A. Fate, Community, and Society
All political concepts, images, and terms have a polemical meaning {einen polemischen Sinn}. They are focused on a specific conflict and are bound to a concrete situation; the result (which manifests itself in war or revolution) is a friend-enemy grouping, and they turn into empty and ghostlike abstractions when this situation disappears. Words such as state, republic, society {Gesellschaft}, class, as well as sovereignty, constitutional state, absolutism, dictatorship, economic planning, neutral or total state, and so on, are incomprehensible if one does not know exactly who is to be affected, combated, refuted, or negated by such a term. [1]
These sentences in Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political , published in 1927, by no means mark an extravagant insight, difficult to come by, and peculiar to Schmitt. Rather, he explicitly formulated and generalized a common practice and self-understanding of many authors of his time. In this chapter of the book, I will deal with a cluster of notions, one of which occurs on Schmitt's list of examples, namely, Gesellschaft, society. Already by the end of the eighteenth century, the notion of society and the one Heidegger uses in section 74 of Being and Time , namely, that of Gemeinschaft, community (BT 436; SZ 384) had entered a constellation that became more and more polemical. From the perspective of fight-wing authors, society was a realm, or a form of a synthesis of individuals, in which isolated persons act for the sake of their selfish interests. In this view, the only bond between individuals in society is the common assumption that each individual acts on behalf
of his or her selfish interests, while regarding other individuals exclusively as a means in the pursuit of his or her interests. Thus, this bond is not a «real» bond, since the individuals are connected only in a superficial or—as it has often been put—in a mechanical way and are therefore not really united at all. Right-wing authors at Heidegger's time maintained that liberal parties, left parties, and labor unions do not transcend the realm of selfishness, but are merely means to pursue selfish ends more efficiently. In contrast to society, community and the different communities—family, the village or small town, the Volk, the nation, for some also the state—provide individuals with a stable identity through traditions, customs (Sitte), and feelings uniting individuals on the «deep» level of «positive» emotions. These feelings and attitudes enable the individual to transcend selfishness and to regard himself or herself as part of a larger whole that is not mechanically put together but, like an organism, has a life of its own, exists «prior» to the individuals, and enables them to display «positive» emotions—trust, love, care, awe—both toward the community as well as toward the other members of the community. [2] Related to the notion of Gemeinschaft is that of Volk, people. In section 74 of Being and Time , Heidegger identifies «Gemeinschaft,» «community,» and «Volk,» «people», which are designated by the concept of Geschick, to which that of Schicksal is related:
But if fateful {schicksalhafte} Dasein, as Being-in-the-World, exists essentially in Being-with-Others, its historizing is a co-historizing and is determinative for it as {bestimmt als} destiny [Geschick ]. This is how we designate the historizing of the community {Gemeinschaft}, of {the} people {des Volkes}. Destiny is not something that puts itself together out of individual fates {Schicksalen}, any more than Being-with-one-another can be conceived as the occurring together of several Subjects. Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our Being with one another in the same world and in our resoluteness for definite possibilities. Only in communicating and in struggling does the power of destiny become free. (BT 436; SZ 384) [3]
In right-wing discourse, the notion of Vorsehung (providence) is related to Schicksal (fate) and Geschick (destiny). Gesellschaft, Gemeinschaft, Volk, Volksgemeinschaft, Geschick, Schicksal, Vorsehung—each of these concepts has its specific history in which it acquired different meanings and polemical functions. However, in the 1910s and 1920s a peculiar constellation of these notions emerged that was exclusively used by authors on the political Right. For my purposes, I can proceed, so to speak, according to the German saying, «Rechts ist, wo der Daumen links ist» (the right side is [that hand] where the thumb is [on the] left [side of the hand]). In the first two decades of this century, authors were «politically Right» if they explicitly argued against (classical) liberals and if, at the same time, they also argued against leftist authors. «Liberals» were all those authors who advocated a liberal
society, in other words, those who—relying on Adam Smith's «invisible hand»—proposed a free capitalist economy, in which the state did not interfere, and who also argued for parliamentary democracy. All those authors who maintained that the capitalist economy and society had to be transformed, either by a peaceful evolutionary process or by a revolution, into a socialist economy and society, whose major feature was the absence of private property of the means of production, were «leftists.» (In between liberals and leftists were those who wanted to keep the capitalist economy and society but also wanted to integrate the institutions of social welfare, etc. into it. Early in the century, many people maintained that the actual politics of the social democrats clearly showed that this was their intention.) In arguing against liberals and leftists, rightists made the following assumptions: (1) It is not reason or the development of the means of production that «governs» or «rules» history, but rather Geschick, Schicksal, or Vorsehung; (2) One must break with liberal society, because liberal society is either not «good» in itself or it is not «good» because, sooner or later, it will lead to a socialist society; (3) Liberal society is an aberration from, or has done away with, the «real» forms of life, with Gemeinschaften or with Gemeinschaft; (4) The Gemeinschaft can be rerealized through a destruction of liberal society.
