5th June
I feel I am making little but tangible progress towards unlocking the worst social catastrophe in history.
One outcome of delving into the cesspool is that I will walk away shaken but unenlightened. Like being accosted by a drunk on an empty street, a man who literally falls out of the pub with stinking breath and a river of unintelligible words.
Of course I am referring to the animosity towards Jews.
Nazi articles never misses an opportunity to point their fingers. But I have yet to see one single instance that looked even remotely plausible. In all the cases, blaming the Jews sounds as convincing as blaming personal misfortunes on gnomes.
That has everything to do with a loss of rationale. “The Jew” in nazi literature appears to be the ubiquitous face of numerous ills.
This study is rife with parallels to modern times. What I lack is not insight into each aspect but the fall of all the domino pieces as a whole.
I can tell myself that the present day economy is wrecked by a 1% elite sapping the world for its juices. I can also tell myself that in many cases, this 1% comes from a specific renowned family. I can even tell myself that this family is of a certain origin.
But for each step, I cannot shake the feeling that I am moving farther and farther away from reality. In other words: The belief will less and less motivate me to waste my time on any serious action.
And yet, I can see in my reflection that I am a complete anthropological novice.
A look at Der Stürmer
Novice or not, I am no different from anybody else: Der Stürmer is vulgar and obnoxious. Even as a nazi (well, in spe) I find it repulsive. It makes a mockery of all the science it plunders to deliver a few emotional punchlines.
But I have to delve into it to taste the times. Doubtlessly written by the same class of people who today feel they have license to eject putrid animosity based on fragments of understanding here and there. “Good clean fun”, as it were.
We are informed that many prominent members of the Nazi party held no regard for Julius Streicher’s paper. It’s like having two levels of racism. Professional racists don’t want to associate with amateur racists.
No. I can’t think like that. Then all the doors will be closed to me.
Deep dive.
Judenblut
“Blut ist ein ganz besonderer Saft” So sagte einst Wolfgang Goethe.
Das hat der Jude schon vor viertausend Jahren erkannt. Darum gab Moses seinen jüdischen Rassegenossen folgendes Gesetz mit auf den Weg:
“Und wenn dir Jahwe, dein Gott, die nichtjüdischen Völker freigibt, daß du sie schlägst, so sollst du sie umbringen. Du sollst keinen Bund mit ihnen machen, noch ihnen Gunst erzeigen. Deine Töchter sollst du nicht geben ihren Söhnen, und deine Söhne sollen nicht nehmen ihre Töchter.” 5. Mos. 7. 2
Die Juden wußten schon vor viertausend Jahren, daß die jüdischen Charaktereigentümlichkeiten im jüdischen Blut verankert sind. Darum waren sie bestrebt, ihr Blut möglichst unvermischt zu erhalten. Somit ist auch das heutige Judentum noch das gleiche, wie vor 4000 Jahren.
Da aber die Juden eigentlich keine Rasse, sondern ein zusammengeworfener Hausen von Bastarden sind, hervorgegangen aus einer Blutsmischung von Affen, Negern, Mongolen und Ariern, drum sicht mancher Jude troß seiner helleren Hautfarbe wie ein Neger und mancher wie ein Mongole aus; mitunter begegnet man auch blonden und blauäugigen Juden. Ob sie alle, der eine mehr, der andere weniger dem Affen ähnlich sehen, daß überlassen wir der Beobachtungsgabe des Lesers.
Durch 4000 jährige Inzucht hat sich die jüdische Köterrasse herausgebildet, eine Promenadenrasse, die sich durch besonders krumme Glieder, besonders krumme Nasen und einen ganz besonders Krummen Charakter auszeichnet.
Damit die assimilierten Juden zur gegebenen Gelegenheit aus allen anderen nichtjüdischen Völkern herausgefunden werden können, hat sich das „auserwählte Volk“ durch Beschneidung noch besonders gekennzeichnet. Wie die äusere Gestalt, so ist auch das Blut des Juden, infolge seiner ganz bedenklichen Zusammensetzung, von dem aller nichtjüdischen Rassen grundverschieden.
