PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMAN WORKERS' PARTY
Commentary/Introduction by Pedert Gottfried in The Program of the NSDA, The National Socialist German Workers’ Party and its General Conceptions Translated by E.T.S. Digdale, Fritz Eher Verlag, Munich, 1932
Adolf Hitler prints the Party Program's two main points in leaded type: "The Common Interest Before Self: The Spirit of the Program" and, "Abolition of the Thraldom of Interest: The Core of National Socialism." Once these two points are achieved, it means a victory of the approaching universalist ordering of society in the true state over the present-day separation of state, nation and economics under the corrupting influence of the individualist theory of society as now constructed.
The sham state of today, oppressing the working classes and protecting the pirated gains of bankers and stock exchange speculators, is the area for reckless private enrichment and for the lowest political profiteering; it gives no thought to its people, and provides no high moral bond of union. The power of money, most ruthless of all powers, holds absolute control, and exercises corrupting, destroying influence on state, nation, society, morals, drama, literature and on all matters of morality, less easy to estimate.
"Break down the thraldom of interest" is our war cry. What do we mean by thralldom of interest? The landowner is under this thralldom, who has to raise loans to finance his farming operations, loans at such high interest as almost to eat up the results of his labor or who is forced to make debts and to drag the mortgages after him like so much weight of lead.
So is the worker producing in shops and factories for a pittance, whilst the shareholder draws dividends and bonuses which he has not worked for. So is the earning middle class, whose work goes almost entirely to pay the interest on bank overdrafts.
Thraldom of interest is the real expression for the antagonisms, capital versus labor, blood versus money, creative work versus exploitation. The necessity of breaking this thraldom is of such vast importance for our nation and our race, that on it alone depends our nation’s hope of rising up from its shame and slavery; in fact, the hope of recovering happiness, prosperity and civilization through out the world. It is the pivot on which everything turns; it is far more than a mere necessity of financial policy. Whilst its principles and consequences bite deep into political and economic life, it is a leading question for economic study, and thus affects every single individual and demands a decision from each one: Service to the nation or unlimited private enrichment. It means a solution of the Social Question.
Our financial principle: Finance shall exist for the benefit of the state; the financial magnates shall not form a state within the state. Hence our aim to break the thralldom of interest.
Relief of the state, and hence of the nation, from its indebtedness to the great financial houses, which lend on interest.
Nationalization of the Reichsbank and the issuing houses, which lend on interest.
Provision of money for all great public objects (waterpower, railroads etc), not by means of loans, but by granting non-interest bearing state bonds or without using ready money.
Introduction of a fixed standard of currency on a secured basis.
Creation of a national bank of business development (currency reform) for granting non-interest bearing loans.
Fundamental remodeling of the system of taxation on social-economic principles. Relief of the consumer from the burden of indirect taxation, and of the producer from crippling taxation (fiscal reform and relief from taxation).
Wanton printing of bank notes, without creating new values, means inflation. We all lived through it. But the correct conclusion is that an issue of non-interest-bearing bonds by the state cannot produce inflation if new values are at the same time created.
The fact that today great economic enterprises cannot be set on foot without recourse to loans is sheer lunacy. Here is where reasonable use of the state’s right to produce money which might produce most beneficial results.
PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMAN WORKERS’ PARTY
The National Socialist German Workers' Party - registered as the "National Socialist German Workers' Union" - at a great mass meeting on February 25, 1920, in the Hofbrauhaus-Festsaal in Munich, announced its program to the world.
In Section 2 of the Constitution of our Party this program is declared to be unalterable. It is as follows:
The program of the German Workers' Party is limited as to period. The leaders have no intention, once the aims announced in it have been achieved, of setting up fresh ones in order to ensure the continued existence of the Party by the artificially inspired discontent of the masses.
We demand the union of all Germans, on the basis of the right of the self-determination of the people, to form a Great Germany.
We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nation, and abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
We demand land and territory (colonies) for the nourishment of our people and for settling our surplus population.
None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.
Anyone who is not a citizen of the State may live in Germany only as a guest and must be regarded as being subject to the Alien Laws.
