1944 Hitler Stamp
I had already read an earlier edition of Hitler’s Second Book (1928), and wondered if my summary of his international program was correct. I had described his program as German domination of an international system of völkisch states. In this blog, I will quote some passages from Gerhard L. Weinberg’s 2003 edition (transl. Krista Smith) that bear out my prior summary. My intention is to show Hitler’s indebtedness to earlier theorists of national character (i.e., “rootedness” and cultural nationalism as articulated by J. G. von Herder https://clarespark.com/2010/10/18/the-dialectic-of-multiculturalism-helvetius-herder-fichte/, and https://clarespark.com/2010/07/20/german-romantic-predecessors-to-multiculturalism/); but also to compare Hitler’s vision of the “racial community” with the multiculturalism that was institutionalized during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration in 1935 (described here: https://clarespark.com/2011/06/16/the-antiquated-melting-pot/).
[Hitler:] Peoples that do not understand [the racial] value, or for lack of natural instinct no longer feel it, then begin immediately to lose it. The mixing of blood and the decline of the race are…in reality an under-appreciation of one’s own cultural value in comparison to that of foreign peoples… [Such a people] renounces the power that lies in the harmony of its blood and the cultural life that springs from it…Then the Jew can move in, in every form, and this master of international poison concoction and racial debasement will not rest until he has completely uprooted and thereby corrupted such a people.…For this reason, the internationalist [i.e., universal ethics, or “universal thinking”–Hitler’s term C.S.] disposition can be viewed as the deadly enemy of this value. Instead, the commitment to one’s own people’s value must be in line with and determine the collective life and behavior of a people.” (p.33, my emph.)
Internationalism as diversity
[Hitler:] I am a German nationalist. That means I am openly committed to my Volkstum. All of my thoughts actions belong to it. I am a socialist. I see before me no class or rank, but rather a community of people who are connected by blood, united by language, and subject to the same collective fate. I love the people and hate the current majorities only because I do not see them representing either the greatness or the happiness of my people. [p.48]
[Hitler:] The general European democracy will either be replaced by a system of Jewish-Marxist Bolshevism, to which state after state falls victim, or by a system of free and unfettered nation states which, in the unrestricted play of forces, will impress upon Europe the stamp of their character according to their population and importance. It is also not for fascism as an idea to be isolated in Europe…. (pp225-226]
[Clare:] I wrote this blog because 1. long ago two major scholars accused me of distorting “cosmopolitan” Herder, who was allegedly concerned only with “culture,” not “race”(note that Hitler says that culture springs from blood: I attribute the same blood and soil belief to Herder); and 2. though Hitler’s Second Book was mostly about Lebensraum (i.e., the conquest of Eastern Europe, already articulated in Mein Kampf), his long term intentions for all states to become fascist are made clear in his conclusions; and 3. Hitler was no “socialist” in the sense we use today. For German völkisch thinkers, “socialism” connoted solely the willingness to sacrifice oneself for “the people’s community.” Today’s populist demagogues come to mind.
WW2 poster
The Clare Spark Blog 
[…] How was the concept of rootedness carried forth in Hitler’s ‘secret’ book (1926)? The future Leader envisioned a world federation of volkisch states, each faithful to her group character, but all subordinated to the superior German people’s aims and objectives. (Here, the notion of der Führer-imposed state worship comes in.) For more discussion of this conception see https://clarespark.com/2015/06/13/hitlers-second-book-1928-his-war-aims-and-multiculturalism/. […]
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