We will delve into the complex relationship between democracy and National Socialist ideology. While National Socialism is commonly seen as diametrically opposed to democratic values, there is a paradoxical aspect to it. The National Socialists denounced democracy, yet they also claimed to introduce a genuine Germanic democracy to their people. They reinterpreted democracy, similar to the Soviets, viewing it not through parliaments and political parties, but through traditional forms of popular rule rooted in Germany's past.
When activists initially envisioned a future National Socialist state, they seldom mentioned dictatorship. Instead, they emphasized concepts like voting, elections, and representative government, stripped of the characteristics associated with Western parliamentary systems. We will explore these notions of "National Socialist democracy." Our first exploration will draw from Rudolf Jung's book, Der Nationale Sozialismus, the earliest work of National Socialist political philosophy. Jung describes a future Nazi state built upon a "council-system." To study this, we will examine two chapters from Jung's work: "Parliament or Council?" (Parlament oder Räte?) and "The German Peoples' State" (Der deutsche Volkstaat).
Der Nationale Sozialismus
Parliament or Councils?
How were things in 1918? Absolutism – it was declared at the time – must disappear, democracy should take its place. The very fact that no one could find a German word to describe what was desired indicated that the goal was quite unclear and hazy. In essence, the autocracy of the individual, which had been severely limited by constitutional institutions, was simply replaced by the far more ruthless rule of the major parties. And even then, sometimes only ostensibly. The sceptres rolled into the dust, the moneybag took their place; in lieu of dynastic power struggles, which still here and there had to be reconciled with the public welfare, the naked selfishness of the parties appeared. The urge to feed at the trough has brought about the most untenable alliances between parties, in which each has no faith in the other, in which each seeks advantage over the other. It does not matter to them whether the state whose leadership they have been entrusted with falls apart as a result, so long as the party’s fortunes prosper…
Every method is pursued in the attempt to alleviate this malady, from unity parties here to untenable party alliances there. But it is incurable. The system instead must be transformed completely. Today’s parliamentarism, with its unicameral structure, requires urgent supplementation by the old German system of representation via the estates, a system which is far better suited to the nature of our Volk. Of course, this system will not appear as it did in former times, because the old estates have either partly changed or have vanished completely. Nobody today, for example, would be able to sufficiently exemplify the concept of Bürgertum. But there are occupational groups which can provide us with a suitable basis for estatist representation, a representation whose modern form of expression is the council system – by which, however, we do not intend to mean the Russian caricature, because the concept of a council dictatorship is as untenable as any dictatorship, i.e., tyranny. But the council concept [Rätegedanke] itself is good, and it will be realized in the most diverse range of forms within political, intellectual, and economic life! But here, too, one needs to be on guard against one-sidedness and overestimation. There are no panaceas; every illness requires different remedies. Life is manifold, and colorful and manifold are therefore also its manifestations.
Thus we do not believe that the council system alone is able to heal the damage done to the suffering body of Volk and state. But it is incontestably capable of renewing some of life’s manifestations, namely those within the economic sphere. Every occupation consolidates its members. The members as a collective then exert influence through their representatives upon the enterprise in which they are employed, as well as upon all enterprises as a whole, i.e., upon the entire economic life of the state and Volk – that is, upon the national economy!
By no means would this render political parties unnecessary. They would, however, be freed from a great deal of trivial odds and ends, and would thereby be able to turn to greater tasks, more cultural and statesmanlike; they would be better able to commit themselves to actual philosophies; and thus they would also disappoint less. Complaints about the exclusion of this or that profession, which today are all too justified, would fall away. Only then would our Volk learn to think politically. Free and unrestrained, liberated from all bonds and impurities, the great old perspectives would then step forth as champions: cosmopolitanism (internationalism, world-citizenship) on the one hand, folkdom (nationalism) on the other. They have been competing against each other for centuries. Ever since the Roman Church first stretched its arm over German lands, the völkisch development of our state and economic life began to be stripped away. Roman Law and capitalism are only the natural and necessary consequences of a pre-existing root-cause, which is the de-Germanization of our national life [Volkslebens].
The council concept has been invoked in order that we might pick up once again where the thread of our development broke off centuries before. It should absolutely be enshrined in the constitution of the German state. This requirement is included within our Guiding Principles. “Creation of second parliamentary chambers on the basis of occupational representation,” they say. Accordingly, parliament would therefore consist of one chamber, into which the political parties send their representatives, and a second, into which the occupational associations send theirs.
In his work For a House of Estates, Dr. Paul Schrekker has sketched out a plan for just such a chamber which we shall now briefly consider. In his conception, elections should be decided upon the basis of a simple majority (i.e., without proportional representation) according to a system of occupational stratification. The entire state territory should comprise only one constituency, and those who do not work themselves, such as shareholders, should be excluded from the electoral process.
The decision as to which of the two chambers of parliament is to play the greater role in state life can easily be left to future developments. The German is instinctively drawn towards occupational representation even in the formation of political parties. This is most apparent in the Sudetenland. There, for example, there is a party of the rural folk (the Farmers’ League), a National Socialist Workers’ Party, and, as of more recent times, a Small Traders’ Party. These are decidedly more natural entities than the “people’s” parties, which ultimately do not actually represent the entire people, but only certain groups. One should never wish to seem more than one really is. The simple fact that the occupational parties empirically possess fewer sources of friction with one another than do the so-called people’s parties should give us pause for thought to some extent. This can be explained by the fact that the people’s parties are centralist, i.e., that in their innermost being they are essentially non-German entities. (The National Socialist Workers’ Party is not a purely occupational party, but nor is it a people’s party in the sense of the term as it is misused so often today.)
Naturally, the overall structure of all the representative bodies must be implemented from the ground up. Alongside the chambers, we need a government which counsels and governs in coordination with them. German lands should be led and administered, but not ruled! The leadership concept [Führergedanke], which once found its expression within our German kingship before (blinded by false glory) it degenerated into Roman imperial rule, shall rise again!
It is in this context that we shall now discuss that question which is today debated with so much clamor and so little understanding: “Free State (republic) or Monarchy?” The Germanic states and the old German Kingdom were by their nature republics more than they were monarchies. Even the medieval German Kaiserreich in its early days could still be described as an aristocratic republic: the prince-electors chose (elected) the head of state from among the nobility. It was only later, as the Roman-centralist concept of rulership [Herrschaftsgedanke] became more and more entrenched, eventually culminating in the absolute principality, that the form of state which is today called “monarchy” first appeared. If one chooses to describe a true People’s State with a royal leadership as a monarchy, then that is all right by us; it could just as well be called a republic. It is not the name which matters, but the content. We conceive the crown to be a symbol; but we reject, however, the concepts of rulership and divine right. The Führer may well be called King, that is immaterial; what is essential is that he takes his position by the grace of the Volk!…
The German People’s State
The historically significant constitutional declaration delivered by the party to the Vienna Landhaus on 21st October, 1918, concluded with the words: “Long live free, social Pan-Germany!” (See “Documents of National Socialism”). This free, social Pan-Germany is the German People’s State of the future, a future which will be all the closer the sooner that our Volk are able to liberate themselves from the barrage of international-pacifist rhetoric and from every foreign – predominantly Jewish – influence to which they are presently subject, and to find their way back to the German spirit. We hope that we have marked out the path towards this future clearly enough. Its route leads through intellectual, spiritual, and economic-social renewal, as well as through physical improvement. It is the same path which Prussia-Germany successfully trod after the defeat at Jena. Whether the path is stonier or thornier today does not matter, if only one has the firm will to walk it! To awaken and to consistently shape this will is but one of the tasks of National Socialism.
In the previous chapter we spoke of the German People’s State and of its function. German Law, whose most essential features we attempted to outline there, must form its foundation. How, then, should its structure be designed?
In view of the foregoing, one thing is immediately clear to us: A German People’s State cannot be established upon the principles of Western democracy; those principles are merely lies and deceit for the benefit of Jewish Mammonism, which uses them to dominate and exploit nations. German democracy – if we wish to continue to use that expression – cannot mean parliamentary rule. But rule by the people [Volksherrschaft], which is what the word democracy means, in turn also cannot be taken seriously as a concept, because to wish to rule over oneself is an absurdity. We will therefore more accurately redefine the term to mean ‘service to the totality’, i.e., ‘service for the benefit of the Volk’. Just as Frederick the Great – and he truly was great, inasmuch as he also understood the difficult art of renunciation – openly aspired to be the first servant of the state, so do we all wish to be nothing more than servants of the Volk, whose welfare is dear to our hearts.
There must be leaders [Führer], and there must be those who are led. Of course, those who like to imagine themselves as Führer are in reality far from really being one, for leaders cannot appoint themselves, nor can they be appointed; instead, their election only confirms the fact of their existence. The right Führer is born. Something indefinable emanates from him, wins him people’s hearts, provides him with the trust of the masses; they feel the divine spark that glows within him. That inner fire, which drives him relentlessly forward – unconcerned about his own personal well-being – also transfers into them. They follow because they must follow!
The concept of leadership [Führergedanke] – as opposed to the concept of rulership, which in general is based only upon the crudest use of force (see Soviet Russia) – should now reassert itself once more within the German People’s State! Whether this Führer is to be called a “People’s King” or a “President” (could he not use the German title “Herzog”?) is basically irrelevant; the only important thing is that he is a personality who places all of his energy into the service of the people’s welfare, and that his only aspiration is to be the servant of his Volk.
Yet the Führer cannot do everything alone, even if he were a personality of the most outstanding influence a hundred times over. He needs advisors, i.e., a government as well as a representative assembly. Commensurate with our explanations in the previous chapters, and in light of the miserable failures of the “parliamentary system” within German lands, the fact that this cannot be the form of parliamentarism which has become so commonplace today, that it cannot be derived from relationships between political parties, should not require any additional justification. The absolute parliamentary rule of today is a necessary transition; parliamentarism, which was once so terribly overrated and which has absolutely nothing to do with German democracy, will simply have to remedy itself. Admittedly this will involve sacrifices, but since when have such sacrifices not been needed in order to achieve forward progress?
What, then, should take parliamentarism’s place? Within the chapter “Parliament or Councils” we have already emphasized the need for the existence of two chambers, one political and one economic, and there expressed the view that – in accordance with the disposition of our Volk – occupational representation would presumably soon begin to play the greater role. One chamber would be based upon political parties, the other upon occupational associations (trade-unions, cooperatives). In any event, this arrangement would already constitute a significant improvement, in that it would alleviate many sources of friction and would awaken within us the awareness that we are members of a collective totality, one with which we are inextricably bound, for better or for worse. In view of the foregoing, it is thus quite clear that only Germans may sit in a German parliament, and that those of foreign origin are thereby excluded. This fact alone would help eliminate a large part of that mutual incitement which has become so commonplace today.
Our fellow-thinker from Munich, Dr. Tafel, makes much more far-reaching proposals. (Dr. Paul Tafel: The New Germany: A Council-State upon a National Foundation. Deutscher Volksverlag, Munich.) Since for us the party was never an end in itself, but merely a means to an end, and since National Socialism is not at all a party in the sense of winning votes for seats in parliament, we can safely make his views our own – even though, sooner or later, the political parties of today may perish.
For the German Volk (by which he means only those of German blood) Tafel wants to establish two different structures: One occupational, and one political. Both start at the lowest level, the Ort. If the occupational structure at its highest level represents the unity of the Reich as an economic entity, then the political structure in turn takes into account its different tribal characteristics. As an economic power the German Reich would thus be a single entity, while politically it would be a federal state – and one founded not upon the federal states of today (which are the end result of some rather unhappy accidents throughout our history) but upon the natural basis of our Volk, the tribes. A pleasant idea for sure!
The occupational structure begins in the municipality. Every working German member of a trade group (agriculture, transportation, public education, etc.), regardless of whether they are an employer or an employee, bands together in “Local Associations” and directly elects their executive committee, the “Local Council,” by means of the secret ballot. Each Local Council appoints from among its members one or more representatives for the “District Council,” who in turn have a seat in the “Gau Council.” The “Provincial Council” arises out of the “Gau Council,” and finally from the Provincial Councils emerges the “Supreme Council” of the trade groups.
At the apex of the occupational pyramid is the “Reich Economic Chamber” [Reichswirtschaftskammer]. Within it, each trade group is represented by one vote.
In order that the Economic Chamber does not degenerate and seize all power for itself, and because we are ultimately not just producers and consumers but also citizens, family men, and civilized beings whose needs are spiritual as well as economic – in short, because the state is not merely a department store (as that nomadic race from the Orient, who dominate us today through Walter Rathenau and allies, would have us believe) – it is essential that a “Political Chamber” or “Peoples’ Chamber” exist alongside it as a similarly arranged institution. According to Tafel, however, political parties should not send representatives to this Chamber in line with the current practice; instead it also needs to be built from the ground up. The “Primary Electoral Division” [Urwählergemeinde] is the nucleus of this political structure. It encompasses every resident of an urban district or rural community, regardless of age or sex, provided that they are of German ancestry and that they pay some form of tax, no matter how small, to the state or to the municipality.
Above the Primary Electoral Divisions are the “District Councils,” to which the Divisions send their emissaries; above these are the “Regional Councils” (province, territory); and finally, at their peak, there is the “Reich People’s Chamber” [Reichsvolkskammer].
Alongside these two chambers, which are not intended to be parliaments, i.e., places of rhetoric, but places of work, there is also the government. It should not merely be the executive organ of the collective will of both chambers, but should also be their colleague and their guide. This would be most evident in the drafting of laws. Today the government is typically called upon by parliament to submit a draft law on a particular issue. Under Tafel’s system, precisely the opposite would be the case: instead the government requests a report from one or both chambers, produces a final draft, and then submits it to the head of state for approval. The Volk thus actually make their own laws, something which is almost never the case in parliamentary democracy.
In order from the outset to prevent a thirst for power from emerging within the representative bodies, the head of state would be entitled to a right of rejection against all decisions made by the chambers. In order to also stave off any potential abuses of leadership here, in the sense of hegemonic power aspirations, a limitation of this right through use of the “plebiscite” (referendum) would be essential – namely, via public opinion polls or a popular vote on proposed legislation. In view of the foregoing, what the head of state is to be called is probably rather unimportant, for the state we have just outlined is a republic, i.e., a People’s State in the old Germanic sense, even if a “King” is at its head. This could not, of course, be a King chosen by “divine right,” but only by the “grace of the Volk,” elected through a popular vote. It is not the individual bearing it, but the crown itself which is the symbol of the future German Reich, a Reich unified in all of its diversity.