The right of voting on the leadership and laws of the State is to be enjoyed by the citizens of the State alone. We demand, therefore, that all official positions, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, the provinces, or the small communities, shall be held by citizens of the State alone. We oppose the corrupt parliamentary custom of filling posts merely with a view to party considerations, and without reference to character or ability.
We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and livelihood of the citizens of the State. If it is not possible to nourish the entire population of the State, foreign national (non-citizens of the State) must be excluded from the Reich.
All further non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany subsequently to August 2, 1914, shall be required forthwith to depart from the Reich.
All citizens of the State shall possess equal rights and duties.
It must be the first duty of every citizen of the State to perform mental or physical work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the framework of the community and must be for the general good.
We Demand Therefore:
Abolition of incomes unearned by work. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST.
In view of the enormous sacrifice of life and property demanded of a nation by every war, personal enrichment through war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand, therefore, the total confiscation of all war profits.
We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have (hitherto) been amalgamated (into trusts).
We demand that there shall be profit sharing in the great industries.
We demand a generous development of provision for old age.
We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of the large department stores and their lease at a low rate to small traders, and that the most careful consideration shall be shown to all small traders in purveying to the State, the provinces, or smaller communities.
We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the confiscation without compensation of land for communal purposes, the abolition of interest on land mortgages, and prohibition of all speculation in land.
We demand ruthless war upon all those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Sordid criminals against the nation, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.
We demand that the Roman law, which serves the materialistic world order, shall be replaced by a German common law.
With the aim of opening to every capable and industrious German the possibility of higher education and consequent advancement to leading positions, the State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education. The curriculum of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. Directly the mind begins to develop the schools must aim at teaching the pupil to understand the idea of the State (State sociology). We demand the education of specially gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
The State must apply itself to raising the standard of health in the nation by protecting mothers and infants, prohibiting child labor, and increasing bodily efficiency by legally obligatory gymnastics and sports, and by extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of the young.
We demand the abolition of mercenary troops and the formation of a national army.
We demand legal warfare against conscious political lies and their dissemination in the press. In order to facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand that: (a) all editors, and their co-workers, of newspapers employing the German language must be members of the nation; (b) special permission from the State shall be necessary before non-German newspapers may appear (these need not necessarily be printed in the German language); (c) non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing German newspapers, and the penalty for contravention of the shall be suppression of any such newspaper, and immediate deportation of the non-German involved It must be forbidden to publish newspapers which are damaging to the national welfare. We demand the legal prosecution of all tendencies in art and literature which exert a destructive influence on our national life and the closing of institutions which militate against the above-mentioned requirements.
We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the moral and ethical feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent recovery from within only on the principle: THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST.
That all the foregoing requirements may be realized we demand the creation of a strong, central national authority; unconditional authority of the central legislative body over the entire Reich and its organizations in general; and the formation of diets and vocational chambers for the purpose of executing the general laws promulgated by the Reich in the various States of the Confederation. The leaders of the Party swear to proceed regardless of consequences - if necessary at the sacrifice of their lives - toward the fulfillment of the foregoing Points.
Munich, February 24, 1920.
After full discussion at the general meeting of members on May 22, 1920, it was resolved that "This program is unalterable." This does not imply that every word must stand unchanged, nor that any efforts to extend or develop the program are to be prohibited, but it does imply that the principles and basic ideas contained in it are not to be tampered with.
There can be no twisting and turning for reasons of expediency, no secret meddling with the most important - and for the present order of politics, society, and economics, most unwelcome - points in the program; no deviation from its original sense.
Adolf Hitler has emphasized the two cornerstones of the program by printing them in heavy type:
THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST -- THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM. BREAKING OF THE THRALLDOM OF INTEREST -- THAT IS THE KERNEL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM. World War II, like all wars, was fought over MONEY -- competing forms of $ocialism.
Who benefited from WWII? Stalin with his Iron Curtain and Israel with their Holocaust atrocity propaganda.
Hitler never sought to rule the world -- England already did. ("The sun never sets on the British Empire.") Hitler sought livingspace in the east (Poland, USSR) and, to conquer Bolshevism.
Many people in Europe would like to expel the Muslims, like Hitler (and nearly every European nation) did to the Jews.
Comments