Mein Kampf

Chapter 13 Part 3

By Richard E. Noble

"...The same boy who is nauseated by the drivel of the ideal pacifist is ready to throw away his young life for the ideal of his nationality..."
That a young boy will throw away his life for almost anything seems to be a given. Young boys are fighting in our streets today, often to their death, for nothing more than a particular corner on a city street. Young boys, old men, and women and girls not excluded, always seem to be willing to sacrifice their lives and the lives of others for any number of reasons, nationality being one reason among many. In our individual nations we try to teach a respect for life to all of the population. We establish laws to punish those who do not act accordingly. But then on an international basis we try and teach to the same child and population the righteousness, and bravery of killing others. At one time we here in the U.S. tried to limit this killing to the qualification of self-defense, but as to what now determines our self-defense has expanded to include our military presence all over the world. Protecting economic and political notions is now even included under the category of our self-defense. Dying for some principal or cause seems to be all too prevalent an excuse to kill oneself and/or others, throughout all of human history.
"... The Jew forms the strongest contrast to the Aryan. Hardly in any people of the world is the instinct of self-preservation more strongly developed than in the so called 'chosen people.' The fact of the existence of this race alone may be looked upon as the best proof of this. Where is the people that in the past two thousand years has been exposed to so small changes than this one - and yet has always come forth the same from the most colossal catastrophes of mankind? ..."
Yes, and how does this attribute for the Jews become a point of derision and for the German and Aryan a point of pride?
"... In the Jewish people, the will to sacrifice oneself does not go beyond the bare instinct of self-preservation of the individual ... The Jew remains united only if forced by common danger or attracted by a common booty. If the Jews were alone in this world, they would suffocate as much in dirt and filth, as they would carry on a detestable struggle to cheat and to ruin each other, although the complete lack of the will to sacrifice, expressed in their cowardice, would also in this instance make the fight a comedy ... The Jew is led by nothing but pure egoism on the part of the individual ..."
Well, the whole history of the Jewish people must stand as a testament to the falsity of this outburst. But, as always with Adolf, there is that slight sparkling of truth, but in this case the truth of the above can apply to all of humanity. The demands of the individual ego burst forward in every group no matter how large or how small. The notion that a group will eventually feed upon itself, is as true of our own Nation as it was of the Nazis. In fact, the holocaust could very well be considered an example of German feeding upon German, and a lack of loyalty on the part of the German people as a whole. For, in fact, Jews were Germans, as Christ was a Jew. The competitive human instinct will feed upon others until there are no others and then it seems will turn to digesting itself.
I often wonder about the nature of competitiveness, and whether or not it is another of those human defects that we must guard with a vigilant restraint. We are all raised in the spirit of competition from our earliest days. We are taught that competition is good. But one does not have to be the most astute to recognize the bitterness, jealousy and hate that competition engenders. It may be this very quality that has filled our little Adolf to the gills in this book of his.
"... therefore he (the Jew) never was a nomad, but always only a parasite in the body of other peoples. That thereby he sometimes leaves his previous living quarters is not concerned with his intention, but is the simple logic of his being thrown out from time to time by the host nation he abuses. But his spreading is the typical symptom of all parasites; he always looks for a new feeding soil for his race ... In the Jews life as a parasite in the body of other nations and States, his characteristic is established which once caused Schopenhauer to pronounce the sentence, already mentioned, that the Jew is the 'great master of lying.' Life urges the Jew towards the lie, that is to a perpetual lie, just as it forces the inhabitants of northern countries to wear warm clothes ... His life within other peoples can only exist in the long run if he succeeds in creating the impression as though he were not a people but only a 'religious community' though a special one ... The Jews were always people with definite racial qualities, and never a religion ... The Jew can not possess a religious institution for the very reason that he lacks all idealism in any form and that he also does not recognize any belief in the hereafter ... The Talmud is then not a book for the preparation for the life to come, but rather for a practical and bearable life in this world ... His life is really only of this world, and his spirit is as alien to true Christianity, for instance, as his nature was two thousand years ago to the Sublime Founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his disposition towards the Jewish people, and when necessary He even took to the whip in order to drive out of the Lord’s temple this adversary of all humanity, who even then as always saw in religion only a means for his business existence ..."
Well, there is a mouthful. The fact that the Jews, up until this point, had no 'country' has certainly been a fact that has been used against them. But do the Roman Catholics have a country? Do the Lutherans have a country? Do the Muslims have a Country? Do Calvinist have a homeland? Does any Religion have a particular country? If we consider the Jew as a member of a Religion as it certainly must be considered, then we must disregard this notion as a justified criticism. One must wonder why Adolf did not consider the Democratic Christians as a group worthy of extermination. Why were not German Catholics thought of as people with a loyalty to a crown outside of the German nation? We know that German communists were to be repulsed, but if a 'good' German Communist recanted and became a Nazi, would he be forgiven his sins and be allowed to join in with his fellow Germans? A Catholic can become a Protestant, but can a Jew become a Jehovah's Witness? Is Karl Marx a Jew or a Protestant? It does seem that in World opinion - a Jew is a Jew, is a Jew, is a Jew.
