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

622 DER FUEHRERStill arguing almost explicitly against the German Nationalists — 'donot confuse us with the bourgeois world!' — he explained why NationalSocialism wanted to, had to, and would, dispense with war. War, heimplied, was a method of purely political state formations, belonging toan outlived dynastic era, while National Socialism was the philosophyof the great European national revolution, and therefore extended farbeyond state limitations; a philosophy of democracy among nationswhich must make it possible to create a system of international justiceand renounce force. His clumsy and uncertain choice of big wordsindicated that the speaker himself only half-believed what he wassaying, but at the moment wanted to believe it: 'Through manycenturies,' he said, 'the European states and their boundaries arose fromconceptions which were restricted to exclusively state lines. But withthe victorious emergence of the national idea and the principle ofnationalities in the course of the past century, and in consequence of thefailure of states arisen from other presuppositions to consider these newideas and ideals, the seeds of numerous conflicts were planted.' TheTreaty of Versailles might have changed this unhealthy state of affairs;but it neglected to do so, 'partly from ignorance, partly from passion andhatred.' The speaker enumerated all the sins which rightly or wrongly hehad for fourteen years been holding up to the Peace of Versailles. Thepeace, he declared, had brought Germany such misery that since the dayof its signing, 224,900 persons had committed suicide, and 'Germany,contrary to the sacred conviction of the German people and theirgovernment was branded with the World War guilt.' Did Germany wishto wipe out the curse of this 'world peace' by a new war? Never! 'Nonew European war would be able to replace the unsatisfactoryconditions of today by any better ones. On the contrary. Neitherpolitically nor economically could the use of force produce a morefavorable situation in Europe than that which exists today. Even if anew European solution by violence brought a decisive success, the endresult would be only to increase the disturbance of the Europeanbalance, thus planting the seeds of new future conflicts andentanglements. New wars, new victims, new insecurity, and neweconomic distress would be the consequence [lively applause]. ... It isthe deep and earnest