Preface
us finally to overthrow the enemy that pursues us so relentlessly with its hatred …”
These and similar passages, we learn, are to be deleted from the first authorized version of Mein Kampf to be published in France. It is important to keep in mind that they still stand, however, in the Mein Kampf that is published in Germany’s home consumption.
Hitler defines the foreign policy of a National Socialist state in a passage so significant that it should be written in letters of red on the wall of every foreign office in Europe. “Beware always of the creation of two continental powers in Europe. Resist every effort to create a second military power on Germany’s borders, or even the creation of a state capable of becoming a military power, as an attack against Germany, and regard it not only as your right, but as your duty to prevent the erection of such a state, with armed resistance, if need be, or to destroy it altogether …”
The normal reader’s first reaction to this book will be one of incredulous amazement. It is possible that a highly cultured, sensitive people can be duped by this outpouring of wilful perversion, clumsy forgery, vitriolic hatred and violent denunciation? But think back a moment. Is our own past so entirely free of mass hysteria? Have we forgotten how clever propaganda turned the enthusiasm that re-elected Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency “because he kept us out of war” into a frenzy of chauvinistic hatred overnight? Today many an American is ashamed of that madness, but it was real and sincere while it lasted.
Something of the sort is happening in Germany, but on a much more gigantic scale. The German people in 1933 were in a mood that made them dangerously susceptible to the fascist bacillus. They had tried to find a way back to normal living and national self-respect and had found the way blocked by prejudice and blind misunderstanding. The great nations were interested only in reparations. The German labor parties which might have helped were split into half a dozen warring camps. All this was
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