Mein Kampf (Stackpole Sons)/Volume 1/Chapter 9
9. The “German Workers’ Party”
One day I received orders to find out what was what about an apparently political organization going under the name of “German Workers’ Party,” which proposed in a day or two hold a meeting at which Gottfried Feder was to speak; I was to attend and have a look at the group, and then to make my report.
The curiosity with which the army then regarded political parties was more than understandable. The Revolution had given the soldiers the right to take part in politics, and it was the most inexperienced men who were now making full use of it. Not until Centrist and Social Democratic Parties realized to their distress that the soldiers’ sympathies were beginning to turn from the Revolutionary parties toward the national movement and revival was it thought proper once more to deprive the troops of the franchise, and to forbid political activity.
That Center and Marxism would resort to this measure was obvious, for if they had not thus cut off “civil rights”—as the political equality of the soldier after the Revolution was called—within a few years there would have been no November State, and hence no further national degradation and shame. The troops at that time were well on the way to freeing the nation from its blood-suckers and tools of the Entente within. But the fact that even the so-called “national” parties voted enthusiastically for this correction of the November criminals’ earlier views, and thus helped to render harmless the instruments of a national revival, showed once more whither the wholly doctrinaire conceptions of these most innocent of innocents may lead. This bourgeoisie, suffering from veritable intellectual senility, seriously believed the army would become again what it once had been, namely a stronghold of German valor, while Center and Marxism were merely intending to cut off its dangerous nationalist fangs, without which, however, an army remains forever a mere police, not a body of troops which can do battle with the enemy—something which subsequent events amply proved.
Or did our “national politicians” suppose that the development of the army could have been other than a national one? That would be just these gentlemen’s style; it is what comes of spending the war not as a soldier, but as a windbag, i.e. a parliamentarian, and losing any sense of what may be going on in the bosom of men whom a stupendous past reminds that they were once the first soldiers of the world.
So I resolved to attend the above-mentioned meeting of a party about which so far I knew as little as anyone else.
When I arrived that evening in the back room, for us later to become historic, of the former Sterneckerbräu beer-hall, I found about twenty or twenty-five people, mostly from the lower classes of life.
I was already familiar with Feder’s lecture, through the courses, so that I could give my attention chiefly to observing the society itself.
It made neither a good nor a bad impression on me; it was just one more new organization. Those were the days when anyone who was dissatisfied with previous developments, and had lost confidence in the existing parties, thought himself appointed to start a new party. Such societies sprang up like mushrooms everywhere, only to disappear without a flicker after a short time. Most of the founders had not the slightest idea what it means to turn a society into a party, let alone a movement. So the groups they founded almost always drowned in their own ridiculous pettiness.
After listening for about two hours, I decided that the “German Workers’ Party” was in the same class. I was glad when Feder finally finished speaking. I had seen enough, and was getting ready to go when the open discussion which was then announced induced me to stay awhile. But here too nothing of any consequence happened, until suddenly a “professor” took the floor who first questioned the soundness of Feder’s reasoning, and then, after an excellent reply from Feder, suddenly took his stand on the “basis of facts,” strongly urging the young party to adopt the struggle for the “separation” of Bavaria from “Prussia” as an especially important point in its program. The man brazenly maintained that in that case German Austria, in particular, would immediately unite with Bavaria, that the peace would then be much better, and more nonsense of the same sort. At this I could not refrain from asking for the floor in my turn, and telling the learned gentlemen my opinion on the subject—with such success that even before I had finished, my predecessor on the floor left the hall with his tail between his legs. People’s faces looked astonished as they listened to me talk, and not until I was saying goodnight to the gathering, and starting to leave, did a man come running after me to introduce himself (I did not catch his name at all) and hand me a little booklet, evidently a political pamphlet, with the urgent request that I would please read it.
This I thought very convenient, for now I might hope to become acquainted with the tiresome society without having to attend any more such interesting meetings. In general the man, obviously a workman, left a favorable impression on me. And so I departed.
At that time I was still living in the barracks of the Second Infantry Regiment, in a little room which showed very plainly the traces of the Revolution. I was away all day, usually with the 41st Rifles, or at meetings, lectures before some other part of the troops, etc. I merely slept at night in my quarters. Being in the habit of waking up at 5 o’clock every morning, I was accustomed to amuse myself by putting a few hard bread scraps or crusts on the floor for the tiny mice that played about the room, and watching the comical little animals scramble for these tidbits. I had had enough starvation in my life so that I could imagine all too well the hunger and hence also the delight of the little creatures.
On the morning after the meeting, as usual, I was lying awake in bed at five o’clock, watching the activity and the whisking about. Not being able to get to sleep again, I suddenly remembered the evening before, and then the booklet occurred to me which the workman had asked me to take along. So I began to read it. It was a little pamphlet in which the author, this very workman, described how he had escaped from the hurly-burly of Marxist and trades Union slogans back to thinking on national lines; hence the title, My Political Awakening. Once having begun, I read the pamphlet with interest all the way through; it described a process such as I myself had gone through twelve years before. My own development was conjured up before me again. I thought about the matter several times in the course of the day, and was ready to put it aside again, when, less than a week later, I received a post-card stating that I had been made a member of the German Workers’ Party; would I please say what I thought of this, and come for the purpose to a committee meeting of the party the following Wednesday.
I must say I was more than astonished at this way of “recruiting” members, and did not know whether to be annoyed or amused. I would not have dreamed of joining an existing party; I meant to found my own. The present request was really out of the question for me.
I was about to send my answer to the gentlemen in writing when curiosity overcame me, and I decided to appear on the appointed day, to explain my reasons in person.