It is interesting to note here that there is a theory that Adolf was himself part Jew. His Father being the illegitimate offspring of a relationship between his Grandmother, and a Rothschild in whose home she worked in one capacity or another. This 'fact' was supposedly known to Mr. Dollfuss, in Austria, the exposure of which allegedly led to his assassination by Nazi henchmen. In any case, it seems that it was necessary here for Adolf to 'expose' the Jews as a race and not a Religion, for the purposes of complete alienation.
Has this always been a problem with relation to the Jews? Have the Jews throughout History been considered as a 'Nation' rather than a Religion, or is this theory of German or Anti-Semitic Origin? The Jewish religion is and has traditionally been composed of many sects. These sects seem to span a range all the way from conservative orthodoxy, to a liberal agnosticism. It is also interesting to note that although Adolf criticizes the Jew for not having a nation, and being nothing more than a parasite on other nations, he is equally critical of the Zionist movement. It seems to me here that as a Jew, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. But once again Adolf is consistent. You are either willing to fight or a coward. But if you are willing to fight, but choose to fight against Adolf, you are a traitor.
"The Sublime Founder of the new doctrine"? And one must notice that Adolf chooses to capitalize the words "Sublime Founder". Is this an acknowledgement of the divinity of Jesus Christ? Is Adolf here proclaiming his Faith in Jesus Christ and Christianity? We must also remember his reference to the Philosophy of Love established by the Sublime Founder. Does Adolf consider himself a Christian to be aligned with the likes of say Constantine and other historically great Christian leaders of the past? Is Christianity a doctrine of 'Love', or a doctrine of War and conquest? I would imagine today that most Christians would align themselves with the former and not the later, but what does History say of this union?
Was there not an Inquisition? Were there not Crusades? Were there not Popes who were military generals? Onward Christian soldiers? Did not the new Christians persecute and attack and kill the Christ killers among their ranks? New Jew against Old Jew - could not Christianity be considered just another Jewish sect and Islam but another? Is the whole western civilization but one Jewish sect or another? We have to travel far to the East before we shed the Old Testament, and the legacy of the Jew. If we could estimate a historical body count, which religion would be the greater killer?
Adolf was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and right up until 1938 he received the praise of the reigning pope of the day. The question for investigation would be, at this point in history (1920 or so) what were the attitudes of the Roman Catholic Church? What was their attitude towards both Fascism, and Nazism? Whose side was Italy on in World War II? Why wasn't Italy partitioned after the war? Were there trials for Italian war criminals after the war? Did the Pope have to leave Rome in fear for his life? What did the Pope or the Popes of this era say about Fascism and Nazism? I know that the Pope of the day, Pius XII, established Vatican City as an independent state because of a compromise with Mussolini. The Christian voice was diminished because of another compromise made with Adolf and his Nazis. I also know that he stood and spoke out against atheistic communist Russia. "How many divisions has the Pope?" asked Stalin of the French leader M. Laval sarcastically in the early 1930's when the French were negotiating with the Russians for an alliance against Adolf. Could World War II be considered a 'Religious War', a modern day Crusade - believers against non-believers, Christians against Jews? On what side did the Arab nations of the world align themselves at this point in History? Were they Nazi and anti-Semites? Did they align themselves with Hitler and Mussolini during the war? Were they united or disunited in their cause? Lawrence of Arabia? Who the hell was he? And who was he fighting? Were the Arabs like the French, and Lawrence of Arabia like De Gaulle? Where was De Gaulle in the 1920s and 1930s? Where was he when the Germans attacked Paris? From whence sprang the Vichy government? How did this historical enemy of Germany develop their courtship with their age old rival? What led Frenchmen who fought so courageously at Flanders and the Marne and elsewhere, to cozy up to Adolf? What was the state or condition of anti-Semitism in France? What part of the French nation in terms of land area and people capitulated with the Nazis? Was the hatred of the Jews the banner of the Adolf Hitler Crusade? And was it this hatred of Jews that led to Adolf's support all over the world? General Petain? What was his story?
I have heard anti-Semites in my time ask the question that had Adolf succeeded in killing all of the Jews would not the world be a better place. But is the problem here Jews, or the nature and quality of hatred and jealousy in the human beast? If it were not Jews, would it not then be 'niggers'? If it were not niggers would it not be 'gooks', if it were not 'gooks' would it not be Puerto Ricans, or Cubans, or Chinks. In Bosnia it’s Croates, and in Croatia, it is Serbs. In my neighborhood it was once the 'harps' against the 'ginnies' followed by the Ginnies and the Harps against the Polacks. It almost seems that it is a part of the human condition to hate. And if there were no one to hate would the hatred then turn inward? And could it not be that all of this hatred is inward hate turned outward?
