Mein Kampf
crease of our race and our people, to feed its children and keep its blood pure; we must fight for the freedom and independence of the Fatherland, so that our people may ripen toward the fulfilment of the mission assigned it by the Creator of the Universe.
Every thought and every idea, every teaching and all knowledge must serve this purpose. From this point of view we must judge everything, and use it or discard it according to its fitness for our purpose. In this way a theory can never harden into a deadly doctrine, since it must all serve the purposes of life.
Thus the insight of Gottfried Feder led me to deep study of a field with which I had been but little familiar.
I resumed the process of learning, and so came to realize for the first time what it was that the life work of the Jew Karl Marx was directed toward. Now I really began to comprehend his Capital, as well as the struggle of Social Democracy against the national economy, a struggle meant solely to prepare the ground for the rule of truly international finance capital.
But in another respect too these courses had a great effect upon my subsequent life.
One day I asked for the floor in discussion. One of the men attending the course felt called upon to break a lance for the Jews, and defended them at great length. This provoked me to a reply. The overwhelming majority of those present took my side. The result was that a few days later I was detailed to join a Munich regiment as a so-called “education officer.”
The discipline of the troops at that time was still fairly weak. I was suffering from the after-effects of the Soldiers’-Council period. Only very slowly and cautiously could one begin to introduce military discipline and subordination again in place of “voluntary obedience”—as the pigsty under Kurt Eisner was so aptly called. And the troops themselves must learn to be nationalist and patriotic in thought and feeling. My new activity was pointed in those two directions.
I began my task with delight. Here all at once I had an opportunity to speak before large audiences; and what I had always
212
