Mein Kampf
turn into such rigid, wholly doctrinaire concepts that we can judge generally vital national matters only from the point of view they give us.
This calamitous way of regarding all our concerns from the standpoint of a preconceived opinion kills any ability to think oneself subjectively into anything which objectively contradicts one’s own doctrines; and it eventually leads to a complete reversal of means and end. People resist attempts at any national revival that depends on the removal of a bad and destructive regime; this would be an offense against “governmental authority.” But “governmental authority” in the eyes of one of these fanatics for objectivity is not a means to an end, but the end itself, sufficient to fill his whole sorry life. Thus for instance they would indignantly resist any attempt at a dictatorship even though its head were a Frederick the Great and the statecraftsmen of the momentary parliamentary majority were but incompetent dwarves or worse, because these pig-headed men of principle think the law of democracy more sacred than the welfare of a nation. Some of them will defend the worst tyranny, destroying a people, because at the moment it embodies “governmental authority;” while others oppose even the most beneficent government if it does not fit in with their notion of “democracy.”
In the same way our German pacifists will pass over in silence any rape upon the nation, no matter how sanguinary, even though carried out by the worst militaristic forces, if this fate has to be averted by resistance, that is by force; for this would violate the spirit of their peace society. The international Socialist can be plundered by the rest of the world in solidarity; he pays it back in fraternal affection, not dreaming of reprisal or even of defense, simply because he is—a German.
This may be a sad fact, but trying to change anything involves recognizing it first.
The same thing holds for the weakness in upholding German interests by part of the clergy. It is neither malicious ill will in itself, nor compelled by, let us say, orders “from above;” we see in this lack of nationalist determination only the result of an
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