If one truly loved oneself and all of those qualities that made him human, would he then be able to truly hate anyone? Did Adolf love himself? Were not all of the things that he hated about the Jews, the exact same things he despised in his own people? Could we not follow this back to the psychological principal that what we hate and try to suppress in others, is exactly what we hate and try to suppress in ourselves?
Adolf tries to suppress in the world about him fear of evil. He tries to suppress evil by justifying it in terms consistent with his religious faith. Hence evil becomes not evil but good. Cruelty becomes kindness to the human species as a whole. Of course, I suppose that one could say that Adolf did not try to suppress evil or fear, but instead tried to promote these things. What he tried to suppress was any feelings of guilt that one might have for the promotion of evil acts or inculcating horror and fear into others. So if Adolf was suppressing anything in the world about him, it would be guilt or conscience.
Adolf hated anyone who was afraid to fight. Was he once fearful of battle and confrontation himself? Was he so frightened of the fighting in World War I that he had to incorporate a rationale that would give him the strength to understand and face his fears? Was Adolf an abused child? A testimony from Adolf's brother states that Adolf's father once beat Adolf into unconsciousness. Is an abused child more or less inclined to abuse others? What would be the human beings’ typical reaction towards abuse? 1) To pass this abuse onto others? 2) To shield and isolate oneself from the abuse of others? 3) To take steps to prevent abuse to ourselves and others? 4) To accept abuse as right and necessary, and therefore punish ourselves and abuse others? 5) To look upon abuse as an entitlement coupled with maturity, or rank?
I suppose that there might be as many different reactions to abuse as there are human personalities. Is courage and fear but opposite sides of the same coin? Was Adolf so fearful of death that he had to embrace it, seek it out and make it a part of himself in order to conquer his fear of it? Is this how we each react?
What is your personal reaction to your impending death? For that matter what is my reaction? I guess that my first reaction is and always has been resentment - at least to death in general.
When my father died when I was a child, I was very bitter. I was bitter and resentful. I was bitter towards society. It was the 'society' who refused to care for my dad in the manner I saw fit. It was the society that didn't provide my dad with a decent job. This made it impossible for him to provide for his wife and family. This made him feel that he was unworthy to be alive and to feel that he was not a decent man. This made him drink. This made him not want to be alive.
I was bitter towards my mother. She did not treat my dad in the manner I saw fit either. I was bitter towards my father. He did not do his best to try and stay alive. I felt that somehow he had died on purpose. Today when someone or something that I love dies, I feel a profound sadness and a deep loneliness. I feel personally inadequate. I always feel that somehow it has been my fault. I should have done something else, or something more.
What do I think when I contemplate my own death? I think that I will find peace and freedom from pain - but one never knows. I will miss those that I love and those that have loved me, but I don't know if I would want to perpetuate these relationships into an eternity.
When a little tabby cat that had been with me for over fifteen years died, I had the strongest urge to die with her. I felt a horrible pain of inadequacy. She was in such terrible fear. She was crying and screaming. She was experiencing a combination of stroke and heart failure. She didn't want to go. Even though she was paralyzed in her back legs, she crawled, and dragged herself to my bedroom door. She had always depended on me. I had named her Buddy because she followed me everywhere. For a time she even slept in the bed beside me. I felt that she didn't know what to do. She was frightened. I had picked her up into my arms, but in her confusion and fear she snapped at me. When she realized that she had almost bitten me, she immediately began to lick my hand on the spot that she had just snapped at. I felt that she was the bravest most lovable little thing that I ever knew. Even in this horrible fear, with her heart stopping, and her legs not working and who knows what else, she still realized that she had struck out at me, and so she licked at me in apology for fear of losing my friendship. I have never experienced such friendship from another human being. I was so sad. But even at this moment, my mind turned to Philosophy. If I were to die right there and then, simultaneously with my little Buddy, would we pass through that final mist together? Or would we just both disappear each into our own oblivion?
What of my wife? Are we not equally good friends? How could I leave her? And is it not a fact of this life that we must live it until the end? I can not die and be with you, for in truth I may not be with you, ever. So I must stand and watch my Buddy die, as I will eventually stand and watch myself die. I must visit with death without resentment because the resentment only causes anguish and pain. I must stay alive and bleed for your memory, for in fact, all that is sure is what is. All that is real is what we are at the moment and what we have shared together, and there may never be any more. And it too will disappear when we disappear.