And now, a few words about the purpose and scope of activity of the economic and political structures. The trade group for the entire national territory would by its very nature be a self-governing body, whose purpose would be to elevate the production and distribution of goods to the highest possibly level. It is to be in equal measure a charitable association, cooperative society, trade guild (fraternity), and cartel. Its subdivisions would likewise be allocated certain specific tasks – the regulation of professional training, working facilities, and the like. The bottom-most group, the local chapter, is of particular importance. It is to primarily serve an educational purpose. In its regular meetings it would bear the responsibility of keeping its members informed about the state of their own and foreign economies, about all improvements and so on, and it would also be responsible for awakening and maintaining its members’ awareness of their shared, common bonds. Certainly, it is true that there would be conflicts at first; soon, however, a sense of cohesion would prevail.
The Primary Electoral Division would also primarily be responsible for educational work. Of course, its work would be of a political and, above all, cultural nature.
Tafel’s German council-state seems to us a very pleasant idea. Were today’s German Reich built upon these principles, it would soon begin to exert an irresistible attraction upon all outposts. Of course, this would require a change in the current system of fawning servility towards everything foreign, and above all, the elimination of Jewish influence – an absolute imperative in the new German Reich.
Originally published on May 24th, 1919, in Dietrich Eckart's newspaper "Auf gut Deutsch" under the title The Social State, this text by Gottfried Feder may not be readily classified as a National Socialist work, considering it predates Feder's formal involvement with the German Workers' party (DAP) by a couple of months. However, it is important to note that Feder's influential pamphlet, Manifesto For The Abolition of Slavery to Interest, which remains a fundamental document in National Socialist economic doctrine, was written even before the existence of the DAP. It was initially presented to the Marxist government of the Jew Kurt Eisner.
In many regards, The Social State represents the early phase of National Socialism, prior to Hitler's strong influence, and shares more similarities with the National Socialism of Rudolf Jung and the Austrian-Sudeten-Polish DNSAP. This form of ideology is less militant and authoritarian. The Social State advocates for a nationalist, anticapitalist state where political representation occurs through a corporative system rather than a parliamentary one. Remarkably, Feder envisions a highly democratic system, assuming not only the voting rights of women but also extending them to children. The grassroots electoral system he describes has the potential to involve every member of society in the election process. Although the NSDAP did not adopt this particular model, The Social State remains a captivating demonstration that National Socialism and dictatorship were not inherently synonymous concepts within the movement.
The Social State
The old form of government has broken down. What shall take its place? This is the most important problem of the future: Weimar’s democratic-parliamentary monster, lifeless as it is, now that its illusionary policies have completely collapsed, seems to have reached the end of its days. The peace conditions of the Entente are the horrible alarm bell which has dispelled Socialist dreams and illusions. Where is Mr. Scheidemann’s peace with understanding? Where is Mr. Erzberger’s economic peace – guaranteed to be ready in half an hour? Where is the League of Nations, where is Mr. Eisner’s world revolution? Where is the workers’ state in which production is doubled; where is the higher morality – where is any reconstruction at all to be seen?
Weighed and found wanting – that is already the judgement of its own people, of its own contemporaries. Over and over again history will curse the German revolutionaries who betrayed their people, who in their shortsighted megalomania first robbed a brave people of belief in and desire for victory and then with the cowardly bravery of the assassin stabbed the army in the back during its most difficult days, in order to seize the power which they cannot use. For it is one thing to fell a swaying giant from behind, to uproot a dynasty which has already lost touch with the people, or to revolutionize a civil service which has lost its vital connection with the life of the people. It is quite a different thing to display revolutionary power when the task is to inspire the mortally wounded people with new vitality and to prepare a new and vigorous political organism.
Where is the revolutionary power of the German revolutionaries? Where is the French, the English, the Italian revolution? Where is the world revolution? Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann, Erzberger, Eisner, Hoffman and whatever all their names are have kept none of their promises, none whatsoever? Why? Because no new idea of state guides them, because they think the new form of government should be, at best, class rule, or worse: a system of parliamentary compromises; because they are so far from the true socialist state that they cannot summon the courage to lay a hand on the capitalist system; because they have not yet understood what the World War was really all about, namely, that it was the final battle of the international monetary powers for ultimate world domination.
It would be best to ask ourselves which of the chief defects of the old state we should avoid. I will enumerate them.
The irresponsible [assertion of] divine right by the Crown; the fact that army and navy as well as the higher civil service were dependent on the sovereign ruler. Further, the wholly insufficient representation of the people in the parliament which, completely tangled up in disgusting party quarrels, lost any sense of the interests of the Volk; a social democracy which seemed to find its life work exclusively in inciting the workers against their employers. These were probably the most prominent defects in the political life of our people before the collapse. It is, therefore, our most important task to avoid these defects. The revolution has made a clean sweep of the obvious abuses of the old form of government – the irresponsible [assertion of] divine right, the exaggerated and misdirected militarism and bureaucracy. But the much more deeply imbedded defect, the whole hopeless parliamentarianism, is growing vigorously and is beginning, if the signs are not deceptive, to reach an understanding with the forces of capitalism. Obviously, the only deeper meaning of the revolution, that is, the emancipation of labor from international economic enslavement by the golden international, would thus be abolished and the economic subjugation of creative labor by the interest slavery of the mammonistic powers would be firmly established.
The new state must therefore make a radical break with all the principles of western democracy. It must especially break with parliamentary parties and parliamentary cliques, and above all, it must not mix political and economic types of popular representation in a single parliament, but must provide for this basic separation by a two chamber system. The House of the People (as the first chamber) represents the political interests of the whole people, while the Central Council must represent the economic interests of the working population.
The most important thing in the reorganization is a wholly different electoral system, erected on new foundations, which will be explained below.
The House of The People
The good of the people is the highest law, the only guiding star for the representatives of the people. There can be no question of setting up guidelines for the highest leaders of the state; their guidelines are contained in the above-mentioned principle.
More important is the form of election for the deputies, which must build upon the broadest base, pyramid-fashion, to enter the next higher stage.
In the new state every person has the right to be represented. The entire arbitrary minimal age of twenty is wholly unjustified and must therefore be done away with. On the other hand, not every person is able to be an elector, although he has the right to be represented.
Consequently an elector is someone who can show that he has been legally or voluntarily assigned as representative by at least five, usually ten, persons. This assignment is territorially limited and valid only once, at the place of principal residence; also each person can only appoint one other person as his representative. Let me use a practical example:
A little town of about 6,000 inhabitants needs to assemble its list of electors. Every member of the population is then free to join, entirely at his own discretion, in groups of five to ten people. The family will appoint the father or the mother or the grown-up son or the oldest daughter as its confidant, as its elector; servants and maids will meet in groups of ten persons and designate as elector and confirm by signature the one who seems to them most suitable. The electors (about 600 in a town of 6,000 inhabitants), determined in this way, will gather on specific days to elect from their midst the people’s councillors. Again, groups of ten electors who know each other well will join together in order to designate one from their midst as people’s councillor. In contrast to the present method of having a single election day, this genuine election process must take place over a long enough period so that even those who find themselves grouping together mechanically can get to know each other and have time to talk, in order to choose from their midst the one who seems to them most suitable. Such a voting procedure has an extraordinary advantage over any other system of general election in that, on the one hand, it opens up a much wider base for popular representation than previously and includes all natural persons, yet on the other hand immediately and very considerably reduces the group of real electors by limiting very significantly the honor of being an elector and by excluding at the start people who are unsuitable because of age, personal inclination, interests or trustworthiness.
The people’s councillors, designated by the electors, will be the lowest legal governing body. Each of them represents 100 persons who have given him their confidence, to whom he is responsible and with whom he is in close contact through the group of ten electors.
It seems clear that in this way selection would be very careful. There is little room for the machinations of ambitious politicians; the relationship of trust is too close between electors and elected. Thus the feeling of responsibility of the elected is considerably increased.
These people’s councillors in turn gather in district meetings. They get to know each other there, again join in groups of ten and elect their district councillors. Corresponding to the number of inhabitants in their districts, the district councillors constitute the local political representatives of the people. They have the right to control government organs, district authorities and so on, as well as the duty of stating grievances to the regional or government councillors. On the other hand, they have the duty of announcing all politically important decrees and government resolutions to the people’s councillors, in order to awake among their electors political understanding and participation in the political life of the entire people. This District Council, consisting according to the size of the district of 60 to 100 or more district councillors, thus represents 1,000 persons per councillor, thus 60 to 100,000 or more inhabitants. At these district meetings the district councillors again get to know each other better. Again, they have to form in groups of ten, in order to delegate one from their midst as a government councillor.
The government councillors meet in the regional capitals for longer periods of time. They must represent the political interests of their region; they have analogous control over the government and regional authorities. In an analogous way, the government councillors, each of whom gets support from 10,000 persons, meet in groups of ten and elect delegates to the Council of People’s Deputies. Each of these people’s deputies is thus the direct speaker for and the responsible representative of 100,000 persons. Thus the Council of People’s Deputies in Bavaria would have 67 persons, corresponding to a population of 6.7 million. This Council of People’s Deputies is the highest legal governing body. It passes the laws and appoints from its midst, or as it sees fit, from outside, a people’s president or presidents, endowed with extraordinary powers, who represent the country at home and abroad.
This organic structuring of popular representation is by no means cumbersome. On the contrary, because it is natural and indigenous, it is the true expression of a social community based on mutual trust. To be sure, this kind of election process cannot, as it used to, be completed in one day after the confusing propaganda of an election campaign. The election, and the construction of this new political organism within the body politic, can only take place slowly and steadily. Many months will pass before the people’s councillors, district councillors, and government councillors have all been elected. The voting procedures will nevertheless have to be limited in time. But in spite of the typical eccentricity of Germans, ten will eventually be able to agree on one from their midst as a suitable representative.
It must be left to the individual reader to ponder the very clear and simple structure of this proposal and to realize its advantages. Especially by comparison with the severe disadvantages of the present electoral system. I certainly do not maintain that this proposal will really lead to the selection of the most politically able leaders, but at any rate it will lead to the exclusion of all idle gossipers and political charlatans.
The Central Council
As its name suggests, the Central Council is the central body which deliberates on the economic interests of the country. The labor of the entire working population finds its expression in the body. In it sit the competent expert representatives of the employers and employees of all branches of business and the professions. In it sit the delegates of the Regional ABC Councils. [Feder’s note: This term is the collective expression for the different kinds of councils] It is therefore a corporatist body; an organization representing not political, but economic, interests.
All occupations must be represented in the Central Council; and each occupation must have one representative of the employers and one of the employees. Here the number of votes is not the important thing, but that each occupation can speak through its representative. Usurpation of the power of some groups of professions will be prevented by giving the right of veto to every single councillor. Nor can it be the task of the Central Council to issue firm rulings for the individual professional groups, even if asked to do so. The work of the Central Council is, first of all, to oversee in a comprehensive way the entire production process, to control this production, to make inquiry as to what is needed and, beyond that, to regulate production and distribution according to the results of this survey. Hand in hand with this, there must be large-scale regulation of work and provision of employment. Wage agreements as well as all questions related to wages also lie in the hands of the Central Council.
The Central Council will have arisen from the Regional-ABC-Councils, which in turn will have arisen from the councils of the workers, farmers, businesses, professions, and so forth, within the individual business groups and occupations.
Here too for the sake of simplification it is advisable if not every single individual acts as elector, but at least five members of the profession choose a single elector.
Bavaria yields approximately the following picture in numbers.
In 1907 there were 3,279,914 employed persons:
We would thus begin with about 600,000 electors who choose their workers’, farmers’, civil servants’, industrial, trades, commercial, and so forth, councillors for their district. These districts group themselves around the larger cities and towns, insofar as the latter are the economic centers of their respective areas. If we say that Bavaria has about 60 of these economic centers, then about 6,000 District-ABC-Councillors must be elected for the entire state. If in individual districts (for example in rural districts) there are fewer occupational groups, then of course this number is reduced. The District Councillors meet in the regional cities. They unite there not according to numbers but according to their professions, and each group names a representative to the Regional-ABC-Council. The Regional-ABC-Councillors in turn meet in the state capital to elect the Central Council, in which again every profession, every occupation unites and selects one delegate to the Central Council. Thus the Central Council is elected in a manner similar to that proposed for the people’s deputies.
The Central Council will thus be composed as follows:
Independent farmers- 3 & 3 farm laborers = 6
Independent foresters- 1 & 1 lumberman and forest worker = 2
Independent gardeners- 1 & 1 under gardener = 2
Owners of mines & foundries- 1 & 1 miner = 2
Quarry owners- 1 & 1 stone worker = 2
Brickyard owners- 1 & 1 bricklayer = 2
Concrete works- 1 & 1 concrete worker = 2
Metallurgical industry- 5 & 5 metallurgical workers = 10
Chemical industry- 1 & 1 employee, 1 worker = 3
Textile industry- 2 & 1 employee, 2 workers = 5
Paper industry- 1 & 1 employee, 1 worker = 3
Leather industry- 1 & 1 employee, 1 worker = 3
Wood and insulation- 2 & 2 workers = 4
Food production industries- 3 & 3 workers = 6
Clothing industries- 2 & 2 employees, 2 workers = 6
Laundries- 1 & 1 worker = 2
Building industry- 3 & 2 employees, 2 workers = 7
Printing presses- 2 & 1 employee, 1 worker = 4
Commercial enterprises- 2 & 2 employees = 4
Innkeepers- 1 & 1 employees = 2
Theaters- 1 & 1 employee = 2
Music, art, writers- 2 = 2
Transportation- 1 & 1 employee = 2
Government officials- 2 = 2
Local government officials- 1 = 1
Further groups as expedient = 14
Councillors: 100
The Central Council, it must be emphasized again, is the expression of the working community of the people. Only the best shall have a seat and a vote in it. Every profession, every occupation shall be heard in it. The closest cooperation shall in the best sense have an educational effect; it shall function socially to prevent the representation of the special interests of the individual occupational groups and to encourage their best incorporation into the whole. These are the general principles for structuring the system of councils and for rooting it in the constitution.
I think that these general guidelines for the new constitution leave no doubt that the proposed two-chamber system has nothing to do with that which I consider to be our greatest misfortune: the parliamentarianism of the western democracies.
The House of the People is the image of the political life of the entire people; the Central Council, the public expression of its labor. In both chambers, only the best from the various segments of the population, only the most experienced from the individual professional groups, shall or can be heard.
I would like to conclude with an image designed to show that the structure of the state can not really resemble a building, but rather a tree, a living, organic structure. The similes from the building industry which are very common in our speech when we deal with the “reconstruction” of our state are thoroughly misleading; for even if all comparisons are ultimately somewhat lame, the usual comparison of the constitution to a building overlooks too much the most essential element, namely, that a people is an organism and a building is a dead construction.
