal of all things out of the spirit, out of the depth of creative life. Today new forms of life are growing everywhere and with them a new mechanics of their control, for which the examinations and the ability of the machinists of the former a pparatus are no longer sufficient. It does not matter whether they are money theorists of the old system or theorists of the former state leadership, art, economy, etc.. They all are and must be today adversaries of the new spirit and of the renewal movements all over the world. The reasons they give for the structural changes of the world in all fields are incorrect, and so are the conclusions they draw from them. For they believe in a return of never -recurring conditions. It is often very amusing to obser ve how these routiniers and technicians of a bygone epoch call us heralds of the new spirit phantasists, utopians, romantics or, what is worst in their eyes: call them theorists. In reality, however, they are the romantics; for they believe in the return of an epoch that has finally been overcome. In reality, they are the theorists because they believe that they can master the emerging new order of things with the tools and technology of a sunken age. Even today's fundamental changes in world traffic and th eir causes are therefore seen and interpreted differently by us National Socialists than by the theorists, who in the earlier period passed their testimony with an "a" and now believe that they can, with a raised forefinger, give the renewing spirit of all things a wise code of conduct. The same applies to the changes of the monetary traffic, the movement of goods of the art and the culture. And because the new forms of the renewed life in every nation are not yet visible in many cases or are only in the te nderest beginnings of their formation - that is why today we everywhere put the fundamental, the educational aspects of a healthy, natural growth and of the new attitude before everything else. That is why we declare that the nationhood must 208

go before the economy and that the flag, i.e. the honor, must go before the monetary thinking. The intuitive wisdom of the people, however, feels in the proclamation of these principles the renewal of its innermost, eternal life and growth, the rebirth of all its ir rational forces. Thus the leader of the eternal Germany, Adolf Hitler, shows those who formerly called him the greatest fantasist and most unrealistic man, with every day anew that he is the greatest real politician in every field, because he tackles and renews all things from the ideological side and thus gives them a new value. What did the former world traffic look like? In what condition is it today? And what new goals is it striving for? Traffic, no matter whether it is domestic or interstate traffic, is not an independent quantity. Just as money only makes sense as a bridging loan in the internal or interstate exchange of services and immediately becomes nonsense when it emancipates itself from this serving role, becomes independent and thus becomes ca pitalism - in exactly the same way traffic loses its natural sense when it does not remain the material carrier of the exchange of services within a people or between states, but ascribes to itself an autonomy which does not belong to it. Money degenerated to an end in itself (capitalism) and traffic degenerated to an end in itself (traffic economy) become barren and thus finally destroy themselves. Just as money cannot and must not be used to control the economy, i.e. the entire exchange of services, neith er can it be used to control traffic. If one is a productive head in terms of world outlook, i.e. if one has the intuitive natural wisdom to foresee future developments, one can go ahead with traffic in order to prepare an effective birth for new ways of traffic and thus for the expansion of production and trade. But traffic is never, any more than money, an organ with which one may control the productive forces oneself. Advance payments for future expansions of production through the use of savings or thr ough the anticipation of credit find their parallel processes in the field of transport. Here, too, an expansion of the exchange of services in the domestic as well as in the foreign economy of the peoples can be promoted by anticipatory transport expansio n or redistribution. Under the protectorate of the English fleet and the English pound, an international division of labor, the so -called "world economy," had developed in the last hundred and fifty years before the World War, and with it a free movement o f money and goods which more or less dissolved 209

the sovereignty, the independence of national economies everywhere and degraded them to sectors of an international division of labor. For the national economies were thus alienated from their most audible national task, the economic conscription, which consists in defending and promoting the vital and growth forces of their peoples by economic means. This economic conscription, concretely speaking, has the task of seeing to it that the iron ration of food for men and cattle, and the iron ration of industrial raw materials, which protect a people from capitulation in the event of trade boycotts and blockades, are produced within each national economy itself. For the independence of a people depends not only on its military strength but, in the totality of contemporary warfare, just as much on its economic self -sufficiency. This original and natural sovereignty of most of the national economies involved in world trade and traffic was, however, as already mentioned, more or less destroyed by their unconditional connection to the so -called world economy. Only England, which before the world war ruled all the access routes of the world with its fleet, could afford this economic management: maximum private -sector capital accumulation alongside absolute security of its empire. For no one could cut off England's supplies from this international division of labor, which exhausted all the possibilities of the world. It allowed England to buy wherever it was cheapest in the world and to sell wherever the greatest private economic benefit beckoned. Only for England were the power -political foundations for this economic management, the free trade system and the international division of labor, in place before the war. All other nations, if they conducted their economies in the same way, had to lose more or less their political freedom of action. It was not England's fault, however, that this happened; rather, the main cause of this development was the instinctlessness o f professorial scholarship, which placed intellectual logic above the natural logic of things, believing that it could construct an economic theory suitable for all peoples, namely the theory of free trade and the international division of labor. Thus, through this false doctrine, in which Jewish monetary thinking was able to develop its corrosive influence, not only was the political freedom of action of the peoples more or less undermined, but also the social peace within the peoples was destroyed. For th is economic management, immoral from the point of view of the preservation and promotion of the nation, necessarily entailed social injustice and disunity within the peoples. Money, a form of human power, was thus placed above living life, not only in the external but also in the internal economy. Economy was considered more than securing and preserving the 210

nationhood, money more than national security and thus national honor. Thus Jewish capitalism, i.e. capital degenerated into an end in itself, was followed as its inevitable shadow by the equally unnatural Jewish socialism, Marxism. On the other hand, the natural socialism, the people's community - is soldier socialism. It means social harmony inwardly and military community outwardly. - Thus, Jewish monetary thinking not only weakened the national nationhood outwardly by separating the economy from the natural military community of nations, but also inwardly by decomposing it into economic fighting associations, interest groups and the like. Thus, instead of reasonably restricting the freedom of economy, i.e. the free movement of money and goods, where they endangered the freedom of peoples, before the world war, one tried to restore to all peoples the food and raw material ration which had slipped out of their sphere of power, by reinforcing army and fleet in order to secure the supplies. So, in reality, this "Free Economy", which according to the opinion of the intellectuals was supposed to prepare the general world peace, was the most unpeaceful the world had ever seen. And further: by destroying the natural defensibility of the national economies externally, and thus at the same time undermining social peace internally, it also destroyed the foundations of any natural world economy itself, which can only ever rest as a roof on sovereign national economies. It was forgotten that the freedom and honor of the individual as well as of the peoples must always be bought and fought for anew by sacrifice and renunciation, that the highest goal is not the grea test conceivable economic efficiency, but the safeguarding and promotion of the folk forces of the nations. That also for the economist the soldierly slogan and attitude applies: first the service and then the merit. Now, when England, after the war, was confronted with three strong foreign fleets, she, following her common sense and instinct, and without establishing profound theories, simply threw overboard the principle of free trade, which had hitherto been proclaimed as an irrefutable truth, and with i t the principle of the international division of labor and the free movement of money and goods, and confined this economic method only to her empire, the extent and division of labor of which she could safely protect with her naval and military power. The free trade was opposed by the new British discipline, the Ottawa policy, i.e. in a new form the conscription of the economy was declared! - The remaining parts of the world were left to themselves, and these now have no other choice than to transform them selves again into 211

genuine, i.e. independent national economies and, as far as this is possible, to unite again through large -scale economies for a new world trade which does not touch the independence of the individual national economies. We therefore have to draw two conclusions from these processes: 1. That there are no economic theories of economic construction and management valid for all peoples at all. We thus consciously oppose the teachings of the economic sciences of the last hundred years. We maintain that every nation must manage and form its economy in accordance with its national and national -political needs, in accordance with its own laws, and that only after fulfilling these preliminary duties - which must be done without regard to higher or lower monetary yield - can every nation create for itself the most economical method of operation, but it must also create it. That is to say, that not the economic method that brings the highest monetary yield has priority in all cases, but that the securing and promotion of the national economic independence stands in the first place. If this results in a different standard of living in the individual economies, it can and must be compensated for by increased work performance or better technical organization. 2. That the sovereignty thus established, the independence of national economies, will be the immovable foundation of all future world economic cooperation, and that only then, when this renewal of the natural sense of all economic activity has ag ain become common property in the world, can a new, more consolidated, more peaceful and far more extensive world economy, like the collapsed one, come into being, because it will then be supported by a natural, decent spirit and attitude and no longer by international monetary thinking. The changes in the power -political and intellectual structure of interstate relations described above, in addition to the political debt entanglement, which also resulted only from the wrong mindset of the former world economy, in which it was believed that money was an independent quantity, have led as an inevitable consequence to today's trade barriers and currency chaos. These are therefore transitional phenomena, ultimately caused by the change of mindset, the organizati onal principles in the world economy. They are therefore only the consequence of the fundamental structural changes in the world economy and not their cause, as they are always put forward by the liberalists, whose ideological 212

insight is not sufficient . Here again the eternally strict ones confuse cause and effect and are therefore blind guides for the blind. It goes without saying that these structural changes, which cannot be reversed, have also brought about a complete change in domestic and international traffic and must continue to do so. You, my fellow Germans, and my friends from abroad, can most easily understand these changes by the following traffic picture: The former world economy was, so to speak, a uniform mechanism, a supranational power, directed by the free -flowing international capital, which always turned to where it could make the most money, without regard to the national and political necessities of the individual peoples. The exchange of services, the movement of goods, was directed in the same way by this monetary domination, so that traffic, as the material carrier of the exchange of services, had to run along the same lines. In the course of time, therefore, certain traffic routes were established within the national economies, as well as in interstate traffic, which finally formed the backbone of a certain traffic economy which became more and more independent. The latter was embodied, visible to all eyes, in a network of freight and passenger lines spanning the entire world. The figures of international traffic grew from year to year, as can be seen from all trade statistics. In some cases, they grew proportionally more than domestic traffic in individual economies. The reason is very simple, because supranational traffic was give n more and more priority over national economic necessities, in accordance with the overall attitude of the former world economy. Now that the structural changes in power politics described above and the emergence of the principle of national organization, i.e. the birth of national personalities, have brought about a change, a fundamental renewal, also in the spiritual attitude of the world economy, it goes without saying that transport must also adapt to this structural change. How can this happen? Just a s you cannot build a house from the roof, you cannot build the new world economy, the new world traffic from the outdated, Jewish -international ideologies, as the eternal establishmentists try again and again. Therefore they promise themselves from international monetary, economic and traffic conferences etc., at which all concerns of the peoples are put all at once and at the same time on the table of the house, at which all notes are to be played at the same time - the reconstruction of world trade and tr affic. A futile effort! Only from the foundations, the independent national economies, through the spiritual renewal of the content, can a new world economic edifice be 213