As the song of the Social Democrats ("Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit!" [Brothers, onward to the sun, onward to freedom!]) already indicated, for social democrats as well as for liberals the development of society—the enormous advance of the means of production in capitalist economy and the progress of parliamentary democracy—was a step upward and forward. For right-wingers, however, this advance was actually a fall, even a downward plunge, that had to be «corrected» by canceling society and by rerealizing community. To cancel society meant to eliminate parliamentary democracy, but for many rightist authors it did not mean to exclude but rather to keep private possession of the means of production, that is, a capitalist economy. Canceling society, as far as its economy was concerned, meant purifying the Gesinnungen, the mentality, attitudes, and sentiments of all individuals involved in the capitalist economy of their alleged selfishness, since it was only this Gesinnung that was harmful and produced crises. Once that Gesinnung is removed, it will be clear that private property and modem technology are not a hindrance but rather the best means for promoting the development of the community. While some right-wing authors, among them the nostalgic, or conservative, romantics wanted a return to a pretechnological community, those I am interested in here adhered to the scheme outlined above. I will illustrate these assumptions with reference to two authors, Adolf Hitler and Max Scheler, who explicitly and in public declared themselves politically on the Right. However, authors who did not explicitly argue against liberals and leftists also must be considered rightists if they shared the above-
mentioned premises that enabled rightist authors to condemn the liberals and leftists and if one finds in their works no premises or passages that could identify them as advocates for liberals, social democracy, or communism or from which one might be led to either of the latter positions. It is along these lines that I will infer from the fact that Heidegger's notion of historicality is identical with the positions of Scheler and Hitler that Heidegger's concept of historicality is also politically on the Right. In chapter 4, I will present leftist notions of decision in order to illustrate more concretely both concepts of decision, that of the Right and that of the Left.
Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf consists of two volumes. The first, published in 1925, has 406 pages and includes his autobiography from his youth to the first successes of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in Munich in 1920. In the second volume, published in 1927 and 376 pages long, Hitler explicates the program of the party in the context of his interpretation of history in general and of political history in particular, especially from the Kaiserreich up to November 1926. He presented the main points of the second volume already in the first one since he believed one had to repeat the main points again and again to hammer them home. In both volumes, it is Schicksal (fate), Vorsehung (providence), and God that govern history. In the first volume, fate is present from the first sentence on. He thanks fate for having allocated to him Braunau on the Inn as his birthplace:
Als glückliche Bestimmung gilt es mir heute, daß das Schicksal mir zum Geburtsort gerade Braunau am Inn zuwies. Liegt doch dieses Städtchen an der Grenze jener zwei deutschen Staaten, deren Wiedervereinigung mindestens uns Jüngeren als eine mit allen Mitteln durchzuführende Lebensaufgabe erscheint! (MK 1)
Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life work to reunite by every means at our disposal. (MKe 3)
Reading the English translation, one could get the impression that Hitler by himself made up as his life's work the reunification of Germany and Austria and that fate comes into play only as a power placing the individual into circumstances that are either favorable or not favorable for the individual's realization of the lifework he has set for himself. In the first case, he will deplore fate, in the latter, however, he will thank fate, as Hitler does here. At that time, however, German readers would have read those two sentences differently. They would have taken for granted that fate, in the first place, has given Hitler his life's work, and that Hitler thanks fate for having placed him into circumstances that made it relatively easy for him to recognize what task fate
has given him. [4] Still, to become aware of such an extraordinary mission as his is not easy, and he had to go to some lengths before he was able to recognize his fate. [5] The young Hitler wanted to become a painter and later on an architect. However, as he realized in November 1918, it was his fate to become a politician. He had been wounded at the western front in France in World War I and had been brought to a hospital in Pommern, East Prussia, where he heard of the revolution in Germany:
In the days that followed, my own fate became known to me {wurde mir auch mein Schicksal bewußt}. I could not help but laugh at the thought of my own future which only a short time before had given me such bitter concern. Was it not ridiculous to expect to build houses on such ground? At last it became clear to me that what had happened was what I had so often feared but had never been able to believe with my emotions.
Kaiser William II was the first German Emperor to hold out a conciliatory hand to the leaders of Marxism, without suspecting that scoundrels have no honor. While they still held the imperial hand in theirs, their other hand was reaching for the dagger.
There is no making pacts with Jews; there can only be the hard: either—or. I, for my part, decided to go into politics {Ich aber beschloß, Politiker zu werden}. (MKe 206; MK 225) [6]
It is not quite clear whether his suspicion or fear, now vindicated, refers to Kaiser William II, the revolution, or his decision, or to two or all three of them. If it refers to his decision too, the passage also testifies that his fate is hard, but that it is only a great «person» («Person») that can have a great fate because the tenets of Marxism and liberalism to the contrary notwithstanding, history is made by the great person and the great race (e.g., MKe 382ff.; MK 419ff.). At any rate, this passage is one of the shorter examples among many statements in which he expounds upon what he considers crucial in his life and his understanding of world history. His decision to become a politician does not come about as the culmination of a process in which, independent of anything or anyone else, the individual has freely imagined and considered several possibilities for his life and then, for this or that reason, adopted one of the options. Rather, here the individual simply becomes aware of his fate, which is not produced by him, or the individual—to use a formula of Heidegger's in regard to Plato—«only responded {entsprach} to what addressed itself to him {was sich ihm zusprach}» and what the individual himself «did not bring about» (BW 299; VA 21). The individual does not create his fate. Instead, his fate exists prior to him and, at some point, explicitly raises its voice. It is in this moment that the individual becomes conscious of his fate and has the choice to obey, take on, and realize his fate or not to do so. This choice, however, is not an arbitrary one. The individual does not express his personal freedom by deliberating on his own whether or not he
should take on his fate. On the contrary, he proves his freedom by obeying the compelling call of fate, for it is his «sacred duty {heilige Pflicht } to act in this way » (MKe 640; MK 725).