Jewish Blood
“Blood is a very special fluid.” Wolfgang Goethe once said this.
The Jews recognized this four thousand years ago. That’s why Moses gave his Jewish comrades the following law:
“And when the Lord your God gives you the Gentiles to strike, you shall destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show them favor. You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall your sons take their daughters.” Deuteronomy 7:2
The Jews already knew four thousand years ago that Jewish character traits are anchored in Jewish blood. Therefore, they strove to keep their blood as unmixed as possible. Thus, Judaism today is still the same as it was 4,000 years ago.
But since the Jews are not actually a race, but a motley crew of bastards, descended from a mixture of apes, Negroes, Mongols, and Aryans, some Jews, despite their lighter skin color, look like Negroes and some like Mongols; occasionally, one also encounters blond and blue-eyed Jews. Whether they all resemble apes, some more, some less, is left to the reader’s powers of observation.
Through 4,000 years of inbreeding, the Jewish cur breed has developed, a promenade breed characterized by particularly crooked limbs, particularly crooked noses, and a particularly crooked character.
So that the assimilated Jews could be distinguished from all other non-Jewish peoples at the appropriate time, the “chosen people” further distinguished themselves through circumcision. Just as their physical appearance differs, so too does the blood of the Jew, due to its highly questionable composition, differ fundamentally from that of all non-Jewish races.
It has a peculiar malevolent tongue-in-cheek character. As if there were two levels of reality. Like a schoolboy being inquired at the principals office:
“Did you really think the other boy had a crooked nose?”
“Yes, of course. We all could see it.”
“No, I mean, did you really REALLY think it?”
“Oh, you mean as in REAL real? No, of course not.”
The emotional reality or the our-position-in-the-game reality comes before the actually verifiable reality.
America today is rife with myths about conspiracies and counter myths about those myths. And yet, one should be wary about drawing parallels.
The truth is I can’t yet say who caused the Holocaust. The virulent jesters like Julius Streicher or the scientific theoreticians. Not yet, anyway.
Als vor etwa 2 Jahrzehnten ein Kreis von Ärzten versuchte, die verschiedenen Blutgruppen der Menschen zu erforschen, da stahl sich bald zu ihnen der Jude Dr. Landsteiner. Getrieben von dem niemals trügenden Masseinstinkt, witterte dieser Jude die Gefahr, die seiner Rasse von solchen Untersuchungen drohte.
Die Ergebnisse der Blutforschung waren ungeheuer schwerwiegend. Die medizinischen Zeitschriften berichteten, daß beider Einspritzung von Judenblut in den Körper eines Nichtjuden letzterer mit hohem Fieber reagierte. Es zeigte nahezu dieselben Erscheinungen, als ob dem Körper Gift eingegeben worden wäre.
Schon nach diesen ersten vielversprechenden Anfängen stockte die Blutforschung wieder. Der Jude hatte auf der ganzen Linie abgeblasen. Die Ergebnisse der Blutproben waren ihm ungeheuer peinlich und eine Veröffentlichung wurde von jüdischer Seite mit allen Mitteln unterdrückt. Allgemein wird angenommen, daß die Blutforschungen von höherer Stelle aus zum Stillstand gebracht wurden.
Nun mußte gerade in der letzten Zeit ein Arzt — ausgerechnet in Sowjetrußlans — mit Namen Manoslow feststellen, daß zwischen Juden- uns Ruffenblut ein großer Unterschied bestehe. Das jüdische Blut nahm bei Venützung von besonderen Reagenzien eine blaßblaue Färbung an, während das russische rötlich blieb.
Wie wir erfahren, sollen sich bereits Gruppen junger Mediziner gebildet haben, welche die Blutforschung auf privatem Wege fortsetzen. Da wäre es interessant, wenn festgestellt werden könnte, wie sich das Affenblut, das Negerblut, das Mongolenblut und das germanische Blut prozentual auf den Saft verteilt, mit dem die Adern des Juden gefüllt sind.
About two decades ago, when a group of doctors attempted to research the different human blood types, the Jew Dr. Landsteiner soon joined them. Driven by the never-failing instinct of the masses, this Jew sensed the danger posed to his race by such studies.