These considerations become very clear if one compares the favorite image of a ruined field which has to be reconstructed with the demolished house which has to be reconstructed. The house cannot be rebuilt out of its demolished parts. On the contrary a tree, however ill-treated, even if its big branches are torn off, even if some of its roots are hacked away, can revive. But with the tree as with a people, this renewal must grow out of the inner vitality of the organism. Not from the outside and not by artificial constructions can a sick organism be helped; the cure must come from inside. It must be the concern of the new art of government to find the vital conditions for an organic renewal in a new constitution which guarantees to every single member of the people the freest development of his personality within the framework of the community, based on the clear realization that this free development of his personality (in an aristocratic sense) finds its natural organic limit in the higher interests of the social community.
Adolf Hitler is not commonly associated with being a "democrat." Like many National Socialists, Hitler held disdain for parliamentarism and the "majority principle," but he took it to an extreme. Prior to Hitler's rise, the National Socialist movement in Central Europe, despite its ideological opposition to liberal democracy, maintained a significant degree of democracy. The various National Socialist parties operated with internal democratic processes, electing leaders and deciding policies through majority voting. They pursued a reformist approach, aiming to achieve a National Socialist state gradually through parliamentary means.
However, Hitler's ascension to power within the Nazi movement brought about radical changes. He gradually diminished internal party democracy in favor of the Führerprinzip, advocating for strict anti-parliamentary and anti-democratic tactics. Hitler, with his reverence for discipline and centralized leadership, resided on the more authoritarian end of the National Socialist political spectrum. Nevertheless, traces of democratic idealism can still be found in his speeches and writings. The following excerpts, sourced from various materials, demonstrate that Hitler, despite his authoritarian tendencies, envisioned a role for parliaments and voting in a future National Socialist state.
In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler presents a comprehensive description of his personal vision for the structure of a future National Socialist state. It notably represents a more "dictatorial" perspective compared to those of Jung or Feder, as elected representatives would have no voting powers but instead serve solely as advisors to the national Führer. These excerpts are particularly intriguing due to their corporatist elements. It is evident that, at this early stage (Mein Kampf was published in 1925), Hitler was still influenced by the strong corporatist inclinations within the National Socialist movement. The text provides insights into Hitler's beliefs regarding the ideal balance between authoritarian and democratic tendencies in politics, beliefs that remained largely consistent throughout his life.
Mein Kampf
Vol. II, Ch. 4: Personality and the Conception of the Völkisch State
The best state constitution and state form is that which, with the most unquestioned certainty, raises the best minds in the national community to leading position and leading influence.
But, as in economic life, the able men cannot be appointed from above, but must struggle through for themselves, and just as here the endless schooling, ranging from the smallest business to the largest enterprise, occurs spontaneously, with life alone giving the examinations, obviously political minds cannot be ‘discovered.’ Extraordinary geniuses permit of no consideration for normal mankind.
From the smallest community cell to the highest leadership of the entire Reich, the state must have the personality principle anchored in its organisation.
There must be no majority decisions, but only responsible persons, and the word ‘council’ must be restored to its original meaning. Surely every man will have advisers by his side, but the decision will be made by one man.
The principle which made the Prussian army in its time into the most wonderful instrument of the German people must some day, in a transferred sense, become the principle of the construction of our whole state conception: authority of every leader downward and responsibility upward.
Even then it will not be possible to dispense with those corporations which today we designate as parliaments. But their councillors will then actually give counsel; responsibility, however, can and may be borne only by one man, and therefore only he alone may possess the authority and right to command.
Parliaments as such are necessary, because in them, above all, personalities to which special responsible tasks can later be entrusted have an opportunity gradually to rise up.
This gives the following picture:
The völkisch state, from the township up to the Reich leadership, has no representative body which decides anything by the majority, but only advisory bodies which stand at the side of the elected leader, receiving their share of work from him, and in turn if necessary assuming unlimited responsibility in certain fields, just as on a larger scale the leader or chairman of the various corporations himself possesses.
As a matter of principle, the völkisch state does not tolerate asking advice or opinions in special matters – say, of an economic nature – of men who, on the basis of their education and activity, can understand nothing of the subject. It, therefore, divides its representative bodies from the start into a political chamber and a corporative chamber that represents the respective trades and professions.
In order to guarantee a profitable co-operation between the two, a special selected senate of the élite always stands over them.
In no chamber nor in the senate does a vote ever take place. They are working institutions and not voting machines. The individual member has an advisory, but never a determining, voice. The latter is the exclusive privilege of the responsible chairman, who must be entirely responsible for the matter under discussion.
This principle – absolute responsibility unconditionally combined with absolute authority – will gradually breed an élite of leaders such as today, in this era of irresponsible parliamentarianism, is utterly inconceivable.
Thus, the political form of the nation will be brought into agreement with that law to which it owes its greatness in the cultural and economic field.
Vol. II, Ch. 12: The Trade-Union Question
As things stand today, the trade unions in my opinion cannot be dispensed with. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the nation’s economic life. Their significance lies not only in the social and political field, but even more in the general field of national politics. A people whose broad masses, through a sound trade-union movement, obtain the satisfaction of their living requirements and at the same time an education, will be tremendously strengthened in its power of resistance in the struggle for existence.
Above all, the trade unions are necessary as foundation stones of the future economic parliament or chambers of estates…
As already emphasised, the germ cells for the economic chambers will have to reside in bodies representing the various occupations and professions, hence above all in the trade unions. And if this future body representing the estates and the Central Economic Parliament is to constitute a National Socialist institution, these important germ cells must also embody a National Socialist attitude and conception…
This state, to be sure, must, in place of the mass struggle of the two great groups – employers and workers – (which in its consequences always injures the national community as a whole by diminishing production) assume the legal care and the legal protection of all. Upon the economic chambers themselves it will be incumbent to keep the national economy functioning and eliminate the deficiencies and errors which damage it. The things for which millions fight and struggle today must in time be settled in the Representative Chambers of Estates and Professions and in the Central Economic Parliament. Then employers and workers will not rage against one another in struggles over pay and wage scales, damaging the economic existence of both, but solve these problems jointly on a higher plane, one where the welfare of the Volksgemeinschaft and of the State will be as a shining ideal to throw light on all their negotiations.
Here, too, as everywhere, the iron principle must prevail that the interests of the Fatherland must come before party interests.”
Otto Wagener held significant influence within the NSDAP during his time. He served as the former Chief-of-Staff of the SA and became the leader of the Party's Economic Policy Department in 1931. From 1932 onward, he acted as Hitler's personal economic adviser. Wagener's memoirs provide valuable insights into Hitler's personal views, particularly during the crucial period of 1930-33. The following excerpt from Wagener's memoirs recounts Hitler's statements in late 1930 regarding the role of democracy in the state. It reveals the authoritarian aspects of Hitler's thinking, yet also incorporates ideas of popular governance. Interestingly, Hitler reflects more traditional völkisch notions of a powerful Führer elected by "the Volk" in this account. However, he later abandoned this concept and merged the idea of national succession with his plan for a Party Senate. This envisioned a system where the Führer would be elected by a body comprising senior National Socialist political figures.
Otto Wagener’s Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant
December 1930
We must expand our organization, structure it! Only a broadening of the party allows us the chance to grow into a position where we can carry out our most secret plans. Democracy demands the masses! Numbers make the difference. It will be our mission at some later time to ennoble parliamentary democracy – the most primitive of all ruling forms for a self-governing people – by giving the Volk a constitution that will enable the people to bring to the forefront the best, the most competent, the aristoi.
That is why our first task is to woo the masses. What use are a hundred scholars to me, a thousand professors, what use are the so-called intelligentsia, who are not even intelligent enough to recognize the triviality of parliamentarianism?
As for the British form – which, as I have come to realize, is predominant also in America and in all other democracies of the Western stamp – it exploits democracy only as a mock organization while, through the Masonic lodge and similar secret and public societies, or even directly, with money, it puts those names on the parties’ candidate lists that make up the equally secret executive committee, which in turn represents the actual power interests. I cannot reconcile myself to this form. For at heart it is nothing but a betrayal of the people. I do not want to betray the people. And in the long run, they cannot be betrayed, at least not the German Volk! For at bottom, the German Volk is truly democratic.
How else should we have conceived the idea that we can seize the German government without violence and without treachery, if not from the conviction that in its democratic will the German Volk assigns the government to those from whom it hopes to gain its salvation and a better future? I don’t need a lodge, I don’t need any secret societies that pretend to the Volk that it is electing its men, while in reality they put their men on the lists and get them elected. I’d be ashamed of abusing the trust offered me by this Volk, which has been so severely downtrodden and betrayed, which looks to me with a last glimmer of hope.
That is why I must work to win over the masses. And what we are doing right now is nothing more than courting the masses, courting the Volk for the benefit of the Volk…
Political leadership is a matter that belongs in the area of philosophy more than anywhere else. Democracy brings a man to the forefront and transfers political leadership to him. We National Socialists intend in future to aid him with the best and most capable men, the elite of the entire Volk and all its professions, as advisers and collaborators; but leading is something he must do once the Volk has chosen him for the job. He is responsible only to the Volk and to his conscience, and that has been given him by God, that is the divine voice inside him. I will further acknowledge the authority of a secular court of law above him – a people’s court or a supreme court or a senate. But not the Reichstag or any other parliament. It is their obligation to offer the scepter in the name of the Volk, on the basis of the elections by the entire Volk, to the man whom the election chose as the leader of the political affairs of the state – that is, as the leader of the state. And if he is prepared to accept it, and if it is handed to him by the Reich president, again in the name of the Volk, it is their obligation to work with him in dispatching the affairs of state – that is, to consult with him in drafting laws, to agree to them or reject them, or to make suggestions of their own. But they may not recall him. They may only invoke the court against him. And a new popular election can bring about new circumstances.
But political leadership by one man alone requires a talent for the highest ethical responsibility, the highest human virtues, and the highest skill in leading the government and the people.
That is why he cannot and must not tolerate men in responsible positions who act against the leader’s wishes. For they are acting against the will of the Volk. They can set to work and try, at the next election, to get their own way. And if they win over the majority of the Volk, then they have achieved what they want. In any election contest, one party opposes another. The stronger man wins! And he will be the better man, too!
But if groups form within a party, if one or another thinks he can win followers and lead them along his own ways, such a party is not an instrument that the people can give their trust to. And the people will not follow such a party and give it their votes.
Therefore, in our party, there may be only one direction, one voice, one Führer. The rest is discipline, discernment, or faith.
The original German version of Hitler's Table Talk, called Hitlers Tischgespräche, raises significant concerns about the English translation by Hugh Trevor-Roper. Trevor-Roper's translation was based on a French translation by François Genoud, a Swiss conman. Genoud made significant alterations to the text, which were carried over into Trevor-Roper's English translation. These changes have contributed to the widespread misconception that Table Talk is a "hoax" similar to the Hitler Diaries.
The original German version of Table Talk, edited and compiled by Henry Picker, provides invaluable insights. Picker was the individual who initially attended Hitler's dinner conversations during the war and recorded them in shorthand. The excerpt presented here depicts Hitler contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of elected leadership, mocking the idea of hereditary monarchy, and ultimately settling on a system where succession is determined by a Party Senate. This description of the Party Senate's structure and function aligns with similar accounts documented by Wagener and Goebbels. According to Goebbels's diaries, it was suggested that this form of National Socialist "electoral system" would be established after Germany's victory in the war.
Hitler’s ‘Table Talk’
Evening of 31st March, 1942
Bringing the best into government, that is a big problem, one without any easy solutions.
If one was to set up a republic in which the whole Volk votes for the head of state, then it would be possible, with money and publicity and so on, to bring an absolute Hanswurst to the fore. [Note: Hanswurst is the name of a kind of German comedy folk-figure, a buffoonish fool with coarse attributes – Bogumil]
If one sets up a republic in which all the threads of power are in the hands of a clique of a select few families, then the state is like a corporation whose partners have chosen a weakling as their leader, in order that they can play a role themselves.
If one establishes a monarchy in which succession is managed via inheritance [hereditary monarchy], then that is a biological error, for a man of action regularly chooses a wife of decidedly feminine qualities and the son thus inherits the passive, effeminate nature of his mother.
In a republic in which the head of state is chosen for life, then the danger exists that he will be driven by selfish power-politics.
If one sets up a republic where the head of state changes every five or ten years, then no stability of government is guaranteed, and the implementation of far-reaching, long-term plans extending beyond a single lifetime becomes compromised.
If one sets at the head of state a serene old man, then he can only represent himself, and other men will lead the government in his name.
Through all these considerations, I have come to the following conclusions:
I. The chances of not getting a total idiot as chief of state are greater under a free election than vice versa. The giants who were the elected German Emperors are the best proof of this. There was not a single consummate imbecile among them, while in the hereditary monarchies there were at least 8 regents out of 10 who could not in bourgeois life even have successfully run a general store.
II. In the selection of a chief of state a personality must be sought which, as far as humanly possible, guarantees a certain stability of governance over a longish duration. This is not only a requirement for the fruitful administration of the state, but even more so for the successful implementation of any major state projects.
III. It must be ensured that the leading man in the state is independent of any economic influences, and cannot be forced into any decisions by way of any sort of economic pressure. He must therefore be supported by a political organization whose strength lies firmly anchored in the Volk and which can stand above private economic interests.
Two constitutions have proven themselves through the course of history:
a) The papacy, despite numerous crises – the most serious of which were resolved by the German Kaiser – and in spite of a decidedly insane spiritual foundation, simply because of the magnificent organization of the Church.
b) The Constitution of Venice, which enabled the small republican city-state through its leadership-organization to be capable of controlling the entire eastern Mediterranean. The Constitution of Venice and its Venetian Republic lasted for 960 years.
That the leader of the Republic of Venice was chosen from among only 300 to 500 families who composed the framework of the state, that is nothing shameful. Thus it was from among the families who felt the closest connection to the state that the best were called to leadership.
The difference between this system and that of a hereditary monarchy is obvious. For in this system neither a half wit nor a twelve-year-old – as is so often the case in a hereditary monarchy – have the opportunity to become head of state, but only one who has already proven himself many times in life.
To assume that a twelve-year-old or an eighteen-year-old can lead the state, that is simply ridiculous. Where a minor is regent then power self-evidently lies in the hands of others – in a Council of Regents, for example. But if the members of this Council of Regents are not in agreement (and in the life of the state problems tend to overlap constantly and above all the more noticeably the more capable the Councilors are) then the absence is felt of the personality capable of taking a sovereign decision. Such decisions cannot be made by a youth of eighteen; even a mature personality has to consider them deeply. Just think where King Michael of Romania (he was 20 years old when he came to the throne) would be without the important Marshal Ion Antonescu. The boy is shockingly stupid and completely spoiled, especially since his father entrusted him to women during his main years of development.