There is no choice, for I can't not do what is my duty. This in no way diminishes the greatness of the individual—quite the contrary. Obeying the call proves the greatness of the person who is capable of recognizing the enormous duty to save the Germans and the entire world. Only a coward, or an inauthentic Dasein, shies away from the task fate has ordered him to carry out. Obeying the call, however, is also already the first step toward the rerealization of the Aryan race, for the strong sense of duty and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the community of the people and the race are both indications and effects of the superiority of the Aryan race, whose political domination over the entire world has to be reestablished (e.g., MKe 296ff.; MK 325ff.). The «Jew» is the opposite of the «Aryan.» While the Aryan's blood was originally pure but later became contaminated, the Jew kept his blood pure and contaminated the blood of other people. While the Aryan has the strongest sense of self-sacrifice for the sake of the Volksgemeinschaft, the Jew has the strongest sense of individual self-preservation, and he always acts for the sake of his selfish interests (MKe 300ff.; MK 329ff.). In liberalism and parliamentary democracy, it has become manifest that the Jew has spoiled the blood of the Aryan. Social democracy and Marxism are just means for the Jew to achieve dominion over the entire world. One of the leitmotifs of Hitler's book is the often repeated assumption that, no longer guided by the common good but rather by their selfish private interests, the bourgeois individuals and their parties—the liberals as well as the conservatives—compromise and «bargain» with the political enemy to the extent that they are no longer capable of seeing the enemy as enemy, just as in the passage quoted above, their emperor was no longer able to do. Hitler characterizes this as «the steadily increasing habit of doing things by halves {Halbheit in allem und jedem },» no «sense of joy in responsibility {Verantwortungfreudigkeit},» no «will,» no «force of decision {Entschlußkraft}» (MKe 236f; MK 258). Caring only about themselves and having only one God, namely, «money» (MKe 406; MK 449), these bourgeois people want to avoid any clear either-or; they don't want to have fate for fate in decisive moments does not operate like merchants and moneymakers. The bourgeois and the social democrats in their internationalism try «to deny the entire past . . ., to make it bad or worthless, which shows either inferiority or even an evil intention,» since the meaning and the purpose of revolutions does not lie in the destruction of the works of the past but in the effort «to remove what is bad or unsuitable and to continue building on the sound spot that has been laid bare» (MKe 261; MK 286). [7] Having no sense for and actively denying the only source of a meaningful future, that is, the past, and lacking force of decision, the bourgeois certainly has no sense for the future (e.g., MKe 29, 398; MK 29, 440). [8]
The second and crucial chapter of the first volume is entitled "Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna" (MKe 19; "Wiener Lehr- und Leidensjahre," MK 18). The title is an allusion to Goethe's famous novels Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre . In fact, the first volume follows the pattern of a Bildungsroman, a novel about a character's intellectual or spiritual development, in style, organization, and also in Hitler's efforts to imitate the language of such novels. In other words, here too the individual leaves his place of birth, goes out into the world to experience all the Mächte des sittlichen Lebens, powers of the ethical life, to which he has to establish a relationship. The ideal of the bourgeois Bildungsroman was, as Hegel put it in a formulation that is as polemical and ironic as characteristic of his entire philosophy, the «Einbildung» («building of . . . into»).[9] The free individual bildet sich, forms or molds himself by, so to speak, molding, or merging, himself into the powers of the ethical life. In this process, the individual transcends his particularity and abstract freedom and becomes general or universal. By the same token, the powers of the ethical life bilden the individual by bilden themselves ein into the individual, that is, by molding themselves into the individual. In this way, the powers of the ethical life realize and affirm their actuality in the free individuals. Hitler rejected this model of the Bildungsroman. For he did not acknowledge the powers of the ethical life prevalent during his time. However, he also rejected the second type of the Bildungsroman, namely, that the individual, either triumphantly or in resignation, does not recognize himself in the powers of the ethical life, withdraws from them, and leaves them as they are. For Hitler was serious about the demand that individuals have the right to recognize themselves in the powers of the ethical life as well as about the demand that the powers of the ethical life must be proper manifestations of the ideal common good. In his view, none of the powers of the ethical life in existence at that time could live up to these standards. Thus, all of them had to be thoroughly transformed or pushed aside. Therefore, the title of the first volume is utterly un-bourgeois, namely, "A Reckoning" (MKe 1; "Eine Abrechnung," MK n.p.). In the course of his Bildung, Hitler encountered all the powers of the ethical life prevalent in the literature on community and society, and he encountered them in the order in which they are discussed there. Hitler begins with the small-scale communities of the family and the villages or small towns, in his case Braunau. He was privileged by fate to be able already there to encounter the large-scale communities, especially the people, for he experienced the Slavic people and the threat they posed to Germany. He then moves on to society, the big city, in his case Vienna. Here he encountered capitalist society and the associations related to it, such as the unions and the political parties. In Vienna he also got to know more thoroughly the large-scale communities, namely, the nation, the people, the race, and the state. Later on in the book, he also discusses the issue of the different German Stämme, tribes. [10] However, in none of these societies and communities can he find the common good realized. Society is the realm of self-
ish interests, more or less openly in the hands of the Jews. The large-scale communities have fallen prey to the modus operandi of society. For because of their inability to make decisions and their creeping liberalism the bourgeois and the social democrats in their internationalism have fallen prey to the Jews who use them to pursue their dominion of the world. Thus, all these groups have to be canceled or thoroughly transformed in order to make room for the rebirth of the proper community, namely, the Volksgemeinschaft, the community of the people, of the Germans, acting as the proxy of the Aryans whose dominion over the world has to be reestablished.
