irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is
ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will
befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes -
crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day?
If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand,
frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order in history; if they surrender man's highest principle,
that which raises him above all other God's creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive
action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid
of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly
mass - then, yes, they deserve their downfall.
Goethe speaks of the Germans as a tragic people, like the Jews and the Greeks, but today it would
appear rather that they are a spineless, will-less herd of hangers-on, who now - the marrow sucked out of
their bones, robbed of their center of stability - are waiting to be hounded to their destruction. So it seems
- but it is not so. Rather, by means of a gradual, treacherous, systematic abuse, the system has put every
man into a spiritual prison. Only now, finding himself lying in fetters, has he become aware of his fate.
Only a few recognized the threat of ruin, and the reward for their heroic warning was death. We will have
more to say about the fate of these persons. If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the
messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer; then even the last victim will have been cast
senselessly into the maw of the insatiable demon.
Therefore every individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western
civilization, must defend himself against the scourges of mankind, against fascism and any similar system
of totalitarianism. Offer passive resistance - resistance - wherever you may be, forestall the spread of this
atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last cities, like Cologne, have been reduced to
rubble, and before the nation's last young man has given his blood on some battlefield for the hubris of a
sub-human. Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure.
From Friedrich Schiller's "The Lawgiving of Lycurgus and Solon":
- Viewed in relation to its purposes, the law code of Lycurgus is a masterpiece of political science
and knowledge of human nature. He desired a powerful, unassailable state, firmly established on its
own principles. Political effectiveness and permanence were the goal towards which he strove, and
he attained this goal to the full extent possible under the circumstances. But if one compares the
purpose Lycurgus had in view with the purposes of mankind, then a deep abhorrence takes the
place of the approbation which we felt at first glance. Anything may be sacrificed to the good of the
state except that end for which the State serves as a means. The state is never an end in itself; it is
important only as a condition under which the purpose of mankind can be attained, and this purpose
is none other than the development of all of man's powers, his progress and improvement. If a state
prevents the development of the capacities which reside in man, if it interferes with the progress of
the human spirit, then it is reprehensible and injurious, no matter how excellently devised, how
perfect in its own way. Its very permanence in that case amounts more to a reproach than to a basis
for fame; it becomes a prolonged evil, and the longer it endures, the more harmful it is...
At the price of all moral feeling a political system was set up, and the resources of the state were
mobilized to that end. In Sparta there was no conjugal love, no mother love, no filial devotion, no
friendship; all men were citizens only, and all virtue was civic virtue.
A law of the state made it the duty of Spartans to be inhumane to their slaves; in these unhappy
victims of war humanity itself was insulted and mistreated. In the Spartan code of law the dangerous
principle was promulgated that men are to be looked upon as means and not as ends - and the
foundations of natural law and of morality were destroyed by that law...
What an admirable sight is afforded, by contrast, by the rough soldier Gaius Marcius in his camp
before Rome, when he renounced vengeance and victory because he could not endure to see a
mother's tears!...
The state [of Lycurgus] could endure only under the one condition: that the spirit of the people
remained quiescent. Hence it could be maintained only if it failed to achieve the highest, the sole
purpose of a state.
From Goethe's "The Awakening of Epimenides, Act II, Scene 4:
- SPIRITS: Though he who has boldly risen from the abyss Through an iron will and cunning May
conquer half the world, Yet to the abyss he must return. Already a terrible fear has seized him; In vain
he will resist! And all who still stand with him Must perish in his fall
HOPE: Now I find my good men Are gathered in the night, To wait in silence, not to sleep. And the
glorious word of liberty They whisper and murmur, Till in unaccustomed strangeness, On the steps of
our temple Once again in delight they cry: Freedom! Freedom!
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