Strangely, in a way, Buddy will be alive as long as I am alive. And how I make these lovely things live is by keeping them alive forever in my memory, and then possibly forever by passing them onto you. For then once my loves have infiltrated your memory, they will continue to live even beyond me. So when I write about these things and myself, I am really tricking you into carrying me into the future - possibly into eternity.
I can not go, even to comfort anybody. I can only sit and wait. The words, 'I want to die, I want to die' just kept repeating over and over in my mind. I wanted to pass through the barrier of death with my little Buddy in my arms so that I could show her that there was nothing to be afraid of. But I could not, because this would be just a wish - a wish with no support, only one of any number of possibilities.
Could we then not interpret fear of one's death as the inability of one to come to grips with his own mortality and/or the death of those one loves, and thusly an inability to reconcile himself with his own existence or creation? Then do we not once again return to the possible source of all hatred as being steeped in the frustration of our lives, and the lives of those we love being placed in an arbitrary state of existence? A cruel hard existence culminating in death, no matter which way we turn, no matter how we try to prevent it? Isn't this the state or condition of all mankind? Isn't this the reason for all philosophy, theology, and religion? And isn't this exactly what Adolf is all about - the rectification of a philosophy or faith that conforms to the reality of his life? And the reality of life being, as for us all, a witness to death and cruelty, our own suffering and death, and the suffering and death of those we love.
How could God kill us and those we love without explanation or answer? We must find and answer, or live in a state of anguish, and fear. Anguish and fear leads to frustration, anxiety, and discontent. Discontent leads to hate and anger and the desire to free ourselves of the situation that has caused us these problems.
Was Adolf subconsciously seeking suicide? But being unable to face his own destruction and death, he opted for the next best alternative - punishing and destroying others?
Killing others satisfies the personal frustration caused by ones self-hate and confusion and frustration just as one might punch a tree or kick a dog to release minor personal frustration. Is sadism at its root, masochism?
Adolf wished to die, but could not face his own death. He satisfied the feelings of ambivalence engendered in this attitude by wishing for, instigating and indulging in administering and torturing and participating in the pain, suffering and death of others. One can not kill God. One can only show ones disapproval for the life situation, the arbitrary life situation, by punishing oneself, or by punishing other people, animals or even other living things. But what would be a positive reaction to this frustration of the arbitrary life and death situation? Can we not accept ourselves and this life as a finite experience, to be taken at its worth or basic face value? To be enjoyed, or not to be enjoyed, a matter of our own selection, or attitude - life, with oblivion before it and oblivion after it with no necessity for redemption, or justification? Simply being in itself and for itself, and nothing more? Can we not accept this as the fact of life as we can only know it, with everything and anything else being only speculation and human fantasy, imagination and wishful thinking? Is not creativity but a positive way of channeling our personal frustrations into some positive direction? Could it not be that birth and the creation of new life is one of the frustrated answers of the human to the irreconcilable question of life and death? Is the concept of loneliness a part of all of this? And is it not true that the miserable love company? How many bring new life into the world in an attempt to alleviate their personal pain and suffering?
A positive reaction towards death is to fight for life, to promote longevity in ourselves and others, to create new life, and try to sustain and preserve the old. To try and conquer death, to expand on the human life span, possibly widening the gap between life and death to eternity. Conquer sickness and disease. Fight against cruelty, war and destruction. To try and figure out the causes of pain, suffering, war, killing, death and destruction.
Hate? If it is innately human, how can this energy be channeled for good? Hate the evil? Hate the pain? Hate the cruelty? Hate the frustration? Hate a God who is the supposed source of all of these frustrations, the Creator of good and evil? Or more 'existentially' hate our lack of intellect and our personal inability to psychologically cope or find the root to our own frustrations - evil? Hate the attitudes that promote these things, and seek rational reconciliation.
To seek spiritualism and faith and hope in a cruel God, I do not see as a positive answer, but more in line with contributing to the overall hate and frustration. Belief in an evil or abusive God does not provide a rational answer or solution and leaves the burden on mankind. If we could rationally correlate God with the Devil then burden the Devil as the source of all of our personal frustrations and inadequacies, and then make the devil our object of derision we could then alleviate our guilt and frustration. The problem is in separating good from evil or God for the Devil.
Religion is the attempt of theologians to accomplish this feat.
Adolf followed conventional religious thinking but took it one step further. He coupled the Jew with the concept of the devil. Adolf found an external object for his internal hatred. How much better off we all would have been if he had simply shot himself.
But Adolf also hated guilt. He would not accept guilt for any part of his actions in life. So he vented his personal frustration, pain, anguish, and hatred on others. Obviously he was not inclined to the notion and attitude of the Sublime Founder of the Philosophy of Love who said - Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. And could we reinterpret these words as saying in effect - why blame others who are no better off and basically in the same boat as we, in their understanding of the nature and source of human hatred.