Duplicating the pattern of the literature on Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft, however, Hitler's position in it is a distinguished one not only because he makes a case for something not all of the literature advocated, namely, the Volksgemeinschaft, but also because, in contrast to most of the literature on Gemeinschaft, Hitler depicts the small-scale Gemeinschaften not so much as a stable realm threatened only by society. Rather, according to him, they are threatened and about to dissolve first and foremost because of the Slavic people and their blood, who are in the process of taking over the Hapsburg monarchy. This is the epistemological and emotional advantage fate gave him so as to facilitate his task of becoming conscious of his enormous fate. For, outside the Kaiserreich and having lived under the threat of the Slavic blood already as a child, Hitler could learn a lesson that, being busy with making colonies and building up a navy, the Germans of the Kaiserreich were in a position to learn only after World War I, namely, «what it means to be forced to fight for one's nationality {für sein Volkstum kämpfen zu müssen}» (MKe 11; MK 9). Already as a kid he «became a nationalist.» And, in addition, already as a kid he «learned to understand and grasp the meaning of history {Geschichte ihrem Sinne nach verstehen und begreifen}» (MKe 10; MK 8). Throughout his political career, he would unpack the notion of history he had learned from Dr. Leopold Pötsch:
Even today I think back with gentle emotion on this gray-haired man who, by the fire of his narratives, sometimes made us forget the present; who, as if by enchantment, carried us into past times and, out of the millennial veils of mist, molded dry historical memories into living reality. On such occasions we sat there, often aflame with enthusiasm, and sometimes even moved to tears. (MKe 14; MK 12f.) [11]
The way back into the past is not such that it can lead one to forget the present. Rather, Dr. Leopold Pötsch taught his students the relevance of the past for the present, and that transformed Hitler into a revolutionary:
What made our good fortune all the greater was that this teacher knew how to illuminate the past by examples from the present, and how from the past to draw inferences for the present. As a result he had more understanding than
anyone else for all the daily problems which then held us breathless. He used our budding nationalistic fanaticism as a means of educating us, frequently appealing to our sense of national honor. . . . And indeed, though he had no such intention, it was then that I became a little revolutionary. (MKe 14f.; MK 12f.)
To be a fervent nationalist already as a little kid was the gift of a fate that ensured that Hitler on his way through life would not fall prey to Gesellschaft. After the death of his mother, Hitler could not live on his orphan pension. Thus, he moved to Vienna to earn a living. Fate itself sent him there. Already prior to his settling in Vienna, fate removed one obstacle on his way to recognize his fate, for he had already failed to receive admission to the art school. Thus, the first sentence of the second chapter reads: «When my mother died, Fate, at least in one respect, had already made its decision {Als die Mutter starb, hatte das Schicksal in einer Hinsicht bereits seine Entscheidung getroffen}» (MKe 19; MK 18). It was a hard time in Vienna, «five years of hardship and misery» (MKe 21; MK 20), with «hunger» as the only «faithful bodyguard» (MKe 21; MK 20). However,
what then seemed to be the harshness of Fate {Härte des Schicksals}, I praise today as wisdom of Providence {Weisheit der Vorsehung}. While the Goddess of Suffering took me in her arms, often threatening to crush me, my will to resistance {Wille zum Widerstand} grew, and in the end this will was victorious.
I owe it to that period that I grew hard and am still capable of being hard. And even more, I exalt it for tearing me away from the hollowness of comfortable life; for drawing the mother's darling out of his soft downy bed and giving him 'Dame Care' {Frau Sorge} for a new mother; for hurling me, despite all resistance, into a world of misery and poverty, thus making me acquainted with those for whom I was later to fight. (MKe 21; MK 20)
As the context and the other quotations in this section show, with «my will to resistance grew,» Hitler does not at all mean that his will to resist fate grew. Quite the opposite. Fate puts to the test the one it has chosen for higher ends in order to bring to the fore his ability to live up to his fate and to harden him for the mission before him. As one says in German, «sich seines Schicksals würdig erweisen» (to prove oneself worthy of one's fate), or «sich einer Aufgabe würdig erweisen» (to prove oneself worthy of a task) is what persons of character or what «Kämpfer » (MK 10; «fighters, » MKe 12) do, while only cowards or «die Lauen » (MK 10; «the lukewarm, » MKe 12) lose heart in face of the odds fate confronts them with. [12] Thus, his «will to resistance» and the hardness he has achieved are the will to resist the odds fate tests him with and also the will to resist the future odds he will have to overcome to carry out his life's work fate will reveal to him. The will to resistance is part of the training of his capacity to listen to and to comply with fate so as to
prove himself worthy of fate when fate will reveal his life's work to him. He came to know those for whom he would fight later on, namely, the betrayed German workers, and he came to know their enemies, whom he would fight against, for he got to know «Marxism and Jewry» (MKe 21; «Marxismus und Judentum,» MK 20). Hitler maintains that on his arrival in Vienna he was unbiased toward society and the powers of ethical life related to it. He even enjoyed the struggle of the social democrats for the general right of the secret vote, as this seemed to contribute to the breakdown of the Austrian state. He also appreciated the social democrats' and the unions' pretension to work for the improvement of working conditions (MKe 37f., 46f.; MK 39f., 48f.). As for the Jews, he had adopted the attitude of his father, who in the course of his life «had arrived at more or less cosmopolitan views . . ., despite his pronounced national sentiments» (MKe 51; MK 54). He did not even recognize Jews as Jews (MKe 52; MK 54), and at the beginning of his time in Vienna the tone of the Viennese anti-Semitic press still seemed to him «unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation» (MKe 52; MK 56). Moreover, he had «a certain admiration» for the English parliament as «the most sublime form of self-government of a people» (MKe 76; MK 82). Thus, «it required the fist of fate {Faust des Schicksals} to open my eyes to {all the} betrayal of the peoples» (MKe 38; MK 40). Or, as he put it, in Vienna «fate itself became my instructor» (MKe 46; MK 48). As to parliamentarism, he felt he had to «be more than thankful to Fate for laying this question before me while I was in Vienna.» For if he had first encountered «this absurd institution known as 'parliament' in Berlin,» he might just have become a regular follower of the emperor (MKe 79; MK 85). All this is supposed to convey the idea that it was truth itself that forced him to cleanse his soul of the prevalent misjudgments and attitudes and to develop into the gift of fate and divine providence. Fate enabled him to see the truth. In the third book, he summarizes his political experiences and thinking of his time in Vienna. The penultimate paragraph reads:
I do not know what my attitude toward the Jews, Social Democracy, or rather Marxism as a whole, the social question {soziale Frage}, etc., would be today if at such an early time the pressure of destiny {Druck des Schicksals}—and my own study—had not built up a basic stock of personal opinions within me. (MKe 125; MK 137)
Even prior to the first chapter, readers are informed that Hitler's philosophy of history is one of a «wieder» («re-»), of the return of a vanished past. In his "Dedication," he lists the names of all those who fell «on November 9, 1923, at 12.30 in the afternoon, in front of the Feldherrnhalle» (that is, during the unsuccessful putsch through which Hitler and his party wanted to take over the rule of Bavaria). They did so «with loyal faith in the resurrection of their people» (MKe n.p.; «im treuen Glauben an die Wiederauferstehung ihres
Volkes,» MK n.p.). Probably, there is no other book with as many occurrences of «wieder» («re-»). Just consider this example, representative of numerous similar passages:
Through his physical strength and dexterity, he must recover {wiedergewinnen} his faith in the invincibility of his whole people. For what formerly {einst} led the German army to victory was the sum of the confidence which each individual had in himself and all together in their leadership. What will raise the German people up again {wieder emporrichten} is confidence in the possibility of regaining {Wiedererringung} its freedom. (MKe 411f.; MK 456f.)