erected. In practice, this can only be done by first of all concluding agreements from country to country in trade, monetary and transport policy in the new spirit. - The previous trade agreements must therefore be consciously supplemented by monetary agreements which serve first of all to stabilize the currencies and thus to restore the fair exchange of services from national economy to national economy. The same has to be done with the regulation of transport. Of course, all bilateral or multilateral agreements must always be formed with a view to the new interstate trade and transport edifice to be built. However, this will never again be given precedence over the national economies, but will always be their useful complement. That this building therefore need not be smaller, but will be more extensive and far more consolidated and peaceful, I would like to emphasize again. The old world mechanism is thus torn apart. But before the national economies have regained their inner equilibrium after their release, they first enter a period of fluctuations. The circuits of production and consumption, of money and credit, of trade and transport within each economy will and must oscillate back and forth until the point is found which guarantees to each economy a maximum of employment, a minimum of unemployment, a just wage for each activity, and a truly stable currency, that is, a just exchange of services within. In other words, a new stability and social harmony that can be shaken as little as possible from the world economic side. That is why the unshakable preservation of the purchasing power o f the mark within the German economy is the Archimedean point of the entire new German economic construction. Only from this point on does it become quite obvious why the purchasing power of the mark must be ironcladly preserved within the German economy and must not be abused for any currency experiments. - How the currency keys of the individual national economies will look to the outside world and how they will be readjusted among themselves, no one can foresee today and will only be ascertainable when t he other national economies have found their internal equilibrium in the same way; in the meantime, until the final stabilization of the "individual national economies, the interstate currency, trade and transport relations. will remain and must remain uns table. But one thing can already be seen today, namely, that as a result of the change in the organizational principle the conditions in the future world economy will be more mobile and more unstable than in the former rigid mechanical world economic system. Here, too, there will be a complete reversal of the usual 214

conditions, a revaluation of all values. In the past, the world economic mechanism was was relatively stable, while the national economies, as subordinate links, were unstable, precisely for the sake of the stability of the "superordinate" world economy. Now the opposite occurs. The increased future stability of the national economies - in which man and labor again form the immovable axis around which everything has to revolve, whereas in former times man and labor had to revolve around the world economic axis, the stability of the international money price - causes an increased instability of interstate trade and traffic. And accordingly, the previous too large, rigid freight line service of maritime traffic must in any case be replaced on a large scale in the coming decades by mobile tramp shipping, in order to be able to move the interstate freight traffic, which changes in type and direction, in a rational manner. When, in 1931/32, I pointe d out this necessary reorganization of maritime traffic and demanded, among other things, that the mammoth shipping groups should be decentralized again, that the individual shipping companies should become independent again and, above all, that the existing freight line service should be reduced by about 40% because of the expected permanent future unprofitability and that first class tramp ships should be built in its place in order to be able to follow the future structural changes in world trade quickly and at any time - I was declared to be an economic neo -pagan. The old unprofitable freight lines were stubbornly continued in the hope, which still today causes almost all economic and transport theorists to make their wrong assumptions, namely that the f ormer world economic mechanism would return and one day function "normally" again. In the meantime, however, even our shipping experts have been taught better by the inevitable development in world traffic and, following the better insight of the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Transport and the leader of German shipping, have now turned their traffic apparatus in the direction of the new forms of traffic. Necessity teaches prayer! The following figures may show you how the structure of the merchant fleets of the most important seafaring countries was forcibly changed by the incipient upheaval in the world economy: The lay -up quotas in 1932, when no special measures (subsidized scrapping, currency devaluation, current subsidies, etc.) had yet brought a bout an artificial shift, gave the following picture: 215

Germany, with a whopping 81% liner tonnage, had a lay -up rate of 36% of its fleet, while the average lay -up rate of the world tonnage was only about 20%. So it stands out far above the average. Similarly, America, which also had far too many liners and tankers in its total tonnage, had the next highest lay -up rate of about 32% of its tonnage. This was followed by France, for the same reason, with a lay-up rate of about 30%. In contrast, the other merchant fleets, whose ratio of tramp vessels to liners was more favorable, and which were mostly tramp vessels, had a lay -up rate of only 10 to 17%, below the world average of 20%. Finally, I would like to mention one more thing, namely that the contract ion of interstate trade, to which reference is always made, is not a measure of the contraction of world production. The increase in production in the domestic economy of most countries is reflected in increased domestic traffic, so that in reality a consi derable part of the contraction of world traffic is due to a redistribution of traffic. The shrinkage of total traffic is therefore not as strong as it appears at first glance. The fact that domestic traffic will also have to be oriented to other stars in the future, as it was before the war, requires no further explanation after my previous remarks. And that only on such newly oriented and consolidated internal traffic of the national economies can a new extensive interstate traffic be rebuilt, also follow s. The great revaluation of all values, which we are witnessing today, means, mathematically speaking, today a swing by an angle of 180 degrees. For Germany and a large part of continental Europe, therefore, a turning of its face from the West, toward which it was directed for four hundred years, to the East. That these enormous structural changes in the German national economy and in interstate trade and traffic cannot be carried out overnight, and that only one task after another can be tackled in the Nat ional Socialist spirit, is unfortunately often overlooked. The manifold economic obstacles and hardships which we are witnessing and which we are all feeling in our own bodies are, however, only due to the transitional period in which we are living. What w e see today in Germany in the new economic structure is naturally only the beginning of a National Socialist reorganization. - Unwaveringly, the leader of the eternal Germany holds the course to the goal once envisaged and proclaimed by him. Unshakable, th erefore, is our faith in the happier future, which will enable us to endure all the inevitable adversities of the transitional period. Our faith has moved mountains and will continue to do so in the future. 216

The change in direction of the German transpo rt industry Essay in the journal "Verkehrstechnische Woche", issue 42 -44 of 14.10.1936.

Whereas the purpose of the first Four -Year Plan was to eliminate unemployment and to give the German agricultural economy a völkisch wehr attitude, the purpose of the second Four-Year Plan is now to transfer this structural transformation to the industrial economy. The German economy as a whole is thus no longer to chase after capitalist "profitability" without regard for the security and promotion of the vital and growth forces of the people, but is to secure and promote first and foremost the honor and independence of the people by economic means. Thus first the military service and then the economic duty! It is self evident that this has to be done in the most econom ical way in the agricultural sector as well as in the industrial sector. It is equally self evident that the economy in both the agricultural and the industrial sectors should and must remain productive, despite this change of heart. And it will. Indeed, i t is only now becoming so in the last and deepest sense. For the final result of this structural change, from a mercantile to a defensive attitude, amounts to an increase, enhancement and safeguarding of the völkisch life and growth forces'. And from this, an increased productivity of the transformed economy results all by itself. For true profitability, i.e. real wealth, real surplus economy, does not have as its original source any understandingly sophisticated capital or labor management, but always only a real increase of the irrational life and growth forces of the people. Only the irrational unity of the German national community created by Adolf Hitler, which embodies itself as a community of defense on the outside and social harmony on the inside, pr events the individual national forces from dispersing and causes them to increase in the closed association of the nation in such a way that the "miracle" of the increase in performance arises from it, which can never be comprehended by the rationalists an d the capitalistically thinking "economists". For this summing up of all individual forces into an irrational national unity not only adds them up in their achievements, but multiplies them. If today, in the second Four -Year Plan, the Fuehrer demands this change of attitude and the associated völkischwehr -like attitude and increase in performance in the industrial economy as well - then it is self -evident that with these shifts in the agricultural and industrial economy a 217

corresponding shift in the atti tude and form of the transport economy must also go hand in hand. After all, transport is basically the main means of redistributing the economic forces in the German area and maintaining them in this organic, militant national and regional order. The resulting National Socialist transport policy raises three demands: 1. Sharpest summary of all means of transport: railroads, cars, inland waterways and sea transport for uniform use. # 2. Adjustment of the tariff policy to the demands of the völkisch wehr economic construction. 3. Change of direction of the traffic front from the west to the east. During the first period of the German Ostraum policy, approximately from the year 1000 to the year 1500, the economic and traffic front as well as the whole people's front was directed with the eyes to the East. The southeastern region and the Baltic Sea area were the main gateways of the German traffic, which carried the völkisch built Hanseatic economy with the German people to the European East. Ethnic tran sport and economic front were uniformly directed there under the first great Saxon emperors as well as Henry the Lion, the Hanseatic League. The Elbe was the German river that flowed through the middle of the German area and thus through the German destiny . The discovery of America and the sea route to India and the subsequent four hundred years of exploitation of the three newly discovered continents: America, Australia and Africa - by Europe - which proudly called itself "world economy*, and which found i ts final end with the World War - then turned the face of German foreign, economic, trade and transport policy from the East to the West. This four hundred year period of German and European Western policy alienated Germany from its own and its European ta sk. It emptied the German East of German trade and traffic, German people and German spirit. It massaged all German national power, especially also the commercial economy and the traffic system in the West. This artificial and unnatural massing of German people power in the West also distorted the natural traffic structure of Germany. The traffic front was unilaterally directed to the West for four hundred years. Traffic to the southeast and the Baltic region was neglected, as was the entire economic develo pment to the east. The German Eastern policy, renewed by Adolf Hitler out of the nationalization, is now turning German foreign, economic and trade policy back from the West to the East with irresistible force. This means that the transport front must also turn its face back from the West to the 218