The results of the blood research were incredibly serious. Medical journals reported that when Jewish blood was injected into the body of a non-Jew, the latter reacted with a high fever. It showed almost the same symptoms as if poison had been injected into the body.
After these initial promising beginnings, the blood research stalled again. The Jew had called it quits entirely. The results of the blood tests were immensely embarrassing to him, and publication of them was suppressed by the Jewish side by all means. It is generally assumed that the blood research was halted by higher authorities.
Recently, a doctor named Manoslov—in Soviet Russia, of all places—had to discover that there was a significant difference between Jewish and Russian blood. When using special reagents, Jewish blood took on a pale blue color, while Russian blood remained reddish.
As we learn, groups of young physicians have already formed to continue blood research privately. It would be interesting to determine the percentage distribution of ape blood, Negro blood, Mongolian blood, and Germanic blood in the fluid that fills the veins of the Jew.
One wonders about the outcome for the control group and whether they were better at hiding their hemolysis.
It is interesting that they mention Dr. Landsteiner, which sounds like Karl Landsteiner, the discoverer of the ABO blood group system. Perhaps he found the whole experiment rather reckless.
What is there to say?
Culpability aside, there is a world of difference between these callous miscreants and the sensitivity of a Goebbels, who I also found an article of. I will get to that in a minute.
Another thought has been pressing on for a while:
The Hydra of Revolutions
What I am starting to suspect is that Lenins ideas on revolutionary potential is applicable in other contexts as well.
If we pose the question when did the bolshevik revolution loose its track?, we can see that in order to answer that, we must also ask when did it stop being about the workers? If it ever did.
NSDAP seems to be a right wing workers party, but a revolutionary workers party just the same. Clearly they lost their way long before the Russians did, probably almost immediately.
Worker’s revolution was in the air in Germany. That parties seeking revolution would have a strong affinity with socialism should come as no surprise. Since mid-19th century Marxists had explained how the revolution was inevitable. The Bolsheviks had already demonstrated change could happen. Consequently competing movements who wanted the revolutionary attention had to disassociate themselves strongly from the Leninists.
In Russia as elsewhere, the revolutionary competition was fierce. Germany was no exception. Rising up in the shadow of the the pillars of the old system were more than one faction who had the name Workers or Social in their name.
I decided to take a break from the depraved prankishness of Der Stürmer. The demographic segment consisting of men finding factually altered states funny or satisfying are by no means isolated to 1930’s Germany. Later studies will have to reveal what audience the pages would have. Racist family people with a clean record or militant street activists? We will see.
Now on to something I consider a much better lead:
Der Angriff is a newspaper published in Berlin by the party division, Gau, in Berlin, whose Gauleiter was Goebbels himself.
I found a book full of articles from the paper, not the papers themselves, which is something I will have to contend with.
A Poet called Goebbels
Deliberately I wanted something from the 1920’s. The younger, the better. In the span of ten years, the youthful emotions have most likely petrified and hardened.
I then examined this picture of a young Goebbels:
One should keep this imprint of a sensible romantic figure in mind when reading the following article from 3rd August, 1926.
I stress this because we have a very different notion of Goebbels. Posterity views him as a propaganda mastermind. Subtext: Master manipulator of the truth, dishonest and deceptive at the core.
Is he? Or did he, like so many poets through history, become the voice of a generation?
The article relays their trials and tribulations as a small party coming into existence.
Wir kapitulieren nicht!
Als wir vor einem Jahr begannen, da waren wir ein kleines Häuflein von einigen hundert Menschen, verzweifelt an der Gegenwart und zerrissen im politischen Alltag; aus allen Lagern waren wir gekommen, der Studierte von rechts und der Prolet von links.
Als wir begannen, da wagten wir nicht vom Himmel zu hoffen, daß er uns die Gnade des Hasses unsere Feinde so bald schon in überreichen Maße schenken würde. Heillose Phantasten waren wir, ungeschult in der Futterkrippen kämpfen, die man seit 1918 in Deutschland Politik nennt, ohne Wissen von den Gefahren, die um uns lauerten, und kaum ahnend, daß es gefährlich sei, ein versklavtes Volk zu lieben und für seine Freiheit einzustehen. So begannen wir.