Or think of Peter of Yugoslavia who, when he came to power (King Peter II was 17 years old at the time), sat himself down in the cellar and blubbered.
One only has to keep in mind the course of development of a normal man, who wants to achieve something in life, and compare it with that of such an heir apparent, to see the horrendous gulf between the two. What must a normal person learn, but how to study hard late into the night, and through expending tremendous earnestness and diligence over and over to achieve something in practical life. For budding kings, however, there is a belief that their fripperies can provide all the tools needed for their tasks in life. One third of their apprenticeship let them babble foreign languages; one third they concern themselves with societal frivolity, riding, tennis, and so on; and then finally, at last place in the curriculum, comes civics. Their education has no firmness. Every tutor fears that through administering a couple of well-deserved slaps they will incur the eternal disfavor of these prospective monarchs. And the outcome is then types like Michael of Romania and Peter of Yugoslavia.
From all these consideration, the following conclusions are drawn in regards to the German government:
The German Reich must be a republic. The Führer should be elected. He must be endowed with absolute authority.
As a collective body, a representative parliament must be retained which can support the Führer and, if necessary, intervene in governance.
The election of the Führer is not to be accomplished through this parliament, but instead entrusted to a Senate. The Senate’s responsibilities shall be limited. Its composition should not be permanent – its membership must be bound to the possession of certain high-ranking official positions, positions which likewise are not held for life but alternate between holders. The Senate membership must be so steeped in their training and professionalism that no weakling is chosen by them, but instead only the best is elected Führer.
The election of the Führer should not take place in public, but behind closed doors. On the occasion of the Pope’s election, the people don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Once things went so far that the cardinals came to blows – since then they have been walled off for the duration of the conclave. This must also be the principal for the election of the Führer, that during the electoral act any discussion between the electors is to be prohibited.
Within three hours of the election’s fulfillment, the men of the Party, the Army, and the state are to make an oath of allegiance to the new Führer.
The sharpest and most precise separation between the legislative and executive organs must be the top priority for the new Führer. Just like how, in the National Socialist movement, the SA and SS are merely the sword for the enforcement of the Party’s political directives, in the same way the executive does not have to bother itself with politics, but only enforces the political instructions received from the legislative bodies – if need be by the sword.
If a form of state which takes into account these principles does not last forever, it will certainly endure for at least 200 to 300 years. For it is founded on considerations of sound reason, while the thousand-year organization of the Catholic Church is based on a foundation of nonsense.
This fourth part in the ‘Visions of National Socialist Democracy’ series constitutes a slight diversion away from German National Socialism and towards the NS of the British Isles – specifically towards the ideas of William Joyce, the British fascist who later became notorious under the sobriquet ‘Lord Haw Haw’. The piece below is an excerpt (slightly truncated for purposes of brevity) from the second chapter of Joyce’s 1937 pamphlet National Socialism Now, the primary ideological treatise for the National Socialist League which Joyce set up that same year after leaving Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. The contents of the document makes both its differences and its similarities with German National Socialism clear. The same basic ideological worldview is there, with its contempt for the plutocratic elements of liberal parliamentarism and the party system, but the solutions Joyce proposes have their own particularly British idiosyncrasies: Joyce’s inspiration for an alternative, illiberal form of representative government derives from the ideas of the earlier guild socialists, who themselves had drawn upon the form and content of the English guild system of the Middle Ages. While there is a distinctly British flavor to Joyce’s prescriptions, the resemblance of his ideas to the ‘council National Socialism’ proposed by early German National Socialists like Rudolf Jung is telling. Grappling with the problem of representation within an authoritarian system, and looking to earlier, pre-capitalist models for inspiration to resolve that problem, was an exercise which all fascists and National Socialists eventually seemed to find unavoidable.
National Socialism Now
While the political system remains unaltered, it will be impossible to change radically the economic situation. First, the existing order of Parliamentary incumbents is too closely linked to High Finance to desire revolutionary change; so much is even true of the Labour Party, which has expelled more than one valuable member for having dared to expect Socialism within his own lifetime.
Secondly, this democratic Party System is not intended to be an instrument of fundamental change; on the contrary, it is obviously intended to keep things as they are.
The Leader of the Opposition is paid £2,000 a year to prevent the Government from doing what it pretends to think right. So much for the moral sincerity of the politicians. Even the Sermon on the Mount does not require us to pay our enemies. The answer may be: “But there is no enmity in the House of Commons.”
This answer may be taken as true; but it does not explain why the best of friends should pretend to engage in Homeric struggle and Hibernian vituperation in order to win elections.
From beginning to end, the keynote of the whole performance is callous hypocrisy. The sham fights of Westminster are meant to make the people think that somebody is caring for their interests; otherwise there might be hell to pay; it is more economical to pay the Leader of the Opposition…
…It is now clear that the National Socialist has no apology to make for his decision to end the Parliamentary farce. Constitutionally, and in perfect loyalty to the Crown as the symbol of Britain’s continuous majesty, the National Socialist proposes to make such changes in the system of Government as are necessary to produce the required changes in our system of living.
Government divorced from economic facts is useless; such gigantic developments have occurred in the last century that it is presumptuous to defend a form of government which crystallised more than a hundred years ago and was even then quite unfitted to cope with the economic problems of the day, trivial as they were in comparison with those of our own time.
The present system, apart from its archaic incompetence, lacks the essential characteristics of all true government, namely effective leadership and genuine representation of the people. The first is missing because the political leader is but the slave of international money interests, paying his antagonist to preserve deadlock. The second is missing because if the voice of the people were heard, it would say “Move on there!” But no move is made.
Leadership is of immeasurable importance; it makes much of the difference between a body of men and a flock of sheep; sheep, indeed, have certain insignificant tendencies which, combined with providential lack of intelligence, make them happier than a leaderless flock of human beings.
In all human affairs, from the management of a fish and chip shop to the navigation of an ocean liner, from the playing of football to the conduct of a railway system, authority and discipline are necessary.
How foolish it is, then, to maintain that in the conduct of the state alone, authority and discipline are needless: Further, most men are concerned to obtain what freedom they can, and in the process are most apt to deny a fair share of freedom to others; thus it comes about that by discipline and discipline alone can a fair share of freedom be guaranteed to the mass of people.
Robinson Crusoe lost a considerable portion of his freedom as soon as Friday landed on his island; and the great congestion of population in certain parts of this globe to-day makes disciplined regulation the only alternative to anarchic stampede.
Time was when the tenth rate philosophical hacks of the Industrial Revolution taught that government should have no part whatever in the direction of economic affairs. This doctrine of “Laissez Faire” has given place to the public conviction that the duty of a government is to supply, so far as it can, the needs of the people. The conviction is right; but it also implies that the rulers of a nation must have the authority to act.
The National Socialist principle is that those who are to lead should be chosen by the people and answerable to the people, but that, having been appointed, they should have the fullest authority to lead and to discharge their duty to the nation. To impose on a leader or leaders the burden of the Party System is farcical; as well have no leaders at all.
At this point, it may be objected that National Socialism strives to set up a dictatorship. There is no use in playing with words. National Socialism will certainly smash the crumbling edifice of social democracy; and if dictatorship is the principle that a people should arm its chosen leaders with absolute power to express its will, it is a principle which must be upheld.
If, on the other hand, dictatorship is identified with tyranny or with the government of the people against their will, it is condemned on the ground that it violates the first principle of national unity. Likewise, it is well to beware of that secret kind of dictatorship, whereby a servant of the Crown can get rid of the monarch in a weekend without consulting anybody but a few niddering old prelates and a group of newspaper merchants.
More damnable still is the dictatorship of international and Jewish finance which despotically regulates what is and is not to appear on the breakfast table. Let those who rail at National Socialist leadership first rid themselves of the real tyrannies that oppress them, and we may have a little more belief in the devotion to liberty which they profess…
…The chief clamour against authority to-day is raised by those who have it and abuse it; the one thing that they most fear is the establishment of an authority over them that will prevent them from exploiting the people who suffer from their economic tyranny.
In British National Socialism there is no principle that leadership must be confined to one person. The formal symbol of unity in a single person can best be represented by the Crown freed from its entourage of nagging bishops and intriguing partymen. In this respect England differs from Germany, deserted by the Hohenzollern and enabled to find her formal expression in the singularly great personality of Adolf Hitler.
In Italy the Royal House had nothing like the tradition or symbolic strength of our own. Weakened as our monarchy has recently been, it is strong enough to stand in a new and healthy environment, which National Socialism can provide.
Therefore the National Socialist is interested in authoritative leadership rather than in the production of one sole leader. The men,who bring National Socialism to the electors of Britain will have their leaders; and when the people have approved of the policy these leaders will be required to assume responsibility not only for National Socialist organisation, but, in the ordinary constitutional way, for the country.
Having been appointed, they must have power to act; periodically the people as a whole must pass judgement on them by vote, and if they be found unsatisfactory, the responsibility of appointing new ministers rests constitutionally not with any political group, but with the King himself.
Should the National Socialist system be approved but the leaders disapproved, it would obviously be the obligation of the Crown to select the new Ministers from the National Socialist ranks. National Socialism has no duty to make provision for its own demise. We recommend what we think right and want it to be permanent; but we do make every provision that could be made to prevent leadership from degenerating into tyranny. More there is no right to expect. Unlike the democrat, we are not anxious to explain how a system can be demolished even before it is constructed; but it is vital that the people shall be able to get rid of leaders and representatives in whom they have lost confidence, because the great work which National Socialism proposes cannot be done without without mutual trust, an example of which prevails in Germany between Adolf Hitler and the greatest majority of German citizens ever to have voted.
To judge entirely by our own experience, it is better to give leadership open legitimate authority than to have Party leaders intriguing round every corner in the hope of keeping their wretched parties together by all the devices of chicanery, bribery, intimidation, and make-believe known to the grammar of democracy.
The second essential of government, genuine representation of the people, demands the abolition of the corrupt and mischievous party system, the eternal cockfight in which the cocks do not fight and – spectacle sublime – agree to differ. To be represented, the people do not need a mob of professional contradicters who agree only as to the danger of doing anything. The function of representatives is to say what the people want, and subject to mature informed judgement, to see that they get it, where it can be got.
The principles of good representation are simple in the extreme, and they have nothing to do with the present system, in which no member for an agricultural area dare ask for the exclusion of foreign foodstuffs and no member for Lancashire dare ask for the repeal of the disastrous India Act.
The very nature of representation is that it should be well informed and that the representatives who have to take decisions should take them in the light of personal experience.
Knowledge is the indispensable guide to sound judgement, and experience is the most reliable guide to the kind of knowledge which concerns the affairs of everyday life. We mainly ask, then, that when a representative of the people arises to talk, he should represent somebody in particular and not seek to perform the impossible feat of representing everybody in general. This consideration leads to the demand for the representation in the national assembly of each trade and profession by those of its own choice.
Some will at once say that here at any rate is quite perceptible the cloven hoof of Mussolini, though, in fact, the Corporate State has received an almost affectionate welcome from all sorts of people who know little of National Socialism and like it less. Certain of our portentous Mayfair snobs have even toyed with the gruesome idea of a democratic Corporate State. Let them proceed. The concept of functional representation, the notion that men should know before they talk, is found firmly expressed in the Guild System which held sway in the Middle Ages in Britain. Then was a trade or craft seen as something worthy of art, as something to be held in trust with price, and as an element given its due and honoured place in the life and counsels of the nation.
As a nation we have a love of maxims which scarcely rise above the level of platitudes. They infuriate the foreigner but serve to console us for all our imperfections. One of them, far juster than most is “Give a man a job to do and let him do it.” Strangely enough it has never occurred to the moralisers to say: “Give a man a job to do, let him do it, and then let him talk about it.” Yet herein lies the meaning of representation, if it is to have any meaning at all. This, at least, is the code of National Socialism.
Therefore Guild Representation in the National Socialist State will rest upon the following general bases:
I. Each trade or profession shall have its own elected Guild Council to discuss and settle its own problems, subject to the limits imposed by the National welfare, of which the government is the guardian.
II. All who work shall be registered within the Guild proper to their calling and shall be empowered to elect to the House of Commons members of their own Guild whose merit as workers and whose character render them faithful and capable representatives.
III. In those Guilds concerned with industry, employers and employed shall have equal representation; and the same principle shall govern the election of members to Parliament.
It is appropriate here to refer to the position to the Trades Unions in the National Socialist State. National Socialism, so far from being opposed to the Trade Union principle, is determined not only to preserve Trade Unions, but to give them a status in government which will enable them to serve the employed effectively without restorting to the weapon of the strike, which, like that of the lock-out, is a form of instrument which nobody except the Communist agitator would regard as something in itself desirable. Strikes and lockouts have more often than not proved wasteful and destructive, though without strikes the condition of many workers would have been inhuman. No solution of an industrial problem should ever decrease production of needed goods; otherwise the people must suffer.
Instead, however, of writing an essay on a subject thoroughly explored by Trade Unionists, let us steer straight to the point. In the Guild System, the Trades Unions shall be responsible for the elections to the Guilds and to Parliament of those who are to represent the employed. Thus, at one stroke, the Trade Unions acquire in the counsels of the nation equal legal and constitutional, economic, and political influence with the employers. Each worker is registered in the appropriate Guild; and membership of his Trade Union is compulsory. Since the state, by regulation to be described later, must assure high purchasing power and good conditions of labour to the employed, it becomes quite needless for the Trade Unions to fight the battle that they have been fighting for a century.
Their prime objective is attained. It is still, however, necessary for them to speak and act for the employed within the Guild Structure, and the employers, of course, will have to form suitable organisations of their own for a similar purpose.
No clearer recognition could be given to the Trades Unions than their legal and parliamentary right to represent the employed. This very consideration renders it all the more necessary that they should rid themselves or be rid of opportunists who batten on their membership in order to gain political honours and to carve out a notorious career at the expense of those who contribute to their success and are forgotten the moment it is gained. In the new Trades Unionism, portentous humbugs must play no part. Every Trade Unionist will know what is here meant; and every decent Trade Unionist is sick and tired of being deceived by carpet-bag politicians and fellows who forget that they have been engine drivers as soon as they become members of Parliament.
The Trade Union shall be no institution for the kindly upbringing of would-be politicians; it shall be the authoritative body concerned with the conditions and desires of the employed, whom it represents from day to day in the Guild, and on terms of fearless equality in Parliament.
The House of Commons will thus be an assembly of men who know their work and have power to legislate on all matters affecting the professions, trades, and vocations of the people, subject to the right of the people’s government to intervene where general interests are in danger of being sacrificed to particular interests and to make laws, by Order in Council, for the welfare of the people as a whole. Without these necessary powers a government of the people could not govern; nor could it guarantee that action should not be prejudiced by lengthy discussion.