East. Transport policy must not merely follow the backflow of German national and economic substance from the West to the East, in order to support a better völkisch -wehr distribution and resettlement, above all of the industrial economy that has unnaturally accumulated in the West, but must precede it by planning! The drive to the West and the transportation plans that grew out of it before the war and the seizure of power must therefore be thoroughly revised to day and in part subjected to a change of direction. Accordingly, financial policy must also make a shift in the allocation of budget funds for these transportation plans. Furthermore, traffic to the east, both to the southeastern region and to the North Sea area of Germany, must be promoted more than it has been up to now, in contrast to traffic to the west, which today is carried out to far too great an extent via foreign ports. The tariff policy of both the Reichsbahn and the inland waterways must also be changed. It is unacceptable that today many millions of tons of German goods a year, even more than in 1913, are imported and exported via foreign western ports instead of via Hamburg and Bremen. Not only is the German foreign exchange balance considerabl y burdened by this western traffic, which is uneconomical for the German national economy, but the difficulties of Hamburg and Bremen, which are already deprived of a considerable volume of traffic in the west by the eastward turn of Germany's overall policy and the structural change of the previous "world economy" described above, suffer more than is necessary from this wrong traffic flow. It is imperative that this overflowing flow of German goods be redirected, if possible, via the German North Sea ports by means of retariffing, starting with at least ten to thirteen million tons per year, which represent the increase in traffic at the foreign North Sea ports compared with 1933, and which are due solely to the job creation measures within Germany. From t he point of view of the national economy, there is no reason at all why this increase in traffic, which has been achieved at the sacrifice of the entire nation, should not be directed first to the German North Sea ports. This alone would save about fifty t o sixty million Reichsmarks in foreign exchange annually. Private capitalist interests must be subordinated to economic necessities. Since this has not been the case so far, Bremen and Hamburg have again attempted to take advantage of the Baltic Sea traffi c, which does not belong to them organically, by using a tariff system for the Kiel Canal, which is also inappropriate from a national economic point of view, and by using private cartelization of sea freight for general cargoes etc. between German and foreign shipping companies in the Baltic Sea, which is not justifiable from an economic point of view, to draw a considerable part 219

of the Baltic Sea traffic away from the German Baltic Sea ports and artificially shift it to the North Sea. Here again, the foreign exchange balance is considerably burdened by the fact that the more favorable transport geographic location of the German Baltic ports, which would claim lower foreign exchange expenditures for sea transports in the Baltic Sea and the Baltic States , cannot take effect. It is about two and a half to three million tons per year. This transfer is as important for the Baltic ports as the ten to thirteen million tons for the German North Sea ports. Thus, the German traffic structure is still distorted fr om the East to the West. German North Sea ports are taking traffic from the Baltic Sea that does not organically belong to them, at a loss of foreign exchange for the economy as a whole and weakening the German traffic base in the Baltic Sea. In return, fo reign ports in the West take a multiple of German North Sea traffic, also at great loss to the German foreign exchange balance and unnecessarily weakening the traffic base of German North Sea ports. Only a thorough reorganization of tariff policy can bring about change here. This is not the place to discuss in detail the support to be given to the increased consumption of German raw materials by transport policy. However, it should go without saying that here, too, tariff policy must not be guided by the pu rely commercial point of view of individual transactions or the competition between the various means of transport. Nor is it possible here to discuss in detail the task of the new German transport policy in terms of increasing the supply of foodstuffs and raw materials that are important for Germany and are needed for its own production program in the agricultural and industrial sectors. Here, National Socialist transport policy has the task of helping to secure the German standard of living. All these new tasks, which arise for the German transport industry and policy during its conversion from a liberalistic to a national -socialist, i.e. völkischwehr-like, one, can only be solved from an overall view of the transport industry. But even then this will not only result in increased overall profitability, but at the same time also in a tremendous increase in the performance and security of the entire national economy, and from this, in turn, in an increased economic efficiency of the overall transport economy, which, however, must in any case be seen as a whole, and as an integral part of the German national economy, which in the first place has to defend the honor and freedom of the people.

220

The idea of transport in the Central European area Second part of the lecture given at the Tr ansport Economics Conference on the occasion of the Leipzi g Autumn Fair on September 4, 1937 - published as an article in the jour nal "Verkehrstechnische Woche", issue 40, volume 193 7.

It is the inescapable fat e of continental Europe to have to engage above all and again in trade and commerce with the East. This means that for the development of the life and growth forces of the Central and Eastern European peoples, new possibilities must be found again and agai n through peaceful confrontation and new cooperation with the peoples of the Russian and Asian regions. For continental Europe, seemingly only a small peninsula of the great Asian continent, but populated with creative humanity, must therefore repeatedly - whether it wants to or not - deal with Asia in terms of economic and cultural policy. The natural complementary and thus living space for the peoples of continental Europe is and remains the Asian region. This confrontation of the peoples of continental Europe with those of the Asian region, which has been renewed again and again in great historical rhythms, has been interrupted in the last four hundred years by the opening up of America and the sea route to India. For four hundred years continental Europe has been trying to gain in the newly discovered parts of the world the supplementary and living space necessary for its population growth and the increase of its standard of living. Of the European peoples, only England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and, more recently, Italy have succeeded in creating for themselves, outside Europe, in the newly discovered continents and in the distant West and East, the supplementary space necessary for the development of their vital and growth forces. The o ther peoples of continental or, more precisely, central, northern and eastern Europe, on the other hand, can no longer find room for their surplus population in the overseas west, south and east. For no matter whether these continents have in the meantime become independent, like the USA and the states of Central and South America, or whether they are components of the world -spanning colonial empires of France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium or of the British Empire, which is not a colonial empire in th e Romanesque sense, but a confederation of states built on the idea of leadership - in any case these continental areas are now fundamentally closed to the unrestricted immigration of the Central, Eastern and Northern European surplus population. 221

This development, which had already become noticeable decades before the World War, became decisive for a long time after 1918. From that time on, the peoples of Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, i.e. from Scandinavia to Turkey, turned more and more to the East. They had no other choice. Therefore, the interest in the East, i.e. the attempt to re establish an appropriate and more advantageous relationship than in the last centuries with the Asiatic continent, and thus first of all with the Russian-Siberian area - even if only recognized by a few - is today the common question of life and destiny of all these peoples, which rises enormously before them and demands fulfillment. If now, in order to cowardly evade these demands of the law of life, incorrigible in tellectualists recommend again and again that the number of children of the peoples of Europe, who are suffering from a lack of space, should be voluntarily limited, then this means in reality the recommendation of their downfall, their national suicide. F or nature knows no standstill, but always only progress or regression, life or death. Standstill is something only apparent. In reality, standstill is always only the beginning of regression - in this case of the death of the people. Since, therefore, ther e are no longer any new opportunities for the overseas development of the colonless peoples of continental Europe for the increase of their standard of living and their natural population growth, the economic, trade and transport policy of all these contin ental European peoples will inevitably have to take a turn from the West to the East in time, in order to create new space for their life and growth forces by peaceful exploitation of possibilities hitherto unused or neglected as a result of a one -sided Western policy. This uniform orientation of the North, Central and East European peoples towards the Russian -Asian area, which is conditioned by the same necessities of life and the same destiny, is now opposed by an enemy common to all these peoples: Jewish Central Asian Bolshevism. It alone makes a natural and reasonable balance between Central and Eastern Europe and the Russian -Asian area impossible to the detriment of both parts. For without the ominous intervention of Bolshevism and its Jewish spokesmen, a new peaceful cooperation serving the welfare of all would be possible at any time, and with it a strengthening of all the vital and growth forces and of the prosperity of the peoples of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe as well as of the Russian -Asian area. For it must be hammered into the European consciousness again and again that, for reasons of race and space, in a decisive way it is not the overseas South, West and East that is the natural complementary space for Central and Eastern Europe, but t he RussianAsian one. - We now know from history that from time to time hordes and 222

armies set out from the innermost desert regions of Asia, which, because they also carried this desert spiritually within them, threatened to devastate not only the cult ural peoples of Asia, but also the whole of continental Europe. In any case, the material and spiritual devastation of Eastern and Central Europe could only be averted by the united efforts of the continental European peoples, especially those of Central a nd Eastern Europe. Today, Bolshevism is the storm breaking again from the depths of Asiatic deserts, which threatens to destroy first of all the peoples of continental Europe and, beyond that, the other parts of the world spiritually and materially. And who everywhere in the world calls to his allies people, and also finds them, whose original völkisch life has been destroyed by blood mixture or the domination of the intellect alienated from the homeland. Jewish Bolshevism, the desert storm of our time, whi ch seeks to create its material armament in the Red Army in order to devastate Europe and the cultural peoples of the Far East in a brutal fury of destruction. The prophetic word of Nietzsche: "Woe to him who carries deserts within him" finds its most terr ible historical expression in Bolshevism. The peoples of Central and Eastern Europe are thus today exposed to a twofold need, a twofold pressure: from the West they are pressed by the impossibility of transferring their surplus population to the West. A va lve, which was open for four hundred years and let the excess pressure flow out, was closed. And from the East the Bolshevism presses spiritually and materially. In the West, the new barriers are due to space and race, that is, to natural history. In the E ast, on the other hand, an unnatural artificial political system blocks the way for their natural life and growth forces, which are directed towards a new increased cooperation with the peoples of the Russian -Asian area. Now, as long as this system has not perished from its own barrenness, from its unreasonableness of life, there is nothing left for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe but first of all to give their forces of life and growth new possibilities of development within their present space b y increased cooperation. They must therefore come to each other's aid with all the forces of their people and their soil and complement each other. But such a mutual increase of life is possible only if the source of these vital forces: nation and soil, ra ce and space remain untouched. If, therefore, force is not used from either side in an active or passive sense, i.e. by forcing or refusing increased cooperation. Only on the basis of a comradely union of all its forces, preserving the national, state, eco nomic and cultural inviolability, can a new continental European economic and 223

cultural community be established: A community which will not only give the continental European peoples, but especially those of Central and Eastern Europe, sufficient scope for the development of their natural powers of life and growth for this century, but will also form an insurmountable wall for Bolshevism, a basis from which, when one day the desert has to retreat upon itself again, the Russian -Asian area can also be fertilized anew. On the whole, therefore, the continental European economic, traffic and cultural cycle - the Hanseatic - which carried continental Europe before the opening up of America and the sea route to India, and which had produced the most beautiful f lowering of European culture so far from the year 1100 to 1500, must be restored. This cycle, which extended from the Black Sea over the Danube, the Main, the Rhine, Flanders, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Ladoga Sea and was led by the Low German, the Hanseatic North. Of course, it must be taken into account here that today England, France, Italy, and to some extent also the Netherlands and Belgium, are less interested in the re -establishment of this continental European economic and cultural cycle due to their ties to their colonial empires and the British Confederation. However, the more interested in the re establishment of this traffic cycle are, besides Germany, the partly newly created states of Northern, Eastern and Central Europe. If they are no t always aware of this path today, because they still lack the historical sense due to their state youth, necessity will lead them more and more to this insight. Necessity teaches to pray! It is not the task of this lecture to point out the individual meas ures of traffic policy and traffic engineering which serve to re -establish the continental European traffic circuit, which does not intersect the traffic lines of the Mediterranean or the North Sea and the Atlantic, in the integrity of which the colonial p eoples of Europe are preferably interested. The logical implementation of the continental European traffic circuit will inevitably reduce the illogical interference of certain Western European peoples in the vital needs and necessities of the Central European ones. This is rather the task of transport specialists and economists, and certainly not least of the practical economy. To give content and form to this Central European idea of transport, which is becoming more and more established and is oriented to wards the East. To unite the living life of the colonless peoples of continental Europe in a new effort and a new flowering with the orientation towards the East via the Southeast region and the Baltic Sea area. 224