Wednesday came. The public-house in which the meeting was to take place was the Aites Rosenbad in the Herrnstrasse, a very shabby place into which apparently somebody wandered by mistake once in a blue moon. That was no wonder in 1919, when the menus of even the larger restaurants offered only the humblest and scantiest attractions. But this particular pub I had never even heard of before.
I went through the ill-lit front room, discovered the door to the back room, and found myself in the presence of the “meeting.” In the faint glow of a half-demolished gas light four young men were sitting around a table. Among them was the author of the little pamphlet, who at once greeted me most joyfully, and welcomed me as a new member of the German Workers’ Party.
At this I was rather taken aback after all. As I was told that the real “national chairman” had yet to arrive, I decided to save my explanation for a while. Finally he appeared. He was the chairman at the meeting at the Sterneckerbräu on the occasion of Feder’s lecture.
In the meantime I had become curious again, and waited to see what would happen. Now at least I learned the names of the various gentlemen. The chairman of the “national organization” was a Mr. Harrer, the Munich chairman Anton Drexler.
The minutes of the last meeting were now read, and a vote of confidence given to the secretary. Then it was the turn of the treasurer’s report: there was in possession of the organization all told seven marks and fifty pfennigs—for which general confidence was expressed in the treasurer. This was also recorded in the minutes. Then the chairman read aloud the replies that were being sent to a letter from Kiel, one from Düsseldorf, and one from Berlin; these were unanimously approved. Then the incoming mail was reported: a letter from Berlin, one from Düsseldorf, and one from Kiel, whose arrival seemed to be received with great satisfaction. This increasing correspondence was declared to be an excellent and visible sign of the spreading importance of the “German Workers’ Party,” and then—then there was a long discussion of the new answers to be written.
Dreadful, dreadful. Why, this was a small-town club of the worst sort. And this was what I was supposed to join?
Then the new members were accorded the floor, or in other words my capture was taken in hand.
I began to ask questions; but aside from a few guiding principles there was nothing, no program, no leaflets, no printed matter at all, no membership card, not even a humble rubber stamp—nothing but evident good faith and good will.
I had lost my inclination to smile; for what was this but the typical sign of entire bewilderment and complete disheartenment over all the old parties, their programs, their purposes and their activities? The thing that drew these few young men together into a proceeding apparently so ridiculous was, after all, only the result of their inner voice, which, more instinctively than consciously, made all past party activities seem to them no longer useful for a revival of the German nation or for the cure of its inner ailments. I hastily read over the basic statements, which were on hand in typewritten form, and I thought they betrayed seeking rather than knowledge. Much of it was vague or cloudy, much was missing; but there was nothing that did not go to show a striving for insight.
What these men felt was something I too had known: the longing for a new movement which should be more than a party in the old sense of the word.
When I went back to the barracks that evening, my judgment on the organization was already formed.
I was faced with probably the most difficult question of my life—should I join, or should I decline?
Reason could only advise refusal, but I had a feeling which gave me no rest, and the oftener I tried to urge upon myself the nonsensicality of the whole club, the oftener this feeling spoke in its favor. In the next few days I knew no rest.
I began to argue back and forth with myself. On political activity I had long since decided; that it could be only in a new movement was equally certain, but the impulsion to act had thus far still been lacking. I am not one of those who start something today, only to leave off tomorrow, and probably to switch over to something new. But my very conviction was the chief reason why it was so hard for me to decide to join a new organization, which either had to grow to be everything, or else was better left alone. I knew I was making a decision forever, in which there could be no later turning back. For me it was no temporary plaything, but deadly earnest. I have always had an instinctive dislike for people who start everything and finish nothing. To me such jumping-jacks were hateful. I thought what they did was worse than doing nothing.
This conception, however, was one of the main reasons why I could not decide as easily as many others to create a thing which either must become everything or otherwise be expediently left undone.
Now Fate itself seemed to point my way. I would never have joined one of the existing large parties, and shall give my reasons in more detail later. This ridiculous little creation with its handful of members had, I felt, one advantage in that it had not yet hardened into an “organization,” but still gave the individual a chance for really personal activity. Here a man could still work, and the smaller the movement was, the greater the likelihood of getting it into the right shape. Here substance, goal and path could still be determined, which was out of the question from the start with the existing big parties.
The longer I tried to reflect, the more I became convinced that a small movement just such as this might be used to pave the way for the revival of the nation—but never one of the parliamentary political parties, which clung far too tightly to old ideas, or even profited in the new regime. For what must be proclaimed here was a new world-concept, and not a new election slogan.
Still it was a fearfully difficult decision to try to turn this purpose into reality.
What equipment could I myself bring to the task?
That I was poor and without resources I thought the least of my troubles; but it was a greater difficulty that I was among the nameless, one of the millions whom Chance let live or recalled from existence without even his nearest neighbors’ deigning to take notice. In addition there was the difficulty bound to result from my lack of schooling.
The so-called “intelligentsia” in any case looks down with truly infinite condescension on anyone who has not been dragged through the obligatory schools and so had the necessary knowledge pumped into him. After all, nobody ever asks, What can the man do, but, What has he learned? “Educated” people of this stamp think more of the greatest blockhead, if only he be wrapped in enough diplomas, than of the brightest boy who has to go without these precious wrappings. So I could easily imagine what attitude this “educated” world would take toward me, and my only mistake was in thinking men a little better than for the most part they unfortunately are in sober reality. True, the exceptions, as everywhere, shine out all the brighter for that. For my part I learned from this to distinguish between the perpetual schoolboys and the men of real ability.
After two days of painful pondering and consideration I was finally convinced I must take the step.
It was the weightiest decision of my life. There could and must be no turning back.
So I applied for membership in the German Workers’ Party, and received a provisional membership certificate bearing the number seven.