To appreciate the representative character of this National Socialist House of Commons, it is only necessary to quote the following astounding report from the Morning Post of June 4th 1937:
On a point of honour, Old Harrovian will rally round the Government in the House of Commons to-day… It is the Fourth of June at Eton, and the Government, anticipating a general exodus of old Etonian members, numbering over 100, have included in their Whip a reminder to this effect, and earnestly requesting non-Etonians to fill the breach. The Whips, I understand, are confident that the Harrow School motto, “Stet fortuna domes”, will stand between them and defeat on a division. In party circles last night this had been freely translated “The Government must not be let down.” In any event there is little cause for alarm.
Stet Fortuna domus might also be freely translated: “Long live the Stock Exchange.”
The celebration could not, we presume, be deferred till Saturday, lest some of the Old Boys might find it embarrassing to bring their prayer-shawls to sunny Windsor. Should any Old Etonian ever read this book, he may be annoyed; but he should bethink himself that nothing is more injurious to his “Alma Mater” than the type of emetic rubbish that we have quoted, rubbish, however, which shows clearly enough what a very representative place St. Stephen’s is.
Reverting to the question of real representation, we must deny the old and groundless charge that National Socialism would crush women’s representation. Where women work in industry, they shall have the same rights as men in the election of Guild and Parliamentary representatives.
It is necessary also to recognise frankly that the task of bearing and bringing up a family is no less important to the race than any other, and that therefore a truly representative system must give expression and power to the mother, who, if like most women, can be represented neither by a blue-stocking nor by a Transatlantic noblewoman clinging to the principle vice which the American people renounced through fear of poison.
A Guild will therefore be formed to express nationally the importance and the rights of those who are responsible for the home, which, after all, is the very basis of the greater part of our conduct. Women will so be given the legal power to deal with scandals of racial importance such as maternal and infant mortality.
Effect must be given to the principle that the great discoveries and achievements of science should be open to every mother, regardless of her economic circumstances. Where the nation demands strong healthy citizens, there can be no discrimination between rich and poor; but the application of wealth and science to this particular, though tremendous, problem is eminently one for women themselves, who, after all the excesses and sacrifices of the suffragettes, have now a vote just as useless to them as to the menfolk. Women may sometimes condescend to discuss subjects that they do not understand; but they always seem glad to discuss what they do understand. Here is their opportunity, offered by National Socialism alone.
National Socialism demands that all should live in the service of the nation; and National Socialism must therefore secure, so far as it can, that all are fit to give this service. It follows that the care of mother and child is a responsibility superior to every consideration of economy, for to stint here is the classic example of false economy.
During this examination of the need for constitutional reform, nothing has so far been said about the House of Lords. It is time to speak in no uncertain terms. The National Socialist League has no use for such an anachronism. In 1911, this noble assembly died; Lord Rosebery, the only decent Liberal politician within living memory, said that rather than embarrass His Majesty’s Government, he would vote for the Parliament Act, leave the House, and never again darken their Lordships’ portals with his shadow. The epitaph was wisely pronounced; for never since that time has the House of Peers done aught but set the final seal of respectability on the most heinous crimes of the House of Commons, as for example, the India Act. An assembly that initiates naught and forbids naught, but nevertheless discusses, can have no effect beyond that of wasting time that must be valuable to somebody, if not to Their Lordships.
It is not to be inferred that National Socialism is opposed to the granting of titles for merit. There is something in the genius of the British people which appreciates such a practice, though millions of workers would like to know how Citrine and Mond earned their inclusion in the ranks of the noble. Let honours be paid where they are due; but let a legislative assembly be fit in character and in ability to do its work. Of course, what democracy never can realise is that the work of government should always be viewed as a harsh responsibility and never as a source of emolument or elevation in the scale of privileged snobbery.
Therefore the House of Lords will be reconstituted as a Second Chamber, giving representation to all those aspects of the National life which cannot be classed as economic. For those aspects which are economic, ample provision is made in the House of Commons. Imperial and foreign affairs, the Services, the Universities, and various Christian religious denominations, art, science, general culture are all subjects which should come within the scope of an enlightened and hygienic Second Chamber.
The hereditary element may well be lost, though if the son of a senator shows as much capability as his father, his inclusion in the House would be a National advantage. In plain language, we admit that much is to be said for the principle of hereditary; but unless it justifies itself in the issue, it is science that is being insulted and not heredity. The House will be appointed by the Crown on the advice of the elected leaders of the people in consultation with the House of Commons, and will consist of technicians whose interests are too specific and whose specialisation is too detailed to render them as representatives of mankind in the mass, and of men whose experience fits them to judge upon matters of imperial and foreign importance, and upon questions affecting all those very many national activities which may not properly be called commercial.
This second Chamber will very rarely sit as a whole, but from the wealth of knowledge and experience which it contains, it will be able to provide select bodies of men to advise the Government and enable the leaders of the people to decide wisely and act promptly in all those matters not appropriate to the business of the House of Commons, which will be entirely free from any interference on the part of the Second Chamber. This assembly, without being able to impose its will on the nation, can be of supreme value in providing for the people’s leaders the knowledge and experience essential to sound judgement.
Its functions supply the answer to the common criticism that a legislature of experts is apt to degenerate into a committee of pedants.
It will now be seen that the National Socialist idea of representation is, like the ideal nation, organic, embracing every kind of activity profitable to the people. The heaviest insistence is laid throughout on the fitness of men to speak for those whose interests they have in keeping. Ended is the silly spectacle of a number of professors of nothing in particular rushing for a brief but hurricane stay into some constituency, to be forgotten by all so soon as the most playsible is elected.
Much more could be written on the subject of representation, including a detailed account of the manner in which the country must be zoned and the trades categorised in order that Guild and Parliamentary elections may give the electors the opportunity of personally knowing their representatives; but this is a matter for a detailed treatise and not for a general survey intended only to outline the main principles on which the whole system is to depend.
In our opinion, there is no purpose to be served by elaborating details until the general nature of the system is accepted; moreover, in working out the particulars, it will be the aim of the National Socialist League to obtain all possible help from those who are to operate the plan itself. If the advice of experts is valuable at any stage, it is valuable in the beginning; and we are not going to make the initial mistake of proposing to teach experts their business.
We have given the data for the creation of a system in which every craftsman can use his skill and knowledge to the full. Consider these data carefully, note their superiority to the outworn bases of the present Parliamentary farce, and if you have any useful contribution to make in the nature of detailed administration, make it to us, and do not afterwards accuse National Socialism of having produced a complete and intricate machine of government without having stopped to ask the people for good advice.
Instead of dallying now with the niceties of Constitution making, it is better to show how National Socialism will, through this improved system of government, benefit the people, on whom it relies and in whose destiny it believes.
The excerpt below comprises the entirety of Part Three, Chapter Three of Otto Strasser’s 1940 book Germany Tomorrow, and is probably one of the most detailed descriptions for how a National Socialist state system would function in practice. Germany Tomorrow is itself an expanded, English-language translation of Strasser’s earlier work Aufbau des Deutschen Sozialismus (‘Construction of German Socialism’), originally published in 1931 about a year after Otto left the NSDAP. Part Three of Germany Tomorrow, ‘The New Order’, is a mostly-complete translation of the 1936 2nd edition of Strasser’s original Aufbau, while Parts One and Two (dealing with the Hitler government, prospects for revolution, and the potential post-War situation) were new material supposedly written expressly for the book and for its English-language audience. There are some differences between the two German editions of Aufbau and its later English adaptation (most notably in its discussion of the ‘Jewish question’), but on the whole Part Three of Germany Tomorrow seems to me an accurate translation of the 1936 edition of Aufbau, hence my reproduction of it here. The type of state Strasser describes (an ‘authoritarian democracy’ which mixes both council-nationalist and corporatist concepts) is interesting, although perhaps a little unwieldy with its federalist system and its three levels of government. Some of the council features it describes are reminiscent of Rudolf Jung’s original work on National Socialist ideology, although unlike with William Joyce this is less likely to be simple coincidence. Jung kept up a correspondence with both Strasser brothers throughout their careers, so some level of influence should not be surprising – although apparently Jung’s ideological worldview generally lined up more with Gregor’s than with that of Gregor’s radical “ink-slinging kid brother”.
Germany Tomorrow
THE GERMAN SOCIALIST STATE
I. MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE
In accordance with the organic conception that all institutions must be judged by the extent to which they favour organic life, we regard the State, not as something that stands above the community at large, but as nothing else than the organizational form of the people, the form that will ensure the fullest possible development of the organism known as the ‘German people’. The State is not an end in itself, but something whose aim is (or should be) so to deal with the organism of the ‘people’ (or ‘Nation’) that it may most effectively utilize all the energies that will enable the community to maintain itself as against other communities in the world.
It follows from this that the State is always determined by the peculiarities of the people. No people can take over intact the State-forms of another. When the form of the State is adapted to the peculiarities of the people of one country, our organic outlook makes it plain that this form of State cannot be perfectly adapted to the peculiarities of any other people. If, for instance, fascism is the form of State best suited to the Italian people (and the fact that the Italian people tolerates it makes this probable), then fascism cannot be the form of State best suited to the German people. The same considerations apply to the bolshevik form of State which prevails in Russia, which cannot possibly be the best form of State for the German people.
The State must originate out of the nature of the people; it should arrange the people’s life, and reduce internal friction to a minimum, for then the outwardly directed energies will grow more powerful. The athlete who trains for some great achievement, who makes his nerves and muscles cooperate without friction, and who by the regular practice of graduated exercises also cultivates the mental powers of self-confidence and will-to-victory, is the model of an organism in prime condition. A team trained for success in some particular sport, such as football, is a community whose chances of victory depend on the same presupposition – the reducing of internal friction to a minimum, in order to secure the maximum output of well-directed energy.
The conception of the State as the best possible organization of the people involves the rejection on principle of the demigod role which all dictators and would-be dictators ascribe to the State, and implies the frank avowal of the ‘people’s State’. The organic connexion between people and State which underlies the latter notion imposes upon the conservative revolutionary as a necessary deduction that the forms of the State must adapt themselves to the internal and external transformation of the people, of the popular consciousness, of the popular degree of maturity. It also follows as a matter of principle that those forms of the State are ‘good’, i.e. suitable, which are favourable to the bodily and mental health and development of the organism that is the people; even as those forms of the State are ‘bad’, i.e. unsuitable, that are unfavourable and inhibitive in these respects.
For the people is the content, the living, the organic; the State is the form, the dead, the organizational.
The experiences of recent years, and especially our experiences of the Hitler System, make it necessary to reject with the utmost possible emphasis the principle of the ‘totalitarian state’.
The national idea, according to which man and his organic community the people should be the core of the social system, involves by its conservative nature the repudiation of any attempt to idolize an organizational form. No less decisively in favour of this repudiation is the recognition that the State, from its very nature, can only have regulative functions, that is to say can only influence and ought only to influence a part (though an important part) of the social life. Both the lower plane, that of the ‘body’ (=economic life), and still more the higher plane, that of the ‘soul’ (=culture), tend by their very nature to set themselves apart from the plane of the ‘spirit’ (=society), and claim for themselves independent fulfilment, unless the natural equilibrium is to be impaired, which will inevitably lead to the illness and ultimately to the death of the organism as a whole.
In accordance with the introductory thoughts to our Philosophical Foundations the reader will, I think, understand these dissertations even if he finds I am making a somewhat unfamiliar use of terms. (This is mainly because the words – like old coins – have been worn thin by excessive use. They will need to be reminded in days to come.)
The lordly sense of superiority with which the genuine conservative always regards the State as nothing more than an instrument, a tool – as a ‘suit of clothes’ which fits the people more or less well – is justified, even as is justified the humble respect he has for the organism of the ‘nation’, in which he sees the durable whilst the State is the transient, varying with the extant growth or ripeness of the nation.
II. THE FORM OF THE STATE
For these reasons, at bottom the State form is indifferent, and all we have to enquire is which form of State is most appropriate to the present ripeness (=age) and ideology of the German people.
For these reasons, more especially, the question monarchy or republic is of little moment. Our choice will be determined by our answer to the question, ‘Which form of State will be most suitable to the German character and essential nature?’ The more suitable the State is to the German character, the more harmonious will be its internal organization, and the more powerful will it be in a world where it is faced by other States.
The principle that only the best and most efficient among German men shall be summoned to lead the State, excludes hereditary monarchy, for it is contrary to probabilities that talent will be so perfectly transmitted by inheritance that the son of the best leader will also be the best leader of his people. An additional argument against hereditary monarchy is the principle that there must be no handicap in life, that there shall be equality of opportunity for all the citizens. A form of State in which a supreme position is assured, by the mere fact of birth, to the eldest son of the reigning monarch conflicts so drastically with the principle of equality of opportunity that it is self-condemned.
Remains to decide between an electoral monarchy and a republic. In either case the head of the State will be elected: in an electoral monarchy, for life; in a republic, for a specified term.
A short term certainly involves the danger that the president will be tempted, in order to favour his chances of re-election, to bribe the electors by concessions of one sort or another; and this will make dispassionate government unlikely. The danger of bias will be greater when the president is energetic and ambitious (two qualities that are otherwise desirable in a statesman), resulting in corruption when the electorate is small, in the courting of popularity when it is large.
Such dangers are obviated when the president (or monarch) is elected for life, for this makes him independent of the electors, and enables him to contemplate and carry out far-reaching schemes regardless of anything so mutable as popular favour.
For these reasons it seems to us that the best arrangement for Germany would be that the Reich should have a president elected for the term of his natural life. That would be conformable with the experience of more than a thousand years of German history, and it matters not whether the monarch so chosen is called an emperor or a president.
III. ADMINISTRATION
The president of the Reich, elected for life, will be the supreme representative of the State authority. The ministers appointed by and subordinate to him will merely by expats with advisory functions, and will not be responsible wielders of State power; they will be personally responsible to the president.
The second wielder of State authority will be the Great Council.
The Great Council will consist of the presidents of the provinces (from twelve to seventeen in number), the five ministers of State, and the presidium of the Reich Chamber of the Estates. It will therefore have about two dozen members, all of them persons of outstanding importance. By a simple majority vote, the Great Council will also elect the president of the Reich (who need not be a member of the Council).
The third wielder of State authority will be the Reich Chamber of Estates. This will consist of 110 members, 100 being elected and 10 being nominated. It stands at the head of the entire Estates System. (Fuller details will be found in Section Five, below.)
The three wielders of State authority will have equal powers. A law will require the assent of any two of them for enactment or repeal.