The pervasive terminology of bodily infection, from which the Volkskörper, the body of the people, has to be cured drives home the same point. The body had been healthy, but then it fell ill. The sickness must be removed to restore the body to its healthy state. Sickness is a fall from health, and this fall must be reversed. At the very beginning of the chapter "Causes of the Collapse" (MKe 225ff.; "Ursachen des Zusammenbruchs," MK 245ff.), in which Hitler examines the causes of the defeat of Germany and Austria in World War I, he writes:
The extent of the fall of a body is always measured by the distance between its momentary position and the one originally occupied. The same is true of nations {Völker} and states. A decisive significance must be ascribed to their previous position or rather elevation {Höhe}. . . . This is what makes the collapse of the Reich so hard and terrible for every thinking and feeling man, since it brought a crash from heights which today, in view of the depths of our present degradation, are scarcely conceivable. . . .
So deep is the downfall of the Reich and the German people, . . . . so blinded by the sublime {of the former Reich} {are the people} that they forget to look for the omens of the gigantic collapse which must after all have been somehow present.
Of course, this applies only to those for whom Germany was more than a mere stop-over for making and spending money, since they alone can feel the present condition as a collapse, while to the others it is the long-desired fulfillment of their hitherto unsatisfied desires. . . .
The cure of a sickness can only be achieved if its cause is known, and the same is true of curing political evils. (MKe 225f.; MK 245f.)
For many conservatives, the «re-» of history was about the reestablishment of the Kaiserreich. However, for Hitler the very fact that it had lost the war is sufficient indication that fate has something different in mind. [13] At the end of the chapter, he repeats that the «deepest and ultimate cause» was the «failure to recognize the racial problem and its importance for the historical development of peoples» (MKe 283; MK 310). This is the myth of the original purity of the Aryan race and its dominion over the world. This past has to be
rerealized. For when the Aryan race conquered other people, its blood no longer remained pure but became mixed with inferior blood. This is the infection that has dragged mankind into the fall. Liberalism and parliamentary democracy are its latest steps in the downward progression. However, the fall is by no means already at its end. Rather,
the Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism which without it would not be thinkable. It {Western democracy} provides this world plague with the culture in which its germs can spread. In its most extreme form, parliamentarianism, it created {In ihrer äußeren Ausdrucksform, dem Parlamentarismus, schuf sie sich noch} a 'monstrosity of excrement and fire' {quote from Goethe's Faust , part 1, v. 5356}, in which, however, sad to say, the 'fire' seems to me at the moment to be burned out. (MKe 78; MK 85. Instead of «In its . . . created,» it should read «In its {democracy's} outer manifestation, namely parliamentarianism, it {democracy} even/at the end created. . . .»)
Marxism, in turn, culminates in bolshevism. Both are the means for the Jews to dominate the world, and bolshevism is the most advanced of the two (e.g., MKe 621ff; MK 700ff; Marx wrote Capital to provide the practice of the Jews with a theory, e.g., MKe 215; MK 234; even the social democrats are already lead by Jews, MKe 60; MK 64). Once bolshevism has taken over Europe entirely, everything will be lost.
However, prior to the end of the downward plunge—at a time when it is still possible to reverse its course—fate, arranged by God, interferes. Or it changes its mode of guiding history and adds thunderstorms and the call to reverse the downward plunge to its constant silent presence in history. For many, World War I was such an occasion. Prior to 1914 Hitler had felt that the entire world was becoming «one big department store» with the English as merchants, the Germans as the administrative officials, and the Jews as owners (MKe 157; MK 172). The fact that he was born into this period and not a hundred years earlier, at the time of the Wars of Liberation against the French, the fact that his «earthly pilgrimage . . . had begun too late,» in a «period 'of law and order',» he regarded as «a mean and undeserved trick of Fate» (MKe 158; «eine unverdiente Niedertracht des Schicksals,» MK 173). In this situation, the Boer War was «like a summer lightning,» and the Russo-Japanese War found him «considerably more mature» (MKe 158; MK 173). Still, fate, or rather Heaven, had decided to take some years to clean the air and to provide the Germans with an opportunity to get rid of the mentality of department stores and of their supposed owners:
Since then many years have passed, and what as a boy had seemed to me a lingering disease, I now felt to be the quiet before the storm. As early as my Vienna period, the Balkans were immersed in that livid sultriness which customarily announces the hurricane, and from time to time a beam of brighter light flared up, only to vanish again in the spectral darkness. But then came the
Balkan War and with it the first gust of wind swept across a Europe grown nervous. The time which now followed lay on the chests of men like a heavy nightmare, sultry as feverish tropic heat, so that due to constant anxiety the sense of approaching catastrophe turned at last to longing: let heaven at last give free rein to the fate which could no longer be thwarted {der Himmel mäge endlich dem Schicksal, das nicht mehr zu hemmen war, den freien Lauf gewähren}. And then the first mighty lightning flash struck the earth; the storm was unleashed and with the thunder of Heaven there mingled the roar of the World War batteries. (MKe 158; MK 173) [14]
However, the war was lost. World War I and its outcome could not merely be the deplorable end of the Kaiserreich. It had to have a deeper meaning. Hitler maintains that fate brought about World War I and its consequences so as to make the disease visible and thus warn the Germans while there was still time for them to cure themselves and the world:
For the German people it must almost be considered a great good fortune that its period of creeping sickness was suddenly cut short by so terrible a catastrophe, for otherwise the nation would have gone to the dogs more slowly perhaps, but all the more certainly. The disease would have become chronic, while in the acute form of the collapse it at least became clearly and distinctly recognizable to a considerable number of people. (MKe 232; MK 253)
«Man» was able to master the plague because it comes in terrible waves. «Man» was not able to master tuberculosis because it comes along slowly and stealthily (MKe 232; MK 253).
