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

INTERLUDE 229from power, he was planning to provoke artificial disorders among theworkers (in the style of Napoleon III), as a pretext for crushing themovement in blood.Under pressure of circumstances, Bismarck had won for Germanyseveral colonies overseas, but he did it against his convictions. His mostenduring political creation was the German military machine; what, fordecades, the world has called Prussian militarism. Bismarck did notconceive this militarism as an instrument of world domination, for in hiseyes Germany was simply not strong enough for 'world rule.' To the endof his life he was much more conscious of her weakness than of herstrength.This nervous fear has left its deep imprint on German thought. Themost far-reaching voice of modern German philosophy bears its mark.We refer to Friedrich Nietzsche, who cursed 'nationalism and racehatred . . . the national heart-itch and blood-poisoning on account ofwhich the nations of Europe today are bounded off and secluded fromone another, as by quarantine.' For this modern European nationalism heheld Bismarck's system largely responsible; a system that must 'plantitself between two mortal hatreds lest its own creation should collapse.'His final opinion about his own nation (like every great spirit Nietzschedid not hold the same opinions throughout his life) might be summed upin his words: 'Wheresoever Germany penetrates she ruins culture.'Therefore, Wagner's 'degeneration' was quite true for Germany, but itwas a 'death dream' peculiar to Germany and not applicable to thehuman type of the future which Nietzsche sometimes called the 'goodEuropean,' sometimes the 'Superman'; 'a daring, dominant race based onan extremely intelligent herd,' which will overcome nations andparticularly the German nation.For in our time 'it has been made possible for international racialleagues to arise, which set themselves the task of cultivating a race ofmasters, the future masters of the earth; a new and mighty aristocracy,based on the hardest self-legislation, in which the will of philosophicaldespots and artist tyrants will endure for thousands of years; a highertype of men, who, thanks to their surplus of will, knowledge, wealth,influence, use democratic Europe as their most supple and mobile tool,to lay hands on the destinies of the earth. . . .'