The new traffic picture of Europe, then, put on broad lines and greatly simplified, presents itself as two circuits: one is the one just described, in which the eastward -oriented colonyless peoples of Europe are interested, and the other is based on the traffic routes of the Mediterranean, the N orth Sea and the Atlantic, in the integrity of which, in turn, the colony-owning peoples of southern and western Europe are particularly interested. These are two traffic circuits which do not interfere and overlap in any way, if the present colonyless and the colonyowning peoples of Europe take due account of their main interests directed eastward and westward. The transport industry and science have an eminent political task to consciously support this new transport structure of continental Europe, which is developing by natural necessity due to its geopolitical and national political destiny, in order to help Europe out of the chaos of the previous liberal transport economy and to promote the life and growth forces of its peoples in the right way by means of transport policy. Pioneering services in the truest sense of the word have Germany has already done pioneering work for this development through the economic development of the southeastern region, which it has promoted since 1933, and the transport a nd trade policy in the Baltic region, which today results from the same geopolitical necessities. This much -maligned and misunderstood German attitude, which in reality is directed only to the natural balancing of the peoples oriented preferably to the Wes t or to the East, in order to gather and strengthen the vital and growth forces of all European peoples, so that Europe becomes Europe again and can assert itself honorably and vigorously among the other newly created transoceanic large -scale entities. Living and terrestrial spaces which it has strengthened with its best popular and economic forces in the last four hundred years and which today do not take into account continental Europe, the original source of their strength: the Pan -American idea, the Ottawa policy, the French colonial empire and the Japanese -Chinese area in the making. This new German policy, oriented toward the European continent, proclaims: Europe to theEuropeans! It only proclaims and embodies again the just and natural will of self -assertion of Europe. It has nothing whatsoever to do with imperialism. To characterize this policy, let me conclude with the words of the Führer: "We cling to our own nationality with boundless love and loyalty. But we also respect the national rights of oth er peoples out of this same sentiment. Therefore, we do not know the concept of Germanizing. The mentality of the past century, which believed 225

that it might be possible to make Germans out of Poles or Frenchmen, is just as foreign to us as we passionately oppose the opposite attempt. We see the European nations around us as given facts. French, Polish and the other peoples are our neighboring peoples, and we know that no historically conceivable process could change this reality."

226

Fourth chapter

New financial and credit policy

Nature and Limits of Productive Credit Creation Essay in the 1st special issue 1932 of the journal "Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft".

A theory of productive credit creation or, better, of the pre -creation of productive credit does not yet exist. Here an attempt to do so shall be made, because to create clarity and insight into the mechanics of productive credit creation is today a compelling economic necessity. The present transition from free market economy to tied space economy in all parts of the world demands that the half -light which still lies over one of the most important processes of the national economy, namely the fruitful creation of credit, be brightened up today. Just as the money and credit system as a whole can no longer be left to itself or to be treated according to a few rough rules of thumb, but must be consciously released from its present isolation, into which it has fallen due to the rule of these rough rules of thumb, and organically reintegrated into the national economic organism as a carrier of the economic turnover of goods, so too the important process of credit creation cannot remain unexplained and continue to be operated according to a fe w rough rules. These rules are no longer sufficient today, because the complete reorganization of the national economies and their structural changes require more than the knowledge of some external characteristics. The relaunch of the German economic appa ratus, which has come to a standstill by almost 50 %, and its reconstruction require that in the circles of the future responsible leaders of the German economy one is completely clear about the inner mechanics of fruitful credit creation. For the productive creation of credit is the most important regulator which controls the pulse rate, i.e. the circulation speed of the existing real resources, in such a way that only the creation of sufficient new goods, and thus the expansion of the production and consu mption process in accordance with the respective state of the economy, is made possible. A remark about the nature of money and credit for clarification in advance. Every national economy needs for the operation or for the rearrangement of its material assets, which are in reality all together only means of production, like houses, ships, farms, machines etc., the means of production. - the means of production. These resources are divided into 228

two types: the visible and the invisible. The visible ones, in a way the cash of the national economy, are the money signs (gold, silver, paper). They serve the daily traffic and the peak balance and possess consequently a high circulation speed. The far more extensive, the invisible resources are the credits , the book money. They are the real resources of the national economy; their circulation speed, however, is far lower. For example, the total volume of working capital of the German economy in 1913 consisted of about 125 billion, namely about 5 billion vis ible working capital, monetary tokens (gold, silver, paper) and 120 billion invisible working capital, long - and short-term credits. And these latter again broke down into 100 billion long credits and 20 billion short credits. So, the most important econom ic resources are credits, and not the much smaller quantity of monetary tokens. The correct functioning of the economic apparatus depends above all on the sufficient quantity and the correct speed of circulation of each of the two resources. One can think of these things in this way: Money tokens are the blood in the national economy. Their quantity is relatively small and their circulation speed is high. The short - and long-term credits, the book money or money on account, on the other hand, are comparable to the juices, which represent a much larger quantity than the blood, but have a much lower circulation speed. The means of production, the material assets, finally, correspond to the solid body substance. Just as blood and juices in the human body have a common property which clearly distinguishes them from the solid body substance, namely that both are liquid, although they are essentially different from each other in their functions, their circulation speed and quantity - so also the visible economic resources, the monetary tokens (gold, silver, paper), have one thing in common with the invisible resources, the actual credits: that they are both liquid capital and thus clearly distinguish themselves from the solid capital of the material assets, the mean s of production. - The comparison goes even further. Just as little as the solid bodily substance: flesh, teeth, bones, horn, skin, etc., can ever be transformed back into juices or blood, although they have emerged from the blood and juices, just as little can the tangible assets, the means of production, of a national economy be transformed back again into working capital, i.e., long- or short-term credits or money tokens, although they have emerged from them. The transformation of blood or juices into so lid body substance is not a reversible process. Neither is the reconversion of solidified capital into liquid one possible. For this reason all the theories are wrong, which appear again and again in times of need like the present 229

and which attempt to transform the existing material assets of the German economy, be it farms, houses, factories, railroads or the like, back into liquid means, into working capital, mostly even into visible money. The repeatedly proposed issue of banknotes of any kind, which , moreover, one wants to bring about in the most complicated way possible, and which is then to be "covered" or "secured" by land, railroads, etc., is not a solution. "is based on the error that it is possible to make solidified capital or solidified bodil y substance liquid again. If this were possible, one could simply issue 200 billion money tokens for the 200 billion or so of German material assets, and all operating capital distress would be over! Additional liquid assets can only be obtained through ad ditional labor. Labor creates capital1 ). One can use tangible assets, fixed capital, just only as a base, as a pledge for a loan. That is, if the borrower does not justify the confidence placed in him by the lender, namely that he will produce goods with t he help of this credit, that is to say, that he will have worked out and calculated so correctly that he will be able to extinguish the credit again when he sells the goods, or if he does not acquire available liquid means by other means, If he does not ac quire available liquid assets by other means, which would enable him to cancel the credit, then his tangible asset, 1) Th e mon eta ry tok en s req u ir ed for t h e re sp e ct iv e tu rn o v er o f good s i n an ec on o my h av e a f ix ed r elat ion sh i p to th e m. T h e ir q u an t it y an d v e lo ci ty o f c ir cu l a tion may n ot b e ch an g ed arb itr ari ly wi th ou t th e m o st s e v er e fl u ct u at ion s in p u r ch as in g p o w er occ u rr in g . I f t h e q u an t ity o f mon et ary tok en s i s r ed u ce d ex ce s s i ve ly , or if th eir v el oc ity o f c ir cu la tio n i s red u c ed b y f in an ci al m e asu re s , d e f lat ion a ry p h e n om en a w il l occ u r. If , on th e o th er h an d , th e q u an tit y o f mon et ary t ok en s or th e ir v elo ci ty o f cir cu lat ion i s d i sp r op or tion a te ly in cr ea s ed in re lat ion to th e t u rn o v er o f good s , in f lat ion a ry p h en o m en a wi ll oc cu r . Th e con sta n t p u r ch a sin g p ow e r, i . e . th e s tab i li ty of th e mon ey s ig n s d ep e n d s on th e ir c on stan t d y n am ic eq u ili b ri u m t o th e r e sp ect i v e ec on o mi c q u a li ty ra te . Th e p r od u c t o f q u an tit y an d ve lo city of ci rc u l ation of th e mon ey s ign s mu st co rr e sp on d in ea ch c a se to t h e g ood s con v er s ion i n th e n at i on al ec on o my el a sti ca lly . T h e con t rol tak e s p lac e b y t h e i n d e x. On ly th i s e la sti c ra tio ke ep s th e p u r ch a si n g p o we r o f th e mon ey t ok en s o f a c u rr en cy with in th e n at io n al ec on o my sta b l e. N e v e r an y so -c al led c o ve r b y g old , si lv e r, l an d or th e l ik e. T h e cu rr e n cy can b e co v er ed o n ly b y work . T h e r e i s on ly on e l ab or ma rk et. Th e sta b il ity of an in d ex - con t rol l ed cu rr en cy th u s s tab ili z ed wit h in th e n ati on a l ec on o my c an b e sh a ke n e ve n in in t e rs tat e tr af fi c on ly if , as a r e su l t of a p a s si v e b alan c e of t rad e an d p ay m e n t s, mo re mon eta ry tok en s o f th i s cu rr en cy ar e p er ma n e n tly o f fe r ed in in t er s tat e tra f fi c th an th er e i s d e man d . Go ld an d fo r ei gn ex ch an g e r es e r ve s h a v e on ly th e ta sk to b a lan c e in ca s e of su ch te m p or ary p a s si v ity of th e b a lan ce o f p ay me n ts . I t i s th er e for e th e d u ty o f e v ery e con om y to en su re th a t th e b al an c e of p ay m e n ts i s at le a st in eq u i lib r iu m in o rd er to m ake it s e lf a s in d ep e n d e n t a s p o s sib le of th e p o s s e s sio n or n o n -p o s s e s si on o f gol d r e s er v e s.