Exactly the same is true of diseases of national bodies. If they do not take the form of a catastrophe, man slowly begins to get accustomed to them and at length, though it may take some time, perishes all the more certainly of them. And so it is a good fortune—though a bitter one, to be sure—when Fate resolves to take a hand in this slow process of putrefaction {wenn das Schicksal sich entschließt, in diesen langsamen Fäulnisprozeß einzugreifen} and with a sudden blow makes the victim visualize the end of his disease. For more than once, that is what such a catastrophe amounts to. Then it can easily become the cause of a recovery beginning with the utmost determination {Ursache einer nun mit äußerster Entschlossenheit einsetzenden Heilung werden}. (MKe 232f.; MK 254)
He continues:
But even in such a case, the prerequisite is again the recognition of the inner grounds which cause the disease in question.
Here, too, the most important thing remains the distinction between the causes and the conditions they call forth. This will be all the more difficult, the longer the toxins remain in the national body {Volkskörper} and the more they become
an ingredient of it which is taken for granted. For it is easily possible that after a certain time unquestionably harmful poisons will be regarded as an ingredient of one's own nation or at best will be tolerated as a necessary evil, so that a search for the alien virus is no longer regarded as necessary. (MKe 233; MK 254)
In the mixing of blood, that of the German people did not retain a unified racial nucleus and did not achieve another unity, even a lower one. This is a disadvantage, as it has prevented the Germans from confronting the common enemy in the moment of danger as a «solid front of a unified herd» (MKe 396; «geschlossene Front einer einheitlichen Herde,» MK 437). [15] However, this was, so to speak, the cunning of fate, as it is this very fact itself that makes the recovery possible:
Today our people are still suffering from this inner division; but what brought us misfortune in the past and present can be our blessing for the future. For detrimental as it was on the one hand that a complete blending of our original racial components did not take place, and that the formation of a unified national body was thus prevented, it was equally fortunate on the other hand that in this way at least a part of our best blood was preserved pure and escaped racial degeneration. (MKe 397; MK 438f.)
In contrast to the widespread ignorance, especially in the era of liberalism, and the commonly held assumption that all human beings are of equal value («in völliger Gleichwertung»),
today we know that a complete intermixture of the components of our people might, in consequence of the unity thus produced, have given us outward power, but that the highest goal of mankind would have been unattainable, since the sole bearer, whom Fate had clearly chosen for this completion {den das Schicksal ersichtlich zu dieser Vollendung ausersehen hat}, would have perished in the general racial porridge of the unified people.
But what, through none of our doing, a kind Fate {ein gütiges Schicksal} prevented, we must today examine and evaluate from the standpoint of the knowledge we have now acquired. (MKe 397; MK 439)
The «highest goal of mankind» is «ca peace . . . based on the victorious sword of a master people, putting the world into the service of a higher culture» (MKe 396; MK 438).
Once upon a time, the Aryans had been pure. Fate allowed for or even arranged for their fall. At a certain point in their fall—when it was still possible to restore purity and the lost supremacy—fate interfered in order to allow the Germans to become aware of the fallenness. For fate has chosen the Germans as the saviors of mankind. At the same time, fate has provided them with the means to restore their purity. Fate has brought about World War I
and the Weimar Republic in Germany for the purpose of creating a crisis or a «great turning point» (MKe 406; «große Zeitenwende,» MK 450). Now it is possible to «halt the chariot of doom {Wagen des Verhängnisses} at the eleventh hour» (MKe 373; MK 409). Or, as Hitler put it regarding himself and his fellow Nazis, «today we are a reef; in a few years Fate may raise us up as a dam against which the general stream will break, and flow into a new bed» (MKe 667; MK 758). It is, as he says of the beginning of World War I, the site «where all playing is at an end and the inexorable hand of the Goddess of Destiny { die unerbittliche Hand der Schicksalsgöttin} begins to weigh peoples and men according to the truth and steadfastness of their convictions {Gesinnung}» (MKe 163; MK 178). It is the moment of the either-or: «And assuredly this worm is moving toward a great revolution. The question can only be whether it will redound to the benefit of Aryan humanity or to the profit of the eternal Jew » (MKe 427; 475). Or, as he puts it close to the end of the book, «Germany will either be a worm power or there will be no Germany » (MKe 654; MK 742).