Stability in the management of the State will be ensured by the fact that the president of the Reich is elected for life, that he will command a majority in the Great Council (since he appoints the presidents of the provinces), and because, nominating ten members of the Reich Chamber of Estates, he will also have predominant influence in that body.
The position of the president of the Reich, which was outlined by the author in 1931, obtruded itself into the Hitler System after Hindenburg’s death – but with the difference typical of the transitional character of the Hitlerian epoch, that here it was an inevitable outcome of circumstances, not the fruit of creative will. This accounts for the absurdity that the ministry de jure of the Reich still has in the main (as the Weimar constitution forsaw) de facto the character of a mere body of experts with advisory functions, and lacking the powers of responsible government.
But precisely because the president of the Reich will thus have a great deal of power, it is vital that there should be the two other wielders of State authority; to establish the eminently desirable modern form of ‘authoritarian democracy, which is fundamentally distinct both from the dictatorship (of an individual or of a party) and from the mass dominion (of parties or councils). – Once more, fuller details will be found below in Section Five.
Here it becomes necessary to say something important about the officialdom. In conformity with the essential nature of the genuine ‘people’s State’ which we desire to establish, there must be no privileged officials. Probably there is no popular sentiment more widely diffused, and certainly there can be none better justified, than discontent with an officialdom which considers itself entitled to lead a sheltered life apart from the economic struggles of the broad masses of the people. Less than ever today do any exceptional achievements of the officialdom warrant such a position.
When as a matter of principle the ‘official’ has become nothing more than a ‘public servant’, he will have to fulfil all the demands for efficiency and hard work that are made of the members of the liberal professions, and to share in the vicissitudes of the general welfare. In other words, whereas in contemporary Germany the officials have peculiar rights in that they cannot be dismissed and are entitled to pensions – when the new order has been established, absolute security against dismissal will have been forfeited by officials of all grades, whilst the right to a pension will belong to every German citizen without exception.
It will be a firm principle with German socialism that a privileged and powerful officialdom – bureaucracy, in short – will be a deadly peril, against which the only safeguards are a maximum of self-government, and a minimum of official rights. That is why strict supervision and control of all public functionaries will be so imperative.
IV. PROVINCIAL SUBDIVISION
One of the most difficult questions of German home policy, hitherto, has been the puerile one, unitarism or federalism? The question is of typically liberal origin, and it need hardly be said that the liberal answer has always been ‘unitarism’.
Though a conservative German will no less certainly answer ‘federalism’, it must not be supposed that he dreams of making the present German States the units of this new federalism. These States nowise correspond to the organic integrality of the populations living within their ‘borders’. They came into being as a result of the local dynasts’ endeavour to bring as much territory and as many ‘subjects’ as possible under their respective sways – an endeavour which was most powerful (and also most deleterious to Germany) in the Habsburg monarchy.
It will, therefore, obviously be needful for Germany, as a start, to break up and rearrange these separate States.
I know that, as things are now, both Old Prussia and New Prussia will strongly oppose the disintegration of the State that passes by the name of Prussia, on the ground that it would be disastrous to the Reich because it would impair the formative energy of the Prussian spirit.
I have, indeed, too much respect for the Prussian spirit, and am too keenly aware of the important part it has played in German history, to be moved by any anti-Prussian resentment such as I might be supposed to have imbibed in my Bavarian homeland.
But my knowledge of the German character and of German history have convinced me that the Prussian particularist solution was no more than an arbitrary expedient – which did not cease to be an arbitrary expedient because it was advocated and adopted by Frederick the Great and then by Bismarck. My general understanding of historical interlacements convinced me, indeed, that in the epoch of the (liberal) national State there was no other way by which the Reich could be established than by the hegemony of Prussia. But the same understanding now informs me that the time is ripe for a revival of the old (conservative) idea of the Reich, an idea whose mystical interconnexion with the rebirth of the West is overwhelmingly confirmed by the history of the last thousand years.
The development of the German people into a true German nation (which I regard as the substantial meaning of the German Revolution) demands and compels that Prussian particularism in all its forms shall be thrown into the melting-pot, demands and compels a wedding of the Frederician German type with the Theresian German type to procreate (anew) the true German – for to the true German appertains a European sense, which was so conspicuously and fatefully lacking in Prussian particularism.
This recognition of the necessarily unified character of the German State is not an acceptance of the ideal of liberal unitarism. For this unified German State must not be ruled centrally from one spot. There are such marked geopolitical, religious, and cultural differences within the German people as to forbid a uniformity that would conflict with the very nature of the Germans. Though, therefore, the coming German realm will be unified, it will be federally subdivided into provinces. The extant arbitrarily formed States and territories having been broken up, they will be rearranged into from twelve to fifteen provinces, each corresponding to a geopolitical, cultural and tribal entity.
The weekly periodical I used to edit under the title of ‘Der schwarze Front’ [Black Front] contains, in its issue of September 30, 1931, a sketch of the proposed subdivision of the German Reich as it then existed, to which I refer readers who want more details.
The province will be subdivided into circles (Kreise), each having approximately the size of the present circles (in Bavaria, Bezirk; in Saxony, Amtshauptmannschaft; in Wurtemberg, Oberamt; in Baden, Amtsbezirk; in Mecklenburg and Oldenburg, Amt).
Reich – province – circle will this be the organizational subdivision of the administrative areas of the German State.
Each province will have its own president, who will hold office for seven years. He will be appointed by the president of the Reich, but the appointment will be subject to the approval of the Provincial Chamber of Estates. If this approval is withheld for two years in succession, the provincial president will have to retire, and the president of the Reich must appoint another.
In like manner the circle president will be appointed for five years by the provincial president, and his appointment will need the approval of the Circle Chamber of Estates. Here also, if approval is withheld once, the question will come up again after a year’s interval.
The need for confirmation of the appointment of the chief provincial and circle officials by the respective Chambers of Estates implies the exercise of an extremely important influence by the popular assemblies. Thereby the presidents of circles and provinces will become at least as dependent upon the good will of the people as upon that of their official superiors, and this is all the more important because thus the popular influence in the Great Council will go far beyond that in any case exercised through the representatives directly elected by the people (the five chairmen of the Reich Chambers of Estates).
The prescription of a one-year-interval before a second vote by which the president of a province or a circle can be definitively dismissed safeguards these officials against excessive mutability of public opinion and ensures in any case the continuous functioning of State authority.
V. THE ESTATES SYSTEM
A. Abolition of the Party System
The most important inference from the conservative view that human beings (even the members of the same people) are unequal in bodily, mental, and religious respects, and therefore unequal in what they can do for the community, is the repudiation of the (pseudo-)democratic principle of equality.
A further inference is the recognition that every human being can only form valid judgements about things and persons that he knows from his own achievements and from personal experience. This involves the repudiation of the politico-parliamentary electoral system.
It is time to unveil the repulsive and gain-seeking falsehood of popular government which is an essential constituent of liberalism, which is disseminated by selfish groups of capitalists, promulgated by internationals of all kinds, maintained by demagogy that tickles the vanity of the masses and contributes to securing for various obscure forces an influence and leadership that would be impossible in a better-managed State.
That is why the German socialists unconditionally reject any kind of political election, any election by political parties and groups which always remain anonymous, and, conversely, why they insist that it is necessary to establish a system of popular representation by vocational estates.
On principle these demands signify the end of all political parties, and whatever kind of parliaments they may have formed. From their very nature political parties have a vital interest in sundering the people into factions, for they exist through producing such a cleavage, and their main task is to foster and intensify oppositions of every kind by means of the press, public meetings, etc. A genuine commonwealth of the people can, therefore, only be established by the destruction of the existing party system.
If I here reproduce without change what appears concerning this matter in the first edition (1931) of the Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus, it is only to show in how inadequate, half-hearted, and therefore inveracious a way the Hitler System fulfilled this primary demand of the German Revolution. The necessary and eminently desirable dissolution of political parties was stayed as regards the dissolution of the Hitlerian Party; the (evil and corrupt) system of rule by political parties was replaced by the (still more evil and still more corrupt) system of rule by a monopolist party.
All complaints made of the party system apply with redoubled force to the monopolist party system of the Hitler regime, which has all the drawbacks of the multiple-party system and none of its advantages.
In my view the parliamentary form of party government is incomparably preferable to any kind of uncontrolled personal or party dictatorship – not forgetting that there are varieties of parliamentary party government, ranging from the ideal-democratic system of the Swiss canton of Appenzell by way of the conservative-democratic system of Great Britain to the demagogic-democratic system of the Weimar Republic.
The fact that there are such diversities within the field of parliamentary democracy shows that where there are different preliminaries, at varying times and under various developmental conditions, there may be distinctive forms of democracy, and that it is consequently incumbent upon us to study what new kinds of democracy may be called for by existing circumstances.
Nor must we forget the signal fact that during the last decades of western social evolution there has been going on everywhere a ‘massing’ of the people which cannot fail to have momentous consequences. Owing to the rapid growth of towns, of enormous towns, tentacular towns, people have been uprooted from the countryside and ‘intellectualized’ in a way that has weakened their healthy instincts; this has been accompanied by a growing inclination to overrate both machinery and sport, these in their turn tending to hasten the general despiritualization of life. The net upshot has been the fateful change of the peoples into mere masses, a change which has increasingly affected all the European nations. Elsewhere, discussing the matter in detail, I have given concrete instances of this trend and its effect upon political life. Here, then, it will suffice to reiterate my conclusion that this disastrous change from people to mass will necessarily involve the decay of all the old forms of democracy – a decay that is so conspicuously displayed by the cheapjack methods of the mass political parties of today.
A logical inference from this, reinforced by a knowledge of what has been happening in Germany, is that the revival of the old parties has become impossible.
The German people’s passive acceptance of these (still no more than half-finished) workings of the Hitler System shows very clearly [in 1936] how accurate was the diagnosis of the situation I made five years ago, and how in this respect the Hitler System has been fulfilling the will of the German Revolution.
B. Vocational Councils
It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to establish a new form of democracy which shall avoid the defects of the old kinds, shall make due allowance for the ‘massing’ which has occurred, shall go out to meet the dangers that have resulted therefrom, and shall overcome them within its own structure – trying, at the same time, to arrest, and as far as may be to reverse, this process of disintegration.
These things will only be possible if we can liberate once more the mighty energies of self-government, loosen the framework of society, educate the people by systematically encouraging political responsibility in the very lowest strata of the community, and thus consolidate a supporting tier, without which authoritative democracy is impossible.
We must therefore create, instead of the bureaucratically dictatorial State of fascist, bolshevist, or parliamentary irresponsibility, the genuinely popular State of German democracy and aristocratic responsibility.
The principles and forms of an aristocratically responsible way of carrying on the State have been expounded in the first four sections of this chapter. We now have to consider the principles and forms of supervision and collaboration by the people, of self-government by the estates, of what I call ‘German democracy’.
Starting from the conservative view enunciated above that a human being can only form valid judgements about things and persons that he knows from his own achievements and from personal experience, we arrive at the vocation as the basis of every ‘choice’, every election, that the individual German can make in his own sphere of achievement and personal experience.
Therewith is fulfilled another vital demand based upon the conservative view, that only those citizens shall have seat and vote in the Thing who contribute a prescribed minimum by way of achievement on behalf of the community, in a word, only those who work.
The demand that the electors should be personally known is fulfilled by the circumstance that the ‘constituency’ shall be the smallest ‘administrative unit’ – the circle.
The German citizen will therefore make one primary electoral act, within his own vocation and his own circle.
In each circle there will be elected five vocational chambers, or vocational councils, namely:
the Workers’ Council of the Circle,
the Peasants’ Council of the Circle,
the Council of the Liberal Professions,
the Council for Industry and Trade,
the Council for Employees and Officials.
Each vocational council of the circle will consist of twenty-five members elected for three years.
These vocational councils will be the only popular assemblies that are the outcome of general, equal, secret, and direct election by persons active in a vocation or retired therefrom.
They are exclusively vocational representations of persons united by common interests.
This fact prescribes their sphere of activity. The vocational councils will deal with all vocational interests; will supervise wages, working conditions, vocational training, etc.; they will be the experts to be consulted upon all vocational questions by the national administration; and, above all, they will decide matters of fiefs and ‘entails’. They alone will nominate the candidate for any fief that becomes vacant, and the State will ratify the appropriate circle-president – or else will refuse to ratify it, in which case the vocational council concerned will have to make a fresh nomination.
The vocational electors will naturally do their utmost to elect as members of the vocational council the persons best fitted for their task, being guided by a knowledge of the candidates both in vocational and in private life.
The further development of the vocational councils will accord with the structure of the administration in this way, that the vocational councils of the circles will elect the five vocational councils of the province, consisting of fifty members each, belonging to the appropriate vocation; and the vocational councils of the provinces will elect the five vocational councils of the Reich, each consisting of one hundred members, belonging to the appropriate vocation.
The decisive feature here is that these elections of the provincial chambers and the Reich chambers is not primary, but indirect; not by the ultimate electors, but by the members of the next lower grade of vocational representation. The object here is, of course, to ensure that the most capable and effective vocational representatives shall rise into the higher bodies, which will be guaranteed all the more securely by indirect election without any canvassing of the primary electorate because the election of the fittest is in the interest of each vocation.
The members of the provincial vocational council will be elected for five years, those of the Reich vocational council for seven.
The sphere of activity of the higher councils will be identical with that of the circle councils. Substitutes will have to be elected to a lower council in place of those appointed to a higher council.
Thus the vocational councils will represent the interests of all the active workers in Germany.
It is important to note that the self-government of these councils will be absolutely independent, whereas in Italy and Russia the State and the respective monopolist parties dominate (that is to say interfere with) the self-government of the active workers. This is especially marked in Italy, where none but members of the Fascist Party of the fascist unions are eligible for election and entitled to vote, the representation of the active workers being thus limited to a small fraction of the population (carefully sifted by the organs of the State), consisting of persons in relation to whom the masses of active workers have no rights whatever. (It is the same here in Germany under the Hitler System, without even the trifling fragment of the corporations).
It is somewhat different in Russia, where (in theory, at least) the whole mass of active workers has the suffrage. Still, the different categories of active workers have different voting powers, and some are expressly disenfranchised. Five peasant votes correspond to one worker vote – though we are told that there is to be a change in the next elections; and many persons engaged in ‘bourgeois’ vocations, notably the intellectual professions, are disenfranchised. It is significant that in Russia the motions that are to be voted on are decided by the party, and merely have to be ‘approved’ by the assemblies. Also we note in Russia a very remarkable fact that whereas in the councils of the lower grade there are many non-party members (of course persons acceptable to the party), there is a much larger proportion of communists in the middle-grade bodies, and the highest councils consist exclusively of party members. This signifies that there can be no genuine, independent, democratic representation of the interests of all active workers.
