Background: This is the conclusion of Philipp Bouhler’s 1938 textbook on the history of the Nazi Party, intended for use in the schools.
The source: Philipp Bouhler, Kampf um Deutschland. Ein Lesebuch für die deutsche Jugend (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., Frz. Eher Nachf., 1939), pp. 105-107.
Worldviews are responsible for the major changes in human history. Men who create, carry and proclaim worldviews become immortal. Individuals with brilliant minds develop a picture of what could be from the confusion of the world around them, and give it visible form.
One name stands out amidst the darkness and misery leading to Germany’s rebirth: Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler and National Socialism are one and the same. The Führer and the movement he created are the dynamic forces that made the impossible possible. They rescued Germany from the edge of the abyss and gave it a new face, its true face.
The greatest thing about this powerful man is this: he believed. He believed in Germany when everything was falling apart around him: the proud and powerful Reich of Wilhelm II along with its army, its economy, its finances, and all concepts of loyalty, honesty, decency and order.
He believed in the German worker whom he saw trapped in a web of error and confusion. They were not the cause of the Marxist nonsense, but the victims of foreign rabble-rousing.
This unknown man believed in his mission, and this faith drove all his deeds. There was not a single hour when he did not feel the inner fire that drove him on though days and sleepless nights over the years, overcoming every obstacle, every deception, every disappointment.
His faith in his calling was firm and unshakable. He knew that his genius and ability would bring him to lead the German people, to build a state that would tower over the coming centuries.
This faith is the power that spread to each of his followers. It alone explains the enormous idealism that enabled thousands and thousands of his followers to bring sacrifices and endure privation for so many years.
That is the only way to understand the miracle: First Adolf Hitler believed in Germany’s resurrection, then a handful of men who were ready to stand by him through thick and thin. The small group grew to a party, to a movement, first slowly, then faster and faster, until it became an avalanche that grew into a movement of millions, a people’s movement. After fourteen years it rolled over all of Germany!
The deed was not the beginning. Nothing great happens in the world that is not at first a thought. In the beginning is the thought, and the faith that moves mountains turns it into action.
The lonely, strong thought stands against hard physical reality. A world of will and imagination attacks a world of reality and overthrows it. The calculations of the accountants and the narrow-minded thinking of bureaucrats cannot stand against the idea of a genius who obeys the truths of eternal laws!
The National Socialist revolution is a revolution in the truest sense of the word, for it is no mere change of cabinet that simply makes alterations in an existing system, rather a transformation of all areas of German life. It all occurred without bloodshed, without violence of any kind. It followed logical laws, it grew organically and without any apparent compulsion. Only where the fate of the nation was at risk were individuals ignored, for the community good is more important than individual good.
The foundation of the National Socialist state is trust. One can maintain a government for a time that ignores popular feelings by using bayonets and machine guns. Woe to such a tyranny of terror, however, when it weakens! When it stands before a difficult decision and must recognize that its roots are not in the people, that no one is ready to give his all for it.
No government in the world rests on such a firm foundation as Adolf Hitler’s Germany, none has such love and loyalty for its leader and such blind confidence in its government’s decisions and policies.
No other people supports its leader with the 99% that the German people displayed in the election in 1936.
There is also no other country in which the government’s actions have had the success of Germany’s. The consistent application of a clear program and the realization of high ideals have led to health and prosperity for the whole people.
The National Socialist government of Adolf Hitler has accomplished great things. Much remains to be done, and what the present generation cannot do will be finished by the youth.
They will do it because they are filled with the spirit of Langemarck [a World War I battle], the spirit of the men of the Feldherrnhalle[site of Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch], and the spirit of Horst Wessel.
[Page copyright © 1998 by Randall L. Bytwerk. No unauthorized reproduction. My e-mail address is available on the FAQ page.]
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