Table Of ContentNazi Ideology before 1933
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Nazi Ideology before 1933
A Documentation
Introduced and translated by
Barbara Miller Lane and Leila J. Rupp
University of Texas Press Austin
International Standard Book Number 0-292-75512-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-408
Copyright © 1978 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction ix
Men! 3
Dietrich Eckart
The Twister 5
Dietrich Eckart
Guidelines of the German Workers' Party 9
The Russian Jewish Revolution 11
Alfred Rosenberg
Jewishness in and around Us: Fundamental Reflections 16
Dietrich Eckart
Manifesto for Breaking the Bondage of Interest 26
Gottfried Feder
To All Working People! 30
Dietrich Eckart
The Social State 32
Gottfried Feder
The Program of the NSDAP 40
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Jewish World Policy 44
Alfred Rosenberg
The Folkish Idea of State 59
Alfred Rosenberg
National Socialism or Bolshevism? 74
Joseph Goebbels
The Radicalizing of Socialism 78
Joseph Goebbels
Draft of a Comprehensive Program of National Socialism 82
Gregor Strasser, Joseph Goebbels, and others
Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future 87
Gregor Strasser
Farmer, Wake Up! 94
Heinrich Himmler
From Revolt to Revolution 97
Gregor Strasser
National Socialism and the State 99
Otto Strasser
The Peasantry as the Key to Understanding the Nordic Race 103
R. W. Darré
The Fourteen Theses of the German Revolution 106
Otto Strasser
Marriage Laws and the Principles of Breeding 110
R. W. Darré
Official Party Statement on Its Attitude
toward the Farmers and Agriculture 117
German Freedom as the Prerequisite of Folk Culture 123
Alfred Rosenberg
The Nature and Aim of the National Socialist Idea 126
Gregor Strasser
The Farmers and the State 130
R. W. Darré
Work and Bread! 134
Gregor Strasser
Appendix: Biographies of the Principal Nazi Writers 147
Translators' Note 151
Notes 153
Index 175
Preface
We are jointly responsible for the selection and translation of the
documents, for the critical apparatus, for the descriptive notes, and
for the second part of the Introduction, called "The Documents.''
The first part, "Nazi Ideology,'' was written by Barbara Miller Lane
and published in Central European History, vol. 7, no. 1 (March
1974), pp. 3-30. It is reproduced here with only very slight modifica
tions; the authors thank the editors of the journal for permission to
reprint it.
We wish also to thank Volcker Witte, whose rough literal transla
tions of all the selections were very helpful, since German is not a
native language for either of us; and Christina Welti and Carol Pat
terson, who carefully searched the pages of the Völkischer Beobach
ter up to 1933 for articles by the writers included here and for treat
ment of the major themes raised by these writers. Barbara Miller
Lane was greatly aided in the initial phases of research by a grant
from the American Council of Learned Societies (1967-68); Leila
Rupp's work was facilitated by the Federal Work-Study Program in
the summer of I974. The staff of the Miriam Coffin Canaday Library
at Bryn Mawr College has repeatedly extended itself in helping us to
obtain varying editions of the works from which we have selected.
And finally we thank our colleagues and friends at Bryn Mawr Col
lege for their cheerful help with obscure passages and quotations,
and for their patient interest in a work whose subject matter is so
often repugnant. Any errors, of course, are our own.
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Introduction
Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business
During the last ten years historians have begun to reinterpret nearly
every aspect of Nazi history. Many of their conclusions are very
fruitful indeed. But there has as yet appeared no satisfactory reinter-
pretation of Nazi ideology. The study of Nazi ideology presents
some apparently intractable problems; many scholars believe, more
over, that political thought played a relatively unimportant part in
the rise (and fall) of the Third Reich. For these and other reasons,
some of the most important source material for the study of Nazi
ideology has been almost totally neglected. This is the large quanti
ty of writings and programs published by the various Nazi leaders
before I933.
Before I933 the Nazi Party published three major programs-the
''Twenty-Five Points,'' the agricultural program of I930, the full-
employment program of 1932-and many minor programs for the
party's suborganizations. The party publishing houses-Eher and the
Kampf-Verlag-issued dozens of books and pamphlets, some by Hit
ler, but most by other party leaders. Of these other leaders, the most
prolific were Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder, Alfred Rosenberg,
Gregor and Otto Strasser, and Richard Walther Darré. The many
party newspapers and journals, which included the Völkischer Beo
bachter, the NS'Briefe, the Strasser newspapers, Der Angriff, and
the NS-Monatshefte, published the programs, together with many
theoretical writings. In addition to the papers and magazines pub
lished by the party itself, Eckart, Feder, Rosenberg, and Darré edited
journals for nonparty publishers,- these journals must, because of the
political position of their editors, have seemed to contemporaries
to express a Nazi Party "line." The speeches, of Hitler and of the
other party leaders, are far less accessible; few were published before
I933, and the collections published after I933 are not always trust
worthy.1 But even without the speeches, the books and articles pub
lished by the Nazi leaders before I933 constitute one of the largest
bodies of political thought ever set forth by a political group over a
comparable time period. By studying them chronologically, by com
paring each to the other and to the programs, it ought to have been
possible long ago accurately to assess what political goals the party
sought before 1933, and what promises it made to its followers be
fore it came to power. And by setting Hitler's thought in this con-