We won’t surrender!
When we began a year ago, we were a small group of a few hundred people, despairing of the present and torn by everyday politics; we came from all camps, the educated from the right and the proletarian from the left.
When we began, we didn’t dare hope that heaven would so soon grant us the grace of hating our enemies in abundance. We were hopeless dreamers, untrained in the manger fighting that has been called politics in Germany since 1918, ignorant of the dangers lurking around us, and barely suspecting that it was dangerous to love an enslaved people and stand up for their freedom. So we began.
So we began. So begins our journey on the ocean crests of fate. Lost, found by the divine grace of a nation whose very blood type is revealed to flow in your veins and mine.
A man with a delicate devotion. A preacher with a mission.
Gar mancher hat gelächelt und mancher gelacht. Wir waren ja so wenige, unbedeutend und ohne Rang, uns stand keine starke Presse zur Seite, wir hatten weder eine Organisation noch das Geld, mit dem man gewöhnlich so etwas aufbaut. Still und ohne Aufheben machten wir uns ans Werk, jeder an seinem Platz. Der eine predigte in der Fabrik, der andere in der Schreibstube, und der dritte von hohen Podium der Volksversammlung aus. Ein jeder tat seine Pflicht, und so wurde ein Werk. Was wir schufen, das wurde aus eigenster Kraft. Niemand half uns, wir haben uns selbst geholfen.
Und gar bald hörte das Lachen auf. Man begann uns zu verleumden und zu beschimpfen. Wir haben wir uns gefreut, von den Vernichtern Deutschlands beschmutzt zu werden! An ihrem Wiederstand wurden wir groß und stark. Je mehr man uns besudelte, um so trotziger wurden unsere Gesichter, um so härter unser Wille, den einmal als richtig erkannten Weg zu Ende zu gehen. Wir mußten, wo wir anfingen; nur Gott weiß, wo wir einmal enden werden.
Als Verfolgung und Verleumdung nicht ausrichteten, da schichte man uns den roten Terror auf den Hals. Er fand uns aufrecht stehend als Kämpfer. Wir haben den Terror nicht gesucht, aber als er uns niederknüppeln wollte, da haben wir ihn mit verzweifelten Gesichtern und mit geballten Fäusten empfangen. Pharussäle, Spandau, Lichterfelde-Ost, das waren nicht Vorgänge des Angriffs, das waren noch Akte der Verteidigung und der Selbstbehauptung. Wenn der Gegner geglaubt hatte, uns damit vernichten, zu können, er irrte sich: wir wurden größer und schossen uns enger aneinander.
Many a man smiled and laughed. There were so few of us, insignificant and without rank. We had no strong press at our side. We had neither an organization nor the money that usually goes into building something like this. Quietly and without fuss, we set to work, each in his own place. One preached in the factory, another in the office, and a third addressed the assembly from a high platform. Everyone did their duty, and thus a work was born. What we created came from our own strength. No one helped us; we helped ourselves.
And soon the laughter stopped. They began to slander and insult us. We were happy to be defiled by the destroyers of Germany! We grew great and strong through their resistance. The more they defied us, the more defiant our faces became, the harder our will to follow the path we once recognized as right to the end. We had to stay where we began; only God knows where we will end up.
When persecution and slander failed, they heaped the Red Terror on us. It found us standing tall as fighters. We didn’t seek terror, but when it tried to crush us, we received it with desperate faces and clenched fists. The Pharus Halls, Spandau, and Lichterfelde-Ost—these weren’t acts of aggression; they were acts of defense and self-assertion. If the enemy thought they could destroy us with this, they were mistaken: we grew larger and closed ranks.
Relatable? Everyone in the room nods.
There is still a long way to dropping canisters with poison gas down to a room full of people locked up behind concrete walls. Skirmishes on the streets and political stone throwing is a degree above football hooliganism.
At some point, romanticism had to give way to realism. I will find that occasion and scrutinise it later.
