Core Texts: Nazism

The Program of the German Workers' Party

The Program of the German Workers' Party is a program for our time. The leadership rejects the establishment of new aims after those set out in the Program have been achieved, for the sole purpose of making it possible for the Party to continue to exist as the result of the artificially stimulated dissatisfaction of the masses.

National Demands

1. We demand the uniting of all Germans within one Greater Germany, on the basis of the right to self-determination of nations.
2. We demand equal rights for the German Volk with respect to other nations, and the annulment of the peace treaty of Versailles and St. Germain.
3. We demand land and soil (Colonies) to feed our People and settle our excess population.

Racial/Citizenship Demands

4. Only Nationals (Volksgenossen) can be Citizens of the State. Only persons of German blood can be Nationals, regardless of religious affiliation. No Jew can therefore be a German National.
5. Any person who is not a Citizen will be able to live in Germany only as a guest and must be subject to legislation for Aliens.
6. Only a Citizen is entitled to decide the leadership and laws of the State. We therefore demand that only Citizens may hold public office, regardless of whether it is a national, state or local office.
7. We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of making party considerations, and not character and ability, the criterion for appointments to official positions.
8. We demand that the State make it its duty to provide opportunities of employment first of all for its own Citizens. If it is not possible to maintain the entire population of the State, then foreign nationals (non-Citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.
9. Any further immigration of non-Germans is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after August 2, 1914, be forced to leave the Reich without delay.
10. All German Citizens must have equal rights and duties.
11. It must be the first duty of every Citizen to carry out intellectual or physical work. Individual activity must not be harmful to the public interest and must be pursued within the framework of the community and for the general good.

Economic Demands

12. We therefore demand:
    • The abolition of all income obtained without labor or effort.
    • Breaking the Servitude of Interest.
    • In view of the tremendous sacrifices in property and blood demanded of the nation by every war, personal gain from the war must be termed a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
    • We demand the nationalization of all enterprises (already) converted into corporations (trusts).
    • We demand profit-sharing in large enterprises.
    • We demand the large-scale development of old-age pension schemes.
    • We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle class; the immediate communalization of the large department stores, which are to be leased at low rates to small tradesmen. We demand the most careful consideration for the owners of small businesses in orders placed by national, state, or community authorities.
    • We demand land reform in accordance with our national needs and a law for expropriation without compensation of land for public purposes. Abolition of ground rent and prevention of all speculation in land.
    • We demand ruthless battle against those who harm the common good by their activities. Persons committing base crimes against the People, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished by death without regard to religion or race.

Cultural and Educational Demands

20. We demand the replacement of Roman Law, which serves a materialistic World Order, by German Law.
21. In order to make higher education—and thereby entry into leading positions—available to every able and industrious German, the State must provide a thorough restructuring of our entire public educational system. The courses of study at all educational institutions are to be adjusted to meet the requirements of practical life. Understanding of the concept of the State must be achieved through the schools (teaching of civics) at the earliest age at which it can be grasped. We demand the education at the public expense of specially gifted children of poor parents, without regard to the latter's position or occupation.
22. The State must raise the level of national health by means of mother-and-child care, the banning of juvenile labor, achievements of physical fitness through legislation for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and maximum support for all organizations providing physical training for young people.

Military and Press Demands

23. We demand the abolition of hireling troops and the creation of a national army.
24. We demand laws to fight against deliberate political lies and their dissemination by the press. In order to make it possible to create a German press, we demand:
    • All editors and editorial employees of newspapers appearing in the German language must be German by race;
    • Non-German newspapers require express permission from the State for their publication. They may not be printed in the German language;
    • Any financial participation in a German newspaper or influence on such a paper is to be forbidden by law to non-Germans and the penalty for any breach of this law will be the closing of the newspaper in question, as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-Germans involved.
    • Newspapers which violate the public interest are to be banned. We demand laws against trends in art and literature which have a destructive effect on our national life, and the suppression of performances that offend against the above requirements.

Religion and State Structure

25. We demand freedom for all religious denominations, provided that they do not endanger the existence of the State or offend the concepts of decency and morality of the Germanic race.

Final Demands

The Party as such stands for positive Christianity, without associating itself with any particular denomination. It fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a permanent revival of our nation can be achieved only from within, on the basis of: Public Interest before Private Interest.

To carry out all the above we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the Reich. Unquestioned authority by the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and over its organizations in general. The establishment of trade and professional organizations to enforce the Reich basic laws in the individual states.