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which was given as a loan collateral, is passed on by the lender to a third party, who in turn has liquid assets at his disposal, which enable him to buy the pledged object and to cancel the credit of the miscalculator. Thus, the granting of a loan in which tangible assets serve as loan collateral and securit y never has the effect of making the tangible assets themselves liquid again. Any mortgage on a tangible asset also merely means the establishment of a loan which must be repaid by the borrower one day or by a third party who then exchanges the tangible as set for his own liquid assets. Thus, tangible assets can only be exchanged for existing liquid assets, but can never be made liquid again by the issuance of any monetary token. From this clarification results at the same time also the clarification of what a credit is. Purchase means exchange, i.e. exchange of present performance and consideration; credit, however, means confidence in a future performance. Thus it is also understandable that all credit is based on trust, and thus it is also understandable t hat the construction elements of credit and its creation must be researched most carefully, because they are at the same time the basis of trust. From this insight, it is understandable that the demand made at the beginning of these remarks that a complete ly exact examination of the mechanics of the particular case of credit pre -creation must be made if it is to be consciously put at the service of national economic production and, above all, of the financing of the creation of employment, after it has hitherto been applied only in the private sector and, as it were, unconsciously, without any real knowledge of its nature and its limits. There are two different credit operations. The normal case is the following: Let us assume that a bank has liquid equity o f one million marks and now receives another 4 million marks in deposits from its customers, the bank is in a position to lend out 5 million marks in loans. Thus: 5 million real deposits are matched by 5 million loans given. This is the process of lending based on real liquid deposits. So here the deposit (the deposits) generates the credit. Thus, there must first be a deposit before a loan can be granted. In this process, the deposit has priority over the credit. In reality here no creation of credit takes place at all, but in this case only by the bank the liquid means of a depositor, with which he is not willing to work himself, are passed on - lent! With his help goods are produced, which then later with the sale not only the return of the lent liquid me ans make possible, but possibly also a certain surplus of liquid means yield, 231

which remains to the producer and increases the total sum of the liquid means available to the national economy. The essence of productive credit creation as always practiced by credit banks, on the other hand, is the following: If the bank described above does not confine itself to lending for 5 million (corresponding to its real liquid assets), but extends loans beyond this, perhaps up to 10 or even 20 million, it does so in the confidence that, first, the borrowers calculate correctly, and second, that sufficient real liquid assets are available in the market, or that these are enabled, by increasing their velocity of circulation, to purchase the goods produced in each case by the borrower, and enable him to extinguish the loan again. These credits, created in the clearing process, are a real advance creation, i.e. they are not substantively directly established, but find their reality only in the production of goods which ha s taken place, and can be redeemed only by increasing the velocity of circulation of the existing real means of production. This credit creation thus causes that the existing real means of production experience an increase of their velocity of circulation. The product of quantity times velocity of circulation of the book money becomes a larger one and thus enables the increase of commodity production or commodity turnover. In the correctly applied credit creation we thus possess the means to set in motion a n increased production by our own efforts in an economy which suffers from too few real means of production, precisely by increasing the efficiency of the available means of production. Credit creation is therefore the regulator which, depending on the sto ck of liquid funds in the economy, appropriately accelerates or slows down the blood and juice cycle, i.e. controls it. If the economy is in full bloom and full juice, i.e. if it possesses sufficient liquid capital, credit pre creation is needed only to a relatively small extent and the blood and juice cycle can proceed at a moderate pace. If, however, an economy, like the German economy of today, suffers from a particularly severe depletion of working capital, in this case from a lack of liquid capital and thus of credits, the circulation of the juices must be greatly accelerated by productive credit pre -creation if the entire machinery of the national economic body is to be kept in motion and a gradual replenishment of real working capital is to take place , which in turn entails a moderation of the tempo of circulation. For how are things today in the German national economy? It is known that the public and private mismanagement, the tribute payments and other causes since 19x8, have 232

increased the taxes for unproductive purposes and the interest rate in such a way that the real liquid assets and their circulation speed within the German economy have melted down to about 60% of their effectiveness of 1913 and that therefore also only about 60% of the German production apparatus can be moved as a result of this lack of working capital. This means that out of about 18 million German people who are willing and able to work, about 7 million cannot be employed. But it is not only the elimination of the great mi sinvestments on the part of the public sector and private industry (unemployment benefits without work), i.e. a thorough reduction of taxes for unproductive purposes, at least to the level of 1913, that will gradually bring about a replenishment of the volume of real working capital, but, in order to set this process in motion and maintain it, the most important means must be the creation of working capital. The most important means to get this process going and to maintain it must be the creation of operat ing credit, a particularly intensive credit creation which drives the existing real operating resources into faster circulation in order to compensate for the shortage of real operating resources, to re -inject blood into the entire economic apparatus and, above all, to bring the majority of the unemployed back into productive and secure employment as quickly as possible. This intensive productive credit creation requires not only the elimination of the excessive tax pressure for unproductive purposes and the future avoidance of misinvestment, which would again and again eat up the net yield of the entire labor of the people, but it requires in the first place and as a prerequisite in general the elimination of the pressure of interest. Today the excessively high interest rates eat up not only the yield of the creating capital, but the means of production itself. As a result, the disproportion between liquid capital and physical capital (tangible assets) is becoming more and more unfavorable and the latter are becoming more and more devalued, so that they are becoming more and more unworthy as documents for credits and the volume of credits is shrinking more and more. The whole thing is called, as is well known: deflation. Unproductive taxes, misinvestments and interest rates have the same effect today, they shift the relation between liquid capital and tangible assets more and more to the disadvantage of the latter. The continued reduction in the creditworthiness of tangible assets therefore inevitably restrict s the volume of credit and thus also the circulation rate of operating loans, which are already too low in and of themselves. The heartbeat of the economy becomes ever weaker! Thus with compelling necessity the demand for a decrease of the interest pressure arises, because this causes inevitably an extension of the credit 233

volume and thus a revival of the pulse beat of the economy. The volume of possible productive credit creation and the interest pressure are in inverse proportion to each other. Productive credit creation is therefore not possible as long as deflation prev ails. So the first step is to break the back of deflation. Radical interest rate cuts are the most effective and fastest way to do this. The reduction of the present interest pressure for first-digit mortgages to a maximum of 2 1/2 % and 3 1/2 % for second digit mortgages and for all open and other securitized and unsecuritized loans - as National Socialism has been demanding for years as a first step to "break the bondage of interest" and will also carry it out - makes the production of each individual ent repreneur considerably cheaper and increases the creditworthiness of tangible assets in the same way. Given the present structure of the German economy, it can be assumed with a high degree of certainty that this first reduction in the pressure of interest rates will result in an automatic expansion of the credit volume by about ten billion. Thus, the private economy will first be enabled, by improving its profitability and by a corresponding increase in the creditworthiness of its tangible assets, to gradu ally take out about 10 billion in additional loans for operating purposes in the form of tens of thousands of individual short -term loans. Thus, a productive credit advance occurs and with it an organic expansion of the credit volume for short-term production of goods in the economic cross -section. The existing real resources are thus already forced by the interest rate reduction to increased velocity of circulation, i.e. they are enabled to implement an increased production of 10 billion goods. The increas e in production by 10 billion, however, means the re -engagement of at least 2 1/2 to 3 million unemployed in the production and consumption process. It means increasing the current national income by about 20 to 25 %. This would be the job creation program to be solved by the private sector. This organic private -sector expansion of the credit volume by means of productive credit pre -creation must, however, be sensibly supported, as described above, by reducing public and private overheads and by avoiding an y misinvestment. This means, above all, that new industrial means of production and equipment must first be created until the existing ones are fully utilized. This self-acting private productive credit pre -emption means the liberation of the private initi ative from the previous unproductive interest and tax fetters! It may serve only and exclusively the purpose of the creation of new means of production (operating credits). It should 234

therefore only lead to an expansion of the production of the existing enterprises, especially the medium and small enterprises. The organic expansion of the credit volume in the economic cross -section and the resulting uniform acceleration of the available real resources, i.e. better circulation and saturation of the entire economic organism, does not result in a quantitative expansion of the volume of monetary tokens. The present quantity of money tokens of about 5 to 5V2 billion is quite sufficient also for the increased goods turnover. The money signs are just also automatically increased by the increase of the speed of the invisible resources by about 20 % in their own circulation speed and with it effectiveness. Any inflationary phenomena can arise only by an inorganic, i.e. by increased labor power not necessary increas e of the quantity of the money signs or their circulation speed, thus if it does not find its expression by a parallel process in the sphere of the invisible operating means (credits) and thus finally in a corresponding commodity production. This consideration gives rise to another principle of productive credit creation: it should remain as invisible as possible. It should appear as little as possible through additional issuance of money tokens. A multiplication of the money tokens should take place only i f the circulation speed cannot be increased any more, or if a too high circulation speed causes financial technical inconveniences. It must be the endeavor to maintain in the economic organism the quantity of money signs and their circulation speed in the correct functional and elastic equilibrium with its respective work performance, i.e. goods, production and means of transport production. Exactly as in the living organism blood or juices may not be changed arbitrarily in quantity and circulation speed wi thout severe damage of the whole organism in relation to its work performance. For this reason we have already pointed out at the beginning of this treatise that the issuance of any money tokens on the basis of existing material assets is in itself an inad missible process. This is again illustrated by the above statements. The organically conditioned money sign volume would be falsified and poisoned by foreign bodies, as they would represent such money signs "covered" with land, houses, railroads and the like. Changes in the volume of money signs can only take place for the purpose of maintaining the functional and elastic equilibrium and are always linked to parallel processes in the volume of credit, in labor output and in the production of goods. It would therefore mean a complete reversal of the natural production process if one wanted to "boost" the entire economic process not by increasing the labor output, 235

i.e. the production of goods, but only by increasing the visible signs of money. "Labor creat es capital." A "stimulation" of the economy by additional government job creation can only be solved in the way just described. That is to say, not primarily through a prior increase in money signs, through visible credit creation, but primarily through in visible credit creation, i.e., through an increase in book money for the purpose of financing government work. This credit creation, which requires exclusively long -term credits for investment purposes, undoubtedly means, at first, an inorganic interventio n in the organic process of credit creation, which generates only mostly short term operating credits. It can be compared to the injection of a physiological saline solution into the blood and juice pathway to avert an acute danger to life threatened by ex cessive loss of blood and juice. But in view of the state of the German economy today, this intervention is not only justified but urgently necessary. As we have repeatedly emphasized, the volume of credit has declined in its effectiveness to no more than 60% of that necessary for the operation of the German economic apparatus. There is indeed a threat to life here. Even if a further dwindling of real operating resources can be prevented by lowering interest rates and reducing unproductive taxes, and even i f a further automatic credit expansion of at least twenty percent will presumably occur in the course of a year, the present economically and socially dangerous condition of the German national economic body demands an additional measure, namely an additio nal productive credit creation for the financing of long -term repaying state orders for the securing and making independent of the German economy, i.e. of a new German life from its own strength and its own space. If this state creation of credit for state orders, this state job creation program, may at first appear as a foreign body in the normally self -acting organic creation of credit, it is, however, unavoidable today; it is the first requirement of real state leadership and National Socialist leadershi p of the economy by the state. Otherwise the German national economy would collapse, and the absolutely necessary accelerated reintegration of the unemployed into the production and consumption process would extend over a period of time that is neither acc eptable from the point of view of state policy nor from the point of view of economic policy. Therefore, an additional injection of state productive credit creation must be started immediately in order to temporarily strengthen and support the cycle until the selfacting organic credit creation can take over the further reconstruction process itself and gradually dispense with the support again. This additional government job creation program, which requires a similarly 236

large credit creation, will then secure the German economy internally and externally and largely free it from the influences of the "world market. It is self-evident that in the future the pre -financing of long-term repaying state undertakings by productive credit creation will be the given method after the transfer of the management of the entire monetary and credit system into the hands of the state. Now, what are the benefits and dangers of this present additional creation of exclusively long -term credit for a government job creation program? We have already mentioned the benefit. It consists mainly in quickly rebuilding and supporting the collapsed credit and the economic organism and, first of all, in stimulating new vital activity, i.e., own productive credit pre -creation; furthermore , in quickly reintegrating a large number of unemployed into the work process, even if inorganically at first. The German economy's own healing powers and a wise and purposeful management of the state and the economy will then succeed in gradually reducing and eliminating the additional long -term productive credit creation, especially if private productive credit creation is actively and purposefully supported by reducing unproductive taxes and burdens and by avoiding all misinvestments. The government's jo b creation program naturally deals with work that can only pay for itself over longer periods of time. Thus, as mentioned above, it requires only long -term loans to finance it. Thus, the normal mixture of many short - and few long-term credits of private -sector productive credit creation is initially burdened unilaterally with long term repaying credits. Work is financed with long -term credits, for which previously available liquid funds were used via bonds and the like. Today, however, there are no liquid f unds available in the German economy for either interest -bearing or non-interest -bearing bonds, as we have emphasized sufficiently. After all, the hallmark of today's situation is precisely the catastrophic shortage of liquid funds. As a result, this lack of liquid funds must also be obtained for long -term repaying government orders by way of credit creation (state bank or other state -guaranteed bills of exchange). The danger that arises from this, as already mentioned, is that the normal mix of short - and long-term credits is changed unilaterally in favor of long -term credits. If such long -term credits are created on a very large scale, this can lead to an additional demand for monetary tokens, i.e. the long -term credits created in advance have the tendency to move from the sphere of settlement credits to the sphere of monetary tokens, to become visible, to move, as it were, from the circulation of juices over time to the circulation of blood and to increase this circulation in an inadmissible manner. 237