Contrariwise the war-cry of German socialism is that we shall ensure unrestricted, truly democratic self-government by all the active workers of the population. There must be no influence exerted by, no dependence upon, any powerful group of party, and least of all upon the State. No matter what the State may desire, under the German system any German who enjoys the confidence of others that pursue the same vocation will be able to make his way into the highest offices by which the State is controlled and led; even becoming a member of the Reich Chamber of Estates or the Great Council. This will mean the most complete democracy attainable and without a chance of its degenerating into demagogic rule.
C. Chambers of Estates
Inasmuch as the vocational councils of the circle, the province, and the Reich will represent nothing but vocational interests, they must be supplemented by general popular representation.
In each administrative unit (circle, province, Reich) there will, consequently, be formed out of its vocational councils a Chamber of Estates, as follows.
The Circle Chamber of Estates will consist of twenty-five persons elected by the vocational councils of that circle and three additional members nominated by the circle president. These nominees must be eminent and respected inhabitants of the circle.
The Provincial Chamber of Estates will consist of fifty persons elected by the vocational councils of the province and five additional members nominated by the president of the province.
The Reich Chamber of Estates will consist of one hundred persons elected by the vocational councils of the Reich and ten additional members nominated by the president of the Reich.
Of decisive importance to the composition of the Chambers of Estates is to make sure that they shall faithfully reflect the sociological stratification of the circle, the province, or the Reich. For this reason the various vocational councils will not elect the same number of members each to the appropriate Chamber of Estates, but a number proportional to the composition of the population in the administrative area concerned. If, for instance, in a province there are 40% of workers, 25% of peasants, 10% of tradespeople, 10% practising the liberal professions, and 15% of employees or officials, then the membership of the Chamber of Estates must comprise the same respective proportions. Of the fifty members of this provincial Chamber of Estates, twenty would be industrial workers; twelve, peasants; five, tradesmen; five, members of the liberal professions; eight, employees or officials. One necessary limitation to this would be that no vocation must have more than 50% of the members of the Chamber, so that it would not be possible for one of the estates to command a clear majority over the others.
In each administrative area the presidium of a Chamber of Estates would be formed by the five chairmen of the vocational councils.
The sphere of activity of a Chamber of Estates is fundamentally different from that of a vocational council.
The Chambers of Estates form an important part of the State administration and State leadership.
Their collaboration in every governmental measure is direct insofar as every decree by a circle president or provincial president would need the approval of the appropriate Chamber of Estates. Moreover, as explained in Section Four of this chapter, the circle president and the provincial president will need to enjoy the confidence of their respective Chambers of Estates for the proper performance of their official duties.
But the right of veto possessed by a Circle Chamber of Estates or a Provincial Chamber of Estates only becomes effective when exerted, about the same matter, for a second time after a year’s interval. This measure cuts both ways: for, on the other hand, it prevents the holding-up of measures urgently required for the good of the State; and, on the other hand, the permanent enforcement of an unpopular measure, or the continuance in office of an unpopular president, will be prevented by the system of popular representation.
In addition the activity of the Chambers of Estates will render possible their authoritative supervision of the whole State administration in the area under their control, and especially their collaboration in matters of consumption, prices, quality, etc.
The duration of the Chambers of Estates, in conformity with that of the vocational councils, will be three years for the circle, five for the province, seven for the Reich.
The special duties of the Reich Chamber of Estates as the legislative body, and the further duties of its presidium of five (consisting of the chairmen of the five Reich vocational councils) has been discussed in Section Three of this chapter.
Not unimportant is it to mention that representative services in the vocational councils and Chambers of Estates will be honorary. Compensation will be allowed for loss of time and out-of-pocket expenses, but there will be no financial advantage in holding such a post.
The decisive importance of this scheme for the representation of the estates, lies in the fact that thereby the popular will can find expression throughout the work of administration no matter what the State authorities may do or desire to do.
The distinction between vocational councils and Chambers of Estates, both as regards their composition and as regards their duties, is of the utmost moment.
Whilst the vocational councils give expression and influence to the vertical stratification of the German people, the Chambers of Estates represent the horizontal stratification, and thus give a cross-section through the interests of various parts of the population in all areas of the Reich.
The councils represent purely vocational interests, so that their duties are correspondingly restricted to the particular vocations and the relation of these to the State; but the Chambers secure for the localities a general popular representation, and consequently form an important part of the general State administration and State guidance.
Of especial consequence is it that thereby will be ensured a direct and lasting popular control of the State and its officials in all parts of the State apparatus.
In the fascist State there is no such control; in the bolshevik State it can only be exercised ‘by way of the Party’ (which is almost identical with the State); and in the parliamentary State, at the best, control can only be exercised by unseating the government, which is often a difficult matter. But the Circle and Provincial Chambers of Estates, with their right of veto over circle president and territorial president, can control the State apparatus permanently, directly, and effectively; can control it from the bottom to the top through the instrumentality of independent popular representatives. Hereby we realize the idea of a people’s State as contrasted with bureaucracy.
On the face of things Alfred Rosenberg might not be considered a typical example of heterodox political thought. Commonly regarded as the theoretician and ‘political philosopher’ of the Hitlerian National Socialist movement, Rosenberg was a deeply ideological man whose worldview and attitudes could be perceived as rigid even by his colleagues and contemporaries within the NSDAP – certainly the Allied authorities at Nuremberg regarded him as a hidebound fanatic, and he was charged as a war criminal. Yet Rosenberg exhibited his own independent streak at times, particularly in his position as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and most especially in his post-War Memoirs (published in German as Letzte Aufzeichnungen), written over the course of 1945-1946 while imprisoned as a defendant at the Nuremberg Trials. In his Memoirs Rosenberg is remarkably candid about the faults and failings of the Third Reich and the NSDAP. While he consistently defends National Socialism as a great and noble ideal, he also argues that its misuse and demoralization led Germany to ruin – whether through the excesses and overwhelming reach of the SS police state; the abuse of the justice system; the all-powerful role of the Party; and even the actions of his Führer Adolf Hitler, who Rosenberg contends was a great man undone by hubris. One of the most interesting of these sections is near the book’s conclusion, where Rosenberg criticizes the Reich’s over-authoritarian political system; argues that Hitler’s role as dictatorial Führer was originally intended only as a temporary measure; and sketches out an ideal, democratic, multiparty National Socialist system which he (rather unrealistically) seems to be suggesting would be suitable for Germany once freed from its present state of defeat and Allied occupation. This section of Rosenberg’s Memoirs is reproduced below, from the abridged Ostara Publications translation. I have made some minor revisions to the text to add several untranslated sections from the original German edition.
Memoirs
My Political Testament
Only Hitler Could be Supreme Leader: Next in Line Would Have to Have Been Elected
The leadership of Hitler was the necessary result of a great national awakening, the Führer state an organically sound re-creation of the idea of the Reich.
Leadership is as different from rulership as it is from chaos. Tyrant and masses belong together just as much as do leader and follower. The two are possible only if they are paired, and are held together in a common bond of duty.
The ever greater power given Hitler was a temporary exception, permissible only after a fourteen-year-long test. This was not one of the goals of the National Socialist idea of state.
The first leader had to come into power as Hitler did. All others were to be elected to serve only for a limited period of time.
Thus it was provided, though no Wahlgremium [electoral college] was founded. Before the Ordensrat [Order Council] of sixty-one men from all walks of life, anyone could, and would have to, speak confidently and freely.
Before it every minister would have to defend his measures. It was the National Socialist plan to find a strong personality for every given task, and to give that individual all the authority he needed.
Adolf Hitler later broke this rule which he himself had made when, to all practical intents and purposes, he put the chief of police over the minister for the interior, when he allowed special appointees in ever increasing numbers to break into fields of activity that had been circumscribed by elections, and when he permitted several distinct functions to be concentrated in a single new office. Naturally, these may have been emergency measures, justified in times of revolution and war; but they should never be tolerated as permanent practices.
Thus the Minister for Culture of the liberal epoch was, in his day, more integral than the Reich Minister for Education of the National Socialist state. Because art, science and education belong together, it is not necessary to turn science over to a musicologist. In a great people there always will be a certain number of men, artistic in the best sense of the word, who really comprehend this unity. A Propaganda Ministry is completely superfluous. An Information Department in the office of the Reich Chancellor is sufficient. The Chief of Police must never have the rank of a minister, but must be subordinated to the Ministry for the Interior, nor may he hold any other political post.
Whether the Head of State should also be Reich Chancellor, as in the United States of America, is something that can be decided later. In view of the proven tendency of the German to see everything basically, it seems safer to keep these two positions separate (in connection with which the matter of authority over the armed forces must be carefully weighed). The Reich Chancellor, however, must never have the decisive voice in the government, but must confine himself, as long as he is in office, merely to directing policy.
The election of a body of so-called people’s representatives appears to remain a necessity. Proportional elections, however, have led to chaos before. What is most evident is the need for finding a method of election which makes governing possible.
Nobody can govern a people if three parties form a coalition, and a fourth with only a few members holds the balance of power.
The so-called justice of not wasting a single vote is, in reality, evidence of the greatest neglect of duty toward the entire nation. Therefore, and without attempting to ape the English elections with their small election districts and personal campaigns in each, the method of election must ensure that a majority wins, the others lose out.
The Reich Senate, chosen partially by election, partially by the appointment of selected men, must have as its function the confidential correction on the part of the government of open parliamentary discussions.
A one-party system was justifiable and historically even a necessity in 1933. But it was an historical mistake to attempt to perpetuate it for all eternity. This would have been impossible anyway, since, after Hitler’s death, at least three distinct groups within the National Socialist German Workers’ Party would have entered the political arena.
National Socialism at one time was, so to speak, a substitute nation, when the country was threatened with dissolution by thirty-two individual parties. The old parties of the class and religious wars were outmoded and had outlived their usefulness. They had in many respects become no more than hollow shells, and had to be remoulded.
This was as inevitable as the resignation of the twenty-three German dynasties in 1918. Thus it was the historic task of National Socialism to become the spiritual-political basis of life (Nationalism and Socialism) for the entire people.
With this national union no longer disputed, certain wing-groups would have been tolerated. But while this seemed desirable to a large number of people, it was never approved by Hitler who (together with Ley, Goebbels, and the rest) rode a good principle to death.
This new idea will somehow have to be the spiritual basis for the future. What experience taught us must never again be forgotten.
But since we will have to count on more than one political group, the National Socialist identification of party with state is automatically eliminated. In fact, between 1933 and 1945 this identity, never fully comprehended in its effect, jeopardized the most basic laws governing the very life of a people.
Not one of us can claim that we did not uphold the dictum: the party rules the state. For a while this was justified, for then it was not the state that created us, but we who had created the state.
True enough, but weren’t we already living in a thousand year state – a state the party was to serve? This diffuse dualism could not be overcome by a personal union while the party office on the ministerial level worked towards the termination of this very union.
This would have simply meant the perpetuation of a dictatorship of the antechamber. In connection with the future multi-party system, the position of the representatives of the individual states which make up the Reich will have to be independent.
The creation of the office of Reichsstatthalter [Reich Governor] was basically sound. The sovereignty of the Reich was upheld while at the same time the various Länder [states] were permitted to govern themselves. That this require state governments (and perhaps even Chambers of Councillors ) though not necessarily Landtage [state parliaments], is obvious, if for no other reason than the preservation of national strength. (The representatives elected to the Reichstag from a given Land could, incidentally, also make up the majority of these Chambers of Councillors).
National Socialism turned into legal centralism, but also particularism in practice. Never was the unity of a central administration more of an obvious necessity than today, when the Reich is divided into four zones. This, then, could be the basis: the appointment by the Head of State of Reichsstatthalter (who also serve as Presidents of the State Governments), candidates to be suggested by the Reich Chancellor. The special interests of the individual states to be safeguarded by Chambers of Councillors, by representatives elected to the Reichstag, and by representatives in the Senate.
The shocking degeneration of police power in the Third Reich makes it mandatory that independent judges and due process of law once again guarantee the security of the individual.
Time-tested European methods must safeguard the community. Not even the most shrewdly conceived constitution can possibly guarantee permanent security. If a democracy tends toward chaos, the Führer-principle on the other hand might lead to monocracy. Besides that, foreign political developments might lead to social conflicts, and human passions, despite all efforts to subdue them, might break through.
Fate will not be confined by paragraphs. Nevertheless it is important to build upon a foundation valid for all, though this is possible only when the character of a people is fully understood: its historical reaction to the world at large, its living space with its own inherent laws, and, as today, some immediate experience that necessitates, as never before, the examination of one and all existing problems.
National Socialism was both an ideal and an organization, but it had not yet taken on final form. This realization intrigued me long before the war, and I began work on a comprehensive book, tentatively entitled Die Macht der Form [The Power of Form].
The leitmotiv was that in any given historical situation revolutions are made victorious by ideas. Organizations are variable forms of utilitarianism. They can perpetuate a revolution only when they become forms, that is, natural habits, common psychological attitudes, characteristic general reactions to the surrounding world, and eventually spiritual disciplines. This alone can guarantee an organic continuity if the creator of the idea is dead and fate has not provided an acceptable successor.
Only a general form of life – one might also call it type of life, though never scheme of life – can then serve the purpose. This holds good in every field of human endeavor. I had a draft of about four hundred pages ready – they disappeared during the war – which was a little sharp in the mode of expression and was to be rewritten completely and amplified at an older, riper age. These writings on state, science, church, and art were lost (one copy in an air-raid shelter in Berlin, the second in a mine in Upper Austria, the third among the papers sequestrated in Castle Banz).
Seen even from this angle, a great accomplishment of the German nation – National Socialism – went to pieces before it had a chance to become formed.
If I put down a few thoughts on the form of a state, I do this because I have experienced the birth, victory, and collapse of its auxiliary structure; for the Party was never more than that, and the structure of the Reich itself had been taken apart without ever being put together again.
The following outline is purely theoretical in nature, since the present is too dark to analyze it fully. Ideas on foreign policy cannot be discussed at all, as is obvious in the face of existing realities. Besides, this outline cannot possibly be couched in legal terminology. It is no more than an expression of my personal attitude, aims, and principles:
1. The Head of State (Reich President, Führer, Reich Protector, Reichsführer) is elected by the people as a whole. The majority of the ballots cast is decisive. In a run-off election only, the two candidates with the greatest number of votes can participate. The term is for five years. The Head of State is the Supreme Commander of the armed forces. A personal union with the office of Reich Chancellor is not possible. The Head of State can be re-elected any number of times.
Reasons: The position as Head of State presupposes a well-known personality, and therefore an election by the entire people seems justified, since under this system, character, feeling, and trust come directly into their own, something that must be taken into consideration in Germany if a real representative of the entire nation is to be elected. The German does not want a mere representative nonentity.