The Party leadership promises to take an uncompromising stand, at the cost of their own lives if need be, on the enforcement of the above points.

Key Passages from "Those Damned Nazis"

Why Are We Nationalists?

We are nationalists because we see the nation as the only way to bring all the forces of the nation together to preserve and improve our existence and the conditions under which we live. The nation is the organic union of a people to protect its life. To be national is to affirm this union in word and deed.

That is how things are today in Germany. Nationalism has turned into bourgeois patriotism and its defenders are battling windmills. One says Germany and means the monarchy. Another proclaims freedom and means Black-White-Red [the colors of the old German flag]. Would our situation today be any different if we replaced the republic with a monarchy? The colony would have different wallpaper, but its nature, its content, would stay the same.

We are the world's pariah not because we do not have the courage to resist, but rather because our entire national energy is wasted in eternal and unproductive squabbling between the Right and the Left. Our way only goes downward, and today one can already predict when we will fall into the abyss.

From this understanding, the young nationalism draws its absolute demand. The faith in the nation is a matter for everyone, never a group, a class or an economic clique.

I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. Only the annihilation of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth of our people.

Why Are We Socialists?

We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state. Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our fatherland.

The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism's nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence.

Socialism gains its true form only through a total fighting brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky. With it, is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!

We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces.

Why a Workers' Party?

Work is not mankind's curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures. The idea that the dirtier one's hands get, the more degrading the work, is a Jewish, not a German, idea.

We call ourselves a workers' party because we want to rescue the word work from its current definition and give it back its original meaning. Anyone who creates value is a creator, that is, a worker. We refuse to distinguish kinds of work.

The worker in a capitalist state—and that is his deepest misfortune—is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker. He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces.

We are a workers' party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance. Money is the measuring rod of liberalism, work and accomplishment that of the socialist state.

Why Do We Oppose the Jews?

We oppose the Jews because we are defending the freedom of the German people. The Jew is the cause and beneficiary of our slavery. He has misused the social misery of the broad masses to deepen the dreadful split between the Right and Left of our people, to divide Germany into two halves.

The Jew has no interest in solving the German question. He cannot have such an interest. He depends on it remaining unsolved. If the German people formed a united community and won back its freedom, there would be no place any longer for the Jew. His hand is strongest when a people lives in domestic and international slavery, not when it is free.

That is why we oppose the Jew as nationalists and as socialists. He has ruined our race, corrupted our morals, hollowed out our customs and broken our strength. The Jew is the plastic demon of decomposition. Where he finds filth and decay, he surfaces and begins his butcher's work among the nations.

The Jew is uncreative. He produces nothing, he only haggles with products. With rags, clothing, pictures, jewels, grain, stocks, cures, peoples and states. When he attacks a state he is a revolutionary. As soon as he holds power, he preaches peace and order so that he can devour his conquests in comfort.

What does antisemitism have to do with socialism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering, stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism.

What does antisemitism have to do with nationalism? Nationalism has to do with blood and race. The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race. As nationalists we oppose the Jews because we see the Hebrews as the eternal enemy of our national honor and national freedom.

We oppose the Jews because we affirm the German people. The Jew is our greatest misfortune.

Revolutionary Demands

We do not enter parliament to use parliamentary methods. We know that the fate of peoples is determined by personalities, never by parliamentary majorities. The essence of parliamentary democracy is the majority, which destroys personal responsibility and glorifies the masses.

What we demand is new, decisive, and radical, revolutionary in the truest sense of the word. Revolutions are spiritual acts. They appear first in people, then in politics and the economy. New people form new structures. The transformation we want is first of all spiritual; that will necessarily change the way things are.

He who demands:

• The return of German honor. Without honor, one has no right to life. Honor is the foundation of any people's community.
• In place of a slave colony, we want a restored German national state based on the race and the people's needs.
• We want work and bread for every productive national and blood comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment.
• Provide housing and food for the people, then pay reparations!
• A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against exploitation, freedom for the workers!
• A solution to the Jewish question! We call for the systematic elimination of foreign racial elements from public life.
• Down with democratic parliamentarianism! Establish a parliament based on occupations.
• The death penalty for crimes against the people! The gallows for profiteers and usurers!

That is what we demand! An uncompromising program implemented by men who will implement it passionately. No slogans, only living energy.