Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

228 DER FUEHRERthemselves, but can only make themselves less noble.' This is theessence of the whole doctrine. As the noble race, Gobineau and Wagnerdesignate the white race. But 'the ruination of the white race is that it isincomparably less numerous than the lower races, and was forced tomix with them.' And thus the higher, nobler minority of the white racemust decline with the force of a natural law; 'the tragic character of thisrealization must not close our eyes to it.' The particular tragedy ofmodern society in its racial decay is that in their midst there alwaysremains, undamaged, the Jew; 'the most astonishing example of raceconsistency that history ever has provided.' This, in Wagner's eyes, is'an amazing, incomparable phenomenon; the plastic demon of the decayof humanity enjoys triumphant safety.'The white sons of the gods decline, and this decline cannot permanentlybe prevented. Valhalla sinks into the twilight of the gods, andin this tragedy the gods are not blameless, for their realm was based onforce, on the domination of the beast of prey. But though the wholedownward course of the world cannot be stopped, it can, for a time, behalted in certain details, and the degeneration combated by a'regeneration.' Wagner hoped that Germany would give the world thistemporary regeneration if she renounced power politics and permeatedthe world with her culture: 'Even if the Holy Roman Empire were to goup in smoke, We would still have sacred German art,' sings Hans Sachsin the Meistersingers.Germany's bright and dark souls met in Wagner's breast. Just as hewas wearying of Bismarck's cannon-and-stock-exchange-state, largesections of the German people were beginning to ask themselves: Didwe really want this? Lulled for a moment by the thunderous spectacle of1871, they now began to strain against the shackles of Prussian might.The German workers' movement, an angry protest against soullessPrussian force, grew to be the largest and most powerful movement ofits sort in the modem world, though the German workers never becameconscious of their power. As a part of the European workers' movement,the German movement was a rebellion against capitalism, but as aGerman movement, it was a rebellion against the Prussian military state;Bismarck saw the danger for his creature so clearly that, at the time hefell