the menace of the man and his program '.>' ^ t.^ byTtarlBilUnger earing away the veils of inarticulate mysticism which fog the pages of ^fflem Kampf* the German author of this book lays bare the grim purposes of the well-known Austrian paper-hanger. / ^^^~-?:>^A^^ The Book and the Author When it became apparent that Jews, democracies, war, peace, ra- Hitler's Mein Kampf was to be cial theories, etc., and arranging taken seriously, there was a rush these topics in an orderly form. We in various countries to make this learn how Hitler came to power, book available in completely unex- why anti-Semitism is an inevitable purgated form to readers through- part of fascism, and why the real out the civilized world. facts of Hitler's life are not told in This book does not purport to his book. be another translation of Mein The author is a young German, Kampf. It is, however, an entirely now taking out his American citi- accurate and faithful description of zenship papers. He opposed Hitler Hitler's world program. The origi- during the early Nazi days and nal Mein Kampf is an extremely spent many terrible months in a long book, and that is not its most concentration camp, which he de- formidable feature from the stand- scribed in his famous first book. point of the reader. Hitler's style is Fatherland. This present volume is notoriously bad even in German, further proof of his really great and the organization of his book ability as a writer. The book pre- makes it extremely difificult for the sents a most penetrating analysis of reader to acquire a clear picture of Hider and his policies, proving his thesis. Hitler Is No Fool cor- conclusively that the man is not to rects this fault by the simple process be taken lighdy and that continued of gathering together the widely attempts to laugh him o£F will play scattered Hiderian views on the direcdy into his hands. Hitler Is No Fool BY KARL BILLINGER AUTHOR OF ^'FATHERLAND" MODERN AGE BOOKS • INC • NEW YORK COPYRIGHT 1939 BY KARL BILLINGER PUBLISHED BY MODERN AGE BOOKS, INC. All rights in this boof^ are reserved, and it may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the holder 0/ these rights. For information address the publishers. 60 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 3 1262 08645 472 4 Contents Preface vii 1 Who Is Hitler? i 2 Hitler's Program 29 3 How Did Hitler Come To Power ? 88 4 How Does Hitler Carry Out His Program? 132 5 Will Hitler Win? 169 Footnotes 195 Preface Today, after more than six years of feverish activities, Nazi Germany is still a mystery to the man in the streets of America. To him the Third Reich appears as a one-man shovi^. He resents a social order built upon terror and fear and is indignant when he reads about Jewish pogroms, threats of invasion, and conquests of weak coun- tries. But he is at an utter loss to explain the miraculous career of the "Austrian housepainter." He might, perhaps, pity the German people. But the longer he sees them ruled by a "fool" or a "madman," the more will his pity change into contempt, the more will his feeHng grow that the Germans, after all, deserve a Government which they apparendy are nc^t able or even wilHng to overthrow. For this man in the street the present book is written. It wants to acquaint him with the chief exponent of German fascism, with his ideas and plans and, moreover, with the forces he represents. The best way of doing it might still be to go back to the most authoritative source, Hitler's own book. The world would have been spared much guessing about the essence and aims of the National SociaUst regime had it taken the trouble to study the Fuehrer's work carefully. History has seldom offered the oppor- tunity of learning from a dictator himself his most guarded designs before he has been able to carry them out. But how are we to know that Hider who has told so many Ues, broken so many promises, and violated so many solemn treaties did not veil and distort the truth in his book.? Even a liar will tell vii Vm PREFACE the truth if it is more advantageous than lying. There was a time in Hitler's life when nothing but frankness would help his career. Let us for a moment return to the years when Mein Kampj was written. In November, 1923, in Munich Hitler led his first violent assault upon the Weimar Republic. However, the insurrection proved a fiasco. The Army upon whose support Hider had counted did not follow him, and the police turned their guns upon the traitors, even though the famous General Ludendorfl, the brain of the German Armies in the War, marched in the front rank. On the eve of the insurrection Hitler, revolver in hand, made the solemn vow, "Either I am victorious by tomorrow afternoon, or L shall be a dead man!" Under the bullets of the poHce he chose to preserve himself for the German people and fled to the Bavarian mountains, to the family of his friend Hanfstaengl. Shortly after the insurrection he was taken into custody and brought before a People's Court which sentenced him to five years' "honorable imprisonment," the minimum punishment for high treason. The Nazi movement had suffered its first major defeat. The Hitler Party was outlawed and began to disintegrate. Army officers and industrial backers withdrew their support. Hitler had com- promised himself too greatly. At the same time stabilization of the currency and the first foreign gold loan made the German economic situation look a little more hopeful. The inflation with its fantastic rise of prices had hit the lower middle class especially hard. It had robbed it of all its savings and had driven it into the arms of political reaction. Now, however, with the prospect of better times ahead, the small shopkeepers, artisans, peasants derived new hope and were less ready to listen to the reactionaries' attack upon the Republic. The end of the year 1923 marked a turning point also for the German revolutionary movement. It became clear by then that its PREFACE IX most influential body, the Communist Party, had not been able to mobilize for the establishment of a sociaUst order the radical senti- ments which the War had created among the workers. Big Business consoUdated the profits made during War and infla- tion and did not feel any immediate necessity for playing witii counter-revolution. The democratic Government, to all appearances, had emerged victorious and established its authority. Hitler's poUtical career seemed at an end. During this period of general decomposition of his movement the most vital question for Hitler was to justify himself to those of his followers who had remained faithful and to prove anew to those who had left him his indispensabiUty for the future. Thus in the prison fortress of the small Bavarian town of Landsberg, where he had begun to serve his sentence on April i, 1924, he started to write his book. Mein Kampf is the continuation of Hitler's political fight. Nobody will dierefore expect objective truth from the man for whom objectivity in poUtics is a "poison." But the purpose of his writing made him write his truth—the book tells the truth about its author. dis- It is a strange hodgepodge of autobiographical notes, political cussions, and personal philosophy of life. It is at one and the same time a document of self-defense and a program for a new German ImperiaHsm. Its content superabounds in pseudo-scientific argument, but there is always a political point even in the most abstruse digression. There are now available for the first time two complete Ameri- can editions of Mein Kampf which have not been censored by Hitler. But not many of the readers to whom the present book is addressed will have the time and patience to plow through the Fuehrer's voluminous and obscure work. In extracting its rational kernel and exhibiting the inner logic in Hider's seemingly senseless PREFACE theories and assertions, I have tried to give them an easily under- standable "lead" through the Leader. In the presentation of Hitler's program I follow as closely as pos- sible Hitler's own words. Nothing else would give as faithful a pic- ture of the personality, character, and intellectual composition of the man who, an almost unknown figure ten years ago, is now keeping the woi;ld in breathless suspense. The quotations are taken from the German edition of 1938 which, like all the hundreds of various German editions, corresponds but for a few changes to the original version of Mein Kampf. The American reader who pos- sesses the English translation of 1933 should not try to find the quoted passages there. They have been omitted for the most part. The story of Adolf Hider is, of course, not the whole story of German fascism. The details of an individual Hfe, the accidents of a political career should not divert us from searching for the social roots of National Socialism. The Fuehrer's character illuminates only the character of the social forces which find in him their ideal expression. I therefore did not confine myself to a mere summary of Mein Kampf, but tried to describe the relations between National Socialism and the various strata of the German people as well.