Indeed, at this point what individuals do really matters. It depends on their reactions whether fate will be realized or not. The fate of the German people, Russia, and, ultimately, the entire world, is in their hands. In this sense, the individuals or people become fate, or agents, on whose behavior the «fate» of all people depends. Many don't want to hear the call of fate, as, for instance, in spring 1923: «With the occupation of the Ruhr, Fate once again held out a hand to help the German people rise again. . .. When the Frenchman carried out his threats, . . . a great decisive hour of destiny had struck for Germany {eine große, entscheidende Schicksalsstunde geschlagen}» (MKe 675-677; MK 767-769). For no one in Europe had an interest in a stronger France and would have opposed if the Germans had fought back. However, the parliamentarians missed the opportunity of resolute resistance and of building up military power (Mke 677ff.; MK 769ff.). Those who listen to the call realize that it will take centuries to restore the purity of blood and race (MKe 562; MK 629). However, it needs only six years of resolute National Socialist education and gymnastics to ready the Germans for war (MKe 633; MK 716). This is important, since the Germans need land and should take it from Russia, as Hitler explains at length in the last two chapters. «Here Fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign» (MKe 654; MK 742), for the Russian revolution, lead by «the Jew,» has done away with the «intelligentsia {Intelligenz}» that built the Russian state. This intelligentsia, however, goes back, not to the Slavs, but rather to the Germans (MKe 654f.; MK 742f.). Indeed, in the «great turning point» (MKe 406; «große Zeitenwende,» MK 450) the «hand of the world clock . . . is loudly striking the hour in which the destiny of our nation must be decided in one way or another {in der unseres Volkes Schicksal so oder so entschieden werden muß}» (MKe 663; MK 752).
The fate of the Germans, and thus, of the world, depends on the individual Germans. Indeed, the «great turning point» brings freedom, action, and responsibility for the individuals. As it has become clear, however, the freedom of the individual does not consist in freely choosing among possibilities he has created by himself. Nor does it consist in freely choosing among several possibilities that the past, having become multiplied under the eyes of authentic Dasein and its utopian ideal, offers to authentic Dasein. And it does not consist in authentic Dasein breaking with the past or with all the possibilities in the past. Rather, in the «great turning point» all the different possibilities in which Dasein has lived so far become null and void in relation to the one fate imposes on the Daseine. Their freedom is the freedom of either not listening to fate or doing so, that is, submitting to fate, and realizing the command fate reveals. The first means that the chariot of history will irrevocably go down the drain, the second might lead it back to former heights, which fate has revealed in the «turning point.»[16] It has already become clear that the logical structure of Hitler' s concept of history and the «turning point» is identical to that of Heidegger's concept of historicality. Thus, in Hitler one finds numerous sentences showing the same logic as Heidegger's sentence on erwidert and disavowal (BT 438; SZ 386). For Heidegger, in the moment of crisis authentic Dasein erwidert, responds to, the call for help of fate and of a past world which is being pushed aside but which demands to be repeated. Authentic Dasein hears the message that, in order to repeat the past world, it has to push aside what is now pushing the past aside or has already done so, that is, authentic Dasein must cancel, or widerrufen, Gesellschaft. Consider, for example, just the following two quotes: «If we understand that the resurrection {Wiedererhebung} of the German nation represents a question of regaining {Wiedergewinnung} our political will for self-preservation, it is also clear that this cannot be done by winning elements which in point of will at least are already national, but only by the nationalization of the consciously anti-national masses» (MKe 333; MK 366). The antinationalism of the masses (and the indecisiveness of the bourgeois parties) has pushed aside the German nation. Authentic Dasein erwidert the call for the Wiederholung of the German nation. Hearing the call, authentic Dasein realizes that it cannot wiederholen the German nation without a Widerruf of that mentality, that mode of the «they,» that has pushed aside the German nation. The «wider-» of the Widerruf cancels the «wider-,» that is, the «anti-» of the antinationalism of the masses or, in general, of the alleged hostile stance of society against community. Or, as Hitler put it on the next page:
Historically it is just not conceivable that the German people could recover {noch einmal einnehmen} its former position without settling accounts with those who were the cause and occasion of the unprecedented collapse which
struck our state. For before the judgment seat of posterity November, 1918, will be evaluated, not as high treason, but as treason against the fatherland {Landesverrat}.
Thus, any possibility of regaining {Wiedergewinnung} outward German independence is bound up first and foremost with the recovery {Wiedergewinnung} of the inner unity of our people's will. (MKe 334; MK 367f.)
The reestablishment of the inner unity of the people's will is achieved by a Widerruf of the mentality of those who have destroyed it or—in terms of Hitler's architectural metaphor quoted above—by the demolition of what they have built in order to lay bare the sound foundations for the rebuilding of the National Socialist state.
As to the political aspect of Gesellschaft, it has already become clear from the few passages I have quoted here that Hitler develops an antiparliamentary and thoroughly illiberal domestic policy and an imperialistic foreign policy agenda that foreshadows the policy put to work in 1933. Of course, nothing else can be expected from someone who constantly stresses that peoples as well as individuals belonging to one and the same people are unequal and of different value, as for instance in the following passage:
In the state the folkish philosophy {völkische Weltanschauung} sees on principle only a means to an end and construes its end as the preservation of the racial existence of man. Thus, it by no means believes in an equality of the races, but along with their difference it recognizes their higher or lesser value and feels itself obligated, through this knowledge, to promote the victory of the better and stronger, and demand the subordination of the inferior and weaker in accordance with the eternal will that dominates this universe. Thus, in principle, it serves the basic aristocratic idea of nature and believes in the validity of this law down to the last individual. It sees not only the different value {den verschiedenen Wert} of the races, but also the different values of individuals. From the mass it extracts the importance of the individual personality, and, thus, in contrast to disorganizing Marxism, it has an organizing effect. But it cannot . . . for in a bastardized and niggerized world. . .. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord {i.e. the Aryan race, the Germans, and their leader} commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. (MKe 383; MK 421; see also MKe 442ff.; MK 492ff. and passim)
Moreover, a person who maintains that already in August 1914 it was the duty of the German government to «exterminate mercilessly» (MKe 169; «unbarmherzig auszurotten,» MK 185) the leaders of the Social Democratic Party and the Jews, was probably ready and willing to use violence, even to the point of physical annihilation, against all those who refused to exchange their mentality for that of National Socialism or who had been declared the eternal racial foe of the Germans.