Therefore, it must be ensured that there is an appropriate relationship between the state's credit creation for long -term repayable state orders, such as roads, settlements, meliorations, raw material factories and other measures for German independence, a nd the automatic private short-term credit creation. Normally, even in the case of private productive credit pre -creation, a certain percentage of long -term credit is created which is used only for consumption or, contrary to its original purpose, is used for investment. It is therefore a question, as it were, of drowning out and overlaying the state's creation of long -term credit with that of the private sector. But also in and of itself an additional state creation of long -term credits is in no way accomp anied by the inflationary effects and dangers which are known to us as inflation from the years from 1918 to 1924. There is no inflation at all! In this case not for the financing of the national consumption or its wrong investments as 1918 to 1924 simply additional money marks are printed, but also with the national credit creation for job creation national -economically productive plants are to develop in any case, which will extinguish with the time the spent credits from the increase and protection of th e national-economical yield. In reality, it is mainly a matter of bridging the interim period until they are extinguished. Thus, essentially only interim credits will be necessary, for which treasury bills or treasury bills and the like may have to be depo sited or a "productive credit contingent" made available. There is also the possibility of redeeming these treasury bills, etc., by means of temporarily released liquid funds and issuing them again to a corresponding extent only when liquid funds are strai ned. For a prudent management of the state bank, it will not pose any significant difficulty to absorb these long -term advance loans by skillful integration in the existing volume of credit and money signs and to hold them in the sphere of book money until their final redemption. This again shows how correct the basic National Socialist demand is to unify the banking and credit system and to transfer it into the hands of the state. Only through nationalization and uniform management of the banking system is it possible to ensure that the money and credit necessary for the operation of the economy as a whole are maintained in sufficient abundance and are not weakened by excessive consumption, mismanagement or excessive demands on the part of the public sector , as has been the case in the past and has led to the present state of affairs. If the necessary abundance of money signs and credit volumes is ensured at all times through a uniform overview, the interest rate will fall all by 238

itself to the level of the administrative overhead rate, as we are experiencing today with the overabundance of liquid funds at the Dutch, Swiss and other foreign banks, which no longer pay any interest on deposits, but in some cases even charge administrative fees on top of it. It is therefore not an impossible or unprecedented state of affairs that interest is no longer paid on money. It is merely a question of organization. A sensible state organization of the money and credit system, which ensures that the money and credit qu antities generated by the economy itself are maintained at all times in such abundance that there is more supply than demand, so that interest ceases to be paid of its own accord - is a healthy and more desirable state than the present one, in which period s of unheard-of money scarcity alternate with periods of the greatest abundance. In National Socialist economic management, the volume of money and credit is no longer to be controlled by the "free play of forces", i.e. by interest, but by deliberate restriction or expansion of the volume of money and credit, thus leading to a crisis-proof economy which fulfills the legal claim of every member of the people to work and bread to the greatest possible extent. Only through centralized, state administration of the volume of money and credit, with decentralized, i.e. local granting of credit, will it be possible to have a sufficient overview of the respective status and uniform manipulation of money and credit, and thus at the same time the most important aid, th e productive creation of credit, will be put to proper and organic use. Only this organic combination of money, credit and credit pre-creation and the preservation of their natural and productive relations to the quantity of existing material assets (means of production) permits the establishment of a fluctuation -free and crisis-proof economy at rest in itself. Another requirement is that the external balance of trade and payments must be at least balanced. Finally, a remark on the external features that ch aracterize the limits of productive credit expansion and frontloading. So far, we have only tried to shed light on their inner mechanics. It has already been mentioned that the conventional, unconscious self -control of the volumes of money signs and credit was brought about by the upward and downward sliding of interest, and that this control by interest in a consciously directed, organically constructed economy means a rudiment from which the body of the national economy must rid itself as quickly as possi ble. For this remnant of a lower form of economy otherwise gives rise again and again to settlements of parasites and infectious germs, which falsify and poison the former sense of interest as an organ of control and try to make a 239

commodity out of the liquid means, according to their merchant instincts. The ultimate purpose of all monetary sign and credit control is, after all, to establish a stable and fluctuation -free economy and currency. The stability of the currency finds its expression in its stab ility of purchasing power, and the stability of the economy in the avoidance of unemployment. Therefore, the expansion or contraction of money sign volumes must be controlled by the index, and the economy as a whole and individually must be controlled exte rnally and internally by contingency. The space-boundedness of organic economy inwardly and outwardly finds its adequate expression in the contingent of the money signs and credits by narrowing and expanding their volumes, according to the index. The index determines the respective limit of the money signs and credit volumes. The index represents a far more reliable and abuse -free means of controlling the credit volume than the interest rate and gold and foreign exchange "cover" for the money sign volume. Variable repayment discounts and the like have been proposed in place of index-controlled expansion and contraction. There is no doubt that a variable repayment discount, as proposed by Boedler, Jarmer and others, is an improvement over interest rate contro l - it abolishes the interest rate - but it cannot maintain the stability of the calculation in the same way as the repayment -discount-free loan, the size of which is controlled by the index. However, the stability of the economy is essential for the stability of production and thus for the purchasing power stability of the currency.

Contingent Economy as the Basis of the National Socialist Monetary and Credit Economic Organization Essay in the jo urnal "Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft"; April 1932.

The German Revolution, i.e. the liberation of the German spirit from the shackles of international, Jewish intellectualist dogmatics and scholasticism, in which the declining Rome had entangled it, when it could no longer resist the encroaching Nordic man with the sword - falls into two sections. The first begins with the Lutheran Reformation. This replaced the Roman Catholic dogmatics with a different one, but still a 240

German one, i.e. a national one, instead of the previous international universalistic one . Even if the German church and doctrine were only imperfectly liberated, the Reformation became a German revolution by completely liberating science, philosophy and art from scholasticism and dogmatics, placing them on empirical foundations alone and elev ating them to the rank of the natural sciences. - The subsequent religious struggles, the Thirty Years' War, and above all the French Revolution, which set the Jew free politically and the Jewish spirit free literarily, i.e. again released a wave of the pu rest anti-natural intellectualism and internationalism and washed it over Germany, initially prevented the work of liberation from extending to the fields of German political and economic theory. Out of this monstrous, ever widening and deepening abyss, wh ich opened up between the German philosophy, natural sciences, technology and art on the one hand, rising on empirical foundations in organic, creative freedom, and on the other hand - the state and economic doctrine persisting in uncreative -dogmatic liber alism and Marxism - the great misfortune and catastrophe of our days has risen. This is where the second part of the German revolution begins: our National Socialist movement. It wants to extend the work of liberation of the German spirit, begun by the Ref ormation and purified by Kantian criticalism, to state and economic theory as well, to elevate these to the rank of the natural sciences as well, and thus to place the German people in all its life impulses again on a uniform level and under the law of org anic freedom. The formula of the organic -creative is: natural bondage, i.e. limitation towards the outside and freedom towards the inside. The opposite formula of the uncreative mechanism, on the other hand, is: dogmatic bondage inward, unrestrained freedo m, i.e. internationalism, outward. According to our National Socialist world view and knowledge, these different formulations characteristically confront each other in the terms: National economy and world economy. The national economy is an organism, a li ving entity governed by organic laws. The world economy, on the other hand, is a dead mechanism and the lawfulness assigned to it is purely mechanical balance. While the wholeness of the national economy is supervised by the authority of the central nation al legislation, which puts the primacy and the spirit of the whole before each of its members -, the so-called world economy has no central authority, no cell nucleus, no central legislation. 241

The world economy is not an independent entity, but only a mechanical balancing and exchange of the surpluses of the national economies. In the world economy, as a result, supply and demand rules unrestrained as a regulator. A higher ethics is unknown there. In the national economy, on the other hand, supply and d emand prevail only subdued by the central legislation: the good of the whole. Or expressed in our National Socialist formulation: In the closed organism of the national economy, the common good takes precedence over self -interest, whereas in the world economy, self-interest takes precedence over the common good. It was the great sin of the past century that this natural and ethical basic difference between the national economy and the world economy was not seen or was deliberately falsified. The world econo my was not presented as the subordinate, dependent, mechanical balance of the national economies, but as an independent entity superior to the national economies. Everywhere, liberalist -Marxist thinking attempted to help the mechanical rules and laws of th e world economy to dominate the organisms of the national economy as well, to decompose them and to dissolve them into the general mush, the pseudo -organism of a world economy. That is, the end of this endeavor is today's world -economic chaos, in which the Marxist-liberal spirit itself is perishing. But out of this chaos, the individual national economies, in determined self -assertion, separate themselves out again and, in conscious self -contemplation, separate out again their organic legality in relation t o the mechanical rules of the world economy. The principle of the organic is the contingent. It prevents organically formed things from sinking into the mechanical, into the unformed, into mush. Organic economy is therefore contingent economy. Contingent, however, is not something rigid, but an elastic, living thing; it is subject to constriction and expansion, to rhythm. This is its inner freedom, which, however, never exceeds the final external boundedness. The National Socialist economic doctrine, therefore, intends nothing more than to return, by means of contingent economy, the overflowing things which exceed their natural limits to their natural boundedness and to preserve them in a living -elastic way, i.e. in their natural freedom. That which nature has hitherto preserved in living form by means of unconscious regulatives, but which has been destroyed by the intervention of the Mephistophelian -materialistic intellect, is now to be 242