After the present collapse of confidence, a personal union between the offices of Head of State and Reich Chancellor is no longer possible. For the same reason the armed forces must be under the command of the Head of State. His title can be left for the future to decide. A dynasty need not even be discussed, since personal reverence is unthinkable, considering the biological deterioration of a given family, quite apart from other dangers. If it were possible to conduct elections under the decimal system, the political rhythm would conform to the rhythm of the rest of life, something that must not be underestimated as a creative force.
2. Leadership, government, and representation of the people are in the hands of the Reich Chancelor, the Reichssenat [Reich Senate], and the Reichstag.
The Reich Chancellor is selected by the Head of State, the Reich Ministers are appointed upon the proposal of the Reich Chancellor by the Head of State. The Reich Chancellor issues political directives, but does not have the decisive vote in the cabinet.
It is the duty of the Reichssenat to pass on the reports of the Reich Minister concerning important proposed measures. It has the right to submit propositions of its own to the Reich Chancellor. The Reichssenatconsists of thirty elected and thirty-one appointed members. The minimum age of a Reich Senator is forty years. Thirty senators are elected by Nährstand[Agricultural Estate], Städtetag [Cities Association], German labor unions, rectors of universities and churches. They require the approval of the Head of State. Thirty-one senators are appointed by him. The sessions of the Senate are secret, and no member is permitted to keep a record or to make notes on them. The Reich Senators hold office for five years, but the Head of State may reappoint them at the end of their terms. The Reich Senate cannot be dissolved.
The Reichstag is elected by the people for five years. The territory of the Reich is divided into five hundred election districts in which each party can nominate its own candidates. The candidate getting the majority of votes is elected.
The Reich Chancellor and the Reich Ministers submit their planned political measures to the Reichstag. The latter is also permitted to initiate laws. If a bill submitted by the Reich government is turned down in three readings, the Reich Chancellor must submit his resignation to the Head of State. The Head of State may appoint a new Reich Chancellor, dissolve the Reichstag and announce new elections, or he can keep the Reich Chancellor in office until the end of the Reichstag term.
The Reich government must resign if the Reichssenatand the Reichstag demand it by a two thirds majority. In this case the Head of State must appoint a new Reich Chancellor, or else announce new elections for the Reichstag. The Head of State declares war only after consulting with the Reich Chancellor, the president of the Reichssenat, and the president of the Reichstag.
Reasons: Continental democracy with its proportional election system necessarily leads to party anarchy. Under the system outlined above it seems possible to achieve continuity, a really responsible government, the avoidance of majority demagogy, the attracting of men of really important achievements from all walks of life to responsible co-operation, the prevention of a splintering of the party.
This method of selecting the Reich Chancellor, of partly appointing the Reichssenat, and electing the Reichstag, guarantees the leadership both necessary rights and necessary controls.
3. The members of the Reichssenat and the Reichstaghave the right and the duty of freely exchanging opinions. They must not be called to account for their political opinions or maligned in any way. In connection with any other delict provided for in law, they are held responsible just as is any other citizen. Their immunity is purely political.
Reasons: The immunity of politicians in the democratic Germany frequently had grotesque consequences, inasmuch as the members of the Reichstag were active in their professions, but could not be called to account for their slander. This was as much a breach of law as were the irresponsible police arrests of the Third Reich.
4. To govern the individual German Länder, the Head of State upon proposal of the Reich Chancellor appoints Reichsstatthalter who are at the same time presidents of the provincial governments. The Reichsstatthalter is responsible for appointing his own cabinet. The members of the Reichssenat and the Reichstag from his province are at his service in an advisory capacity. The Reichsstatthalter is bound by the directives of the Reich government. His term is for ten years.
Reasons: This assures the unity of the Reich in the field of politics and the principles of general conduct, but leaves the Reichsstatthalter every freedom for the cultural development of his home province. He is constantly kept informed by the senators and representatives, without being burdened with an assembly that in each province represents a tremendous squandering of energy. The title of Staatsminister would have to be replaced by that of State Director.
5. Inhabitants are classified as citizens of the state or members of the state. Counted among the latter are all recent immigrants. The Reich Minister decides when citizenship may be granted. Only citizens have the right to active and passive election, and are eligible for appointment to state positions. In every other respect all state citizens and state members are equal before the law.
Personal freedom is guaranteed. Arrests can be made only by court order. In emergency cases the policy may deviate from this rule, but must take the case to court within three days. In principle, a judge cannot be unseated. He is independent in his judgements, and subject only to the dictates of the law and his conscience.
The Chief of Police is under the jurisdiction of the Minister for the Interior, and may not hold any post other than his office. The highest court is the Reichsgericht [Supreme Court]. In case of the death, absence or any incapacity of the Head of State, the President of the Reichsgericht takes over his responsibilities.
Reasons: The possibility of a differentiation between political rights must be newly incorporated into the constitution on the basis of what the experiences have been in various countries. It is an incentive for good behavior, makes the securing of citizenship a matter of achievement, and eliminates from the election of political leaders external, possibly financial factors. On the other hand a uniform human evaluation precludes the possibility of any feeling of inferiority, and also guarantees the legal equality of all.
The election of a substitute for the Head of State seems undesirable. In case of his demise, the taking over of his duties by the president of the Reichssenatmight be considered. The election of the president of the Reichsgericht, on the other hand, would permit law itself to assume its old honored position in German life.
6. The means of disseminating information are basically the property of the state, or are at least at its immediate disposal, particularly the radio and the press. The official News and Information Bureau is under the jurisdiction of the Chief of the Reich Office. He allots the supplies to all government and private publishing enterprises. The Reichsstatthalter issue permits for the publication of newspapers, and engage the editors. The latter are contributors to the common weal. Articles must be published under the full names of the authors, or must be identifiable by initials. Books and magazines can be freely published.
Reasons: The misleading of public opinion by private lust for sensationalism is a political cancer in all democracies and a crime against the self-respect of all people. No reference to freedom of the press can justify what has been done by irresponsible journalists in world politics. On the other hand, the attempt to invest the profession of editor with a greater dignity eventually had quite the opposite effect, when the Propaganda Ministry kept them under constant surveillance, and prohibited the expression of any private cultural convictions. It is suggested that all parties, according to their numerical strength, have licensed newspapers, with the Reichsstatthalter appointing editors from their respective ranks. Both the free expression of opinions and the interests of Reich and people would thus be safeguarded. (Simultaneously, less paper would be wasted. German forests must not be further depleted, nor imports burdened, for the sake of sheer sensationalism.)
Every editor is obliged to treat the subjects under discussion with all seriousness, and the will to improve is to be his guiding light. Other provisos can be left safely to life itself to determine. In the cultural and scientific magazine field, private initiative as free reign. The Chief of the Reich Chancellery seems the best possible impartial agent to direct and supervise the domestic and foreign news service. The question as to whether or not the radio should be put entirely under his control must be carefully considered, since radio covers many fields. The same holds good for the film industry, especially in connection with its weekly newsreels.
7. Our youth is the future generation of the people as a whole. It has the right to organize freely in Bünde [leagues]. These Bünde, however, must not be the youth organizations of political parties and social or confessional groups. The central Bund leadership, constituted by representatives of the individual Bünde, is under the supervision of the President of the Senate. He approves statutes and by-laws, and allocates funds for youth shelters, hikes, and so on.
Reasons: Youth groups of the old parties were frequently the original foci of dissension among the people. The same is true of confessional youth organizations within which the groundwork for the particularism of the Catholic Center or the Evangelical Bund was prepared. In the Hitler Youth organization, exclusiveness, after the initially healthy spirt, led to a discipline unbearable to both youth and parents, and in the administration, to a conceit that had a most insalubrious effect on character. However, the Hitler Youth as the successor of an outmoded youth movement must not be simply forgotten. What must be carried over into the future are self-discipline, the desire for unity, the recognition by the leaders of their responsibility for the physical and mental health of the young generation.
Supervision by the president of the Reich Senate seems desirable, inasmuch as he is not involved in everyday politics, though he is directly concerned with the guidance of growing life. The Head of State himself must not be burdened with organizational problems.
8. All Germans have the right to organize in political parties and to hold meetings. Presupposed is the recognition of the unity of Reich and people, and the absence of class and confessional discussion.
Reasons: This point merits careful consideration. How can we be assured there will never again be a historical necessity for another November 9, 1918 or another May 8, 1945? How can division and unity exist side by side? How can ways and means be honestly fought over if there is no common goal to provide a basis for discussions? Only after these questions are answered can social life be organized. It is unthinkable that any party should take orders from outside the Reich, no matter what these orders may look like.
Furthermore, it would have to be ensured by special law that the parties do not set up party troops, except for the Ordnungsdienst at meetings. Occasional orderly parades mya very well be held without such detachments. The breaking up of any meeting must be severely punished by the banning of any provincial organization, or even entire party, whose leaders have been found guilty.
9. Economic and social organizations are united in the Nährstand and in the German Unions (Arbeitsfront?). Professional and cultural groups have the right to organize as they see fit. Freedom of conscience and religious freedom are among the basic rights of the Germans.
Reasons: The healthy union idea became the victim of party feuds. Class war and confessional war tried to turn unions into a reservoir of voters for their own purposes. The German Labor Front was based on the sound idea of preventing this splitting into fragments and encouraging cooperation between employees and employers instead of antagonism. A special law should guarantee the possibility of such cooperation, and a trustee of the Reich should be appointed to act as a neutral arbitrator. A commercial firm is just as much of a unit as a farm. Similar steps should be taken in connection with skilled labor or artisans. Details must be worked out most carefully, and particular attention given to the fact that the farmer, his health and security, are the very foundation of the nation. It should be decided whether the professions (attorneys, physicians, and so on) ought to be united in professional chambers. The Kaiser Wilhelm Academy, the German Academy, and other historic institutes, should be maintained. Universal freedom of conscience must be guaranteed. The problem of film censorship must be solved.
This basic outline for a constitution appropriate to the German character and historic situation naturally demands that a great deal of thought and study be devoted to a great many problems. For example, the powers to be granted the Head of State in case of a national emergency corresponding to Paragraph 48 of the Weimar Constitution; the desirability that former Heads of State and Reich Chancellors be appointed Reich Senators; the rules of procedure of the Reich Senate and the Reichstag; the organization structure of the Nährstand,the German trade unions, the various professional chambers; the determination that no records are kept of the meetings of the Reich government; review of the criminal code, of the Editor Law [Schriftleitergesetzes]. These are all things of progressive life which are no longer fundamentally crucial. There will be different opinions about forms of pensions and insurance, about the relationship of the state to the churches, which are the responsibility of political parties and cannot yet be defined in a basic constitution. For the appointment of Reichsstatthalter a customary law will assuredly emerge, according to which they are chosen from among the men of the respective German Länder. Estates [Stände] and groups will name a certain larger number for selection, who are to be proposed by the Reich Senators to the Head of State.
Today all this is mere theorizing; but all the constitutions prepared during the occupation are not testimonies of a free will, but merely involuntary adaptations to that of the occupying powers. Considering the position of the German nation, this is not an accusation but merely a statement of fact. Any constitution presupposes national sovereignty and an extraterritorial area in which a provisional government, headed by the legal Head of State – Grand Admiral Dönitz – can begin the work of reconstructing the German Reich. This idea of a völkisch and governmental unity cannot, must not, and will not be given up by a nation that has fought two world wars, nor by the young men of 1939-1945…
Conclusions
In his memoirs, Wagener recalls a conversation with Hitler in late 1931 where the idea of a party Senate was brought up. Hitler, who had fallen ill and was concerned about succession, discussed the concept with Wagener. However, he ultimately decided to postpone its implementation, and the Senate was never established, though the topic continued to be discussed for years. Wagener was initially puzzled by this, but he later remembered a conversation with Gregor Strasser
Gregor suggested that if Hitler were to establish a senate, he would have to openly declare himself to it and commit to its decisions. This would mean facing the possibility of being held accountable by the senate at any time. Strasser asserts that he, personally, would not remain silent if he held a differing opinion. Even if the senate does not vote, the prevailing sentiment within it would eventually influence Hitler's actions and decisions, potentially leading him to make choices that he may currently find uncomfortable. Consequently, Hitler prefers to delay the implementation of the senate until after his death. Strasser believes that if Hitler is discussing it currently, it signifies his belief in his grave illness. Once Hitler recovers, the idea of the senate will retreat into the background. Strasser predicts that his assessment will prove correct.
Hitler recognized the value of the idea but hesitated to fully commit to it since it would limit his power and provide a pathway for his removal, resembling Mussolini's Grand Council of Fascism. This highlights further parallels between Fascism and National Socialism.
A relevant book to consider in this context is Der Senats- und Ordensgedanke im Dritten Reich by Heinrich Haupt. The book briefly mentions that Hitler himself was extensively involved in planning this future senate, which would be responsible for electing the future leader of the Third Reich's Corporate State.
Hitler's reluctance to relinquish power during his lifetime is understandable. As the man who aimed to guide his vision of the Reich through the early decades and secure its future development according to his carefully laid out plans, it is logical that he would be cautious.
These visions of a National Socialist democracy serve as a reminder of how workplace "democracy" can serve as a foundation for totalitarianism.
It is perhaps not a coincidence that Mussolini's corporatism was enacted around the same time that the German version was being developed. This reveals a strong intellectual tradition of democratic and nationalistic socialism. From Rudolf Jung in the early years to Gottfried Feder later on, and even figures like William Joyce in liberal Great Britain, who suggested a representative National Socialist Guild Socialist/Distributist system for the country.
Otto Strasser, in his book Germany Tomorrow, describes a 'Germanic Democracy' that combines council and corporatist concepts. It can be best characterized as Guild Socialism/Distributism and is decentralized into a confederation model with three levels of government. Some of its council features bear resemblance to Rudolf Jung's original work on National Socialist ideology. Additionally, Alfred Rosenberg, in his memoirs, criticizes the Third Reich's over-authoritarian political system. He argues that Hitler's role as a dictatorial Führer was initially intended as a temporary measure and outlines an idealistic vision of a democratic, multiparty National Socialist system, which, albeit unrealistic, he suggests would be most suitable for Germany once freed from its state of defeat and Allied occupation.
This means that the true nature of National Socialism, like Fascism, is inherently republican, democratic, and socialistic. These are bottom-up governments based on representative occupational democracy. They are designed to create an organic society interconnected as one body, making them inherently corporatist, albeit with different interpretations. Both workers and employers would sit side by side, equal in rights, as one people, one race, under the leadership of the totalitarian state. In this vision, class divisions must dissolve as the only existing entity is the organic folk community.