As to the economic aspect of Gesellschaft, Hitler's diagnosis is that, indeed,
in proportion as the economic life grew to be the dominant mistress of the state, money became the god whom all had to serve and to whom each man had to bow down. More and more, the gods of heaven were put into the corner as obsolete and outmoded, and in their stead incense was burned to the idol Mammon. A truly malignant degeneration {Entartung} set in; what made it most malignant was that it began at a time {in the Kaiserreich} when the nation, in a presumably menacing and critical hour, needed the highest heroic attitude {heldische Gesinnung}. (MKe 234; MK 256)
However, this is not a result of private property and capitalism. Rather, it is a result of the fact that through international finance and stock exchange capital, the Jews have taken over the German economy and initiated class-struggle (MKe 313; MK 344f. and passim). One has to distinguish between capital itself and the Jewish international capital. This distinction «offered the possibility of opposing the internationalization of the German economy without at the same time menacing the foundations of an independent national self-maintenance by a struggle against all capital» (MKe 213; MK 233). In fact, private property and competition is the best means to promote the Volksgemeinschaft and the Aryan race since it is in accordance with the general law of nature, namely «Kampf» («struggle») as «Auslese» («selection») of the strongest and best (MKe 245; MK 267 and passim). To put the economy into the service of the Volksgemeinschaft will renationalize capital by a Widerruf of its denationalization, and it will restore the sense of duty and sacrifice in the capitalists as well in the workers by a Widerruf of their deheroification. In this way, private property and competition will contribute strongly to the flourishing of the Volksgemeinschaft (MKe 596; MK 670ff.).
I have mentioned several ways in which fate becomes active in the moment of crisis. There is, however, one more. The last paragraph of the third chapter, following the one with «the pressure of destiny» as quoted above, reads:
For if the misery of the fatherland can stimulate thousands and thousands of men to thought on the inner reasons for this collapse, this can never lead to that thoroughness and deep insight which are disclosed to the man who has himself mastered Fate only after years of struggle {der selber erst nach jahrelangem Ringen Herr des Schicksals wurde}. (MKe 125; MK 137; the phrase «der selber . . . Herr des Schicksals wurde» is literally «who has himself become master of Fate»)
Just as the phrase «the will to resistance» does not mean «the will to resist his fate,» the phrase «Herr des Schicksals» or master of fate does not mean that he has successfully resisted fate and even has become its master in the sense that it is now he who rules over and determines fate. In its brevity,
«Herr des Schicksals sein oder werden» (to be or become master of fate), the phrase is somewhat unusual. The phrase, «Er ist sein eigener Herr» (he is his own master) refers to a person mature enough to take care of himself or if used ironically, to a stubborn person. The phrase «Er ist seines eigenen Schicksals Herr» (he is the master of his own fate) is used—though not very frequently anymore—to refer to a mature, independent, and autonomous person. As the insistence on «own» shows, probably this expression goes back to atheist liberals, just like the saying «Jeder ist seines eigenen Glückes Schmied» (everyone is the smith of his own fortune = everyone is the architect of his own fortune). However, «Er ist (wurde) seines Schicksals Herr» (he is [became] master of his fate) describes someone who managed not to break down under «the pressure of his fate» but endured in dignity and thus realized his fate properly. Similarly, «Er wurde der, Aufgabe Herr» (he mastered/became master of the task) means that someone managed to properly carry out a task given to him. It is with a view to these latter usages that Hitler says of himself that he became «master of fate.» Only cowards and the lukewarm break down under the test of fate and don't want to, or are not able to, take over their fate. For English readers, it might perhaps be surprising that Hitler uses a word of mastery and domination to describe what is actually a being subsumed by fate. However, he is not alone in the usage of expressions of mastery for acts of submission. It is one of the strategies of the right wing to polemically redefine for its purposes the liberal vocabulary of autonomy and freedom.[17]
In this case two additional ideas made it very easy and expedient for Hitler to use this formulation. By proving worthy of his fate and by anticipating the accomplishment of the task fate has given him, Hitler has become the master of the fate of Germany and the world. By listening to fate, he is going to reverse the downward course of Germany and the world and thus be their fate in the sense mentioned above. This leads to the idea that he is the «master of fate» in the sense that he is the «master» of Germany and the world, sent by fate to save them. It is precisely the brevity of the phrase «master of Fate» that allows it to take on the sense of «the master whom Fate has sent» («Eine gute Gabe Gottes» = a good gift of God = a good gift God has given). Hitler is fate's Geschenk or its Gabe, fate's gift, to the word in the moment of crisis, and to him the world must submit. Hitler explicitly says so more than once. In the chapter "The Strong Man is Mightiest Alone" (MKe 508; "Der Starke ist am mächstigsten allein," MK 568, a quote from Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell , act 1, scene 3), he writes:
Yes, it can come about that centuries wish and yearn for the solution of a certain question, because they are sighing beneath the intolerable burden of an existing condition and the fulfillment of this general longing does not materialize. Nations {Völker} which no longer find any heroic solution {heroische
Lösung} for such distress can be designated as impotent while we see the vitality of a people, and the predestination for life guaranteed by this vitality {die Lebenskraft eines Volkes und die durch sie noch verbürgte Bestimmung zum Leben}, most strikingly demonstrated when, for a people's liberation from a great oppression, or for the elimination of a bitter distress, or for the satisfaction of its soul, restless because it has grown insecure—Fate some day bestows upon it the man endowed for this purpose, who finally brings the long yearned-for fulfillment {wenn ihm . . . vom Schicksal eines Tages der dafür begnadete Mann geschenkt wird, der endlich die lang ersehnte Erfüllung bringt}. (MKe 510; MK 570; see also MKe 116, 581, 606; MK 126f, 651, 682)