restored by conscious organization, to eliminate all unnatural nonsense, and to re-establish the inner logic and sense of things in economy and state. From these points of view, its core, the National Socialist monetary and credit economic organization, presents itself as follows: The empirical foundations of the las t fertile epoch of the German national economy in the years 1912/13 looked, contingently, like this: A real estate volume of about 270 billion marks was assigned a credit volume of about 120 billion marks and a money sign volume of about 6 billion marks. T he relationship of these three basic contingents of the national economy to each other caused a fruitful work performance of the total economy, which was expressed in an annual gross income of 50 55 billion Marks, of which about 5 -6 billion remained as net surplus. By this saved amount the real estate contingent increased annually. Or if one wants to represent the things by means of a biological parable, then the money sign volume means the blood, the credit volume the juice quantity and the real estate vol ume the solid body substance. In the years of fruitful economy, through the rational metabolism, which was mainly carried out through the blood circulation and juices circulation, a surplus was obtained in the form of fat accumulation. In other words: in o rder to move and continuously productively regroup the entire real estate or material value volume of the national economy, which represents, so to speak, the tools of the trade, the equipment park of all working Germans, i.e. to achieve a national income of about 50-55 billion annually, liquid means of the first order, i.e. money tokens of about 6 billion marks and liquid means of the second order, credits in the amount of about 120 billion marks, are precisely necessary. The money tokens represent small change, so to speak. They have a high velocity of circulation. The loans, whether bank or mortgage loans, are the big money, which circulates much more slowly. This healthy, productive equilibrium of the three basic quotas was maintained and regulated withi n the limit allowed for each quota by an automatic regulator, the interest rate. As soon as, for example, inadmissible border crossings threatened to occur during the exchange of labor between the money sign volume and the credit volume or the credit volume and the volume of tangible assets, which, for example, threatened to inadmissibly narrow the money sign volume in favor of the credit volume or the credit volume in favor of the volume of real estate, the interest rate jumped up, made the money signs or the credits more expensive, thus, to a certain extent, raised the partition walls and thus throttled the outflow of the money signs or credits, so that their volumes 243

could replenish themselves again. The reverse case also occurred. As soon as an overabundance of money tokens or credits became apparent, the interest rate fell, thus facilitating the transfer to the real estate contingent. This function of the interest rate prevented in the first case a deflation, which could arise by inadmissible scarcity of the credits or money signs, in the second case an inflation, which was to be feared by overfilling of the money signs and credit volumes. Thus, to a certain extent, through this automatic -unconscious regulation, which interest undertook by making the m oney signs or the credit volumes more expensive or cheaper, a makeshift contingency, i.e. expansion or narrowing of the money signs or credit volumes, was undertaken for the purpose of maintaining their biological equilibrium and thus a relatively crisis-free domestic and deflation -free economy. Moreover, the rule of interest prevented fairly and badly that large and small change were alienated from their natural function; they both remained means of transport and in sufficient circulation. The consequence of this abundance of money signs was further that production capital in 1913 achieved a yield of about 7 to 8 %, and loan capital a yield of about 3 to 4 %. Thus, loan capital suffered a relative loss compared to production capital due to the lower yield. This created a disparity that forced loan capital, if it did not want to suffer a relative loss, to urgently offer itself to production. Whereas the floating interest rate thus already brought about a contingent economy, albeit a deficient one, within the German economy and thus kept the currency relatively stable in value internally (the fluctuating gold and foreign exchange "cover" never kept the German currency stable), the floating interest rate also kept the German currency stable in value externally, on the side of the world economy. If, for example, due to a temporary increase in imports, the danger arose that more market amounts would be offered for sale in world trade than were demanded by it for payment for simultaneous German exports, so that, according to the law of supply and demand, which governs world economic processes without restriction, a decline in German currency could occur, the interest rate would also provide for a temporary borrowing of gold and foreign currency (if the country's own foreign currency and gold reserves were not sufficient) and for a curtailment of imports. If exports later increased again, there was a greater demand for market amounts, and the foreign gold and foreign currency could be sold off again, or the country cou ld accumulate a larger stock of such means of payment. In foreign trade, too, the upward and downward sliding of the interest rate has already brought about a certain rough quota system 244

for imports and exports. This unconscious contingent economy based on interest, which works with the expansion or contraction of monetary symbols and credit volumes, is no longer possible today, since nowhere is there the unrestricted freedom of movement of goods, gold and money which has brought about today's chaos. Onl y in the mechanical materialistic-money-economy born in the world trade traffic, which with the help of the Jewish -intellectualistic spirit also penetrated into the living organics of the national economies and decomposed them - the interest could be effec tive as a regulator. With its today's collapse and the clear confrontation between self -conscious national-economic organics and subordinated world -economic mechanics, the interest as an automatic-unconscious regulator of the national -economic contingents has become useless at the same time. The interest rate, which belongs to a lower stage of development, must be replaced by the conscious regulation through natural organization of the money and credit volumes, just as the rest of the national economy consc iously adopts the idea of contingents through the incipient structure of estates. Clear and conscious determination of contingents, on the basis of empirical-scientific investigation, combined, however, with a certain expansion and restriction which makes their elastic handling possible, is, as we have said before, the basic principle of organic economic construction and traffic, not only inwardly, but also in interstate traffic. Only with this fundamental realization in mind can National Socialism approach the reconstruction of the German national economy, and especially the new construction of the monetary and credit economy, which must be tackled first. Thus, not only the volume of money must be manipulated in the future, but also the volume of credit; an d both no longer by interest, but quantitatively by deliberate expansion or restriction and acceleration or inhibition of their velocity of circulation, with the help of an elastic organization that permits an overall view at any time.

Basic information on the interest rate issue Speech at the extraordinary general meeting of the Zentralverband des Deutschen Bank - und Binkiergewerbes e. V. on May 2, 1933.

Just as poverty does not come from the poverties, the high interest rates do not find their reason i n the uncertainty of capital. Rather, it is the high 245

interest rates that make any claim to capital uncertain in the first place. An ancient hereditary wisdom of our ancestors, which has been correct in every economic system up to now, but which one tho ught to be able to ignore in the past fifteen years - says that taxes for purely administrative purposes must not rise above the tithe and interest must not rise above the half tithe. For otherwise both are no longer sustainers but eaters of the substance. The fact that in the years before the war the average interest rate on loan capital was about 4% and the average return on working capital about 8% meant that there was a healthy disparity in the relationship between loan capital and creative capital. The former pushed itself into production because the latter promised it double the return. Today, the ratio is reversed. It is more advantageous to lend money than to work productively with it. This condition is impossible. If you now ask me: where do today's high interest rates come from, I must tell you that they have a double root. On the one hand, the outrageous tribute burdens and the equally outrageous, unproductive inflation of the budgets of the Reich, the states and the municipalities, as well as of t he public enterprises, have undoubtedly led to an increasing shortage of working capital and liquid assets in the German economy. The unproductive taxes have just risen far above the tenth of the national income, indeed, they have at times consumed 45% of the gross income. The German national economy has thus been transformed from a business which annually produced 5 to 6 billion more liquid assets than it consumed into a business which had almost the same shortfall in liquid assets. As a result, the intere st rate, the warner against such unreasonableness, has risen more and more, but no one has listened to it. As a result, interest, which in the past inorganic economy was regarded as the indispensable control organ for maintaining the correct ratio of liquid capital to real capital, has been deprived of its function by precisely those for whom the floating interest rate was regarded as the foundation of capital steering. As a result, we will have to look for another control organ in the future, and I would l ike to remind you that even today, interest is no longer actually used to control capital, but only to consciously restrict or expand credit. However, it is not yet time to go into detail about this new development that is taking shape here. In any case, t he non-observance of the interest rate as a tax organ has led to a devaluation of tangible assets, i.e. of the entire means of production - since all tangible assets are means of production - of the German economy, so that the credit base has been reduced by more than 246

60 billion. Today, therefore, a mortgage of unreasonableness of about 60 billion rests on German tangible assets, which has squeezed the main working capital of the German economy, i.e., the banknotes, by the same amount. For, at today's interest rates, it is only possible to pay interest on about 60 billion loans with about 5 billion interest, which is about one tenth of the German national income, while it was possible to pay interest on about 120 billion loans with the same sum in 1913. This illiquidity of the German economy has thus been caused by the outrageous tribute burdens and the unproductive inflation of the budgets of the Reich, the countries and the municipalities, and above all also of the public enterprises, i.e. for reasons of external and internal mismanagement. Part of the present level of interest rates is therefore justified by this. But the other part is generated by the equally inflated banking apparatus. The German people and the German national economy demand of you t hat you immediately correct this part of today's high interest rates. This part is subject to your power, your expertise and your good will. I ask you to bury once and for all the hope that things could remain as they are. If you want to avoid intervention by the state, intervene yourself. I repeat: The part of the excessive level of interest that is due to the mismanagement that still exists today, i.e., to the budgets of the empire, the states and the municipalities and, above all, of the public enterprises that are still too bloated for unproductive purposes, will be regulated in another way. Perhaps by activating the Savings Commission, to which a central budget office must be attached, in order to examine the budgets of the Reich, the states an d municipalities and, above all, of the public enterprises and, with the exception of the costs caused by unemployment welfare and the internal burdens of war, to bring them down to and below the level of 1913. But you are responsible for the very consider able part of today's interest rate level, which has been caused by the inflation of your banking apparatus and its organization, which is inappropriate for today's conditions, and you must put a stop to it. The people and the government demand that you you rself take action so that such interventions and half -measures as were undertaken by previous governments in the various "interest rate reduction campaigns" are avoided in the future. The extent to which you can take immediate action on your own initiative to reduce the excessive interest rates is shown to you by the action of the Deutschlandkasse, which has managed to halve the interest surcharge on its own initiative, so that the last borrower has to pay only 2% above the Reichsbank rate, which is 247