Jetzt schäumte der Gegner vor Wut. Wo normale Mittel versagten, da griff er zur Willkür und Gesetzlosigkeit. Er schlug seinem eigenem Glauben ins Gesicht und sprach das Verbot aus.
Nun existieren wir nicht mehr. Wir sind nicht mehr da. Ein Federstrich hat uns ausgeschieden aus der Liste der Tatsachen. Wir sind anonym geworden. Schon unser Name und unser Zeichen bringt die Republik ins Wanken. Wer von euch hätte je geglaubt, daß wir so stark seien?
In der Verzweiflung richteten wir uns auf und wurden stark. Wenn wir bisher verteidigten, was nicht mehr zu retten war, jetzt springen wir über die Defensive hinaus und greifen an. Gebt uns unser Vaterland zurück! Wenn alle sich auf den goldenen Boden der Tatsachen stellen:
Now the enemy was seething with rage. Where normal means failed, he resorted to arbitrary and lawless action. He slapped his own faith in the face and issued a ban.
Now we no longer exist. We are no longer here. A stroke of the pen has removed us from the list of facts. We have become anonymous. Our very name and our symbol are shaking the republic. Who among you would have ever believed we were so strong?
In desperation, we stood up and became strong. While we previously defended what could no longer be saved, now we leap beyond the defensive and attack. Give us back our fatherland! If everyone stands on the golden ground of reality:
“Now we no longer exist.”
Erased. The contemporary expression is ’erased'.
Goebbels fields the term ‘desperation’ several times. The paragraphs at times reads like the lyrics of a juvenescent punk album. Or perhaps the perennial Western movie theme of the desperado with nothing to lose wantonly wiggled into duels all over the place. All he has is fighting against the odds.
Strong emotions that flare up easily, but I suspect will also die out easily. I doubt you can build a political movement on those alone.
Wir kapitulieren nicht!
Wir nehmen nichts zurück! Wir haben nichts zu bereuen, wir werden weiterkämpfen: Schlagt zu, schlagt zu! Ihr hämmert nur den Trotz in uns Stahlhart. Ihr macht uns ganz groß im Lieben und groß im Hassen. Wir verzeihen nicht! Wir haben mit euch nicht auszumachen! Auch wir kennen einmal keinen Pardon, wie ihr keinen Pardon gekannt habt, als ihr uns verfolgtet.
Eben stand einer vor mir, er kam aus den Bittern zurück, bleich, zerrissen und zerschunden. Er hatte die allerheiligste Majestät der Republik beleidigt. Er hatte zu behaupten gewagt, daß es nicht wahr sei, daß Freiheit, Schönheit und Würde in Deutschland regierten. Er hatte die Wahrheit gesagt.
Eine Zelle ist freigeworden. Wer wird morgen an seiner Stelle hinter die Eisenstäbe gehen?
Vor diesem bleichen Gesicht hab’ ich’s geschworen:
Wir geben nicht nach! Wir beugen uns nicht! Wir bleiben aufrecht stehen! Schlagt zu, schlagt zu! Jeder Schlag hämmert und härter und trotziger! Wir kapitulieren nicht!
- August 1927
We won’t surrender!
We’re not taking anything back! We have nothing to regret, we’ll keep fighting: Strike, strike! You’re only hammering the defiance in us like steel. You’re making us great in love and great in hate. We won’t forgive! We have no business with you! We, too, will show no mercy, just as you showed no mercy when you persecuted us.
A man just stood before me, returning from the bitter days, pale, torn, and bruised. He had insulted the most sacred majesty of the Republic. He had dared to claim that it was not true that freedom, beauty, and dignity reigned in Germany. He had spoken the truth.
A cell has become vacant. Who will stand behind the iron bars in his place tomorrow?
I swore before this pale face:
We will not give in! We will not bend! We will stand tall! Strike, strike! Every blow hammers us harder and more defiant!
We will not surrender!
August 3, 1927
Goebbels the romantic, the passionate. He who speaks of love and hate intertwined and inseparable. Naively, hopelessly fighting every day against perdition of a generation.
The young struggle of a young party. That’s where I have to start my investigations.
PARADISE LOST