currently 6%. It is pointless for the Reichsbank to lower the discount if the other credit institutions do not at the same time, and to a much greater extent, lower the spread between the debit and credit interest rates. Deposit rates must also be lowered. I would like to mention in passing that Pfandbrief interest rates cannot be spared altogether either, but I would ask you to keep this in mind and to keep telling savers: that high interest rates increase the uncertainty of capital, and that lower interest rates secure capital claims. Savers are not concerned with high interest rates, but above all with the security of their capital. Only the lower interest rate can grant him this. Please, change your agitation. Up to now, the saver's attention has always be en directed to the highest possible interest rate. For the rest, I am convinced that the Reichsbank will follow your action in an appropriate manner by lowering the discount rate. Such a lowering of interest rates, initiated by you, in conjunction with a s ubsequent lowering of the Reichsbank discount rate and a substantial reduction of today's excessive real taxes, as well as the lowering of tariffs for gas, water, electricity and transport, would not only remove the mortgage of unreasonableness from German tangible assets, initiate a self -acting expansion of capital for private -sector purposes on a large scale, but also a natural creation of employment would be initiated, which in time would reintegrate at least four million into the work process through th e revival of private initiative, so that only one and a half million unemployed would remain for the compulsory labor service and the additional creation of employment. The German people and the German economy therefore demand that you immediately tackle t his important task of lowering interest rates and do everything that can be done on your part to ensure that common sense once again takes hold in the economy. The way in which the money and credit cycle will inevitably have to be transformed by you as a r esult of the transformation of the German economy from a hitherto internationally oriented to a genuine national economy and will likewise become a nationally oriented, i.e. a German, money and credit cycle is not something I would like to discuss in detai l today, but will do so shortly from another point. I would like to say only this much: The detachment of the German money and credit cycle from its international interdependence will be subject to a future organic law and binding, whereas previously, as a result of its international 248

interdependence, it was subject to the mechanical laws of interstate trade and traffic. Through the elevation of the German national economy from a mechanical coexistence to an organic coexistence, the circulation of money and credit, the blood of the economic body, will also be elevated to an organic function, a serving member of the national body. You see this process of nationalization of the money and credit circuits in the individual national economies going on all over the world today and finding its expression in the detachment from the gold standard. Just as everywhere the regrouping of the entire economy and foreign trade is taking place according to the supreme point of view: savety first - security first. Everythin g should and must serve the defense of the nation's livelihood. No matter what it is, whether agriculture or industry, money or foreign trade. Only the past economic epoch of the famous world economic "interdependence", which can be better described as the period of general manification, has brought about the general insecurity from which we all suffer. From its liquidation process we see today everywhere consolidated national economies as well as large -scale economies rising, which transform the inorganic chaos into organically structured spatial economies. Only from this clear confrontation of interests can an increased pacification of the world arise, which can never be achieved by the greatest armaments, as long as the interdependence of interstate trade and traffic as well as the monetary system remain in the present chaotic state. The separation of the money and credit circuits of the individual economies from their international "interconnectedness" and their transformation into national money and cred it circuits will lead to a considerable extent to the consolidation and thus satisfaction of all conditions. The extent to which this process of separating the money and credit circuits of the individual national economies has already progressed today can be seen from the fact that the respective stocks of gold and foreign exchange held by a national economy are no longer in any way decisive for the internal money and credit circuits, but that the stocks of gold and foreign exchange have merely assumed the function of intergovernmental working capital, of which each national economy should possess as large a part as possible. As is well known, the so -called cover principle has been abandoned everywhere. That we in Germany have so little interstate working ca pital is most regrettable. This is due to the lack of oversight on the part of the former Reichsbank management, which had the gold and foreign exchange reserves withdrawn before the inevitable bolt was put in place. This small amount 249

of intergovernmen tal working capital will have an unpleasant effect once the German economy recovers and has to import substantial quantities of raw materials which it can only export again later in the form of finished goods. In addition to the reduction of internal inter est rates, the maintenance of the foreign exchange balance therefore plays an outstanding role. In conclusion, I would like to express once again the hope that the goals outlined will be achieved through the closest cooperation. Technical difficulties are there to be overcome.

Tasks of the German banking industry Speech at the meeting of the public -law credit institutions in Bad Pyrmont on June 9, 1933.

Five weeks have passed since my last speech to the Central Association of German Banks and Bankers on May 2, in which I set the interest rate reduction campaign in motion in the wake of the speech by the Chancellor of the Reich. Today, people throughout the country are asking with a certain impatience, and not without justification, what has happened in th e meantime with regard to the interest rate reduction issue. At the end of my speech on May 2, I drew particular attention to the threatening state of Germany's money and foreign exchange reserves. For years I have repeatedly pointed out the necessity of m aintaining or accumulating a strong stock of money and foreign exchange, not in order to regulate the internal circulation of German currency and credit, which is subject to the biological autonomy of the German national economy, but solely in order to be able to dispose of an adequate stock of interstate working capital. Unfortunately, my warnings have not been heeded, so that the gold and foreign exchange reserves have melted down to such an extent that the question of the transfer of foreign interest has now had to be raised from this side as well. It is therefore to be welcomed that the President of the Reichsbank immediately took up the question of the transfer of interest and the replenishment of the gold and foreign exchange reserves in an energetic m anner as his first act in connection with the domestic interest question. These efforts, which have found expression in the temporary moratorium on transfers enacted today, 250

have naturally had a delaying effect on the handling of the question of domestic interest rates. Nevertheless, in conjunction with the President of the Reichsbank, this matter has in the meantime been promoted to such an extent that today we are out of the negotiating stage and the first decisive act in this area can be record ed. The German public credit institutions, in conjunction with the savings banks and giro associations, have decided on the following resolution: The General Meeting of the Association of German Public Credit Institutions (Verband deutscher öffentlich-rechtlicher Kreditanstalten e. V.), chaired by Mr. Werner Daitz, is unanimously of the opinion that, in order to revive the German economy, the excessive interest rates must be reduced immediately to a level roughly corresponding to pre -war conditions. The participating institutions therefore expect immediate action to achieve this goal. For their part, they are prepared to reduce the highest interest rate on personal loans to the last borrowers as of X. They are prepared to reduce the highest interest rate on personal loans to 67a% from July X, based on the current Reichsbank rate, and later to 6% if possible. The calculation of all credit-increasing, open and hidden commissions must cease in the future; in particular, the still common practice o f charging the usual credit amount when taking out a loan and, on the other hand, remunerating the low credit interest rates customarily charged on checking accounts must be broken with immediately. If a separation of interest rate and commission seems app ropriate, the aforementioned maximum interest rates should not be exceeded. There is also unanimity that for long -term gilt-edged mortgages and other loans, a maximum interest rate of 4Y2%, including the contribution to administrative costs, must be achiev ed. The Assembly urges its members to take all measures to achieve the above objective, in particular to set interest rates accordingly. However, the Assembly is of the opinion that a general and effective reduction in the cost of credit can only be achiev ed if all groups in the banking industry immediately adopt binding resolutions of the same kind; it considers the achievement of this objective to be one of the prerequisites for the recovery of the German economy. The Chairman is requested to submit this resolution to the relevant bodies and to initiate the necessary further measures." All that remains now is for the major German banks to join in this action so that a uniform approach on the money and capital markets is ensured. 251

I understand that Dr. O tto Christian Fischer, Chairman of the Central Association of German Banks and Bankers, has also called a meeting for this evening in Berlin, Hotel Kaiserhof, and I hope that this will not remain a theoretical discussion, but that the major banks will use this meeting to take the initiative for their part to join our approach. Thus, the first practical step towards an organic reduction of interest rates has been taken. The rest of the money and capital market will no longer be able to escape its consequence s. I would like to emphasize once again as a matter of principle that today's interest rates do not stand in a vacuum as a thing in itself, but find their cause in the wrong structure of the German money and capital market. This wrong structure of the mone y and capital market is caused on the one hand by the bloated credit apparatus which is not organized according to a clear division of labor, and on the other hand by the hitherto wrong economic management of the Reich, the Länder, the municipalities and t he public sector enterprises which administer gas, water, electricity and transport. That the necessary structural change, which is the prerequisite for a further reduction of interest rates, can by no means be solved from the side of the credit institutio ns alone, but that all these things can only be solved from the point of view of a reorganization of the entire national economy, must be stated again and again. A maximum rate of interest on debts is initially intended only to create the framework within which a certain pressure is exerted on all German credit institutions to readjust their highly overstretched apparatus, which is not organized on the basis of a division of labor, to the real needs of the present and future volume of the national economy. It is not acceptable that attempts are made again and again, just as in the translated administrative apparatus of the Reich, the states and municipalities and public enterprises, to present this state of affairs in the banking industry as God -willed and inevitable, which cannot be changed. Just as there is still far too much administrative idleness in the Reich, the states and municipalities, and in the public enterprises that administer gas, water and electricity, so too today the far too large credit apparatus hangs around the dwindling credit volume of the German economy, flapping and inhibiting it. It is to be expected that as soon as the big banks have found their way out, the Reichsbank will follow with a discount reduction to bring interest rates down to the level demanded by the Führer. It will then be the task of a comprehensive banking law to reintegrate the entire German credit apparatus into the new German economy in a meaningful way. 252

In fact, compared with a currency in circulation of 5 to 6 billion and an intra-German credit volume of about 120 billion in 1913, the money and credit apparatus was only two -thirds of what it is today, although the currency in circulation today is about the same, but the credit volume has shrunk considerably com pared with 1913. Under no circumstances, therefore, is a larger apparatus than that of 1913 permissible, and we must work as quickly as possible to simplify, reduce the cost of and reduce the administration to and below the level of 1913, just as we do in the Reich, the provinces, the municipalities and public enterprises. Moreover, I have to point out again and again that the still far too high burden of open or hidden unproductive taxes and duties and the still neglected currency compensation (export subs idy) are not only to blame for inflation, but also for the deflation that continues to have an effect today, and thus for the wrong structure of the money and capital market and the excessively high interest rates. By neglecting the ancient hereditary wisd om of our ancestors, which must form the basis of every economic system, namely that taxes for purely administrative purposes must not exceed the tithe and interest must not exceed half the tithe, because otherwise they are not sustainers but eaters of the national economic substance - we have not in the slightest part brought about the present state of affairs. For as soon as taxes and duties of any kind for purely administrative purposes exceed a tithe of the national income, either inflation or deflation inevitably results. We have had inflation from 1918 to 1924 and deflation from 1927 to the present day. In the former case, the money sign volume has been consumed; in the latter, the credit volume has been consumed. In each case, administrative charges a nd tariffs were put forward as the pole around which the entire economy had to revolve, while the latter, conversely, had to revolve around the economy. This aberration will and must be abandoned, for otherwise there is no possibility of reintegrating toda y's vast army of the unemployed into the production process. Artificial job creation alone, unless it is seen as a supplement and accompanied by an energetic and planned reduction of unproductive taxes, interest and burdens, as well as by a currency compen sation (export subsidy), falls hopelessly into the void and will have heavy burdens in its wake. For the additional creation of employment is only an auxiliary construction to catch that part of the unemployed and to employ them in an ethically and economi cally beneficial way until they resume the economy on their own, freed from the present unnatural, i.e. unproductive, pressure of taxes, interest, burdens and currency, and transformed into a genuine national economy.

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The aspects of credit creation an d of money and credit control developed in the foregoing treatises apply in principle to the development of every national economy - not only the German one. For only according to the points of view developed in these treatises can and must every genuine national economy procure for itself the necessary means of production for its internal and external economy. Only in this way will it be and remain independent in monetary terms and be able to live on its own strength and in its own space: Freedom through self-defense help yourself, then God helps you!